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" Wooly Bully" is a song originally recorded by rock and roll band Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs in 1964. Based on a standard 12-bar blues progression, it was written by the band's frontman, Domingo "Sam" Samudio. It was released as a single on the small Memphis-based XL label (#906) in 1964 and was picked up in 1965 by MGM. The song was recorded at Sam C. Phillips Recording Studio at 639 Madison Avenue in Memphis, the successor to Phillips' original Sun Studio.
The song was the first American record to sell a million copies during the British Invasion and was influenced by the British rock sound which was mixed with traditional Mexican-American conjunto rhythms. It stayed in the Hot 100 for 18 weeks, the longest time for any song in 1965, and was nominated for a Grammy Award. It was named Billboard's number-one song of the year despite never reaching No. 1 on a weekly Hot 100, making this the first occurrence of such an event on the Hot 100. On August 5, 1965, the single was certified as gold by the RIAA. It was later included on the band's 1965 album Wooly Bully.
The lyrics of "Wooly Bully" were hard to understand, in consequence, some radio stations banned the song. The lyrics describe a conversation between "Mattie" and "Hattie" concerning the "Wooly Bully" (a creature which Mattie describes as "a thing she saw that had two big horns and a wooly jaw" – that is, an American bison) and the desirability of developing dancing skills, although no attempt is made to synthesize these divergent topics. The warning "Let's not be L-7" means "Let's not be square", from the shape formed by the fingers making an L on one hand and a 7 on the other. Sam the Sham underscores the Tejano music nature of the song by counting out the rhythm in Spanish language and English ("Uno! Dos! One, two, tres, cuatro!"), and the characteristic simple organ , with a tenor saxophone solo in the middle. According to Samudio, "The count down part of the song was also not planned. I was just goofing around and counted off in Tex-Mex. It just blew everybody away, and actually, I wanted it taken off the record. We did three takes, all of them different, and they took the first take and released it."
Gonzo the Great, Rizzo the Rat, and Fozzie Bear covered the song for the 1993 album Muppet Beach Party. Vinnie Jones and the Soul Survivors released a cover version in 1993. The Tubes included a song on their final album from 1985, Love Bomb, entitled "Theme from a Wooly Place," a mashup in which the string arrangement for "Theme from A Summer Place" was played over "Wooly Bully" for 46 seconds. Another cover of the song was made by Canned Heat. The Iranian musical group Zinguala Ha covered the song, renamed it to "Atal Matal”. It was featured on the Raks Raks Raks – 27 Golden Garage-psych Nuggets From The Iranian 60s Scene compilation. Ace Cannon recorded an instrumental version for his 1967 album Memphis Golden Hits. Disco Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes released a version of the song on their 1977 album, A Piece of the Rock.
In 1966 SFR Yugoslavia beat band Tomi Sovilj i Njegove Siluete released "Vule bule", a Serbo-Croatian version of the song. Their version was covered in 1991 by alternative rock band Bjesovi on their debut album U osvit zadnjeg dana.
In the Philippines, a cover version was sung during EDSA II at EDSA Shrine for a protest to impeach Joseph Estrada who resigned as president two days later.
The 1972 song "C Moon" by Wings was inspired by the lyric "Let's not be L-7" from "Wooly Bully." Paul McCartney created "C Moon" to contrast the L-7 neologism featured in "Wooly Bully" as a different signal to be made on the hands, meaning "cool" rather than "square." The phrase "L-7" is also referred to in the lyrics to "C Moon."
The final episode (14) of season 4 (1987–88) of the TV series Moonlighting features a skit performance of “Wooly Bully” by character Herb Viola (Curtis Armstrong), based on the pretense that the writers’ strike left the show 10 minutes short. Moonlighting "Wooly Bully" via YouTube
In a promotion for an upcoming episode of the sitcom Frasier that saw Woody Boyd (the character portrayed by Woody Harrelson on Cheers) visit the title character (played by Kelsey Grammer on both shows) in Seattle, NBC played a re-recording of the song, under the title "Woody Woody".
In 2009, the original 1965 release of the song on the MGM label by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
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