The Many Mysteries Of Nervous Norvus

The faces of novelty and oldies fans alike instantly ignite into a euphoric glow when confronted with the opening lines from "Transfusion," the ghoulish number by Nervous Norvus that was a huge hit in the summer of 1956. The zippy tale of automotive catastrophes and resultant blood-loss is rivalled only by "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haa!" as the creepiest record to ever scrape the top of the pop charts. Little has been written about Nervous Norvus since that time, and most of what has been published has been wrong. The fact that brings him to our attention here is that behind the mask of Nervous Norvus lay a song-poem demo recording artist by the name of Jimmy Drake.

Using just a crudely-strummed "king-sized uke," the heartbeat-like sound of his foot tapping the base of the mic stand, and his wilted rose of a voice, in the course of a 15-year career Drake recorded countless demos, commissioned by America's most hopeless songwriters. On those that bore any identification at all, he was usually called Singing Jimmy Drake. But the vast majority were made as acetates, hand-cut in quantities of just one or two, whose typewritten labels offered no hint to later yard-sale finders that the singer of this song had once enjoyed a Top 10 smash.

Drake maintained split musical identities, his Singing Jimmy Drake discs being quickly-made and generally uninspired affairs, while his Nervous Norvus recordings enjoyed the greater bulk of his attention and imagination. As a result, the latter still sound great today. Drake's six Nervous Norvus sides on Dot, released in a meteoric burst during the middle of 1956, form the cornerstones of his legitimate career.

Add in some excellent unreleased demos and a small handful of other Nervous Norvus records, and you have one of the richest bodies of novelty work ever made, as inventive, as timelessly fresh and as purely musical as any since Spike Jones. His songs zip and bounce along in jittery rhythms perfectly suited to the "nervous" quality of his delivery; the lyrics cleverly written in accord with conventional craft, yet informed by a unique middle-aged hepcat persona; his cutting-edge sound effects (most of them created by his mentor, radio host Red Blanchard) integrally woven so that music and effects are inseparable.