"Abigail Beecher" by Freddie Cannon

Song 4:

“Abigail Beecher” by Freddie Cannon

Peak: 16

Year: 1964

Year end position: NA

Alphabetical Songs by Artist: 1/5

Chronological Songs by Artist: 4/5

Video?: No

Wikipedia?:  No

Spotify?:  Yes

Lyrics:  http://www.lyrics007.com/Freddy%20Cannon%20Lyrics/Abigail%20Beecher%20Lyrics.html

Today's song definitely qualifies as a "deep cut".  If you are listening to XM or any "Oldies" radio station, you are more than likely never going to hear this song.  I've been listening to stations like that my whole life, and not until I started making playlists and writing this blog had I ever heard this song.

Like a lot of songs early on in this blog, this song marks the first of what will be a large number of groups of songs.  "Abigail Beecher" is the first song so far to feature a proper name in the title of the song.  The thing that makes this particular song different is that the name in the title features both a first and last name.  Almost all the other songs that feature names only feature a first name.  Typically, when you would alphabetize a proper name, you would sort it by last name first, but since it's the title and not an actual person's name, it's OK to sort by "Abigail" first.

This song marks the 4th of 5 songs we will hear from Freddie Cannon (also Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon).  I will admit to not knowing much about Freddie before I start on this blog, but I've been pretty impressed with the songs that I have heard so far.  From what I could find about him, he started out in Massachusetts and had some local hit there before getting signed to Swan records out of Philadelphia.  Because of that, Freddie is rumored to be the most featured act in American Bandstand's history.  Then again, American Bandstand was aired every day at the time, so there were plenty of opportunities.

I often think there are times in the history of Rock and Roll music where there was a sea change in the music where you can mark pre- and post- acts.  I think of the Beatles in 1964 as one of those times.  Freddie Cannon had the bulk of his hits pre-Beatles.  After the British invasion, Freddie really struggled to hit the charts.  I guess there was just something about his sound that didn't appeal to people anymore.  That's a bit of a shame because I often think of the time frame between 1959-1963 as a bit of a dead zone for popular songs.  Freddie Cannon songs from that time frame stand up surprisingly well, even this song that was the lowest charting of the songs we will hear from Freddie.

I think that Freddie gets really overshadowed in the history of music, but for some perspective, his career was probably comparable in duration and # of hits to acts like Billy Idol or Jessica Simpson.  As for the success of his individual hits, his career is somewhat comparable to the 70s band Sweet.  That's pretty decent company for an act that, for the most part, is lost to history.

The lyrics of this song are, as you would expect, about a woman named Abigail Beecher.  In the song, Abigail is a teacher (because it rhymes with "Beecher") who is really, really cool.  She dances the latest dances, plays the guitar and brings a surfboard to the PTA meeting.  In many ways, it's similar to "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena" and maybe an early,  purer version of Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher".  It's got a bit of a rockabilly style to it.

All in all, I liked the song, despite its obscurity.  I think it's songs like this that make the blog interesting.  I doubt our paths would have crossed were I not undertaking this blog.  But it did, and I had a fun time listening to this song today.  It's a good listen.