Official Showaddywaddy Web Site Rock 'n' Roll Lady (1974)

The Song

rnrlsheet
Rock 'n' Roll Lady was Showaddywaddy's second single, released on 2nd August 1974. It was recorded at the Music Centre in Wembley, during a session where Dave Bartram recalls: "We had a thing at the time about the Duane Eddy guitar sound which we tried to get on this track. It was the first time I really saw the band growing creatively in the studio".

Due to the success of the previous single Hey Rock And Roll, the band's producer Mike Hurst deemed that Buddy Gask should take lead vocals.

The song entered the charts on 17th August, two weeks after it was released. Hey Rock And Roll was still in the charts on this date meaning that Showaddywaddy had two singles in the chart at #32 (Rock 'n' Roll Lady) and #46 (Hey Rock And Roll). It claimed its peak position of #15 in the chart dated 7th September 1974, and remained in the singles chart for 9 weeks.

Rock 'n' Roll Lady featured prominently in the band's live set between 1974 and 1977, but didn't really return to the set until the early 2000s where it has remained more or less ever since, and is still played regularly today.

TV Appearances

Showaddywaddy first performed Rock 'n' Roll Lady on Top Of The Pops on 22nd August 1974, and again on the same show the week after, albeit this was a repeat performance. The song featured on a number of other shows including Lift Off With Ayshea, a live performance on Kid Jensen's 45, and The Geordie Scene. TV performances of the song on mainland Europe also followed, including Platten Kuche, and it was including in a live set of seven songs on Dutch TV in 1975.

Personnel

Lead vocals: Buddy Gask (with Dave Bartram in the chorus)
Lead guitar: Russ Field
Rhythm Guitar: Trevor Oakes
Bass Guitar: Rod Deas
Drums: Romeo Challenger

Composer

The composers, as with all of the band's original material, was officially credited to Allured / Bartram / Challenger / Deas / Field / Gask / James / Oakes. However the song was originally written by Trevor Oakes and Dave Bartram.

Lyrics

One, two, three, four.

She likes to take Teddy on down the local jive,
She’s been known to set every man alive,

But it’s so hard to get near the love look in her eye,
But once you’re there you never wanna go.

She’s a rock ’n’ roll lady,
Bells upon her toes - she’s got rings on her fingers, she can have music wherever she goes.

For the price of a ticket at a picture show,
You can hold her hand when the lights are low.

Sleeves

rnrluk
Standard UK release on Bell records (BELL 1374). Rock 'n' Roll Lady was never released in a picture sleeve in the UK. Note the credits state "Betts" - Geoff Betts being the real name of bass player Al James.

rnrluksamp
Factory sample, otherwise identical to the standard UK release.

rnrlukdemo
Demo versions were released to radio stations across UK for airplay. These have since found their way onto the likes of eBay over the years.

rnrlflex
The Smiths Chart Busters release (LYN 3148) was a flexi-disc available to music lovers who collected tokens from packets of Smiths Crisps! There was a b-side to this single, but not Showaddywaddy - instead Sad Sweet Dreamer by Sweet Sensation was the feature on the flip side!

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Belgian picture sleeve (BELL 2008 277). The same catalogue number was used across all European releases.

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Italian issue in a somewhat generic template sleeve that was likely used for other releases in the same country.

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South African release (Bell PS.364)

rnrlyugo
The Yugoslavian release was almost identical to the German and Spanish sleeves featured below, only differing with the inclusion of the RTB branding of the state owned record label in Belgrade.

rnrlger
The German and Spanish releases were issued in identical picture sleeves.

rnrlspain
Whilst the rear of the German issue was identical to the front, the rear of the Spanish issue featured somewhat inaccurate lyrics!