Voice recording #259, from Jan. 7.
The Platters, maybe "You've Got the Magic Touch", year? This song and a number of others were on a novelty album called "The Flying Saucer", which included excerpts from radio broadcasts about a saucer's landing. The announcer would say they were going to a correspondent for a bulletin, which would be snippets from other Platters songs. The Platters were '50s icons. This is not their best, but it's pretty good. 4,400.
Little Richard, "Tutti Frutti", year? Little Richard was a straight-up rocker. I don't think rockers even existed when he was coming up, but he was one of those who defined what it meant to rock. The instrumentation was different from what we're used to from rock. There's piano, but it's hard-driving piano. The bridges between the verses were likely to be horns -- saxophones, in this case. Little Richard was a giant. 4,100.
Crests, "Isn't It Amazing", year? I've mentioned that '50s music was limited partly because of a lack of technical knowledge, partly because of a lack of imagination in engineering and instrumentation, but also because the lyrics lacked imagination. This song does things such as rhyming angels from above with turtle dove. At worst, it's a really sappy song, at best it's not very good. 4,900, which may be generous.
Tommy Edwards, "It's All in the Game", year? This song has been done before and after Tommy Edwards. It's a classic, standard banner. Not bad. 4,600.
Ray Smith, "Rockin' Little Angel", year? This one seems to have taken other tunes and put Mr. Smith's own words into them. It's not very good. 4,925.
The Shirelles, "Everybody Loves a Lover", year? There are a lot of better versions of this song. Those were probably later than the '50s. The Shirelles had some good hits, mostly in the '60s. At the divide between '59 and '60 or between Kennedy and Eisenhower, or whatever it was, girl groups really found an identity. They may have been more viable economically at a time when record companies and producers weren't ashamed of ripping off artists. I'm sure there were some engineering advancements by that time. This isn't The Shirelles' best. Generously, 4,850.
The Drifters, "Fools Fall in Love", 1957. The things I said about the girl groups also apply to The Drifters, who were much more successful financially and esthetically in the '60s than in the '50s. I thought later about the Shirelles' song that in later versions the tempo was changed, possibly syncopation was added, or starts and stops, things were done that made it a better song. 4,900.
The G Clefs, "I Understand (The Way You Feel)", year? The '50s were a time when people tended to do things without asking why. The G Clefs musically seem like a group made up of people who did what their parents or teacher, or pastor or whatever, told them to do. Their was a lot of religious feeling to this one. There were a lot of staccato strings. Playing over the melody at times was "Auld Lang Syne". 4,950.
Elvis Presley, "Hard Headed Woman", year? I may already have done this one, and if I did I don't think I would have given it higher than 4,650. It's Elvis, and that's the only reason why it would be that high. I really like Elvis, but this is not good Elvis music. This is probably well down the list of Elvis hits. I may remember this song just from having seen the title while I was filling in the database. I kind of zipped through the early '50s and the '40s. The Billboard Hot 100 was just a Top 30 during the early '50s, and there wasn't a year-end survey during the '40s but just weekly lists of who's number one. So in the '40s there might have been anywhere from four or five to 12 or 13 number one songs during a year, and those would be the only ones listed. Even with 12 or 13, there might really have been 9 or 10 because different orchestras sometimes took the same song to the top during a year. There were years during the '40s when there weren't any solo artists with No. 1 hits, but instead it would Woody Herman and His Orchestra, Glenn Miller and His Orchestra or Somebody Else and His Orchestra. Probably one of the Dorseys and His Orchestra. Occasionally a Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby would break through. So it took me a short time to add the '40s and early '50s.
Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, "Let's Go Let's Go Let's Go", which was a hit in 1960. I don't know anything about Hank Ballard. My original thought was that he was a country-music guy. This song sounds more gospel; I'll check it out. The lyrics make it sound as if we're being invited to a revival meeting: "There's a three-ill upon the hee-ill. Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!" Some of that might be because of the '50s religious -- not fervor, but more fundamentalism. The gospel music seemed to be based more in the black churches, as opposed to some newer, made-up religions. Well, some would say they're all made up. I did go to a couple of revival meetings in the '60s and '70s, though it was in the spirit of more of a goof. I've gone to a lot of Baptist church in Texas, and I prefer the ones that aren't all fire and brimstone. I understand there's a place for that. We're supposed to behave properly, but I'm not sure we need to be frightened into doing that. This song is well intentioned. 4,850. I checked, and realized that I should know more about Ballard. The group was primarily R&B, but Ballard wrote and recorded "The Twist" before Chubby Checker covered it more successfully with a crossover audience. Ballard is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and he died on my birthday in 2003.
Ritchie Valens, "Donna", year? 3,800.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
The '50s were more kookie than ginchy
Voice recording #254, more from Jan. 7, again on Sirius Channel 5.
Eddie Cochran, "Sittin' in the Balcony", no year given. Cochran was an early rocker. I' not sure this song qualifies as rock 'n' roll. It has guitars and a very constant rhythm. 4,850.
Jim Henderson, "Snap Your Fingers", year? 4,900. And I moved Eddie Cochran up from 4,900 because I feared I might be able to populate most of the 4,900-5,000 slots just today otherwise.
James Darren, "Pin a Medal on Joey", year? 4,825.
Elvis Presley, "Need Your Love Tonight", year? 4,750.
The Browns, "The Old Lamp-Lighter", late '50s. He was the old lamp-lighter "of long, long ago." This song now qualifies as long, long ago. It was a remake -- at least I assume it was the same old lamp-lighter song that was a No. 1 hit during the '40s. The Browns had a number of nostalgic, sentimental songs. This was not the best. I think "The Three Bells" was by The Browns. This one is 4,800.
The Flares, "Foot Stompin' Part 1", year? I don't know whether there was a part two. The beat, just by stomping the sound, wasn't as dynamic as, say, The Lumineers' foot stomping. Another pet peeve: The Flares are spelled like a warning flare, but I have seen people write something like, "He finished the project with flare," when what they really mean is "with flair," as in panache. 4,825.
The Moonglows, "Mostly something", year? It's not just a case of being old so there weren't as many bells and whistles in the production, but this is not a very good piece of music. 4,840.
Jerry Lee Lewis, "Whole Lotta Shakin'", year? This is a classic, with drums and Jerry Lee's rocking' piano. 4,400.
Ike and Tina Turner, "A Fool in Love", year? I didn't realize they were recording in the '50s. I remember then from the mid-60s -- which really isn't must of a stretch, as I look back at it. I'm not sure which of them sang the lead. Ike's career didn't last much past the mid-60s, but Tina has kept going pretty much to the present. This is an early soul-rock song, more rock than soul. 4,825.
Pat Boone, "Speedy Gonzales", year? This song would not be made today. It caricatures and generalizes about Hispanics/Latinos. I'm not sure what was the the purpose for this song, but I guess it was supposed to be a funny novelty record. It's definitely dated. 4,925.
Little Richard, "Jenny Jenny", 1957. It's classic Little Richard, right down to the "Woooooo!" It is a great classic. It has been remade since, I believe by Mitch Ryder and possibly others. 3,900.
Bobby Vee, "Rubber Ball", year? This song is not to be confused with The Cyrkle's "Red Rubber Ball" from the '60s. This one is a song about a guy who has been done wrong by a woman who treats him like a rubber ball because he comes bouncing back to her. 4,200.
Fronc Pourcel, "Only You", year? This is an orchestral version of a song with actual words -- a love song, of course. There are a whole lot of strings in a high register, and they do a lot of things with those strings. The sung song is a better version. 4,600.
The Kingston Trio, but I neglected to record the song's title and year. They were probably the foremost folk group of a really folky decade. 4,700.
The Earls, "Remember When", year? It goes "re-mem-mem, re-mem-ba-mem-ber." It's a catchy tune. 4,600.
Edd Byrnes and Connie Stevens, "Kookie Kookie" (Lend Me Your Comb)", year? Edd "Kookie" Byrnes was a short-lived Hollywood heartthrob on the original "77 Sunset Strip" TV show. I believe his character's name was Kookie. He had a lot of long, wavy hair, pretty well Brylcreemed up in the '50s style. I pretty sure the character was known for combing his hair on the show. Connie Stevens was frequently seen as a beach bunny in the surfer movies that were popular then. This was a chance to take advantage of current popularity with a novelty song. The time warp that produced this song was probably best illustrated by Kookie's final words to Connie Stevens: "Baby, you're the ginchiest." I don't think that was a popular slang word even in the '50s. This song wasn't the ginchiest, but for its novel effects I'll give it 4,750.
Sam Cooke, I believe it's called "Send Me Your Lovin'", year? Sam had a long and distinguished career, but this was not one of its highlights. This is more a song of unrequited love than a gospel song, but there is kind of a gospel choir singing backup. 4,800.
The Dell-Vikings, "Come Go With Me", year? This was a typical group of the time, with a lead singer doing the melody and a deep-voiced guy for special effects. It's a jaunty tune, up-tempo, a good song for its time. The lyrics played with the four words in the title. At times the group sang, "come and go with me" and "come on, go with me."4,350.
Jelly Beans, I believe it's "I Want to Love Him So Bad", year? Probably about as bad as the singing in this one. 4,850, possibly.
The Big Bopper, but I didn't record the title or year. I hadn't heard it before, but the music is almost identical to "Chantilly Lace". I'm not sure why that was possible. Perhaps the same person wrote both songs so there was no copyright problem. This song was not good. 4,950.
Everly Brothers, "Dream", year? I believe that's the title; the words are "all I have do is dream," or more accurately "dre-ee-ee-ee-eam, dream, dream, dream." The Everly Brothers were the most underrated (or least rated) act of the '50s. They were not in Elvis country, but up there near the top. Their music was good, and this was one of their best songs. I think it was Don Everly, not Phil, who died in 2014. I give the song 4,050.
The Crows, "Gee", as in the first half of gee whiz, year? Before there were Black Crowes or Counting Crows or even Sheryl Crow, there were The Crows. They and this song were not particularly good. 4,900.
Faron Young, "Hello Walls", year? It's a country crossover. He was saying hello to the walls in a deep voice. 4,850.
Eddie Cochran, "Sittin' in the Balcony", no year given. Cochran was an early rocker. I' not sure this song qualifies as rock 'n' roll. It has guitars and a very constant rhythm. 4,850.
Jim Henderson, "Snap Your Fingers", year? 4,900. And I moved Eddie Cochran up from 4,900 because I feared I might be able to populate most of the 4,900-5,000 slots just today otherwise.
James Darren, "Pin a Medal on Joey", year? 4,825.
Elvis Presley, "Need Your Love Tonight", year? 4,750.
The Browns, "The Old Lamp-Lighter", late '50s. He was the old lamp-lighter "of long, long ago." This song now qualifies as long, long ago. It was a remake -- at least I assume it was the same old lamp-lighter song that was a No. 1 hit during the '40s. The Browns had a number of nostalgic, sentimental songs. This was not the best. I think "The Three Bells" was by The Browns. This one is 4,800.
The Flares, "Foot Stompin' Part 1", year? I don't know whether there was a part two. The beat, just by stomping the sound, wasn't as dynamic as, say, The Lumineers' foot stomping. Another pet peeve: The Flares are spelled like a warning flare, but I have seen people write something like, "He finished the project with flare," when what they really mean is "with flair," as in panache. 4,825.
The Moonglows, "Mostly something", year? It's not just a case of being old so there weren't as many bells and whistles in the production, but this is not a very good piece of music. 4,840.
Jerry Lee Lewis, "Whole Lotta Shakin'", year? This is a classic, with drums and Jerry Lee's rocking' piano. 4,400.
Ike and Tina Turner, "A Fool in Love", year? I didn't realize they were recording in the '50s. I remember then from the mid-60s -- which really isn't must of a stretch, as I look back at it. I'm not sure which of them sang the lead. Ike's career didn't last much past the mid-60s, but Tina has kept going pretty much to the present. This is an early soul-rock song, more rock than soul. 4,825.
Pat Boone, "Speedy Gonzales", year? This song would not be made today. It caricatures and generalizes about Hispanics/Latinos. I'm not sure what was the the purpose for this song, but I guess it was supposed to be a funny novelty record. It's definitely dated. 4,925.
Little Richard, "Jenny Jenny", 1957. It's classic Little Richard, right down to the "Woooooo!" It is a great classic. It has been remade since, I believe by Mitch Ryder and possibly others. 3,900.
Bobby Vee, "Rubber Ball", year? This song is not to be confused with The Cyrkle's "Red Rubber Ball" from the '60s. This one is a song about a guy who has been done wrong by a woman who treats him like a rubber ball because he comes bouncing back to her. 4,200.
Fronc Pourcel, "Only You", year? This is an orchestral version of a song with actual words -- a love song, of course. There are a whole lot of strings in a high register, and they do a lot of things with those strings. The sung song is a better version. 4,600.
The Kingston Trio, but I neglected to record the song's title and year. They were probably the foremost folk group of a really folky decade. 4,700.
The Earls, "Remember When", year? It goes "re-mem-mem, re-mem-ba-mem-ber." It's a catchy tune. 4,600.
Edd Byrnes and Connie Stevens, "Kookie Kookie" (Lend Me Your Comb)", year? Edd "Kookie" Byrnes was a short-lived Hollywood heartthrob on the original "77 Sunset Strip" TV show. I believe his character's name was Kookie. He had a lot of long, wavy hair, pretty well Brylcreemed up in the '50s style. I pretty sure the character was known for combing his hair on the show. Connie Stevens was frequently seen as a beach bunny in the surfer movies that were popular then. This was a chance to take advantage of current popularity with a novelty song. The time warp that produced this song was probably best illustrated by Kookie's final words to Connie Stevens: "Baby, you're the ginchiest." I don't think that was a popular slang word even in the '50s. This song wasn't the ginchiest, but for its novel effects I'll give it 4,750.
Sam Cooke, I believe it's called "Send Me Your Lovin'", year? Sam had a long and distinguished career, but this was not one of its highlights. This is more a song of unrequited love than a gospel song, but there is kind of a gospel choir singing backup. 4,800.
The Dell-Vikings, "Come Go With Me", year? This was a typical group of the time, with a lead singer doing the melody and a deep-voiced guy for special effects. It's a jaunty tune, up-tempo, a good song for its time. The lyrics played with the four words in the title. At times the group sang, "come and go with me" and "come on, go with me."4,350.
Jelly Beans, I believe it's "I Want to Love Him So Bad", year? Probably about as bad as the singing in this one. 4,850, possibly.
The Big Bopper, but I didn't record the title or year. I hadn't heard it before, but the music is almost identical to "Chantilly Lace". I'm not sure why that was possible. Perhaps the same person wrote both songs so there was no copyright problem. This song was not good. 4,950.
Everly Brothers, "Dream", year? I believe that's the title; the words are "all I have do is dream," or more accurately "dre-ee-ee-ee-eam, dream, dream, dream." The Everly Brothers were the most underrated (or least rated) act of the '50s. They were not in Elvis country, but up there near the top. Their music was good, and this was one of their best songs. I think it was Don Everly, not Phil, who died in 2014. I give the song 4,050.
The Crows, "Gee", as in the first half of gee whiz, year? Before there were Black Crowes or Counting Crows or even Sheryl Crow, there were The Crows. They and this song were not particularly good. 4,900.
Faron Young, "Hello Walls", year? It's a country crossover. He was saying hello to the walls in a deep voice. 4,850.
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Up to the minute
This is as close to a live blog as anything I have done in this project.
I was driving home from the Feb. 22 Mavericks game when my phone battery went dead. I have been recording my impressions almost exclusively on my Samsung Galaxy S4. (An endorsement possibility?) I partially charged the battery a couple of times Sunday, but I took it off the charger when we went to the movies in the afternoon and again in the evening while I was in the media room at American Airlines Center. So it didn't get fully charged, or even half charged.
Then after I got home, a glass of wine was spilled on the chair, the carpet and my sweater, so I lost some time and some ideas about what I wanted to say.
I did remember most of the information about the last three songs I heard, which were from the iHeart Radio Top 20 for this very week from KIIS-FM, which is Sirius XM Channel 11. I'm not sure it's just a Top 20 because it's very exclusive or (as I fear) there aren't enough good songs to go around. The guest hosts were Imagine Dragons, and I'm pretty sure there "Radioactive" wasn't part of the survey.
Maroon 5?, "I Lived", 2015 or maybe '14. This is No. 20. I have recorded observations about this song at least once. Not sure when I'll catch up with those observations on the blog thread. I think this was about 4,600. It's a fairly good song, and it doesn't have the unrelated unibeat of most current songs.
One Direction, I believe it's "Night Changes", also '14 or '15. I'm pretty sure I've commented on this one too. Tonight it came in for me at 4,650.
Imagine Dragons, "Radioactive", '14. My recollection of what I wanted to say about this one (or it might have been "Night Changes") is that it has the characteristic steady beat. It's so steady that it doesn't even change when the song goes in different directions. So I'll take away some points because the tempo doesn't vary, but add some for having a different approach. 4,675.
I was driving home from the Feb. 22 Mavericks game when my phone battery went dead. I have been recording my impressions almost exclusively on my Samsung Galaxy S4. (An endorsement possibility?) I partially charged the battery a couple of times Sunday, but I took it off the charger when we went to the movies in the afternoon and again in the evening while I was in the media room at American Airlines Center. So it didn't get fully charged, or even half charged.
Then after I got home, a glass of wine was spilled on the chair, the carpet and my sweater, so I lost some time and some ideas about what I wanted to say.
I did remember most of the information about the last three songs I heard, which were from the iHeart Radio Top 20 for this very week from KIIS-FM, which is Sirius XM Channel 11. I'm not sure it's just a Top 20 because it's very exclusive or (as I fear) there aren't enough good songs to go around. The guest hosts were Imagine Dragons, and I'm pretty sure there "Radioactive" wasn't part of the survey.
Maroon 5?, "I Lived", 2015 or maybe '14. This is No. 20. I have recorded observations about this song at least once. Not sure when I'll catch up with those observations on the blog thread. I think this was about 4,600. It's a fairly good song, and it doesn't have the unrelated unibeat of most current songs.
One Direction, I believe it's "Night Changes", also '14 or '15. I'm pretty sure I've commented on this one too. Tonight it came in for me at 4,650.
Imagine Dragons, "Radioactive", '14. My recollection of what I wanted to say about this one (or it might have been "Night Changes") is that it has the characteristic steady beat. It's so steady that it doesn't even change when the song goes in different directions. So I'll take away some points because the tempo doesn't vary, but add some for having a different approach. 4,675.
Monday, February 9, 2015
Bridging the gap to rock music
Voice recording #253, Jan. 7.
Bill Haley and His Comets, "Dim Dim the Lights (I Want Some Atmosphere)", probably early '50s. This was not so much rock as jazz. He used horns instead of guitars. It wasn't very good. 4,900.
Big Dee Irwin, "Swingin' on a Star", year? This song goes back at least to the '40s, when it was a No. 1 hit for Frank Sinatra. I'm pretty sure there was another incarnation during the '50s and probably some since. It's a bit of a novelty song. Above all, it's a happy song. 4,600.
Bobby Vee, "Take Good Care of My Baby", late '50s. Instead of being a song about unrequited love, this one is post-requited. He's asking the guy who snaked away his girlfriend to send her back because the snake doesn't really love her the way Bobby does. There was a time when I thought Bobby Vee was the same guy as Bobby Vinton. 4,350.
Accents, "Wiggle Wiggle", year? A weird song. 4,950.
The Coasters, "Poison Ivy", late '50s. It was probably about the time when I had a case of poison ivy practically from head to toe after crawling around a cliff bank on Seneca Lake. I remember my eyes were swollen almost shut and I missed sixth-grade classes for more than a week. Another story at the time was about a school bus ride when the guys were poking fun at a girl with two syllables in her first and last name with lewd (for the '50s) lyrics about her to the tune of "Poison Ivy". Movies also have featured a Poison Ivy character, in the Poison Ivy (Drew Barrymore/Alyssa Milano/Jaime Pressly/Miriam McDonald) and Batman (Uma Thurman) franchises. Another joke/parody song by The Coasters was "Charlie Brown". They were an early rock band with guitars and drums. Not a lot of imagination, but they kept a good beat. 4,550.
Phil Phillips, "Sea of Love", year? I don't believe Phillips is related to Phillip Phillips, who had some post-"American Idol" success two generations later. This one is kind of doo-wop underneath the melody. Not a bad song. 4,500.
Jimmie Rodgers, "Bimbombay", year? He also had hits in the late '50s and early '60s. This was not his best. But it does have lyrics that are similar to the song about the woman who swallowed a fly, and I don't know why she swallowed that fly. "There's a girl in the house on the hill on the way to Bimbombay." It also has nonsense syllables: "Jing-a-ling-a-lie-ay." It is a bit of a toe-tapper. I said 4,800 at the time, but I hadn't turned off the recorder at the time, and I did get into the toe-tapping mode when I heard it again. So, 4,700.
Roy Orbison, "Crying", year? The thing about Crying" is that there's great power both in his singing and the background orchestra. It builds to a crescendo. 3,500 or higher.
Buddy Holly, "Think It Over", year? I appreciate what Buddy meant to at least a generation of music makers who followed him with some great songs. This one must have been from his early years. It doesn't have much rock inspiration. I don't remember hearing it from anyone else. It has a boogie-woogie piano in the background. 4,800.
