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Post by Ish Kabbible on May 24, 2017 9:59:09 GMT -5
50 Years Ago Today-Week 4 May 1967
We end the month still "Groovin' " to The Rascals at the #1 slot. Been a long time since I was last groovin'. Be that as it may, elsewhere in the top 40 a long, long time ago:
Every Mother's Son was a clean-cut band coming from folk rock roots in Greenwich Village NYC. Their debut single was their biggest hit, climbing to #6. They looked so squeaky clean that they appeared on many TV shows in 1967 including a 2-part Man From U.N.C.L.E. episode. Their follow-up album released at the end of the year didn't come close to the initial success and they all quit and went back home to Mama.
Dionne Warwick had many hits throughout the 1960's, most often with songs penned by Burt Bacharach & Hal David. Bacharach/David were comissioned to write a theme song for the UK movie "Alfie" starring Michael Caine. They wrote the song with Warwick as the intended singer but the movie producer's insisted a British performer should sing the song. Cilia Black recorded the tune and it was released a few months before the film. It reached #9 in the UK but only #95 in the US. Then when time to record the film's soundtrack, Cher wound up getting the honor. Her version got to #35 in the US during 1966.Other artists jumped in with cover versions in time of the film's release including Jack Jones, Carmen McRae and Vicki Carr. In total 8 versions of the song was available for the movie debut. After the feeding frenzy died down, Bacharach & David presented it to Warwick who they always wanted to sing the song at the end of 1966 for her next album. It wasn't meant to be released as a single (by this time there were 42 versions of the song). But Warwick's record label was quite impressed with her take and pressed it to a 45' by March 1967, long after the film itself left the theaters. Lo and behold, it turned out as the most lucrative version of them all, topping out at #15. Dozens of other versions came out later from folks like Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, Vanessa Williams, Buddy Rich, Midge Ure, Maynard Ferguson....what a crazy business!
The Turtles are back to add to their string of hits. All ready scoring a #1 in 1967 with "Happy Together" they reached #3 with "She'd Rather Be With Me". Did I mention last time that after The Turtles disbanded, lead singer Howard Kaylan and be-speckled Mark Volman briefly joined Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention?
The Music Explosion, your typical one-hit wonder, came out of Ohio. "A Little Bit Of Soul" was an early production from Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz who will later be the architects behind the Bubble Gum music trend later in the decade. This song charged up the charts to #2
I've a good mind to dump this into the cringe-worthy category. It uses the opening of "Cool Jerk" and then overwhelms the ear with sugary sweet lyrics. Thankfully Jon & Robin only had this one hit which reached #18. Unbelievably, the writer for this song, Wayne Thompson, also wrote the great song done by The Boxtops later this year- "The Letter"
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Post by berkley on May 24, 2017 16:36:11 GMT -5
I think Come on Down to My Boat has a pretty decent chorus but the verses are nowhere - they barely even qualify as filler.
Turtles song is pretty nice. I remember Flo & Eddie later n as music journalists of a sort. They frequently produced music features for my all-time favourite talk show, a Canadian one from the late 70s called 90 Minutes Live. Couldn't find much on youtube but here they are interviewing David Bowie:
Dionne Warwick had such incredible voice control. I get shivers listening to the way she goes from soft to hard "What's it ALL about!" while still keeping perfectly in tune. What a contrast the divas of a generation or two later who tended to belt everything out at full volume whenever they got a chance.
