dj's groovysounds

The Mar-Keys

2012-02-12T19:33:00.002-05:00

The only Mar-Keys collection available on Amazon is an import that sells for $49.95 USD – and that one is available only from a 3rd party reseller. And for your 50 dollars you get a whopping 21 tracks, which don’t even include all 4 of their top 100 singles (Pop-Eye Stroll is missing).

There must be a dozen collections by Booker T & The MGs. This isn’t something that I can explain easily.

My collection has all 4 singles, among 11 tacks taken from The Complete Stax Volt Singles, 1959-1968, which I found on that delightful, though totally corrupt, and no longer extant, Russian web site.

The Mar-Keys were a Stax group, laying down that groovy Memphis rhythm behind some of the great Stax artists, the house band, when the said Booker T and company weren’t being the house band (you figure it out, I can’t). And, like the MGs, they made a series of recordings of their own, and managed to put four of them, as I said, into the top 100. Not to be confused the Marketts (aka Mar-Kets) who did Surfers Stomp and Out Of Limits and the big hit cover of Batman, or the Bar-Kays, another 60 soul group very similar to the Mar-Keys who recorded for the same label. How could anybody keep it straight, I don’t know…

The Mar-Keys:

• Last Night – The big one, from the summer of 1961. It doesn’t get simpler, and it doesn’t get into a deeper groove…
• Morning After – The follow up, from the fall of 1961.
• About Noon
• Foxy
• Pop-Eye Stroll – There is a superficial resemblance to Popcorn by Hot Butter, with the emphasis remaining on “superficial.” From the winter / spring of 1962.
• Whot’s Happening
• Sack-O-Woe
• Bo-Time
• Bush Bash
• Grab This Thing (Part 1)
• Philly Dog – Their 4th and final pop hit, from the spring of 1966.

Bobbie Smith & The Dream Girls

2012-02-05T10:00:00.003-05:00

The Truth about oldies lies with YouTube.

Bobbie Smith & The Dream Girls have about 20 videos. That represents about 10 songs. That doesn’t sound all that impressive.

But this is a group that did not have a single hit on the Billboard top 100. The bible according to Whitburn has its limits. They are not even on Wikipedia. Those of us who try to make sense of the world by looking at the records are doomed. (We need to look at the records instead.)

So here was a girl group from Detroit who had a series of singles between 1959 and 1965, who played the Apollo and had a faithful following, whose records were presumably played on local radio stations, and who, but for YouTube, would be relegated to historical non-existence.

My one track comes from some Rhino random song collection. This is as random as it gets.

Bobbie Smith & The Dream Girls:

• Mr. Fine – The thing to aim for was cool. Handsome was ok, but what this guy was was fine – wears a white suit and Stetson hat, drives a Cadillac. Pretty obvious what’s going on here. From 1961.

Chris Kenner

2012-02-04T22:18:00.002-05:00

I’ve never been to New Orleans. As a kid I travelled a lot with my family, and we made it to the south west (LA), the southeast (Miami) but never due south.

So I have no firsthand experience that I can draw on here, none to explain what makes New Orleans music unique. I can’t tell what’s unique about it either – I can hear it, but I can’t describe it. The best thing I can tell you to do is listen: Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, Allan Toussaint.

Chris Kenner.

Kenner is know more by his songs (3 of them, to be specific) than by his recordings. But this collection is one of the best party albums I can recommend, if your party is about dancing. (You’ll have to look elsewhere for slow dances though; the ones on here you wouldn’t want to dance to). He has a foggy NO voice and a rhythm that can define the entire genre. This is a collection called I Like It Like That. All his hits are here (all two of them).

Chris Kenner:

• I Like It Like That – His big hit. The title refers to a cool place you can go to and dance (with a name like that it has to be cool). This is one of a long series of songs about cool places, from The Drifters’ 333 to Ohio Express’ Down At Lulu’s. A hit in the summer of 1961 and covered to great success by The Dave Clark Five in the summer of 1965.
• Anybody Here Seen My Baby – The tale of an abuser. No? Then why did she disappear without a trace?
• Shoo-Rah – Not The Fats Domino song, though it can’t be a coincidence that they both did a song with this title. The rhythm here is more Bo Diddley, and the chord changes are non-existent. This must be where James Brown got the idea.
• Johnny Little – This tale of a compulsive gambler sounds like a cross between Hully Gully and The Gong Gong Song.
• Gonna Getcha Baby – I hope so, because he can’t dance to this all alone.
• Never Reach Perfection – So when he does a ballad, it’s not romantic, it’s gospel.
• Something You Got – He didn’t put this on the chart, but if there’s any justice he could retire on the royalties. So many covers of this. My favourite is Them.
• That’s My Girl – And he sure is proud of her, tight jeans and all.
• Land Of A Thousand Dances – “You gotta know how to pony.” Another iconic song, though Kenner’s version didn’t make it higher than number 74, and that was in the spring of 1963. It was Cannibal & The Headhunters that put it in the top 40, and who invented the na na-na-na na refrain, which was picked up later by Wilson Pickett. “Get down on your knees, do the sweet peas.” And don’t forget the slop, and chicken in the pot.
• She Can Dance – In the context of this collection, that’s great praise indeed, though no surprise.
• Come Back And See – I wouldn’t if I were her, but that jagged rhythm may be irresistible.
• How Far – Love as distance, not the physical kind.
• Time – Back to gospel, complete with church chorus.
• All Night Rambler – Anticipates Mick and the boys by the better part of a decade, with a guitar that would do Keith proud.
• Packing Up – Land Of A Thousand Dances redux, in the context of emotional severance.
• (I Found) Peace – This could be romantic, or this could be religious, but either way this is noisy peace…

July, 1961

2012-01-22T10:59:00.001-05:00

Dum Dum - Brenda Lee

Jura (I Swear I Love You) - Les Paul & Mary Ford

Baby I Don't Care - Buddy Holly

I'm Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town - Ray Charles

Don't You Know It - Adam Faith

Please Stay - The Drifters

Together - Connie Francis

I'm Coming Back To You - Jackie Wilson

I Like It Like That - Chris Kenner

Nature Boy - Bobby Darin

Sea Of Heartbreak - Don Gibson

Rainin' In My Heart / Don't Start Crying Now - Slim Harpo

Heart And Soul - Jan & Dean

The Graduation Song - Pomp And Circumstance - Adrian Kimberley

The Fish - Bobby Rydell

Tender Years - George Jones

Let's Twist Again - Chubby Checker

Never On Sunday - The Chordettes

That's What Girls Are Made For - The Spinners

The Switch-A-Roo - Hank Ballard & The Midnighters

Don't You Sweetheart Me - Bobby Curtola

A Miracle - Frankie Avalon

Last Night - The Mar-Keys

Wooden Heart - Joe Dowell

Cupid - Sam Cooke

Sacred - The Castels

Pretty Little Angel Eyes - Curtis Lee

My Kind Of Girl - Matt Monro

Runaround - The Regents

Reach For The Stars / Climb Every Mountain - Shirley Bassey

Phil Upchurch Combo

2012-01-15T09:31:00.002-05:00

During his active career (he still plays), Phil Upchurch was a session musician who played guitar and bass for everyone from B.B. King to Mose Allison to Jimmy Smith. His active and prolific career is belied by his one-hit-wonder status. I guess he wasn’t that fond of the spotlight.

Near as I can tell, the “combo” was short-lived. And I don’t know who was in it.

Phil Upchurch Combo:

• You Can’t Sit Down – True to its title, this digs a deep groove. It's one of those part 1 part 2 records, and apparently it was part 2 that was the hit. That was a hit in the summer of 1961, and then again, with lyrics added, it was a hit for the Dovells in 1963, but the original is superior. Covers abound.

The Cleftones

2012-01-12T21:25:00.005-05:00

Another group who put out at least two dozen singles, but who remain known for one hit, which itself comes down through the ages courtesy of American Graffiti.

The Cleftones:

• Heart And Soul – Lots of competition here, but the only other notable hit version in the so-called rock and roll era was the one by Jan & Dean, which was more doo-wop than this slick but soulful arrangement by an actual doo-wop group. The song was by Hoagy Carmichael (Georgia On My Mind, Stardust etc) and Frank Loesser, an old Tin Pan Alley standard. From the summer of 1961.

Little Caesar & The Romans

2012-01-11T21:12:00.003-05:00

Not to be confused with Little Caesar & The Consuls, though the none other than Joel Whitburn himself does so confuse them. The Romans were American, the Consuls Canadian, just so we’re clear.

They’ve had warnings on re-recordings for a while now; sometimes the warnings sound positively glowing. This is where some recording artist (or group, though not likely the original group) rerecords some old hit, and they make a collection of these, and release it on some budget priced CD. And it sounds like crap. But of course the recording techniques are more modern and the sound itself is probably superior (at least technically, not necessarily atmospherically) to the original. And so the warning, telling us that we are not getting what we may think we are getting, often lauds the improved sound quality, and downplays the inauthenticity of the experience.

But that’s all material for reflection. It didn’t used to be like that. And back in the day I got burned once or twice. I remember buying a double album that positively brimmed with great 60s oldies, but as luck would have it they were almost all bogus. One of the exceptions (out of a maximum of three, I can’t remember now) was the one hit by Little Caesar & The Romans. The sound on it is so primitive that it’s a giveaway. A lesson learned.

Little Caesar & The Romans:

• Those Oldies But Goodies (Remind Me Of You) – This was a hit in the summer of 1961, so I don’t know how old the oldies were, though one could go back to Palestrina if one wants, I suppose. And Little Caesar (I assume that’s him singing, though apparently at least 2 members of the group each claimed to be him) repeatedly commits one of the great grammatical gaffes of pop music when he keeps singing how “those oldies but goodies reminds me of you.” But beyond all the silliness, there is something truly profound about the songs that comprise the soundtrack of one’s life. Just ask me. “Yes dear, they’re playing OUR song…”

Bobby Lewis

2012-01-08T09:25:00.003-05:00

Not to be confused with Jerry Lewis or Jerry Lee Lewis, Shari Lewis or Rudy Lewis or Ramsey Lewis, Bobby Lewis had 2 top 10 hits, and two more that didn’t make it higher than number 77, but I only have one of them anyway, and I got that from the Sock Hoppin' Sixties volume of Baby Boomer Classics.

Bobby Lewis:

• Tossin’ And Turnin’ – The all-too-real phenomenon of staying awake all night stressing about things (romantic things of course) over which we have virtually no control. It wasn’t anything for Lewis to sing about the milkman showing up early, either. I knew this first because The Guess Who covered it in the summer of 1965, back when they were Chad Allen & The Expressions. Lewis’ original was a number one hit in the summer of 1961, and was Billboard song of the year. Note: apparently the version on the single did not have the “baby baby” intro, but reissues show up variously with and without.

The Edsels

2012-01-07T21:15:00.002-05:00

A group named after what must have been the biggest marketing disaster in history. (I’m sure “new Coke” was the second biggest). Thing is, though, that at the time nobody knew that yet.

They recorded a lot during the 50s and early 60s, but they only had one hit. Butwhat a hit it was…

The Edsels:

• Rama Lama Ding Dong – Recorded or originally during the waning years of doo-wop (1957 to be exact), the song languished until the doo-wop revival of the early 60s. Pulled out of retirement to become a hit in the summer of 1961, the song is complete and utter and delightful nonsense, everything that a good rock and roll record should be.

June, 1961

2012-01-05T18:56:00.002-05:00

Writing On The Wall - Adam Wade

You Always Hurt The One You Love - Clarence Henry

Never On Sunday - Don Costa

Rama Lama Ding Dong - The Edsels

The Bilboa Song - Andy Williams

She She Little Sheila - Gene Vincent

Tossin' And Turnin' - Bobby Lewis

Every Beat Of My Heart - The Pips

Those Oldies But Goodies - Little Caesar & The Romans

Boll Weevil Song - Brook Benton

Quarter To Three - Gary U. S. Bonds

Count Every Star - Donnie & The Dreamers

Temptation - The Everly Brothers

Weekend - Eddie Cochran

Dooly - The Olympics

Yellow Bird - Arthur Lyman

Dance On Little Girl - Paul Anka

Heart And Soul - The Cleftones

Peanut Butter - The Marathons

It Keeps Rainin' - Fats Domino

Wild In The Country - Elvis Presley

Big Boss Man - Jimmy Reed

Hats Off To Larry - Del Shannon

San Antonio Rose - Floyd Cramer

Tell My Why - The Belmonts

Ole Buttermilk Sky - Bill Black's Combo

Three Hearts In A Tangle - Roy Drusky

You Can't Sit Down - Phil Upchurch Combo

Tonight (Could Be The Night) - The Velvets

Daydream - Johnny Crawford

Fool That I Am - Etta James

Eden Kane

2012-01-01T15:48:00.002-05:00

Kane was the brother of Peter Sarstedt, and had 5 top 10 hit in the UK before Liverpool took over. One can only thank heaven for The Beatles.

Eden Kane:

• Well I Ask You – A major harumph that reached number 1 in the spring of 1961.
• Forget Me Not – Life as a flower. From the winter of 61/62.

Tony Orlando

2011-11-28T20:40:00.003-05:00

One of those guys you love to hate. Seriously. How many people had murderous thoughts every time they heard Tie A Yellow Ribbon Around The Old Oak Tree, (for me it was Knock Three Times).

But Tony Orlando had a life before Dawn. In ’69 he was the lead vocalist of a one-shot studio-only group called Wind (Make Believe). And almost a decade before that, when he was still a teenager, he had a couple of more-than-respectable teen idol hits, which may have been, in their own way, better than anything he did in his more famous years.

Tony Orlando:

• Bless You - The lyrics veer between sweet and over-the-top, but the tune (the song is by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill) never moves from glorious, the arrangement - female chipmunk chorus, matinee strings, Mahlerian tympani - is perfect teenage drama, and you can hear exactly where Phil Spector got so many of his ideas. Wonderful bobby sox artistry. From the fall of 1961.
• Halfway To Paradise – When I was in school, we had a word (well, two words) for the type of girl he is singing about. But adolescence is such a confusing time. It gets so much easier in middle age. Oh wait, it doesn’t? From the summer of 1961. A hit in England for Billy Fury.

The Regents

2011-11-27T10:00:00.002-05:00

Another doo-wop group, late-blooming, after-the-fact, and short-lived, a group whose biggest hit is better known by someone else. What a fate.

The Regents:

• Barbara Ann – I have it on good authority that women named “Barbara” are not the most reliable in the world. The good authority of which I speak is only that which is relevant at 9:50 on this Sunday morning. Be that as it may, the song here, which is the real point, is naught but a great excuse for singing along and dancing. The “ba ba ba” refrain is, of course, legendary. A hit in the summer of 1961 and much better known by The Beach Boys, who propelled the song almost to number 1 in the fall of 1965. It was also covered by Jan & Dean and The Who.
• Runaround – As indignant as doo-wop gets. For my money this is as good as, maybe better than, their bigger song, to which this was the follow-up, less successful hit. Also from the summer of 1961, but later.

Eddie Harris

2011-11-26T20:50:00.002-05:00

Eddie Harris was one of those jazz dudes who pop up with such regularity in my collection, who do one song then split – except that in the case of Harris, the song was a hit. Harris’ career really took after after the one hit, as a jazz artist, not a top 100 guy, though he did have three more songs on the charts; that was later, 1968 – 1970.

Eddie Harris:

• Exodus – Written by Ernest Gold, from the movie directed by Otto Preminger, based on the book by Leon Uris. The book may have been the most popular piece of propaganda claptrap of the 20th century. I never saw the movie. But the theme song had a life of its own. It won the Oscar, and it won a Grammy. It was the ultimate musical melodrama, what Gustav Mahler would have sounded like had he written TV commercials. Three competing hit version were on the charts at the same time: the string laden afternoon matinee version by Mantovani, the piano drama version by Ferrante & Teicher, and this one, which omits the drama altogether, and replaces it with some super-cool swing. If you really want to know what the theme from Exodus sounds like, listen to one of the others; but when you want to hear what good music it really is, this is the place to start. From the summer of 1961.

Billy Fury

2011-11-20T12:30:00.002-05:00

It’s taken me a long time to write this post, longer than any post so far. That’s because when I started it I only had one track: Halfway To Paradise. But for some reason I got ambitious and I downloaded every song the Billy Fury had on the UK top 100. So that’s what took so long, finding, downloading, and listening to, each one of these songs. Now I have this entire collection.

Not bad, eh?

Billy Fury:

• Maybe Tomorrow – He sets the style here: loon-call sax, angelic female chorus, barely discernable lyrics, wistful to the point of non-existence. Makes Frankie Avalon sound like heavy metal. Not the Jim Croce song, not the Jackson Five song. From the spring of 1959.
• Margo – A slight (very slight) country feel on this not quite top 20 hit from 1959.
• Colette – Slightly reminiscent of Claudette by Roy Orbison / The Everly Brothers, but the resemblance is not to be taken as qualitative. From The winter of 1960.
• That’s Love – Near-genuine rockabilly, Eddie Cochran style. From the summer of 1960.
• Wonderous Place – Here’s where he could have been a contender. The producers put so much echo on his voice that he actually sounds tough enough to live up to his name, and the arrangement is understated and effective. Figures that this song didn’t quite reach the top 20. Who knows what it’s about. From 1960.
• A Thousand Stars – A cover of the Kathy Young & The Innocents hit and perfectly suitable. From 1960.
• Halfway To Paradise – Maybe his best remembered record and the only track that’s been in my collection forever. A familiar tale of being stuck in “friend-zone.” A hit in the US for Tony Orlando. From the spring of 1961.
• Jealousy – Billy takes on Frankie Laine and loses. From the fall of 1961.
• I’d Never Find Another You – Not to be confused with I’ll Never Find Another You (though every single YouTube entry gets the title wrong), which is a much better song than this. From the winter of 61 / 62.
• Letter Full Of Tears – The Marvelettes had this theme wrapped up with Please Mr. Postman, but this song was a strong contender in the original version by Gladys Knight & The Pips. Billy makes a noble effort. From the winter of 1962.
• Last Night Was Made For Love – A once in a lifetime opportunity, down the tubes. Ah well, perhaps tonight will be made for beer. From the spring of 1962.
• Once Upon A Dream – It’s always better in one’s head than in real life, not so? From the summer of 1962.
• Because Of Love – As Elvis-like as he got. From the fall of 1962.
• Like I’ve Never Been Gone – The Beatles swept the floor with all this competition when they All My Lovin’. From the winter of 1963.
• When Will You Say I Love You – Romantic whining. From the spring of 1962.
• In Summer – All the summer clichés except the music. From the summer of 1963.
• Somebody Else’s Girl – Finding out that things aren’t what you think they are, when you thought they were good, is never good. From the autumn of 1963.
• Do You Really Love Me Too (Fool’s Errand) – The Beatle influence is starting to show here (well ok, but compared to his stuff up to now…) From winter, 1964.
• I Will – From the spring of 1964. Dean Martin covered it a year later.
• It’s Only Make Believe – Billy takes on Conway Twitty. From the summer of 1964. I think The Hollies did a cover of this as well, and Glen Campbell put it back on the chart in 1970.
• I’m Lost Without You – A profound air of tragedy hangs over this one, slightly reminiscent of I (Who Have Nothing). From the winter of 1965.
• In Thoughts Of You – While his music wasn’t exactly hip, and didn’t give the great British Invasion bands anything to worry about, you can hear the progression here, and how his producers were doing their darndest to keep him up-to-date. A decent mid ’65 time capsule, from the summer of that great year.
• Run To My Lovin’ Arms – Wasn’t there another song with this title? Maybe, but this isn’t it. Oh no, wait, it is! The Walker Brothers, I believe. From 1965.
• I’ll Never Quite Get Over You – Billy was definitely coming of age here. From 1966.
• Give Me Your Word – Another one from 1966, and he was sounding more like The Walker Brothers with each release.
• Love Or Money – Fast forward to 1982, Fury finds himself back on the chart after a 17 year absence. He’s a bit louder, but otherwise pretty much the same as before.
• Devil Or Angel – A slightly updated remake of the Bobby Vee remake of The Clovers hit. From 1982.
• Forget Him – The orchestral arrangement works surprisingly well, and the electric piano isn’t as cloying as one would expect, and when the drums show up it’s a good reminder that this was, after all, the 80s, so it’s not a bad effort, just that Billy oversings it, just slightly, and the original Bobby Rydell recording was such a masterpiece that there’s no way anyway that this could be anything more than a distant second at best. Released posthumously in 1983, at 59 it was Billy’s lowest placing chart single.

May, 1961

2011-10-22T22:38:00.003-04:00

Mama Said - The Shirelles
Flaming Star - Elvis Presley
Tonight I Fell In Love - The Tokens
Breakin' In A Brand New Broken Heart - Connie Francis
Saved - LaVerne Baker
Dance The Mess Around - Chubby Checker
The Continental Walk - Hank Ballard
Buzz Buzz A Diddle It - Freddie Cannon
Have A Drink On Me - Lonnie Donegan
You'll Never Know - Shirley Bassey
Travelin' Man / Hello Mary Lou - Rick Nelson
Running Scared - Roy Orbison
That Old Black Magic / Don't Be Afraid To Fall In Love - Bobby Rydell
You're Gonna Need Magic - Roy Hamilton
Lullaby Of The Leaves - The Ventures
Bonanza - Al Caiola
Just For Old Times Sake - The McGuire Sisters
I'm In The Mood For Love - The Chimes
Lullaby Of Love - Frank Gari
Triangle - Janie Grant
Louisiana Mama - Gene Pitney
A Little Feeling - Jack Scott
How Many Tears - Bobby Vee
I Still Love you All - Kenny Ball
I Feel So Bad - Elvis Presley
Little Devil - Neil Sedaka
Hello Walls - Faron Young
Tragedy - The Fleetwoods
What A Surprise - Johnny Maestro
Halfway To Paradise - Billy Fury
Who Else But You - Frankie Avalon
A Girl Like You - Cliff Richard
A Love Of My Own - Carla Thomas
Stand By Me - Ben E King
Barbara Ann - The Regents
Moody River - Pat Boone
Raindrops - Dee Clark
Girl Of My Best Friend - Ral Donner
I'm A Fool To Care - Joe Barry
Little Egypt - The Coasters
Exodus - Eddie Harris
Halfway To Paradise - Tony Orlando
Well I Ask You - Eden Kane

B. Bumble & The Stingers

2011-10-16T11:42:00.003-04:00

I had a friend and we were about 20. Said friend had a father who tried to impress us with his knowledge of classical music. “The music you guys listen to is crap,” he told us, and he’d put on Smetana, and explain the musical poetry to us.

