Ramones on vinyl: The single with Paley Brothers

A wall of sound. Darlene Love, Phil Spector, Joey Ramone

and the two Paley brothers.

The Paley Brothers was a power-pop band that started playing in Boston in the mid 70's. The two brothers Jonathan and Andy Paley was launched as good looking teen idols and released an album on Sire 1978. That was it – but before they disappeared from the music scene they did a single with the Ramones that was included on the Rock'n'roll High School soundtrack.
An odd combination maybe but Jonathan Paley had been hanging around in the punk scene in New York before. Infact he even did rehearsals with the Heartbreakers early on when they were a trio.

"I rehearsed with the Heartbreakers three times. This was way before the Paley Brothers were signed to Sire. Richard (Hell) and Johnny (Thunders) really liked me, I know Johnny wanted me in the band, but Jerry (Nolan) didn't like me at all, so it didn't happend", Jonathan told Punk Globe.

When the Paley Brothers recorded their album in L.A. in 1977 the Ramones were also in town. The Sire president Seymour Stein came up with the idea that that the two bands should record a song together.

"I'd seen a lot of the Ramones early gigs at CBGB's. Joey and I shared a love of old rock n roll and pop music", Jonathan explained to Punk Globe.

The choice was C'mon Let's Go, an Richie Valens song from 1959. The track was recorded at Brother Studio in Santa Monica, L.A.

"Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy did the basic track, then Andy and I added tympany, organ, hand claps and the vocals. I did the lead vocal, Andy sang a lower close harmony. It came out really nice. It's one of my favorite recordings I ever did. It was in the soundtrack to Rock n Roll High School and after the movie came out Joey told me that it was his favorite song on the soundtrack. He was really a sweet sweet guy. I think that may be the only recording with Tommy, Dee Dee and Johnny on it that has a vocal by anyone other than Joey or Dee Dee. I'm very proud of that record. In hindsight, I wish we'd done a whole album like that", Jonathan says.

The single was released in the UK, Germany, France and Japan in 1978. An interesting thing for collectors is that there are two versions of the single. Apparently Sire was not happy with the first mix. In november 1978 Tony Bongiovi and the Paley Brothers did a remix at the Power Station i New York – and cut away Dee Dee's "one, two, three, four"-chant in the beginning! The new mix was released in the UK soon after, first in the same picture sleeve as the first press, later on in the yellow Sire company sleeve.
Another interesting thing is that the german pressing has the first version of the song while the french and japanese editions have the second mix. They all have the Paley Brothers-song Magic Power on the flip side.

Songs: C'mon Let's Go/Magic Power

Number: Sire SIR 4005

Year: 1978

Country: UK

Notes: The first mix.