Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs

Best known for their 1965 smash "Wooly Bully," which helped introduce Tex-Mex rhythms to mainstream rock & roll, Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs were formed in Dallas by lead singer Domingo Samudio, who took the name Sam the Sham from a joke about his inability as a vocalist. The Pharaohs consisted of guitarist Ray Stinnet, bassist David Martin, saxophonist Butch Gibson, and drummer Jerry Patterson…

The Complete Wooly Bully Years 1963-1968 includes six albums on three CDs plus bonus recordings, including non-LP singles. The quintessential Tex-Mex band of the 1960s, Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs hailed from Dallas, Texas where Domingo "Sam" Samudio was born in 1937 and raised. After chart success eluded them after recording Haunted House for the Dingo label in 1965 they landed a contract with MGM Records, home of such rock 'n' roll artists as Roy Orbison, The Animals, and Herman's Hermits.

As part of MCA's 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection, the 12-track Best of Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs disc highlights the group's best-known material originally released on MGM in the mid-'60s. Besides the obvious hit singles "Wooly Bully" and "Lil' Red Riding Hood," the real highlights are the timeless "Ring Dang Doo," "(I'm in With) The Out Crowd," "Oh That's Good, No That's Bad," and "Ju Ju Hand." This is fun stuff with more groove and a slight edginess that, criminally, Sam the Sham was never given proper credit for.

Formed in Dallas and led by a dynamic turban-wearing lead singer and organist named Domingo Samudio, Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs were a garage bar band gone huge (it has been long rumored that they could play six hours straight without repeating a tune), and by mixing blues, R&B, and Tex-Mex together with a loopy sense of humor and sly lyrics, they stomped into pop history with the iconic party anthem “Wooly Bully,” which hit the number two spot on the pop charts right in the middle of the British Invasion in 1965. Aside from that record, though, and “Li’l Red Riding Hood” a year later in 1966, the group wouldn’t have that kind of chart success again, and Samudio and his band went down into most people’s annals as a one-hit wonder.

The "In Crowd - The Ultimate Collection" from the original style movement 1958-1967 was a monumental music collection, and the fact that it managed to collect such a wide and eclectic movement made the album essential. What stood out was the fact that the album for the most part stayed away from the obvious tracks and wasn't simply a greatest hits of the sixties album.