The Times, "Somewhere", sometime in the mid-'50s. This has a simple melody and rhythm laid out on piano and drums with what sounds like finger snapping. 4,850.
Elvis Presley, "(Now and Then) There's a Fool Such As I", year? Elvis shows some vocal range, there are deep bass voices in the background, some of the time is kept by hand clapping and foot tapping rather than the finger snapping of the previous song. Elvis is pretty dramatic with it. 3,900.
James Darren, "Goodbye Cruel World", year? Not Bobby Darin, but James Darren. This can go on the listing of songs about clowns or the circus because the singer is going to go off and join the circus because he's having trouble with his girlfriend. The song was fairly popular at the time. It includes some circus-type calliope music. 4,400.
Brenda Lee, "All Alone Am I", 1962? It's a power ballad. She has some keyboard that sounds like a harpsichord, a lot of power in her voice, changing tempos, pretty dramatic. I just bought gas for $1.719, and filled the tank for $17.52. That was nice. 4,500.
Bill Haley and His Comets, "Dim Dim the Lights (I Want Some Atmosphere)", probably early '50s. This was not so much rock as jazz. He used horns instead of guitars. It wasn't very good. 4,900.
Big Dee Irwin, "Swingin' on a Star", year? This song goes back at least to the '40s, when it was a No. 1 hit for Frank Sinatra. I'm pretty sure there was another incarnation during the '50s and probably some since. It's a bit of a novelty song. Above all, it's a happy song. 4,600.
Bobby Vee, "Take Good Care of My Baby", late '50s. Instead of being a song about unrequited love, this one is post-requited. He's asking the guy who snaked away his girlfriend to send her back because the snake doesn't really love her the way Bobby does. There was a time when I thought Bobby Vee was the same guy as Bobby Vinton. 4,350.
Accents, "Wiggle Wiggle", year? A weird song. 4,950.
The Coasters, "Poison Ivy", late '50s. It was probably about the time when I had a case of poison ivy practically from head to toe after crawling around a cliff bank on Seneca Lake. I remember my eyes were swollen almost shut and I missed sixth-grade classes for more than a week. Another story at the time was about a school bus ride when the guys were poking fun at a girl with two syllables in her first and last name with lewd (for the '50s) lyrics about her to the tune of "Poison Ivy". Movies also have featured a Poison Ivy character, in the Poison Ivy (Drew Barrymore/Alyssa Milano/Jaime Pressly/Miriam McDonald) and Batman (Uma Thurman) franchises. Another joke/parody song by The Coasters was "Charlie Brown". They were an early rock band with guitars and drums. Not a lot of imagination, but they kept a good beat. 4,550.
Phil Phillips, "Sea of Love", year? I don't believe Phillips is related to Phillip Phillips, who had some post-"American Idol" success two generations later. This one is kind of doo-wop underneath the melody. Not a bad song. 4,500.
Jimmie Rodgers, "Bimbombay", year? He also had hits in the late '50s and early '60s. This was not his best. But it does have lyrics that are similar to the song about the woman who swallowed a fly, and I don't know why she swallowed that fly. "There's a girl in the house on the hill on the way to Bimbombay." It also has nonsense syllables: "Jing-a-ling-a-lie-ay." It is a bit of a toe-tapper. I said 4,800 at the time, but I hadn't turned off the recorder at the time, and I did get into the toe-tapping mode when I heard it again. So, 4,700.
Roy Orbison, "Crying", year? The thing about Crying" is that there's great power both in his singing and the background orchestra. It builds to a crescendo. 3,500 or higher.
Buddy Holly, "Think It Over", year? I appreciate what Buddy meant to at least a generation of music makers who followed him with some great songs. This one must have been from his early years. It doesn't have much rock inspiration. I don't remember hearing it from anyone else. It has a boogie-woogie piano in the background. 4,800.
The Times, "Somewhere", sometime in the mid-'50s. This has a simple melody and rhythm laid out on piano and drums with what sounds like finger snapping. 4,850.
Elvis Presley, "(Now and Then) There's a Fool Such As I", year? Elvis shows some vocal range, there are deep bass voices in the background, some of the time is kept by hand clapping and foot tapping rather than the finger snapping of the previous song. Elvis is pretty dramatic with it. 3,900.
James Darren, "Goodbye Cruel World", year? Not Bobby Darin, but James Darren. This can go on the listing of songs about clowns or the circus because the singer is going to go off and join the circus because he's having trouble with his girlfriend. The song was fairly popular at the time. It includes some circus-type calliope music. 4,400.
Brenda Lee, "All Alone Am I", 1962? It's a power ballad. She has some keyboard that sounds like a harpsichord, a lot of power in her voice, changing tempos, pretty dramatic. I just bought gas for $1.719, and filled the tank for $17.52. That was nice. 4,500.
Where it started for me
Voice recording #249 from Jan. 6, on Sirius Channel 5.
The Essex, "Easier Said Than Done", 1956. The Essex were a trend setter in that they copied baseball's Sox by becoming perhaps the first musical group whose name didn't end in S. This was a pretty good song. It has some changes in tempo. One of the better '50s songs, but I couldn't understand what I said for a score.
Gene Vincent, "Lotta Lovin'", '58. 4,850.
Roy Hamilton, "You Can Have Her", no year listed. It's unusual in that the backup singers sound like a church choir, so there's a gospel feel. The singer doesn't want his wife or girlfriend anymore, so you can have her. 4,825.
Bill Haley and His Comets, "Mambo Rock", year? This is considered the original rock 'n' roll group, but this is not among their best. Part of it sounds like a later song, "Mambo Italiano", and it has what sounds like electric guitar picking. So it had some groundbreaking elements. This song did not create a dance craze, in the manner of the Twist or the Macarena. 4,810.
Ben E. King, "Stand by Me", late '50s. This song was revived 20-30 years later when the movie "Stand by Me" came out. The movie is supposed to be set in 1959, but imdb.com notes that there are a lot of anachronisms in it. I noticed the first time I saw it that a 1960 Topps baseball card was on the bulletin board of Will Wheaton's character's brother, who died in '59. Good movie, though, and good song. Good beat, good percussion. 4,100.
On most of these for the '50s I might be splitting hairs at the lower 4,000s among songs that might not even make the final 5,000.
I'm just about finished with the final entries in the database, at least for song names, artists and where they fit in their own year's Top 100. I still need to add information as we go along. I have more than 6,000 listed, so obviously they all couldn't make the top 5,000, and I'll be adding other songs that weren't in any year's Top 100 but still deserve mention. Songs that I like, mostly.
Lou Christie, "Two Faces Have I" from the late '50s. The late '50s into the early '60s was one of the best eras for falsetto singing, and Lou had his best in "Lightning Strikes". This was a good one too, in the same style: "One to laugh, and one to cry. Ah-Ahk." 4,350.
Larry Williams, "Dizzy Miss Lizzie", year? He had a fair number of hits in the '50s, with some early rock. His singing has a Little Richard feel. One that I couldn't remember or didn't remember who did it was by Larry Williams. (I forget which one as I write this.) 4,700.
The Schoolboys, "Please Say You Want Me Again", year? This one is painfully slow. There is some kind of chorus/background singers, but nothing really to commend this one. 4,950.
The Crickets with Buddy Holly, "Oh Boy", year? This is one of the many Buddy Holly songs that was covered by British groups. However, it wasn't Holly but Sonny West who wrote and first performed this song and "Rave On". "Oh Boy" has a lot of guitar, moves quickly and is forward-looking for its time even though the guitar play is simple in comparison to what we now expect. Buddy Holly also did things with his voice -- "ah-uh-ho" -- that almost added another instrument. 3,950.
Bonnie? Sisters, "Cry Baby", sounds like fairly early '50s. I'm imaging that this song would have been sung in jazz clubs. The sisters were pretty much drowned out by the saxophones and percussion. 4,975.
The Caravelles, "You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry", year? This has in common with "Cry Baby" the words "cry" and "baby", and probably a similar time frame. Mid-'50s? The lead singer has a nice voice -- high, very breathy, but hard to pick up over the little bit of drumming and cymbals. That probably points out the fairly primitive sound engineering of the time. There probably weren't many microphones, if even more than one, and there might have been one by the drums. And of course they didn't have today's digital equipment to remix. 4,850.
Thurston Harris, "Little Bitty Pretty One", late '50s? The song moves pretty well. 4,450.
I remember the songs from the late '50s. My late sister Carolee was 3 years older, so I remember some of her records and songs she would listen to on the radio. Pat Boone was her favorite. She also had records by Guy Mitchell and Jim Lowe's "Green Door". I got my first radio for Christmas in 1958, about 6 weeks before The Day the Music Died. I remember very distinctly listening to the radio the next day, which was pretty much 24/7 talking about Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper. To my 10-year-old mind, that was very significant. Looking back, I guess that was akin to listening to a weekend sports-talk announcer a couple of years out of college saying that one of today's quarterbacks must be the greatest ever without regard for, or possibly even any knowledge of, Johnny Unitas or Joe Montana. My musical starting frame of reference was really the late '50s.
Kalin? Twins, "When", year? I will say that these '50s songs tend to be even shorter than those today or even a decade or two after the '50s. This song was not out of the ordinary or out of its time. The singing was not very good. 4,900.
The Olympics, "Big Boy Pete", year? I don't remember this one, but I think that The Olympics might have had a plagiarism case against whoever did "Jolly Green Giant". It's almost an identical tune, and similar subject matter about how you don't mess around with this guy. However, "Jolly Green Giant" was a better song, in part because there were better tools at the group's disposal. Forgot to give Pete a score.
The Platters, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", 1958. Anyone who lived through the '50s and '60s or has seen "Mad Men", would understand the idea of smoke in the eyes. Not just around the campfire, in those days. I'm pretty sure this is a remake of an older, classic song. The Platters had a lot of good hits during their time. Their style was mostly slow, romantic ballads. There were a lot of strings and backup singers harmonizing in the background. 4,550.
Annette, "O Dio Mio", maybe '56 or '57. Annette was the late Annette Funicello. "Mickey Mouse Club" came on TV about 1955. Not much after it debuted, I started watching it, and a lot of other kids did too. Annette, 13 at the time, was one of the first females who taught boys my age that teenage girls actually had breasts. In a way, she was the Britney Spears of her day, taking herself from "Mickey Mouse Club" to music and movies, but not as successfully. My 5,000 has to have room for an Annette song, if only for her groundbreaking activities and sweaters. And this probably isn't even her best. It does have Italian in it: O dio mio, oh my God. 4,700.
Del Shannon, "Runaway", the song was released in 1961, but somehow it got on Sirius XM Channel 5 with '50s songs. Again there's a falsetto theme: "I'm a walkin' in the rain." He did that more with this song than his others. The music has a penny whistle or maybe a piccolo. I checked, and neither of those instruments was in the song. I might have been hearing a Musitron, an electronic keyboard invented by Max Crook, who sang on the record with Shannon. The sound was similar to what we heard on Crispian St. Peters' "Pied Piper" in '66. "Runaway" was ahead of its time. 3,700.
Brenda Lee, "Sweet Nothin's", year? Brenda was pretty big in the '50s and early '60s. 4,600.
Brenda Lee, "As Usual", year? There's a lot of country in her singing. There seemed to be quite a bit more country crossover into popular music in the 50s. Certainly, cowboy shows were a big part of television programming then -- Roy Rogers, Gabby Hayes, The Lone Ranger, Wild Bill Hickok, The Cisco Kid and others -- and Western movies also were popular. 4,800.
Cadillacs, "Woe Is Me", year? 4,900.
Percy Faith, "Theme from a Summer Place", maybe '59? Very much lost in this era, but prevalent in the '50s and '60s, were orchestral songs that would make it on to the charts. This one I believe was No. 1 overall in the year it came out. There were words to the song that Percy Faith's orchestra made with lots of strings and horns. "The sweet secret of a summer place, is that it's anywhere where two people share all their hopes, all their dreams … all their love." Percy did OK on this one. 4,600.
Rolf Harris, "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport", year? This was a folk song from Australia that played more as a novelty number here. One line that wouldn't go over well today was "Let me abos go loose," with "abos" a pejorative slang term for aborigines. Another thing I remember about this song was that my girlfriend for most of high school was Nancy Sullivan, whose dad called her "sport." Her sister, Mary, always kidded her about "Timmy kangaroo down sport."4,650 just for the song's originality.
Fabian, "Tiger" from 1959. Fabian was a heartthrob for about 10 minutes of fame at the time. No, he probably got in a full 15 minutes, but he didn't have the staying power of even Justin Timberlake. 4,900.
Next: Voice recording #253 from Jan. 7.
The Essex, "Easier Said Than Done", 1956. The Essex were a trend setter in that they copied baseball's Sox by becoming perhaps the first musical group whose name didn't end in S. This was a pretty good song. It has some changes in tempo. One of the better '50s songs, but I couldn't understand what I said for a score.
Gene Vincent, "Lotta Lovin'", '58. 4,850.
Roy Hamilton, "You Can Have Her", no year listed. It's unusual in that the backup singers sound like a church choir, so there's a gospel feel. The singer doesn't want his wife or girlfriend anymore, so you can have her. 4,825.
Bill Haley and His Comets, "Mambo Rock", year? This is considered the original rock 'n' roll group, but this is not among their best. Part of it sounds like a later song, "Mambo Italiano", and it has what sounds like electric guitar picking. So it had some groundbreaking elements. This song did not create a dance craze, in the manner of the Twist or the Macarena. 4,810.
Ben E. King, "Stand by Me", late '50s. This song was revived 20-30 years later when the movie "Stand by Me" came out. The movie is supposed to be set in 1959, but imdb.com notes that there are a lot of anachronisms in it. I noticed the first time I saw it that a 1960 Topps baseball card was on the bulletin board of Will Wheaton's character's brother, who died in '59. Good movie, though, and good song. Good beat, good percussion. 4,100.
On most of these for the '50s I might be splitting hairs at the lower 4,000s among songs that might not even make the final 5,000.
I'm just about finished with the final entries in the database, at least for song names, artists and where they fit in their own year's Top 100. I still need to add information as we go along. I have more than 6,000 listed, so obviously they all couldn't make the top 5,000, and I'll be adding other songs that weren't in any year's Top 100 but still deserve mention. Songs that I like, mostly.
Lou Christie, "Two Faces Have I" from the late '50s. The late '50s into the early '60s was one of the best eras for falsetto singing, and Lou had his best in "Lightning Strikes". This was a good one too, in the same style: "One to laugh, and one to cry. Ah-Ahk." 4,350.
Larry Williams, "Dizzy Miss Lizzie", year? He had a fair number of hits in the '50s, with some early rock. His singing has a Little Richard feel. One that I couldn't remember or didn't remember who did it was by Larry Williams. (I forget which one as I write this.) 4,700.
The Schoolboys, "Please Say You Want Me Again", year? This one is painfully slow. There is some kind of chorus/background singers, but nothing really to commend this one. 4,950.
The Crickets with Buddy Holly, "Oh Boy", year? This is one of the many Buddy Holly songs that was covered by British groups. However, it wasn't Holly but Sonny West who wrote and first performed this song and "Rave On". "Oh Boy" has a lot of guitar, moves quickly and is forward-looking for its time even though the guitar play is simple in comparison to what we now expect. Buddy Holly also did things with his voice -- "ah-uh-ho" -- that almost added another instrument. 3,950.
Bonnie? Sisters, "Cry Baby", sounds like fairly early '50s. I'm imaging that this song would have been sung in jazz clubs. The sisters were pretty much drowned out by the saxophones and percussion. 4,975.
The Caravelles, "You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry", year? This has in common with "Cry Baby" the words "cry" and "baby", and probably a similar time frame. Mid-'50s? The lead singer has a nice voice -- high, very breathy, but hard to pick up over the little bit of drumming and cymbals. That probably points out the fairly primitive sound engineering of the time. There probably weren't many microphones, if even more than one, and there might have been one by the drums. And of course they didn't have today's digital equipment to remix. 4,850.
Thurston Harris, "Little Bitty Pretty One", late '50s? The song moves pretty well. 4,450.
I remember the songs from the late '50s. My late sister Carolee was 3 years older, so I remember some of her records and songs she would listen to on the radio. Pat Boone was her favorite. She also had records by Guy Mitchell and Jim Lowe's "Green Door". I got my first radio for Christmas in 1958, about 6 weeks before The Day the Music Died. I remember very distinctly listening to the radio the next day, which was pretty much 24/7 talking about Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper. To my 10-year-old mind, that was very significant. Looking back, I guess that was akin to listening to a weekend sports-talk announcer a couple of years out of college saying that one of today's quarterbacks must be the greatest ever without regard for, or possibly even any knowledge of, Johnny Unitas or Joe Montana. My musical starting frame of reference was really the late '50s.
Kalin? Twins, "When", year? I will say that these '50s songs tend to be even shorter than those today or even a decade or two after the '50s. This song was not out of the ordinary or out of its time. The singing was not very good. 4,900.
The Olympics, "Big Boy Pete", year? I don't remember this one, but I think that The Olympics might have had a plagiarism case against whoever did "Jolly Green Giant". It's almost an identical tune, and similar subject matter about how you don't mess around with this guy. However, "Jolly Green Giant" was a better song, in part because there were better tools at the group's disposal. Forgot to give Pete a score.
The Platters, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", 1958. Anyone who lived through the '50s and '60s or has seen "Mad Men", would understand the idea of smoke in the eyes. Not just around the campfire, in those days. I'm pretty sure this is a remake of an older, classic song. The Platters had a lot of good hits during their time. Their style was mostly slow, romantic ballads. There were a lot of strings and backup singers harmonizing in the background. 4,550.
Annette, "O Dio Mio", maybe '56 or '57. Annette was the late Annette Funicello. "Mickey Mouse Club" came on TV about 1955. Not much after it debuted, I started watching it, and a lot of other kids did too. Annette, 13 at the time, was one of the first females who taught boys my age that teenage girls actually had breasts. In a way, she was the Britney Spears of her day, taking herself from "Mickey Mouse Club" to music and movies, but not as successfully. My 5,000 has to have room for an Annette song, if only for her groundbreaking activities and sweaters. And this probably isn't even her best. It does have Italian in it: O dio mio, oh my God. 4,700.
Del Shannon, "Runaway", the song was released in 1961, but somehow it got on Sirius XM Channel 5 with '50s songs. Again there's a falsetto theme: "I'm a walkin' in the rain." He did that more with this song than his others. The music has a penny whistle or maybe a piccolo. I checked, and neither of those instruments was in the song. I might have been hearing a Musitron, an electronic keyboard invented by Max Crook, who sang on the record with Shannon. The sound was similar to what we heard on Crispian St. Peters' "Pied Piper" in '66. "Runaway" was ahead of its time. 3,700.
Brenda Lee, "Sweet Nothin's", year? Brenda was pretty big in the '50s and early '60s. 4,600.
Brenda Lee, "As Usual", year? There's a lot of country in her singing. There seemed to be quite a bit more country crossover into popular music in the 50s. Certainly, cowboy shows were a big part of television programming then -- Roy Rogers, Gabby Hayes, The Lone Ranger, Wild Bill Hickok, The Cisco Kid and others -- and Western movies also were popular. 4,800.
Cadillacs, "Woe Is Me", year? 4,900.
Percy Faith, "Theme from a Summer Place", maybe '59? Very much lost in this era, but prevalent in the '50s and '60s, were orchestral songs that would make it on to the charts. This one I believe was No. 1 overall in the year it came out. There were words to the song that Percy Faith's orchestra made with lots of strings and horns. "The sweet secret of a summer place, is that it's anywhere where two people share all their hopes, all their dreams … all their love." Percy did OK on this one. 4,600.
Rolf Harris, "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport", year? This was a folk song from Australia that played more as a novelty number here. One line that wouldn't go over well today was "Let me abos go loose," with "abos" a pejorative slang term for aborigines. Another thing I remember about this song was that my girlfriend for most of high school was Nancy Sullivan, whose dad called her "sport." Her sister, Mary, always kidded her about "Timmy kangaroo down sport."4,650 just for the song's originality.
Fabian, "Tiger" from 1959. Fabian was a heartthrob for about 10 minutes of fame at the time. No, he probably got in a full 15 minutes, but he didn't have the staying power of even Justin Timberlake. 4,900.
Next: Voice recording #253 from Jan. 7.
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Voice recording #246, Jan. 4.
Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations", 1966. I'm pretty sure I've done this one before and was in the range of 1,500-1,700. Maybe higher.
Bobby Goldsboro, "It's Too Late", '66. He had a fairly large number of hits in the '60s, mostly pretty sappy ballads. In this one, he tries to go up-tempo and I think it was a not-very-good cover of an earlier song. 4,800.
Shocking Blue, "Venus", '68 maybe? I've done this one before, probably 3,200 or slightly higher.
Freddy and the Dreamers, "I'm Telling You Now", I think '64 or '65. Freddy and the Dreamers were on the coattails of the British invasion. Their schtick was a dance called The Freddy. Dancers stood in one place and put their arms up at shoulder height while kicking one leg out to the side. Then they'd lower their arms and leg, and repeat, but raising the other leg. It was not imaginative when compared to other '60s dances. It's a better song than "Do the Freddy", which introduced the dance and was probably their other biggest hit. 3,900.
