The Hondells - "Little Honda"
A lot of people remember that back in the 1960s, a second-tier surf band called The Hondells recorded a tune called "Little Honda," and that they released an album that featured the Honda Trail 90 on the cover. They were right (mostly).
The year was 1964, and Mercury Records released
Go Little Honda!
-- an LP (Mercury SR-60940) featuring surf tunes, several of which had a motorcycle theme:
At the time, the Hondells' big hit was "Little Honda," which immortalized the "groovy little motorbike," and while later they also recorded tunes like "Ride The Wild Surf," this is still what they're remembered for. The Beach Boys covered "Little Honda" and it, too, sold well for them. Brian Wilson (of the Beach Boys) actually wrote the original song. Notice that the bike pictured on the cover is actually a CT200 Trail 90, though when the song was written, it could not possibly have been about the Trail 90, as the Trail 55 was the current model. This makes sense -- in 1964, the bike still had the original engine and the thing had not yet evolved into the CT200 Trail 90 that contained the pushrod 89cc motor. Notice also that the chain is on the big sprocket, which means it's in the high-torque low range, and the song's promise of "faster, faster" probably would have meant about 20 mph on the bike in that gearing!
If you have an MP3 player installed on your machine,
click here to listen to "Little Honda," by the Hondells
(2.0MB)
If you'd rather hear
the Beach Boys' version, click here
(1.7MB)
Both tunes will download completely before they start playing. You can, in WinAmp and some other players, simply tell it to play the above URL if you want playback to start at once.
A little research uncovered an interesting recording the Hondells also did:
That little EP slipcase at the top is what I'm talking about. Here's the recording itself (sorry, no audio on this one):
Mercury 72366, "My Buddy Seat," a later Hondells hit that lists Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys as the music author. Now, I ask you: who but a
CT-90 owner
knows what a
buddy seat
is? "You're Gonna Ride With Me" is on the B side. Brian Wilson has credit for this one, too.
The Hondells didn't actually exist as a band when "Little Honda" was recorded. They were just a bunch of studio musicians who worked for a guy named Gary Usher, songwriting partner of Brian Wilson, and they'd record as one band name one day, and another the next. When "Little Honda" took off, eventually reaching #9 on the charts, one of the backup singers, Ritchie Burns, who'd sung on the record, was asked to "lead" the group on tour. The cover pictures on the album, as a matter of fact, were a bunch of Burns' friends, none of whom had actually had anything to do with making the record! They assembled a group, called it The Hondells, and went out touring to promote the records. Among other things, "The Hondells" appeared in
Beach Blanket Bingo
with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello in 1965.
Gradually, recordings became fewer and fewer, and The Hondells disappeared in 1970, but not without leaving behind a classic tribute to what would eventually become the Honda CT90.
Last updated:
03/10/2005