Have Love, Will Travel

"Have Love, Will Travel"
Single by Richard Berry
B-side	"No Room"
Released	January 1960
Genre	Rhythm and blues
Length	2:35
Label	Flip 349
Songwriter(s)	Richard Berry
Richard Berry singles chronology
"Louie Louie" (1956) "Have Love, Will Travel" (1960) "Sweet Sugar You" (1957)

"Have Love, Will Travel" is a 1959 song written and recorded by Richard Berry.^[1] While the song may have been recorded before the end of 1959, the correct release date appears to be January, 1960.^[2][3] The title is based on a popular television/radio western serial Have Gun, Will Travel.

The Sonics version

In its best known incarnation, garage rock/proto-punk band The Sonics included a "typically intense"^[4] version of the song on their 1965 album, Here Are The Sonics. Driven by a riff doubled on guitar, sax and bass, a big driving drum sound, screaming vocals and a saxophone break, it epitomized their sound.^{[citation needed]} The Sonics changed the key from G to C, modified the riff (performing it instrumentally, rather than vocally), and (while they used the original chord progression, a basic 1-4-5-4 progression, G-C-D-C in G, or C-F-G-F in C), the modified riff emphasizes cross-relations of minor/major intervals against the keyboard. The guitar in the Sonics version does not use fuzz-tone, although it seems that some have mistaken the sax for a fuzz-tone guitar.^{[citation needed]} This is the version that virtually all other performers copied after the '60s.^{[citation needed]}

Other versions

• The song was released by Paul Revere & the Raiders as a 1964 B-side.
• Other contemporary 1960s versions include Woody Carr (1964), the Gallahads (1964), the Hollywood Hurricanes (UK, 1964), the Imperialites (1964), Lee Maye (1964), the Off-Beats (1964), and Sano and the Saints Five (1966).
• Stiv Bators as a 1986 B-side.
• Crazyhead on a 1989 EP.
• Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper on the 1989 album Here Ain't The Sonics.
• Thee Headcoatees on their 1992 album Have Love Will Travel.
• Blood Sausage on their 1993 release Happy Little Bullshit Boy.
• The Brandos on their 1998 release Nowhere Zone (although it was originally recorded for their ill-fated Trial By Fire album in 1989).
• Blues rockers The Black Keys on their 2003 album Thickfreakness, their 7" vinyl single, and their 2004 EP The Moan.
• Jim Belushi and the Sacred Hearts in 2005 (who named a tour with Dan Aykroyd "The Have Love Will Travel Revue").
• Danish retro rock band The Blue Van on their 2005 album The Art of Rolling.
• Australian pop rock band The Basics covered the song on their 2007 album Stand Out/Fit In.
• In 2011, Diesel released a version as the lead single from his EP 7 Axes.
• Dutch funk band Lefties Soul Connection on their 2011 album One Punch Pete, featuring Flo Mega.
• A version by Sky Saxon, lead singer of The Seeds, was released in 2011.
• Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed it at times on their 1988 Tunnel of Love Express tour; the song appears on a 2015 release from the tour, LA Sports Arena, California 1988.^[5]
• Australian hip hop group Hilltop Hoods sampled the song in their 2018 track "Leave Me Lonely".
• The Jaded Hearts Club covered the song on their debut album "You've Always Been Here".
• A version by the indie rock band The Wallies was released in 2015 with a music video.

A different song by the same title, written by Lee Hazlewood, was released by The Sharps in 1958.

Television and movies

• The Sonics version appears in the movies RocknRolla (2008), How To Be (2008), Tournée (2010), Man Up (2015), and Ford v Ferrari (2019), in the trailer for John Wick (2014), and in the television series Misfits (2011) and Gloría (2021).
• The Sonics' version was featured in the launch advert for the then-new Land Rover Discovery in the UK from Autumn-Winter 2004
• Since 2007, a cover by Stefan Ashton Frank has been used by LV=, the UK financial services group in its television advertising for car insurance.
• The Basics from Melbourne, Australia covered the song on their 2007 album Stand Out/Fit In and their 2010 live album, and this version was used in an episode of the David Duchovny series Californication.
• The song was used in the BBC series Three Men in More Than One Boat.
• The Sonics' version was featured in September 2014 in a promo for season four of the CNN series Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, and also in October 2014 by ESPN for their tennis broadcast ads. In 2022 it was used in a Bulleit Bourbon television ad.

References