It wasn’t long after that I started listening to the classics myself, learning about the development from Bach to Haydn and Mozart to Beethoven and on to the romantics. And so I came back to father-guy, now armed with knowledge, appreciation, and understanding. “I’ve been listening,” I told him. “to Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto,” I said, “it amazes me.”

“I don’t like Beethoven so much,” was his answer. “I prefer Tchaikovsky.”

“Sure,” I thought, and I’m an outdoors enthusiast, but I don’t like fresh air so much…

B. Bumble & The Stingers weren’t so much a group as an idea. Various musicians played on the various recordings they made, most of whom were not(or none of whom were, I can’t figure it out) part of the touring band. The group didn’t last but the idea did, morphing into ELO incorporating Beethoven’s 5th into Roll Over Beethoven, Walter Murphy’s Big Apple Band rendering the same symphony as disco, and ELP energizing Mussorgsky into major label art rock. Go team…

B. Bumble & The Stingers:

• Bumble Boogie – Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Flight Of The Bumble Bee. Sort of. The truth is that this appears in versions a lot more jazzed up than this. The oddest version, though, is probably the harmonica-only one by The Adler Trio. From the spring of 1961.
• Nut Rocker – March from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. ELO covered this as an encore to Pictures At An Exhibition. From the spring of 1962.

Gene McDaniels

2011-10-09T20:18:00.002-04:00

Teen idols get a bad rap. Ok, I don’t know about Justin Beiber. I wouldn’t know him if he found his way into my living room and accompanied my dinner with strains of his latest musical offerings. He probably deserves his rap anyway.

Let’s think about the first crop. It is said to have been an attempt by record company moguls to tame the beast that was rock and roll, the beast that was a product of independent record companies (notwithstanding Elvis’ contract with RCA; he started at Sun, remember), and to fill the hole left by Elvis’ induction, Jerry Lee Lewis’ disgrace, Little Richard’s conversion, Buddy Holly’s demise, Chuck Berry’s incarceration. (Fats Domino was doing fine thank you, but it was a bit much for him to carry on on his own).

Some of the guys could sing (Frankie Avalon), some couldn’t (Fabian), few had musical talent. And I wouldn’t argue that every track on every Bobby Vee LP is a masterpiece. But when the voice and the song and the arrangement and the production came together, the results could be magnificent. And so we had Forget Him by Bobby Rydell, The Night Has A Thousand Eyes by Bobby Vee, Little Woman by Bobby Sherman, Togetherness by Frankie Avalon.

Notice – they were all white. All the teen idols, they were all white. One doesn’t have to be an expert in American sociology to understand that there were many reasons for that, and to imagine what they were. But it does raise the question of whether an African American singer could have been a teen idol, in the Bobby-Vee sense of the term. Kind of like asking whether white men can sing the blues, turned around (no not can blue men sing the whites, apologies to The Bonzo Dog Band).

Gene McDaniel may have been a contender. He worked in the context. He recorded for Liberty and his records were produced by Snuff Garrett, who worked wonders for Johnny Burnette and Bobby Vee, and later Gary Lewis. The songs would easily have fit the style of a lesser vocalist.

But Gene McDaniel was not a lesser vocalist. He was talented. He was a multi-instrumentalist and a songwriter (he wrote Feel Like Makin’ Love by Roberta Flack). So we leave the question open.

My collection comes mostly from Hit After Hit, and album released by Liberty records in the early 60s. Had they titled it accurately, it would have been Hit After Hit after Non-hit After Hit after Non-hit…

Gene McDaniels passed away just over 2 months ago – July 29, 2011.

Gene McDaniels:

• A Hundred Pounds Of Clay – The conceptualization of woman as Woman, the idealization of woman as Woman. Woman as plaything (“lots of lovin’ for a man.”) And let’s be honest, how many women weigh 100 lbs? This is dumb as dumb gets, but it works in the end because Snuff Garrett wins the day with the swooping strings and female chorus, and the fact that the tune gives the singer’s vocal range a workout doesn’t hurt either. From the spring of 1961.
• Point Of No Return – The libidinous subtext is too obvious. Gene often sounded frantic and here is a good example. From the fall of 1962.
• A Tear – Yet another song about crying, this one distills the process to its very essence. From the summer of 1961.
• Tower Of Strength – The love song of a circus clown. This one maximized the caricature that McDaniel often portrayed, and turned A Hundred Pounds Of Clay on its head. From the fall of 1961. Coda: This was the first song I ever caught on cassette, as I was trying out my new wonder back when I was 12 years old. It was an oldie then, and it was the first time I’d heard it.
• Send For Me – A hit for Nat King Cole, and this is what it sounds like with a bit of soul added.
• It’s A Lonely Town – Sure it is, Heartbreak Hotel is around the corner. From the fall of 1963, his last appearance on the top 100.
• Spanish Lace – It was a bit daring back then, I’d say, to mix up the minority groups like this. I’m sure there were people who were not happy. From the winter of 62/63.
• It’s All In The Game – Honestly I have to admit that this isn’t my favourite song. It was a hit for Tommy Edwards and Cliff Richard and The Four Tops, and Van Morrison had a decent crack at it on Into The Music, though his version, single though it was, didn’t crack the charts. Neither did this one, though it probably wasn’t a single, but after all it may be the best of the bunch. Sorry Van.
• Are You Sincere – Too many people playing too many games, you end up questioning everyone’s sincerity. A hit for Andy Williams and later for Trini Lopez.
• Take Good Care Of Her – It was Adam Wade who did the hit version of this and did it well, taking the Bobby Vee idea and rendering it as a grownup would. Nothing wrong with McDaniels’ version either.
• I Don’t Want To Cry – And for this he does Chuck Jackson. Chuck was great, but Gene was ok too.
• Chip Chip – A lightweight pop song about infidelity and the how it ravages your life. That’s not to say it isn’t good. Only Garrett could pull this off. But seriously, can you “cheat a little bit?” From the winter of 1962.
• Love Me Tender – I’ve always felt that Elvis’s version of this was underproduced; it sounds like a home demo, needs some meat. Percy Sledge put it back on the charts in 1967 and his was more on the money. But I prefer McDaniel’s vocals. A good one.
• (There Was) A Tall Oak Tree – Theology mixed with ecology mixed with who knows what. The original was by Dorsey Burnette and this version isn’t any less dumb.
• A Portrait Of My Love – And to close off, Gene does this mushy romantic love song, originally a hit for Steve Lawrence, and does it well. No surprise.

Shep & The Limelites

2011-10-05T20:16:00.002-04:00

Were The Limelites ever in the limelight? I don’t know really. Shep was the lead singer of The Heartbeats, then he was the lead singer of Shep & The Limelites. I don’t know if having his name up front made him happy.

Shep & The Limelites:

• Our Anniversary – A rather maudlin ballad, charming in its own 50s ballad group way, this was a minor hit in the winter of 1962.
• Daddy’s Home – Never clear whether this is a song from a father to a child or whether “daddy” is just a term of endearment between lovers. It works either way and that’s part of the beauty of this. The other part is just plain old fashioned sentiment. It functions as a sequel to A Thousand Miles Away by The Heartbeats, on which James “Shep” Sheppard sings lead. And the group harmonies are special. From the summer of 1961. I first heard this by Jermaine Jackson who updated this a little over a decade later, and he did it proud.

Linda Scott

2011-10-04T20:50:00.002-04:00

Whitburn says that Linda Scott was the sister of Jack Scott; interesting, because Jack was Canadian, born in Windsor and lived near Detroit; Linda was American, born in Queens and lived in Teaneck. I guess Whitburn is to be taken with a grain of salt sometimes.

In the early 60s it was ok for girl singers to be adolescent. Guys too, but not in quite the same way. Guys were kind of doe-eyed and mooning; girls were out-and-out dreamers. Popular culture grows up; you couldn’t do this kind of thing anymore. Even boy bands are different - annoying sure, but in a totally different way.

Linda Scott put 2 hits into the top 10 in 1961, then watched her star slowly sink, until her 11th chart single managed to hit number 100 for one week in January, 1964.

Linda Scott:

• I’ve Told Every Little Star – I was shocked (okay I wasn’t shocked, but I was sure surprised) to learn that this song was written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein for a 1932 musical. The recording by Linda is so early 60s adolescent pop that it sounds like a counterpart to Bobby Vee, Bobby Rydell, and Bobby Curtola all rolled into one. That’s not to say it’s bad; au contraire, this song of infatuation insecurity makes transcendental human drama out of teen angst. And unlike, say Rosie (of The Originals) or Cathy Jean (of The Roommates), there’s a strength to Linda’s singing that tempers the vulnerability of the lyrics; we know she’s going to come out of this ok. Dum da dum. From the spring of 1961.
• Bermuda – The land of shorts and triangles and, apparently, lost love. She should check out the triangle. From the winter of 1962.

Ernie K-Doe

2011-10-02T12:36:00.002-04:00

This guy was one bizarre dude.

He had five top 100 records in 1961 – 1962. One reached number 1. None of the others made the top 40.

Ernie K-Doe:

• Mother-In-Law – Very few top 40 records deal with family relationships, and those that do are rarely as brutally honest as this one. It’s supposed to be funny, but thousands, nay millions, of sons and daughters-in-law will tell you that it isn’t. A number 1 hit in the spring of 1961. Written by Allan Toussaint, who performed here at The Jazz Festival recently.
• A Certain Girl – I’ve got a crush, and I’m not gonna tell you who she is. Saving himself ridicule perhaps? The world can be cruel sometimes. From the winter of 1961 / 1962. Covered by The Yardbirds.

Freddie King

2011-09-25T10:39:00.003-04:00

For me, Freddie King is a little piece of Minnesota.

Growing up in the Canadian prairies put us in close range of Minnesota; the twin cities were a day’s drive away. But it was in the town of Detroit Lakes that we spent a week’s holiday in the summer of 1987, a town from the past, a town that must have been a popular beach spot in my parents’ day, but which for one reason or another had let time pass it by. An hour’s drive east of Fargo ND, the town had a nice beach front, a small amusement park for kids, some decent green space, fresh air, and nothing that hadn't been built at least 40 years earlier.

I must have been off on my own looking for groceries or something when I happened on this little shop that sold LPs. I don’t remember anything about it, what it looked like, what stock it carried, the street it was on. But I know that it was a small shop, and that I picked up a copy of Cruisin’ 1961. (I also picked up a second-hand copy of Animilization by The Animals.) (Just so you know.)

Cruisin’ 1961 was part of the Cruisin series, each LP of which featured a variety of hits from a particular year interspersed with radio talk from the era, which may or may not have been genuine. It seems to me that there were two such series, and if so this was the second. The featured DJ on this LP was Arnie “Woo Woo” Ginsburg, who happened to be the Arnie of Jan & Arnie, the Arnie who was replaced by Dean. Also on the LP were hits by Del Shannon, Freddie Cannon, Chuck Berry, The Marcels etc. And even if you didn’t like the music (I don’t know why you wouldn’t, but let's just say), the entire series was worth buying for the covers alone.

Freddie King:

• Hideaway - King lurked about the music scene for a few decades, not to be confused with BB or Ben E or Albert. (He is listed in Whitburn as “Freddy,” but everywhere else he is “Freddie.”) Given his musical stature his chart history is underwhelming, with only four top 100 singles, all in 1961. Hideaway was the only one to make the top 40. Eric Clapton played his version as a member of John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers on the one LP he did with them in 1966.

Paul Revere & The Raiders

2011-09-24T22:59:00.003-04:00

These guys were funny. That’s what I remember thinking. They’d show up regularly on Where The Action Is, Dick Clark’s rock and roll TV show from the mid 60s, or American Bandstand, and they’d be funny. They’d perform in Revolutionary War uniforms (I assume that’s what they were) and they’d clown around while did their song. Like The Beatles, they all had names and personalities: Mark and Paul, and Drake and Smitty and Fang.

After a few years the members started to leave, and the band became more anonymous, and so did its style, its garage band grit giving way to highly commercialized soul-rock fusion. Their chart placings got lower the farther the spotlight moved away, and within five years the band became has-beens. Welcome to the 60s. I can’t think of a better example of how the lightning fast changes of musical style happening then affected the pop stars that couldn’t quite keep up.

This collection is mostly All-Time Greatest Hits, which I picked up at Sam The Record Man after a long until-then fruitless search, plus Like Long Hair and the b side of Just Like Me from the singles, Over You from a Rhino Nuggets collection, and Indian Reservation from I don’t remember where.

Paul Revere & The Raiders:

• Like Long Hair – Funny to think that “long hair music” once referred to the classics, but the title here is an obvious reference to what were then recent hits by the likes of Kokomo and B. Bumble & The Stingers, records that took their themes from Grieg and Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. The Raiders’ initial foray into the top 40 was likewise an instrumental, but the musical theme was original, at least in detail if not in spirit. It was a one-off shot on the Gardena label, from the spring of 1961, following which they would not be heard from again for 4 years.
• Louie Louie – The Raiders’ take on this frat rock anthem was epic making, and, in my book, beat out the better known and bigger selling hit version by The Kingsmen by a garage rock mile. It wasn’t a hit, but it seemed to have made its way onto radio playlists anyway. If you want to hear The Beatles’ best North American pre-Byrds competition, this is a good place to start.
• Over You – This cover of Aaron Neville’s ode to abuse was an obscure single by the band, and in those days you could do a song like this without batting an eye.
• Steppin’ Out – Righteous anger personified, deserved to be way higher than the 46 that it ultimately placed in the fall of 1965. The Raiders’ first hit for Columbia, it kicked off a series of kick-butt-no-nonsense singles that lasted through the early part of 1967.
• Just Like Me – Musically a Louie Louie rewrite, lyrically a manic tribute to out-of-controlness. Helped along by their ubiquitous TV presence, the group finally makes the big time, just missing the top 10. From late 1965.
• Kicks – Mann and Weill wrote this musical anti-drug lecture well before Haight-Ashbury was a fact, and the song would rocket up to number 4 in the summer of 1966. A bit preachy, but also a bit catchy. Covered by Del Shannon, and later by The Nazz.
• B.F.D.R.F. Blues – The flip side of Just Like Me, never on an album, a generic blues, more or less, and I have no idea what the initials stand for.
• Hungry – Mark Lindsay sings like a man possessed, and the band plays like its collective life depends on it. An ode to ambition on steroids, and that fact that it is diametrically out of whack with the counterculture that was taking over didn’t prevent this song from going top 10 in the summer of 1966.
• The Great Airplane Strike – It amazes me that this song was top 20 in the fall of 1966, not because it’s bad or anything, but because I don’t remember hearing it. I probably had the radio off for a few months. Labour unrest was never this much fun.
• Good Thing – Not that the group never did a love song, but they certainly weren’t given to romantic mush. Here’s what happens when they get “sentimental.” From the winter of 66 / 67.
• Ups And Downs – And here’s what happens when they get philosophical. The group was starting to disintegrate, the original personalities were flying the coup, and the sound was becoming more generic. From the winter of 1967.
• Him Or Me – What’s It Gonna Be – We’re not taking any guff here, no begging or pleading, just lay it out. At least he’s giving her the chance. They are transitioning here to the soul-rock band they’d become by the end of the decade, but this may be the last single they made with the original spirit still intact. From the summer of 67.
• Legend Of Paul Revere – Musical autobiography. Not the only group to do this – Them did The Story Of Them and The Animals did the story of The Animals masquerading as Bo Diddley. On this one they don’t forget to mention Dick Clark about a million times (ok maybe once, but you get the idea). This was the flip side of Him Or Me.
• I Had A Dream – Not the John Prine song, but same idea. Nothing to do with Martin Luther King, this is just a love song. From the fall of 1967.
• Too Much Talk – Here is where the group wants to be part of “what’s happening.” In fact they launched a new TV show; it was called Happening ’68, but it wasn’t happening. The song did better. That was the winter of 1968.
• Do Unto Others – A sermon delivered with enough groove to redeem it. The B side of Peace Of Mind.
• Peace Of Mind – A few years later Loggins & Messina did a song called Peace Of Mind that was quite peaceful. This one isn’t. Paul and Mark and the boys deliver a plea for tranquility that uses hysteria to get the point across. One hopes that the irony was deliberate. From the late part of 1967.
• Don’t Take It So Hard – The love words of a cad. This ode to insensitivity was a hit in the summer of 1967.
• Just Seventeen – Boyd Bennett sang Seventeen, Chuck Berry sang about the girl who was “too cute to be a minute over seventeen,” and The Beatles added “and you know what I mean.” There was always a touch of salaciousness, but the touch here becomes a clobber, as the group comes as close as it ever did to heavy metal. From the winter of 1970.
• Cinderella Sunshine – About a girl who disappears when the sun comes up. Isn’t it the guy who typically disappears? From the fall of 1968.
• Mr. Sun, Mr. Moon – In the grand tradition of Please Mr. Sun, the boys plead with the elements themselves to do cupid’s bidding. From the spring of 1969.
• We Gotta All Get Together – Getting into that Woodstock spirit, a grand singalong, from the fall of 1969.
• Let Me – No question that there is something unsavoury about a song like this (I mean “no means no” after all, right?) but there is also something unsettlingly refreshing about the honesty, because after a bit, one gets the feeling that so many of the love songs one hears are really just saying this in the end. From the summer of ’69.
• Indian Reservation – This song is a bit of an anomaly in the group’s career. It was their last major hit, reaching number 1 (the group’s only) in the summer of 1971, temporarily reversing what had been a long downhill skid. They were billed as “The Raiders,” leading some, me included, to guess that Paul Revere had absconded, though in fact he had not, and it was a clear message song, by a group whose repertoire consisted of songs of lust, macho posturing, and vague social sentiment. The song was written by John Loudermilk, (Sittin’ In The Balcony, Tobacco Road etc), and had been a hit of sorts of Don Fardon in 1968, whose version reached number 20 though few remember it (I certainly don’t). A few months later they hit the top 20 for the last time, with Joe South’s Birds Of A Feather.

Del Shannon

2011-09-14T20:01:00.004-04:00

Del Shannon’s last hit came in the spring of 1966. It was a remake of Miss Toni Fisher’s The Big Hurt and it only made it up to 94 on Billboard. I have it, though not on this collection. I have it on a CD called This Is My Bag / Total Commitment, which pairs two of Shannon’s mid 60s LPs on one collection. And it’s great example of time passing someone by.

Shannon managed to stay afloat even as The Beatles and their British contemporaries took over the musical imagination of North America. But once The Beatles started to go further afield, getting into their Revolver / Sgt. Pepper period, and psychedelia became the new musical lingua franca, the erstwhile Charles Westover had no place to go. So he tried his best, covering popular hits of the day, doing a few originals, but the effort was doomed. And so the pop charts never saw Del Shannon again.

The musical landscape is like our personal experience. Not all friends are long-term friends and not all relationships are long term relationships. Not all recording artists are meant to stick around. For every Rolling Stones, there are hundreds, thousands more likely, of Del Shannons. And they serve their purpose, and they enrich our lives, and they go their way…

Del Shannon:

• Runaway - While Mark Dinning and Ray Peterson and Dickie Lee and J. Frank Wilson were singing about death, Del Shannon took a slightly different tack in an apparent attempt to get the new music to tackle serious subject matter. If this song weren’t so brilliant, it would be totally ridiculous. It’s offspring that run away, not girlfriends, though I suppose someone’s girlfriend is someone else’s offspring. On the other hand, she may be in a women’s shelter, which would make this song more sinister than I care to believe. It’s all too complicated for me to figure out. Doesn’t matter, though, when you hear that whatever-it-is solo in the middle. It’s as spooky as it needs to get. Del kicked his career off with this song, which reached number 1 in the spring of 1961. He started at the top, and worked his way down…
• Hats Off To Larry – Good old Larry. You ever know a Larry? I did. But he didn’t dump anyone that I’m aware of. “I know it may sound strange,” sings our hero, “I want you back, I think you’ll change.” He’s right, it does sound strange. This song of romantic revenge was a hit in the summer of 1961.
• So Long Baby – Ah, this is what I like, no whining, just good riddance. From the fall of 1961.
• Hey! Little Girl – You know this is a daydream. You’ve been hurt, I’ve been hurt, let’s make each other feel better. A daydream. From the winter of 1961 / 1962.
• Little Town Flirt – There’s one in every town. There must be, because each one has her own song. From the winter of 1963.
• Two Kinds Of Teardrops – Just two? From the spring of 1963.
• The Swiss Maid – This is where the fantasy gets really flaky. Heidi anyone? From the fall of 62.
• Keep Searchin’ (We’ll Follow The Sun) – Del and his girl are being pursued. By whom? Don’t know. Why? Don’t know. Dave Marsh has called Del Shannon rock’s greatest paranoiac, and this is why. And the more out there he gets, the better the music gets. Great stuff. From early 1965.
• Cry Myself To Sleep – Routine sadness. Not The Four Seasons song. From the summer of 1962.
• Two Silhouettes – A total ripoff of The Rays’ hit from the late 50s. And the original is better. This is just a bit too over the top, without the redeeming hysteria of his better hits.
• Stranger In Town – “We run, yeah we run..” Del shrieks. They are running, apparently, from some unexplained “stranger.” One imagines a cloaked figure with a derby hat and sunglasses (at night yet), lurking just out of sight. The drama of this is over-the-top, but the music is superb. From the winter of 65, this followed Keep Searchin’, which makes total sense.
• From Me To You – Ok let’s talk about this. Nobody in North America had heard of The Beatles. A few independent record companies (notably Vee Jay) had released some of their early records, and they sank. Del Shannon comes along, picks up one of their early gems, does a more than respectable rendition, and, in the summer of 1963, half a year before I Want To Hold Your Hand changes history forever, the song climbs to number 77 on Billboard, disappears, and is forgotten. But give him credit. He was the first to put a Beatle song on the North American pop charts, and that fact that this wasn’t a massive hit says more about the arbitrariness of pop success than anything about the record itself, which would do anyone proud.
• Do You Want To Dance – Another version of Bobby Freeman’s ground breaker, to sit alongside versions by The Beach Boys, Cliff Richard, The Mamas And The Papas, Bette Midler et al. From the fall of 1964.
• Handy Man – A Revival of The Jimmy Jones I-am-a-stud anthem, which was only 4 years old then. From the summer of 1964.
• I Go To Pieces – A Del Shannon original that became a hit for Peter & Gordon.

