Songoftheday 5/13/13 - I've got a lowdown dirty feeling that I've been cheatin' on and lied to...

Stray Cats - "I Won't Stand In Your Way"
from the album Rant N' Rave With The Stray Cats (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #35 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 3

Today's Song of the Day is by the American neo-rockabilly group Stray Cats, who broke through big by way of Britain to cross back over to the US with thei Built For Speed album. The followup, Rant N Rave, continued that streak with another top-10 record in "(She's) Sexy + 17". For their second single the trio released the slow-dance number "I Won't Stand In Your Way", written by leader Brian Setzer and produced by Dave Edmunds, and seems plucked from Elvis' early 50s wheelhouse...

"I Won't Stand..." became the trio's fourth and so far last top-40 pop hit. After a third single missed the top-40 ("Look At That Cadillac"), the Stray Cats split after their tour, with Brian touring with the Honeydrippers, and Lee Rocker and Slim Jim Phantom recruiting Bowie axeman Earl Slick for the Phantom, Rocker, and Slick project, which earned them a top-10 rock hit with "Men Without Shame". In 1986 the original band reunited for a couple more albums, which gave them a top-40 rock radio single with "Bring It Back Again" in 1989. However, the trio broke up again in the 90s, with Brian forming the Brian Setzer Orchestra, who had a top-40 radio hit with their cover of "Jump Jive And Wail" during the swing revival of the late 90s. Every now and then, the group have reunited for gigs, but pretty much their heyday has passed.

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Here's the B side of the record, an acappella version of the song...

Up tomorrow: a 'Buster has break-up issues.