I'm a little late, but March 1967 saw the release of The Left Banke's third single, "Ivy Ivy"...




Hailing from New York City, The Left Banke were one of the very finest purveyors of baroque pop in the mid-to-late '60s. Taking their cues from records like the Rolling Stones' "Lady Jane", The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby", and The Beach Boys "God Only Knows", the band wrote haunting, Beatley pop songs, liberally coated in symphonic strings, woodwind, brass and harpsichord.

Guided by their Brian Wilson-esque musical mastermind, Michael Brown (later of Montage, the Stories and the Beckies), the band's biggest hit was the self-penned "Walk Away Renée", which reached #5 on the Billboard charts and which was later covered by the Four Tops. Their follow up single was the achingly beautiful "Pretty Ballerina", which Brown also wrote and which made #15 in the U.S.

However, prior to the recording of "Ivy Ivy", Brown had a falling out with the rest of the band and, as a result, recorded the group's third single with session musicians, including future folk singer-songwriter Bert Sommer on lead vocals. The original members of the Left Banke were incensed and apparently issued a cease and desist order through their lawyers, which led to confusion among radio DJs over whether they should play the single or not. The song's poor chart showing (it only reached #119 on the Billboard chart) is usually attributed to this confusion. Still, within a few months the band had all made up and it was the original members who would appear on subsequent singles and the band's second album, The Left Banke Too.

As for "Ivy Ivy", it's an achingly delicate piece of pop wonderment, beautifully written, arranged and performed by Brown and his hired hands. The song is dripping in mildly hallucinogenic autumnal melancholy, and, as such, is the perfect companion piece to Jefferson Airplane's "Coming Back To Me" (which was released a month earlier).

You'll have to explain to me how the Country Music Hall of Fame is any better than the Rock 'n' Roll one, Slam, because I'm really not that knowledgable about it. However, superficially it seems to me to be much the same self-serving organisation, run by old, out of touch codgers, with a perculiarly blinkered and myopic vision of what actually constitutes the best of the genre the Hall of Fame is supposed to represent.

One thing's for sure though, how any organisation calling itself a Country Music Hall of Fame can not have inducted the likes of John Denver, Clarence White, Gram Parsons or even dear ol' Dwight Yoakam yet, is utterly beyond me.

2 reasons The Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame inducts more people per year are

It didn't start until 1983

It inducts more than pure Rock N' Roll acts. It includes Blues, R&B,Soul, Reggae and Hip Hop . They also induct early influences on the rock genre including jazz and country stars (examples like Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Bill Monroe etc). They also induct important music executives and critics and managers 

Sorry Ish, but this made me snort. The number of Hip Hop or Reggae artists that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame have inducted is tiny. Like, count them on one hand tiny.

I'm just really cynical about any organisation like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, or even music awards ceremonies like the Grammys or the BRIT Awards. They're just huge marketing exercises, with the scum-sucking business execs who run the industry patting themselves on the back, while trying to convince the public at large that their event or organisation is something that's actually important.

In the case of awards shows like the Grammys or the BRITS, I always think that the artists who perform at these events are performing "Live from Corporate Headquarters", which really isn't very rock 'n' roll.

I'm from a small town in the Buckinghamshire countryside, where, historically, there's been a lot of inbreeding, so I can still count them on one hand.