Kingston Coffee House 3/31 “Wild Thing” Replay-Playlist
Sixty years ago today, on April 1 1966, The Troggs recorded the song “Wild Thing” at Regent Sound Studio in London. The song, written by Chip Taylor, went on to be a No.1 US and No.2 UK in the following year.
In one of the most iconic moments in the history Rock & Roll, Jimi Hendrix set fire to his Fender Stratocaster guitar while performing “Wild Thing” at the Monterey Pop festival in 1967.
Taylor’s next-most-famous song, “Angel of the Morning” was a hit for Seattle’s Merrilee Rush, who took it to No 4 on the US chart in 1968. The song was memorably featured in the film Jerry Maguire when Tom Cruise’s character is singing along to it “enthusiastically if badly”.
Chip Taylor was born James Wesley Voight in Yonkers, New York, the son of Elmer and his wife, Barbara, a teacher and swimming instructor. He had two older brothers, one being Hollywood star Jon Voight (Midnight Cowboy, Coming Home). He is uncle to actress Angelina Jolie.
Chip acquired the surname “Taylor” when King Records executives thought disc jockeys wouldn’t be able to pronounce “Voight”
Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez
Some years after “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning,” Taylor left the music business to become a full-time gambler, frequently betting on horse races and developing expert card-counting skills at the blackjack tables, which prompted several casinos to ban him from their premises.
Having conquered what had become a damaging gambling addiction, he resumed his performing and recording career in 1993 and enjoyed a fruitful partnership with the violinist and vocalist Carrie Rodriguez, with whom he recorded a series of albums including Let’s Leave This Town (2002) and (my personal favorite) The Trouble With Humans (2003) on Taylor’s own Train Wreck Records.
Chip Taylor died 23 March 2026 *
Listen to The Kingston Coffee House below:
Audio available for 2 weeks after air date | Clip begins with final minutes of Matt Mania’s always-awesome show The Trip
Open / The DJ is asleep
– Chip Taylor “On the Radio” (R Spektor) from Sex Education, 2020 (season 2, final episode 8)
– Merilee Rush “Angel of the Morning” (C Taylor) 1968
– Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodrigues “Don’t Speak English” The Trouble With Humans (2003)
– Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodrigues “Let’s Leave This Town” Let’s Leave This Town (2002)
– Hank Wangford “Wild Thing” (C Taylor) Cowboys Stay on Longer, 1980
Birthday Girl Norah is 47
– Norah Jones & Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age)”Something Stupid” (C Parks)
Time, where did you go?
– Pozo Seco Singers “Time” (D Williams) Time, 1966
– Pozo Seco Singers “I’ll Be Gone” (M Merchant) Time, 1966 **
Mister Romantic
– John C. Reilly “Johnsburg, Illinois” (T Waits) What’s Not to Love, 2025
– John C. Reilly “You Don’t Know Me” (Cindy Walker) What’s Not to Love, 2025
– John C. Reilly “Just Another Sucker on the Vine” (T Waits) What’s Not to Love, 2025
– John C. Reilly “What’ll I Do” (I Berlin) What’s Not to Love, 2025 ****
Love is Everything
– Claudia Schmidt “Dulcimer Interlude” Out of the Dark, 1985
– Claudia Schmidt “San Diego Serenade” (T Waits) Out of the Dark, 1985
– Jane Siberry “Love is Everything” When I Was a Boy, 1993
– Jane Siberry “Sail Across the Water” When I Was a Boy, 1993
– Máire Ní Chathasaigh & Chris Newman selections from The Carolan Album 1994
Dead Soldiers
– Joan Baez “Old Welsh Song” Baptism, 1968
– Joan Baez “I Saw The Vision Of Armies” (Walt Whitman) Baptism, 1968 ***
– John Prine “Sam Stone” 1971
– Nina Simone “Angel of the Morning” (C Taylor) Here Comes the Sun, 1971
– The Roches “Quitting Time” 1979
Big Sweet Life / Something Stupid (again)
– The Wailin’ Jennys “Deeper Well” (D Olney) Live At The Mauch Chunk Opera House, 2009
– David Olney “Blues Don’t Care” Film Noir, 2011
– John Dee Graham “Big Sweet Life” First Bear On the Moon, 2005
– James Booker “Something Stupid” (C Parks) New Orleans Piano Wizard Live, 1981
Marianne Faithful as a teenager at the Progress Theatre, Reading, England
THE HOBBLEDEHOY SET (Folk from England, Ireland, Scotland & Wales)
– Cerys Hafana “Atasain” Angel, 2025
– Gwenifer Raymond “Banjo Players of Aleph One”
– Davy Graham “Lagan Love” / Hag Medley” Irish Reels, Jigs, Hornpipes And Airs, 1979
– Dominic (Barry Keoghan) and Siobhan (Kerry Condon) dialogue from The Banshees of Inisherin 2023
– Breabach “Knees Up” Frenzy of the Meeting, 2011
– Marianne Faithful “Scarborough Faire” (traditional) North Country Maid, 1966
– Máire Ní Chathasaigh & Chris Newman selections from The Carolan Album 1994
– June Tabor & Oysterband “Love Will Tear Us Apart” Ragged Kingdom, 2011
Andrew Bird and Tift Merrit at The Newport Folk Festival 2013
– Tift Merrit “Finest Feelings” Sugar 2026
– Andrew Bird “Fake Palidrones” The Mysterious Production of Eggs 2005
GOODNIGHT ANGELS
– Gerald Ross “Angel of the Morning” instrumental
– Sister Carol “Wild Thing” from the film Something Wild (d. Jonathan Demme) 1979
– La Rondalla Potosina “Angel de Mañana”
NOTES
* Source The Guardian
**Documentary Nobody Famous traces the quick rise and steady fall of 60s folk/pop trio,The Pozo Seco Singers.
*** Joan Baez recitation “I Saw The Vision Of Armies” is from the poem When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom’d by Walt Whitman and can be found at The Walt Whitman Archive
**** The song “What’ll I Do?” was not composed by Sammy Fain, but in fact written by Irving Berlin.
CONTACT ME
- Comments on the show? Contact Mike Stevenson at [email protected]
CONCERT DATES
- Andrew Bird performs at Providence’s Veterans Auditorium this coming Saturday April 4
- Breabach performs at The Blackstone River Theater Cumberland, RI on April 19
- John C. Reilly is bringing his “Mister Romantic” show to Boston, with a scheduled performance at the Emerson Colonial Theatre on Thursday, July 23, 2026. This show is described as an intimate vaudeville experience featuring romantic songs from the Great American Songbook and beyond
- Máire Ní Chathasaigh & Chris Newman (with Tommy Sands) in Somerville, MA The Burren April 29
- Jane Siberry will perform at City Winery Boston April 9th
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