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.
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