The Panting Panther

From Eddie Weldon's Home Page

The Panting Panther
a.k.a. “Eddie Weldon,” “Mr. D.J. USA,” the “Panting Panther,” and the “Shooting Star of North America”

Cooler Weather

Marly Records

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The very tiny obscure Marly label was from the West Coast. I know only two other releases on the label : Gerry Maplewood (1960) and Rue Barclay.

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Regarding The Panting Panther, the following information is from a PowerPoint document found HERE

DIGRESSION: REST IN PEACE?

o Clair E. Weldon—a.k.a. “Eddie Weldon,” “Mr. D.J. USA,” the “Panting Panther,” and the “Shooting Star of North America”—recorded and broadcasted under his various performance monikers throughout the 1950s and 1960s

o Under the moniker “Panting Panther” on a song titled “Cooler Weather,” Weldon became one of the first popular musicians to cross what then was known as the “color line,” singing with the backing of an African-American blues combo

o Today he continues to work in entertainment, largely under the name “Eddie Weldon”

o A recording firm, having heard nothing of the “Panting Panther” in decades, re-released “Cooler Weather” on an anthology CD with liner notes describing the artists as intellectually inferior “white trash”—and with a somewhat bizarre cover photograph

o Having made no effort to consult Weldon either prior to or after the re-release, they mistakenly assumed the “Panther” to have panted his last

o (Lawsuit, anyone?)

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