Bye Bye, Boom Boom

A fond farewell to the explosive Freddy Cannon

Jul 20, 2026

Everybody’s talking about explosive diarrhea right now, but I’d way rather talk about the explosive Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon, who passed away last week at the age of 89 on the heels of a recent cancer diagnosis.

A true rock n’ roll lifer, the man born Frederick Anthony Picariello Jr. made his lasting mark during that oft-maligned pop era bookended by Elvis Presley’s Army induction and The Beatles’ first appearance on Ed Sullivan. While the once-prevalent myth of American rock n’ roll lying comatose from March 1958 to February 1964 has long been thoroughly debunked, those still inexplicably pushing that malignant misconception would do well to throw on Freddy’s first hit, 1959’s “Tallahassee Lassie”. I defy anyone to tell me that it’s not rock n’ roll, and that it’s not exciting as hell.

Though his dark good looks would have made him difficult to pick out of a lineup that included such late-fifties Italian-American teen idols as Frankie Avalon, Bobby Darin, Paul Anka, Bobby Rydell and Fabian (and while Dick Clark had a big hand in his early career, as he did with most of the aforementioned paisani), Freddy Cannon was more rock n’ roll than all those guys put together. He steadfastly refused to perform ballads, hooted and hollered into the microphone like someone had just dropped some methamphetamine into his malted milkshake, and a great many of his songs — including stompers like “Buzz Buzz A-Diddle-It,” “The Urge,” “Humdinger” and “Transistor Sister” — seemed intentionally calculated to tweak the noses of pearl-clutching scolds like Frank Sinatra, who in 1957 had infamously described rock n’ roll as “sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons and by means of its almost imbecilic reiterations and sly, lewd—in plain fact dirty—lyrics… it manages to be the martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the earth.”

The first Freddy Cannon song I ever heard was his infectious 1962 hit “Palisades Park,” which was in semi-regular rotation on oldies-oriented Los Angeles radio station KRLA during 1978 and 1979, the years where I was hungrily learning all I could about the early rock n’ roll era via that station, my Aunt Geri’s record collection and Norm N. Nite’s Rock On: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock N’ Roll, which was the first music reference book I ever owned. (I was reunited with Nite’s tome a few years back courtesy of my old high school pal Kristin, who found a pristine copy at a Goodwill and immediately thought of me. Thanks again, Kristin!)

I instantly loved “Palisades Park,” which I would later discover was written by future Gong Show host Chuck Barris about just the sort of New Jersey amusement park where sideburned delinquents and their cretinous goon pals went to ride rollercoasters, catch rock n’ roll and R&B package shows, and hit on bouffant-haired chicks. And much later on, I would also discover that the song had had a profound effect upon the Ramones — “Oh Oh I Love Her So” is basically “Palisades Park” transferred to Coney Island, and many of their other songs (including “Rockaway Beach” and “My-My Kind of a Girl”) clearly have this Cannon/Barris classic embedded in their DNA. Not to mention that “Palisades Park,” like so many Ramones classics that followed, ends just seconds shy of the two-minute mark. Coincidence? I don’t think so…

(Though it should be noted that, weirdly enough, the Ramones’ version of “Palisades Park, which they finally recorded for their 1989 album Brain Drain, is actually 25 seconds longer than Freddy’s.)

And then there’s Freddy’s 1964hit “Abigail Beecher,” a song that I first heard 20 years after its initial release, thanks to Chicago oldies station WJMK (a.k.a. “Magic 104”). My dear friend and future Lava Sutra bandmate (and loyal JTL paid subscriber) Jason and I were completely knocked out by this raucous salute to a too-hip high school history teacher — “The PTA was really floored/When she walked in with a red surfboard” — not just because it totally ruled on its own unhinged terms, but also because its sputtering guitar riffs and jerkin’ jalopy rhythms bore a remarkably prescient sonic resemblance to the music X would make on their early albums. I mean, I’m sure Billy Zoom listened to a few Freddy Cannon records in his time, but this goes way beyond unconscious osmosis; you could just wipe Freddy’s vocals, replace ‘em with an Exene Cervenka and John Doe duet, and most listeners would just assume that this was an outtake from Wild Gift or Under the Big Black Sun…