Monty Sunshine

2011-09-10T22:30:00.003-04:00

Jazz, did I mention that it’s not my first love? So when I listen to something and find myself liking it, I have to wonder whether I really like it, or whether I just think I like it. I found myself liking In A Silent Way by Miles Davis recently, and it confused me. And I found myself disliking a Return To Forever album (it was called Hymn Of The Seventh Galaxy) and not liking something convinced me that I really did like the Miles Davis. That does make sense on some existential level. Don’t ask me to explain it more than that.

Monty Sunshine’s real name was apparently Monty Sunshine. And with a name like that how could he not be a jazz musician. His most famous moment was playing clarinet on Petite Fleur by Chris Barber, but he had quite the career as a staple of the UK jazz scene – nice Jewish boy, too.

Monty Sunshine:

• Saturday Night Function – Must have been a small town by the sound of it...

Mary Wells

2011-09-04T10:16:00.003-04:00

Into The Music sold used LPs; they probably had a small selection of new LPs from time to time but it wasn’t their main business by any means. But one day, for reasons that elude me, they procured a shipment of Motown Anthologies; this was back in the day when the vinyl copies still existed with the original cover art that was very different from what it would later be on CD. I picked up The Marvelettes, first time I’d seen it, and the last time I saw the vinyl copy.

And Mary Wells. But unlike the others, Mary Wells did not have an “anthology.” Mary Wells, who left Motown after she hit it big with My Guy, could do no better than the Greatest Hits album that Motown released in 1965 as part of its Greatest Hits series, all of which, like the Anthology series later, had the same cover design.

Mary Wells, who was Motown’s first (and only, until Diana Ross went solo in 1970) successful female solo artist, had 12 top 100 hits on Motown through 1965, and had another 10 on 20th Century, Jubilee, and Atco through 1968. The latter, only one of which made the top 40, are not in wide circulation and aren’t really all that well-remembered. Her glory lies with the former.

Mary Wells:

• The One Who Really Loves You – Who’s to say who really loves whom? A song lyric borne of competition, it poses a challenge. But the one who really loves you isn’t necessarily what it’s all about. From the summer of 1962.
• You Beat Me To The Punch – The dynamics of initiative. We children of the 70s remember the Charity Brown version of this, but here is the original in all its glory. From the fall of 1962.
• Two Lovers – It was Mary MacGregor who (weakly, I admit) challenged the mores of the world with Torn Between Two Lovers in 1977, and here the predecessor Mary gives us an early take, but she bails at the end. She has a BF, as it happens, with a psychological illness. I kid you not. Certainly one of the most bizarre storylines to come out of a Motown record. From the summer of 1963.
• Your Old Stand By – Told from the POV of an afterthought. These are not such simple I love you and you love me songs. Much credit to songwriter Smokey Robinson who had the courage to tackle complex emotional stuff in the context of top 40 radio, and this back in the early 60s when Jackson Browne was just a baby. From the summer of 1963.
• What’s Easy For Two Is So Hard For One – One could go all kinds of places with a title like that, but let’s don’t. From the winter of 1964.
• My Guy –Smokey Robinson may be the only male songwriter who could write so convincingly from the feminine side. Ok, nothing profound here, but colourful and cheerful and, it its own way, challenging. “No handsome face could ever take the place of my guy.” Think about it. And only Smokey could come up with a line like “I’m sticking to my guy like a stamp to a letter.” Her only number one hit, and her swansong for Motown. From the spring of 1964.
• Laughing Boy – That we don’t always show how we feel is a common theme in pop music, but it’s almost always told from the perspective of he who is doing the hiding. Here we have an interested observer. From the winter of 1963.
• What Love Has Joined Together
• Oh Little Boy (What Did You Do To Me) - We often hear “little girl;” “little boy” almost never. That whole male pride thing is at stake. She picks up the tempo on this, it could be a girl group hit but for the fact that there are no background singers on this at all.
• Old Love (Let’s Try Again) – Those old feelings don’t go away easily. Let’s try again, it works sometimes, not often.
• You Lost The Sweetest Boy – Not the handsomest / best looking, not the most athletic, not the wealthiest, not the smartest. From the fall of 1963.
• Bye Bye Love – Mary’s debut hit falsely places her as kind of a female Isley Brothers; it was a style she (or, more likely, Berry Gordy) abandoned quickly. But it suits her, and one wonders where her career would have gone had she followed up. From the spring of 1961.

Gene Pitney

2011-08-28T14:27:00.003-04:00

It was one random afternoon when I should have been working, and I was scrounging through the LPs at Comic World when I was delighted to find all three volumes of Gene Pitney’s Big 16. No, it did not take three LPs to encompass 16 songs. No. Each LP had 16 songs on its own. So one could argue that the series should have been entitled Gene Pitney’s Big 48. My best guess, though, is that nobody planned this out. So we have to live with the anomaly.

But my delight was real. I already had an LP called Gene Pitney’s 16 Greatest Hits, the 16 tracks of which corresponded to none of the Big 16 volumes exactly, and which, in fact, had one track that was on none, believe it or not, and I had some pre-recorded cassette that had Louisiana Mama, so now I had the makings of a stupendous collections. And that’s what I assembled, using a more or less random sequencing algorithm (I closed my eyes and pointed).

Three of his top 100 singles are missing here – one is I’ve Got Five Dollars And It’s Saturday Night, a duet with George Jones, one is That Girl Belongs To Yesterday, an obscure Jagger-Richards composition, and the last is She Let’s Her Hair Down (Early In The Morning), a song better known by The Tokens. I’ve got all three somewhere else, just for the record. I should get to it around 2025.

Gene Pitney:

• Billy You’re My Friend – Not any more, apparently. She’s A Heartbreaker, which was a hit in the summer of 1968, was Pitney’s last stab at top 40 success. This was his follow up, and bears the mark of its time, replete with tempo changes, a middle eight with a piano credenza worthy of Franz Liszt, and an arrangement that’s an obvious attempt to cash in on the success of Richard Harris’ McArthur Park, one of the most despised records of all time. All that was missing was believable human drama. This tale of romantic betrayal by one’s “best friend” was sadly juvenile for all the effort that went into this. From the fall of 1968.
• Yesterday’s Hero – The intro sounds like he’s declaring war on his own ego. Behind it is the tale of psychological insecurity, adequacy by association. It’s all too familiar, but sooner or later it would catch up with him, one way or another. From the spring of 1964.
• Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa – This may be the most over-the-top tale of infidelity in all of pop music, and that’s some accomplishment. Not only does a one-night stand turn into a lifetime commitment, but Gene walks away from a perfectly good (we have no reason to believe otherwise) relationship, for some floozy he met in a roadside diner. “One day away from your arms,” he sings. How many days from her legs? From the fall of 1963.
• Only Love Can Break A Heart – I have heard that the best way to cure a hangover is to have more of what caused it. That’s kind of the message here, though transposed to a romantic context. Indeed, “only love can mend it again.” There’s much to be said for time, but this isn’t the place for self-help books. This syrupy ballad was Pitney’s highest placing single, reaching number 2 in the fall of 1962.
• Not Responsible – There is something vaguely threatening about this I-can’t-control-myself declaration. But Gene’s take sounds positively tame compared to Tom Jones’.
• Teardrop By Teardrop – Heartbreak and tears, they go together like peanut butter and jam…
• Donna Means Heartbreak – How to depersonalize the disintegration of a relationship.
• Aladdin’s Lamp – Aladdin himself is there in the background. Listen Gene, wishful thinking will never replace action. Get on Match.com or something…
• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance – Over the top frontier drama, this was the theme from the movie, but Pitney’s vocal’s were not used. It’s the fiddle that gives it just a touch of authenticity, and he pulls this off surprisingly well, considering how unsuited his voice is for westerns. From the summer of 1962.
• Keep Telling Yourself – A song about self-delusion.
• Mecca – They live on opposite sides of the street, but she may as well be in Mecca. I don’t know, even then they had commercial flights to Mecca, no? A song about obstacles. The mid-eastern touches are kitschy and utterly charming. From the spring of 1963.
• Town Without Pity – Here he’s encroaching on Del Shannon territory, just a touch of paranoia. One wonders what everyone is so up in arms about. From the winter of 1962.
• Tower Tall – A song about promises. Good luck.
• Cry Your Eyes Out – A revenge song, and not the song by Les Emmerson.
• True Love Never Runs Smooth – No it doesn’t, but he is willing to go the limit. It’s worth “the heartache and the pain we share” he says, but the heartache and the pain isn’t what you share, it’s what you endure alone. Still, at least he isn’t wearing rose-coloured glasses. From the summer of 1963.
• Take Me Tonight – Considering the title and the subject matter, this is quite lame. Unbridled lust isn’t what Gene does best I guess.
• Half Heaven, Half Heartache – He’s got the girl he wants, but she is still hung up on the other guy. I feel your pain Gene, but give it time, and if things don’t get better, give her the heave-ho. The pain in his voice as he soars on the chorus is the embodiment of how it feels not to be able to change things. From the winter of 1963.
• I Wanna Love My Life Away – Sounds like a plan. No need for mortgages, job interviews, hospital visits, summer camp, in-laws, etc. Just love love love. Go for it. This one-man-band performance was Gene’s first hit. It barely cracked the top 40 in the winter of 1961.
• If I Didn’t Have A Dime – A song about serendipity. There she was, the girl of his dreams, “ruby lips and golden hair, beside the jukebox.” Sounds a bit sleazy to me but it’s not my trip. Wistful stuff. From the fall of 1962, the flip side of Only Love Can Break A Heart.
• It Hurts To Be In Love – Another song about pain and unrequited love. A great drummer and a marching rhythm help it along. From the fall of 1964.
• Oh Annie Oh – Gene goes folk. Light that bonfire…
• Today’s Teardrops – This is chirpy; Paul Anka couldn’t have done it better.
• Fool Killer – Not The Mose Allison song. It’s supposed to have a moral I suppose but the concept falls apart with the concept of “fool.”
• Laurie – Not the Dickie Lee song, but, oddly, both songs are about a dead girl. This is meant to be wistful, but it’s just a bit morbid.
• Backstage (I’m Lonely) – Another song about the lonely life of the pop star. This one is a bit mundane, Gene merely pining for his girl, with the added attraction of acknowledgement of his star status. I wonder if the crowds in real life were as big as they were in the song. From the fall of 1966.
• She’s A Heartbreaker – Gene updated. The sound is modernized, bringing our hero into the late 60s, even giving him a bit of a soul edge, but the lyrics are typical evil woman stuff. From the summer of 1968.
• Little Betty Falling Star – Romance meets astronomy, and they both lose.
• Brandy Is My True Love’s Name – And Brandy is a heck of a drink. Gene brings all the folk authenticity one can possibly stand to this ode to alcohol.
• I’m Gonna Be Strong – Because showing that you care, showing that you’re sad, showing that this is hard for you, that’s all evidence of weakness. Clearly. From the winter of 1964/65.
• Hello Mary Lou – His best records were written by others, while his songs were best recorded by others. Hello Mary Lou was probably the best remembered song by Ricky Nelson, and Loggins & Messina and The Statler Brothers had their various cracks at it as well.
• I Love You More Today – A slight country flavour informs this tale of love that gets better every day. So yesterday wasn’t so hot?
• Half The Laughter, Twice The Tears – And here we find Gene trying hard to get into that slight-soulful mid 60s groove, and not quite getting there...
• Lyda Sue – A humorous look at self destruction. Ha ha ha.
• Every Breath I Take – Phil Spector produced this, just before he launched his own record company, and I wonder if anyone else could have made such a massive monument out of a song this slight – vocal chorus that sounds like the Vienna Mens’ Chorus with sock hop fever, a string section that could be the strings of the NY Philharmonic after they had a few too many, and a drummer (probably Hal Blaine) to remind us of how serious this is – Pitney never made another record like this and neither did Spector, and thank goodness, the world couldn’t stand it. Make no mistake though, this is pure genius. It was too much for most people though; it didn’t get higher than number 42 on Billboard, just before Pitney hit the big time with Town Without Pity. From the fall of 1961.
• I Laughed So Hard I Cried – Yet another take on the crying clown theme.
• I Must Be Seeing Things – Yet another betrayed-by-a-best-friend drama, this may be the strangest of all. He spots his girl with his BFF (of course), manages to catch every word of their bizarre conversation, while they don’t see him. He is, of course, eating his heart out. From the winter of 1965.
• Just One Smile – As Gene struggles with the reality of a broken relationship, he still hopes for that bandaid that will salvage it. The emotion is all too real, and so is the hopelessness that’s just under the surface. BST covered this on their first album, the one with Al Kooper. From the winter of 1967.
• Rags To Riches – Gene’s rocked up arrangement of this Tony Bennett hit works surprisingly well.
• Born To Lose – Known by Tennessee Ernie Ford and by Ray Charles, Gene’s recording of this works better than I’d expect. Much of the credit goes to tasteful arrangement, which starts with muted acoustic guitar, bass, and drum, and which the piano then the chorus then electric guitar enter one by one...
• Last Chance To Turn Around – This one has Gene screaming and yelling about how he’ll show her. Meanwhile I wonder why he won’t have another chance to turn around. Is he driving into the ocean? From the summer of ’65.
• Amor Mio – Gene sings love to a Mexican beauty - a song that cops the rhythm and chord structure straight from La Bamba.
• Looking Through The Eyes Of Love – In the eyes of the world he’s a useless loser; in the eyes of his lover he’s the greatest hero. Ok. I’ll buy that. But what is he in his own eyes? That image, looking through the eyes of love, played out very strangely in my 8 year old mind when this was a hit in the summer of 1965.
• Remind Her Of Me – I think of her all the time. I want her to think of me, remember how happy we were. How the heck does he know she isn’t?
• I Can’t Stop Loving You – Written and originally recorded by Don Gibson, and a major hit for Ray Charles, Gene’s version is unlike either.
• I’m Afraid To Go Home – A real song that tackles the real trauma of the ravages of war. It is specifically about the Civil War but the message is universal. With this one Gene proves once and for all that he’s a contender.
• Stay – Not the Maurice Williams song. Don’t go…
• On The Street Where You Live – Originally from My Fair Lady and a hit for Vic Damone, if this weren’t so hokey it might be one of the best songs about falling in love. Alas…
• There’s No Livin’ Without Your Lovin’ – A journeyman love song, and a minor hit later for Peter & Gordon.
• Princess In Rags – One of those minor subcategory of pop song – the poor girl rich boy saga (or vice versa). The Four Seasons had a good time with it (Rag Doll, Dawn) and so did Billy Joe Royal (Down In The Boondocks) and so did Roy Orbison (Working For The Man), and so even did Jay & The Americans (Only In America). This is somewhat unusual in that there doesn’t seem to be any opposition to the union. Go Gene. From the winter of ’65 / 66.
• Unchained Melody – The Righteous Brothers had presumably not yet gotten hold of this when Gene did his take, and his take is unlike any other, with orchestration reminiscent of Ravel himself, with special kudos to the harpist. I still prefer the totally syrupy but irresistible original by Les Baxter, and this doesn't have the sheer drama of the Spector production, but this is ok.
• Close To My Heart – Another journeyman trip.
• I Really Don’t Want To Know – Oh yes you do Gene, yes you do. I must have 2 dozen versions of this in my collections, and there are hundreds out there. The hit versions were by Les Paul & Mary Ford, Tommy Edwards, Ronnie Dove, and Elvis Presley. The rest is commentary. Go forth and learn…
• All The Way – Frank Sinatra recorded this, as did Neil Sedaka and many other respectable performers, and so the potential lewdness in the title / lyrics gets swept away. Gene doesn’t bring it back out.
• Louisiana Mama – This ode to a Cajun beauty was Gene’s follow-up to his debut, but it managed to avoid the charts altogether. Admittedly, it’s dippy…

Johnny Maestro

2011-08-21T10:44:00.002-04:00

What happened to Johnny Maestro between 1961 and 1968? The Best Of Johnny Maestro, where my collection comes from, has only 3 tracks he recorded as a solo artist, all three from 1961, and all 3 chart hits. Before that he sang bel canto doo-wop with The Crests, and in the late 60s / early 70s he was lead singer of Brooklyn Bridge, Buddah Records’ answer to Gary Puckett & The Union Gap (as if an answer were required). And those missing years? No idea, nothing comes up in the usual sources, and I can’t find any unusual sources.

And whatever happened to him, it’s too bad, because he was good. He held his own among the best of the teen idols of his day, and for the most part he could sing circles around Bobby Vee or Bobby Rydell. So I’ll keep checking Amazon for Johnny Maestro: The Missing Years, but I’m not holding my breath…

Johnny Maestro:

• Model Girl – Model as in Christie Brinkley? Model as in plastic glue-it-yourself airplane? More like model as in “role model.” She can’t possibly live up to the hype, but while those strings are playing and his voice is soaring the fantasy is just too real. From the spring of 1961. “When I saw you walking down the street…”
• What A Surprise – This is as silly as Model Girl is fanciful, but when I hear Johnny sing I forgive him everything. I have to wonder what would have happened had he just given up and gone home… From the summer of 1961.
• Mr. Happiness – We’re getting a bit mundane here and it showed in the results; the song didn’t get higher than number 57 on Billboard, and it was his last hit before he resurfaced with The Brooklyn Bridge. From the summer of 1961, a bit later than What A Surprise.

Kokomo

2011-08-13T22:33:00.001-04:00

The fact that Kokomo was Jimmy Wisner, and that Jimmy Wisner had a successful career as an all-around music guy (jazz musician, songwriter, producer, arranger, etc.) seems strangely irrelevant. His alter-ego is what lives on in the hearts and minds of anyone who became enamoured of his irreverent take on the classics that’s embodied on his one and only hit.

Kokomo:

• Asia Minor – Cute title, but the song has nought to do with Asia. It is a rock and roll adaptation of the main theme of the first movement of Grieg’s piano concerto in A minor (get it?). This kind of thing was a minor (no pun intended) subgenre of pop music for a while (B. Bumble & The Stingers etc), and it somehow seems to take all the pomp out of those 70s progressive rock groups like Yes and ELP and even Exception who made a career of merging (or attempting to merge, depending on one’s opinion of their success) rock music with classical forms, and sometimes with classical music itself. ELP spent an entire LP torturing Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition, but here this guy had it all figured out in 3 minutes. From the spring of 1961.

The Echoes

2011-08-12T16:30:00.003-04:00

Another group with no biographical information whatsoever. The Wikipedia entry is about a different group entirely. I have to admit, it’s not easy to google “Echoes” and come up with anything useful. The group actually had a follow-up to Baby Blue, but it didn’t get past number 88 and that was it.

The Echoes:

• Baby Blue – For all its adolescent gloss, this isn’t just a straightforward love song. Here we have the phenomenon of characterization, our hero establishing his loved one’s identity with the epithet described by the song title. No other name will do. Can you say “pigeonhole?” From the spring of 1961.

Cathy Jean & The Roommates

2011-08-11T22:36:00.003-04:00

Cathy Jean & The Roommates have the distinction of having no Wikipedia entry. They do have an entry in allmusic.com, but there is no biographical information there. I had to resort to http://www.the-history-of-rock.com/ to find out that Cathy Jean’s surname was Giordano. She was 15 when she recorded her one and only hit with The Roommates, and they weren’t much older. The article says that the parts were recorded separately, so the she never actually met the group, but the photos say otherwise. It is fairly certain, thought, that they were not actually roommates at any time…

Cathy Jean & The Roommates:

• Please Love Me Forever – Listen to the adolescent inflection on the vowels of “forever.” This is archetypal adolescent turnaround-chord-pattern music, with a helium voiced singer singing of story-book love. From the spring of ’61, their only hit, though The Roommates (sans Cathy) scored small time with Glory Of Love. It was a hit later for Bobby Vinton.

The Marcels

2011-08-09T21:32:00.003-04:00

I admit it. I got a lot of my rock and roll education from a Sha Na Na album. The LP was called The Golden Age Of Rock ‘N’ Roll, and I picked it up in Fargo, ND. I was about 15, and I was unfamiliar with the majority of the songs on the 4 sides. Over the years, I got to know the originals, one by one.

What became obvious after a while was how the group took so many songs from (slightly) different time periods, of different styles, and rendered them all in the same Sha Na Na style, using the same common denominator. Hearing the originals meant hearing the song without the layer of camp with which the group covered everything.

Blue Moon was the exception. It was the one song that the group did not have to do anything with, because all the camp was there to begin with. The Marcels were not the first doo-wop “comedy” group – The Coasters beat them to it by almost a decade – but they were certainly the first nationally famous group that poked fun at the genre as a genre. And they did it by taking Tin Pan Alley favourites and arranging them in a style that represents doo-wop in excelsis.

