He's not generally perceived as a big fan of post-depression era pop music, but Crumb has spoken at various points of his fondness for early rock 'n' roll. And while his general distaste for hippie music has been addressed in many interviews through the years, no one has ever asked what '60s music he did like until now:
From Crumb On Others, Part One, by Alex Wood:
TOMMY JAMES AND THE SHONDELLS
Robert: "Yes! Last great proletarian rock 'n' roll band. 1966 -- My Baby Does the Hanky Panky, great record. That to me was the last year there was a bunch of good, proletarian rock and roll hits on the radio. After that it was taken over by the California psychedelic thing. I just didn’t find that as interesting. That was all very middle-class. Once the Beatles became famous, then the middle class began to embrace rock 'n' roll and abandoned the kind of middle of the road sound of Bobby Rydell and Pat Boone and all that stuff. And when the middle-class embraced it, they cleaned it up, it wasn’t the same. But Tommy James was one of the last bands, and Sam The Sham, he was another one of the last ones: Wooly Bully and stuff like that."
Alex: "Did you like Little Red Riding Hood?"
Robert: "Great, great masterpiece. [laughs] But after that, I started to lose interest in rock n’ roll. The golden age of rock 'n' roll was in the 50s and for me, particularly Rockabilly. I really liked that. A lot of the rockabilly stuff was really wild and kind of scared the bourgeois, scared them."
Alex: "Like Jerry Lee Lewis?"
Robert: "Yeah, great! Great piano player. Little Richard too, excellent piano player but they’re showmen so you don’t get to hear enough piano. But going back to Tommy James, he made a psychedelic song called Crimson and Clover. Remember that? I thought that was pretty good… 'Crimson and clover, over and over…'"
From Crumb On Others, Part One, by Alex Wood:
TOMMY JAMES AND THE SHONDELLS
Robert: "Yes! Last great proletarian rock 'n' roll band. 1966 -- My Baby Does the Hanky Panky, great record. That to me was the last year there was a bunch of good, proletarian rock and roll hits on the radio. After that it was taken over by the California psychedelic thing. I just didn’t find that as interesting. That was all very middle-class. Once the Beatles became famous, then the middle class began to embrace rock 'n' roll and abandoned the kind of middle of the road sound of Bobby Rydell and Pat Boone and all that stuff. And when the middle-class embraced it, they cleaned it up, it wasn’t the same. But Tommy James was one of the last bands, and Sam The Sham, he was another one of the last ones: Wooly Bully and stuff like that."
Alex: "Did you like Little Red Riding Hood?"
Robert: "Great, great masterpiece. [laughs] But after that, I started to lose interest in rock n’ roll. The golden age of rock 'n' roll was in the 50s and for me, particularly Rockabilly. I really liked that. A lot of the rockabilly stuff was really wild and kind of scared the bourgeois, scared them."
Alex: "Like Jerry Lee Lewis?"
Robert: "Yeah, great! Great piano player. Little Richard too, excellent piano player but they’re showmen so you don’t get to hear enough piano. But going back to Tommy James, he made a psychedelic song called Crimson and Clover. Remember that? I thought that was pretty good… 'Crimson and clover, over and over…'"
