Today’s post was written by Paul.
By popular request, I’m sharing another video featuring Josh Griggs and Caleb Dykes. Josh is playing a Yamaha Arius digital piano on the grand piano setting. Caleb is playing a 1960 Martin D18 with GHS Doyle Dykes Signature steel strings.
Floyd Crammer wrote the instrumental “Last Date” and released it for RCA in 1960. It reached number 11 on the country charts and number 2 on the pop charts, coming in just behind Elvis’ “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”
Several other artists covered the song, most of them singing lyrics that Skeeter Davis wrote and sang in her recording in 1961. If you’re unfamiliar with Skeeter Davis, you may want to give her version a listen just to hear her sing harmony with herself. In the 60’s, overdubbing became possible or at least more common, and it would allow things like Don Reno playing both the banjo and guitar on the same recording. It would also allow singers to sing with themselves. Few singers can make that technique sound really good consistently.
Ricky Skaggs was successful with it in his early albums. Skeeter is hands down the best at singing two parts on one record. She got her harmony and lead parts completely equal in every way, from volume to expression, etc. It’s like she had a twin or clone, but it was her both times. 🙂 Check it out and you’ll see what I mean.
Conway Twitty also released a recording of “Last Date” in 1972 with lyrics. His lyrics are different from the ones Skeeter wrote and are from the male perspective of someone who blew it and lost his lady. Surprisingly, Twitty’s version has no piano at all! That was a bold move! The piano was replaced with steel guitar. I don’t think Conway’s version is nearly as good as Skeeter’s but it has far more views than Skeeter’s.
Guitar legend and close friend to Doyle Dykes, the Late Mr. Duane Eddy also released a recording of this song (instrumental only). Not surprisingly, Chet Atkins produced Floyd Cramer’s recording of the song. Of course, Cramer played it in his signature style, which is known as “slip note.”
I was discussing with Caleb how this piano style or “lick” sounds very much like a hammer-on note as it would be played on guitar; yet, with piano, it’s almost like a hammer-off, because the sound is created by quickly picking up a finger just before hitting a higher note with the next finger. I had no idea how this Cramer lick was played until Josh showed me. I figured that Cramer invented this lick on the piano, but it turns out that he learned it from Don Robertson who wrote Hank Locklin’s Number 1 hit “Please Help Me I’m Falling.” Cramer began incorporating the lick/style in most of his playing.
I always thought that “Last Date” sounds sweet and lonesome at the same time, like looking nostalgically back on something lost or gone while simultaneously enjoying the memory. Maybe that’s why Cramer called it “Last Date.” I need to find out if there are any interviews or writings where he revealed what inspired him to write the song.
I have a distinct memory of hearing Cramer’s recording one morning on our local radio station, WKRK, as Pap drove me to school in his oil truck. I was somewhere around 7th-9th grade, if I remember correctly. It was most likely being “spun” or played by local, legendary DJ Mr. Bill Yonce, who had great taste in music. Though the oil truck only had a basic radio in it, it had two speakers, one on each end of the dash, and that piano sounded so beautiful as we drove through the early dawn. The cow pastures were frosted over, but it was nice and warm in the truck with Pap, and the moon was hanging over a big, round hill in one of the pastures. We were silent while we listened to the song. Everything had a blueish tint outside of the oil truck. 🙂
Once upon a time, great instrumentals (like “Down Yonder” or “Classical Gas”) could compete with songs with lyrics, but that seems to be another cool facet of classic music that died along the way as music became more commercial and less heartfelt.
Josh played the song very well even though he was a tad nervous because of the camera and having never played with Caleb before. Josh liked the second take best. I’m partial to the first take. Let me know in the comments which take you liked best. Caleb did a fantastic job of knowing when to roll (cross pick) in this tune and when to strum. Despite Josh directing me to leave it out, I couldn’t help but share him messing around with Rhapsody in Blue. That’s probably not a tune that anyone expected to hear on Blind Pig & The Acorn. 🙂 We hope you enjoyed this old song.
