Friday, May 26, 2017

1967 Bonus #26

The wait is over ... today's the day ...  
The 50th Anniversary Edition of The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" deluxe edition hits stores today (are there really any "stores" left???) and it's positively amazing ... 4 CD's PLUS a DVD Documentary on "The Making of Sgt. Pepper" plus a deluxe booklet all packaged in a beautiful box with a lenticular photo of perhaps the most famous album cover of all time.


Today is the 50th anniversary of the release of Scott McKenzie's single "If You're Going To San Francisco".
Lou Adler 
Absolutely one of my all-time favorites … and an absolute anthem for The Summer Of Love. (Of course the 50th Anniversary of The Monterey Pop Festival is right around the corner!)  kk




Kent,
Needless to say, I am enjoying your daily occurrences on what took place back in 1967 on the day that we are currently experiencing. I am looking forward to the day that you mention that singer Neil Sedaka came out with his song THE JELLYFISH SONG. This is a song I am sure that Mr. Sedaka has forgotten he ever made and / or probably wishes he never recorded. 
Larry Neal  
Sorry to disappoint you but this one didn’t make the cut! (lol) 
[Honestly, I don’t know that I’ve ever even heard it!!!] 
Neil wasn’t exactly setting the charts on fire back in ’67 … his incredible comeback was still seven years away. 
(OK, I just listened to it … seriously?!?!?) 
Was he trying to create a new dance sensation??? 
You’re better off listening to the Sponge Bob track of the same name!  (kk)  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmLaDJI84Lg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2ogakQM_so


Thanks, Kent, and also to Clark Besch for taking the time and effort to dig out all that info on The Fifth Estate band in the 1967 BONUS #24 … very helpful in determining when Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead was actually released.  We appreciate it a ton!!! 
From that and a lot of other info sent in to us direct lately, it looks like it was released on a Monday, as that is what Jubilee Records did then and that this was either April 10th or April 17th, looking at when the first press releases came out.  So it was a good month before the release of Sergeant Pepper, which we needed cleared up, and by which time it was already #89 with a bullet!  Tough getting out from under the British EXPLOSION just then.   
AND we had just seen the bullet for the first time after returning from a road trip back to our hometown restaurant / hangout in Stamford, CT, called Lucey's.  Think Happy Days!
We were sitting there looking over biz mags and just noticed it (with a bullet no less)!!!  We were so excited we all bought each other an extra coke and burger.  Man did we celebrate!
Kent, I should also mention that judging from all the info which came in here lately your 1967 blog is being read far and wide.  Also seems that a lot of this press at the time was very inaccurate.  It was said in one that Clark sent that we sprung out of the cellar to the top of the charts in one year.  No no no no no! 
The group had been together and touring promoting four singles already since late ‘63 - first as The Decedants, then as The D-Men, and we already had a single out on Red Bird as The Fifth Estate.  That last name change was all due to what has become known as "The Murray The K" FIASCO!
As a book is being written about all this, about all I can say right now is that a little before that FIASCO our then manager had purchased Alan Freed's house there in Stamford, just after Alan was run out of town and the business for payola.  Most can figure it out from there, I am sure.  But we fooled Murray real good
Anyway, as he played the hell out of Ding Dong! and had no idea it was The D-Men, but now known as The Fifth Estate.  That was good :)  
Furvus   
(By the way not Furvis, as was written on our first album cover.  I had been sort of - Latinized!!  Think Copernicus and Lineaus, or Michael Preatorius even.  Yes, just like those! (??)  LOL
The ’67 Series continues to grow in popularity … and we’re already talking about doing a few more radio appearances to support it and get the word out.  (Of course in a matter of weeks it’ll already be half over … so that’s a lot of catching up to do if you’re just joining us now!!!)  Honestly, I can’t believe it has been going by this quickly … now I’ve gotta figure out what I’m going to do NEXT year!!!  Thanks, Furv!  (kk) 

