Bakersfield, California · Audan Record Company, 1962
Ronnie Cook was a Bakersfield native and rhythm-and-blues singer who had already fronted The Diamonds and released “Doin’ Time” on Lew Bedell’s Dore label in 1961. In 1962 he and the Gaylads recorded “The Goo Goo Muck” — a song he had co-written — for the Audan Record Company, a small operation in his home town. It was a regional novelty hit that never travelled beyond Kern County, and Cook moved on to better luck elsewhere, turning up with the Los Angeles soul group the Superbs, who had a hit in 1964 with “Baby Baby All The Time”, and the doo-wop act the Rivieras. He is the reason the song exists at all, and for sixty years almost nobody knew his name.