Haunted House - Gene Simmons - 1964

For this post, let's venture outside of Birmingham, Alabama down to New Orleans. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, New Orleans was a hot bed of fresh new songs and new talent. The song featured today is the classic named "Haunted House". " Haunted House" was originally recorded by New Orleans artist Johnny Fuller in 1958. But the most popular version remembered today was recorded by Gene Simmons in 1964. A couple years later I was performing with a band and our lead singer was Ray Hogan who played piano and sang just like Jerry Lee Lewis. For several weeks we performed at a really nice club in Northern Jefferson County on old Highway 78 just south of the Walker County line. The club was called Queen of Clubs and it lived up to it's name. The first floor was really big featuring a large bandstand and extra large dance floor with tables and booths lining the walls. The second floor was shaped like a large bowl with a dining area on the outside and the middle totally open so people dining there could look down on the bandstand and dance floor below. I can only guess at the capacity but it had to easily be 300 or more and it was totally packed every weekend because Walker County was dry at the time.
So, back to our song. Gene Simmons signed with Memphis recording label Sun Records in 1958 as an artist and song writer. He recorded some songs but none became hits so most of his time was spent as a studio musician and as an opening act for label mate Elvis while on tour. He also traveled a lot with Elvis on movie locations to play on different songs for the movie and even doubled for Elvis in the diving scenes for the movie Fun in Acapulco. Then, in 1964, when Domingo Samudio (better known at Sam the Sham) was asked to re-record a cover of Haunted House, he declined. Simmons volunteered to do the job and the rest is history.
And, as fate would have it, Gene was dating a girl in Birmingham at the time we were playing at the Queen of Clubs and every Friday evening Gene would leave Memphis down highway 78 to Birmingham. It didn't take long for Gene to discover that we were performing a lot of songs as another of his label mates, Jerry Lee Lewis, and as good as Jerry Lee himself. So, Gene started stopping by the club every Friday night to sit in with us for a set before continuing down to Birmingham.
Sadly, Ray passed away several years ago and Gene Simmons died at age 73 on August 29, 2006, on the 42nd anniversary of "Haunted House's" entrance into the top 40, after a long illness. As a side note, Kiss bass player Gene Simmons (birth name: Chaim Witz) chose his stage name as a tribute to the singer.
So on this post, we take the original artist Johnny Fuller's song and play the second version by Gene Simmons in a rare stereo version where I have dubbed the bass part so you can hear what we sounded like years ago at The Queen of Clubs.