And, speaking of Clark Besch …   

Kent,
I often look at your Super Charts of 67 for the bottom 20 because those are the most interesting to me.  One of my faves from this week is #96, "No Good to Cry" by the Wildweeds.  It recently showed up in stereo on a Wildweeds CD and I LOVE it!  Mr. Chet Coppick should enjoy this one, too.  Jimmy James & the Vagabonds and the Poppy Family also released 45s of this, but this one cooks them, IMO.
Clark
This remained a “low-charter” … during its six weeks on the chart it never rose higher than #85 in Cash Box Magazine.  Billboard ranked it at #88 (four weeks on the chart) and Record World at #96, also with a four week run.  Incredibly, despite this mediocre showing, Dick Bartley included this cut on his “One Hit Wonders Of The ‘60’s” CD collection …so it must be one of HIS personal favorites, too!  (kk)



 
The second track from the SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB album, "With A Little Help From My Friends", has charted five times in the UK as a single, but none of the performers were named Ringo.
Released on May 27,1967, was a version by The Young Idea. This one hit wonder duo was Tony Cox from London and Douglas MacRae Brown from Florence, Italy. Although it sounds a lot like the original, maybe their voices were a little more appealing than
Ringo's. The Young Idea had spent the Spring of 1967 touring Britain with three of the UK's hottest acts: The Hollies, The Spencer Davis Group, and The Tremeloes.

The Beatles by now were just studio musicians and were increasingly losing favor among Britain's teenagers to younger groups like The Small Faces. Wages in the UK were still low and singles were cheaper than albums. For whatever reason, The Young Idea's record was popular enough to enter the UK top ten in July.
On June 2, 1967, Joe Brown released the song and it peaked at UK#32. In 1962 Brown had been voted Top UK Vocal Personality in a NME poll. He can be seen in the 2002 Concert For George tribute following Harrison's death. In November of 1968, Joe Cocker's frenzied and soulful rendition was the first of three covers to reach #1 in the UK charts. Even the composers gave it high praise.
In 1988 a UK remake of the album, retitled SGT. PEPPER KNEW MY FATHER, was released with twelve different artists’ covers. "With A Little Help From My Friends" by the group Wet Wet Wet was chosen for a single release and topped the UK charts at #1 in May of that year.
In 2004 two runners-up on the UK television talent contest Pop Idol 2, Sam Nixon and Mark Rhodes, recorded it and their song was #1 that February. By coincidence "Yesterday", the most covered song in pop music history, has also charted in the UK at least five times by different artists but has never been a number one there -- not even by The Beatles.
Mike G


 
Surprising to hear that The Young Idea’s version was released BEFORE the “Pepper” album hit the streets … now that’s pretty amazing.  (I’d never heard it before)
With no single ever released from the album by The Beatles (not even by Capitol, who typically milked the cow dry with every new release), it made sense for other artists to cover this extremely catchy tune.  (“Sgt. Pepper” was the first album to be released with the exact same track line-up here in The States as it was internationally.  Can you imagine Capitol “butchering” this one???)
For me personally, I think Joe Cocker’s rendition just may be the greatest Beatles cover tune of all time.  I still get chills hearing it today.  (kk)


Not to seem nitpicking, but the more-common-to-radio original-mono-45 mix of "Creeque Alley" is available ... plus at least two YouTube videos. Was the less-gaudy album version all that was accessible to you? 
BOB FRABLE, 
Easton, PA  
Bitch, bitch bitch!  (lol)  Hey, I get it … I prefer the single mix, too, and certainly have a copy.  I don’t know why the album version (missing the “becoming a reality” response, partially lost in the album mix for some reason … sloppy editing I imagine) was posted … but you’ve got to remember that everything you’re reading today was written and posted a YEAR AGO in order to be able to stay ahead of the calendar at hand. 
So here is the FAR superior single version … with apologies attached. (kk)




 



