Harlow Wilcox..Oakies - Groovy Grubworm

David, I have three mono 45 copies of this; two are 1969 pressings on Plantation and one is a '70s reissue on Shelby Singleton's SSS International label. All three were pressed at Columbia's Terre Haute plant. (I don't have a copy of the original, pre-Plantation issue on Impel.)

The two Plantations are identical in every way, with an actual time of (2:08.5)

The SSS International reissue runs exactly (2:09). A very slightly slower speed accounts for the half-second longer playing time.

There are two interesting differences between the Plantation and SSS Int'l. 45s:

1. The volume and high frequency levels drop very noticeably on the Plantation 45 between the :10 and :18 marks. The SSS International 45 does not exhibit this "dropout" at all.

2. Between the two 45s, "Groovy Grubworm" was upgraded from "instrumental" to "vocal" status. Woo, hoo! :)

thanks for the info, Yah Shure. My CD copy sounds like it's from a tape,
from k-Tel "Silly Songs" also runs slow and contains that drop-out (although
both are easy to fix).

I picked up a copy of the Impel label pressing of the song (where it started out as a B side) and it has a label time of 2:08 and an actual runtime of exactly 2:09. There is no change in volume or high fequency levels between :10 and :18 so it makes me wonder if the SSS International pressing might have been pressed using the Impel label's stampers.

The Impel 45 also credits only Harlow Wilcox as the artist (no Oakies).

Edited by TomDiehl1

Groovy Grubworm is the B side of the Impel release, the A side being Sad Is The Lonely.

Since the only CD appearances of this song in the database master it from vinyl, another scenario to consider is that the Plantation 45 may have been mastered from an Impel 45.


Curiously, this was a #1 country record in Canada:

It only reached #42 on the Billboard U.S. country chart.

Edited by Paul C