Who was/is Dave 'Diddle' Day ? - CDs, Vinyl LPs, DVD and more
David Fatalsky knew the value of a snappy stage handle, employing several. He answered to Dave Day and The Red Coats when he waxed Calypso Rock b/w Blue for Philly’s Casa Blanca label, allegedly with Bill Haley’s Comets adding pounding backing. Kapp picked it up for national consumption in late ‘56. Then David hooked up with Joe Averbach’s Fee Bee logo in Pittsburgh, where The Dell-Vikings were reigned supreme. Writing with Tony Rawe, Fatalsky cooked up the echo-laden minor-key rocker Blue Moon Baby, laced with eerie organ. Fee Bee issued it in 1957 as by Dave ‘Diddlie’ Ray with the calypso ballad Suzanne My Love its B-side. Mercury reissued the coupling nationally at April’s end, changing Ray’s nickname to Diddle and adding a band credit for the Tony Ray Combo.
That was Ray’s only look in at Mercury. Fee Bee issued his clever rocking encore Motorcycle Mike as by Davey Day, and he changed his sobriquet yet again to Sonny Day in 1958 when he cut Beyond The Shadow Of A Doubt for Pittsburgh’s Star logo (acquired nationally by ABC-Paramount). Checker Records billed the Latin-tinged doopwopper Speedillac to Sonny Day and The Versatiles that same year. One-offs for Mala, St. Clair, and Dana brought Sonny midway through the ‘60s.
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