A nation's dirty anthem

All Red Sox fans by now know the team's victory anthem "Dirty Water," which blares from the Fenway Park sound system after every Sox victory.

But few know the song was written by a band from Los Angeles in the 1960s, and even fewer the incredible journey the song took before it was resurrected as the Red Sox victory anthem in 1998 following a walk-off home run by Mo Vaughn on opening day.

But fans now can get the whole story, thanks to two local authors.

Chuck Burgess of Norwood teamed up with Bill Nowlin of Cambridge to write "Love That Dirty Water: The Standells and the Improbable Red Sox Victory Anthem."

It is a book chronicling the strange story of how a hit song by a 1960's-era garage band from Los Angeles ended up being adopted as the Red Sox victory song.

The story is a crazy one that winds its way from the Mickey Mouse Club to the Four Preps to the Rolling Stones and eventually to a conversation between two Beatles' fans that led to the resurrection of the defunct band and a reunion show at Fenway Park during the 2004 World Series.

Burgess, a retired school administrator in Boston, who carved out a separate career in the music industry as a deejay and later radio host, came up with the idea to write about The Standells and the "Dirty Water" phenomenon.

As part of another project, Burgess was interviewing Dick Dodd of The Standells and talking about the group's biggest hit when Burgess started thinking about the Red Sox and how the song has been adopted by the team's fans.

"The wheels started turning," Burgess said yesterday.

Burgess said he knew he could handle the rock 'n' roll end of the project, but he needed help to weave in the Red Sox and its long history with music dating back to "Tessie," which was the unofficial Red Sox theme song in during the 1904 pennant race only to re-emerge in later years.

Burgess thought of Nowlin, a Lexington native and Red Sox historian who has penned 15 published books including "Mr. Red Sox: The Johnny Pesky Story," "Fenway Lives," "Ted Williams: The Pursuit of Perfection," and "Blood Feud: The Red Sox, the Yankees, and The Struggle of Good vs. Evil."

Nowlin is vice president of the Society for American Baseball Research and publications editor for the Ted Williams Museum in Florida, but his other love is music, which led him in 1970 to form Rounder Records.

Over the years, Rounder has blossomed into one of America's largest independently owned record labels that now has more than 80 employees and a roster of clients that includes such luminaries as Alison Krauss and Mary Chapin Carpenter.

Burgess told him his idea, but Nowlin was skeptical.

"I had a negative reaction to it initially," said Nowlin. "And the people at Rounder (Books) were even more negative about it than I was."

Nowlin was concerned the concept wasn't big enough for a book.

But Nowlin said, like the famous riffs of the opening of "Dirty Water," the idea stuck in his head.

The two started doing research and realized there was more than enough material for a book. Between the story of the murky origins of the song written by the now-deceased Ed Cobb, and the song's whimsical resurrection as a Fenway Park staple, Burgess and Nowlin had more than enough material.

Both say they are pleased with the finished product that is garnering a lot of attention during the Red Sox playoff push.

"We see it as a nostalgic trip down memory lane for older readers and a kind of history lesson for younger readers," said Burgess.

Both authors are hoping Red Sox fans will have an insatiable thirst for dirty water this playoff season.

Daily News staff writer Brian Falla can be reached at 781-433-8339 or bfalla@cnc.com