The Marcels:

• Blue Moon – By Rogers & Hart, the song is almost sacred in its place in American popular culture. The Marcels ripped the sacredness to shreds and got themselves a number 1 hit. Elvis Presley’s cover, recorded for Sun Records at the dawn of his career, was a lot more subtle in its sacrilege, and Bob Dylan’s recording on Self Portrait was almost totally straight. The Cowboy Junkies’ version on The Trinity Sessions has a sanctity of its own. From the spring of 1961.
• Heartaches – “Here we go again!” they yell off the top, and indeed they do. Still, the novelty was wearing off; but, even so, this cover of a 1931 Tin Pan Alley standard was top 10 fare. I have versions by The Ames Brothers and Patsy Cline. From the winter of 61 / 62.

Carla Thomas

2011-08-07T11:47:00.004-04:00

“You are near the end of your life!” So said my 24 year old co-worker, in all innocence. Thanks.

Well I hope he’s wrong. But to him I guess I’m old. And the thing about getting older is that there are parts of our personality that change, that mature, that get wiser. But the trick is to balance that with a perpetual sense of youthfulness where such is needed; we don’t want to become old fogies. We want to retain a sense of adventure, a sense of delight, a sense of humour, those characteristics that some of us lose as we get older, and others of us work very hard to maintain.

Carla Thomas was a soul singer who had 15 hits on the pop charts (20 if you count duets) between 1961 and 1969. She recorded for Stax and had an incredibly powerful voice the tone of which sat in a kind of odd place between the adolescent fantasy of Cathy Jean (of the Roommates) or Kathy Young (of the Innocents) and, say, Aretha or Etta James – not quite adolescent, not quite adult. It’s that odd emotional tone of hers that may have prevented her from being a bigger star; only four of the aforesaid 20 hits made the top 40, and 2 of those were with Otis Redding.

This collection consists of all the Carla Thomas tracks, and all the Carla & Rufus tracks, from The Complete Singles 1959 - 1968, a collection of recordings released on Stax – Volt, which is odd because not all her hits are here. Some of the tracks included were actually released on Atlantic. I can’t make head or tail of it.

Rufus, by the way, was her father, Rufus Thomas, who was a Memphis DJ and recording artist, best known perhaps for Walking The Dog and Do The Funky Chicken.

“How old are you?” he asked after considering the matter. “54” I told him and he, well, he conceded. “That’s not too old.” Thanks. I’ll just go listen to some Carla Thomas now…

Carla Thomas:

• ‘Cause I Love You – Rufus & Carla. Just some sporting give and take to get her career off the ground. This is more Rufus than Carla and it’s all she can do to keep up with her rough sounding father.
• Gee Whiz (Look At His Eyes) – Her consummate performance. She puts on that adolescent fantasy voice and runs with it, and this is the perfect vehicle. Nobody, of course, could stand on the pedestal she creates here (“he has everything a girl could want;” now what would that be exactly?) but so what? We are entitled to this type of thing once in a while, so long as we don’t make a lifetime habit of it. Her first and biggest record, from the spring of 1961.
• A Love Of My Own – Gee Whiz redux, but there’s no guy. Trying to put yourself in the context of the world, mountains and streams and that kind of thing. It’s a bit of a stretch; maybe that’s why it wasn’t a hit.
• (Mama, Mama) Wish Me Good Luck – “Remember the boy back home?” she asks, “All he ever did was make me moan.” Well, that could mean all sorts of things. But it’s not good in Carla’s world. Put this in that list of Mother-daughter songs (Mama Said etc.) where the bond is a healthy one.
• I Kinda Think He Does – Carla’s ballad style applied to a something that’s somewhere between infatuation and wishful thinking, with just a pinch of denial.
• I’ll Bring It On Home To You – An answer song to Sam Cooke’s Bring It On Home To Me, in which our heroine dismisses his declarations of self-sacrifice as being entirely unnecessary. From the fall of 1962.
• What A Fool I’ve Been – She wants her man back and she’s willing to eat dust. Not clear here exactly what makes her a “fool;” we suspect nothing. From the summer of 1963.
• Gee Whiz It’s Christmas – Stax’s contribution to the season. Carla writes a letter to her loved one. All in the spirit.
• That’s Really Some Good – Rufus & Carla. More of that sniping. She really came into her own when she went head to head with Otis Redding. From the summer of 1964.
• Night Time Is The Right Time – Rufus & Carla. Up to now I’ve held my peace, but the father and daughter team getting down and dirty, well, there’s something not right. A cover of the Ray Charles song. From the summer of 1964, the flip of That’s Really Some Good.
• How Do You Quit (Someone You Love) – It looks easy from the outside. But walking away isn’t just about the person from whom you are walking away. It’s about leaving your life, your routine, your place of comfort (emotional if not physical), your future, your dreams. The whole shape of your life changes radically. And here she is into that zone where reality is too hard to deal with, even though his infidelity is staring her in the face. There is too much truth in this for 3 minute R&B song that didn’t even make the pop charts…
• Stop! Look What You’re Doin’ – It was The Supremes that took this concept to number 1. Carla’s version didn’t get past 92, but it was the more real of the two. From the summer of 1965.
• When You Move You Lose – Rufus & Carla. Finally Carla gets the upper hand. And we finally here that Stax funk kickin’ in…
• Comfort Me – So many songs about thrills, and excitement, and the rush of new love, but here we have another side of the equation.
• Birds And Bees – Rufus & Carla. A cover a The Birds And The Bees by Jewel Akens.
• Let Me Be Good To You – It’s not about what you can do for me, it’s about what I can do for you. From the spring of 1966.
• B-A-B-Y – This wasn’t among Carla’s most powerful performances, but for some reason this was her mid-60s hit. From the fall of 1966.
• All I Want For Christmas Is You – An old theme, and the style his lets up on the Stax sound that’s come to dominate her records, but it doesn’t quite scale back as far as her early 60s ballads. And I don’t know how the guy could resist… http
• Something Good (Is Going To Happen To You) – This song about good karma was a hit in the winter of 1967.
• When Tomorrow Comes – An update of Will You Love Me Tomorrow. I think that the protagonists are a bit older. A minor hit in the spring of 1967.
• I’ll Always Have Faith In You – The secularization of pure gospel. From the summer of 1967.
• Pick Up The Pieces – How much damage can you do before the relationship becomes unsalvageable? From the summer of 1967. Not the AWB song.
• A Dime A Dozen – “Don’t hold my love cheap.” A song about self-esteem.

Adam Wade

2011-08-04T19:59:00.003-04:00

I was listening to that Myrtle Beach station again, and I knew that I’d be posting this so I requested Adam Wade, but I don’t know if they played it because I was on my lunch for an hour of the 2 hour request show.

But I think I’m starting the get it, the whole “beach music” thing. As I sit and listen to it all day, it becomes its own world, a world that is as much about what it excludes as what it includes, it’s a mind-set, and it’s certainly not something that I can explain more than that.

There’s no question that Adam Wade fits right in. Wikipeida compares his style to Johnny Mathis but don’t believe it; he had a heck of a lot more soul than that. I doubt they play Mathis in Myrtle Beach.

The man had 11 hits on the pop charts, all but one during 1960 and 1961 (a cover of Crying In The Chapel turned up in 1965) and I don’t have a very good collection, with only one of his hits and a couple other random tracks.

Adam Wade:

• Rain From The Sky – Where else would rain come from? Another song about crying.
• Take Good Care Of Her – Pop music is rife with songs of jealousy that pretends not to be jealousy. Well, wait, no it’s not exactly jealousy; it’s beyond, it’s out and out resentment, but it masquerades as generosity of spirit. You won her, I lost her, I wish you the best, take care of her. There is an arrogance in the sentiment, a sense of proprietorship, misplaced magnanimity, that gives the lie to the whole thing. From the spring of 1961.
• Around The World – A cover of the 50s hit by everybody.

April, 1961

2011-08-02T20:16:00.002-04:00

Runaway - Del Shannon
Take Good Care Of Her - Adam Wade
Please Love Me Forever - Cathy Jean & The Roommates
Baby Blue - The Echoes
Bewildered - James Brown
Find Another Girl - Jerry Butler
Fell In Love On Monday / Shu Rah - Fats Domino
Trust In Me - Etta James
Hide Away - Freddie King
California Sun - Joe Jones
Mother-in-law - Ernie K-Doe
100 Pounds Of Clay - Gene McDaniels
You Can Depend On Me - Brenda Lee
One Mint Julep - Ray Charles
Ginnie Bell - Paul Dino
Some Kind Of Wonderful - The Drifters
Tenderly - Bert Kaempfert
Ling Ting Tong - Buddy Knox
Sleepy Eyed Joe - Johnny Horton
The Blizzard - Jim Reeves
I've Told Every Little Star - Linda Scott
Tonight My Love Tonight - Paul Anka
Please Tell Me Why - Jackie Wilson
Theme From "Dixie" - Duane Eddy
Love Theme From "One Eyed Jacks" - Ferrante & Teicher
Like Long Hair - Paul Revere & The Raiders
Brass Buttons - The String-A-Longs
Portrait Of My Love - Steve Lawrence
Daddy's Home - Shep & The Limelites
Bumble Boogie - B. Bumble & The Stingers
Frogg - The Brothers Four
Funny - Maxine Brown
What'd I Say - Jerry Lee Lewis
Big Big World - Johnny Burnette

Kenny Ball

2011-07-31T11:27:00.003-04:00

Judging by the popularity of Oasis, the best thing that happened to the 90s was the 60s. And judging by the popularity of Kenny Ball, the best thing that happened to the 60s was the 30s. Retro has become retro.

In the words of Paul Du Noyer (In The City, page 90):

…the country was swept by a zany fad for strangely dressed men in bowler hats and waistcoats, plucking banjos, blowing clarinets and generally wowing a self-consciously eccentric student audience.

It was great fun when taken in the right spirit.

This is an eight track collection called Midnight In Moscow, credited to “Kenny Ball” though the original recordings were by “Kenny Ball And His Jazzmen.” It’s a pre-recorded cassette, and I have no idea whether it was ever released in any other format.

Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen:

• I Love You, Samantha – The 60s sitcom Bewitched co-opted the name "Samantha" for all time, so it’s well nigh impossible to hear this song without conjuring up images of the domestic witch married to the advertising agent. From the winter of 1961.
• Someday (You’ll Be Sorry) – How we console ourselves we our hearts are broken. It’s bogus, she won’t be sorry.
• March Of The Siamese Children – I hate to think where they may have been marching to. From the winter of 1962. This was one of Ball’s few North American chart entries – it reached number 88 in the US, number 3 in the UK.
• Midnight In Moscow – His signature tune, a good eight years before McCartney weighed in with Back In The USSR. This was an actual Russian song, with Russian words, but Ball wisely rendered it as an instrumental, and it’s a catchy tune beyond words. From the fall of 1961 (UK) or the winter of 62 (US), this was a top 5 hit on both continents.
• Sukiyaki – I’m not sure how this happened, but Ball’s cover of the Kyu Sakamoto hit was a hit before the original. From the winter of 1963.
• Rondo – A jazzed up arrangement of the Mozart’s Rondo a la Turk.
• I Still Love You All – Good. We were concerned. From the spring of 1961.
• From Russia With Love – Ball tackles Bond.
• When I’m Sixty-Four – Ball is just the guy to cover this oddball Beatle track from Sgt Pepper.

The Pepperpots

2011-07-24T11:23:00.001-04:00

I had no idea that the men-dressed-as-women on Monty Python (you know, Mrs Premise, Mrs. Conclusion etc) were collectively called The Pepperpots. That’s funny. But I only found out because I was googling “Pepperpots” to learn what I could about this super-obscure instrumental band whose single I found at some second-hand shop so many years ago. I found nothing about what I was looking for, though the single is offered for sale at a few auction-type sites.

Quoted from Wikipedia:

The term Pepperpots refers to any of the middle-aged, matronly types played by the men of Monty Python. A pepperpot is usually somewhat overweight and wears a rather unflattering ensemble often topped off by a small, old-fashioned hat. She holds a small purse in her gloved hands, and is very often seen out and about, apparently running errands while her husband is at work. She usually speaks in a high voice that sounds very much like that of a man imitating a woman. The Pepperpots are given different names in various sketches: Mrs. Premise, Mrs. Conclusion, Mrs. Nesbitt, Mrs. Smoker, Mrs. Non-Smoker, Mrs. Thing, Mrs. Entity, etc.

The Pepperpots:

• Ruby Dooby Du – An instrumental. Joannie Sommers did a vocal version of a song with this title; I don’t know if it’s the same one, though on YouTube it’s spelled “Ruby Duby Doo.” YouTube denizens are not known for spelling accuracy, so that means nothing. The song that Joannie did is apparently from the movie Key Witness. That tells me nothing.
• Leatherjacket Cowboy – The B side, and another instrumental.

The Vibrations

2011-07-18T20:57:00.002-04:00

I have other stuff to write today. You’ll have to figure out The Vibrations on your own. Good luck.

The Vibrations:

• The Watusi – There’ve always been songs about dancing and dances, but it took The Twist to make the world safe for rock and roll dances. The Watusi was one in a series, the hucklebuck, the jerk, the monkey, the boogaloo, the shingaling, the bus stop, the pogo stick, etc. I don’t know how one does the watusi, unless the Addams Family video is accurate. The Orlons and Ray Barretto also had watusi hits. The Vibrations’ record reminds me of no one so much as Hank Ballard, the original purveyor of the twist. From the winter of 1961.
• My Girl Sloopy – An earlier version of a song that became better known by The McCoys as Hang On Sloopy, but The Vibrations got there first. The Yardbirds covered this arrangement. If I had to pick a version to dance to, this would be it. Class consciousness creeps into pop music. From the spring of 1964.

Jørgen Ingmann and his Guitar

2011-07-17T09:12:00.003-04:00

When I hear Eric Clapton, I know that it’s Clapton, just from the style and sound of the guitar. Same is true (with appropriate adjustment for identity) of Carlos Santana, Roger McGuinn, James Taylor, Jimi Hendrix, Robbie Robertson. At the same time, there are hundreds, nay thousands, of world class guitarists whom I would not know without a program: Randy Bachman, Steve Howe, Keith Richards, Pete Townshend. Even Alvin Lee, he had speed and he had style, but I’m not sure that he was (is?) distinctive enough to be recognized without album credits.

All that makes me wonder about the oddball guitarists who sneak out of the pack to become featured soloists. I wonder how they did it, how they managed to distinguish themselves in a field where the competition is more than just overwhelming, who did they bribe or what amazingly serendipitous break did they get, who are they related to or what amazing feat of instrumentality did they perform to impress the impresarios?

And so we have an example, Jørgen Ingmann, a Danish musician who put 2 songs into the Billboard Hot 100, both of which are entertaining, but neither of which display the level of musical virtuosity that would explain Ingmann’s status as a featured soloist. I’m missing something.

Jørgen Ingmann and his Guitar:

• Anna – Not the Arthur Alexander song, the one covered by The Beatles. I would tell you about the special Annas in my life but there haven’t been any, a music teacher maybe. From the summer of 1961.
• Apache – A number one hit for The Shadows in 1960, but that was in England. It was Ingmann from Denmark who exported the song successfully to North America, and it was Ingmann who came up with that weird whooshing sound, which became a characteristic of cover versions from then on. From the spring of 1961.
• Fourth Man Theme – Bastard child of Third Man Theme, musically and literarily.

The Ramrods

2011-07-11T21:55:00.004-04:00

So how many female drummers can you name? OK, Karen Carpenter, easy. Maureen Tucker, also good. Ever hear of Claire Lane? Founder of (and drummer for) the Ramrods. Remember that for your next trivia evening.

They only had one hit.

The Ramrods:

• (Ghost) Riders In The Sky – So take the greatest melody you could possibly write, add lyrics that start off with an aura of mystery and grace, but wind up being miserably trite, and you have (Ghost) Riders In The Sky aka Ghost Riders In The Sky aka Riders In The Sky aka (Ghost) Riders In The Sky (A Cowboy Legend) etc. Vaughan Monroe put it on the chart in 1949, and Peggy Lee had a crack at it as did Frankie Laine, and The Sons Of The Pioneers, and Johnny Cash put it out relatively late in his career though while still on Columbia. It was the Ramrods, though, who came up with the only real way to salvage the song – get rid of the lyrics altogether, add sound effects that sound like the round up from hell, and play it as an instrumental, with guitar that sounds like Duane Eddy on steroids – more echo than the grand canyon, more tremolo than Jim Nabors. It was the only hit the group ever had, but it is recordings like this that make obsessions like mine worthwhile. From the winter of 1961.

Chuck Jackson

2011-07-08T17:30:00.003-04:00

I have a friend who lives down in South Carolina and to her “beach music” is as natural as breathing. To me it’s mystery. I listen to what they call “beach music” and I hear middle of the road R & B. So I found an internet radio station that plays beach music all day, I had it on last Friday, all day. I’d been listening to Chuck Jackson the night before and when the DJ said “send in your requests!” I sent off an email saying hey! It’s Canada Day down here and I’m working. Can you play some Chuck Jackson? and lo and behold, not only did he play Chuck Jackson, but he said “This is for David up in Canada where they are observing Canada Day, formerly known as Dominion Day!” (Now how did he know that?) And he went and played a song called C’est Si Bon. I guess he figures we’re all French up here.

But it proves something. It proves that I was right.

Jackson was a great R & B singer, but he’s not very well remembered. He recorded for Wand, a label owned and operated by Florence Greenberg together with Scepter, and her labels were known for “teenage” music (The Shirelles) and pop music and lightweight R & B (B. J. Thomas, Dionne Warwick). Jackson had 21 songs on the top 100 between 1961 and 1968, including a few duets with Maxine Brown, but none got higher than 23. Only two of those made the top 40 at all.
All these songs come from The Scepter Records Story.

Chuck Jackson:

• I Don’t Want To Cry – A breakup song, but the emphasis isn’t on the breakup, it’s on how it will make him feel. A perfect song, perhaps, to reflect a society in which we try to avoid feeling bad at all costs. The arrangement is not so different from what Ben E King was doing back then. From the winter of 1961.
• I Wake Up Crying – The sequel? I guess he feels bad after all. Very bad, wallowing in self-pity I’d say. From the fall of 1961.
• Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird) – I guess if you read the lyrics you’d think this was nuts. That’s why we don’t just read the lyrics. This is glorious; it’s what great R & B singing is all about. Elvis did this and he did a great vocal, but not like this. The arrangement with organ and the slightly Latin rhythm doesn’t hurt either. From the summer of 1962.
• I Keep Forgettin’ – Some odd percussion highlights this tale of post separation adjustment. From the fall of 1962.
• Tell Him I’m Not Home – On the surface this is just some dating trauma, but under the surface it’s about honesty, plain and simple.
• Beg Me – Not likely. From the summer of 1964.
• Since I Don’t Have You – Oft recorded, and a hit for The Skyliners in 1959. From the winter of 1964 / 1965.
• The Silencer – The nexus between guns and women, musically a cross between James Bond and The Snake.
• We Find Him Guilty – The strangest cheating song ever. The jury doesn’t just convict him, it stomps all over him, Chuck proclaiming his innocence the whole time.
• Something You Got – A duet with Maxine Brown. From the summer of 1965.
• Daddy’s Home – Ditto. You wouldn’t think this would work as a duet but it does. Originally by Shep & The Limelights, later covered by Jermaine Jackson (no relation, I assume). From the spring of 1967.

March, 1961

2011-07-05T20:54:00.004-04:00

Walk Right Back - The Everly Brothers
You Can Have Her - Roy Hamilton
Your Friends - Dee Clark
Wheels / Orange Blossom Special - Billy Vaughn
Happy Birthday Blues - Kathy Young & The Innocents
Cherie - Bobby Rydell
Little Boy Sad - Johnny Burnette
Gee Whiz - Carla Thomas
Think Twice / For My Baby - Brook Benton
I Don't Want To Cry - Chuck Jackson
Lonely Man - Elvis Presley
The Watusi - The Vibrations
On The Rebound - Floyd Cramer
Lazy River - Bobby Darin
Hearts Of Stone - Bill Black's Combo
That's It, I Quit, I'm Moving On - Sam Cooke
Greener Pastures - Stonewall Jackson
Bye Bye Baby - Mary Wells
Frightened City - The Shadows
Blue Moon - The Marcels
Asia Minor - Kokomo
But I Do - Clarence Henry
Model Girl - Johnny Maestro
Once Upon A Time - Rochelle & The Candles
Your One And Only Love - Jackie Wilson
Gee Whiz It's You - Cliff Richard & The Shadows
Little Pedro - The Olympics
Easy Going Me - Adam Faith

Maxine Brown

2011-07-03T19:49:00.003-04:00

Record labels, collectors take them very seriously. To dilettantes like me they are a matter of curiosity and historical interest. Some have distinct musical styles; Motown comes to mind obviously, and there was the gutbucket soul of Stax, teen pop of Dot, Atlantic soul and Atlantic jazz. The Beatles were on Capital, and so were a number of British invasion bands, so we got to identify those swirling colours on the label with Merseybeat.

And so it is that label-wide anthologies make a certain sense. Decca did a several decades collection of its country hits, RCA did jazz, Atlantic has release more various-artist R&B anthologies than you can shake a proverbial stick at. Small companies do this too (though by the time the CD comes out, the label has long since been purchased by one of the global conglomerates, often through several layers of corporate reality).

I got my Maxine Brown collection (all 6 songs of it) from a collection called The Scepter Records Story. This was a label whose music was aimed squarely at the teen market, no crooners please. The most successful and best known early act was The Shirelles, but they also had The Kingsmen (on Wand, same company), Chuck Jackson, and Maxine Brown. Then they had Dionne Warwick and B. J. Thomas.

