Woo-Hoo is most famous for it's appearance in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 as performed by garagebilly band the 5.6.7.8's. Today we're looking at the song's original recording by The Rock-A-Teens from the late 1950's.
Though the song is credited to record label owner George Donald McGraw it was originally written by The Rock-A-Teens themselves. Shortly after Woo Hoo's release the Teens were hit with a lawsuit from Arthur Smith for plagiarism (reportedly the band didn't understand how or why) and reverted the credit to McGraw in order to avoid a costly legal entanglement. Sadly the song would prove to be the one major hit for The Rock-A-Teens, but due to the universality of the lyric it would be a hit heard around the world.
The track is largely instrumental, with riotous drums, sax and guitars blowing out microphones left right and center, creating a dense and sweaty whirl of rockabilly poses and jive shaking. On top of the chaos Vic Mizelle's gentle vocals billow across like a leaf caught in a tornado.
The song, recorded in 1959, is in many ways a love letter to the passing of rockabilly as the predominant form of rock and roll. Every key instrument, from the acoustic guitar to the drums, gets a solo while riffing on the genetic heritage of all rock music: the twelve bar blues. Mizelle presides over it all with his gentle 'Woo-Hoos,' like the ghost of rockabilly come back down to Earth for one final twist.
