Five years ago today — on Saturday, March 30, 2019 — I went record digging at a place that was new to me. (I don’t much care for that place today, but that’s another program.)
That day, I found this record, one I’d been seeking for a while.
Tongue was a blues-rock group from western Wisconsin. This record is from 1970. They made the rounds of an old Midwest roadhouse/club/festival circuit that’s long gone.
I’d long had a copy of this — their “Keep On Truckin'” LP — but it was rough. Missed out on another copy at the Chicago record show in the summer of 2018. The guy standing next to me grabbed it before I got to that crate. Passed on a $25 copy at a Minneapolis record store the following winter.
As I’m wont to do, I put my more reasonably priced find on the back porch when I got home, took the picture you see above and posted it to Facebook. My friends had some great stories about it. Enjoy.
Jay, who lives across the street, shared this:
“I met a Dial Corp. VP executive a few years back and we were reminiscing about both going to Stout. He told me he was in a band called Tongue during his college days. This same clean-cut, suit-wearing executive pulled out a picture of him in long hair and clothes similar to your cover photo. The name of the band always stuck in my head. This has to be the same one?”
It was the guy in the striped pants, bass player Bob Collins.
Jay again:
“He had a three-piece pinstripe suit and short hair when I met him. Guess he likes stripes.”
Fun fact: One of the songs Bob Collins co-wrote for the LP was called “Get Your Shit Together.”
Then my friend Jim K. shared this:
“Won this album on Feb. 2, 1972 — the night of the Vietnam draft lottery. Tongue was playing at the UW-Oshkosh union and anyone who was in the draft lottery that night was also entered into a drawing for this album. Double-winner that night — won the album and my draft number was high enough to never be called.”
That was a big deal when the draft was a thing. Jim still has his Tongue LP, too.
Fun fact: The band was called the Tennis Shoe Tongue Band when it came together in 1967. They shortened it to Tongue in 1970 and played under that name until they broke up in 1976.
My friend Larry took one look at my Tongue LP and said:
“That is one I would buy for the cover alone, no matter what it ended up sounding like.”
Pretty much everyone took notice of the guy with the walrus mustache and the huge Fro. That’s Paul Rabbitt, the lead singer and lead guitarist. He no longer has the walrus mustache and huge Fro. These days, he looks like a lot of 70-something guys from California, where he’s lived since Tongue broke up.
Fun fact: Tongue cut one single, also titled “Keep On Truckin’,” in 1970.
Paul Rabbitt has taken that single — a fan favorite at those long-ago gigs at roadhouses, clubs and festivals — to heart. He’s kept on truckin’, still playing rock and blues in his 70s.
(I can’t find a video of that single, but here’s the entire LP for anyone interested. Last time I saw it in the wild, in December 2022, it was priced at $84. Yikes.)