Maxine had 11 solo hits (plus 4 with Chuck Jackson) and the three biggest are here; for some reason the compilers threw two non-hits on here and left off 8 of the chart singles. I’ll never understand why they do things like that.

Maxine Brown:

• All In My Mind – The arrangement of this is similar to the adolescent pop of Rosie & The Originals or Kathy Young & The Innocents, but Maxine was a real R & B vocalist. She sings here not just of insecurity, but of a premonition of bad times, and while she dismissed it with the adage that it’s all in her mind, just one listen to the edge in her voice tells us that’s she’s right all along. From the winter of 1961.
• Funny – “Every time I pass your door,” she sings with incredible melisma on the word “door.” Do they not share a bedroom? Funny, I’ll say. From the spring of 1961.
• Since I Found You – Her performance is a bit flat on this tale of starry eyed romance.
• Oh No Not My Baby – Denial writ large. From the winter of 64/65. Rod Stewart covered this while he was still cool.
• Baby Cakes – Really.

June In Review

2011-07-01T18:41:00.004-04:00

I note with sorrow that some of the links I posted in May are already gone. That’s YouTube, your favourite videos disappear. It’s that Jackson Browne song, Two Of Me, Two Of You, whose disappearance saddens me most.

So the object lesson is this: catch them while you’ve got the chance. You won’t be sorry. Or you will, but I won’t know about it, unless you tell me.

In case you missed May: You Never Know Who’s Listening.

· Van Morrison: Real Real Gone – After rediscovering this and hearing it a few times I was struck by the obvious: this is basically a rewrite of Bright Side Of The Road. No matter – Van the Man can rewrite the same song hundreds of times, and I’ll be happy to listen to it every time.
· Cher: You’d Better Sit Down Kids – There are a billion gazillion quintillion nonillion wadillion smillion farillion breakup songs, but how many take the kids into account? (Forget Tammy Wynette for a minute, she’s country anyway). Sonny was breaking new ground with this. Odd that he gave it to Cher to do solo; perhaps he felt that his vocal limitations would prevent the song from reaching its emotional potential (though later he did a solo version on a Sonny & Cher album, and he acquitted himself very well).
· Loudon Wainwright III: Your Mother And I – Poetry to Sonny’s journalism.
· Burton Cummings: I Will Play A Rhapsody – Back in Winnipeg I knew people who had known Burton Cummings, he went to St. John’s High, the same school my parents went to, and everyone agrees that he was an arrogant SOB. Perhaps. I just know that he is an incredible musical personality, and I don’t know that he’s gotten his due. The original of this, with the harmonies on “I,” is breathtaking, but watching him play it solo is plenty inspiring.
· Bobby Darin: Reason To Believe – The incredible technology that gives us the confluence of social networking and YouTube life-sharing used here to present the worst flaws of analog sound reproduction. Matter meets anti-matter.
· "Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons": Grease – Let me start by saying that there was never a group called “Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons.” The group in question was simply The Four Seasons, or The 4 Seasons, or, on record labels, “The Four Seasons featuring the sound of Frankie Valli.” The original members, of course, have long since scattered to the four winds, (is that a group?), and what we have here is obviously a new ensemble, hired for the occasion, who, judging by their appearance on stage, ought to be called The 42 Seasons. (The odd thing is that for much of its existence, The 4 Seasons were a quintet.) It doesn’t matter, because Grease was a solo hit for Frankie Valli, and I don’t know what skating has to do with anything, but these Tribute On Ice videos are great fun.
· The Move: The Girl Outside – Never heard of The Move? Seeds of ELO – Roy Wood, drummer Bev Bevan, later Jeff Lynne. Think of The Beatles, The Move took that kind of pop to its extreme. The Girl Outside is stylistically Eleanor Rigby in excelsis, lyrically it’s more real life than we’d like to admit.
· The Rolling Stones: Love In Vain – The Stones have done ballads that are sweeter, and some that are raunchier, but none more poignant then this rendition of alleged soul-vendor Robert Johnson’s tale of alienation. Everything extraneous is removed, they strip it down to its bare essence, and create a moment of power and beauty. The original on Let It Bleed is best, but watching Ron Wood play slide is one of life’s small pleasures.
· Van Morrison: Days Like This – To quote myself: “I love the way Van Morrison uses a horn section and the way he uses his voice, and the way he uses them together. I love the way that he’s made a career out of singing songs of joy and happiness, (when he’s not whining about being rich and famous) without ever sacrificing his artistic integrity. He may be a miserable man (so I’ve heard, lawyers keep away please) but his music reaches a place in my heart that surprises me every time. … I like the black and white, and I love the way that he is twice the age of anyone else in the band and how little it matters.”
· Patti Smith: In Excelsis Deo: Gloria – When all is said and done, this may be Van Morrison’s finest moment.
· The Traveling Wilburies: End Of The Line – One of my kids graduated from Green Acres High, where Jim Crow is alive and well, and sitting through the proceedings I don’t know if I ever felt more alienated. I walked out of there wondering, among other things, who I’ve become, who I’ve been, wondering whether it’s me that’s gone off the rails or everyone else, and I walked home listening to The Traveling Wilburies, because that's what I happened to have with me. And this song came on, and it told me stuff I needed to hear at that exact moment, and the exuberance of it carried me home; my feet barely touched the ground and anyone who happened to see me was confirmed in his, or her, opinion of my eccentricity. Once again, it is the plebian pleasure of pop music that gives me the perspective I need, just when I need it...

(Rest in peace, Roy Orbison, George Harrison...)

Benny Hill

2011-06-28T20:33:00.003-04:00

This is funny. It makes me laugh. It’s unusual that comedy this old still makes me laugh. But Benny Hill had a lot of fun with nothing less than the experience of being human, and that doesn’t change all that much.

This in English – that dry British humour – and it predates Monty Python by about a decade, though Benny Hill followed Monty Python’s popularity to North American TV. He is here because he had a few records actually make the UK top 20. I don’t remember where I got this, but it’s called Golden Hour Of Benny Hill

Benny Hill:

• The Harvest Of Love – From the summer of 1963.
• Gypsy Rock
• Piccolo Song
• Pepy’s Diary – From the winter of 1961
• Transistor Radio
• Lonely Boy - Not the Paul Anka song.
• Bamba 3688
• Gather In The Mushrooms – The flip side of Pepy’s Diary, also made the top 20.
• Moving On Again
• The Andalusian Gypsies
• The Egg Marketing Board Tango
• The Old Fiddler
• Golden Days
• Flying South
• My Garden Of Love
• I’ll Never Know
• Wild Women
• Jose’s Cantina
• Rose
• Those Days
• What A World

Ben E. King

2011-06-26T11:51:00.006-04:00

The Drifters hits on which Ben E. King sang lead were sublime. The best known and most popular was Save The Last Dance For Me, but that’s not my favourite. I am partial to If You Cry (True True Love), Dance With Me, and especially This Magic Moment. The emphasis was always on pure romance.

As a solo artist, the emphasis shifted to melodrama. I don’t know whose idea that was, but King often sounded like he was on the edge of a breakdown of some kind, like any little thing could tip the balance and send him over the edge.

He did ok for a few years, put 5 hits into the top 30 in the three years from 1961 to 1963. Altogether he put 19 records into the top 100 by 1967, and he had two more in 1975, including Supernatural Thing, Part I in 1975, which reached number 5 on Billboard though I never heard it on the radio. This collection is Tears Tears Tears which comes from a K-Tel album, and Ben E. King’s Greatest Hits.

Ben E King:

• Tears, Tears, Tears – They say that men cry differently from women, owing to physiological differences, something to do with tear ducts. They also say that men don’t cry, which isn’t true obviously, but has truth in it. For all that, there are enough men who sing about crying. From the spring of 1967. I have a cover by Winnipeg group The Fifth.
• That’s When It Hurts – Pain, that’s what so much of this is about. From the spring of 1964.
• Auf Wiedersehen, My Dear – King sounds ridiculous singing this German phrase. This should have stayed in the can.
• Around The Corner – A song about being left out. Remember The Green Door? Same idea.
• Young Boy Blues – Mose Allison did Young Man Blues. It’s all whining. From the fall of 1961.
• What Now My Love – King doesn’t do to badly with this chestnut. Didn’t make the charts though, in that regard he left it to Sonny & Cher, and Mitch Ryder, and Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass.
• Stand By Me – His signature song, and not surprisingly his highest placing single. On the surface the song is about loyalty, but there is an undercurrent of co-dependency, I need you to fill in the blanks of my life (and yes I know the difference between dependence and co-dependency). And to keep things interesting, at the end he turns the whole thing on its head – “whenever you’re in trouble,” he sings, “won’t you stand by me.” That stop-start crescendo arrangement, though, and the raw emotion of the vocal, gave the song lasting appeal. As the theme song of the movie, though, it was woefully misplaced. The movie was about friendship, the song is an ode to romantic entanglement. Covered by so many, I can think of Wilbert Harrison; it was a small hit for Earl Grant and a bigger one for Spyder Turner, and it was John Lennon’s last hit before his recording hiatus that lasted from 1975 until 1980. From the summer of 1961.
• Amor – This song of swirling romance put King into the top 20 in the fall of 1961, but it was nothing like the touching fantasy of his Drifters days.
• Don’t Play That Song (You Lied) – Failed romance is always so much fun, and here is Ben E waxing indignant about the disingenuousness of his erstwhile partner. The association of a pop song with a specific partner is also a common theme. Who can forget Olivia Newton-John, Please Mr. Please, “don’t play B-17.” Yikes. From the summer of 1962. Covered by Aretha in 1970.
• I (Who Have Nothing) – Self effacement writ large. True, he doesn’t say “I who am nothing” but he might as well; tradition teaches that the poor man is like the dead man. Ben, listen, you’ll never win her heart that way. This piece of over-the-top melodrama was a hit of sorts for Terry Knight & The Pack (Terry would go on to produce the early Grand Funk Railroad albums), and later for Tom Jones, who won the chart sweepstakes on this one. A hit for King in the summer of 1963.
• I Could Have Danced All Night – Danced, huh? I have a better version of this by Rosemary Clooney. From the fall of 1963.
• Spanish Harlem – His first solo hit, co-written by Phil Spector. A suitably restrained performance of a song about overcoming the odds. Aretha covered this too, in 1971. From the winter of 1961.

Andy Stewart

2011-06-23T19:53:00.002-04:00

The streets of downtown Winnipeg form a north-south east-west grid. That’s not unusual. The streets north of downtown, all the way up to the north end, right across the CP yards, also form a grid, but the direction varies from the downtown streets; the east-west streets point more north-west – south east, with the north –south streets at right angles. The street at the south edge of the north grid is called Notre Dame (always pronounced English – “noder dame”). As Notre Dame heads south east into downtown it meets a street called Donald and that’s where the street convergence takes place.

And right at the odd angled corner of Donald and Notre Dame is where Pyramid Records first made its home in the early 80s. It was a used record shop, very organized at the beginning. If you brought them a blues album, you’d get credit in the blues section; likewise with jazz, country etc. They didn’t keep that up. But back then it had the freshness of a new business, even some new Rhino stock now and then.

They moved a few times, first down the street on Donald closer to Ellice, then up into the exchange district, then, for a long time, they had a location on the south side of Portage Avenue, and I’d often stop in there on the way home from work, easy because it was on my bus route, right where I’d switch to the 18. They had books too by then, and magazines, though the owner, whose name was Don, refused to carry adult magazines.

Used record stores started springing up all over the city then; there was Argy’s, Red River Books and Rainbow’s Gold, Comic World, Sound Exchange. But Pyramid was the hub, the centre, the standard by which the others were measured. It was a kind of a home there, amid the dust and the chaos, a place to chat with Don or with Ken, who took care of the books. There was constant inventory turnover; prices were good, and he’d always give you good value for your trade-ins. He even sent me a client once - a Canada Post employee whose pottery adorned Pyramid's display window.

Did I say inventory? It was unbelievable what oddities turned up in his store; you’d wait long enough, you’d find anything. It was listening to Andy Stewart that inspired this diversion, and that was typical; nothing was too odd or too strange or too obscure. I picked up everything from Paul McCartney to classical symphonies by Shostakovitch to Chava Alberstein. Don the owner looked at the Andy Stewart LP as I handed it to him and he started singing “Let the wind blow high let the wind blow low”…. I like when he breaks into the Elvis routine, he said.

Last time I was there was the last day of November, 1993. He’d moved again, this time he was in a little shop across from the Marlborough Hotel on Smith. He was selling out, everything 75% off. I can’t do this anymore, he said. The taxes are too high, the rent is too high, the shop doesn’t pay for itself anymore. It was sad of course, but he wanted to sell off his inventory and pay off his creditors. Alas, he didn’t get the chance. I went back, but the door was locked, the landlord having exercised his right of distress for unpaid rent. The date of the notice was November 30, 1993.

Now Andy Stewart, he was Scottish. That’s obvious. He wore it on his sleeve. He sang about it. He hosted a TV show about it. And he put 2 records on the charts. Oddly, neither made the UK top 20, though they made Billboard (as high as 69) and the Toronto CHUM charts, where they did very well indeed. All but two of these songs come from a collection that I picked up at Pyramid Records. The two (Galawa’ Hills and Morag O’Donegan) came from 2 sides of a single that I got at Red River Books.

Andy Stewart:

• A Scottish Soldier – This one actually reached number 69 on Billboard in the summer of 1961. On CHUM it was number 1. It is nothing more than the tale of homesickness, and how, when you are far from home, the familiar can be harder to endure than the unfamiliar. I don’t know that the fact that he is a soldier is all that significant, except perhaps to remind us that the Scotsman can fight as well as anyone.
• Oh What A Ceilidh – Pronounced “kaylee,” a kind of party, the Scottish equivalent, perhaps, of a hoe down.
• Galawa’ Hills
• Morag O’Donegan – Love song to a nice Scottish girl.
• Soldier Boy – Not The Shirelles song.
• Two Lands – The other one is Canada, believe it or not, and he sings of the connection between the two places. Maybe things were different 50 years ago.
• Scotland Yes
• Highland Paradise
• Campbelltown Loch – Plays on the alleged love of the Scotsman for, what else, scotch. Apparently this is a real place.
• Tunes Of Glory
• Dr. Findlay – A TV show character.
• Donald Where’s Your Troosers – Some wear turbans and some wear kafiahs and some wear shtreimels and some wear robes. The Scotsman wears a kilt, and, if Andy Stewart is to be believed, he’s damn proud of it. The fact that this song is the biggest send-up you’re likely to hear does not diminish the pride of it one whit. The song reached number 77 on Billboard in the fall of ’61. The Irish Rovers gave it a good shot, too.
• The Tartan Ribbon

Lawrence Welk

2011-06-17T19:45:00.002-04:00

“Why don’t you just go home and listen to Lawrence Welk?” That was the best way to insult someone’s taste in music. Lawrence Welk, the textbook definition of “square.”

He had that show on every Saturday night. I never sat down to watch it, but it would be playing in the background – “Wunnerful,” and “and now, the Lennon Sisters.” Turns out, though, that not only did Welk have 19 top 100 singles between 1956 and 1965, one of them even went to number 1. This album, which is called Greatest Hits, was released on Quality Records in the 80s in Canada, licensed from Dot, and does a very poor job of representing his hits, including only 2. I don’t know why they didn’t just get a copy of Whitburn…

Lawrence Welk:

• Moon River – He couldn’t very well claim to be MOR if he didn’t do Moon River. Harpsichord.
• Calcutta – This went to number 1 in the winter of 1961. Not too many people remember, and I don’t know how often it gets played on oldies radio, but number 1 is number 1.
• Canadian Sunset – A cover of the Hugo Winterhalter hit.
• Love Is Blue – A cover of the Paul Mauriat hit.
• Bubbles In The Wine – Lawrence Welk in character.
• Last Date – From the winter of 60 / 61. A cover of the Floyd Cramer / Skeeter Davis hit.
• Somewhere My Love – A cover of the Ray Conniff Singers hit, which was an adaptation of the theme from Dr. Zhivago.
• The Sound Of Music – A cover of the theme from the movie.
• Champagne Time

The Dukes Of Dixieland

2011-06-12T18:37:00.005-04:00

Remember the PT Cruiser? Favourite question, I asked people, would you buy one? I don’t think anyone ever said yes, though they were very popular for a while.

Retro. There’s always a fascination, but for my money, why pay new money for an old looking car. See, it would be glib of me to suggest that if one wants an old-style car, then go buy an old-style car, glib because the cost of an authentic Ford Resto-Rod is prohibitive. Still though, if I’m buying a new car, I want it to look new, style and all.

This is all a lead-up, and a bit of an awkward one, to The Dukes Of Dixieland. They were a jazz band, formed in 1948, whose style harkened back to the early days of jazz, that’s the early 20th century. The Stray Cats did something similar with rockabilly, though try as they might they couldn’t help but modernize the sound, and Sha Na Na did the same for 50s rock and roll, but at least they had camp going for them. The Dukes reproduce the original Dixieland style note for note, and I don’t see the point, though they had plenty of fans. Seems to me that if you want this, go to Amazon and The Original Dixieland Jazz Band; get the real deal, and it's very affordable.

I got The Best Of The Dukes Of Dixieland, and More Best Of The Dukes Of Dixieland, from Pyramid Records, but I only kept part of the second volume, enough to fill up as much empty space as I needed to fill.

The Dukes Of Dixieland:

• South Rampart Street Parade
• Wait Till The Sun Shines Nellie
• Georgia Camp Meeting
• Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight
• Dixie
• Muskrat Ramble
• When The Saints Go Marching In
• Bourbon Street Parade
• Eyes Of Texas
• South
• Down By The Riverside
• Bill Bailey
• High Society
• Trombonium
• Dill Pickles

Kai Winding & J. J. Johnson

2011-06-06T21:02:00.003-04:00

Sure there are jazz singers, but we all know that jazz is primarily an instrumental medium. Thing is, though, that if all instruments are equal, then clearly some are more equal than others.

Ok so you have your jazz piano (Art Tatum, Keith Jarrett), and guitar (Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery). It’s not too hard to think of superstar jazz drummers (Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, Art Blakey). Getting into winds we have the clarinet (Benny Goodman) and flute (Moe Koffman).

But we all know that the real heart of jazz is brass. Let’s face it, a rock band becomes “jazz rock” when they add a horn section. It’s the sax players that own jazz (Charlie Parker, John Coltrane), sax players and trumpeters (Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis).

It’s the trombone, though, that seems to be the bastard child. Sure it’s part of the horn section, (unlike, say, a tuba, which doesn’t make an appearance all that often), but how many soloists do you know? Everyone knows Bix Beiderbecke, I agree. And then?

So here we have not one, but two, trombonists, both of whom had accomplished solo careers, and who decided, as a substantial side project for each of them, to record a number of LPs together. J. J. Johnson was an African American musician interested in bop, and Kai Winding was a white Danish born American who was more mainstream. It is said that an expert jazz fan can tell whose horn is whose; maybe, I sure can't.

I remember that this collection sat in the rack at Pyramid Records forever before it found its way to the top of my priority pile. It didn’t have much background information. But here it is in all its glory.

Kai Winding & J. J. Johnson:

• Out Of This World
• Thou Swell
• Lover
• Life City
• Stolen Bass
• It’s All Right With Me
• Mad About The Boy
• Yes Sir, That’s My Baby
• That’s How I Feel About You
• Gone Rock

Hank Snow

2011-06-05T09:33:00.002-04:00

It was a few days ago that I had an internet station called Nashville Classics on all day at work. That’s country, and it covers a lot of territory. They play a lot of Hank Williams, Faron Young, Kitty Wells, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash – stuff that you’d expect on a station called “Nashville Classics.” (And yes they play Buck Owens and Waylon Jennings, notwithstanding their non-Nashville credentials). But then they get into crap like The Gambler by Kenny Rogers, or stuff by Keith Whitley. You gotta take the good with the bad. (Not all the “new” stuff is bad; I heard Tennessee Flat-top Box by Rosanne Cash).

Hank Snow was definitely classic Nashville, notwithstanding his Canadian origins. What I have is The Best Of Hank Snow and The Best Of Hank Snow Vol. II, and it if the stuff on these collections is typical of what he did, and I have no reason to believe that it isn’t, then he was, in a very real sense, the voice of country music itself, singing about truck stops and taverns, non-commitment and dancing, trains and highways, border towns and space travel, and doing so in the voice of the people, as plain-spoken (plain sung?) as one could be, and still be singing. Beautiful stuff.