Paul
Original singles released on Spotify.
Many years ago – probably in the ’60s or early ’70s – Chet Atkins, Boots Randolph and Floyd Kramer toured as an act. If the act was named I don’t recall it and couldn’t find the name searching online.
I remember hearing Floyd do Last Dance as a solo and Boots doing Yakety Sax and Chet do Wildwood Flower during that concert. IIRC tickets were less than $20.
A fact some might not know is that Chet was a radio engineer at WPTF in Raleigh for a time. I think it was in the late ’40s or early’50s.
My mama was a great pianist and this was one of her “go to” songs to play after supper many evenings as I was growing up! In the summertime, she’d play and of course our windows would be open! ( No A/C) We’d look out and there’d be a line of cars on the street and a crowd listening in our front yard…
I was driving down from Ft Monmouth NJ to Blairsville in 1960 about 2am listened to a pop station..DJ said, “Here is something new and different, gonna be a smash hit” ..Last Date
I love it!!! I still have my parents Floyd Cramer album❤️
Love ❤️ it
Beautiful!! Thanks for sharing!!❤️
In my opinion, when you add words to a piece of music that was written as an instrumental, you drastically degrade it. When I first listened to Floyd Cramer playing the tune I loved it and added my own words in my head. When add the Nashville crowd began to add words to a beautiful melody, it made me sick. “That’s not the words in my head!” And when they replaced the piano with a whining, moaning, crying, string stretching pedal steel guitar it turned my stomach.
I know it will not be popular but I never liked Skeeter Davis (not her real name), Conway Twitty (not his real name) and the like. My opinions are often disregarded but they are what I honestly think.
My intentions are not to cast cast aspersions on Paul, Josh or Caleb, “THEY DID A GREAT JOB” of playing the music in its original form. I was just trying to inform people about how the Nashville music industry turns gold standards into piles of trash. It’s like when the Chinese copy our products then sell it back to us in a cheapened version.
Cousin Ed, it must be something in the blood ’cause I share your opinion of butchering instrumentals with words . . . and about Skeeter Davis and Conway Twitty. I saw Skeeter at the GGO and was not impressed. Never saw Twitty in person but always thought he must have been a poor baseball player if music was his better talent.
Wow!! As soon as I started listening to this song, I asked my husband if he recognized it and he immediately said, Floyd Cramer. I told him who was playing it, and he said it sounded just like Floyd playing. Josh and Caleb did an amazing job. Thanks for sharing Paul and taking us down memory lane.
Hi Paul, what a blast from the past. Wow. what memories that quickly brought to mind. Great job to Josh and Caleb!! Loved both versions.
I remember dancing on my dad’s feet with this song. I prefer the old country and western songs…some really good ones in the 80’s…certain songs then would remind me of my daughter (lieutenant in our small, she was a firefighter, extremely, working on her paramedic license)….Anyway there was a saloon just down the road in Little Elm, Texas called the Broken Spoke…She and a close firefighter name Tracy were the best western dancing partners! How he would spin her around and around, throw her out and back and forth would make you wonder how in the world do you dance like that and never miss a beat!! Little on dropping her on the floor. So many memories that saloon brought back!!
Thanks a million Paul…what a great ride this morning. Tell Granny good morning and thinking of her!!
WOW. What wonderful memories that brings back. These guys are great. Thank you.
This song hits a lot of us of a certain age. It’s the only song I can remember ever memorizing from all the years of taking piano lessons. Of course I can’t play like any of you and your friends even if I practice. I yearn for half that much natural talent! It encourages me to see that musicians like you mess up a little and are not afraid to be seen doing it. Maybe I need to dust off the old piano and see if I can still remember any of it after many years. I expect the sheet music is still in the piano bench. I didn’t know Skeeter Davis wrote it . I’ve recently found her and other great country musicians on Larry Black’s shows, now on the internet. One I’ve really enjoyed is Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting. Jimmy Fortune, Ricky Skaggs, the Oak Ridge Boys, the Gatlin Brothers, Gene Watson and others do so many good songs and tell many great stories.
