This is an instrumental featuring jazzy piano chord changes. I liked it well enough to listen to the whole thing. Something I noticed was that the recording contained the sort of small imperfections that are always heard when something is recorded live. In modern recordings, these would have been edited or spliced out until perfection was achieved; I kind of like the older way of doing things better.
Ernie Freeman (1922-1981) was born in Cleveland, Ohio and started playing in nightclubs there when he was a teenager. He fronted an all-black US Navy band during the war and then moved to California. His performing and arranging credits include:
He won Grammy awards for his arrangements of the last two.
Freeman reached #4 on the Billboard pop chart and #1 on the R&B chart in 1957 with his version of "Raunchy"; this likely slightly predated the CHUM Chart, which didn't come into existence until June 1957. It's a fun bit of early rockish rhythm that doesn't give Freeman the opportunity to show off his piano chops. "Swamp Meeting" was originally released in 1960 as the B-side of a single and didn't appear on the US national charts; this is probably an example of CHUM's program director liking a song and deciding to put it into rotation.
Freeman retired from the music business in the 1970s; according to sources cited in his Wikipedia page, he had struggles with alcohol. He died of a heart attack at the age of 58.
Created January 1, 2026.