The Jon & Robin thing is another one that almost has the makings of a pleasantly melodic pop song but doesn't quite get there - and yes, the repetitively sappy lyrics get are part of the problem. I hear a bit of the Mamas and the Papas in the female vocal on the verses.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on May 24, 2017 19:18:51 GMT -5
Speaking of Flo and Eddie, former member of The Turtles, here they are when they teamed up with Frank Zappa and The Mothers
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Post by Ish Kabbible on May 27, 2017 15:33:44 GMT -5
Legendary blues/rock singer/keyboardist Gregg Allman has passed away at the age of 69. Co-founder of the southern rock band The Allman Brothers, he now joins his sibling Duane. R.I.P. Gregg
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 28, 2017 6:19:59 GMT -5
Legendary blues/rock singer/keyboardist Gregg Allman has passed away at the age of 69. Co-founder of the southern rock band The Allman Brothers, he now joins his sibling Duane. R.I.P. Gregg Reposting this from my Facebook... Just read this morning that Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers Band passed away yesterday. Real shame...as well as being a southern rock pioneer, he also wrote some fantastic songs and had a lovely, world weary and whiskey-soaked voice. Here's a video of him with the Allmans, singing the song "Melissa", which is one of my favourites of his (check out the wonderful Dickey Betts on lead guitar too!)... |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on May 29, 2017 2:25:08 GMT -5
Odds And Sods Of April 1967-Conclusion
Noteworthy songs, for one reason or other, that debuted in April 1967. These failed to break into the Top 40 and therefore had limited airplay. Except here. Except now.You lucky bastards.
Justice Society member Johnny Thunder ordered his genie Thunderbolt "Cei-U, I'd like to have a hit record on the radio". Thunderbolt was feeling a bit mischievous at that time.Yeah, he'll give him a hit record, but only on R&B radio stations. And yeah, he'll have to share it with a female singer-Ruby Winters. Oh that Thunderbolt-what a prankster
The Yardbirds were a great blues/rock outfit from England. Originally Eric Clapton was their lead guitarist but quit when he thought the group was veering away from blues to pop. Guitarist Jeff Beck then joined and gave the band a "psychedelic" sound. Constant touring and constant arguments and led Beck to quit as well. Bass player Jimmy Page took over lead guitar which results with this single 'Little Games" from the US album of the same name. The Yardbirds had 5 Top 20 hits in the States from their earlier lineups,"For Your Love", "Heart Full Of Soul", "I'm A Man", "Over Under Sideways Down" and "Shape Of Things". But by this time the band was heading to final disintegration and "Little Games" only got up to #45
Brenda Holloway's "Just look What You've Done" has that classic Motown sound.She broke into the Top 40 twice before with "Every Little Bit Hurts" and "When I'm Gone". This song only got to #69 and deserved better. She'll be back one more time later in 1967 within my postings, as the writer of a song that did gangbusters -but not so much for her
Get your motors running and head out on the highway. Davie Allan and the Arrows are on the turntable
Don and the Good Times had one big hit-in Los Angeles, reaching #15. It was #56 in the rest of the country. Which was early proof of the dangers of smog
The Seeds, a proto-punk band had the iconic hit "Pushin' Too Hard". "Can't Seem To Make You Mine" didn't quite reach that level, even with Bette Page
The 5th Dimension's 2nd single didn't break the Top 40 like their debut and many of their follow ups. Nobody's perfect
Fans of the Bangles would be interested in this, the original version of a great song, by The Merry Go Round. A personal favorite of mine, Emmitt Rhodes, who released a great solo album in the early 1970's, was a member of this group
Lou "Lightning Strikes" Christie with the highest falsetto this side of Frankie Valli weighs in at #95
Me gusto The Baja Marimba Band
It took a double sized edition to get through April's Odd's and Sods. I wonder what May will be like.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jun 1, 2017 19:05:33 GMT -5
It Was 50 Years Ago Today, Sgt Pepper taught the world to play. Their album. So much has been written about this landmark album released 50 years ago today, enough to fill volumes of books, that I need not go into all the ways it was groundbreaking. However, upon reflection with the weekly Top 40 songs I post, there is one point that now stands out to me.This is from an American perspective. The Beatles stopped touring at the end of the summer of 1966 to devote all their future energies towards the recording studio and to take a much needed break from years of constant activity. They also decided at this point that the singles they released would not be replicated on the albums. In their minds this would be giving fans more for their money, not buying the same song twice. So after more than 6 months of no new Beatles songs, in Feb 1967 they released the single Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever. 4 months later, the album Sgt Pepper came out. No single from that album. No single from that