Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Your Cash Ain' Nothin' But Trash
Author: Steven Vore Posted: 7/27/2000; 5:26:44 PM Topic: Boycott the record industry? Msg #: 19225 (In response to 19194) Prev/Next: 19224 / 19226
But there's more to it. There was a song, I forget who wrote it, that went like this: "Your cash ain't nothing but trash.""C. Calhoun;(Renewed) nichappel Music Inc., BMI." -- that's what my Huey Lewis & the News CD says. Yes, I went first to the CD cabinet, not to the 'net!
The Steve Miller Band re-did it as well.
As did Ray Stevens.
Ok, then I went to the net.
Sassparilla w/Laurel Blaydes has a version.
Looks like the Coasters did it in '54.
and The Clovers: "(Charles Calhoun) Atlantic single #45-1035 (7/54)"
Billy Lee Riley seems to have the oldest reference I can find to the song, don't know what his relation to Mr Calhoun is/was.
Who keeps an online database of original artists, songwriters & their works?
Ah, HAH! Meet the elusive C. Calhoun (emphesis mine):
Turner and the Clovers - and all the other early Atlantic stars - were coached at Atlantic´s combined office/studios in New York City by another K.C. veteran - Jesse Stone (alias Charles Calhoun) - who served as head musical director and A/R man for Atlantic from the beginning. He was responsible for the creation of several classic R&B titles, a. o. The Clovers´ Your Cash Ain´t Nothin´ But Trash (from 1954, with a swinging lead by new group member Billy Mitchell, who had sung for Joe Morris back in 1951), and Turner´s Shake, Rattle And Roll, the most long-lived R&B charter of the 1950s (32 weeks on the charts in 1954/55, although The Chords´ "cat music" original, Sh-Boom, on Atlantic´s short-lived subsidiary Cat Records, outsold it).Oh, and Thom Stark used it as a title of a piece in which he said "That’s the thing about money. It has no inherent value of its own (leaving aside the commodity value of coinage). Instead, its real function is to represent the worth of other things — labor, for instance, or goods. "
Geez, Dave... get me started will ya? :-)
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