Marvin Gaye, "Heard It Through the Grapevine" from '68. The '60s icon was one of several to record this song in a similar time period. Marvin did a really good job with it. The song received extra legs in the '90s, when the California Raisins, animated wrinkled grapes -- I think for Post Raisin Bran -- used it in their advertising. 2,300.
The Yardbirds, "For Your Love", '65. I think I've done this before, and I think I mentioned that it might have had a harpsichord. Might have been a dulcimer, and I'll look that up. It was a harpsichord, but only because there was no piano or organ at the recording studio. Eric Clapton played guitar before leaving The Yardbirds to go with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. About 3,700.
Four Seasons, "Ronnie", 1964. This was one of their songs about girls, along with "Dawn" and "Rag Doll" and others. It's very typical Four Seasons. 3,950.
Steppenwolf, "Born to Be Wild", '68. I'm pretty sure I've reviewed this one. It's hard rock with a driving rhythm and some psychedelic moments. I'm to sure whether I like it or "Magic Carpet Ride" best among Steppenwolf songs. I think 1,200.
The 5th Dimension, "Wedding Bell Blues", 1966ish. This is some of the best of Marilyn McCoo with The 5th Dimension. It's somewhat overlooked in the group's catalog. On "Gilmore Girls", when the grandparents, Emily and Richard, renewed their vows, this was the song Richard (played by the late Edward Herrmann) picked for their one dance, and for that night he wanted her to call him "Bill." 2,900.
B.J. Thomas, "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head", '69. When I think of this, I think about how it was used in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". There was a montage or filler or tension breaker with Paul Newman and Katharine Ross riding one of those new-fangled bicycles. This was one of B.J.'s best with "Hooked on a Feeling". 2,100.
Reflections, "Just Like Romeo and Juliet", '64. I would have guessed that this was earlier. I don't really remember the Reflections, but I remember that the song isn't bad. 4,100.
Dave Clark Five, "Do You Love Me", 1964. A number of other people have done this, going back to The Contours in '62. I was thinking the Beatles had, but couldn't find it list for them. Dave Clark Five was good in a brief heyday. 3,100.
Mamas and the Papas, "Monday Monday" from '66. 1,600.
Gene Pitney, "It Hurts to Be in Love" from '64. I think I remember writing about this one, about how I didn't remember it but heard it a lot after I returned from Italy that September. Girls seemed to like the fast part when he sings, "who'snotinlovewithyou." 3,900.
Dusty Springfield, "Wishin' and Hopin'", early-to-mid '60s. 4,200.
Four Tops, "I Can't Help Myself", also '64 or '65. 1,900.
Spencer Davis Group, "I'm a Man", this was '63 or '64, I believe. 4,050.
Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, "I Wonder What She's Doin' Tonight", 1968. 2,550.
Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations", 1966. I'm pretty sure I've done this one before and was in the range of 1,500-1,700. Maybe higher.
Bobby Goldsboro, "It's Too Late", '66. He had a fairly large number of hits in the '60s, mostly pretty sappy ballads. In this one, he tries to go up-tempo and I think it was a not-very-good cover of an earlier song. 4,800.
Shocking Blue, "Venus", '68 maybe? I've done this one before, probably 3,200 or slightly higher.
Freddy and the Dreamers, "I'm Telling You Now", I think '64 or '65. Freddy and the Dreamers were on the coattails of the British invasion. Their schtick was a dance called The Freddy. Dancers stood in one place and put their arms up at shoulder height while kicking one leg out to the side. Then they'd lower their arms and leg, and repeat, but raising the other leg. It was not imaginative when compared to other '60s dances. It's a better song than "Do the Freddy", which introduced the dance and was probably their other biggest hit. 3,900.
Marvin Gaye, "Heard It Through the Grapevine" from '68. The '60s icon was one of several to record this song in a similar time period. Marvin did a really good job with it. The song received extra legs in the '90s, when the California Raisins, animated wrinkled grapes -- I think for Post Raisin Bran -- used it in their advertising. 2,300.
The Yardbirds, "For Your Love", '65. I think I've done this before, and I think I mentioned that it might have had a harpsichord. Might have been a dulcimer, and I'll look that up. It was a harpsichord, but only because there was no piano or organ at the recording studio. Eric Clapton played guitar before leaving The Yardbirds to go with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. About 3,700.
Four Seasons, "Ronnie", 1964. This was one of their songs about girls, along with "Dawn" and "Rag Doll" and others. It's very typical Four Seasons. 3,950.
Steppenwolf, "Born to Be Wild", '68. I'm pretty sure I've reviewed this one. It's hard rock with a driving rhythm and some psychedelic moments. I'm to sure whether I like it or "Magic Carpet Ride" best among Steppenwolf songs. I think 1,200.
The 5th Dimension, "Wedding Bell Blues", 1966ish. This is some of the best of Marilyn McCoo with The 5th Dimension. It's somewhat overlooked in the group's catalog. On "Gilmore Girls", when the grandparents, Emily and Richard, renewed their vows, this was the song Richard (played by the late Edward Herrmann) picked for their one dance, and for that night he wanted her to call him "Bill." 2,900.
B.J. Thomas, "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head", '69. When I think of this, I think about how it was used in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". There was a montage or filler or tension breaker with Paul Newman and Katharine Ross riding one of those new-fangled bicycles. This was one of B.J.'s best with "Hooked on a Feeling". 2,100.
Reflections, "Just Like Romeo and Juliet", '64. I would have guessed that this was earlier. I don't really remember the Reflections, but I remember that the song isn't bad. 4,100.
Dave Clark Five, "Do You Love Me", 1964. A number of other people have done this, going back to The Contours in '62. I was thinking the Beatles had, but couldn't find it list for them. Dave Clark Five was good in a brief heyday. 3,100.
Mamas and the Papas, "Monday Monday" from '66. 1,600.
Gene Pitney, "It Hurts to Be in Love" from '64. I think I remember writing about this one, about how I didn't remember it but heard it a lot after I returned from Italy that September. Girls seemed to like the fast part when he sings, "who'snotinlovewithyou." 3,900.
Dusty Springfield, "Wishin' and Hopin'", early-to-mid '60s. 4,200.
Four Tops, "I Can't Help Myself", also '64 or '65. 1,900.
Spencer Davis Group, "I'm a Man", this was '63 or '64, I believe. 4,050.
Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, "I Wonder What She's Doin' Tonight", 1968. 2,550.
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Past and present
Before I resume my comments from a month or so ago that haven't been recorded in the blog, I'll discuss a couple of songs I heard today on the way back from getting Samantha's car inspected.
In real time, I'm on my sixth or seventh day reviewing songs from the '40s, before even my time.
Vincent Lopez, vocals by Sonny somebody, "If I Only Had a Brain", no year on the display. Yes, the song from "The Wizard of Oz". The Sirius XM display in her car wasn't wide enough to include the singer's last name. A well known song, even if this wasn't the most familiar rendition. 4,700.
Duke Ellington, "Moonglow", year not listed. This song was the reason I wanted to write about it now before I forgot. Also, I wasn't recording my thoughts in the car on the short drive, maybe 2 miles, from Kwik Kar. After I was found, I found myself whistling the melody from this song. I might have heard it and reviewed it a few days ago. And if I did, I probably just dismissed it as "another typical '40s song." But in whistling it, I realized the tune still has some life. 4,600.
And on the way back after dropping M-Tex off at her school for tonight's concert:
Bing Crosby/Andrews (I assume Andrews Sisters), "Route 66", not sure of the year. I remember the TV show from the late '50s or '60s, and had assumed that the song was written for the show. Apparently not. 4,700.
Johnny Davis, "College Rhythm", no year given. I was writing this one off until I got back in the house and started whistling this song. It has the feel of a song written for a movie. In this case, the singer would probably be the skinny guy wearing his sweater as the lone male cheerleader, much smaller than the burly football players in their letter sweaters at the malt shop. There were far fewer colleges there, but I'm guessing the students did some jumping and jiving. Not sure what the campus fad was in the days before swallowing goldfish and stuffing phone booths. 4,750.
In tonight's concert, M-Tex and the McKinney North orchestra were the opening act for Susan Egan, best known for her work on Broadway. Listening to her singing and incorporating the songs into her life story made me realize that I have to include musical-theater songs in my survey. I'm pretty sure Sirius has a Broadway channel. Once I've finished going through the decades, I'll be monitoring the other Sirius channels, so I will be including music from genres other than pop.
I recorded my impressions of a few songs I heard tonight while driving to the concert, and I'll transcribe that recording as I catch up on songs I've heard during the past month or so. I will not include any of the karaoke songs I heard post-concert at the VFW, where we went to relax and play pool.
In real time, I'm on my sixth or seventh day reviewing songs from the '40s, before even my time.
Vincent Lopez, vocals by Sonny somebody, "If I Only Had a Brain", no year on the display. Yes, the song from "The Wizard of Oz". The Sirius XM display in her car wasn't wide enough to include the singer's last name. A well known song, even if this wasn't the most familiar rendition. 4,700.
Duke Ellington, "Moonglow", year not listed. This song was the reason I wanted to write about it now before I forgot. Also, I wasn't recording my thoughts in the car on the short drive, maybe 2 miles, from Kwik Kar. After I was found, I found myself whistling the melody from this song. I might have heard it and reviewed it a few days ago. And if I did, I probably just dismissed it as "another typical '40s song." But in whistling it, I realized the tune still has some life. 4,600.
And on the way back after dropping M-Tex off at her school for tonight's concert:
Bing Crosby/Andrews (I assume Andrews Sisters), "Route 66", not sure of the year. I remember the TV show from the late '50s or '60s, and had assumed that the song was written for the show. Apparently not. 4,700.
Johnny Davis, "College Rhythm", no year given. I was writing this one off until I got back in the house and started whistling this song. It has the feel of a song written for a movie. In this case, the singer would probably be the skinny guy wearing his sweater as the lone male cheerleader, much smaller than the burly football players in their letter sweaters at the malt shop. There were far fewer colleges there, but I'm guessing the students did some jumping and jiving. Not sure what the campus fad was in the days before swallowing goldfish and stuffing phone booths. 4,750.
In tonight's concert, M-Tex and the McKinney North orchestra were the opening act for Susan Egan, best known for her work on Broadway. Listening to her singing and incorporating the songs into her life story made me realize that I have to include musical-theater songs in my survey. I'm pretty sure Sirius has a Broadway channel. Once I've finished going through the decades, I'll be monitoring the other Sirius channels, so I will be including music from genres other than pop.
I recorded my impressions of a few songs I heard tonight while driving to the concert, and I'll transcribe that recording as I catch up on songs I've heard during the past month or so. I will not include any of the karaoke songs I heard post-concert at the VFW, where we went to relax and play pool.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Visions of a parade; memories of a fair
Voice recording No. 240, Jan. 2.
Buffalo Springfield, "For What It's Worth", '65 or '64. Buffalo Springfield was kind of a pacesetter in those days. Some band members went on to bigger and better things. A good group. 2,400.
Peter and Gordon, "I Go to Pieces", 1965. 4,150.
Junior Walker and the All Stars, "Shotgun", 1965. 3,950.
Tommy James and the Shondells, "Hanky Panky" from '66. 3,200.
Beatles, "Hey Jude", 1968. 600.
Cannibal and the Headhunters, "Land of 1,000 Dances", 1965. This might have been the original. It's not nearly as good as Wilson Pickett's version. 4,200.
Jefferson Airplane, "Somebody to Love", I think '66 or '67. A really good song. Great vocals by Grace Slick -- I first said Stevie Nicks; wrong group. Great guitar work. 1,200, could go higher.
Blood Sweat & Tears, "Spinning Wheel", '69. This has some similarities to the Jefferson Airplane piece, mostly in that I liked it more as it went on. There was more in it than I remembered. It has horns in it, a calliope sound near the end, some psychedelic effects in trying to keep up with the drug culture of the times. 3,600.
Jan and Dean, "Little Old Lady from Pasadena", year? They had a number of surfing hits. I guess Southern California's car culture of the '60s counts as a subset of surfer music. This might be their best hit. The instrumentation isn't much to speak of, but the lyrics and the harmony were really good. "She drives real fast and she drives real hard. She's the terror of Colorado Boulevard." You should be able to picture driving down that street crashing into the floats in the Tournament of Roses parade. "Go, Granny, go, Granny, go, Granny, go!" 1,950.
Charlie Rich, "Mohair Sam", I think '65. This seemed out of place with its times. 4,800.
Herman's Hermits, "I'm Into Something Good" from '64. I've done this before, and I'm guessing I scored it on either side of 3,000, I'll say 3,100 now.
Sly and the Family Stone, "Stand", 1969? Not Sly's best, 4,400.
Shocking Blue, "Venus", I think '68. Later done by Bananarama, which I think had the better version. This one isn't bad. 3,800.
Sonny and Cher, "The Beat Goes On" from '64. 3,200.
The Kinks, "A Well Respected Man", '66. 2,050.
B.J. Thomas, "Hooked on a Feeling" from '68. I've done this before and I'd say it was rated 2,100 or 2,200.
Dave Clark Five, "Over and Over", '64 or '65. Not sure whether I've done this one before. I really like Dave Clark Five. This had some harmony, some harmonica and some good lyrics. I'm disappointed that major league baseball player-turned-coach Dave Clark never seems to wear uniform number 5. 1,750-1,800.
Rolling Stones, "Get Off of My Cloud", 1965. I remember this one as a freshman in college, when we'd have dances and mixers at the Phi Delta Theta house and this song would come on, my roommate, Tom Lindstrom, and I would be telling each other to get off our clouds. That was kind of weird, I know. I didn't give it a score, will have to hear it again.
Sam and Dave, "I Thank You" from '68? Not their best. I think I've done it before and gave it 4,100 or 4,200.
Flaming Ember, "Mind Body and Soul" from '69. Not very good. 4,600.
1910 Fruitgum Company, "Indian Giver", 1968. A song would not be made with this name at this time in our history, probably shouldn't have had it anyway. It's about what you'd expect. The drums play kind of a cliched version of what European immigrants would expect from Native American drumming. The group's name indicates that it's bubblegum music. There's an organ. 4,300.
Herb Alpert, "This Guy's in Love with You", 1968. Herb was better as a songwriter and orchestra leader than as a singer. This orchestra has piano, horns and strings. It's a good song, but very slow moving. 4,150.
Gary Lewis and the Playboys, "Everybody Loves a Clown" from 1965. This is not one of the best clown songs, which would be good to have: "Tears of a Clown", "Cathy's Clown" and others. I'm pretty sure this was during my senior year in high school, and his last words pretty well expressed where I was in my development: "Dreamin' of your love, and not knowing where to start." 4,350.
Martha and the Vandellas, "Jimmy Mac" from '67. I did this one a few nights ago, and probably gave it 4,300 or closer to 4,400.
Neon Philharmonic, "Morning Girl" from '69. The steady drumbeat in this one doesn't seem to play very well with the orchestral part. There are strings, keyboards and horns. Not very good. 4,750.
Neil Diamond, "Cherry Cherry" from '66. 2,200.
Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Green River", 1969. 4,400.
Four Seasons, "Workin' My Way Back to You", '66. That was about the time when I saw the Four Seasons at the Chemung County Fair in Elmira. I went with a group of my friends from high school; I think it was '66, after my freshman year of college. While waiting for the show, we did the usual fair things for late-teen boys. We saw the girly show in one of the tents. I don't remember anything about the woman, which would confirm my suspicion that they were nothing to write home about. I do remember we could buy a box of stale popcorn for a dollar and have a chance to win a prize. Can't remember whether there was a prize in every box or just "big" prizes like a cheap, sparkly ring. There was s shill planted in the audience who actually found a ring is his box. We might have been hicks, but we weren't stupid. It wasn't too much after this that Frankie Valli went off on his own for a bit. 2,100.
Tom Jones, "Delilah", 1968. I was not a big Tom Jones fan, probably because I wasn't the right demographic. I didn't have any panties to throw at him, as women used to do. I'm pretty sure he took his name from the Henry Fielding novel that became a popular movie that was racy for its time. The most risque movie I'd seen, but that wouldn't be saying much. 4,100.
Next: voice recording #243, Jan. 3.
Buffalo Springfield, "For What It's Worth", '65 or '64. Buffalo Springfield was kind of a pacesetter in those days. Some band members went on to bigger and better things. A good group. 2,400.
Peter and Gordon, "I Go to Pieces", 1965. 4,150.
Junior Walker and the All Stars, "Shotgun", 1965. 3,950.
Tommy James and the Shondells, "Hanky Panky" from '66. 3,200.
Beatles, "Hey Jude", 1968. 600.
Cannibal and the Headhunters, "Land of 1,000 Dances", 1965. This might have been the original. It's not nearly as good as Wilson Pickett's version. 4,200.
Jefferson Airplane, "Somebody to Love", I think '66 or '67. A really good song. Great vocals by Grace Slick -- I first said Stevie Nicks; wrong group. Great guitar work. 1,200, could go higher.
Blood Sweat & Tears, "Spinning Wheel", '69. This has some similarities to the Jefferson Airplane piece, mostly in that I liked it more as it went on. There was more in it than I remembered. It has horns in it, a calliope sound near the end, some psychedelic effects in trying to keep up with the drug culture of the times. 3,600.
Jan and Dean, "Little Old Lady from Pasadena", year? They had a number of surfing hits. I guess Southern California's car culture of the '60s counts as a subset of surfer music. This might be their best hit. The instrumentation isn't much to speak of, but the lyrics and the harmony were really good. "She drives real fast and she drives real hard. She's the terror of Colorado Boulevard." You should be able to picture driving down that street crashing into the floats in the Tournament of Roses parade. "Go, Granny, go, Granny, go, Granny, go!" 1,950.
Charlie Rich, "Mohair Sam", I think '65. This seemed out of place with its times. 4,800.
Herman's Hermits, "I'm Into Something Good" from '64. I've done this before, and I'm guessing I scored it on either side of 3,000, I'll say 3,100 now.
Sly and the Family Stone, "Stand", 1969? Not Sly's best, 4,400.
Shocking Blue, "Venus", I think '68. Later done by Bananarama, which I think had the better version. This one isn't bad. 3,800.
Sonny and Cher, "The Beat Goes On" from '64. 3,200.
The Kinks, "A Well Respected Man", '66. 2,050.
B.J. Thomas, "Hooked on a Feeling" from '68. I've done this before and I'd say it was rated 2,100 or 2,200.
Dave Clark Five, "Over and Over", '64 or '65. Not sure whether I've done this one before. I really like Dave Clark Five. This had some harmony, some harmonica and some good lyrics. I'm disappointed that major league baseball player-turned-coach Dave Clark never seems to wear uniform number 5. 1,750-1,800.
Rolling Stones, "Get Off of My Cloud", 1965. I remember this one as a freshman in college, when we'd have dances and mixers at the Phi Delta Theta house and this song would come on, my roommate, Tom Lindstrom, and I would be telling each other to get off our clouds. That was kind of weird, I know. I didn't give it a score, will have to hear it again.
Sam and Dave, "I Thank You" from '68? Not their best. I think I've done it before and gave it 4,100 or 4,200.
Flaming Ember, "Mind Body and Soul" from '69. Not very good. 4,600.
1910 Fruitgum Company, "Indian Giver", 1968. A song would not be made with this name at this time in our history, probably shouldn't have had it anyway. It's about what you'd expect. The drums play kind of a cliched version of what European immigrants would expect from Native American drumming. The group's name indicates that it's bubblegum music. There's an organ. 4,300.
Herb Alpert, "This Guy's in Love with You", 1968. Herb was better as a songwriter and orchestra leader than as a singer. This orchestra has piano, horns and strings. It's a good song, but very slow moving. 4,150.
Gary Lewis and the Playboys, "Everybody Loves a Clown" from 1965. This is not one of the best clown songs, which would be good to have: "Tears of a Clown", "Cathy's Clown" and others. I'm pretty sure this was during my senior year in high school, and his last words pretty well expressed where I was in my development: "Dreamin' of your love, and not knowing where to start." 4,350.
Martha and the Vandellas, "Jimmy Mac" from '67. I did this one a few nights ago, and probably gave it 4,300 or closer to 4,400.
Neon Philharmonic, "Morning Girl" from '69. The steady drumbeat in this one doesn't seem to play very well with the orchestral part. There are strings, keyboards and horns. Not very good. 4,750.
Neil Diamond, "Cherry Cherry" from '66. 2,200.
Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Green River", 1969. 4,400.
Four Seasons, "Workin' My Way Back to You", '66. That was about the time when I saw the Four Seasons at the Chemung County Fair in Elmira. I went with a group of my friends from high school; I think it was '66, after my freshman year of college. While waiting for the show, we did the usual fair things for late-teen boys. We saw the girly show in one of the tents. I don't remember anything about the woman, which would confirm my suspicion that they were nothing to write home about. I do remember we could buy a box of stale popcorn for a dollar and have a chance to win a prize. Can't remember whether there was a prize in every box or just "big" prizes like a cheap, sparkly ring. There was s shill planted in the audience who actually found a ring is his box. We might have been hicks, but we weren't stupid. It wasn't too much after this that Frankie Valli went off on his own for a bit. 2,100.
