The Wheel-A-Ways were actually a pseudonym of the Wheels, a good but minor Irish band that laid down some very Them-like tracks in the mid-1960s. When the Wheels' original number Bad Little Woman was released in the United States on the Aurora label in 1966, Aurora put it out under the name of the Wheel-A-Ways, to avoid confusion with Mitch Ryder the Detroit Wheels. The irony is that this decision has been the cause of much confusion among devoted British Invasion collectors since that time, causing uncertainty as to whether the Wheel-A-Ways were the same band as the Wheels. It would have been a simple matter to determine if the version of Bad Little Woman on the Wheel-A-Ways' single was the same as the one the Wheels had released on Columbia in the UK in 1966. But no! It wasn't; it was a superior, less restrained alternate take of the same song. The liner notes to the compilation Belfast Beat Maritime Blues, however, confirm that the Wheels and the Wheel-A-Ways were in fact the same band.

What is more important, however, is that the Wheel-A-Ways' version of Bad Little Woman is a killer song. One of the best obscure British mid-1960s R&B tracks, it is an inverted, ominous take on the Gloria riff and rhythm, accelerated into a wild bashing rave-up with screaming vocals, then cooling off with lone, creepy slides down a guitar, answered by a lonesome harmonica. It was covered by the Shadows of Knight, who somehow got exposed to either the Wheels' or the Wheel-A-Ways' version, for a small hit in the US.

The Wheel-A-Ways' rendition of Bad Little Woman was reissued on some collections of obscure British Invasion music, but appears in its best sound quality on the Big Beat compilation Belfast Beat Maritime Blues, which anthologizes mid-1960s R&B-rock music from several Belfast groups. Belfast Beat Maritime Blues also includes the tamer version of Bad Little Woman that was credited to the Wheels on their 1966 British single, as well as ten other songs by the Wheels, taken from their UK singles and unreleased outtakes. ~ Richie Unterberger, Rovi