Dirty Water

In the summer of 1966, I was a 14 year-old Yohawk-wannabe wandering the streets of Ottawa with my skateboard in search of the perfect sloped roadway. The other youth "gang" in those days was the Squirrels. We were kinda like Ottawa's answer to Britain's Mods and Rockers - without the violence. One of the coolest songs from our summer of tight faded jeans and suede desert boots was Dirty Water, a shuffling bluesy tune about Boston.

But guess what. The group that sang with such authority about the river Charles was an outfit from Los Angeles. The Standells formed in 1962 and finally in 1966 hit the charts with Dirty Water. It would be the biggest hit of the Standells' career.

A little trivia: Singer Dick Dodd was the group's drummer. In his younger days he was a Mouseketeer. Prior to the group's break-up in 1968, future Little Feat founder Lowell George played guitar with the group.

The song lives on. It's been played after every Red Sox Victory at Fenway Park since 1997.

Here's a relic of a lip-synced performance of Dirty Water from back in the day...