We’ve been waiting for Harvey Kubernik’s new book, “1967: A Complete Rock Music History of The Summer Of Love “ to come out … an homage to The Summer of Love ... ever since we first heard about it late last year.  
As always, it is a spectacular visual display with striking artwork and photography throughout … and memories from so many of the people who were living in the moment (and in the places) where everything seemed to be happening that year.
(Our calendar tribute gives you the facts … it’s a daily recap of the events that shaped the era … and we’ll throw in some additional commentary here and there from some of the artists and the deejays who were there at the time … as well as share some of our own memories of what we were feeling at the time.  In fact, these regular 1967 Bonus Features allow you the opportunity to do the same.  But Harvey’s book incorporates ALL of this with photos from the scene of the crime … and commentary from the movers and shakers who were to both see it happen as well as partake in the entire experience.)
I turned 14 at the tail end of The Summer Of Love … so I wasn’t really lovin’ anybody at the time!!! (lol)  In September, I would begin the High School Chapter of my life.  I embraced most of the music of the day (as it was presented to me on WLS and WCFL, our two powerhouse AM radio stations.)  FM Radio hadn’t really made its impact yet and, quite honestly, some of that heavier material, long jams and spaced-out deejay drone would have been lost on me anyway.  (Heck, I was still diggin’ The Monkees on TV at the time!)
But I was also watching acts like The Turtles and Paul Revere and the Raiders and Tommy James and the Shondells and The Mamas and the Papas on television shows like The Ed Sullivan Show and Where The Action Is.  (That’s why it was such a kick to get an email from Lou Adler last week … and find out that he’s been following our series.  Talk about being in the epicenter of it all!!!)
I also saw the movement toward heavier music, provided by the likes of The Doors, The Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix and more, as they appeared on programs like The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and the Sullivan Show.
We had lighterweight fare and novelty hits, too … everything from a revival of “Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead” from The Wizard Of Oz to Harpers Bizarre remaking an old Cole Porter tune from the ‘20’s … and having a hit with “Anything Goes” … and The Happenings scoring a #1 Record with their remake of the old showtune “I Got Rhythm”.  Bill Cosby made The Top Five with his goofy “Little Ole Man” while the Motown Sound from artists like Stevie Wonder (who inspired it), Diana Ross and the Supremes, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and Marvin Gaye were scoring some of the biggest hits of their careers.  (The Supremes even dabbled in the psychedelia craze with the opening to their hit “Reflections” … and clean-cut pop groups like The Four Seasons and The Beach Boys spiced things up with tracks like “Watch The Flowers Grow” and “Heroes and Villains”, tracks well “out of character” for these two fan favorites.  A brand new band from California called The Association told us about “Pandora’s Golden Heebie Jeebies” and a totally different kind of “Mary” in “Along Comes Mary” the year before … then in 1967 scored two of the biggest hits of the year with “Windy” and “Never My Love” that reached EVERY type of audience while still being “hip enough” to open The Monterey Pop Festival.
The Summer Of Love reached across the entire world … hip sounds from London by The Beatles’ life-changing “Sgt. Pepper’s” album and their summer anthem “All You Need Is Love” … to Scott McKenzie’s John Phillips-penned (and Lou Adler-produced) California anthem “San Francisco”, which had people worldwide wearing “flowers in their hair” (an image also conjured up by The Cowsills’ first hit later that year, “The Rain, The Park and Other Things” to the local scene right here in Chicago where bands like The Buckinghams, The Cryan’ Shames, The New Colony Six and The American Breed exploded on the charts across the country.  It was … to say the very least … a VERY exciting time.
Check out Harvey’s book … a keeper you’ll want to display proudly on your own coffee table as I have on mine.
Here are a couple of early reviews he sent me to share.  (I haven’t finished reading it yet so will post mine when I’m in a better position to do so!)  kk  

kk:
Enjoy it.
I think it's a world of 1967 never really properly examined.
I know the book will help a lot of people discover some LP's and CD's.
Best,
HK  






