999,988: Ram Jam — Black Betty

Taking a Lead Belly song sketch that was undercooked even by Lead Belly standards and stuffing it so full of prog-rock pretense that they often seem to be confusing themselves should earn Ram Jam at least a forgotten and illegible plaque outside a defunct studio somewhere. If this makes the song sound ridiculous, that's because it is—wonderfully, joyfully ridiculous. These guys married complicated, multi-segment southern rock guitarmonies to the frenzied and inexplicable tempo changes of British prog, interlaced with percussion effects and double-tracked vocals about a child who went wild, and barely sound like they had any clue what they were doing. The lyrics, ably shrieked by the rangeless Myke Scavone, do little more than serve as a backdrop for extended exercises of guitar interplay, but nonetheless produce the song's most awesome moment when everything drops out but a driving high hat and Scavone starts in earnest with the verse ("bam-a-lam!"). Though it seems like a miracle they even make it to the end of the song (checking in at just under four minutes), Ram Jam found a way to take an old idea—re-purposing the music of dead black people for white listening—and drive it to gloriously overblown heights.

Black Betty (Album Version) - ...