Tom Jones, "Delilah", 1968. I was not a big Tom Jones fan, probably because I wasn't the right demographic. I didn't have any panties to throw at him, as women used to do. I'm pretty sure he took his name from the Henry Fielding novel that became a popular movie that was racy for its time. The most risque movie I'd seen, but that wouldn't be saying much. 4,100.
Next: voice recording #243, Jan. 3.
Friday, January 30, 2015
Broken hearted, history, Hondas, Hollies, Happenings, Hush and Herman
Voice recording #230, Jan. 1.
On this day, I drove to the Cowboys' practice at Valley Ranch and back home.
Elvis Presley, "In the Ghetto", '68 maybe. 2,000.
Steppenwolf, "Born to Be Wild", '68 or '69. 900.
Bee Gees, "Massachusetts", '67. 1,250.
Mary Wells, "My Guy", '64. I've done this one before. I'd say about 2,100.
Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, "The Game of Love", 1965. Wayne was named in the band at that time. 1,900.
Grass Roots, "Things I Should Have Said", '67. Probably the worst Grass Roots I've heard. 4,800.
Tony Joe White, "Polk Salad Annie", not sure of the year. His greatest hit: "Gators got her granny. Chomp! Chomp!" "Her mama was a-workin' on a chain gang," "Her father was a lazy no-'count." There is a lot of unusual, original stuff in this one. Tony Joe's deep voice, the music, the idea of polk salad, whatever that is. 1,800.
Aretha Franklin, "Natural Woman", I think 1967. This is an anthem for a lot of women. Some good soul music from Aretha. It's very good. 1,850.
The Mamas and the Papas, "Creeque Alley", '67. This is a classic example as one of the anthology type with the etymology of music or provenance of how different rock groups form. Number one on that list is "American Pie", but this is also high on that list. (Roger) McGuinn and (Barry) McGuire kept on getting higher, Mama Cass (Elliot) kept getting fat, (John) Sebastian and Zal (Yanovsky) were getting very tuneful. Good music and good music history. 950.
Beatles, "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite", I believe 1968. It was on the Sgt. Pepper album. Good song. 3,200.
The Hondells, "Little Honda", '64 or '65. This brings back memories of my freshman year in college. My friend Tom Barga had a Honda 50, barely big enough to be classified as a motorbike. We would ride on it probably 3 or 4 miles from the campus to the Delaware Country Club to play golf, with him in the driver's seat, his golf bag behind him, my bag in front of me and me on the back. It was probably a 50- or 55-mph highway, and I'm not sure the bike would go that fast even unladen (a nod to "Monty Python and The Holy Grail"). We rode way over in the right lane, but I imagine there was consternation from the drivers trying to get around us. The song is a semi-classic because of the subject matter. 3,850.
Johnny Rivers, "Baby I Need Your Lovin'" from '67. He could have been a '60s icon, but he didn't really fit into any niche from that decade. He just went on making a lot of hits. Rivers seemed to use a lot of musicians -- backup singers, almost a chorus at times; guitars, drums, maybe some strings. It was solid music. He didn't stretch himself, but he had well written songs performed professionally. 3,500.
The Hollies, "Stop Stop Stop", I think '66. This was a bit progressive for The Hollies. I think there's some sitar, and it's fast-paced. They seemed to be trying to make some kind of transition with their music, but I'm not sure how successful it was. This song was probably not as popular as "Bus Stop". 3,300.
Rolling Stones, "As Tears Go By", '67. This is the sweetest, prettiest Stones song. It was a slow-paced ballad, with some acoustic guitar and a lot of strings that were doing a lot of things. 750.
Three Dog Night, "Eli's Coming", '67 or '66. This is one of Three Dog Night's better songs. I might have had it before, I'm thinking on the high side of 2,000. I'll say 1,900.
Jimmy Ruffin, "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted", again '66 or '67. Jimmy, who died in November, was David Ruffin's older brother. It's a nice song, well done. I was debating which side of 2,500 to put it on when it became repetitive. 2,600.
Jay and the Americans, "Walking in the Rain", 1969. This was a remake of The Ronettes' version from '64. 4,400.
The Yardbirds, "Shapes of Things", '67 or '68. 3,600.
Stone Poneys, "Different Drum", 1967. I also heard this earlier today or yesterday, and I'm thinking it was on the high side of 2,000. This version was one of many remakes of Mike Nesmith's song. This time I heard some harpsichord. That could move it up even more. 1,900.
Simon and Garfunkel, "Scarborough Fair", '66 or '67. One of the many great things about "The Graduate" was the Simon and Garfunkel music that made up much if not all of the soundtrack. This song is an overlaid tapestry of music and lyrics. The music is characterized by the guitar and harpsichord, which adds to the authenticity of this version of a song from medieval times. Simon and Garfunkel are great in setting moods, and this song fit in well with the movie -- which had a lot of ups and downs, funny and sad. This is a classic. 500, possibly higher.
Bobby Fuller Four, "I Fought the Law", maybe '64. I had this one, and think the score would have been 3,300-3,400.
James and Bobby Purify, "I'm Your Puppet", mid-to-late '60s? This one goes beyond other songs in the genre at the time. For one thing, there appears to be a triangle carrying the melody at times. The tempo changes, there are also the horns that are common in soul music. 3,800.
Classics IV, "Spooky", '67. I think I did this one the other night, and it was 3,500-3,700.
The Monkees, "I'm a Believer", year? I reviewed this the other day, and I think my score was between 1,500 and 2,000. I'm feeling better about it now. 1,400.
Deep Purple, "Hush", 1968. 3,600.
Herman's Hermits, "Henry the VIIIth", '66, maybe '68. This is kind of a novelty song, simplistic. I enjoyed hearing Peter Noone talk on Sirius XM Channel 6 about it and about the British invasion. 3,800 because of the novelty and because Herman's Hermits pulled it off well. They were joyful.
Martha and the Vandellas, "Jimmy Mac", '65 to '67? Not their best. 4,200.
Derek, "Cinnamon", '68? It was OK, but hasn't really held up over time. 4,350.
Steppenwolf, "Magic Carpet Ride", '68, maybe '67. I reviewed this before, and I think I gave it between 1,100 and 1,300, more likely on the high end.
The Happenings, "See You in September", 1966. This is a remake of a well known song. The Happenings, The Tokens and some others were like Four Seasons tribute groups while the Four Seasons were still actively spitting out hits. This has a good, bouncy beat; the falsetto; some deep-voiced guys, and it doesn't stick to the song's established script, which probably was an improvement. 3,400.
Next: voice recording #240, Jan. 2.
On this day, I drove to the Cowboys' practice at Valley Ranch and back home.
Elvis Presley, "In the Ghetto", '68 maybe. 2,000.
Steppenwolf, "Born to Be Wild", '68 or '69. 900.
Bee Gees, "Massachusetts", '67. 1,250.
Mary Wells, "My Guy", '64. I've done this one before. I'd say about 2,100.
Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, "The Game of Love", 1965. Wayne was named in the band at that time. 1,900.
Grass Roots, "Things I Should Have Said", '67. Probably the worst Grass Roots I've heard. 4,800.
Tony Joe White, "Polk Salad Annie", not sure of the year. His greatest hit: "Gators got her granny. Chomp! Chomp!" "Her mama was a-workin' on a chain gang," "Her father was a lazy no-'count." There is a lot of unusual, original stuff in this one. Tony Joe's deep voice, the music, the idea of polk salad, whatever that is. 1,800.
Aretha Franklin, "Natural Woman", I think 1967. This is an anthem for a lot of women. Some good soul music from Aretha. It's very good. 1,850.
The Mamas and the Papas, "Creeque Alley", '67. This is a classic example as one of the anthology type with the etymology of music or provenance of how different rock groups form. Number one on that list is "American Pie", but this is also high on that list. (Roger) McGuinn and (Barry) McGuire kept on getting higher, Mama Cass (Elliot) kept getting fat, (John) Sebastian and Zal (Yanovsky) were getting very tuneful. Good music and good music history. 950.
Beatles, "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite", I believe 1968. It was on the Sgt. Pepper album. Good song. 3,200.
The Hondells, "Little Honda", '64 or '65. This brings back memories of my freshman year in college. My friend Tom Barga had a Honda 50, barely big enough to be classified as a motorbike. We would ride on it probably 3 or 4 miles from the campus to the Delaware Country Club to play golf, with him in the driver's seat, his golf bag behind him, my bag in front of me and me on the back. It was probably a 50- or 55-mph highway, and I'm not sure the bike would go that fast even unladen (a nod to "Monty Python and The Holy Grail"). We rode way over in the right lane, but I imagine there was consternation from the drivers trying to get around us. The song is a semi-classic because of the subject matter. 3,850.
Johnny Rivers, "Baby I Need Your Lovin'" from '67. He could have been a '60s icon, but he didn't really fit into any niche from that decade. He just went on making a lot of hits. Rivers seemed to use a lot of musicians -- backup singers, almost a chorus at times; guitars, drums, maybe some strings. It was solid music. He didn't stretch himself, but he had well written songs performed professionally. 3,500.
The Hollies, "Stop Stop Stop", I think '66. This was a bit progressive for The Hollies. I think there's some sitar, and it's fast-paced. They seemed to be trying to make some kind of transition with their music, but I'm not sure how successful it was. This song was probably not as popular as "Bus Stop". 3,300.
Rolling Stones, "As Tears Go By", '67. This is the sweetest, prettiest Stones song. It was a slow-paced ballad, with some acoustic guitar and a lot of strings that were doing a lot of things. 750.
Three Dog Night, "Eli's Coming", '67 or '66. This is one of Three Dog Night's better songs. I might have had it before, I'm thinking on the high side of 2,000. I'll say 1,900.
Jimmy Ruffin, "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted", again '66 or '67. Jimmy, who died in November, was David Ruffin's older brother. It's a nice song, well done. I was debating which side of 2,500 to put it on when it became repetitive. 2,600.
Jay and the Americans, "Walking in the Rain", 1969. This was a remake of The Ronettes' version from '64. 4,400.
The Yardbirds, "Shapes of Things", '67 or '68. 3,600.
Stone Poneys, "Different Drum", 1967. I also heard this earlier today or yesterday, and I'm thinking it was on the high side of 2,000. This version was one of many remakes of Mike Nesmith's song. This time I heard some harpsichord. That could move it up even more. 1,900.
Simon and Garfunkel, "Scarborough Fair", '66 or '67. One of the many great things about "The Graduate" was the Simon and Garfunkel music that made up much if not all of the soundtrack. This song is an overlaid tapestry of music and lyrics. The music is characterized by the guitar and harpsichord, which adds to the authenticity of this version of a song from medieval times. Simon and Garfunkel are great in setting moods, and this song fit in well with the movie -- which had a lot of ups and downs, funny and sad. This is a classic. 500, possibly higher.
Bobby Fuller Four, "I Fought the Law", maybe '64. I had this one, and think the score would have been 3,300-3,400.
James and Bobby Purify, "I'm Your Puppet", mid-to-late '60s? This one goes beyond other songs in the genre at the time. For one thing, there appears to be a triangle carrying the melody at times. The tempo changes, there are also the horns that are common in soul music. 3,800.
Classics IV, "Spooky", '67. I think I did this one the other night, and it was 3,500-3,700.
The Monkees, "I'm a Believer", year? I reviewed this the other day, and I think my score was between 1,500 and 2,000. I'm feeling better about it now. 1,400.
Deep Purple, "Hush", 1968. 3,600.
Herman's Hermits, "Henry the VIIIth", '66, maybe '68. This is kind of a novelty song, simplistic. I enjoyed hearing Peter Noone talk on Sirius XM Channel 6 about it and about the British invasion. 3,800 because of the novelty and because Herman's Hermits pulled it off well. They were joyful.
Martha and the Vandellas, "Jimmy Mac", '65 to '67? Not their best. 4,200.
Derek, "Cinnamon", '68? It was OK, but hasn't really held up over time. 4,350.
Steppenwolf, "Magic Carpet Ride", '68, maybe '67. I reviewed this before, and I think I gave it between 1,100 and 1,300, more likely on the high end.
The Happenings, "See You in September", 1966. This is a remake of a well known song. The Happenings, The Tokens and some others were like Four Seasons tribute groups while the Four Seasons were still actively spitting out hits. This has a good, bouncy beat; the falsetto; some deep-voiced guys, and it doesn't stick to the song's established script, which probably was an improvement. 3,400.
Next: voice recording #240, Jan. 2.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Tying Maggie Smith with John Swofford
Voice recording #223, Dec. 30
Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Lodi" from '69, I believe. 4,250.
Tommy James and the Shondells, "Crimson and Clover", I'm pretty sure '67. That's because I believe I remember it from my spring break trip to Panama City, Fla., that year. 2,200.
Oliver, "Jean", 1969. This was the theme song for "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie", for which I'm pretty sure Maggie Smith won an Oscar in the title role. Pamela Franklin had a good role in the movie too. Jean Brodie was what once would have been called an old-maid teacher. She was very idealistic, if impractical and kind of the equivalent of a stage Mom or Little League Dad who wanted her students to live out her dreams. Miss Brodie was proud of a student who, knowing little of what she was getting into, went to help out in the Spanish Civil War. Oliver's brother, John Swofford, was the athletic director at North Carolina at that time. The song is a nice ballad. 4,400.
Len Barry, "1-2-3" from '65, I believe. 4,050.
The Beatles, "Drive My Car", 1965. I never really listened to the lyrics on this one until. It's about a dreamer who appears to have neither a girlfriend nor a car, but if he ever gets a girlfriend, she could drive his car -- if he had a car. 3,700.
The Lemon Pipers, "Green Tambourine" from '67. This was their greatest hit. True to its name, the song features the tambourine more prominently than possible any other song. There's a lot of percussion in it -- drums, triangle and one of those things with grooves in the side that you run a stick across to make a scraping sound. (I just looked it up, it's a guiro.) There's echo in it, there are sweeping slurs of notes. It's a good tune, too. 1,800
Barry McGuire, "Eve of Destruction", 1965. Also his greatest hit. The lyrics were germane to that particular time, but the sentiments would apply to just about any time. There are crises in the world, and somehow we've been overcoming them since before 1965. Crises keep coming around, but I guess the song's lesson is that it's not as bad as it seems. I might have done this before, and would have given it about 3,100, as high as 3,000.
Four Seasons, "Rag Doll" from '64. It's typical Four Seasons. The subject matter is different. It takes on the fact that the people we love aren't always ones our parents think are good enough for us, that opposites attract. Sometimes we can transcend differences or economic backgrounds. We just love who we love. 2,900.
Nancy Sinatra, "Sugartown", 1966. Not her best. It's almost a stuttering song: "Shuh, shuh, shuh, shuh, shuh, shuh, shuh, shuh, shuh, shuh, shuh-shuh, Sugartown," and it's 4,450.
The Association, "Along Comes Mary", I think '66. It's one of The Association's better ones. Their music hasn't held up really well over time. It's not even representative of the mid-'60s. 3,600.
The Isley Brothers, "It's Your Thing", '66, I think, possibly later in the '60s. When they sing, "I can't tell you who to sock it to," it's like a reference to "Laugh In". This is good soul music. 4,100.
Little Anthony and the Imperials, "Goin' Out of My Head", I think '67. Little Anthony had a pretty good voice and a fairly good number of hits, and this is one of the Imperials' better ones. 3,400.
Billy Joe Royal, "Down in the Boondocks", 1962 or '63. 2,800.
Stone Poneys, "Different Drum", 1966 or '67. Linda Ronstadt makes this song with her great voice. 2,100.
Canned Heat, "On the Road Again", 1968. I'm pretty sure Canned Heat sang this at Woodstock in '69. It's also played on Sirius Channel 6 a lot, to the point where I'm almost tired of it. 3,300.
Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, "Lady Willpower", '69, I'm pretty sure. I almost wrote, "Kirby Puckett." This group was a little behind its time. They were singing ballads in more of a hard-rock, psychedelic age. This one is 3,950.
Every Mother's Son, "Come on Down to My Boat", '66 or '67. It's a catchy tune with a good beat. They also play this a lot on Channel 6, but I'm not tired of it yet. 2,200.
The Bachelors, "Diane", 1964. It's a powerfully sung song, with a nice ending. 4,200.
Chad and Jeremy, "Yesterday's Gone", I'm guessing '66. I saw part of their concert at Ohio Wesleyan, but it wasn't very good. This song is OK, but nothing special. 4,400.
Tommy James and the Shondells, "Crystal Blue Persuasion", '69. It seemed as if they were trying to bridge some gaps in music and time. The horns are a bit of a throwback. I think the bongos are supposed to show that the Shondells were hip, but bongos seem more '50s beatnik than hippie. 4,100.
Jackie De Shannon, "What the World Needs Now", '68 or '69. It's a good song, but nothing special. 4,050.
The Outsiders, "Time Won't Let Me", I think '66. 2,750.
Keith, "98.6", about '67. 4,500.
Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Bad Moon Rising", '68 or '69. 3,200.
The Fireballs, "Bottle of Wine", '68. I'm not sure whether this is the same group that was Jimmy Gilmer and The Fireballs. I checked, and it is the same group. It started without Gilmer, and recorded at the same studio in Clovis, N.M., as Buddy Holly. They were "Jimmy and" for "Sugar Shack", but later went back to being just The Fireballs even though Gilmer was still with them. 4,550.
James Brown, "I've Got You (I Feel Nice)", '65. Quintessential James Brown. If you haven't seen the biopic, "Get On Up", it's very good. Portraying Brown is Chadwick Bozeman, who also played Jackie Robinson in "42" and did a good job in both. This song has a lot of horns, and the hardest-working man in show business. 2,300.
Gary Lewis and the Playboys, "Count Me In", 1966. 3,400.
The Lemon Pipers, "Green Tambourine", '67. I did this one earlier on the same day. I think 1,900 is about right. Up above I said 1,800, so 1,850.
Start next time with voice recording #230, Jan. 1.
Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Lodi" from '69, I believe. 4,250.
Tommy James and the Shondells, "Crimson and Clover", I'm pretty sure '67. That's because I believe I remember it from my spring break trip to Panama City, Fla., that year. 2,200.
Oliver, "Jean", 1969. This was the theme song for "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie", for which I'm pretty sure Maggie Smith won an Oscar in the title role. Pamela Franklin had a good role in the movie too. Jean Brodie was what once would have been called an old-maid teacher. She was very idealistic, if impractical and kind of the equivalent of a stage Mom or Little League Dad who wanted her students to live out her dreams. Miss Brodie was proud of a student who, knowing little of what she was getting into, went to help out in the Spanish Civil War. Oliver's brother, John Swofford, was the athletic director at North Carolina at that time. The song is a nice ballad. 4,400.
Len Barry, "1-2-3" from '65, I believe. 4,050.
The Beatles, "Drive My Car", 1965. I never really listened to the lyrics on this one until. It's about a dreamer who appears to have neither a girlfriend nor a car, but if he ever gets a girlfriend, she could drive his car -- if he had a car. 3,700.
The Lemon Pipers, "Green Tambourine" from '67. This was their greatest hit. True to its name, the song features the tambourine more prominently than possible any other song. There's a lot of percussion in it -- drums, triangle and one of those things with grooves in the side that you run a stick across to make a scraping sound. (I just looked it up, it's a guiro.) There's echo in it, there are sweeping slurs of notes. It's a good tune, too. 1,800
Barry McGuire, "Eve of Destruction", 1965. Also his greatest hit. The lyrics were germane to that particular time, but the sentiments would apply to just about any time. There are crises in the world, and somehow we've been overcoming them since before 1965. Crises keep coming around, but I guess the song's lesson is that it's not as bad as it seems. I might have done this before, and would have given it about 3,100, as high as 3,000.
Four Seasons, "Rag Doll" from '64. It's typical Four Seasons. The subject matter is different. It takes on the fact that the people we love aren't always ones our parents think are good enough for us, that opposites attract. Sometimes we can transcend differences or economic backgrounds. We just love who we love. 2,900.
Nancy Sinatra, "Sugartown", 1966. Not her best. It's almost a stuttering song: "Shuh, shuh, shuh, shuh, shuh, shuh, shuh, shuh, shuh, shuh, shuh-shuh, Sugartown," and it's 4,450.
The Association, "Along Comes Mary", I think '66. It's one of The Association's better ones. Their music hasn't held up really well over time. It's not even representative of the mid-'60s. 3,600.
The Isley Brothers, "It's Your Thing", '66, I think, possibly later in the '60s. When they sing, "I can't tell you who to sock it to," it's like a reference to "Laugh In". This is good soul music. 4,100.
Little Anthony and the Imperials, "Goin' Out of My Head", I think '67. Little Anthony had a pretty good voice and a fairly good number of hits, and this is one of the Imperials' better ones. 3,400.
Billy Joe Royal, "Down in the Boondocks", 1962 or '63. 2,800.
Stone Poneys, "Different Drum", 1966 or '67. Linda Ronstadt makes this song with her great voice. 2,100.
Canned Heat, "On the Road Again", 1968. I'm pretty sure Canned Heat sang this at Woodstock in '69. It's also played on Sirius Channel 6 a lot, to the point where I'm almost tired of it. 3,300.
Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, "Lady Willpower", '69, I'm pretty sure. I almost wrote, "Kirby Puckett." This group was a little behind its time. They were singing ballads in more of a hard-rock, psychedelic age. This one is 3,950.
