Sixty Minute Man

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Sixty Minute Man was the title of a highly successful and influential rhythm and blues record released in 1951 by the Dominoes, now regarded as one of the most important of the recordings which helped generate and shape rock and roll.

The Dominoes were a black vocal group comprising Clyde McPhatter (1932-1972), Bill Brown, Charlie White and Joe Lamont, led by their pianist, manager and songwriter Billy Ward (1921-2002). Ward was a (black) classically trained vocal coach who had formed a business partnership with (white) New York talent agent Rose Marks. The pair decided to put together a smooth vocal group to rival the Ink Spots, the Orioles, and other similar groups who were beginning to win acceptance with white audiences. In 1950, the Dominoes were signed to Federal Records, and held a series of recording sessions at the National Studios in New York in November and December of that year. Their initial release was "Do Something For Me", the first record on which McPhatter sang lead. This was a success, entering the R&B charts at the beginning of February 1951. However, its follow-up, "Harbor Lights", which had been recorded on 30 December 1950, failed to match its success.

The record company then turned to the other, contrasting, song which the group had recorded on the same day, "Sixty Minute Man". It was issued in May 1951 (on Federal 12022), and by the end of the month had reached # 1 on the R&B charts, a position it held for an almost unprecedented 14 weeks. The recording used Bill Brown's bass voice, rather than McPhatter's tenor, as the lead. It featured the singer's boasts of his sexual prowess, of being able to satisfy his girls with fifteen minutes each of kissing, teasing, and squeezing, before his climactic fifteen minutes of "blowing [his] top":-

Sixty-minute man, sixty-minute man

Look a here girls I'm telling you now

They call me "Lovin' Dan"

I rock 'em, roll 'em all night long

I'm a sixty-minute man

If you don't believe I'm all that I say

Come up and take my hand

When I let you go you'll cry "Oh yes"

"He's a sixty-minute man".

There'll be fifteen minutes of kissin'

Then you'll holler "Please don't stop" (Don't stop!)

There'll be fifteen minutes of teasin'

Fifteen minutes of squeezin'

And fifteen minutes of blowin' my top........

Although the writing credits were given to Ward and Marks, the song's origins go back much further. Bragging about sexual prowess goes back to times immemorial, and was a feature of the "hokum" style of early blues recordings. The reference to "Dan" (alternatively, "Jim Dandy") dates back at least to minstrel shows in the nineteenth century. A common reference was to "Dan, the Back Door Man" - the lover of a married woman who would leave her house by the back door - as in a song of that title recorded by Georgia White in 1937.

"Sixty Minute Man" was banned by many radio stations, and was seen as a novelty record at the time. However, in hindsight it was an important record in several respects – it crossed the boundaries between gospel singing and blues, its lyrics pushed the limits of what was deemed acceptable, and it appealed to many white as well as black listeners, peaking at # 17 on the pop charts. Cover versions were made by several white artists including Hardrock Gunter. In later years, the Dominoes' record became a contender for the title of "the first rock and roll record".

The Dominoes went on to become one of the most popular vocal groups of the 1950s, with Clyde McPhatter eventually being replaced by Jackie Wilson. However, Bill Brown, lead singer of "Sixty Minute Man", had left even earlier, in 1952, to form a new group, the Checkers. They had little success and, according to one website [1], Brown himself died in 1956.

[edit] Notes

[edit] Further information

• Billy Ward and the Dominoes
• First rock and roll record
• Full lyrics
• Jim Dawson and Steve Propes, "What Was The First Rock'n'Roll Record?", Faber and Faber Books, 1992.
• Sixty Minute Man was featured in the movie Bull Durham, starring Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins