California Sun is trip! It’s the ultimate cover song. Originally written by Henry Glover, a songwriter and record label exec, who did the horn arrangements for The Band’s “The Last Waltz”, it has a co-writing credit by Levy Morris, owner of Roulette Records and known associate of the Genovese crime family, and it was first recorded by Joe Jones in a great r & b version.
It became a huge hit when it was recorded by The Rivieras in 1963, and has been hailed as the last great American rock’n’roll song before the British Invasion hit the states in 1964. In 1975 it made it to New York and was kicked in to high gear by first The Dictators and, famously, got even faster when Dee Dee Ramone counted “ONE, TWO, THREE”.