Just influencing the Ramones and X would be impressive enough, but they weren’t the only ones who picked up on what Freddy Cannon was layin’ down. Robert Plant has claimed that Led Zeppelin worked up a blues version of “Tallahassee Lassie” during their New Yardbirds days, while The Rolling Stones, Flamin’ Groovies, Jan & Dean, Fleetwood Mac, legendary Mexican rockers Los Locos Del Ritmo and Japanese garage girls The 5.6.7.8’s are among just a few of the fifty-some acts to record covers of the song. Throw in “Palisades Park” covers by The Beach Boys, Blondie, Gary Lewis & The Playboys and The Devil Dogs, and additional Cannon fodder waxed by the estimable likes of Del Shannon, Paul Revere & The Raiders, The Ventures, The Morells, Swingin’ Neckbreakers and Eddie Angel — not to mention Mick Jagger shouting “Wooo!” on “Brown Sugar” in tribute to Freddy — you’ve got someone who unquestionably left his gloriously greasy thumbprint on rock n’ roll.

And even when his hits dried up, Freddy never phoned it in or stooped to crooning for his supper. On the latest episode of his highly-recommended podcast Straight From The Hat, my pal Ben Vaughn tells a hilarious tale of watching an oldies package gig in Philadelphia where Freddy painstakingly took it upon himself to teach his pickup backing band how to correctly play rock n’ roll. I won’t spoil it for you (Ben tells the story at the episodes 27:15 mark), but — having seen Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon in concert myself, I can definitely second Ben’s recollection of Freddy’s stage presence as edgy, confident and full of energy

I only saw him once — on Chicago’s Navy Pier in August 1980, where he opened a Saturday afternoon ChicagoFest bill that included The Coasters, The Shirelles, and headliner Chuck Berry. Unfortunately, I don’t remember most of his setlist from that afternoon; my eighth grade friend Kelly (the first “Beatlemaniac” I ever knew, who grew up to be another loyal JTL supporter — Hey, Kelly!) and I had just come from a ChicagoFest screening of the Beatles film Help!, and we were both so hopped up from watching the Fab Four that we spent more time chattering about what we’d just seen than actually paying attention to the live show in front of us. But I do recall digging Freddy’s performance of “Palisades Park,” and that he gave us the full “Boom Boom” treatment despite the fact that we were all getting pelted by unseasonably chilly rain…

But while Ben says he saw Freddy perform The Doors’ “20th Century Fox” on two different occasions, I’m quite positive that he didn’t do the song at ChicagoFest. That definitely would have stayed with me; after all, this was was just a few months after Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman’s Jim Morrison book No One Here Gets Out Alive was first published, and The Doors revival was seriously ramping up. In retrospect, it would have been pretty hilarious to see how a bunch of WLUP-addled stoners (who made up a fairly significant segment of the audience that afternoon) would have reacted to it; my guess is that they’d have seen it as an act of sacrilege.

In fact, Freddy was the very first artist to record a cover of a Doors song, an achievement which proves that Freddy — or at least his longtime producer Frank Slay, who also produced the Strawberry Alarm Clock and hired that band to back Freddy on this single — was fairly hip to the freaky new sounds emanating from the Sunset Strip. It’s a great version, and one which nicely bridges the rock n’ roll generation gap; Freddy tears into Morrison’s sardonic portrait of girlfriend Pamela Courson with the same appreciative vigor he brought to ogling Abigail Beecher, and he seems completely unfazed by the paisley party pulsating around him. I guess once you’ve successfully romanced a cute girl on Palisades Park’s Shoot the Chute, everything else is gravy…

“20th Century Fox” is one of my all-time Freddy Cannon cuts. Sadly, his version didn’t even make Billboard’s Hot 100 upon its release, which means that it (also sadly) has become the rarest and most sought-after of all Freddy’s 45s, fetching around $100 these days on the collectors’ market. That’s way too rich for my blood, but I’m always hoping I’ll get lucky some day and turn one up at a thrift shop…

Happy trails, Freddy; thanks for all the good-time music. Hope there’s some awesome rollercoasters and an excellent hot dog stand waiting for you in the next realm…