Googie René Combo – Smokey Joe’s La La

1st November 2021 · 1960s, 1966, Music

The first time I heard this was in the musical car chase movie Baby Driver, which I love.

But the first time I found out what it was was when I heard the director, Edgar Wright, interviewed on 6Music yesterday while I was driving to visit my mum.

It’s the track he chose from a hit-filled soundtrack – if you haven’t seen it, the entire film is synchronised to a soundtrack of pop hits from all eras – and I’m glad he did.

I’d never heard of Googie René before, and I’ve never heard another tune by him. He was never a star.

Despite the French name, he was an American bandleader, songwriter and musician who recorded with his orchestra as the Googie René Combo (and the more exotic-sounding “Googie René et son orchestre”) from the mid-Fifties to the mid-Sixties.

In fact he was from Los Angeles and he started out running a record label (Class Records) with his father in LA and playing keyboards as a session man on several early rock’n’roll recordings.

He made his own recording debut in 1957 with the Googie René Combo but never really found success, though their recordings in the early 1960s have been described as “the start of hipster lounge music: a form of jazz-infused pop with an easy-listening sheen.”

This would seem an example of that, though it wasn’t a hit and I have no idea how or where (or when) Edgar Wright came across it because he didn’t mention that in his interview.

If it had been me interviewing him, and not Miranda Sawyer, I would definitely have asked.