The Gatorvettes, El Paso

THE GATORVETTES- If It's Tonight b/w Midnight (Bocaldun 1001)

I've been on the hunt for a Bocaldun 45 for some time. It started when I was shown a colored copy of Sue Black and Knightsmen's "Pistol Packin' Mama" by a local dealer. Seeing as how it carried an Odessa address I figured scoring a copy of my own would a breeze.

That was probably '98 or '99. My heart sunk a bit a few years back with the publication of the great Chicano Soul, wherein author Ruben Molina noted that Johnny Trujillo and his Knightsmen were an El Paso group, meaning I had little chance of finding a 'wild' copy of that Bocaldun 45. Not around here anyway. Every so often I've checked the RCS website and looked at the label, listened to the clip, and wondered about Johnny, Sue, and more importantly... what were Bocaldun 1001, 1002, 1003, and 1004. Unless they were incredibly rare they weren't rockabilly discs. And they weren't popping up in normal listed-by-label price guides, either. I had never thought about the doo wop or teener guides though. Whatever those missing records were they had to be rare, undesirable, or both.

Then Bocaldun 1001 popped up on some internet auction site I can't even remember the name of at this point. 1001, by the Gatorvettes was good. Really good. An outstanding east coast styled uptempo chanter flipped with a dreamy slowie. I began wondering if it was too good. Shouldn't something this sharp- though unknown and strictly regional upon it's 1959 release- be known by now? Wouldn't 50 years have at least created some sort of cache among the doo wop elite?

The fine folks at the Doo Wop forum at the Cyberranch (HERE) were extremely helpful. Like with the news (to me) that Bocaldun 1001 by the Gatorvettes was previously issued on the Thunder label, which carries the same address and a similar vibe style-wise. And for whatever reason Bocaldun 1001 went through two pressings, with another pressing changing publishing credits and dropping the address. Awfully odd... a release on one label goes nowhere and so you seemingly create another label to reissue the single and then press it up again with new publishing info. Lot of work for a 45 which wasn't exactly getting snapped up.

So... the Gatorvettes. Though a band base in the wilds southeastern New Mexico wouldn't be out of the question, a more likely scenario would have been this group working out of El Paso and taking their name from the famed residents of San Jacinto Plaza downtown. The alligators, which first arrived in San Jacinto square prior to the start of the 20th century, served as a source of pride and wonder for the inhabitants of the largest Texas city west of I-35 for over 80 years, finally being removed for good in the early 1970s. Whereas New York's doo wop combos were known for singing on the corner, perhaps the Gatorvettes sharpened their skills at La Plaza de los Lagartos.