Everybody Knows
Matilda
Another forgotten song of
the late 60s is “Everybody Knows Matilda”. Looking at the charts, it
appears not many people knew Matilda at all actually, nor its author
Duke Baxter. It is a great song that got some airplay across the
U.S. and Canada from which he is a native.
While the intenet is
scattered with much information about Duke Baxter, it is very
difficult to tell what is factual and what is not. After reading
numerous articles I have found that he is James Blake, a Canadian
also known as Dudley F. Baxter. If you search for Baxter, you may
find a list of Duke Baxter compositions, many from 1969. Identical
lists are also found under Dudley F. Baxter, Dudley Ford Baxter, and
James Blake. Baxter also had a hand in various other groups
including The Rob Roys and Revelation, none of which produced any
significant hits.
I also found this posted on YouTube by Baxter,
who posted about some of his songs that were recorded for an
unreleased album. Using the YouTube alias Jim Shaman, he writes:
“Maybe some people want to know what happened to Duke Baxter. Did he
just vanish or did he keep writing songs? I am that guy after a few
incarnations or iterations.”
Another forum has this from a fellow
named Bob Priest: “Hi there! I was lead guitarist in
"Revelation" with Duke Baxter, Kerry Hatch, Dave Wightman, Mark
Benson & Roger Conway. All of us appeared on "Cotton Candy
Weekend." I later played a solo on duke's "Everybody Knows Matilda"
LP - with my 1960 cherry sunburst Les Paul & an old fender
baseman amp - cranked, of course! You will find my name on the back
of the LP as Bob Priest, Jr.” In another reply he writes: “No,
I haven't heard anything from Duke in over 40 years. I wonder where
and how he is. The only one I’m still in touch with from that time
is the bass player from Revelation, Dave Wightman.”
In the U.S.,
“Everybody Knows Matilda” reached #52 on Billboard, and it was on
the Cash Box chart for seven weeks, peaking at #69. In Canada it
spent three weeks on the RPM100 chart, peaking at #58. (RPM at the
time was the Canadian version of Billboard.). It did have somewhat
better luck in Australia apparently. But, it hit the WOLF Hot 30 on
July 16 spending 6 weeks on that chart. Then peaked at #8 on August
6 of 1969 here in Syracuse.
The song was produced by Tony Harris, who
was active as producer, writer, arranger and performer from 1963
till 1969. Matilda was another album in the LONG line of musical
compositions that featured members of the infamous Wrecking Crew.
Among the musicians were Hal Blaine on drums and the late Larry
Knechtel on keyboards.
The “Everybody Knows Matilda” album
yielded three singles including the title track. “Everybody Knows
Matilda”, “I Ain’t No Schoolboy”, “Crosstown Woman”, “Mississippi
Gentry”, “Pretty Heavy”, “Static Interference”, “Superstition Bend”,
“53rd Card In The Deck”, “No Tell Motel”, “Don’t Hurt Us” and “John
Q. Citizen”. Duke Baxter would later release a single on the Mercury
label called “Absolute Zero” b/w “Wings of Love”, and an AVI album,
“My Ship Is Coming In”. It seems no one has heard of these
either.
Then there is the question “Where he is now?” I have read
so many contradictory things I would say it is anybody’s guess. Some
have reported that he’d passed as of 9/3/2011. Some say he is alive
and well and is in this version of the Duke Baxter Band:
http://www.dukebaxterband.com/. There seems to be no definitive answer but one thing is for
sure: Matilda is a classic from my favorite year in all of music
history.
So why was it not a hit? Possibly because it was on an
obscure label in the U.S. that had no distribution, or the fact that
he was a Canadian at a time when not many Canadian artists got
airplay in the U.S. However I have found that the single and
LP are apparently worth a great deal of money at the collector fairs
as they are going for big bucks -- anywhere from $2.99 to $19.00 for
the single, and better than $25.00 for the
LP.