Hank Snow:

• I’m Movin’ On – There are enough country songs about domestic bliss, heaven knows, but here we have the heart of the Nashville universe - “you were flying too high for my little old sky,” - the country hero as the eternal vagabond, running away is always easier than solving problems. And he can’t resist that one last shot - “I’m through with you, too bad you’re blue.” And the way he delivers the verdict, there is no room for emotional or moral ambiguity, he goes straight for the jugular. The song was a number one record on the country chart in 1950, and it was covered by everyone from The Rolling Stones to Elvis Presley to Taste.
• The Rhumba Boogie – Nashville Rhumba, amazing. A number one single (country) in 1951.
• Let Me Go, Lover! – A huge hit for Joan Weber on the pop charts, and Teresa Brewer put it into the top 10. Their versions were pleading. Hank’s version was defiant. “Let me go, woman!” He spits out. Number 1 country in 1954.
• With This Ring I Thee Wed – There you go, domestic bliss, almost. but wait, they only just got married. Let's see where that goes...
• Music Makin’ Mama From Memphis – Not the marryin’ kind, for sure. From 1951.
• Miller’s Cave – A hit for Bobby Bare in 1964. Hank’s version was a country hit in 1960. A song about murder, jealousy, darkness.
• I Don’t Hurt Anymore – Another one of those typical country heartbreak songs, the singer plays the hero, never maudlin, but we know he’s hurting. Number 1 (country) in 1954.
• The Golden Rocket – Hank wouldn’t be a country singer if he didn’t sing about trains. This is a song about a train. This was the follow-up to I’m Movin’ On, and it sounds like it. Followed it to number one too.
• Bluebird Island – He sings this with Anita Carter. The follow up to The Rhumba Boogie. Uncharacteristically sunny.
• I’ve Been Everywhere – In I’m Movin’ On, he was the vagabond, running away from life. Here he’s the eternal traveller, moving around as an expression of personal fulfillment. It’s also a tongue twister. I’ve Been Everywhere was one of two of Hank’s records that made the Billboard hot 100, in the fall of 1962.
• (Now And Then) There’s A Fool Such As I – Country singer as loser. A hit for Elvis, and Bob Dylan covered it on Dylan. From 1952.
• Ninety Miles An Hour (Down A Dead End Street) – Kitty Wells sang about her “back street affair;” this is Hank’s take. The slow beginning followed by the relentless rhythm captures the emotional temperature perfectly. From 1963. Dylan covered this on Down In The Groove.
• Canadian Pacific – Hank finds his roots, and gets to sing about trains in the process.
• These Hands – A working man’s lament, tribute to work, love and faith. From 1956.
• Duquensne, Pennsylvania – It happened once in my past etc etc. Sigh…
• My Way – Yes this is the Frank Sinatra song, lyrics by Paul Anka. It is as legit a reading as any, better than Elvis.
• Marriage Vow – This was actually Hank’s first record on the country charts, before even I’m Movin’ On, from 1949. It’s a pretty straightforward wedding song, and it would be maudlin if anyone else sang it.
• Rockin’ Rollin’ Ocean – It must be the presence of The Anita Kerr Singers on this that made it safe for pop music radio. I don’t know how many top 40 stations actually played this tale of an absent-but-I-hope-she-comes-back-soon love, but some did, because it was the first of two of Hank’s records to get into the top 100. It was at the end of 1960.
• The Queen Of Draw Poker Town – Well it wouldn’t be country if it didn’t have gambling. This is from 1965.
• Honeymoon On A Rocket Ship – This is from back in 1953, when rocket ships were pretty much in the realm of science fiction. Takes Hank a bit out of his truck / train comfort zone, but he pulls it off.
• The Face On The Barroom Floor - … which brings us to the next standard country topic – the hard luck tale.
• (The Seashores Of) Old Mexico – Mexico is always a good topic that country writers / singers keep in mind as a standby. Merle Haggard wrote this, and Hank released his version in 1971. It didn’t make the pop charts nor the country charts, but it did reach number 6 on the Canadian country charts.

You Never Know Who's Listening

2011-06-01T22:25:00.002-04:00

Here are 10 of the music links I posted on Facebook during May. It’s a silly thing I do, juvenile, but people seem to like it, more than I would expect. And after a week might go by and don’t get any comments or “likes,” then I think maybe this is pointless, and then I get a message from someone saying I made his day, or I run into a flesh and blood person (yes, they do exist), someone who never posts anything at all, who tells me how much she likes it.

So for now, I’ll keep doing it and hello dolly. You never know who’s listening.

• Van Morrison: Cleaning Windows – Enjoying the smell of fresh baked bread, doing manual labour, and thinking about Jack Kerouac – only Van Morrison could get away with a song about all that. And get away with it he does.
• Cat Stevens: Moon Shadow – I have book called The 50 Worst Rock and Roll Records of All Time by Jimmy Guterman and Owen O’Donnell. Moon Shadow is on the list. Everything they say about the song is 100% correct, and yet they are 100% wrong. Amazing how someone who writes about music could so completely not get it. Meanwhile it’s entirely possible that I actually saw the show whence this video comes, and if I didn’t then I saw one just like it. I was about 13. I love the hippie ambience.
• Jackson Browne: Two Of You, Two Of Me – Jackson Browne can be two-hearts-beating-as-one romantic, and he can heartbreakingly realistic, and he can be both in the same song. And he has dozens of songs like that, and each and every one of them can tear the heart right out of you. This is a post-mortem of a broken relationship, it’s a psychological analysis of how we break ourselves into different characters when life becomes too painful, it’s a cry for understanding, and it hits way too close to home…
• Gordon Lightfoot: Walls – I could go on and on about this one, I could write an entire blog post, several in fact, and I may have done just that, somewhere. Let’s just say that there’s a story behind it, there’s someone I haven’t seen nor heard from in just over 2 years, and the whole thing is about finding out who you really are, behind all the personas. (cue Jackson Browne) Can you say “mid-life crisis?”
• Creedence Clearwater Revival: Green River – I was 12 years old when this song was all over the radio, summer of ’69 it was, and it used to play in my head as I rode my old-fashioned single-speed bicycle over the river trails of Kildonan park. I’m not 12 anymore, but the song hasn’t lost any of its magic for me. That either speaks well of the music, or poorly of me. I’ll take my chances on the music.
• James Taylor: Carolina In My Mind – James Taylor was pure magic for about a year, maybe two. Watch him play this, and a few of the others he does, like Sweet Baby James, Fire And Rain, and (especially) You Can Close Your Eyes, and there is something utterly compelling about him. No wonder so many women fell in love with the guy. He is said to be singing about North Carolina, but the song doesn’t say North Carolina, it just says “Carolina,” so regardless of what Mr. James may have intended, I am free to think of any Carolina I choose, and if I’d rather think of South Carolina, ain’t no one can stop me…
• Santana: Soul Sacrifice – I saw Woodstock (the movie) when I was 14, about a year after it was released. It is glorious. So is the soundtrack, though I’m under no illusion about how closely either may have reflected the actual event. I didn’t get soaked and muddy watching the movie, and there was always a bathroom when I needed one. Still, there are so many highlights – The Who, Sly & the Family Stone, Ten Years After, Sha Na Na (take that! pundits). The greatest of all may be this performance by Santana – not only did “Santana” clearly and unambiguously refer to a band back then, they hadn’t even released their first album when they did this. The intensity of the energy here was enough to carry the whole hippy revolution all on its own.
• Van Morrison: Into The Mystic – Amazing how someone can appear in your life, spin you round in circles (and that’s more literal then you’d think), fade into the background, reappear after 3 months, and go out with a bang (and get your mind out of the gutter, that’s not what I mean). What’s that got to do with the song? Well…
• John Denver with the Chad Mitchell Trio: For Bobbie (For Baby) – Someone once remarked that it would be good if John Denver took an unchill pill. Ha. Still, I am an unrepentant John Denver fan. Oh, I realize that he turned into Barry Manilow at some point, and that he was always a bit of a Pollyanna, but you know, when he was good he was very very good, Pollyanna or no. He originally recorded this song as lead singer of The Mitchell Trio (Chad was gone), and rerecorded it later on Rocky Mountain High. This version, with the harmonies, is a bit corny, but isn’t that what Denver is all about?
• Manfred Mann’s Earth Band: Blinded By The Light – This is just a great performance to watch.

The Allisons

2011-05-29T22:13:00.001-04:00

The Allisons were not brothers but they pretended to be, foreshadowing The Righteous Brothers and The Walker Brothers. They were an English pop duo favouring folky harmonies, foreshadowing Peter & Gordon and Chad & Jeremy. They had one hit.

The Allisons:

• Are You Sure – A breakup song. Very chirpy, but there is real stuff hidden in the pap: “I’m not sure what to do” they admit, “It’s hard but I’ll pull through.” A number one hit (after hitting second place at the 1961 Eurovision Song Contest) in the UK in the winter of 1961.

Jimmy Luther

2011-05-28T23:04:00.002-04:00

If Luther Perkins married Jimmy Luther he’d be Luther Luther. I know who Luther Perkins is but I can’t find out anything about Jimmy Luther. Even allmusic.com is silent. I know just that he made at least one record (2 sides of a single) and it’s country, and that I happened to find it and buy it (or acquire it in some fashion). I don't have it anymore though, not the physical copy, so I don't any info about it, not label, composer, anything.

Jimmy Luther:

• Love Can Be A Mansion – Sure, love can be a mansion. Love can also be an outhouse. You take it as you find it.

Buzz Clifford

2011-05-26T20:14:00.003-04:00

Apparently this guy bounced around, recording, songwriting, playing live. But for all the effort he put into his career, all he has in Whitburn’s book is a single single. I undoubtedly picked it up on one of those “Kooky Favourites” collections.

Buzz Clifford:

• Baby Sittin’ Boogie – We all know that rock and roll appealed to a (human) teenage demographic, so it was only to be expected that there would be those who would venture outside its strict confines to include erstwhile outsiders. An so we had Bill Haley & His Comets bringing in the dogs (Two Hound Dogs), Jan & Dean singing about rocking seniors (Little Old Lady From Pasadena) and Kay Starr’s pitying her parent’s sad attempts to be hip (Rock And Roll Waltz). And here is Buzz Clifford singing about a rockin’ tot. It’s what they call a novelty number, and it’s not too funny. It’s meant to be cute I supposed, but it’s not that either. It appealed to enough people, though, to earn a placement of number 14 on Billboard. From the winter of 1961. It was his only hit.

The String-A-Longs

2011-05-24T21:17:00.003-04:00

An instrumental group that had three hits, more or less, counting the other two that I don’t have. They join The Crickets and The Fireballs as part of the Norman Petty stable of performers.

The String-A-Longs:

• Wheels – A loping instrumental, and the title kind of fits, though I’m not sure why. I guess the title of an instrumental has a profound effect on how we hear it. Imagine if this were called “Fido” or “Chesnut Trees” or “Beer Belly.” We’d hear it very differently. I think. From the winter of 1961.
• Red River Twist – It was Johnny & The Hurricanes that took Red River Valley and rocked it up as Red River Rock; these guys sped it up just a bit and made it into a twist. Apparently a twist song has to be very fast. It wasn’t fast enough, though, to make the top 100.

The Capris

2011-05-23T19:02:00.002-04:00

I heard Tears In My Eyes today, a song by The Capris, on AOL Doo-Wop radio.

It’s fascinating, doo-wop radio, what passes for doo-wop – which of course raises the question: what should pass for doo-wop?

They play Jackie Wilson for example, and early Miracles, and late Platters. Now The Platters, it’s a question. The Great Pretender, for example, or Only You or Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. Doo-wop? I wouldn’t think so, but they live in the same universe, so maybe we can give them that. But With This Ring? Late 60s soul and not even close.

So what are the requirements? Are nonsense syllables necessary? Harmony? Attitude? Get A Job by The Silhouettes – that’s doo-wop. But what about Silhoutttes by The Rays? Come Go With Me by The Del Vikings? What about The Fleetwoods?

And the ultimate question: Does it matter? [Answer: Of course it matters.]

And so The Capris. The song I heard today wasn’t a hit as far as I know. The group actually had four hits on the charts and the Tears song wasn’t one of them. You decide whether they were doo-wop…

The Capris:

• There’s A Moon Out Tonight – A weather report? Interesting. If you want to sing about romance, sing about stars, or about the moon, or about the moon and the stars, and you’ve got it. Easy. By the time this song came out in late 1960 the sound was already somewhat antiquated; it was part of what has since been recognized as a doo-wop revival. The song is in ¾ time, the singer is just slightly off key, the attitude is just a bit lethargic, and the words are just a bit silly. But still, with the right partner I’d dance to it in a heartbeat. From the winter of 1961.

February, 1961

2011-05-22T20:42:00.003-04:00

There's A Moon Out Tonight - The Capris
Pony Time - Chubby Checker
Where The Boys Are / No One- Connie Francis
Lost Love - H. B. Barnum
What A Price / Ain't That Just Like A Woman - Fats Domino
Angel On My Shoulder - Shelby Flint
I'm Learning About Love - Brenda Lee
Jimmy's Girl - Johnny Tillotson
Pepy's Diary / Gather In The Mushrooms - Benny Hill
Dedicated To The One I Love - The Shirelles
Wheels - The String-A-Longs
Story Of My Love - Paul Anka
Baby Sittin' Boogie - Buzz Clifford
I'll Be There - Damita Jo
All In My Mind - Maxine Brown
Utopia - Frank Gari
Ram Bunk Shush - The Ventures
Donald Where's Your Troosers - Andy Stewart
Are You Sure - The Allisons
Theme For A Dream - Cliff Richard
Don't Worry 'Bout Me - Marty Robbins
Good Time Baby - Bobby Rydell
Ghost Riders In The Sky - The Ramrods
Samantha - Kenny Ball
Apache - Jorgen Ingmann
Surrender - Elvis Presley
Spanish Harlem - Ben E King
Ebony Eyes - The Everly Brothers
Wait A Minute - The Coasters
(I Wanna) Love My Life Away - Gene Pitney
Stayin' In / More Than I Can Say - Bobby Vee
Havin' Fun - Dion
Wooden Heart - Elvis Presley
I Pity The Fool - Bobby Bland
All Of Everything - Frankie Avalon

Al Caiola

2011-05-21T23:38:00.002-04:00

Look him up on Wikipedia yourself. The number of recordings this guy played on makes me dizzy. On his own, though, he only had 2 hits. I picked one up off the single (The Magnificent Seven) and the other (Bonanza) from the creatively titled album Hit Instrumentals From Western TV Themes.

Al Caiola:

• The Magnificent Seven – The tune bears more than a passing resemblance to the theme from Hockey Night In Canada, which I haven’t watched in many years, and which may have a different theme now. The Magnificent Seven was apparently a movie, a western in fact. The song was a hit in early 1961.
• Bonanza – This was a cover of the TV show theme, a staple of every TV in the land every Sunday night. Oh how I remember the tales of Pa and Hoss and Little Joe. Adam was gone by the time I was old enough to watch. I don’t think that TV theme shows still make radio play lists. From late winter of 1961.

The Innocents

2011-05-19T20:25:00.002-04:00

These are the same Innocents that sang behind Kathy Young, singing about the stars. They must have been moonlighting. The group actually had two hits; the first was called Honest I Do and it reached number 28 a few months before Gee Whiz, which also reached number 28.

The Innocents:

• Gee Whiz – A rather melancholy sounding record about the wonders of new love. It is in much the same style as the records they made with Kathy Young, and sounds not unlike Angel Baby by Rosie & The Originals. It was as if someone were deliberately trying to keep things juvenile. Not the Carla Thomas song. From late 1960 / early 1961.

January, 1961

2011-05-18T19:46:00.002-04:00

Dance By The Light Of The Moon - The Olympics
A Scottish Soldier - Andy Stewart
Is There Something On Your Mind - Jack Scott
Who Am I / There It Is - Adam Faith
Shop Around - The Miracles
Wings Of A Dove - Ferlin Husky
Calcutta - Lawrence Welk
Gee Whiz - The Innocents
Lovey Dovey - Buddy Knox
You Are The Only One / Milk Cow Blues - Rick Nelson
There She Goes - Jerry Wallace
Calendar Girl - Neil Sedaka
Let's Go Again (Where We Went Last Night) - Hank Ballard & The Midnighters
The Magnificent Seven - Al Caiola
My Last Date (With You) - Skeeter Davis
C'est Si Bon (It's So Good) - Conway Twitty
Sailor - Petula Clark
Rubber Ball - Marty Wilde
Your Other Love - The Flamingoes
Emotions - Brenda Lee
My Empty Arms - Jackie Wilson
Once In A While - The Charms
My Last Date (With You) - Joni James
Main Theme From "Exodus" - Mantovani
Them That Got - Ray Charles
This Is My Story - Mickey & Sylvia
I Count The Tears - The Drifters
Pepe - Duane Eddy
If I Didn't Care - The Platters
FBI - The Shadows
What To Do - Buddy Holly
At Last - Etta James

Rosie & The Originals

2011-05-17T19:59:00.002-04:00

I don’t know what was original about The Originals. They don’t sound so original to me. The truth is that though they are known for only one song, Rosie & The Originals had a follow-up to Angel Baby, called Lonely Blue Nights, which reached number 66 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the winter of 1961. John Lennon was a fan. The Wikipedia article cites the members of the band but not what they played. And Rosie’s real name was Rosie.

Rosie & The Originals

• Angel Baby – Write a generic love song. Make the lyrics vaguely teenage. Use a minor sixth turnaround chord pattern (trust me on this, I have it on good authority). Use a singer who may or may not be pubescent. Use the simplest possible arrangement. Mix. Simon Frith described this song as “sexuality transmuted into a dual promise of heaven and childhood.” Yeah. I suppose it’s that too. From the winter of 1961 / 1962.

Louis Prima

2011-05-16T20:00:00.002-04:00

Prima was a bandleader and a singer and he recorded vocal duets with his wife Keely Smith. But as a solo artist he only had one hit.

Louis Prima:

• Wonderland By Night – The song was a hit for three artists at the same time. Anita Bryant was the only one of the three with words (it was about a one-night stand), and it placed third. Prima’s version placed a distant second to Bert Kaempfert’s whose record reached number one. Prima reached 15. From late 1960. (There is a vocal version by Prima on YouTube, but the hit version was instrumental.)

Lolita

2011-05-15T11:34:00.002-04:00

Her name was Edith Zuser and she was Austrian. She was also known as Ditta (from Edith, one assumes) Zusa Einzinger. But Joel Whitburn indicates that her real name was Lolita Ditta. I don’t know where “Lolita” came from, but I hope it wasn’t from Nabokov.

In North America she had one big hit and one small hit, the latter being Cowboy Jimmy Joe, which reached number 94 on Billboard in 1961.
I remember finding this at Sound Exchange in a box full of dusty singles, all by artists whose name started with “L.”

Lolita:

• Sailor – A lament to a guy who just won’t stay around. “Sailor” is the English title of a song originally called "Seemann (Deine Heimat ist das Meer)” – ("Sailor, You’re Home Is The Sea”) – and which she sings in German. There is a surprisingly unaccented English interlude. Petula Clark had an English language hit version in the UK. From late 1960.

Kathy Young & The Innocents

2011-05-14T23:21:00.003-04:00

See, now here’s something different; they had 2 hits in the top 40, and a third that didn’t make it. That third was Magic In Your Eyes from the fall of 1961. The Innocents also recorded without Kathy. They are not to be confused with Innocence, a completely different group.

Kathy Young & The Innocents:

• A Thousand Stars – Living up to her name, Kathy sounds very young, though not too young to be singing about teenage romance, which is what she is singing about. The Innocents hum and hum behind her (they are male), the arrangement is very muted, the song is a ballad, and you can feel the warm evening breeze and see the stars of which she sings, the ones in the sky and the ones in her date’s eyes. I wonder if teenage dating ever really feels like this. From the winter of 1960 / 1961.
• Happy Birthday Blues – Birthdays were a popular subject in the annals of teenage romance songs, and most often they are downers; think of Happy Happy Birthday Baby by the Tune Weavers. This is a downer too. Some dude (an Innocent, one assumes) takes the lead vocal off the top, but Kathy takes over quickly. And of course the birthday is her 16th. From the winter of 1961.

Damita Jo

2011-05-13T16:53:00.002-04:00

Before Damita Jo was a Janet Jackson album, she was a recording artist. Her top 40 career consisted entirely of answer records, for her follow up to I’ll Save The Last Dance For You was a song called I’ll Be There, an answer to Stand By Me. Besides her two top 40 records she had Keep Your Hands Off Of Him, in 1961, and If You Go Away, presumably the Jacques Brel song, in 1967. She is listed in Whitburn under J, suggesting that Jo is her surname, which it isn’t, her surname was DeBlanc, though it’s arguable whether Damita Jo should be her first names, like Donovan or Melanie, but doubled, or whether, in fact, she would be Ms. Jo.

Damita Jo:

• I’ll Save The Last Dance For You – An answer record, obviously, to Save The Last Dance For Me, and reassuring in a feeble kind of way. What about the other dances? From the winter of 1960 / 1961

Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs

2011-05-10T21:10:00.004-04:00

This is an ancient part of my collection. I can’t remember exactly where I got the Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs song, but it’s part of my “family” now for ages.

The Zodiacs seem to have been The Gladiolas, though earlier sources told me that they were different groups. I have an entry for The Gladiolas; they did the original version of Little Darlin’.

Besides Stay, the group had 2 records on the top 100, Come Along and I Remember, both in 1961, but the pièce de la resistance was a record called May I , which did not make the pop charts at all, (how could it? as Dave Marsh points out, with lyrics like “may I sleep with you” – this was 1962 remember), but it was as great a sample of beach music as one is likely to find.

Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs:

• Stay – It was a short song, about a minute and a half, and a last minute recording, and it hit number 1 in the early winter of 1960, and it became a pillar of R & B / rock and roll. People have written treatises on transience, but nobody has dealt with the subject more eloquently than the Zodiacs, lamenting the shortness of the evening, the fleetingness of a romantic encounter, the belief in the ability to delay the inevitable. Amazingly what we remember is the falsetto, which really only lasts about 2 lines. And you can’t argue with the intro: 3 notes and “STAY!” . The song was covered by The Four Seasons and later by Jackson Browne (with altered lyrics). “Your mommy won’t mind if we have another dance.” A shag, no doubt…

Don Costa

2011-05-09T21:39:00.003-04:00

I spent four years working in a building on Greene Avenue, a building that happens to house the studio of a local radio station, one whose programming is dedicated exclusively to sports. When I started there, 9 years ago this month actually, the station would be playing in the elevator. And you know, talk radio is bad, and sports talk radio is talk radio on steroids. So those elevators, man. (A good way to punish little children – do your homework or you go in the elevator!!)

I took the stairs a lot in those early days, before someone turned off the damn radio and lost the switch.

Elevators used to play music, that’s the point. And they don’t anymore. Muzak, it doesn’t exist, not the way it used to (though the company is still around, still providing background music). And our hero today is Don Costa, most of whose work was done as a conductor and arranger for others, like Sinatra and Sarah Vaughan. He did, though, have a few hits under his own name, and I’ve got his biggest one. And it very much elevator music.