Every Mother's Son, "Come on Down to My Boat", '66 or '67. It's a catchy tune with a good beat. They also play this a lot on Channel 6, but I'm not tired of it yet. 2,200.
The Bachelors, "Diane", 1964. It's a powerfully sung song, with a nice ending. 4,200.
Chad and Jeremy, "Yesterday's Gone", I'm guessing '66. I saw part of their concert at Ohio Wesleyan, but it wasn't very good. This song is OK, but nothing special. 4,400.
Tommy James and the Shondells, "Crystal Blue Persuasion", '69. It seemed as if they were trying to bridge some gaps in music and time. The horns are a bit of a throwback. I think the bongos are supposed to show that the Shondells were hip, but bongos seem more '50s beatnik than hippie. 4,100.
Jackie De Shannon, "What the World Needs Now", '68 or '69. It's a good song, but nothing special. 4,050.
The Outsiders, "Time Won't Let Me", I think '66. 2,750.
Keith, "98.6", about '67. 4,500.
Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Bad Moon Rising", '68 or '69. 3,200.
The Fireballs, "Bottle of Wine", '68. I'm not sure whether this is the same group that was Jimmy Gilmer and The Fireballs. I checked, and it is the same group. It started without Gilmer, and recorded at the same studio in Clovis, N.M., as Buddy Holly. They were "Jimmy and" for "Sugar Shack", but later went back to being just The Fireballs even though Gilmer was still with them. 4,550.
James Brown, "I've Got You (I Feel Nice)", '65. Quintessential James Brown. If you haven't seen the biopic, "Get On Up", it's very good. Portraying Brown is Chadwick Bozeman, who also played Jackie Robinson in "42" and did a good job in both. This song has a lot of horns, and the hardest-working man in show business. 2,300.
Gary Lewis and the Playboys, "Count Me In", 1966. 3,400.
The Lemon Pipers, "Green Tambourine", '67. I did this one earlier on the same day. I think 1,900 is about right. Up above I said 1,800, so 1,850.
Start next time with voice recording #230, Jan. 1.
A time of great musical variety
Voice recording #217, Dec. 29, plus recordings from Dec. 30. This was after I'd returned from 5 days in Pittsburgh.
Righteous Brothers, "Little Latin Lupe Lu", 1963. Hard to believe this is the Righteous Brothers in this rockin' performance. There's someone, probably one of the brothers, in a deep-voiced section. This is out of character. 4,700.
Steam, "Na Na Hey Hey", 1969. This has become famous at sporting events when the home team's PA system and fans will taunt the visiting team when it's about to lose. The Chicago White Sox are recognized as the first to do that. The song has lived on beyond that single use. I did hear it misused at a high school basketball game a few days ago, when the visiting fans were singing "na na na na." Dudes, you're the ones who are leaving. If I gave this song a rating, I couldn't hear it on the recording.
Elvis Presley, "If I Could Dream", 1968. Not his best. 4,200.
Mary Wells, "My Guy" from '64. I saw her in concert when I was in college. She was past her prime, which really was with this song. 2,300.
Gary Lewis and the Playboys, "This Diamond Ring", '64 or '65. Gary was Jerry Lewis' son. This song seems to be calling for a list of which children of stars became successful singer. There were Dino, Desi and Billy, sons of Dean Martin, Desi Arnaz Sr. and somebody else; Julian Lennon, Nancy Sinatra, Hank Williams Jr., if you want to go hungry. 3,950.
Scott McKenzie, "San Francisco", 1967. Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. This song is pretty folky. I first made it to San Francisco in 1973 when I was across the bay for the World Series. 3,800.
Left Banke, "Walk Away Renee", 1976. This is not the best version of the song, but it's still 2,900.
Blues Magoos, "(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet". Quintessential '60s rock, by a quintessentially named '60s rock group. And it turns out that two of the Magoos are hosting this segment of "My Favorite 45s" on Sirius XM Channel 6. I've done this one before, and I think it's 3,300. I said 3,600 on Dec. 22, so I'll settle on 3,450.
Ides of March, "Vehicle", it doesn't give the year, but I'm thinking 1969 or even '70. This song is similar to something Chicago or Earth, Wind & Fire would do. It was pretty good at the time, but I don't think it has held up over time. 4,050.
Blues Magoos, "Pipe Dreams", no year given. I don't think many people would put it on their list of favorite 45s. 4,800 might be a stretch.
Shirley Ellis, "The Name Game", 1965. I'm a little surprised it was that late and was able to become a hit at that time, but it was pretty big. You still can hear people playing the name game occasionally: "Billy, Billy, bo Illy, banana fana fo Filly." On the strength of that lasting recognition, 2,800.
Beach Boys, "California Girls", 1965. This about as Beach Boys as it gets. It was one of their biggest hits, and it spawned other songs, such as "Back in the U.S.S. R". There's a little more daring instrumentation. And you've got Tupac with a different "California Girls" song. 800.
Simon and Garfunkel, "Hazy Shade of Winter", no year given. Simon and Garfunkel produced songs with way-above-average lyrics, and also instrumentation and harmonies that went well with the lyrics. This one is straightforward, with guitar and drums, and has a great drop-off at the end: "There's a patch of snow on theground." Period. 900.
The Beatles, "Devil in a Heart", a little known early song, '63 or '64 maybe, or even earlier in the UK or Germany. It's not especially good. Ringo or whoever was the drums just about wore out the cymbals. 4,650.
The Happenings, "I Got Rhythm" from '67. This is a really good take on an older song, maybe even a George and Ira Gershwin song. They do a lot with the music on this. There's falsetto, changing tempos, different things overlaid on the music. The instrumentation is sparse, certainly in the background; it's mostly the singing and the change of pace. I checked, and the Gershwins did write this, in 1930. Their chord progression of "rhythm changes" became a staple of jazz. 2,300.
Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", '67, I believe. This was the original version of a song frequent remade. In one of their many collaborations, they did a good job on it. 3,450.
The Monkees, "Daydream Believer", I think '66 or '67. This is one of their best. 3,200.
Lesley Gore, "Look of Love", '65. This is not "The Look of Love" of Sergio Mendes, and it's not very good. 4,650.
Sly and the Family Stone, "Dance to the Music", 1968. This is good soul music that really brings out the orchestra going along with it. 3,400.
Steppenwolf, "Magic Carpet Ride", also from '68. This is a much different genre, looking ahead to a more metallic future rather than back at '60s dance music. I really like Steppenwolf, and this is one of their best. The group also got me, and probable plenty of others, reading Hermann Hesse, which is a good experience. The Hesse books I read were very helpful in finding alternate ways of thinking about things. We're not all good, we're not all bad. This song is not all good, but it's pretty doggone good and not very bad. 600.
Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, "Over You" is a third type of music from '68: the soft-rock ballad. 3,900.
Lou Christie, "I'm Gonna Make You Mine" from '69. This one combines a little bit of Four Seasons and Cowsills. It's a transitional period for Lou Christie, but he held up pretty well. He was not a one-trick pony; he had a number of hits. 3,550.
Classics IV, "Traces", 1969. The Classics IV were like balladeers from an earlier time. Their songs have a nostalgic feel, with muted horns, which are very un-late '60s. 4,300.
Dixie Cups, "Chapel of Love", maybe '64. This song fits its time. Even though the British invasion had arrived, it was still a pretty innocent time -- for me especially. The Dixie Cups could sing plausible lyrics such as "I'll never be lonely anymore" when they went to the chapel to get married. Those of us who married a few years later were more likely to realize that you could be lonely in marriage and that marriage wasn't permanent. There are good harmonies in this, evocative of the times. 1,600.
Rolling Stones, "Let's Spend the Night Together", 1967. 1,250.
Voice recording #219 next.
Righteous Brothers, "Little Latin Lupe Lu", 1963. Hard to believe this is the Righteous Brothers in this rockin' performance. There's someone, probably one of the brothers, in a deep-voiced section. This is out of character. 4,700.
Steam, "Na Na Hey Hey", 1969. This has become famous at sporting events when the home team's PA system and fans will taunt the visiting team when it's about to lose. The Chicago White Sox are recognized as the first to do that. The song has lived on beyond that single use. I did hear it misused at a high school basketball game a few days ago, when the visiting fans were singing "na na na na." Dudes, you're the ones who are leaving. If I gave this song a rating, I couldn't hear it on the recording.
Elvis Presley, "If I Could Dream", 1968. Not his best. 4,200.
Mary Wells, "My Guy" from '64. I saw her in concert when I was in college. She was past her prime, which really was with this song. 2,300.
Gary Lewis and the Playboys, "This Diamond Ring", '64 or '65. Gary was Jerry Lewis' son. This song seems to be calling for a list of which children of stars became successful singer. There were Dino, Desi and Billy, sons of Dean Martin, Desi Arnaz Sr. and somebody else; Julian Lennon, Nancy Sinatra, Hank Williams Jr., if you want to go hungry. 3,950.
Scott McKenzie, "San Francisco", 1967. Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair. This song is pretty folky. I first made it to San Francisco in 1973 when I was across the bay for the World Series. 3,800.
Left Banke, "Walk Away Renee", 1976. This is not the best version of the song, but it's still 2,900.
Blues Magoos, "(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet". Quintessential '60s rock, by a quintessentially named '60s rock group. And it turns out that two of the Magoos are hosting this segment of "My Favorite 45s" on Sirius XM Channel 6. I've done this one before, and I think it's 3,300. I said 3,600 on Dec. 22, so I'll settle on 3,450.
Ides of March, "Vehicle", it doesn't give the year, but I'm thinking 1969 or even '70. This song is similar to something Chicago or Earth, Wind & Fire would do. It was pretty good at the time, but I don't think it has held up over time. 4,050.
Blues Magoos, "Pipe Dreams", no year given. I don't think many people would put it on their list of favorite 45s. 4,800 might be a stretch.
Shirley Ellis, "The Name Game", 1965. I'm a little surprised it was that late and was able to become a hit at that time, but it was pretty big. You still can hear people playing the name game occasionally: "Billy, Billy, bo Illy, banana fana fo Filly." On the strength of that lasting recognition, 2,800.
Beach Boys, "California Girls", 1965. This about as Beach Boys as it gets. It was one of their biggest hits, and it spawned other songs, such as "Back in the U.S.S. R". There's a little more daring instrumentation. And you've got Tupac with a different "California Girls" song. 800.
Simon and Garfunkel, "Hazy Shade of Winter", no year given. Simon and Garfunkel produced songs with way-above-average lyrics, and also instrumentation and harmonies that went well with the lyrics. This one is straightforward, with guitar and drums, and has a great drop-off at the end: "There's a patch of snow on theground." Period. 900.
The Beatles, "Devil in a Heart", a little known early song, '63 or '64 maybe, or even earlier in the UK or Germany. It's not especially good. Ringo or whoever was the drums just about wore out the cymbals. 4,650.
The Happenings, "I Got Rhythm" from '67. This is a really good take on an older song, maybe even a George and Ira Gershwin song. They do a lot with the music on this. There's falsetto, changing tempos, different things overlaid on the music. The instrumentation is sparse, certainly in the background; it's mostly the singing and the change of pace. I checked, and the Gershwins did write this, in 1930. Their chord progression of "rhythm changes" became a staple of jazz. 2,300.
Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", '67, I believe. This was the original version of a song frequent remade. In one of their many collaborations, they did a good job on it. 3,450.
The Monkees, "Daydream Believer", I think '66 or '67. This is one of their best. 3,200.
Lesley Gore, "Look of Love", '65. This is not "The Look of Love" of Sergio Mendes, and it's not very good. 4,650.
Sly and the Family Stone, "Dance to the Music", 1968. This is good soul music that really brings out the orchestra going along with it. 3,400.
Steppenwolf, "Magic Carpet Ride", also from '68. This is a much different genre, looking ahead to a more metallic future rather than back at '60s dance music. I really like Steppenwolf, and this is one of their best. The group also got me, and probable plenty of others, reading Hermann Hesse, which is a good experience. The Hesse books I read were very helpful in finding alternate ways of thinking about things. We're not all good, we're not all bad. This song is not all good, but it's pretty doggone good and not very bad. 600.
Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, "Over You" is a third type of music from '68: the soft-rock ballad. 3,900.
Lou Christie, "I'm Gonna Make You Mine" from '69. This one combines a little bit of Four Seasons and Cowsills. It's a transitional period for Lou Christie, but he held up pretty well. He was not a one-trick pony; he had a number of hits. 3,550.
Classics IV, "Traces", 1969. The Classics IV were like balladeers from an earlier time. Their songs have a nostalgic feel, with muted horns, which are very un-late '60s. 4,300.
Dixie Cups, "Chapel of Love", maybe '64. This song fits its time. Even though the British invasion had arrived, it was still a pretty innocent time -- for me especially. The Dixie Cups could sing plausible lyrics such as "I'll never be lonely anymore" when they went to the chapel to get married. Those of us who married a few years later were more likely to realize that you could be lonely in marriage and that marriage wasn't permanent. There are good harmonies in this, evocative of the times. 1,600.
Rolling Stones, "Let's Spend the Night Together", 1967. 1,250.
Voice recording #219 next.
Monday, January 26, 2015
Remembering Jim Morrison, and now Joe Cocker
Voice recording #208, Dec. 23.
The Animals, "We Gotta Get Out of This Place", '64 maybe. It's a good Animals song. Right after I heard this, I heard from Freddy Coleman on ESPN radio that Joe Cocker had died. Clearly a sad loss. Coleman mentioned how important Cocker was to British R&B music. 900.
?, "Young Love, and the year didn't show up on the display. I'm not sure who did this, but it sounded like a woman. Lesley Gore covered it in 1966, and Mary Hopkin in '69. The most famous version was Pat Boone's during the '50s, and even that was a cover. There's not much difference between that version and this one. The instrumentation was even thin. 4,400.
Peter and Gordon, "A World Without Love" from 1964. I remember this one because on my birthday there was a party for me with mostly basketball players and their girlfriends. One of my teammates, I think it was Paul Cogsdill, gave me the Peter and Gordon album, which might have been called "A World Without Love". I'm pretty sure it was their first album; they hadn't had many hits at the time. The album is pretty much Peter, Gordon, a guitar and drums. Very simple. It was a subset of the British invasion. 3,400.
Marvin Gaye, "Thinking About My Baby", 1969. Not one of his best. I'm thinking about two of my babies, M-Tex and Samantha, who are now in Paris and will be spending Christmas in Venice while I'm in Pittsburgh. 4,550.
The Doors, "I'm Going to Love You" from '68. One of the times I went to the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame, there was a display about Jim Morrison. It detailed his upbringing and some of the problems that led to his early demise -- a theme of this day. The thing that stuck in my mind the most was seeing his Cub Scout uniform. His dad, Rear Admiral George Morrison was in charge of the U.S. carrier fleet in the Gulf of Tonkin. The display made it seem as if there was a Great Santini component to the parenting by Jim's dad, that he was hard on his children. So Jim seemed conflicted between his desire to be free and not repressed, and the kind of precision that went into his Cub Scout uniform. That conflict apparently wasn't played out before his death. I remember when I was in Cub Scouts, my mom was a pretty good seamstress; she did homemaker things very well. But on my sleeves -- and I didn't get a whole lot of arrows to add to my badges -- rather than having the badges separated precisely by a quarter of an inch or whatever the measurement was, and Morrison's sleeve was a picture of precision, one of mine would be tilted a little bit this way and another a little bit that way. It was not a neat row. I was in Boy Scouts just about long enough to get enough merit badges to get a sash to display them -- that was about it. You'd see some kids at summer camp with merit badges from their shoulder to their waist, but I got caught up in high school sports and other activities. So my sash had a few rows of badges up near my shoulder and the rest was blank. I do recommend the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame. 2,900.
The Mindbenders, "A Groovy Kind of Love", I'd say early '60s or maybe as late as '66. They were no longer Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders. He had left the band in 1965. With him, the Mindbenders had better songs than this slow-paced, innocuous rock song. 4,650.
Sam and Dave, "I Thank You" from '68. Again, not their best. Some things in the song were mindful of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", but this song isn't as good as that either. 4,100.
Nancy Sinatra, "These Boots Are Made for Walking", maybe '64. This song changed a lot of people's perceptions. 1. Who knew Frank Sinatra had a hot daughter? 2. It made me look at women in boots in a different way. Some boots are good, and I'm sure Nancy helped other women think they'd look good in boots as well. This next part I direct at M-Tex, to say you don't really need a dozen pairs of boots. This was by far her biggest hit -- even bigger than the songs she did with her dad, who I understand was also a pretty good singer. 2,700.
The Drifters, "White Christmas". Picture The Drifters singing "Under the Boardwalk" or "Up on the Roof". Picture "White Christmas". And then picture something 180 degrees away from each of them, if that's possible. I guess you'd call this closer to "Green May Day". I might have given another song 4,999. But if I did, this song would probably lose the playoff for that position.
This is actually the Lou Christie Christmas Show, so perhaps we'll have "Two Faces Have I on New Year's Eve", and one of those would be shit-faced. I hope the others are better. I like Christmas songs, especially during the few days before and after the holiday (not in November or on Halloween), but really!
Beach Boys, "Little Saint Nick". My faith is restored. This one has staying power. It's very Beach Boys, playful and a counterpoint between the Beach Boy's almost falsetto and the bassish "Christmas comes this time each year." As they repeat that phrase, the pitch gets higher. 3,950.
The De Castro Sisters and Nick Martin, "Snowbound for Christmas", 1955. I think Nick Martin had the orchestra, because he certainly wasn't singing. This one sounds like a production number, so it might have come from some holiday movie. It had a big orchestra with lots of strings. I checked and the song doesn't seem to have been included in a movie. It is, however, the title song on an album of forgotten holiday tunes from the '50s and '60s that you can buy for 10.98 pounds from propermusic.com. 4,750.
Lou Christie, "Coldest Night of the Year". A woman was singing most of it, so possibly it was Louise Christie. 4,800.
Cyndi Lauper, "Feels Like Christmas". It sounds like Cyndi, but out of tune. The drumbeat sounds like the Continental Army marching from Lexington to Concord. It didn't feel much like Christmas to me. As much as I like Cyndi Lauper, 4,850.
Paul Anka, "It's Christmas Everywhere". It's not Christmas yet. It's barely Christmas Eve in Europe, and only what Diana would call Christmas Eve Eve here in the U.S. and Anka's Canada. This song is more like Christmas on tranquilizers. It doesn't follow any of the typical formulas. It's not religious. It isn't warm and fuzzy. It isn't a novelty recording. It's just a song. 4,900.
Lou Christie, "Christmas in NY" on the display, but the words are "Christmas in New York", so I'm guessing that's the actual title. It has some Lou Christie touches with the falsetto and chimes, but it's nothing special for a holiday song. 4,850, possibly a bit more.
Brian Wilson, "What I Really Want for Christmas". This was a bit heavy. Apparently what he really wanted was peace, which is cool. But he would have been better in following the formula of "Little Saint Nick", so listeners could say, "Hey! A Beach Boys song!" I just heard more of the song on the recording, and thought the people who write songs like this probably failed at writing some of the weak new hymns you could hear in "modern" churches. 4,900.
Carnie and Wendy Wilson, "Hey Santa" from 1993. I would bet that more Christmas songs are about Santa than anyone else, even Jesus. But I guess that makes sense. It is Santa's birthday on December 25th, right? I didn't remember Wendy, but I checked and found that she was the other Wilson sister in Wilson Phillips with Carnie and Chynna Phillips. The sisters were Brian Wilson's daughters -- the Beach Boy, not the former Giants and Dodgers pitcher. I had low expectations for this song, so it's not as disappointing as Brian Wilson's. 4,850.
Next, following my Christmas trip to Pittsburgh, is voice recording #217 from Dec. 29.
The Animals, "We Gotta Get Out of This Place", '64 maybe. It's a good Animals song. Right after I heard this, I heard from Freddy Coleman on ESPN radio that Joe Cocker had died. Clearly a sad loss. Coleman mentioned how important Cocker was to British R&B music. 900.
?, "Young Love, and the year didn't show up on the display. I'm not sure who did this, but it sounded like a woman. Lesley Gore covered it in 1966, and Mary Hopkin in '69. The most famous version was Pat Boone's during the '50s, and even that was a cover. There's not much difference between that version and this one. The instrumentation was even thin. 4,400.
Peter and Gordon, "A World Without Love" from 1964. I remember this one because on my birthday there was a party for me with mostly basketball players and their girlfriends. One of my teammates, I think it was Paul Cogsdill, gave me the Peter and Gordon album, which might have been called "A World Without Love". I'm pretty sure it was their first album; they hadn't had many hits at the time. The album is pretty much Peter, Gordon, a guitar and drums. Very simple. It was a subset of the British invasion. 3,400.
Marvin Gaye, "Thinking About My Baby", 1969. Not one of his best. I'm thinking about two of my babies, M-Tex and Samantha, who are now in Paris and will be spending Christmas in Venice while I'm in Pittsburgh. 4,550.
