This Old Heart

Another “blast from the past” with The Explodo Boys, a Minnesota-based multi-genre band. Live performance from 1979:



The original was an early James Brown release on the Federal label in 1960. It reached #72 on the Billboard charts before fading away into obscurity.

When I made this recording The Explodo Boys band was on the verge of splitting apart. They had one last week booked at the Minneapolis Dinkytown nightclub Bootlegger Sam’s. Jimmy Derbis and Danny Rowles pulled this ‘nugget’ out of their collective hat—it may have been a tune they had sung together in Mainstreet, a band they had been in eight years earlier. Del Gallagher was drumming, having joined the band only a few weeks earlier, Frankie Paradise (Paul Peterson) added the ‘twangs’ while his brother Johnny Vincent laid down the bass groove. Paul Scher and Max Ray were on alto and tenor saxes.

It was the only time The Explodo Boys played the song.