Don Costa:

• Never On Sunday – From the movie. The whole concept is odd if you ask me, take a day off from nookie. The theological questions are daunting, so I will leave them for some other blogger, but it’s food for thought. The song is Greek-style, with bouzoukis and all, and it was a hit for The Chordettes, with words, a few years later. Costa’s cover was a hit in the fall of 1960.

Joe Jones

2011-05-08T20:06:00.002-04:00

There are, and have been, many many people named Joe Jones. The one we are interested claimed to have written many songs that he did not, in fact, write. It’s kind of like that guy on Monty Python (Stake Your Claim) who claimed to have written all of Shakespeare’s plays. Ok, well, not exactly like that, but you get the picture.

Jones had two hits and I have them both.

Joe Jones:

• You Talk Too Much – Plain spoken. Not the kind of thing you’d think to write a song about but there you have it. And the truth is that we all know people we'd love to sing this to. From the fall of 1960.
• California Sun – The California myth was just beginning to get itself a foothold in the top 40, though this version of this song didn’t actually make the top 40. Annette did this, but it was the Rivieras’ version that hit the top 5 in 1964. Jones’ version did not get higher than 89, though for my money, his was the better one. From the spring of 1961. http

Bob Luman

2011-05-07T23:37:00.002-04:00

Unlike all those almost-one-hit wonders we’ve been looking at, Bob Luman was a genuine one-hit wonder; Let’s Think About Living was the only hit he ever put on the Billboard Hot 100. But then he had dozens of hits on the country charts, over 18 years. So he’s not really a one-hit wonder after all, is he…

Bob Luman:

• Let’s Think About Living – It’s not rare than pop music offers comments on itself, but it’s rare that the comments are deeper than “let’s party to this great music.” Luman, in a light-hearted country song, makes some not-so-lighthearted observations about the morbidity of songs like El Paso and High Noon, and he does it with an eloquence that others have failed to achieve in multiple paragraph essays.

Jimmy Charles

2011-05-05T22:21:00.003-04:00

The truth is that though he is known for only one song, Jimmy Charles had a follow-up to A Million To One, called The Age For Love, which reached number 47 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the winter of 1961.

Jimmy Charles:

• A Million To One – The curse of being young. It’s about love, but the subtext is more . Jimmy sings of the frustration of not being taken seriously by adults. Isn’t that the whole purpose of rock and soul music? From the fall of 1960.

Larry Verne

2011-05-04T22:25:00.002-04:00

The truth is that though he is known for only one song, Larry Verne had a follow-up to Mr. Custer, called Mister Livingston, which reached number 75 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the winter of 1961.

Larry Verne:

• Mr. Custer – “I don’t want to end up dead or bald,” says our hero, referring to the Native Americans (“injuns” he calls them) fighting General Custer’s troops at the Battle Of Little Bighorn. Very funny. It’s amazing listening to this; it wouldn’t get within 20 miles of radio airplay in today’s politically correct world, and that’s a good thing, not just because it’s racially insulting, but the humour is kind of juvenile besides. It was funny enough at the time (fall of 1960) to reach number 1.

Johnny Bond

2011-05-03T21:50:00.004-04:00

The truth is that though he is known for only one song, Johnny Bond had a follow-up to Hot Rod Lincoln, called 10 Little Bottles, which reached number 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the spring of 1965.

Johnny Bond:

• Hot Rod Lincoln – I was in high school when Commander Cody’s version of this was riding high; I remember cruising around with a friend on our respective bicycles, and he yelled over and said “My fender is clicking the guard rail post!” and I didn’t miss a beat; “you’re white as a ghost!” I yelled back. Bond’s version of this went head to head with Charlie Ryan’s in the fall of 1960; Ryan wrote the song but Bond placed about 10 points higher on Billboard. Their styles were very close.

The Demensions

2011-05-02T22:19:00.002-04:00

The truth is that though they are known for only one song, The Demensions had a follow-up to Over The Rainbow, called My Foolish Heart, which reached number 95 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the winter of 1963.

The Demensions:

• Over The Rainbow – This is one of those songs that you really can’t touch. There’s a story of Harry Nilsson wanting to do it for his album of standards (A Little Touch Of Schmilsson In The Night) and Gordon Jenkins refusing. (Actually they did record it but it didn’t make the final cut). The song belongs to Judy Garland and to The Wizard Of Oz. That’s it. This version was a neo-doo wop arrangement (with no actual doo-wop) that was the group’s only real hit, in the fall of 1960.

Charlie Ryan

2011-05-01T12:03:00.003-04:00

A one-trick pony for sure. The truth is that though he is known for only one song, Charlie Ryan had a follow-up to Hot Rod Lincoln, called Side Car Cycle, which reached number 84 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1960.

Charlie Ryan:

• Hot Rod Lincoln – Credited to Charlie Ryan & The Timberline Riders, Hot Rod Lincoln was a Charlie Ryan original, co-written by H. W. Stevenson. Like Maybelline and Beep Beep, the story is that of a car chase, but unlike those two, we have the tale here of someone driving (in both senses) a vehicle to its utmost limits and beyond. We are presented with the whole macho culture of physical achievement for its own sake, replete with the run-ins with authority: the law, “the cops was after my hot rod Lincoln,” and parents, “my pappy said son you’re gonna drive me to drinkin’.” It fought its way up the charts (not all that high up, either) with a competing version by Johnny Bond. In the early 70s it was revived by Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, who, true to his assumed name, took complete command of the song. From the fall of 1960.

Alex Welsh

2011-04-29T18:14:00.002-04:00

I worked yesterday all day to the sound of an internet radio station playing avant garde jazz. It seems that the more you screech and squonk, the more avant garde you are. I love it. My colleagues hate me.

Alex Welsh is not avant garde. He is Dixieland. It’s so different, one from the other, that it’s hard to understand why they are both “jazz.”

Alex Welsh & His Jazz Band:

• Hindustan – Dig it.

Lewis Pruitt

2011-04-28T21:03:00.002-04:00

Who was Lewis Pruitt?? Well he was a country singer. My collection (one track) comes from From The Vaults, a collection I described in a previous post, and if you are a faithful follower of this blog you will have read about it, so long ago.

Lewis Pruitt:

• Crazy Bullfrog - I don't think that bullfrogs are crazy. I don't think that any animals are crazy, not in the sense that people can be crazy. Jeremiah was a bullfrog, but he wasn't crazy. This is from 1960.

Aretha Franklin

2011-04-24T09:35:00.005-04:00

Hey Nineteen That's 'Retha Franklin
She don't remember The Queen of Soul

(From Hey Nineteen, by Steely Dan)

She was actually nineteen and I was playing Jump To It for her, and she actually had not heard of Aretha Franklin. I had bought the album on the strength of a ‘best of the month’ recommendation in Stereo Review, I tried hard to like it, and I played for my guest before I discarded it as the product of someone whose best days were long past. And Hey Nineteen was playing on the radio in those days…

She thinks I'm crazy
But I'm just growing old…

The only other Aretha album I had was Aretha’s Gold, and I’d gotten that from a used record sale at my local library, so it was a bit scratched up. Later I got my hands on Aretha’s Greatest Hits, from about ‘77, which tracked her progress from 1967 until Something He Can Feel in the mid 70s. There were only a few tracks that weren’t common to both albums.

In the end I got rid of Jump To It. Aside from the collection here I don’t have any Aretha Franklin albums in my collection. Not something I’m proud of, just a random fact. I grew up with all those great queen-of-soul hits, Respect, Chain Of Fools, Since You’ve Been Gone. But by 1970 she had almost disappeared from the radio – Rock Steady, Spanish Harlem, I remember those, Border Song once or twice, that’s about it.

And this collection: The Columbia recordings come from Aretha Franklin’s Greatest Hits, a vinyl LP, and a CD collection called Jazz To Soul which just happens not to include the one and only top 40 single she managed to have on Columbia. The Atlantic songs come mostly from a box set called Queen Of Soul, The Atlantic Years, and a few tracks come straight off of singles, or even off of the aforementioned Gold, and the Arista stuff is from an LP called Greatest Hits (1980 – 1994).

And the 19 year old? A story for another day…

No we can't dance together
We can't talk at all…

Aretha Franklin:

• Today I Sing The Blues – The vagaries of life, it’s good one day, crap the next. Aretha has trouble sounding sad, but she does her best amid the barroom piano and guitar obligato. This was her first chart single it seems, but that was on Cashbox; it didn’t make Billboard. From the winter of 1960 / 1961.
• Blue Holiday – Holidays are supposed to be fun. Is this a vacation? A Christmas-type holiday? Not clear. Either way, it’s not good. The Shirelles did this also.
• Just For A Thrill – There are no shortage of songs in Aretha’s canon about bad relationships, particularly those in which she gets beaten up, emotionally at least. She is involved, in this one, with a sadist. Listen to how she draws out the opening phrase, how her voice offsets the smoothness of the arrangement. Ray Charles did this also.
• If I Ever Would Leave You – A song about commitment, stated perversely by way of leave talk. The romantic sentiments here are highlighted by strings and chorus.
• God Bless The Child – Well here she is firmly ensconced in Billie Holiday territory. She acquits herself well, not surprisingly, but she still hasn’t found her voice.
• I’d Rather Drink Muddy Water – It’s all about not getting involved, resisting. And yet…
• This Could Be The Start Of Something – Always that moment of suspense. There are dozens of versions of this. Written by Steve Allen.
• Rock-A-Bye Your Baby To A Dixie Melody – Her first top 40 record, and her only one for Columbia, and yet the geniuses at Columbia / Sony couldn’t find room for it on Soul To Jazz, the Columbia years anthology. The song doesn’t fit her all that well. The best known versions are by Al Jolson and Judy Garland, and Jerry Lewis had a hit version in 1956. Yes, that Jerry Lewis. From the autumn of 1961.
• Without The One You Love – More heartbreak. Not The Four Tops song.
• One Step Ahead – Here is Aretha going pop, aiming at the girl group market.
• Evil Gal Blues – The moral component to being who you are. Dinah Washington did this.
• Try A Little Tenderness – It was Otis Redding who won the soul sweepstakes with this; Three Dog Night more or less ripped off Otis and it was an early single for them. But Aretha does it as a heartbreaking slow dance, very different and moving. From the fall of 1962.
• Sweet Bitter Love – Like chocolate.
• Soulville – The closest she came to what she would do on Atlantic, though nobody would mistake this band with its cheesy organ for the muscle shoals rhythm section. From the winter of 1968, Columbia cashing in.
• Runnin’ Out Of Fools – A precursor to Chain Of Fools, and nothing highlights the difference between Aretha then and Aretha later. From the autumn of 1964.
• Trouble In Mind – A jazz / blues standard. She does a jaunty take on this.
• Walk On By – This isn’t the last time she’d go head to head with Dionne Warwick. In this case the arrangement is almost identical, the vocals are not as radically different as she’d make them later on, say, I Say A Little Prayer, or Brand New Me (Dusty Springfield) or Oh Me Oh My (Lulu)
• Mockingbird – Ree’s voice is a bit more accomplished than Inez Fox’s, but otherwise this is fairly close to the original Charles & Inez Fox hit version. Columbia put this out as a single in 1967 and it hit the top 100 towards the end of the year.
• Cry Like A Baby – Not The Box Tops song.
• Take It Like You Give It – A surprisingly rare topic in pop songs, not revenge as the title would suggest, but simply the imperfections that we have to put up with in any relationship. Sing it, Ree…
• I Never Loved A Man (The Way That I Love You) – Aretha’s Atlantic debut was cataclysmic. Syncopated organ rhythm joined by bass then by Aretha’s voice, the song insinuates its way into your very being, and by the end, with her shouts of “never” while the Memphis horns are going full throttle, we totally in the grip of the conflict that she’s feeling over the abuse that she’s taking and the love that she’s feeling. And if this one record didn’t make John Hammond retire, it should have. From the spring of 1967, and the Queen of Soul began her reign…
• Do Right Woman, Do Right Man – All about being faithful. This established Aretha not only as the Queen of Soul, but as the Queen of the Soul Ballad. This song took on a life of its own; it wasn’t a hit for Aretha (the B side of I Never Loved A Man if I’m not mistaken) but it was recorded by many, particularly those with a feeling for country – Gram Parsons did it with his first band (The International Submarine Band) and Ian Matthews did it on Journey From Gospel Oak.
• Respect – Written and originally recorded by Otis Redding as a plea for domestic recognition, Aretha’s version takes it beyond, to the personal, the racial, the political. And best of all, dance music doesn’t get better than this. A masterpiece. Number 1 during the summer of 1967, that magical summer…
• Baby, Baby, Baby – This ballad is a bit of a throwback to her Columbia days…
• Dr. Feelgood (Love Is A Serious Business) – I’d say so. A bit of after-hours blues, raw unbridled lust.
• (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman – Written by Carole King (who “covered” it later on Tapestry) and Gerry Goffin. Another number 1, this one a string-laden ballad, about an adult-style coming of age. Dave Marsh has his own theory of what this is about, but I don’t think we have to go there. From the autumn of 1967.
• Chain Of Fools – We get back here to Ree’s favourite subject – abuse. She can’t seem to break free; that’s the recurring theme. It’s odd, I think, how such emotionally difficult subject matter can make such incredibly great dance music, and this is indeed incredibly great dance music. The drummer alone deserves a Nobel Prize. Another masterpiece. Number 1 in the winter of 1968.
• Baby I Love You – The title is as generic as the music is not. This is a straightforward love song but the emotions are powerful, and the rhythm matches it heartbeat for heartbeat. From the fall of 1967.
• Since You’ve Been Gone (Sweet Sweet Baby) – She’s the bad guy in this song, and she begs her guy to come back, and she does so employing the musical equivalent of a full force gale. He can’t resist. From the winter of 1968.
• Think – Not the James Brown song. All the songs we hear are about feelings: love, jealousy, regret, heartache. Here she takes a different tack: “think” she says, about what you’re doing. Use your brains. Different. From the summer of ’68.
• Seesaw – The original by Don Covay, which I think I have somewhere. It can’t compare. From the winter of 1968 / 1969.
• The House That Jack Built – Not the Alan Price Set song. Love as an edifice. How much effort to we put into building our homes, our jobs, our surroundings, and what’s it worth when our lives disintegrate? Aretha hammers this home with her usual force, and that’s a good thing. From the fall of 1968.
• You Send Me – Aretha is one of the very few singers who could do Sam Cooke and do him justice. There’s a version of this song by Diana Ross & The Supremes, just think about that. This was the flip of Think and was a hit in the summer of 1968.
• I Say A Little Prayer For You – Here is where she goes head to head with Dionne Warwick. It was Dionne’s version that won out and hers is the one that people remember. Aretha, of course, is the more powerful, and some may say, more expressive, singer, but I’m not sure that this song calls for power. The record buying public wasn’t sure either; it sent this song to number 10, not bad, though it was the flip side of The House That Jack Built, which also has to be factored into the sale quotient. Dionne’s version went to number 4, almost a year earlier. This was from the fall of 1968. If anything is remarkable about this record, it’s how she lets the chorus handle the chorus, while she soars off on her own.
• I Can’t See Myself Leaving You – No, she can’t, and the whole question, stay or leave, becomes less of a question of judgment and more a matter of personal vision. From the spring of 1969.
• Why I Sing The Blues – She doesn’t, really, sing the blues. This song isn’t blues either, though one can imagine BB King doing it.
• The Weight – This surreal tale of rural America appeared on The Band’s first album, Music From Big Pink, in 1968, and that version, though it only reached number 63 at the time, has since attained legendary status. But it was Aretha’s version that most people heard first, her version that placed itself in the top 20, and her version that put soul into the song well before The Staple Singers got hold of it. From the winter of 1969.
• Share Your Love With Me – Tit for tat, The Band covered this on Moondog Matinee. Aretha’s version was a hit in the fall of 1969.
• Eleanor Rigby – The Beatles go gospel. Here is a version of Eleanor Rigby that you could actually dance to, better, I think, than Ray Charles similar but more dirge-like version. Ree’s version was a hit in the winter of 1969 / 1970.
• Son Of A Preacher Man – Having dealt with Dionne Warwick, Aretha now takes on Dusty Springfield’s soul aspirations at their core. Dusty’s version of this song is celebrated to this day; Aretha’s lies forgotten in the dust heap of top 100 trivia. We hear her doing here what she would begin to do with alarming frequency: she oversings. From the winter of 1970; the A side was the more successful Call Me, a hit in the spring.
• At The Dark End Of The Street – A “hit” for James Carr (whose version reached number 77), this tale of adultery was covered by everyone from Percy Sledge to The Flying Burrito Brothers. Aretha’s version is noteworthy for her heartbreaking cries of “hold me.”
• Let It Be – Like Ike & Tina, Aretha brings gospel to this Beatles chestnut, but unlike them, she leaves the lyrics alone.
• Spirit In The Dark – Well, if you’re gonna sing gospel then sing gospel. From the summer of 1970, not to be confused with Spirit In The Sky, by Norman Greenbaum, a much bigger contemporary hit.
• Don’t Play That Song (You Lied) – She replaces Ben E King’s melodrama with true soul grit. From the fall of 1970.
• Border Song – By Elton John. The original isn’t bad, neither is Aretha’s cover. From the winter of 1970 / 1971.
• A Brand New Me – She does Dusty again. From the summer of ’71, this was the B Side of Bridge Over Troubled Water.
• Singing A Song – A ballad in the old Columbia style. Come back to me….
• Drown In My Own Tears – A lot of crying that is. Believe it or not, for a song that made the rounds as much as this one did, the only hit version, such as it was, was by the Don Shirley Trio in 1962, and that version only made it to number 100. It’s best known by Ray Charles, and both Joe Cocker and David Clayton-Thomas, the latter fronting Blood, Sweat & Tears, had a crack at it.
• Spanish Harlem – Ben E King’s debut hit reached number 10 in 1961; 10 years later Aretha reinvented the song and put it at number 2. From the fall of ’71.
• Rock Steady – A highlight of her early 70s output, very different though from the gutbucket soul she’d been doing only a few years earlier. Even so, it wasn’t a path she’d follow. From the fall of 1971.
• Oh Me Oh My (I’m A Fool For You Baby) – The bass on this is wonderful, the arrangement is beautiful, and Aretha overdoes it. I prefer Lulu. The B side of Rock Steady, and a hit in early 1972.
• Daydreaming – Now here’s one where she doesn’t have to worry about besting anyone, so she lets the electric piano create the dream-like ambience, and she sings it straight. And, presto, it works. From the spring of 1972.
• All The King’s Horses – What you’d expect. From the summer of 1972
• Bridge Over Troubled Water – She’s back to gospel here, and she takes Paul Simon along for the ride. From the summer of 1971.
• Angel – The spoken intro is just a bit over the top. A song, apparently, by her sister, just the usual stuff about wanting to meet Mr. Right. But an angel? From the summer of 1973. Not the Jimi Hendrix song.
• Master Of Eyes (The Deepness Of Your Eyes) – “Deepness?” Shouldn’t that be “depth?” Piccolo trills highlight the otherworldliness of this strange song. From the winter of 1973.
• I’m In Love – Here she takes on Wilson Pickett. Not easy pickins. From the spring of 1974.
• Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing – Originally by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, this salute to Coke, who at the time were using pop artists, Aretha included, to do their commercials, was a hit for Ree in the fall of 1974. By this time she’d settled into an MOR style with vocal overkill.
• Until You Come Back To Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do) – She does a decent job with this Stevie Wonder penned whimsy, and it was a top 5 single in the winter of 1974.
• Without Love – She way oversings this. It is not the Clyde McPhatter song. From the winter of 74 / 75.
• Mr. D.J. (5 For The D.J.) – If this were a better song I could adopt it as my theme song. Now she does get into a funky groove here, perhaps in an attempt to recapture some of her queen-of-soul glory days. It might have worked had someone remembered to write a melody to this. From the fall of 1975.
• Look Into Your Heart – As MOR as she got yet. From the winter of 1977.
• Break It To Me Gently – Not the Brenda Lee song, at least not as far as I can tell. This is real thick MOR, with hysterical vocals. I may be wrong, but it seems to be trying to break into disco at the end… From the summer of ’77.
• Something He Can Feel – And what would that be, Aretha? Here is where she gets the 70s ballad thing right, though it goes on a bit too long. From the summer of 1976.
• Freeway Of Love – Welcome to the 80. Ree reinvents herself as a post-disco dance chanteuse, and she has taken on more than a passing resemblance to Tina Turner, at least on this song. This is from 1985
• I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me) – This actually isn’t bad dance music, but Ree’s personality is pretty much obliterated. George Michael is on this. From 1987.
• Jump To It – Her first Arista single to make the top 40, from the fall of 1982.
• Willing To Forgive – The song tackles heavy subject matter, but not heavily. From 1993. Getting perilously close to the present…
• Doctor’s Orders – The old theme: the medical necessity of love. Think Good Lovin’ by The Young Rascals.
• United Together – A good 80s style slow dance, syrupy but serviceable. From 1980.
• Who’s Zoomin’ Who – Whatever that means. The title track of what was essentially her comeback album. From 1985.
• A Deeper Love – Love in the context of everyday life, to a groovy dance beat. From 1993.
• Honey – Not the Bobby Goldsboro song. A tepid love song, sickly. I'll take Bobby. From 1994.
• Get It Right – She doesn’t. From 1983.
• Another Night – Not The Hollies song. From 1986.
• Ever Changing Times – Domestic bliss (lyrics) or domestic stupor (music). Michael McDonald is on this. From 1992.
• Jimmy Lee – Billy Joel had Christie Lee, after all… From 1986.
• You Make Me Feel (Like A Natural Woman) – The parentheses are in the wrong place, but it’s how it was on the album cover. A live cover.
• I Dreamed A Dream – I’m not sure what the occasion was, but while her presence assuredly did it much honour, this song didn’t…

Matt Monro

2011-04-06T21:30:00.002-04:00

As a crooner, Matt Monro fits in right where he is supposed to, sitting somewhere between the sonambulance of Perry Como and the histrionics of Johnny Ray. He is not mannered like Johnny Mathis, declamatory like Frankie Laine, smarmy like Sammy Davis Jr., arrogant (forgive me) like Sinatra, emotive like Richard Harris, or brilliant like Elvis (and Elvis was a brilliant crooner).