I'm looking at some 50-year-old cuttings from a morning newspaper called the Nottingham Guardian Journal. The first of them is dated Saturday, May 13, 1967. It's from a page called The Younger Set, containing pieces on fashion and music. The reviews include Hendrix's "The Wind Cries Mary" ("magnificent ...  the most creative musician in Britain today") and Percy Sledge's "Out of Left Field" ("reaffirms my faith in soul music"). A week later we have the Doors' debut album ("a very cool, tight sound"), Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love" ("a very mind-blowing cut from from one of the leading new-wave groups") and, er, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich ("completely moronic"). 
It was quite a year -- although not, in my view, the equal of 1965 or even 1966 in terms of quality. But I wouldn't argue with those making the case for its historic value, and now along come Harvey Kubernik and Jon Savage -- two colleagues of mine from the Melody Maker in the '70s, as it happens -- to sum it up very nicely: the former in 1967 -- A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love , a coffee-table book containing nice photographs and a quantity of first-hand testimony, and the latter in Jon Savage's 1967: The Year Pop Divided, a two-CD compilation of some of the year's more interesting tracks. 
Harvey's book moves mostly between San Francisco and Los Angeles on its journey from January to December, with detours to Monterey and London. Some of the oral history -- from backroom people like Andrew Loog Oldham, Shel Talmy and Bones Howe as well as stars such as Jerry Garcia, Al Kooper and Carlos Santana -- is of rich in opinion and anecdote, despite being mostly divided into bite-sized chunks and arranged around the visual material. There are some real gems, as when the actress Peggy Lipton, one of the great beauties of the time, tells Kubernik about her Monterey Pop Festival experience: "There was a light drizzle and we went to hear Ravi Shankar. I remember I left my body." 
It makes a nice companion to two other oral histories, Jonathon Green's epic Days in the Life and Barry Miles's In the Sixties, which tell the story of the era from the British perspective. (The Roy Lichtenstein pastiche at the top of this piece accompanied the publication of an extract from Days in the Life in The Times on the book's original appearance as a hard-back in 1988; it was commissioned jointly by me and the paper's then art director, David Driver.) 
In this morning's Observer magazine, five participants in San Francisco's Summer of Love were invited to reflect on its significance. Peter Coyote, a co-founder of the "anarchist gang" (his phrase) known as the Diggers, comes up with an interesting verdict: "The counter-culture may have lost every political battle -- we didn't end racism, we didn't end war, we didn't end capitalism, we didn't end imperialism. But on a cultural level, we won every single battle. There's no place today in the western world where there's not an organic food movement, a women's movement, and environmental movement." 
I'm pretty sure that I never left my body at all during 1967, but then I never got to listen to Ravi Shankar in a light drizzle with Peggy Lipton. 
* Jon Savage's 1967: The Year that Pop Divided is out now on Ace Records. Harvey Kubernik's 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love is published by Sterling Books.   

MOJO Magazine - July 2017 issue 
1967: A Complete Rock Music History Of The Summer Of Love  
4 stars 
Harvey Kubernik 
Sterling. £23.86  
Musical memories and images from a year-long summer. There wasn’t competition in the air but collaboration everywhere,” writes Harvey Kubernik in his technicolourfully illustrated, oral history of that blissful blip called The Summer Of Love. The native Angeleno and vet scribe is the perfect age to have participated in -- as well as accurately chronicle -- the time when optimism ran joyously rampant (despite the looming tragedy of Vietnam) and was channeled through rock and soul music that had entered “the realm of aesthetics.”
With the advent of light show-lit ballrooms and underground / pirate radio, the inmates were rocking the asylum, with visionary possibilities exponentially expanding via cannabis and acid.
The book’s authenticity stems from the hundred interviews the author conducted and has excerpted, including icons and movers (Andrew Loog Oldham is his usual wildly witty self) and the young people who comprised the largest bohemian movement in history.  
Michael Simmons  

1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love
By Harvey Kubernik (hardcover) $29.95  
Author Harvey Kubernik takes his passion for the ‘60s and focuses it on a particularly significant year, one that teemed with revolutionary sights, sounds, thoughts and deeds. Kubernik’s own eloquent, authoritative narrative acts as the connective tissue between incisive recollections from a gallery of eyewitness participants, both famous and obscure, all of it fascinating, taking us on a month-by-month trip through a golden year. 
The pages are packed with a treasure trove of vintage Guy Webster and Henry Diltz photos, making the book as eye-pleasing as it is thoughtful. Focused, substance-filled and attractive to look at, 1967 might be Kubernik’s best book to date. 
Mark Nardone 
Music Connection  

Yes, 1967 is all the rage ... be sure to listen to our salutes to our favorite tunes from 1967 … two programs are now posted on the site here:
http://forgottenhits60s.blogspot.com/1970/01/phil-nees-those-were-days-program-with.html 

And Geoff Dorsett’s British take on The Summer Of Love can be found here: http://forgottenhits1967bonus.blogspot.com/2017/01/1967-bonus-5.html  
We'll be on Geoff's programme on Memorial Day Monday ... and he's promised to send us the segment to share with all our FH Readers! 