album. In other words, nothing from that album got played on Top 40 radio stations that strictly adhered to that format. Which most of the major ones did. Which means the world's best known rock band who had mostly been in hiding for almost a year and released a paucity of new music during that time, had a full album almost unheard in the biggest music carrier medium. No singles meant no AM airplay and also meant no jukeboxes playing cuts from the album The majority of homes at this time did not have FM radio yet. FM car radios were just beginning to be offered in most models during 1964/65 and were in the minority. FM transistor radio was also a somewhat rare and expensive option. What a windfall this must have been for the fledgling rock FM stations that were just now sprouting up in the USA. They pretty much had the exclusive opportunity to play the album. I'm sure they where constantly announcing when next they would play some cuts. In fact, I'm sure there were announcements of them playing the complete album without commercial breaks. I was an FM radio listener by 1969 and complete album airplay was not unusual at that time. The Beatle's Sgt Pepper album, I believe, helped to expand the FM listening audience as well as help individual stations use it as a lure to get listeners be loyal to their station.  |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jun 2, 2017 17:51:04 GMT -5
50 Groovy Years Ago Today-Week 1 June 1967
And now we are officially kicking off the anniversary of The Summer Of Love and showcasing many of the songs identified with that cultural milestone. And appropriately enough, we have a new song at the top of the charts
#1 this week is Aretha Franklin and her version of Otis Redding's Respect. It's the 2nd single from her debut Atlantic Records album, her first #1, a feminist anthem, a Grammy winner, a Library of Congress National Recording and a toe-tapper. Aretha added her own to the original version by inserting this part to Redding's song:
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take care … TCB
Sock it to me, Sock it to me, Sock it to me, Sock it to me [etc]
That's King Curtis by the way on tenor sax
Spanky and Our Gang and their first single broke into the Top 40 this week. They would follow with other hits but this was their biggest, peaking at #9. Lead singer Spanky McFarlane tried to recruit Alfalfa, Butch and Darla but she was Stymied.
The Four Tops continued churning out multiple hits year after year. "Bernadette" reached #4 earlier in 1967. "7 Rooms Of Gloom" reached
#14
Franki Valli was credited as the solo performer for this song, even though it was written by Bob Gaudio-his bandmate from the Four Seasons. There's probably hundreds of versions of this tune as well as god knows how many soundtrack appearances. And yet it stalled out at #2
Confessor already posted a video clip earlier of the Grass Roots and their single Let's Live For Today. This is the week the song broke into the Top 40. It was their 1st Top 10 hit with others to follow into the early 1970's. Their earlier songs were the best. Rob Grill was their lead singer and this song was originally recorded by an English band named The Rokes in 1966. Let's Live For Today peaked at # 8
Bonus Clip
The Easybeat's Friday On My Mind was still in the Top 20 at this point and here's a live appearance from French TV not posted previously
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jun 4, 2017 2:04:39 GMT -5
Way back in prehistoric times, it was sometimes quite difficult to decipher your favorite song's lyrics. You had maybe 3 ways of finding the words:
1-Possibly a live performance or a different person singing the song might make clearer the lyrics that escape you. Then again, there would be a chance the lyrics were changed for these alternate performances
2-Purchasing the music sheets for the song. If you can find them. If you were that desperate to go that route
3-Buying Hit Parade magazine, a monthly periodical published by the company that ran Charlton Comics . They provided lyrics for popular songs each month. You just had to be lucky that it would include the song you were scratching your head about
Failing that, you just made your best guess to what the lyrics were. Now, getting back to Aretha Franklin's version of "Respect". I printed out the correct lyrics above for the bridge piece of the song that she originated. Now, for decades I thought it was something else. To wit:
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Take out TCP
Huh? If I took out TCP from Respect, that would leave me with Rese. Was Aretha asking for a little Rese when she got home? Maybe she wanted Reese's Peanut Putter Cups when she got home. Not an unusual request. But she could have stuck some into her handbag in the morning and snacked on them all day at work. No sense on waiting till you got home. However the song does not specify what type of job Aretha had and maybe peanut butter cup snacking was impossible. But still, if they were in your handbag, Aretha, you can eat them on your way back home and save time. No-maybe I was on the wrong track
Rese-maybe it was a code word or a jumble word. If I scramble the letters I get seer as in fortune teller. Did I need to walk into a gypsy fortune teller's parlor and ask her the meaning of the lyric?