Thank you for sharing your talents and bringing back this great music. Keep it coming!
I too enjoy these old country music shows especially the Wednesday Night Prayer meeting. I don’t think many of today’s country music singers have the ability or talent of these older ones. My 25 year old grandson has starting listening to the older singer’s especially Hank Williams Sr.
One thing that really gets to me is the way these women members dress today. They can’t sing so I guess they have to do something to get people to watch. Those old time woman or ladies were class acts. You mentioned Ricky Skaggs but dearly love his wife and The Whites singing those old time gospel songs.
This is good, I think the second take sounded more like the original. I also listened to Skeeter Davis. Back years ago when I was a lot younger, I like to listen to both Skeeter and Floyd. Another song I liked from that time was “Tell Laura I Love Her.”
I didn’t think about today being ground hog day, it is cloudy here and spring time weather forecast for this week. Today is sort of an anniversary for me, 49 years ago today, I started working at Michelin and spent the next 38 years working there. I was 18 days short of my 22nd birthday.
I actually enjoyed both takes. And no, not something we’d normally hear on this vlog, but I enjoyed that snippet of Rhapsody in Blue as well.
Oh My!! This brought back so many memories!! Josh is an amazing talent, as are you and Caleb. What a treat to hear this. Thank you!
Great article, thanks for sharing the tunes, I enjoyed them. We grew up with music, either on the radio- KVOO- country music, or folks coming on Saturday afternoon to eat, visit, play whatever instrument they’d brought, and sing. Skeeter Davis was one of the many that I enjoyed listening to. Thanks for sharing some fond memories, and reminding me of good ones as well. GOD bless.
Well, I enjoyed the heck out of both, here’s a vote for #1 and #2 and another for #2 and #1. Rhapsody in Blue was the icing on that double-layer cake.
I had no idea that Skeeter Davis wrote “My Last Date” until today.
Two things about Skeeter Davis and what I think is her most famous song, “The End of the World:”
1. You can tell Skeeter is real Appalachian in her singing, especially the way she sing the word “don’t” and speaks the word “mine” (during the short talking segment). She apparently had some coaching to make sure and articulate the “g” sound at the end of words that end in “ing,” but the lovely truth of where she was from still comes shining through.
2. At the Bryson City Elementary School’s 8th grade prom, held in the old WPA-built rock building’s gymnasium on Schoolhouse Hill, I bet “The End of the World” was played a dozen times. That was the first time I remember dancing with a girl other than square dancing. I was slow in a lot of things coming along, and I still wasn’t sure I wanted anything to do with an old girl or slow dancing until that night. I never got tired of listening to the song or dancing that night.
One of my favorite songs by Cramer and Skeeter Davis.
Back in the day I cried a few tears when I heard it on the radio and also Skeeter’s recording “End Of The World.”
I agree with Josh the second take was a tad better and Caleb’s strumming and cross picks are amazing! Paul you have some talented friends! It so much fun to pick and sing with friends!
Now let’s go to SS and get our worship on!!
Brenda, I deleted this in my comment but these songs including “The End Of The World” now make my eyes leak too, sometimes to the point of flooding.
Ron, I left a late reply to your reply to me yesterday.
Well, sir, I’ve never cried enough and I feel the lack. I think good crying is love’s witness when words are not good enough. And some cry on the inside with grief of heart but that kind I fear does not heal.
Paul, that was fantastic!!! I sure remember dancing to that song in the late 50’s to Floyd Cramer. I have a cousin in NE MS that married a young man who could play the piano like Floyd Cramer. In those days, we would say “he could make that piano sing”. Josh and Caleb did a beautiful job. I would have recognized Rhapsody in Blue even if you hadn’t mentioned it in your post. Beautiful!