The Doors, "I'm Going to Love You" from '68. One of the times I went to the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame, there was a display about Jim Morrison. It detailed his upbringing and some of the problems that led to his early demise -- a theme of this day. The thing that stuck in my mind the most was seeing his Cub Scout uniform. His dad, Rear Admiral George Morrison was in charge of the U.S. carrier fleet in the Gulf of Tonkin. The display made it seem as if there was a Great Santini component to the parenting by Jim's dad, that he was hard on his children. So Jim seemed conflicted between his desire to be free and not repressed, and the kind of precision that went into his Cub Scout uniform. That conflict apparently wasn't played out before his death. I remember when I was in Cub Scouts, my mom was a pretty good seamstress; she did homemaker things very well. But on my sleeves -- and I didn't get a whole lot of arrows to add to my badges -- rather than having the badges separated precisely by a quarter of an inch or whatever the measurement was, and Morrison's sleeve was a picture of precision, one of mine would be tilted a little bit this way and another a little bit that way. It was not a neat row. I was in Boy Scouts just about long enough to get enough merit badges to get a sash to display them -- that was about it. You'd see some kids at summer camp with merit badges from their shoulder to their waist, but I got caught up in high school sports and other activities. So my sash had a few rows of badges up near my shoulder and the rest was blank. I do recommend the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame. 2,900.
The Mindbenders, "A Groovy Kind of Love", I'd say early '60s or maybe as late as '66. They were no longer Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders. He had left the band in 1965. With him, the Mindbenders had better songs than this slow-paced, innocuous rock song. 4,650.
Sam and Dave, "I Thank You" from '68. Again, not their best. Some things in the song were mindful of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", but this song isn't as good as that either. 4,100.
Nancy Sinatra, "These Boots Are Made for Walking", maybe '64. This song changed a lot of people's perceptions. 1. Who knew Frank Sinatra had a hot daughter? 2. It made me look at women in boots in a different way. Some boots are good, and I'm sure Nancy helped other women think they'd look good in boots as well. This next part I direct at M-Tex, to say you don't really need a dozen pairs of boots. This was by far her biggest hit -- even bigger than the songs she did with her dad, who I understand was also a pretty good singer. 2,700.
The Drifters, "White Christmas". Picture The Drifters singing "Under the Boardwalk" or "Up on the Roof". Picture "White Christmas". And then picture something 180 degrees away from each of them, if that's possible. I guess you'd call this closer to "Green May Day". I might have given another song 4,999. But if I did, this song would probably lose the playoff for that position.
This is actually the Lou Christie Christmas Show, so perhaps we'll have "Two Faces Have I on New Year's Eve", and one of those would be shit-faced. I hope the others are better. I like Christmas songs, especially during the few days before and after the holiday (not in November or on Halloween), but really!
Beach Boys, "Little Saint Nick". My faith is restored. This one has staying power. It's very Beach Boys, playful and a counterpoint between the Beach Boy's almost falsetto and the bassish "Christmas comes this time each year." As they repeat that phrase, the pitch gets higher. 3,950.
The De Castro Sisters and Nick Martin, "Snowbound for Christmas", 1955. I think Nick Martin had the orchestra, because he certainly wasn't singing. This one sounds like a production number, so it might have come from some holiday movie. It had a big orchestra with lots of strings. I checked and the song doesn't seem to have been included in a movie. It is, however, the title song on an album of forgotten holiday tunes from the '50s and '60s that you can buy for 10.98 pounds from propermusic.com. 4,750.
Lou Christie, "Coldest Night of the Year". A woman was singing most of it, so possibly it was Louise Christie. 4,800.
Cyndi Lauper, "Feels Like Christmas". It sounds like Cyndi, but out of tune. The drumbeat sounds like the Continental Army marching from Lexington to Concord. It didn't feel much like Christmas to me. As much as I like Cyndi Lauper, 4,850.
Paul Anka, "It's Christmas Everywhere". It's not Christmas yet. It's barely Christmas Eve in Europe, and only what Diana would call Christmas Eve Eve here in the U.S. and Anka's Canada. This song is more like Christmas on tranquilizers. It doesn't follow any of the typical formulas. It's not religious. It isn't warm and fuzzy. It isn't a novelty recording. It's just a song. 4,900.
Lou Christie, "Christmas in NY" on the display, but the words are "Christmas in New York", so I'm guessing that's the actual title. It has some Lou Christie touches with the falsetto and chimes, but it's nothing special for a holiday song. 4,850, possibly a bit more.
Brian Wilson, "What I Really Want for Christmas". This was a bit heavy. Apparently what he really wanted was peace, which is cool. But he would have been better in following the formula of "Little Saint Nick", so listeners could say, "Hey! A Beach Boys song!" I just heard more of the song on the recording, and thought the people who write songs like this probably failed at writing some of the weak new hymns you could hear in "modern" churches. 4,900.
Carnie and Wendy Wilson, "Hey Santa" from 1993. I would bet that more Christmas songs are about Santa than anyone else, even Jesus. But I guess that makes sense. It is Santa's birthday on December 25th, right? I didn't remember Wendy, but I checked and found that she was the other Wilson sister in Wilson Phillips with Carnie and Chynna Phillips. The sisters were Brian Wilson's daughters -- the Beach Boy, not the former Giants and Dodgers pitcher. I had low expectations for this song, so it's not as disappointing as Brian Wilson's. 4,850.
Next, following my Christmas trip to Pittsburgh, is voice recording #217 from Dec. 29.
'60s trends and a surprise hit
Voice recording #203, Dec. 22
Blues Magoos, "(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet", 1967. 3,600.
Supremes, "The Happening", '67. There were happenings, which were kind of a precursor to raves, during the late '60s, when the times were a-changing. "Laugh-In" was huge on TV then, in prime time rather than the later late night of SNL, and it was the show that launched Goldie Hawn, who begat Kate Hudson. 3,800.
The Lovin' Spoonful, "Summer in the City", '66. I remember listening to this when I drove to the Jersey shore (Ocean Beach) to visit my college friend Tom Poole one weekend, so it has some good memories. 1,900.
Bobby Fuller Four, "I Fought the Law," I think '66. This could go in a competition for legal-conflict songs with "I Shot the Sheriff" and others. Civilians' fighting the law is a hot-button topic as 2014 turns into 2015. 2,300.
Hugo Montenegro and His Orchestra, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", 1968. This was a seminal film, especially for a college-age male. It was THE spaghetti Western, one of Clint Eastwood's greatest roles as The Man with No Name or Blondeh, along with Eli Wallach's Tuco and Lee Van Cleef's Angel Eyes. The sound track wasn't necessary ground-breaking, but it was memorable with its horns. Ennio Morricone did the music for the movie. I'm not sure why Montenegro had the pop-music version. It's an instrumental, but with some voices. Part of what they say sounds like "Waco," but I've seen in written out as "ehko." 3,100.
The Youngbloods, "Get Together", 1969, during the age of Aquarius. The song is not timeless in its presentation of peace and harmony, but it is representative of its period. 3,700.
Billy Joe Royal, "I Knew You When", '65. It's not his greatest, but it's fine. 4,100.
Jackie DeShannon, "Put a Little Love in Your Heart", 1969. At the time when this came out, there still weren't a whole lot of female soloists performing. You had Jackie, Marianne Faithful and a few others. Diana Ross had broken away and gone solo, and a few others did the same during the years to come -- Linda Ronstadt, Tina Turner, Marilyn McCoo, Cher split from Sonny -- with varying degrees of success. This was part of a movement that was probably overdue, and strangely was more prevalent in country music. 3,600.
Eric Burdon and The Animals, "Don't Bring Me Down", '66. Not The Animals' best, but it did tell us that Eric Burdon might have been becoming bigger than the band. Naming the front man along with the group was part of another mid-to-late '60s trend, but not as powerful as the female-vocalist movement. 3,950.
Four Tops, "Standing in the Shadows of Love", I think '67. Again not their greatest, but pretty good. 3,500.
The Mamas and the Papas, "California Dreaming", '66. I can remember hearing this on the radio in my freshman dorm room. 2,400.
Joe Cocker, "I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends", I'm guessing '68. This is a Beatles tune that he took and added some things -- slowed it down a bit, changed some tempos, put in a chorus and used his own inimitable singing style. By that time, there were some videos of performers so we could see what they looked like and how they comported themselves on stage. That's how we saw Cocker's unique style. I'm not sure that he improved on the original song, but he certainly didn't hurt it. I think of this as a variation on a theme, and the changes that he made were good, not destructive. 1,700.
My original intention for this project was to blog every day with my observations from the songs. It hasn't come close to working that way. I was about a month behind (as I still am) in recording and posting daily observations, so it might end up taking me years to complete a database and write this book, instead of completing the research by Nov. 1, and putting it in some kind of order and finishing the database and the writing within a few months after that. I'm hoping to keep posting a lot more.
The Monkees, "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You", '66 or '67. I just heard the end of it after recording my explanation above, but I know the song pretty well. I might have written about it already. Again, it's not The Monkees' best. 4,300.
Rufus Thomas, "I'll Be Your Santa Baby". This is not a song you're going to expect to hear every year at this time, like "Jingle Bell Rock", which is more universal. I didn't give it a rating, but wouldn't expect it to be among a Top 5,000.
The Delfonics, "La La (Means I Love You)", not sure of the year. The group reminds me of the Quentin Tarantino film, "Jackie Brown". It was full of incongruities, but none greater than Robert Forster's hard-bitten bail bondsman character, who tried to bond with Pam Grier's money-laundering stewardess/flight attendant character, Jackie Brown, through her love of The Delfonics. Their music was on the record player in her apartment the first time he went there. The song is a ballad, incongruous with a period of more raucous music. 3,800.
Jeannie C. Riley, "Harper Valley PTA", 1968. It was her greatest pop hit by far, though she had success in the country and gospel music genres. And Jeannie C. Riley is not related to John C. Reilly. One reason why I like '60s music as a whole better than any other decades' is that I was in my prime radio-listening days and I had more time to listen. A bigger reason was that there was just so much variety, and new genres popping up with various periods of longevity. At a time when there were songs protesting the war, Motown, psychedelic music, there's this country song going almost to the top of the 1968 year-long chart. I'm not a big fan of this particular song, but I applaud the additional voice in the mix. 4,500.
Rolling Stones, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", '65. This may be only my second- or third-favorite Stones song, but it's still 100 or less.
The Young Rascals, "Good Lovin'", '66. This was before they were just The Rascals, I guess because they were older. The song was very popular at the time and had a lot of things going on. 2,700.
Next up is voice recording #208.
Blues Magoos, "(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet", 1967. 3,600.
Supremes, "The Happening", '67. There were happenings, which were kind of a precursor to raves, during the late '60s, when the times were a-changing. "Laugh-In" was huge on TV then, in prime time rather than the later late night of SNL, and it was the show that launched Goldie Hawn, who begat Kate Hudson. 3,800.
The Lovin' Spoonful, "Summer in the City", '66. I remember listening to this when I drove to the Jersey shore (Ocean Beach) to visit my college friend Tom Poole one weekend, so it has some good memories. 1,900.
Bobby Fuller Four, "I Fought the Law," I think '66. This could go in a competition for legal-conflict songs with "I Shot the Sheriff" and others. Civilians' fighting the law is a hot-button topic as 2014 turns into 2015. 2,300.
Hugo Montenegro and His Orchestra, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", 1968. This was a seminal film, especially for a college-age male. It was THE spaghetti Western, one of Clint Eastwood's greatest roles as The Man with No Name or Blondeh, along with Eli Wallach's Tuco and Lee Van Cleef's Angel Eyes. The sound track wasn't necessary ground-breaking, but it was memorable with its horns. Ennio Morricone did the music for the movie. I'm not sure why Montenegro had the pop-music version. It's an instrumental, but with some voices. Part of what they say sounds like "Waco," but I've seen in written out as "ehko." 3,100.
The Youngbloods, "Get Together", 1969, during the age of Aquarius. The song is not timeless in its presentation of peace and harmony, but it is representative of its period. 3,700.
Billy Joe Royal, "I Knew You When", '65. It's not his greatest, but it's fine. 4,100.
Jackie DeShannon, "Put a Little Love in Your Heart", 1969. At the time when this came out, there still weren't a whole lot of female soloists performing. You had Jackie, Marianne Faithful and a few others. Diana Ross had broken away and gone solo, and a few others did the same during the years to come -- Linda Ronstadt, Tina Turner, Marilyn McCoo, Cher split from Sonny -- with varying degrees of success. This was part of a movement that was probably overdue, and strangely was more prevalent in country music. 3,600.
Eric Burdon and The Animals, "Don't Bring Me Down", '66. Not The Animals' best, but it did tell us that Eric Burdon might have been becoming bigger than the band. Naming the front man along with the group was part of another mid-to-late '60s trend, but not as powerful as the female-vocalist movement. 3,950.
Four Tops, "Standing in the Shadows of Love", I think '67. Again not their greatest, but pretty good. 3,500.
The Mamas and the Papas, "California Dreaming", '66. I can remember hearing this on the radio in my freshman dorm room. 2,400.
Joe Cocker, "I Get By with a Little Help from My Friends", I'm guessing '68. This is a Beatles tune that he took and added some things -- slowed it down a bit, changed some tempos, put in a chorus and used his own inimitable singing style. By that time, there were some videos of performers so we could see what they looked like and how they comported themselves on stage. That's how we saw Cocker's unique style. I'm not sure that he improved on the original song, but he certainly didn't hurt it. I think of this as a variation on a theme, and the changes that he made were good, not destructive. 1,700.
My original intention for this project was to blog every day with my observations from the songs. It hasn't come close to working that way. I was about a month behind (as I still am) in recording and posting daily observations, so it might end up taking me years to complete a database and write this book, instead of completing the research by Nov. 1, and putting it in some kind of order and finishing the database and the writing within a few months after that. I'm hoping to keep posting a lot more.
The Monkees, "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You", '66 or '67. I just heard the end of it after recording my explanation above, but I know the song pretty well. I might have written about it already. Again, it's not The Monkees' best. 4,300.
Rufus Thomas, "I'll Be Your Santa Baby". This is not a song you're going to expect to hear every year at this time, like "Jingle Bell Rock", which is more universal. I didn't give it a rating, but wouldn't expect it to be among a Top 5,000.
The Delfonics, "La La (Means I Love You)", not sure of the year. The group reminds me of the Quentin Tarantino film, "Jackie Brown". It was full of incongruities, but none greater than Robert Forster's hard-bitten bail bondsman character, who tried to bond with Pam Grier's money-laundering stewardess/flight attendant character, Jackie Brown, through her love of The Delfonics. Their music was on the record player in her apartment the first time he went there. The song is a ballad, incongruous with a period of more raucous music. 3,800.
Jeannie C. Riley, "Harper Valley PTA", 1968. It was her greatest pop hit by far, though she had success in the country and gospel music genres. And Jeannie C. Riley is not related to John C. Reilly. One reason why I like '60s music as a whole better than any other decades' is that I was in my prime radio-listening days and I had more time to listen. A bigger reason was that there was just so much variety, and new genres popping up with various periods of longevity. At a time when there were songs protesting the war, Motown, psychedelic music, there's this country song going almost to the top of the 1968 year-long chart. I'm not a big fan of this particular song, but I applaud the additional voice in the mix. 4,500.
Rolling Stones, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", '65. This may be only my second- or third-favorite Stones song, but it's still 100 or less.
The Young Rascals, "Good Lovin'", '66. This was before they were just The Rascals, I guess because they were older. The song was very popular at the time and had a lot of things going on. 2,700.
Next up is voice recording #208.
Losing Otis Redding and Senator Kennedy -- plus a lot of names dropped
Voice recording #200, Dec. 19.
Sirius XM Channel 6, the '60s.
Fifth Dimension, "Aquarius", 1969. It doesn't get much more how we perceive the '60s than this one. It truly was literally the dawning of the Age of Aquarius for a number of people at that time, in the year of Woodstock and my college graduation. That dawning added another dimension to the song. I saw the Fifth Dimension in concert at Ohio Wesleyan and being incredibly impressed with Marilyn McCoo, who carried the group with her joyful, enthusiastic singing and performing. 1,900.
Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, "Watch the Flowers Grow", 1967. I don't remember this song, and there's probably a good reason. This was slightly more exciting than watching grass grow. I really liked the Four Seasons and Frankie generally, but 4,750.
The Beatles, "Hard Day's Night (Hollywood Bowl)", mid-'60s. Must have been a live performance at Hollywood Bowl. 3,100.
Otis Redding, "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay", '67 or '68. This became very popular because Otis died after recording it. I remember hearing this at a party at the late Bill Zantiny's apartment in Columbus. He was a senior when I was a freshman, and I think he was working on a master's degree at The Ohio State University. It was as if I was at a big-boy party. Invited a girl named Sally, but I was nervous because I was afraid she was out of my league and I'm sure I didn't show her a good time. This was a good song, but I'm not sure it would have become as popular had Otis survived. 1,950.
Procol Harum, "Whiter Shade of Pale", year? I think I left the recorder running during the song, and thought I was recording my impressions when I actually had turned it off. If I didn't hear it and rate it another time, this would be above 1,000. Really liked the song and the organ.
The McCoys, "Hang on Sloopy", 1965. The McCoys were from Dayton, Ohio, so they weren't too far away to come and perform on our campus, but they might not have. I don't specifically remember seeing them. They and the Music Explosion from Mansfield were high on the charts in Ohio. 3,800.
Four Tops, "Reach Out (I'll Be There)", I think '64. Pretty good driving rhythm. 2,300.
Paul Revere and the Raiders, "Hungry", '66. The group was later known as just the Raiders. Their heyday was in the mid-to-late '60s. They haven't really held up well outside their era. This was an OK song but not their best. 4,300.
Roy Orbison, "Oh Pretty Woman" from '64. This was revived by the popularity of the movie "Pretty Woman" three decades later. Orbison was an underrated talent. His singing was excellent. One drawback on this song was that the instrumentation is mundane. He wasn't really appreciated too much because he wasn't a dynamic performer, even in the days when very few were dynamic. I'm talking about the days when even the British invasion groups sang wearing matching jackets. Ron Bliss, the publisher when I was the managing editor for Buffalo Bills Weekly, had a theory that Orbison wore dark glasses on stage because he was ugly. He wasn't photogenic, but he could sing. I'm wavering on this one, which quite likely is his best, but 1,400.
Lesley Gore, "California Nights", not sure of the year. I was surprised when I entered the '60s into the database at how many hits Lesley had during the decade. There weren't a lot of memorable ones. She's known best for the ongoing saga of "It's My Party" and "Judy's Turn to Cry". This was one of her later songs, kind of rocky. Music had turned away from her typical style. 3,700.
The Okaysions, "Girl Watcher" from '68, I believe. It was a song that might not be made today because it objectified women, and they sometimes object. It has a catchy tune. 3,900.
The Gentrys, "Keep on Dancing", '65. Because it was '65, it had organ music in it. Also pretty good drumming. Their greatest, maybe only, hit. Just checked; they did have other, far less successful hit songs. 3,600.
Johnny Rivers, "Summer Rain" from '67. My Lesley Gore comment also applies somewhat to Rivers. He had a distinct style that was his, and it lasted longer than Gore's did. He didn't change much, but by '67 the instrumentation included drums and strings that were fuller than in his earlier songs. He adds a shout out to "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". So he wasn't fighting the change, but he wasn't joining it either. This song grew on me as I really started listening to it today. 3,200.
Small Faces, "Ichycoo Park", I think '67. I mentioned this song as one about parks that pretty much sucked. Not as much as "MacArthur Park". "Ichycoo" has a little bit of what you might call music to it. 4,700.
Beach Boys, "Dance, Dance, Dance" from 1964. This is straight-up Beach Boys, before the "Good Vibrations" days. It was pretty much surfer-party dude music. 3,050.
The Monkees, "Valerie", 1968. When I listened to it, I realized it was one of the rockiest love songs. The Monkees were a made-for-TV group. When they started, I don't believe any of them played instruments; they were just singers. There is good guitar work on this song, and a good, driving beat. Good work here. 2,200.
We Five, "You Were on My Mind", '65. I think this qualifies as folk rock, and it's good. It keeps moving, has a word story. This was the year I graduated from high school, and I was becoming aware of things. I'd been to Europe the previous summer, and that probably helped. This song has some sophistication. 1,500.
Stevie Wonder, "A Place in the Sun", '62 is in my mind as the year, but he might still have been Little Stevie Wonder then. I don't this believe this is the original version. It's OK. 4,200.
Neil Sedaka, "Deck the Halls", no year listed. I'm thinking they played this just because it's a holiday song. There are a lot of holiday songs that pop stars have recorded. This one does not stand out even in the holiday milieu. 4,750.
Herman's Hermits, "I'm Into Something Good", '64. My high school friend Steve Hubbell always used the expression "That's into something" when that thing was good, and the Hermits used the expression the same way. Peter Noone, aka Herman, does a really good weekend show on Sirius XM's '60s on 6. He talks of knowing many of the bands and people in them while they all were coming up in England, and different places where he'd encounter them at gigs. He has a lot of knowledge about the scene over there. Herman's Hermits had some successes, and this was one of them. 2,100.
The Who, "Pictures of Lily", not sure of the year. I vaguely remember this one; it was not one of The Who's greatest. 4,300.
Neil Diamond, "Cherry Cherry", 1966. 3,700.
Mason Williams, "Classical Gas", 1968. It was an instrumental. This one did what good instrumental pieces do -- used different tempos and volumes of sound, instrumentation. The classical guitar really carried the melody. There are drums, horns and I believe some strings, so it's pretty musical. 3,550.