Before the internet, these nagging questions preyed on my mind whenever I heard these songs. Maybe, as I post future songs, I'll include my mistaken lyric versions
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Post by Rob Allen on Jun 4, 2017 3:26:51 GMT -5
I agree with Confessor on the live performances: I almost always prefer the studio version that's been put together with so much more care. As a fan of both jazz and the Grateful Dead & friends, I'm accustomed to a world where the studio version is just the first draft; the song doesn't come alive until it's played on stage. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jun 4, 2017 7:05:47 GMT -5
So I'm putting together a summer driving mix, and I'm seeking recommendations. Whereas I usually look for depth in music, a summer driving mix needs, first and foremost, to be fun, upbeat, and as likely to be appreciated by my six year and nine year olds as by me. So we're talking current and pop, but nothing excessively mainstream nor dance mix trippy.
Here's tentative stuff I'm looking at in order to provide a context:
Miike Snow
B0RN
Big Data
Magic Man
Fun
Sia
Meghan Trainer
Matt and Kim
Misterwives
Chainsmokers
Saint Motel
Lumineers
Strumbellas
Two Door Cinema Club
Vance Joy
Bleachers
I know this is not a genre the community tends to look at, but I'd love some suggestions if anyone has any.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jun 5, 2017 0:43:09 GMT -5
Deep Single Diving
I've been posting each week songs in the Top 40 during 1967, songs you would hear played in the US 50 years ago that week.
I've also been posting each month what I call Odds and Sods, songs that reached the Top 100 but failed to break the Top 40. These songs got most of their airplay in limited regions of the country and rarely in others
However in my research I come across songs an interesting group of songs that were released but didn't quite make the Top 100. Generally they peaked anywhere between #101 to #150.Some are out and out strange, some should have done much better, some by known performers well past their prime. Let's backtrack and see what I found worth unearthing.
From January 1967
The Shangri La's were one of the big girl-group combos that were so popular from 1962-1965. "Leader Of The Pack" & "Remember (Walking In The Sand)" were some of their biggest smashes. Here is their final charting single before their formal disbandment in 1968
Any excuse to post a B.B. King song works for me
Take one vocal group, The Tokens, who had a big hit-"The Lion Sleeps Tonight". Add another minor vocal group, The Kirby Stone Four. Now you have a Brave & Bold teamup under the name of The United States Double Quartet. Sounds very official.
