The Ghouls

Do hearses and hot rods go together? Well, they sure do in the fevered mind of famed producer Gary Usher! Usher made his bones penning songs for the Beach Boys (he co-wrote “In My Room” with Brian Wilson) and producing a band you might have heard of called The Byrds. In between those celebrated stints, he indulged his love of surf and hot rod music with a series of albums by such studio outfits as The Hondells, Mr. Gasser and the Weirdos (featuring album art by custom car painter Ed “Big Daddy” Roth), The Kickstands, and The Super Stocks. But the one album from the Usher oeuvre that everybody’s been wanting to rescue from the vinyl crematorium is his frightfully funny 1964 foray into horror rock, Dracula’s Deuce. In the hands of Usher and his crack outfit of Capitol studio musicians (The Ghouls a.k.a. The Wrecking Crew) and long-time collaborators like vocalist Ritchie Burns, “The Little Old Lady from Pasadena” became “The Little Old Lady from Transylvania,” “Johnny B. Goode” became “Bela Be Good,” and “Be True to Your School” became, you guessed it, “Be True to Your Ghoul.” But for our money, the originals, composed by Usher, Richie Podolor, and Roger Christian among others, are the main attraction, including the creepy exotica of “Dracula’s Theme” and the surreal “Monsterbilly Heaven.” Original copies of this one command monstrous sums (we should know, we sprung for one), and it's never been reissued in any format until now.