Jay and the Americans, "Wisdom of a Fool", it didn't say what year. I don't remember this one at all. I think it's a cappella. I give them some points for trying something different. 4,550.
Donovan, "Mellow Yellow", '66. Donovan Leitch was kind of a next wave of the British invasion. He was a little bit out there. In this song, he does some of what you might call whisper singing: "quite rightly." 2,200.
The Trade Winds, "New York's a Lonely Town", '65. There were some sleigh bells in this song, which I believe was another holiday tune. New York apparently is a lonely town when you're the only surfer boy around. 4,600.
Temptations, "My Girl", '66. Classic Motown. There's an orchestra, which was a typical Motown feature. 1,200.
Millie Small, "My Boy Lollipop", I'd say no later than '63. You can't go too far wrong with a song that rhymes "my boy Lollipop" with "makes my heart go giddy-up." 3,900.
Crispian St. Peter, "Pied Piper", I don't remember seeing a year, '66, maybe '68. There aren't too many songs here that feature what I think was a piccolo. It's a pretty good song, and it's a guy named Crispian. Come on! 1,900.
The Beatles, "Good Day Sunshine", I think '65. A DJ or guest host commented between songs that Beatles producer George Martin played piano on the song. It's a good-time song on the order of the Beatles' later "Here Comes the Sun". 2,800.
Wilson Pickett, "Land of 1,000 Dances", 1966. In this one, you can hear the saxophone and horns. While the song is playing, I can almost see young people in a club dancing the twist or the pony, mashed potatoes, as Wilson sings about those. 2,200.
Three Dog Night, "Eli's Coming", don't know the year. This was very rocky for Three Dog Night, their rock ingest. It moves pretty well. 2,900.
B.J. Thomas, "Hooked on a Feeling", 1968. I don't know if this was the original version, but it was the first one I heard, and definitely an early one. So this was before David Hasselhoff or "ooga chucka." I like it. 2,250.
Rolling Stones, "Lady Jane", '66. I'm not sure whether this was supposed to be about Henry VIII's wife Lady Jane Seymour, or alluding to them with a contemporary named Jane or Lady Anne. A good case for the Henry VIII scenario is that it either had a harpsichord or some way of making a guitar sound like a harpsichord out of the Reformation/Renaissance period. It's a nice tune. Just checked. It had Jack Nitzche on harpsichord and Brian Jones on dulcimer. 2,700.
Arthur Conley, "Sweet Soul Music", 1967. This is an anthology type of songs that catches us up on some particular genre of music and pays homage to some of the artists of the day. I heard it a lot in college, because down the hall Chris Ensign and Steve Croll had it on their record player -- which we had then -- and it was set up so that instead of just turning itself off at the end of the song, the needle would return to the beginning of the song. It would play constantly for hours. But it was also good music itself. 2,200.
Gene Pitney, "It Hurts to Be in Love", 1964. This must have come out in the summer, while I was in Italy, because I didn't remember hearing it until some time after I returned. It seemed to be very popular with the girls in my class. 3,200.
Shangri-Las, "Leader of the Pack", 1964. This is a stone classic. It really seems like nostalgia, reaching back to the music of a year or more earlier before the British invaded. It has the revving of a motorcycle in the song, great lyrics such as "I met him at the candy store (referring to the big biker, the leader of the pack). He turned around and smiled at me. You get the picture? Yes, we see. That's when I -- not me, but the singers, the Shangri-Las -- fell for the leader of the pack. Vroom vroom" -- sound effects, not singing. 200.
The Chambers Brothers, "Time Has Come Today", I think '67. It's a great one. Any movie, anything that has to do with time, inevitably you'll hear the Chambers Brothers and their loud ticking clock effects. 500.
The Archies, "Sugar Sugar", 1969. Pure bubblegum music. 4,300.
Dave Clark Five, "I Like It Like That", '64 or possibly '65. In the early days of the British invasion, the Beatles were clearly the kings. But I think up high, in a grouping that would have included the Stones, was Dave Clark Five. They really had some good music going. They just didn't evolve the way the Beatles did, so they just kind of got stuck and went away. This song has a nice hard edge. 2,200.
Herman's Hermits, "Wonderful World", '66. I think Sam Cooke had the original version. I heard a little-known fact on 60s on 6, that the session guitarist on the Hermits' version was Jimmy Page, later with Led Zeppelin. It's a pretty good song. I think the original was the best, but I give this one 2,400.
The Ventures, "Sleigh Ride", and I guess they're not giving the years for these holiday songs because they're timeless, right? This one you know: "It's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you." Well, you know the song but I doubt that many people even know, much less have heard, the Ventures' instrumental version in several decades. The guitar playing and picking are mindful of Duane Eddy. 4,700.
The Association, "Cherish", 1967? The Association had a number of soft songs, and this could have been the softest. It's a song of unrequited love. The dude just doesn't have the words to describe the way he feels to the woman of his dreams -- even though he does sing, "Cherish is the word." 3,700.
Jackie Wilson, "Higher and Higher", 1967. This is another guy for whom I didn't recall how much influence he had on the music world. He had a number of hits, but not many huge hits. This song has been well done by others, such as Rita Coolidge. This version is good and squarely in the soul genre. 1,900.
The Troggs, "Wild Thing", 1966. It was a pretty good year, even for this song, kind of a novelty act. Later came out a version of "Wild Thing" by Senator Kennedy: "Wild Thing, you uh make uh my haht sing." It included a line, "Teddy on the ocarina." That version went down in flames after Sen. Robert Kennedy was assassinated, just as satirist Vaughn Meader's career all but ended with the death of President Jack Kennedy. I don't know if I have heard the senator's version since '68. He shouldn't have been killed, but that shouldn't mean that we never hear anything that could be construed as mocking or poking fun at him. Also in '66, I was 18 years, home from college, working during the day where my dad worked at Seneca Foods. It was a great but disappointing season for the Pittsburgh Pirates, my favorite team. They didn't win, but were high on character and characters, such as radio broadcaster Bob Prince and catcher Jim Pagliaroni to go with Roberto Clemente and the double-play combination of Gene Alley and Bill Mazeroski. That was my favorite Pirates team, even above their World Series champions in my lifetime. The only players I didn't like were first baseman Donn Clendenon and pitcher Pete Mikkelsen, who seemed predisposed to not coming through and seeming to spell disasters in clutch situations. Prince came up with the concept of the Green Weenie, a green plastic thing that was supposed to be a hot dog but looked more like a pickle. You were supposed to wave it to help the Pirates get through tough stretches in games, kind of a precursor to the Angels' Rally Monkey. I was excited when somebody actually got me a Green Weenie. 1,200 for this classic song.
Paul Revere and the Raiders (again), "Good Things", 1966. It had a good driving beat, some harmonizing in the voices. 3,000.
Sirius XM Channel 6, the '60s.
Fifth Dimension, "Aquarius", 1969. It doesn't get much more how we perceive the '60s than this one. It truly was literally the dawning of the Age of Aquarius for a number of people at that time, in the year of Woodstock and my college graduation. That dawning added another dimension to the song. I saw the Fifth Dimension in concert at Ohio Wesleyan and being incredibly impressed with Marilyn McCoo, who carried the group with her joyful, enthusiastic singing and performing. 1,900.
Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, "Watch the Flowers Grow", 1967. I don't remember this song, and there's probably a good reason. This was slightly more exciting than watching grass grow. I really liked the Four Seasons and Frankie generally, but 4,750.
The Beatles, "Hard Day's Night (Hollywood Bowl)", mid-'60s. Must have been a live performance at Hollywood Bowl. 3,100.
Otis Redding, "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay", '67 or '68. This became very popular because Otis died after recording it. I remember hearing this at a party at the late Bill Zantiny's apartment in Columbus. He was a senior when I was a freshman, and I think he was working on a master's degree at The Ohio State University. It was as if I was at a big-boy party. Invited a girl named Sally, but I was nervous because I was afraid she was out of my league and I'm sure I didn't show her a good time. This was a good song, but I'm not sure it would have become as popular had Otis survived. 1,950.
Procol Harum, "Whiter Shade of Pale", year? I think I left the recorder running during the song, and thought I was recording my impressions when I actually had turned it off. If I didn't hear it and rate it another time, this would be above 1,000. Really liked the song and the organ.
The McCoys, "Hang on Sloopy", 1965. The McCoys were from Dayton, Ohio, so they weren't too far away to come and perform on our campus, but they might not have. I don't specifically remember seeing them. They and the Music Explosion from Mansfield were high on the charts in Ohio. 3,800.
Four Tops, "Reach Out (I'll Be There)", I think '64. Pretty good driving rhythm. 2,300.
Paul Revere and the Raiders, "Hungry", '66. The group was later known as just the Raiders. Their heyday was in the mid-to-late '60s. They haven't really held up well outside their era. This was an OK song but not their best. 4,300.
Roy Orbison, "Oh Pretty Woman" from '64. This was revived by the popularity of the movie "Pretty Woman" three decades later. Orbison was an underrated talent. His singing was excellent. One drawback on this song was that the instrumentation is mundane. He wasn't really appreciated too much because he wasn't a dynamic performer, even in the days when very few were dynamic. I'm talking about the days when even the British invasion groups sang wearing matching jackets. Ron Bliss, the publisher when I was the managing editor for Buffalo Bills Weekly, had a theory that Orbison wore dark glasses on stage because he was ugly. He wasn't photogenic, but he could sing. I'm wavering on this one, which quite likely is his best, but 1,400.
Lesley Gore, "California Nights", not sure of the year. I was surprised when I entered the '60s into the database at how many hits Lesley had during the decade. There weren't a lot of memorable ones. She's known best for the ongoing saga of "It's My Party" and "Judy's Turn to Cry". This was one of her later songs, kind of rocky. Music had turned away from her typical style. 3,700.
The Okaysions, "Girl Watcher" from '68, I believe. It was a song that might not be made today because it objectified women, and they sometimes object. It has a catchy tune. 3,900.
The Gentrys, "Keep on Dancing", '65. Because it was '65, it had organ music in it. Also pretty good drumming. Their greatest, maybe only, hit. Just checked; they did have other, far less successful hit songs. 3,600.
Johnny Rivers, "Summer Rain" from '67. My Lesley Gore comment also applies somewhat to Rivers. He had a distinct style that was his, and it lasted longer than Gore's did. He didn't change much, but by '67 the instrumentation included drums and strings that were fuller than in his earlier songs. He adds a shout out to "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". So he wasn't fighting the change, but he wasn't joining it either. This song grew on me as I really started listening to it today. 3,200.
Small Faces, "Ichycoo Park", I think '67. I mentioned this song as one about parks that pretty much sucked. Not as much as "MacArthur Park". "Ichycoo" has a little bit of what you might call music to it. 4,700.
Beach Boys, "Dance, Dance, Dance" from 1964. This is straight-up Beach Boys, before the "Good Vibrations" days. It was pretty much surfer-party dude music. 3,050.
The Monkees, "Valerie", 1968. When I listened to it, I realized it was one of the rockiest love songs. The Monkees were a made-for-TV group. When they started, I don't believe any of them played instruments; they were just singers. There is good guitar work on this song, and a good, driving beat. Good work here. 2,200.
We Five, "You Were on My Mind", '65. I think this qualifies as folk rock, and it's good. It keeps moving, has a word story. This was the year I graduated from high school, and I was becoming aware of things. I'd been to Europe the previous summer, and that probably helped. This song has some sophistication. 1,500.
Stevie Wonder, "A Place in the Sun", '62 is in my mind as the year, but he might still have been Little Stevie Wonder then. I don't this believe this is the original version. It's OK. 4,200.
Neil Sedaka, "Deck the Halls", no year listed. I'm thinking they played this just because it's a holiday song. There are a lot of holiday songs that pop stars have recorded. This one does not stand out even in the holiday milieu. 4,750.
Herman's Hermits, "I'm Into Something Good", '64. My high school friend Steve Hubbell always used the expression "That's into something" when that thing was good, and the Hermits used the expression the same way. Peter Noone, aka Herman, does a really good weekend show on Sirius XM's '60s on 6. He talks of knowing many of the bands and people in them while they all were coming up in England, and different places where he'd encounter them at gigs. He has a lot of knowledge about the scene over there. Herman's Hermits had some successes, and this was one of them. 2,100.
The Who, "Pictures of Lily", not sure of the year. I vaguely remember this one; it was not one of The Who's greatest. 4,300.
Neil Diamond, "Cherry Cherry", 1966. 3,700.
Mason Williams, "Classical Gas", 1968. It was an instrumental. This one did what good instrumental pieces do -- used different tempos and volumes of sound, instrumentation. The classical guitar really carried the melody. There are drums, horns and I believe some strings, so it's pretty musical. 3,550.
Jay and the Americans, "Wisdom of a Fool", it didn't say what year. I don't remember this one at all. I think it's a cappella. I give them some points for trying something different. 4,550.
Donovan, "Mellow Yellow", '66. Donovan Leitch was kind of a next wave of the British invasion. He was a little bit out there. In this song, he does some of what you might call whisper singing: "quite rightly." 2,200.
The Trade Winds, "New York's a Lonely Town", '65. There were some sleigh bells in this song, which I believe was another holiday tune. New York apparently is a lonely town when you're the only surfer boy around. 4,600.
Temptations, "My Girl", '66. Classic Motown. There's an orchestra, which was a typical Motown feature. 1,200.
Millie Small, "My Boy Lollipop", I'd say no later than '63. You can't go too far wrong with a song that rhymes "my boy Lollipop" with "makes my heart go giddy-up." 3,900.
Crispian St. Peter, "Pied Piper", I don't remember seeing a year, '66, maybe '68. There aren't too many songs here that feature what I think was a piccolo. It's a pretty good song, and it's a guy named Crispian. Come on! 1,900.
The Beatles, "Good Day Sunshine", I think '65. A DJ or guest host commented between songs that Beatles producer George Martin played piano on the song. It's a good-time song on the order of the Beatles' later "Here Comes the Sun". 2,800.
Wilson Pickett, "Land of 1,000 Dances", 1966. In this one, you can hear the saxophone and horns. While the song is playing, I can almost see young people in a club dancing the twist or the pony, mashed potatoes, as Wilson sings about those. 2,200.
Three Dog Night, "Eli's Coming", don't know the year. This was very rocky for Three Dog Night, their rock ingest. It moves pretty well. 2,900.
B.J. Thomas, "Hooked on a Feeling", 1968. I don't know if this was the original version, but it was the first one I heard, and definitely an early one. So this was before David Hasselhoff or "ooga chucka." I like it. 2,250.
Rolling Stones, "Lady Jane", '66. I'm not sure whether this was supposed to be about Henry VIII's wife Lady Jane Seymour, or alluding to them with a contemporary named Jane or Lady Anne. A good case for the Henry VIII scenario is that it either had a harpsichord or some way of making a guitar sound like a harpsichord out of the Reformation/Renaissance period. It's a nice tune. Just checked. It had Jack Nitzche on harpsichord and Brian Jones on dulcimer. 2,700.
Arthur Conley, "Sweet Soul Music", 1967. This is an anthology type of songs that catches us up on some particular genre of music and pays homage to some of the artists of the day. I heard it a lot in college, because down the hall Chris Ensign and Steve Croll had it on their record player -- which we had then -- and it was set up so that instead of just turning itself off at the end of the song, the needle would return to the beginning of the song. It would play constantly for hours. But it was also good music itself. 2,200.
Gene Pitney, "It Hurts to Be in Love", 1964. This must have come out in the summer, while I was in Italy, because I didn't remember hearing it until some time after I returned. It seemed to be very popular with the girls in my class. 3,200.
Shangri-Las, "Leader of the Pack", 1964. This is a stone classic. It really seems like nostalgia, reaching back to the music of a year or more earlier before the British invaded. It has the revving of a motorcycle in the song, great lyrics such as "I met him at the candy store (referring to the big biker, the leader of the pack). He turned around and smiled at me. You get the picture? Yes, we see. That's when I -- not me, but the singers, the Shangri-Las -- fell for the leader of the pack. Vroom vroom" -- sound effects, not singing. 200.
The Chambers Brothers, "Time Has Come Today", I think '67. It's a great one. Any movie, anything that has to do with time, inevitably you'll hear the Chambers Brothers and their loud ticking clock effects. 500.
The Archies, "Sugar Sugar", 1969. Pure bubblegum music. 4,300.
Dave Clark Five, "I Like It Like That", '64 or possibly '65. In the early days of the British invasion, the Beatles were clearly the kings. But I think up high, in a grouping that would have included the Stones, was Dave Clark Five. They really had some good music going. They just didn't evolve the way the Beatles did, so they just kind of got stuck and went away. This song has a nice hard edge. 2,200.
Herman's Hermits, "Wonderful World", '66. I think Sam Cooke had the original version. I heard a little-known fact on 60s on 6, that the session guitarist on the Hermits' version was Jimmy Page, later with Led Zeppelin. It's a pretty good song. I think the original was the best, but I give this one 2,400.
The Ventures, "Sleigh Ride", and I guess they're not giving the years for these holiday songs because they're timeless, right? This one you know: "It's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you." Well, you know the song but I doubt that many people even know, much less have heard, the Ventures' instrumental version in several decades. The guitar playing and picking are mindful of Duane Eddy. 4,700.
The Association, "Cherish", 1967? The Association had a number of soft songs, and this could have been the softest. It's a song of unrequited love. The dude just doesn't have the words to describe the way he feels to the woman of his dreams -- even though he does sing, "Cherish is the word." 3,700.
Jackie Wilson, "Higher and Higher", 1967. This is another guy for whom I didn't recall how much influence he had on the music world. He had a number of hits, but not many huge hits. This song has been well done by others, such as Rita Coolidge. This version is good and squarely in the soul genre. 1,900.
The Troggs, "Wild Thing", 1966. It was a pretty good year, even for this song, kind of a novelty act. Later came out a version of "Wild Thing" by Senator Kennedy: "Wild Thing, you uh make uh my haht sing." It included a line, "Teddy on the ocarina." That version went down in flames after Sen. Robert Kennedy was assassinated, just as satirist Vaughn Meader's career all but ended with the death of President Jack Kennedy. I don't know if I have heard the senator's version since '68. He shouldn't have been killed, but that shouldn't mean that we never hear anything that could be construed as mocking or poking fun at him. Also in '66, I was 18 years, home from college, working during the day where my dad worked at Seneca Foods. It was a great but disappointing season for the Pittsburgh Pirates, my favorite team. They didn't win, but were high on character and characters, such as radio broadcaster Bob Prince and catcher Jim Pagliaroni to go with Roberto Clemente and the double-play combination of Gene Alley and Bill Mazeroski. That was my favorite Pirates team, even above their World Series champions in my lifetime. The only players I didn't like were first baseman Donn Clendenon and pitcher Pete Mikkelsen, who seemed predisposed to not coming through and seeming to spell disasters in clutch situations. Prince came up with the concept of the Green Weenie, a green plastic thing that was supposed to be a hot dog but looked more like a pickle. You were supposed to wave it to help the Pirates get through tough stretches in games, kind of a precursor to the Angels' Rally Monkey. I was excited when somebody actually got me a Green Weenie. 1,200 for this classic song.
Paul Revere and the Raiders (again), "Good Things", 1966. It had a good driving beat, some harmonizing in the voices. 3,000.
Saturday, January 24, 2015
Some history, musical and personal
Voice recording #198, Dec. 18.
England Dan and John Ford Coley, "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight", '76. I met John Ford Coley about 10 years ago when he did a concert after a Rochester Red Wings baseball game. We talked some in the press box before his performance. Pretty cool dude. Perhaps England Dan went back to England. 3,400.
Al Green, "Here I Am", '73. Al had a pretty good run during the early '70s, but this wasn't really a big part of that run. 4,600.
Three Dog Night, "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)", 1970. 2,800.
Andy Gibb, "Shadow Dancing", some time in the mid-'70s. 4,100.
Robert John, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", '72. This is one of the later entries among the folk songs. There haven't been a whole lot since the '50s and '60s, when they were prevalent. This is a remake of a song by the Tokens in 1961. One of differences in this version's bridge sections is a tuba or some other low-register horn playing the melody. This song predates the Tokens. It's an African folk song sometimes called "Wimoweh", first recorded in 1939. It's a good song. During the late '50s, my next-door neighbor's son, Warren Elliott, did this song in clubs around Chicago after he dropped out of Northwestern, and performed it at our local Glenora Music and Arts Festival. That even was the brain child of Colonel Larry Bolvig, about whom I could write a whole book. I don't remember that the Robert John version was popular, but I'll give it 3,300.
Commodores, "Brick House" from '77. It's about as rocky as the Commodores got. I really like the lyrics with their clever plays on words. I'm pretty sure I've done this one before. I'd say it was somewhere in the 2,000 range. 1,900, and I wouldn't be averse to 1,800.
Sugar Loaf, "Don't Call Us We'll Call You", '74. I do not remember this, and I don't think I would have called them anyway. This song kept less of my interest as it went along. 4,550, and that's probably too high.