With the right material, Monro hits just the right emotional temperature, and has the vocal smarts to pull it off.

In North America, Monro was just about unheard of. He had two hits in the top 100 in 1961 (one at number 18, one at 92) and one more in 1965. In England he had six top 20 hits between 1960 and 1965.

This is The Very Best Of Matt Monro. I picked that up as a prerecorded cassette, back when they sold such things, at Country Music Centre, which obviously sold more than country music. It’s decimated, now, the cassette, but fortunately I have the whole thing on MP3 as well. I’m not totally pre-historic.

Matt Monro:

Born Free – Written by John Barry as part of the soundtrack of the movie (John Barry who did the James Bond soundtracks), Born Free is somewhat histrionic, but then I suppose it’s meant to be, given that the movie was about a lion. The song was a hit in 1966 for Roger Williams.
Softly As I Leave You – A beautiful song, especially given that it could have been titled “Ballad Of A Coward.” All the pros had a crack at it; I like Sinatra and Doris Day. Matt’s version was a hit in the winter of 1962.
From Russia With Love – Theme from the James Bond movie. This is the actual version used in the movie, so Matt Monro assumes his place with such Bond theme legends as Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, Nancy Sinatra, Duran Duran, Rita Coolidge, Wings etc. etc. It was the second Bond movie, coming between Dr. No and Goldfinger. A hit in the fall of 1963.
On Days Like These – There’s a note on the label that says that this is from the film The Italian Job.
Walk Away (Warum Nur Warum) – I don’t know what the subtitle means. I don’t even know what language it is. The song is one those you’re-not-supposed-to-be-here-with-me-and-I’m-not-supposed-to-be-here-with-you songs. It’s well done, Monro achieving the right balance between meaning it and not meaning it. From the fall of ’64 (UK), winter of ’65 (US).
Around The World – Very popular this was in the late 50s, with hit version abounding, by Bing Crosby, Mantovani, Victor Young, etx. The reading here is so straight that any possible double entendre is lost.
My Love And Devotion li>Michelle – There are many covers of this Beatle song, but really only Paul could get away with it, and only because we love him. A hit for The Overlanders and for David & Jonathan.
On A Clear Day You Can See Forever – Another show tune.
Somewhere – Leonard Bernstein wrote the music for West Side Story, and Stephen Sondheim wrote the words. And the songs have outlasted the original context many times over. But this song, with its “there’s a place for us” refrain, sung by characters for whom there is no place, is utterly heartbreaking. A singer, though, has to be careful not to overdo it. If anything Matt undersings it, but it’s not bad for all that.
The Impossible Dream – I suppose he had to have a crack at this, as did every other crooner in history, and it’s what you’d expect.
Gonna Build A Mountain – Another show tune, this one from Stop The World I Want To Get Off.
Who Can I Turn To – A song of the emotional confusion that attends the loss of the one who you turn to for comfort.
Portrait Of My Love – A bit silly, this one. From the winter of 1960 / 1961.
Speak Softly Love – This is from The Godfather, and it’s a love song, though The Godfather wasn’t exactly a romance. Every movie has to have a love theme. Love Theme from Blood Gore and Guts, Part 2.
My Kind Of Girl – And what kind is that? An angel, apparently. Go know. From the summer (US) / winter (UK) of 1961.
For Mama – File this with all those other sickly parent songs…
Yesterday – This, believe it or not, was the hit version of Yesterday, and it’s perfectly respectable. The Beatles did not put out the song as a single, though Capital released it as such in North America, and it was huge American hit, so Matt lost out there. But in the good old UK, it was nought but an album track. From the fall of 1965.
This Time
We’re Gonna Change The World – And if not then we’ll sing about it…

December, 1960

2011-04-02T23:38:00.004-04:00

You're Sixteen - Johnny Burnette
My Girl Josephine / Natural Born Lover - Fats Domino
Ballad Of The Alamo - Marty Robbins
Last Date - Lawrence Welk
Today I Sing The Blues - Aretha Franklin
Gee - Jan & Dean
Send Me The Pillow You Dream On - The Browns
Lonely Pup (In A Christmas Shop) - Adam Faith
Lonely Teenager - Dion
Exodus - Ferrante & Teicher
I Gotta Know - Elvis Presley
Ruby - Ray Charles
Don't Go To Strangers - Etta James
I Idolize You - Ike & Tina Turner
You Are My Sunshine - Johnny & The Hurricanes
Rockin' Rollin' Ocean - Hank Snow
Rubber Ball - Bobby Vee
Wonderland By Night - Louis Prima
Blue Tango / Willie - Bill Black's Combo
Sad Mood - Sam Cooke
The Little Drummer Boy - Harry Simeone Chorale
Portrait Of My Love - Matt Monro
F.B.I. - The Shadows
Will You Love Me Tomorrow - The Shirelles
Angel Baby - Rosie & The Originals
Corrina Corrina - Ray Peterson
Rockin' Round The Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee
Wonderland By Night - Anita Bryant
Doll House - Donnie Brooks
Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer - The Chipmunks
Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms
I'm Hurtin' - Roy Orbison
Baby Oh Baby - The Shells
The Puppet Song - Frankie Avalon

Bert Kaempfert

2011-03-31T20:31:00.004-04:00

This would be another of those “other people’s greatest hits” – he does songs by Sinatra, Al Martino, Nat King Cole, Wayne Newton – but for the fact the Kaempfert actually wrote these songs, co-wrote them actually; someone else wrote the words.

You can look him up on Wikipedia to get a list of his impressive musical accomplishments. But what the article doesn’t say is that Kaempfert was the first to record The Beatles. He used them as a backup band for second string singer Tony Sheridan, while they were in Hamburg. He let them do two songs without Sheridan – Ain’t She Sweet with John singing, and Cry For A Shadow, an instrumental.

The album, The Very Best Of Bert Kaempfert, is a double, and it has 7 of the 11 songs that made the Billboard top 100. It has been reissued on CD with a shorter running order.

Bert Kaempfert:

Strangers In The Night – This could be taking place in a singles bar, but that would take all the romance out of it. This K original single-handedly rejuvenated Frank Sinatra’s career in 1966.
Red Roses For A Blue Lady – The song was written in 1948 and was a hit by Vaughn Monroe. Winter of 1965 saw three competing versions: one by Vic Dana, one by Wayne Newton, and this one. Odd that K’s biggest hits were songs he did not write. I did not understand, being 8 years old and hearing this, why the lady was blue. I did not know then that “blue” meant “sad.” This is, in any event, great ballroom stuff.
Lady – Back to originals here. A hit for Jack Jones in 1967. Not the Styx song.
Bye Bye Blues – From the winter of 1966, very jaunty. Bye bye blues indeed.
Wiederseh’n – Goodbye by any other name…
L-O-V-E – Love in the abstract and love by letters, a hit for Nat King Cole in 1964. It’s better without the words.
Remember When (We Made These Memories)
The World We Knew (Over And Over) – Another one that Sinatra ran away with. That was in the summer of ’67.
That Happy Feeling – Tell me about it…From the summer of 1962.
Three O’Clock In The Morning – Another hit that he didn’t write, from the spring of 1965.
Caravan – By Duke Ellington. This song took on a life of its own, with versions strung as far afield as Nat King Cole (with words) on one end, to The Ventures on the other. Not the Van Morrison song.
Danke Schoen – You’re welcome. Another of K’s creations, this one became Wayne Newton’s signature song, in the summer of 1963.
Spanish Eyes (Moon Over Naples) – And they keep on coming. This one was a hit for Al Martino in the summer of ’66, and it was recorded by thousands. The original was a hit in the summer of 1965.
Hold Me
Sweet Maria
Hold Back The Dawn – I used to have a version of this by Al Jurreau.
Afrikaan Beat – It’s been suggested that this was the beginning of World Music. Maybe. From the winter of 1962.
Wonderland By Night – His first and biggest hit. He had competition from Louis Prima (a similar trumpet arranged recording) and from Anita Bryant (with words) but K won hands down, his version reaching number 1 in the winter of 1961. I Can’t Help Remembering You
You Are My Sunshine – He gives it his best effort but it’s still You Are My Sunshine.
Balkan Melody
Steppin’ Pretty
A Swinging’ Safari – A winner. Billy Vaughn did a note for note copy and put the song into the top 20 in 1962.

Anthony Newley

2011-03-28T21:18:00.003-04:00

I suppose that romance is in the eye of the beholder, or better, in the heart of the beholder. And we all have different ideas of what romance is. And for our purposes, we all have different ideas of what romantic music is. Now that’s a topic that deserves a blog post of its own.

We also have ideas of what romantic music isn’t. And for my money, and to my ears, Anthony Newley, whatever his music is, it isn’t particularly romantic.

I say that because I found this LP, a collection of his hits and misses, which is part of the “The World Of…” series. (I have The World Of Ray Charles, for example, and The World Of Cat Stevens). But his is titled The Romantic World Of Anthony Newley. So I suppose that his world may be romantic. But, as I say, his music isn’t especially, the album title nothwithstanding.

Newley was English. He is someone to whom others are compared. David Bowie, for one, in his pre-Space Oddity days, is often compared to Newley. He put 10 songs on the UK top 20 between 1959 and 1961, one of which reached number 1 (Why) and three of which are on this collection, and 4 songs in the Billboard top 100 between 1960 and 1962, none of which reached higher than 67 and three of which are on this collection.

Anthony Newley:

• What Now My Love – A 60s standard. My favourite version may just be the one by Miss Piggy.
• Strawberry Fair – This is kind of nursery rhyme but it’s just a bit bawdy. From the fall of 1960.
• The Father Of Girls – There are more songs about being a son / daughter than about being a parent, and this is why. Is so hard not to be maudlin.
• Deep River
• And The Heavens Cried
• You Made Me Love You – The Tin Pan Alley standard. Listen to Harry Nilsson’s version.
• What Kind Of Fool Am I – A bit hit by Sammy Davis Jr, a small hit by Robert Goulet, and a smaller hit by our hero. From the fall of 1962.
• Yes We Have No Bananas – Honest, he really does this song…
• If She Should Come To You – A hit in England in the summer of 1960, and in NA in the fall.
• I Saw Her Standing There – The only other cover of this that I know of is the one by Elton John and John Lennon. This has to be one of the worst Beatles covers I’ve ever heard.
• Girls Were Made To Love And Kiss – Gloria Steinem’s favourite song, I hear…
• Pop Goes The Weasel – This is a song about Pop Goes The Weasel as much as it is Pop Goes The Weasel. From the winter of 61 / 62, though it hit in UK half a year earlier.

James Hurst

2011-03-27T12:12:00.001-04:00

James Hurst was a novelist but I don’t think this was him. It may have been, though, because the author had some kind of musical career prior to his becoming an author. I question it, though, because him musical career was said to be of the operatic variety.

Whoever he was, this James Hurst was in at least one Broadway musical, a Noel Coward play called Sail Away, and no James Hurst has an entry in Wikipedia.

That’s the thrill of second hand shops; you pick up random singles like this and then you’re left to puzzle over them for years….

James Hurst:

• Something Very Strange – Another song about falling in love, from the musical Sail Away, in which Hurst performed.

André Kostelanetz

2011-03-26T21:38:00.004-04:00

I was sitting at work innocently listening to a collection of tracks by The Tornadoes, when Tim The Enchanter, who is our sysadmin, made a comment.. “That’s elevator music, man,” he said.

Tim The Enchanter knows how to fix a server, but he doesn’t know squat about elevators.

Now André Kostelanetz, that’s elevator music….

Kostelanetz, he never had an actual hit, so I don’t know what business he had having a Greatest Hits album but have one he did…

André Kostelanetz:

• Bluesette – I don’t have any other versions of this, though apparently Ray Charles did it.
• The Shadow Of Your Smile – A 60s lounge favourite.
• Lara’s Theme – aka Somewhere My Love, from Dr. Zhivago, a hit for The Ray Conniff Singers in 1966.
• Everybody Loves A Lover – A hit for Doris Day et al
• Night Of The Trumpets
• Promenade
• Calito Lindo – I think this is Mexican. Frito’s used this ages ago in an ad – Aye aye aye aye, I am the Frito bandito… they got a lot of heat for it.
• The Blue Danube Waltz – A truncated version of the Strauss waltz
• The Grand Canyon Suite – a truncated version of Ferd Grofé’s American classic
• Fools Rush In – The Tin Pan Alley standard. Rick Nelson did this; so did Brook Benton.

Harold Dorman

2011-03-25T17:26:00.002-04:00

I took great pains to get the sound just right. The cables got loose, I’d have to fiddle with them to make sure the sound was balanced properly. I’d check the speed on the turntable, adjust the anti-skating, clean the record surface with my discwasher equipment (brush, antistatic gun etc.), adjust the bass, the treble, speaker placement. I’d very carefully clean the stylus with special equipment and fluid.

Then I’d play some scratchy old 45 that had been used on an old portable (obviously mono) record player in someone’s bedroom, that may have been used as a frisby, and I’d hear this:

Pshhstbbszztashtxxlwwtttsss standing on a mountain looking out on the city aptttrsswqrrtzzxzxzxzsssssplpsltttsssx the way I feel is a doggone pity rtrtryygggerrssssssnsssvxxxszzsc...

But... all the scratches would be faithfully reproduced...

Harold Dorman:

• Mountain Of Love – His only hit, from the spring of 1960. A song of could-have-beens, love as a mountain, and what good is a mountain? It’s nice to look at, but you can’t take it home. The Beach Boys did this on their Party album, and Johnny Rivers put it back on the charts in 1964, and it fit him like a shoe. (There are two versions of this song, one with strings, one without. I have the one with)

Jerry Butler

2011-03-22T21:18:00.002-04:00

As an adolescent R & B didn’t have a big presence in my collection. I had proto-metal (Black Sabbath), mainstream rock (Chilliwack, Three Dog Night), singer-songwriter-heartland romance (James Taylor), psychedelic (Hendrix). As I my teen years ended and my adult years began, I expanded into Janis Ian, John Prine, Kate & Anna McGarrigle. But apart from Stevie Wonder, I didn’t have much soul.

Since then, or course, various albums from that era have snuck their way into my collection: Curtis Mayfield, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway.

But no Jerry Butler. The only Jerry Butler album I ever got was The Best Of Jerry Butler, an original Vee Jay pressing released in the mid 60s, and I picked that up in the early 80s at Pyramid. The most striking thing about the album was the incredibly poor sound quality, which seems to have more to do with the pressing of the LP than with the original production. But many of the tracks sound as though Jerry is singing with a pillow crammed over his face, while the band remains locked in the bathroom at the far end of the building.

Punk bands spend years trying to get a sound like that...

Jerry Butler:

• He Will Break Your Heart – Maybe he will and maybe he won’t – but it matters not, as Percy Sledge tells us, lovin’ eyes can never see. Jerry, though, acknowledges that he’s lost the girl; one gets the feeling that he’s singing to her after she’s gone. The voice on the chorus sounds like Curtis Mayfield, and it probably is. And the arrangement is very low-key, no horns on this, just rhythm guitar and rhythm section. From the winter of 1960 / 1961. There’s a version of this by Jim Croce, recorded before he became famous, and Tony Orlando & Dawn sent a remake, retitled He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You) to number 1 in the spring of 1975.
• Come Back My Love – Waltz time R & B. Come back, he sings, and correct all the harm you’ve done. Not bloody likely.
• Rainbow Valley – Come home, he pleads, yet again. Not sure where Rainbow Valley is, or why he’s singing about it…
• I’m A-Telling You – Curtis Mayfield up front and centre again. A song about the challenges of everyday domestic life, which he makes sound like a POW camp. From the summer of 1961.
• Aware Of Love – On my copy the vocals are barely audible, but I can tell you that there’s a piano and a horn that plays throughout.
• A Lonely Soldier – Strings on this. Not to be confused with Mr. Lonely by Bobby Vinton, which is also about a soldier. Same idea, same bathos.
• Moon River – Nice MOR arrangement on this with strings and harmonics, but Jerry, whose again sounds muffled, doesn’t sound all that comfortable with this. There are millions of versions of this, and people will think of the original by Henry Mancini, or Andy Williams, but, believe it or not, this version was the only hit version besides Mancini. From the winter of 61 / 62.
• Find Another Girl – Maternal advice. Mom was on the right track here, according to statistics. She’d reappear, Mom would, in Only The Strong Survive. From the spring of 1961.
• The Gift Of Love – Generic Butler. At least there doesn’t seem to be any sadness on this one, though you wouldn’t know it unless you pay close attention to the lyrics.
• Where Do I Turn – Strings up high in the mix, and Jerry voice way down. Sadness throughout.
• Couldn’t Go To Sleep – A song that would have sounded good by Bobby Vee or maybe Frankie Avalon, but neither would sound remotely like this.
• I Stand Accused – Love as crime, not a highly original idea, even then. From the fall of 1964.
• Need To Belong – Longing for love. Hurts to be known as no one, he laments. I guess so. From the winter of 1964.
• Let It Be Me – This is the duo of Jerry Butler and Betty Everett. Their remake of the Everly Brothers classic was a hit in the fall of 1964.
• Smile – Another duet with Betty Everett. From the winter of 1964 / 1965.
• Hey Western Union Man – We are now into his Mercury years, which lasted from early 1967 until mid 1977. His voice is still there, and it’s all generally some form of R & B, but this is so different that you wouldn’t know it was the same guy. The producers get behind the beat, showcase Jerry’s voice in a muscular arrangement , and the results sparkle. From the fall of 1968.
• Never Give You Up – I will stay with you, he proclaims, no matter how bad you are to me. I’m not sure what merit there is in that, but ok. From the summer of 1968.
• Moody Woman – He likes her, moodiness nothwithstanding. From the summer of 1969.
• Lost – A lilting melody and a smooth arrangement. Deserved to do better than number 62. From the winter of 1968.
• Only The Strong Survive – Mom’s back, and her advice isn’t all that bad. From the spring of 1969.

Gary U.S. Bonds

2011-03-21T20:59:00.002-04:00

Not all rock and roll is party music, and not all party music is rock and roll, but when the two worlds intersect, you get Gary U.S. Bonds. Everything he did, (all his hits, anyway) is about non-stop dancing, drinking, pass the punchbowl, let’s have a good time. And it all sounds like it’s coming from a cheap transistor radio; it doesn’t matter how good the sound system is.

All this comes from a single LP called Greatest Hits and credited to U.S. Bonds, no “Gary” credited anywhere. And Gary is the only part of his name that’s real. It looks to me like this album was realeased c early 1962, as it has all his hits up to that point, and then it was reissued with a slightly changed track listing, including a track from 1967. So it’s all a bit weird.

Gary U.S. Bonds:

• New Orleans – Party central, to hear Gary sing it. When did they move the Big Easy to Mississippi? Oh wait, no it’s down “the” Mississippi, not down “to” Mississippi. Sorry. And it’s not easy typing “Mississippi” so many times. From the fall / winter of 1960. Neil Diamond had a crack at this during his tenure with Bang Records.
• Not Me – Who then? A hit for The Orlons, not for Gary.
• Quarter To Three – Perhaps the ultimate party record. One assumes we are talking about AM, as in time, not radio. This bears no small resemblance to the musical refrain in Runaround Sue by Dion. The rhythm here isn’t frantic, but there’s a syncopation going on that makes it hard to resist. Went to number 1 in the summer of 1961.
• School Is Out – The ultimate celebration.. This has none of the destructive glee of Alice Cooper’s School’s Out. From late summer / fall of 1961.
• Dear Lady Twist – Notice it’s not Twist Baby, it’s “dear lady,” an allusion, no doubt, to the popularity the twist had won among “adults.” From the winter of 1962.
• Havin’ So Much Fun – See? It’s what it’s all about…
• School Is In – He celebrates the end of school, he celebrates the start of school. There is no contradiction. But what happens at exam time? From the fall of 1961.
• Twist Twist Senora – This is what Chubby Checker spent his entire career aiming to achieve…From the spring of 1962.
• I Dig This Station – Let’s turn on the radio… and party!!!!
• Mixed Up Faculty – A bit of fun at the teachers’ expense.
• Workin’ For My Baby – A bit off topic…
• Gettin’ A Groove – That’s what it’s all about…

November, 1960

2011-03-20T09:16:00.003-04:00

North To Alaska - Johnny Horton
New Orleans - Gary U.S. Bonds
Last Date - Floyd Cramer
I'll Save The Last Dance For You - Damita Jo
Love Walked In - Dinah Washington
Isn't It Amazing - The Crests
Kissin' And Twistin' - Fabian
Man Of Mystery - The Shadows
One Thousand Stars - Kathy Young & The Innocents
The Hucklebuck - Chubby Checker
Ruby Duby Du - Tobi Matthews
Patsy - Jack Scott
Are You Lonesome Tonight - Elvis Presley
He Will Break Your Heart - Jerry Butler
Sway - Bobby Rydell
Many Tears Ago - Connie Francis
Fools Rush In - Brook Benton
My Dearest Darling - Etta James
Wait For Me - The Playmates
Lively - Lonnie Donegan
Wonderland By Night - Bert Kaempfert
Sailor - Lolita
Perfidia - The Ventures
Like Strangers / Brand New Heartache - The Everly Brothers
Am I Losing You - Jim Reeves
Old McDonald - Frank Sinatra
Am I The Man - Jackie Wilson
Jaguar And Thunderbird - Chuck Berry