Speaking of new releases, Capitol Records has just announced a brand new Beach Boys Two-Fer package of “Wild Honey” and “Smiley Smile”.
Yes, these CD’s have been packaged before … but this is a very special, 1967 Celebration Edition (they’re calling it “Sunshine Tomorrow” but, as we’re ALL about all things 1967 this year, check out this absolutely awesome album cover:

Now I’ll be the first to admit that these were NOT the strongest Beach Boys album releases … in fact, “Smiley Smile” was more of a quickly thrown together affair after the whole “Smile” fiasco forced The Beach Boys to miss a release date … but this special new release focuses on much more than just the basics of these two LPs … there are ALL kinds of “extras”, including alternate takes, outtakes and live performances of some of the key tracks (including excerpts from the much-bootlegged but never officially released live album “Lai’d in Hawaii”.  You’ll also find a number of tracks presented in “true stereo” for the very first time.  (You’ll even find our FH Buddy Fred Vail on here, introducing the boys in Hawaii!)  In fact, for the “Smiley Smile” portion of this new release you get nothing but alternate takes and live tracks rather than the commercially released album in its entirety. 

Check out this track list, courtesy of Vintage Vinyl News:  

Disc 1  

Wild Honey Album (Stereo) 
Wild Honey
Aren't You Glad
I Was Made To Love Her
Country Air
A Thing Or Two
Darlin'
I'd Love Just Once To See You
Here Comes The Night
Let The Wind Blow
How She Boogalooed It
Mama Says (Original Mono Mix) 

Wild Honey Sessions:  September - November 1967 (Previously Unreleased) 
Lonely Days (Alternate Version) 
Cool Cool Water (Alternate Early Version) 
Time To Get Alone (Alternate Early Version) 
Can't Wait Too Long (Alternate Early Version) 
I'd Love Just Once To See You (Alternate Version) 
I Was Made To Love Her (Vocal Insert Session) 
I Was Made To Love Her (Long Version) 
Hide Go Seek
Honey Get Home
Wild Honey (Session Highlights) 
Aren't You Glad (Session Highlights) 
A Thing Or Two (Track And Backing Vocals) 
Darlin' (Session Highlights) 
Let The Wind Blow (Session Highlights) 

Wild Honey Live: 1967 - 1970 (Previously Unreleased) Wild Honey (recorded in Detroit, November 17, 1967) 
Country Air (recorded in Detroit, November 17, 1967) 
Darlin' (recorded in Pittsburgh, November 22, 1967) 
How She Boogalooed It (recorded in Detroit, November 17, 1967) 
Aren't You Glad (recorded in 1970, location unknown) 

Vocal session highlights
Mama Says (Session Highlights) 

Disc 2 

Smiley Smile Sessions:  June - July 1967  
Heroes And Villains (Single Version Backing Track) 
Vegetables (Long Version) 
Fall Breaks And Back To Winter (Alternate Mix) 
Wind Chimes (Alternate Tag Section) 
Wonderful (Backing Track) 
With Me Tonight (Alternate Version With Session Intro) 
Little Pad (Backing Track) 
All Day All Night (Whistle In) (Alternate Version 1) 
All Day All Night (Whistle In) (Alternate Version 2)
Untitled (Redwood) 

Lei'd In Hawaii "Live" Album:  September 1967 (Previously Unreleased)  
Fred Vail Intro 
The Letter
You're So Good To Me
Help Me, Rhonda
California Girls
Surfer Girl
Sloop John B
With A Little Help From My Friends (Recorded at Brian Wilson's house, September 23, 1967) 
Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring (Recorded during rehearsal, August 26, 1967, Honolulu, Hawaii) 
God Only Knows
Good Vibrations
Game Of Love
The Letter (Alternate Take) 
With A Little Help From My Friends (Stereo Mix) 

Live In Hawaii:  August 1967 (Previously Unreleased)
Hawthorne Boulevard
Surfin'
Gettin' Hungry
Hawaii (Rehearsal Take) 
Heroes And Villains (Rehearsal) 

Thanksgiving Tour 1967:  Live In Washington, D.C. & Boston (Previously Unreleased) 
California Girls (recorded in Washington, DC, November 19, 1967) 
Graduation Day (recorded in Washington, DC, November 19, 1967) 
I Get Around (recorded in Boston, November 23, 1967)   

Additional 1967 Studio Recordings (Previously Unreleased)  
Surf's Up (1967 Version) 
Surfer Girl (1967 A Capella Mix)