Oakridge Halloween show to offer a little ‘Monster Mash;’ will it be a graveyard smash?

By BEN OLSON/For The Herald — A few days ago I was chatting with my friend Scott Hitchings, keyboardist extraordinaire, about what was coming up for us with gigging opportunities.

Things have been a little slow for many of us in the music biz —  we feel like we should be doing something, if not productive, at least creative. I mentioned that when I returned from my road trip to the Midwest, I was going to do a Halloween show at the pub. I said that I had to dust off my renditions of the theme songs from the Munsters and Addams Family, and see if I could remember enough words to do the “Monster Mash.” It was then that he told me he actually did a show backing up Bobby “Boris” Pickett, of course playing his signature song.

Scott has had a wonderful and interesting career backing some of the most famous singing groups ever to take the stage, including the Supremes and the Temptations. If there is anything to take away from our discussion about the music business, it’s that if you can read sheet music, play piano quite well and sing harmonies, you’ll probably go a lot farther than a guitarist who plays by ear.

Scott brought out the flyer from the event,

It was a revue of singing groups who, for the most part, had one big hit and were still riding on that, many years later.

Scott was part of a group of musicians who, with a stack of sheet music and one rehearsal, would back up nine different acts who had at least one major hit song, although for some of these acts, that hit song was over 35 years ago.

It was hard to tell by the flyer who the headlining act would be. The Drifters had, by far, the most songs on the charts of any act on the bill, although no one in the band that night was part of the original group dating back to 1953. The We Five had the most recent hit song, a cover of Ian and Sylvia’s “You Were On My Mind,” released in 1965. The Diamonds, with “Little Darlin’,” The Olympics, with “Western Movies,” and Tommy Sands with “Teenage Crush” all had their last charting song in the ’50s.

We all remember Gene Chandler’s “Duke of Earl” and brother-sister team Charles and Inez Foxx doing the original “Mockingbird.” The Angels were there to let you know “My Boyfriend’s Back” and then there was Bobby “Boris” Pickett to do his classic 1962 hit, “Monster Mash”.

As Scott described it, Boris had on a long white doctor’s coat and a wild hairdo and the stage had the look of a mad scientist’s lab with bubbling beakers and vaporous flasks as he launched into his signature song. In the 33 years since the song was first released, Boris had performed that song thousands of times, so he had lots of practice making the tune as campy and entertaining as possible.

For you trivia buffs, Leon Russell played piano on the original recording, backed by The Crypt Kickers. Boris Pickett continued to record “novelty” songs over the years, but never came close to the success he had with “Monster Mash.” Many of his songs found airplay on the Dr. Demento radio show.

It was fun talking with Scott about this one-off event in which he played. He has many other stories about his time in the L.A. music scene, and you’ll be hearing some of the tales in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, watch this column in the next couple of weeks for the details on my Halloween show. There’s a chance that Scott may be playing piano on my version of “Monster Mash.”

(Scott Hitchings, in addition to performing solo and with Kelly Thibodeaux’s Etouffee band, teaches piano and voice at Keyboard Central, his studio in uptown Oakridge.)

Oakridge musician Ben Olson, entertainment editor and columnist for The Herald, can be reached by email at [email protected]