dancing to the Stranglers

The Stranglers had some of the first singles out in the early days of punk rock, but as any avid reader of the weekly British newspaper magazines, Melody Maker, Sounds and New Musical Express, knew, the Stranglers were a bar band before and just took on the facade of punk. Their sound roiled, ebbed and crested for me on Dave Greenfield's keyboards, which weren't 'punk' so much as a snoty little brother to Ray Manzarek's band, the Doors. By May 1978, the Stranglers released their third album, punk was already dead, and the dancing could begin. The forty-five on my turntable is the 7" with their cover of the classic, "Walk on By."

The song is seven minutes long, with band members solos, especially of Greenfield's organ and J.J. Burnell's bass, a large part of that time. I still love playing this record really loud when I am alone. As a d.j. in Dallas in the nineties, the Stranglers cover of "Walk on By" was in regular rotation, providing a route to go retro into an early seventies organ romp or leap into female vocal classic set.