May, 1961

• 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

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…

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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…

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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

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.

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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

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.

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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

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.

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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

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.

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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.