Another former huge girl-group on their last legs, The Shirelles scored with "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow", "Soldier Boy", "Baby It's You" and more. 1967 was a bad year for this genre of music
From February 1967
The first single from the Jefferson Airplane's classic Surrealistic Pillow album failed to break the Hot Hundred.They'll do better on their next try
Motown had a white R&B/ Rock group on their roster. That's why they were named The Underdogs
Thorndyke Pickledish Choir and their single "Ballad of Walter Wart". You heard it here first folks
Terry Knight and the Pack. You'll know them better later on as Grand Funk Railroad
The son of Dean Martin, Dino, and the son of Lucille Ball & Desi Arnez, Desi Jr., along with their friend Billy used their show biz connections to get a record contract at the age of 13 with Frank Sinatra's Reprise Records. They had 2 Top 40 hits in 1965. Despite 5 more years of recording they never replicated that success again. Here's Dino, Desi & Billy still pluckin' away in 1967
Hope you enjoyed this edition of Deep Single Diving. I can't say if it will get better
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jun 7, 2017 0:02:42 GMT -5
50 Years Ago Today-Week 2 June 1967
Listeners show "Respect" to Aretha Franklin by making that song #1 for the second time in a row. Meanwhile, on the other slots for the Top 40:
The Bee Gees make their American debut. The Easybeats and "Friday On My Mind" preceded the Bee Gees as an Australian Rock Group to break into the US Top 40, the Bee Gees would hang on to stardom just a tad longer. "New York Mining Disaster 1941" was not a typical Bee Gees song, dealing with sociological commentary and tragedy. And it was a strange coincidence that this song, as well as The Beatles "A Day In The Life" appeared at the same time and both commented on coal mining cave-ins.This song reached #14 and was an FM favorite
Marvin Gaye had been registering hits since 1962 and here he finally makes the charts with his first 1967 release which was also his first team up with Tammi Terrell. Written by the artist later known as Ashford and Simpson, this classic would also be a blockbuster for Dianna Ross when she went solo. Gaye & Terrell's version would peak at #19
Another soulful team up was Otis Redding and Carla Thomas. Together they made the King & Queen album which this single was drawn. It was Otis Redding's 6th album and the final to appear before his tragic end. "Tramp" would peak at #26. And it's not Carla being called a Tramp
Trivia question:What song from The Wizard Of Oz sold the most records? If you think it was Judy Garland singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow you'd be wrong. No, it was this single which reached #11 in 1967 by a group called The Fifth Estate. And for all I know, Toto sold as many albums as Judy Garland.
We wrap up this week with one of the signature Summer Of Love songs, breaking into the Top 40 this week , written by The Mamas And Papas leader John Phillips and ultimately peaking at # 4. Scott McKenzie and this song was responsible for god-knows how many young teens leaving home to travel to San Francisco that summer
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jun 9, 2017 5:59:51 GMT -5
Deep Single Diving-March 1967
Playing catch up with noteworthy songs that failed to reach the Top 100. These lovable losers, for various reasons, deserve one more chance.
The Outsiders were known as a one-hit wonder with their 1966 #5 recording of "Time Won't Let Me". This single from one year later was pretty decent
Gene ("The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallence", "It Hurts To Be In Love") Pitney recorded the 2nd best song about Animal Crackers
Cat Stevens became a superstar in the early 70's. It took awhile to get there. From 1967, his single from his first album of the same name
Marianne Faithful had 2 careers-a 1960's sweet voiced folk singer who was Mick Jagger's girlfriend and a punk-rock late 1970's singer who delivered the classic Broken English album. The difference between the two Marianne's is astounding. By this time in March 1967 she already had 4 Top 30 hits in the USA but that was back in 1964/65. This was her last charted single from her first phase
Nikita The K and the Friends Of Ed Lubunski recorded a rock radio transmission from Moscow and released it as a single. "Go Go Radio Moscow" is swingin'
Riot On Sunset Strip was a 1967 classic teen exploitation film. The Standells perform the theme song and appear in the film
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jun 11, 2017 16:13:36 GMT -5
Deep Single Diving-April 1967
Still catching up on the singles that failed to reach the Top 100 and worth a second spin for one reason or another
What? The first single by this group failed to break out from the bottom? Besides Los Angeles, no other station played this classic? Even when the group invested in a promotional video? They couldn't play a little less of "Somethin' Stupid" and open The Doors for this song?
A group called The Poor which included member Randy Meisner, later to help found The Eagles
Are you telling me that actress Marcia Strassman, best known as Mr. Kotter's wife in Welcome Back Kotter was a hippie chick singer back in 1967. Well-far out, man.
The Capitols had an earlier hit, 'Cool Jerk". Here they sing a song on how to bake a girl
Chris Clark- sounds like Dusty Springfield to me. Same hair too.
That will do for April's Deep Single Dive. Look out for the May dive
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