Song:No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach's In)
Album:Rock Instrumental Classics Vol. 2: The Sixties
This 1966 top five hit was based on a very popular Alka Seltzer commercial. The T-Bones were studio musicians. A band was formed after No Matter What Shape was a hit. Liberty Records producer Dave Pell loved instrumental surf music. So he hired arranger Perry Botkin Jr. to record instrumentals as The T-Bones. The musicians were the cream of the Los Angeles studio scene including Leon Russell on piano, Steve Douglas and Plas Johnson on sax, Tommy Tedesco and Glen Campbell on guitars, Ray Pohlman on bass and Hal Blaine on drums. After recording two albums of instrumental surf and hot rod music, Pell turned the group over to Ventures producer Joe Saraceno. It was his idea to record a cover of a very memorable Alka Seltzer commercial. TV themes had been hits before but commercials? No Matter What Shape reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in Feb. 1966. The song was written by Granville "Sascha" Burland. He's a jazz musician who had a top 20 hit in 1959 with Uh Oh Part 2 as one half of The Nutty Squirrels, a hipster take on The Chipmunks. He wrote a lot of jingles for ad agencies in the 60s. The T-Bones other chart single Sippin' and Chippin' was a Nabisco jingle also written by Burland. After No Matter What Shape was a hit, Liberty hired musicians to appear as The T-Bones. They did not play on the records. Saraceno and Botkin thought The T-Bones concept was getting stale so they ended it in late 1966. But the band who toured as The T-Bones were discovered by ABC Records producer Steve Barri and became Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds. All's well that ends well, I guess. You can get No Matter What Shape on this Rhino various artists comp. Here are The T-Bones performing No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach's In) 1966.
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