Rod Stewart, "Maggie May", '71. This really reminds me of when I returned from the Army to go to law school at Case Western Reserve. It seemed that I often heard it in the morning as I was getting ready to go to school. I'd usually get up and walk Anne and the dog down to the Shaker rapid train at Shaker Square to go to her teaching job in Cleveland. Then I'd go home, have breakfast and listen to the radio while I got ready. Then I'd walk a block or two west to catch a bus to school. We couldn't afford and didn't really need a car except occasionally to go grocery shopping, because the public transportation was so good. The song is about a bittersweet May-December romance. Typically, the December person seems to be shut out first, but in this case, it was Rod's May character being shot down by the beautiful December, Maggie May. There's a banjo at the end that's good. 1,200, possibly even higher.
Paul McCartney and Wings, "Live and Let Die", '73, I think. This is a very good James Bond theme song -- performed well, of course. 2,100.
Jigsaw, "Sky High", '75. I'm pretty sure this is a different song from the "Sky High"s performed by the Ben Folds Five and Wiz Khalifa. This one wasn't exactly cutting edge, but it's an OK tune. 4,200.
Electric Light Orchestra, "Telephone Line", '77. This group is not to be confuse with the Enoch Light Orchestra from the '40s. I think I've done this one before. I like it, ELO had some good music in the mid-to-late '70s. 3,400.
John Denver, "Rocky Mountain High", '73. I'm pretty sure I've done this one before, and put it in the mid 3,000s. I'm speculating in my mind what might have happened in John Denver's career if he had not crashed his plane. I'm thinking he would have been a latter-day Andy Williams -- no longer relevant in the later music scene, but hosting holiday specials as his niche. Let's say 3,600.
Manfred Mann's Earth Band, "Blinded by the Light", '76 or '78. The lyrics are confused and confusing. The rhythm and music are good. I may have done this one before. 3,300.
Santa Esmeralda, "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", '78. This song had a good remake, but this is not it. This version invokes the Lord, but even that doesn't raise it above 4,600.
Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Alone Again (Naturally), '72. I've done this one. I've never seen Gilbert O'Sullivan, but I've always pictured him as a leprechaun. Wikipedia has a 1974 photo of him with that decade's signature big hair. In 1991, he won a precedent-setting case in which he sued Biz Markie for sampling "Alone Again" without his permission. I'm thinking 3,100.
Supertramp, "Give a Little Bit", not sure of the year, maybe '77. I think I've done this one. A thought: Supertramp is a lot closer to being a supergroup than Peter Frampton was to being a superduperstar or even a superstar. Just didn't some checking, and it doesn't appear that either Supertramp or Frampton are in he Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Supertramp was good, but perhaps their greatness flared out too soon to be worthy of the Hall of Fame. A note in juxtaposition: When Gilbert O'Sullivan was in college, he played drums with Supertramp's Rick Davies in a band called Rick's Blues. 2,800.
Exile, "Kiss You All Over", '78. This is in the genre of power ballad, kind of fairly heavy rock but still a ballad/love song. Kiss had some similar songs. I might have done this one before, but now I'm comparing it to "Alone Again" and "Give a Little Bit". 2,950.
Stevie Wonder, "Signed Sealed Delivered", 1970. Stevie is rightfully respected. He has been around the music business for a long time. He has been an influence on a lot of music. For someone who has been around and has such a good name, he didn't really have a whole lot of really memorable songs. This one is probably about in the middle of what he has done. 3,400.
Begin next with voice recording #200, Dec. 19.
England Dan and John Ford Coley, "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight", '76. I met John Ford Coley about 10 years ago when he did a concert after a Rochester Red Wings baseball game. We talked some in the press box before his performance. Pretty cool dude. Perhaps England Dan went back to England. 3,400.
Al Green, "Here I Am", '73. Al had a pretty good run during the early '70s, but this wasn't really a big part of that run. 4,600.
Three Dog Night, "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)", 1970. 2,800.
Andy Gibb, "Shadow Dancing", some time in the mid-'70s. 4,100.
Robert John, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", '72. This is one of the later entries among the folk songs. There haven't been a whole lot since the '50s and '60s, when they were prevalent. This is a remake of a song by the Tokens in 1961. One of differences in this version's bridge sections is a tuba or some other low-register horn playing the melody. This song predates the Tokens. It's an African folk song sometimes called "Wimoweh", first recorded in 1939. It's a good song. During the late '50s, my next-door neighbor's son, Warren Elliott, did this song in clubs around Chicago after he dropped out of Northwestern, and performed it at our local Glenora Music and Arts Festival. That even was the brain child of Colonel Larry Bolvig, about whom I could write a whole book. I don't remember that the Robert John version was popular, but I'll give it 3,300.
Commodores, "Brick House" from '77. It's about as rocky as the Commodores got. I really like the lyrics with their clever plays on words. I'm pretty sure I've done this one before. I'd say it was somewhere in the 2,000 range. 1,900, and I wouldn't be averse to 1,800.
Sugar Loaf, "Don't Call Us We'll Call You", '74. I do not remember this, and I don't think I would have called them anyway. This song kept less of my interest as it went along. 4,550, and that's probably too high.
Rod Stewart, "Maggie May", '71. This really reminds me of when I returned from the Army to go to law school at Case Western Reserve. It seemed that I often heard it in the morning as I was getting ready to go to school. I'd usually get up and walk Anne and the dog down to the Shaker rapid train at Shaker Square to go to her teaching job in Cleveland. Then I'd go home, have breakfast and listen to the radio while I got ready. Then I'd walk a block or two west to catch a bus to school. We couldn't afford and didn't really need a car except occasionally to go grocery shopping, because the public transportation was so good. The song is about a bittersweet May-December romance. Typically, the December person seems to be shut out first, but in this case, it was Rod's May character being shot down by the beautiful December, Maggie May. There's a banjo at the end that's good. 1,200, possibly even higher.
Paul McCartney and Wings, "Live and Let Die", '73, I think. This is a very good James Bond theme song -- performed well, of course. 2,100.
Jigsaw, "Sky High", '75. I'm pretty sure this is a different song from the "Sky High"s performed by the Ben Folds Five and Wiz Khalifa. This one wasn't exactly cutting edge, but it's an OK tune. 4,200.
Electric Light Orchestra, "Telephone Line", '77. This group is not to be confuse with the Enoch Light Orchestra from the '40s. I think I've done this one before. I like it, ELO had some good music in the mid-to-late '70s. 3,400.
John Denver, "Rocky Mountain High", '73. I'm pretty sure I've done this one before, and put it in the mid 3,000s. I'm speculating in my mind what might have happened in John Denver's career if he had not crashed his plane. I'm thinking he would have been a latter-day Andy Williams -- no longer relevant in the later music scene, but hosting holiday specials as his niche. Let's say 3,600.
Manfred Mann's Earth Band, "Blinded by the Light", '76 or '78. The lyrics are confused and confusing. The rhythm and music are good. I may have done this one before. 3,300.
Santa Esmeralda, "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", '78. This song had a good remake, but this is not it. This version invokes the Lord, but even that doesn't raise it above 4,600.
Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Alone Again (Naturally), '72. I've done this one. I've never seen Gilbert O'Sullivan, but I've always pictured him as a leprechaun. Wikipedia has a 1974 photo of him with that decade's signature big hair. In 1991, he won a precedent-setting case in which he sued Biz Markie for sampling "Alone Again" without his permission. I'm thinking 3,100.
Supertramp, "Give a Little Bit", not sure of the year, maybe '77. I think I've done this one. A thought: Supertramp is a lot closer to being a supergroup than Peter Frampton was to being a superduperstar or even a superstar. Just didn't some checking, and it doesn't appear that either Supertramp or Frampton are in he Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Supertramp was good, but perhaps their greatness flared out too soon to be worthy of the Hall of Fame. A note in juxtaposition: When Gilbert O'Sullivan was in college, he played drums with Supertramp's Rick Davies in a band called Rick's Blues. 2,800.
Exile, "Kiss You All Over", '78. This is in the genre of power ballad, kind of fairly heavy rock but still a ballad/love song. Kiss had some similar songs. I might have done this one before, but now I'm comparing it to "Alone Again" and "Give a Little Bit". 2,950.
Stevie Wonder, "Signed Sealed Delivered", 1970. Stevie is rightfully respected. He has been around the music business for a long time. He has been an influence on a lot of music. For someone who has been around and has such a good name, he didn't really have a whole lot of really memorable songs. This one is probably about in the middle of what he has done. 3,400.
Begin next with voice recording #200, Dec. 19.
Setting the record straight on Fleetwood Mac
Voice recording #196, Dec. 17
Bee Gees, "Nights on Broadway", '75. 1,200.
James Taylor, "How Sweet It Is", maybe '71? 2,400.
Paul McCartney and Wings, "Band on the Run", maybe '74? 1,900.
Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Alone Again (Naturally)", 1972. I'd forgotten that there's a really nice acoustic guitar bridge in this song. 3,100.
Jackson 5, "Sugar Daddy", not sure of the year. In hindsight, it's a bit tenuous to have this type of song with Michael Jackson involved. 4,550.
Fleetwood Mac, "Dreams", '77. I was telling M-Tex a couple of days ago that Fleetwood Mac is coming to the American Airlines soon with the original lineup of musicians. I wrote something a while back about this group's female singer and mistakenly called her Stevie Nicks. I meant Christine McVie. 2,750.
Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show, "Cover of Rolling Stone", '72, I believe. 3,300.
Orleans, "Still the One", '76. There are country elements in this song, and in the Dr. Hook "cover of the Rolling Stone" lyric. 2,950.
Foxy, "Get Off", '78. 4,750, and that might be high.
Eagles, "Take It Easy", '72. I think I've done this before. My guess would be 1,700-1,800, maybe a little higher.
Al Stewart, "Year of the Cat", '76. 4,350.
Badfinger, "Day After Day", '73, maybe? I like Badfinger, and I like this song. I may have done this before. 1,500.
Honeycone, "Want Ads", '71. This is bubblegum music; sounds a lot like the Jackson 5, in fact. 4,600, generously.
King Harvest, "Dancing in the Moonlight", I think it's '73. I might have done this before. 3,300.
Blues Image, "Ride Captain Ride", '70. 3,500.
Bee Gees, "Nights on Broadway", '75. 1,200.
James Taylor, "How Sweet It Is", maybe '71? 2,400.
Paul McCartney and Wings, "Band on the Run", maybe '74? 1,900.
Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Alone Again (Naturally)", 1972. I'd forgotten that there's a really nice acoustic guitar bridge in this song. 3,100.
Jackson 5, "Sugar Daddy", not sure of the year. In hindsight, it's a bit tenuous to have this type of song with Michael Jackson involved. 4,550.
Fleetwood Mac, "Dreams", '77. I was telling M-Tex a couple of days ago that Fleetwood Mac is coming to the American Airlines soon with the original lineup of musicians. I wrote something a while back about this group's female singer and mistakenly called her Stevie Nicks. I meant Christine McVie. 2,750.
Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show, "Cover of Rolling Stone", '72, I believe. 3,300.
Orleans, "Still the One", '76. There are country elements in this song, and in the Dr. Hook "cover of the Rolling Stone" lyric. 2,950.
Foxy, "Get Off", '78. 4,750, and that might be high.
Eagles, "Take It Easy", '72. I think I've done this before. My guess would be 1,700-1,800, maybe a little higher.
Al Stewart, "Year of the Cat", '76. 4,350.
Badfinger, "Day After Day", '73, maybe? I like Badfinger, and I like this song. I may have done this before. 1,500.
Honeycone, "Want Ads", '71. This is bubblegum music; sounds a lot like the Jackson 5, in fact. 4,600, generously.
King Harvest, "Dancing in the Moonlight", I think it's '73. I might have done this before. 3,300.
Blues Image, "Ride Captain Ride", '70. 3,500.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
A day when the music was critically ill
Voice recording #190, Dec. 15.
Nicolette Larson, "Lotta Love", some year in the '70s. 3,400.
Styx, "Come Sail Away", '77. The song starts as a sappy ballad, and all of a sudden turns to rock, much to the chagrin of Sam Weir in "Freaks and Geeks" when he had his first chance to dance with hottie Cindy Sanders. Also, his sister, Lindsay, danced with her date, a mentally handicapped kid. 2,400.
Daddy Dew Drop, "Chick-A-Boom", '71. 4,750.
Hues Corporation, "Rock the Boat", '74. This must be on the top of the rotation at Sirius Channel 7. This is the first time I've heard it. I think I've given it about 2,300.
Edgar Winter Group, "Frankenstein", who was known as Fronckenschtein in his younger days, '73. It's instrumental and 4,600.
Stampeders, "Sweet City Woman", I think about '73. 3,700.
Eagles, "Already Gone", '74. I'm not sure whether I've done this one. If I have it was probably in the 2,100 or 2,220 range. I'll say 2,100. I like the lyric about, "So often times it happens that we live our life in chains, and we never even know we have the key." That tells a lot about how we live our lives and hold ourselves back.
Rickie Lee Jones, "Chuck E.'s in Love", '79. I'm pretty sure it's the greatest scat love song ever. Rickie Lee didn't have much of a career, but it certainly got a good start with this one. 2,600.
10 cc, "I'm Not in Love", didn't record the year. I'm not sure whether I've done this not-in-love song. It's a denial song, maybe. I'll say 3,500, which is where I think it would have been another time.
Gloria Gayner, "I Will Survive" from '79. Her driving rhythm and almost shouting the song go along with her positive message that she will survive. 2,400.
Gun Hill Road, "Back When My Hair Was Short", from '73. I do not remember this song from back when my hair was long, or back before I was bald. 4,700.
Bee Gees, "How Deep Is Your Love", '74 maybe. 1,800.
Herb Alpert, "Rise", '79. 4,650.
Elton John, "Saturday Night's All Right", '73. Pretty rocky for Elton. 2,300.
Starbuck, "Moonlight Feels Right", '76. 4,500.
ABBA, "Knowing Me, Knowing You", '76. Ah-ha. ABBA must win the crowd for the best English singing by non-English speakers, beating out Los Lobos. 3,800.
Rare Earth, I think the title is "I Just Want to Celebrate", not sure of the year. I kind of tuned it out. 4,300.
Billy Joel, "Only the Good Die Young", '78. 3,600.
Rick Nelson, "Garden Party", '72? I'm not sure whether this was his last hit. Just checked. It was his last Top 40 hit, but he kept performing until his plane crashed Dec. 31, 1985. Also, Eric Nelson changed his professional name from Ricky to Rick on his 21st birthday in 1961. It's a good song. It has a little country in it, and references to other pop-culture music. There was some good advice. "You can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself." 3,100.
David Bowie, "Changes", I'd say mid-70s. It's another stuttering song, "Ch-ch-ch-changes." I'd say the lower third of the list, but I'll give it 3,300.
Earth, Wind & Fire, "Fantasy", '78. 4,600.
Carpenters, "Rainy Days and Mondays", '71. Karen sings that rainy days and Mondays always bring her down. I think they were from the northern part of the U.S., where it rains frequently. I don't like rainy days, except for an occasional Sunday when it rains all day and I can stay in bed to keep warm. M-Tex, a lifelong Texan, isn't used to seeing rain several times a week, so she likes any rainy day. 3,950. I checked. They were born in Connecticut, and moved to California when Richard was 16 and Karen was 13. She and I share a birthday, but I was born 2 years earlier.
Boston, "Foreplay Long Time", '77, I believe. 2,100.
Al Green, "Let's Stay Together, "71. 2,400.
Gary Glitter, "Rock and Roll Part 2", '72. I remember this song from hearing it so often at ballparks. Hey! 3,900.
Elton John, "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", '73. Not sure whether I've done this one because there was a lot of Elton John music in the '70s! 2,400.
Jefferson Starship, "Runaway", '78. 4,550.
Jackson 5, "The Love You Save", 1970. 4,500.
Electric Light Orchestra, "Livin' Thing", 1976. I might have done this one before. 3,100.
Disco Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes, "Get Dancing", '74. 4,900 at best.
Earth, Wind & Fire, "That's the Way of the World", I think '75. 4,450.
John Denver, "Rocky Mountain High", 1973. 3,800.
Paul McCartney and Wings, "Helen Wheels", '73. 4,100.
Chicago, "Saturday in the Park", '72. I have a theory, to some extent a generalization, that songs with "park" in the title are generally bad: "MacArthur Park", "Ichycoo Park". This song isn't one of the terrible ones; it's OK. 4,050.
Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, "Main Street", 1977. This is a song people might have heard in the '70s at a strip club near closing time when the dancers were all tired and couldn't dance very fast. It's Bob Seger, so it's 2,300.
Starting again with voice recording #196, Dec. 17.
Nicolette Larson, "Lotta Love", some year in the '70s. 3,400.
Styx, "Come Sail Away", '77. The song starts as a sappy ballad, and all of a sudden turns to rock, much to the chagrin of Sam Weir in "Freaks and Geeks" when he had his first chance to dance with hottie Cindy Sanders. Also, his sister, Lindsay, danced with her date, a mentally handicapped kid. 2,400.
Daddy Dew Drop, "Chick-A-Boom", '71. 4,750.
Hues Corporation, "Rock the Boat", '74. This must be on the top of the rotation at Sirius Channel 7. This is the first time I've heard it. I think I've given it about 2,300.
Edgar Winter Group, "Frankenstein", who was known as Fronckenschtein in his younger days, '73. It's instrumental and 4,600.
Stampeders, "Sweet City Woman", I think about '73. 3,700.
Eagles, "Already Gone", '74. I'm not sure whether I've done this one. If I have it was probably in the 2,100 or 2,220 range. I'll say 2,100. I like the lyric about, "So often times it happens that we live our life in chains, and we never even know we have the key." That tells a lot about how we live our lives and hold ourselves back.
Rickie Lee Jones, "Chuck E.'s in Love", '79. I'm pretty sure it's the greatest scat love song ever. Rickie Lee didn't have much of a career, but it certainly got a good start with this one. 2,600.
10 cc, "I'm Not in Love", didn't record the year. I'm not sure whether I've done this not-in-love song. It's a denial song, maybe. I'll say 3,500, which is where I think it would have been another time.
Gloria Gayner, "I Will Survive" from '79. Her driving rhythm and almost shouting the song go along with her positive message that she will survive. 2,400.
Gun Hill Road, "Back When My Hair Was Short", from '73. I do not remember this song from back when my hair was long, or back before I was bald. 4,700.
Bee Gees, "How Deep Is Your Love", '74 maybe. 1,800.
Herb Alpert, "Rise", '79. 4,650.
Elton John, "Saturday Night's All Right", '73. Pretty rocky for Elton. 2,300.
Starbuck, "Moonlight Feels Right", '76. 4,500.
ABBA, "Knowing Me, Knowing You", '76. Ah-ha. ABBA must win the crowd for the best English singing by non-English speakers, beating out Los Lobos. 3,800.
Rare Earth, I think the title is "I Just Want to Celebrate", not sure of the year. I kind of tuned it out. 4,300.
Billy Joel, "Only the Good Die Young", '78. 3,600.
Rick Nelson, "Garden Party", '72? I'm not sure whether this was his last hit. Just checked. It was his last Top 40 hit, but he kept performing until his plane crashed Dec. 31, 1985. Also, Eric Nelson changed his professional name from Ricky to Rick on his 21st birthday in 1961. It's a good song. It has a little country in it, and references to other pop-culture music. There was some good advice. "You can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself." 3,100.
David Bowie, "Changes", I'd say mid-70s. It's another stuttering song, "Ch-ch-ch-changes." I'd say the lower third of the list, but I'll give it 3,300.
Earth, Wind & Fire, "Fantasy", '78. 4,600.
Carpenters, "Rainy Days and Mondays", '71. Karen sings that rainy days and Mondays always bring her down. I think they were from the northern part of the U.S., where it rains frequently. I don't like rainy days, except for an occasional Sunday when it rains all day and I can stay in bed to keep warm. M-Tex, a lifelong Texan, isn't used to seeing rain several times a week, so she likes any rainy day. 3,950. I checked. They were born in Connecticut, and moved to California when Richard was 16 and Karen was 13. She and I share a birthday, but I was born 2 years earlier.
Boston, "Foreplay Long Time", '77, I believe. 2,100.
Al Green, "Let's Stay Together, "71. 2,400.
Gary Glitter, "Rock and Roll Part 2", '72. I remember this song from hearing it so often at ballparks. Hey! 3,900.
Elton John, "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", '73. Not sure whether I've done this one because there was a lot of Elton John music in the '70s! 2,400.
Jefferson Starship, "Runaway", '78. 4,550.
Jackson 5, "The Love You Save", 1970. 4,500.
Electric Light Orchestra, "Livin' Thing", 1976. I might have done this one before. 3,100.
Disco Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes, "Get Dancing", '74. 4,900 at best.
Earth, Wind & Fire, "That's the Way of the World", I think '75. 4,450.
John Denver, "Rocky Mountain High", 1973. 3,800.
Paul McCartney and Wings, "Helen Wheels", '73. 4,100.
Chicago, "Saturday in the Park", '72. I have a theory, to some extent a generalization, that songs with "park" in the title are generally bad: "MacArthur Park", "Ichycoo Park". This song isn't one of the terrible ones; it's OK. 4,050.
Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, "Main Street", 1977. This is a song people might have heard in the '70s at a strip club near closing time when the dancers were all tired and couldn't dance very fast. It's Bob Seger, so it's 2,300.
Starting again with voice recording #196, Dec. 17.
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