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Looking for "Kay-Williamson" writing team - who are they?

Moebeus

Retired Editor
Posts: 175

Moebeus @ 2017-05-30 10:36:57 UTC

So this is driving me up the wall a bit...


I have a 1963 instrumental by Mexican group Los Apos titled "Madison del viajero", credited to "(Kay-Williamson)" (see attached label scan).


According to a later cassette release (visible in the youtube video) the original is called "Travelin' West". Unfortunately the cassette cover gets other things wrong, so I'm not sure how much it can be trusted.

  • I can't for the life of me figure out who Kay or Williamson are.
  • I only find two pieces called Travelin' West in The Known Universe According To Google (which in itself seems odd). One is from 1960 (promising!) but unfortunately it's credited to Bo Diddley/Ellas McDaniel (oh, well) and the other is a piano solo (promising!) by someone named Helen Ingle Ezell (sad trombone Unhappy).

Can anyone give me a clue?



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Quentin

Retired Editor
Posts: 3427

Quentin @ 2017-05-30 11:10:47 UTC

Definitely not Bo Diddley (video is available on YT).

Couldn't find a clip of the song by Helen Ingle Ezell.

Another "Travelin' West": http://www.45cat.com/record/x802 (again, no clip).

I checked ASCAP, BMI, ISWC and JASRAC and there are no "Travelin' West" credited to Kay and/or Williamson. Either the credits are wrong, or the title is. It sounds a lot like incidental music from a Western movie...

______
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Moebeus

Retired Editor
Posts: 175

Moebeus @ 2017-05-30 14:12:52 UTC

Thanks for having a look!

I think the "Travelin' West" title is very probably a red herring. On the same cassette sleeve it says their song "Twist Hawaiano" is a cover of an original called "Hawaian Twist". Which sounds very reasonable except...it's really called "The Hula Hula Twist".

My theory is that they got these songs from the radio, and just wrote down (in "spanglish") what the DJ introduced them with. See https://secondhandsongs.com/case/70860 for some more on this.

Your suggestion is starting to make a lot of sense - this is music from a Western movie starring Kay & Williamson. Yee-haw! 🙃


Again, thanks for the awesome assist there, I haven't quite mastered all the rights databases yet.


Moe.