The “Golden Hits Of The 60s”
Main MenuConcept Refinement The Author..Wayne JancikGolden Age Of The 50sGolden Age Of The 60s1970s and There After7
JOHNNY THUNDER
“LOOP DE LOOP”
(Teddy Vann, Joe Dong)
Diamond 129
No. 4 February 9, 1963
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“Like most everybody, I got my start in church and singing in high school,” Thunder told this writer. “My
friends got me into this. They told me I was good. I sang on street corners. And we’d just hang out half the
night, till like one o’clock. Remember when that was late?”
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None of Johnny’s (b. Gil Hamilton, Aug. 15, 1941, Leesburg, FL) early group sides got recorded. “There
wasn’t that much of a recording industry down here [Leesburg, Florida] then. It was the guys up north and
on the West Coast who were doing all the records back in the ’50s.”
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In 1959, Johnny headed up north in search of those recording opportunities. “I went to New York to work
for the Drifters, as their lead singer. Ben E. King was getting ready to leave the group. Lacy Hollinswood
was their road manager at the time. I had played football with him in high school. So, he use to tell me, ‘You
got to go to New York, man. You’re great. You’d do good.’ He kind of lied to me. So, I joined the Drifters for
a few months and toured with them.”
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A few singles were issued under his God-given name for Fury and Capitol (the latter label even issued the
original take, his take, on “Tell Him,” which months later would be the EXCITERS biggie), but to make ends
meet until he met his fate and Teddy Vann, Johnny had to do anonymous back-up singing sessions. “Teddy
was a character. He was like the black Marlon Brando. We met by accident. Luther Vandeross, Dionne
Warwick and others, and I were studio people. I just happened to be singing in the chorus, doing my back-
up bit, trying to stay alive. And Teddy liked me and we did this “Don’t Be Ashamed.” We thought this was a
good record. But we needed something to make the record bilaterally symmetrical … ,” here John pauses to
chuckle some to himself, “Ah, so we threw together this “Loop De Loop.” We just made it all up as we went
along; me and Teddy and his brother-in-law, Joey Dong. I was playing the drums, and they were feeding me
words on scraps of paper. I just read what they handed me. It’s sort of crazy, huh how things turn out.
Teddy said it was a topside song. The engineer came in and was gettin’ to mincing words about it. We all
knew it was just a piece of garbage; all that is but Teddy. He said, ‘You guys are crazy, it’s a hit.”‘
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Thereafter, Thunder found himself being typecast. “It typecast me, boy did it ever. I met BO DIDDLEY and
he said, ‘I never seen nobody make a million dollars on nursery rhymes.’ “It’s funny, but I wound up doing a
lot of that simple stuff, like ‘Ring Around the Rosey’ (labeled “The Rosey Dance” #122, 1963) and “Everybody
Do the Sloppy” (#67, 1965). That was Bert Burns’ idea. I didn’t want to do that. As a matter of fact, most of
the records I did back in that era I didn’t want to do. I didn’t fight it so much because that ‘Loop De Loop’
hit, and I felt maybe I’d be lucky and hit it again, and then I’d get to do what I wanted to do.”
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Johnny did continue on making disks throughout the ’60s for Diamond, Calla, and United Artist. Thunder is
especially proud of his “Movin’ and Shakin”‘ (issued on Vee Jay as by Gil Hamilton at the same time that he
was on the charts with “Loop), his only ’70s effort for Arista, “Till the Waters Stop Running,” and ”I’m Alive”
(#122, 1969). “That was my best. It was my first true rock effort and Bob Dylan in a Rolling Stone article
said that it was the best record he’d ever heard.”
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