Unraveling the Story Behind the Sam the Sham Classic
Despite the robes and headdress, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs were part of the Tex-Mex musical tradition of Doug Sahm and Freddy Fender. Sam is Domingo Samudio, a Dallas, Texas rocker whose first and biggest hit was 1964’s “Wooly Bully.”
Samudio told Classic Bands how his name and the band’s were created.
“Everyone was calling me ‘Sam,’ short for Samudio and what I was doing, fronting the band and cutting up was called ‘shamming.’ We got the rest of the name from the movie The Ten Commandments. Old Ramses, the King of Egypt, looked pretty cool, so we decided to become the Pharaohs.”
“Wooly Bully” started as a dance song about the Hully Gully, but Pen Records lawyers advised Samudio to change the lyrics. Samudio replaced the title with his cat’s name, Wooly Bully.
"Wooly Bully" by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs
The memorable countdown of the song, “Uno, Dos… One, Two, Tres, Quatro!” was a happy accident between Samudio and bassist David Martin. Samudio told Jeff Jarema in Here ’Tis magazine, “I used to goof off. We’re talkin’ Tex-Mex … David and I. We’re half-Spanish and half-English. We’d gone to the same high school and we’d just shuck ’n’ jive back ’n’ forth, half-Spanish and half-English.
“So, I counted it off in Tex-Mex. I didn’t intend for that to stay there and Stan Kesler, the producer, said, ‘Man, that’s wild. Let me leave that on there.’ I said, ‘Naw, man, don’t leave that on there’ and we argued and he won the argument. I’m kinda glad he did.”
Three takes of “Wooly Bully” were recorded but the first, countdown included, was released. The lyrics were difficult to understand; some radio stations banned the song, thinking it was suggestive. When Samudio sings, “Let’s not be L-7” he means, “Let’s not be square,” which is the shape made by the fingers when making an “L” on one hand and a “7” on the other.
“Wooly Bully” became a huge hit, selling three million copies, the first American record to sell a million copies during the British Invasion.
“Wooly Bully”
Uno, dos… one, two, tres, quatro
Matty told Hatty about a thing she saw
Had two big horns and a wooly jaw
Wooly Bully, Wooly Bully
Wooly Bully, Wooly Bully, Wooly Bully
Hatty told Matty, let’s don’t take no chance
Let’s not be L-7, come and learn to dance
Wooly Bully, Wooly Bully
Wooly Bully, Wooly Bully, Wooly Bully
Matty told Hatty, that’s the thing to do
Get you someone really to pull the wool with you
Wooly Bully, Wooly Bully.
Wooly Bully, Wooly Bully, Wooly Bully
Songwriter: Domingo Samudio
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Tree Publishing, Three Wise Boys Music LLC, Beckie Publishing Co., Inc.
Mastropolo is the author of Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever and New York Groove: An Inside Look at the Stars, Shows, and Songs That Make New York Rock, selected by Best Classic Bands as two of the Best Music Books of 2021 and 2022.
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