Send it all -- I'm loving it!
I was 23, recently discharged from the Army, and loving it then, too!!
Dan Guilfoyle
Kent,
Lovin’ the attention to ’67! Looking’ forward to more!
Jerry Reuss
Hey Kent,
Six weeks of fun memories are flying by and really enjoying what you're doing with each day.
Best,
Dawn Lee
Kent,
I cannot say enough about how much I am enjoying every single piece of information you are sending out from 1967. I look forward every morning at 6 am to see and hear the daily posting as well as any bonus material you send out. You do it all so well that my feelings are send out everything you feel is worthy and let your followers read what they like. I personally will check out everything you send.
Thanks for all you are doing to keep the greatest music ever alive!
Joe Malin
The general consensus seems to be "Send it all ... and we'll
decide for ourselves what we do or don't want to read ... 'cause if you DON'T
send it, how will we know what we're missing!" So, with that thought in mind,
we'll send out a few more "themed" emails. (By the same token, a couple of
people quit the list today ... so they've made THEIR decision, too. Let's face
it ... you can still go to the website on a daily basis and get the jist of what
this whole thing is all about!) kk
Hi Kent,
Just want to say how much I’m enjoying
your 1967 series. I often feel that I was born too late (I was only one year
old in 1967). However, as a teenager in the late 1970s / early 1980s, I
discovered oldies radio (back when they had much bigger playlists) and gave
myself a pretty decent education on the music of the 1950s and 1960s. I also
bought most of the other hits of that era that weren’t getting any airplay. I
didn’t know it at the time, but all of that education would certainly come in
handy for my career at Record Research. By the way, come March 23 I’ll have
been working on the Whitburn books for 25 years!
Keep up the great
work!
Paul Haney
Record
Research
Hi Kent.
I am enjoying the 67 series and continue to
feature it on my show.
The other day you featured the Gary and the
Hornets version of "There's A Kind Of Hush".
I found this tidbit in my vinyl collection.
It's an old radio commercial featuring Gary and
the Hornets doing a spot for Oscar Meyer.
I have salvaged these gems from radio stations over the years. They were always supposed to be thrown away when the campaign was complete. A few have survived. I hope you enjoy and I will send more later.
I have salvaged these gems from radio stations over the years. They were always supposed to be thrown away when the campaign was complete. A few have survived. I hope you enjoy and I will send more later.
Looking forward to setting something up for you
to appear on my "Those Were The Days" program so you and I can pick our top six
1967 favorites in the near future.
Phil-WRCO
Phil-WRCO
The 1967 posts are absolutely wonderful. I don't get to read them every day, but every week or two I have to do a major catch up and make sure I've read them all.
Bill
As I've said before, use whatever method works best for you.
I just really like the idea of the "daily reveal". Once you get in the habit of
making it the first place you check every morning, it's tough to miss any. (My
original hope was that maybe a few of the deejays on the list would make this a
daily, Monday thru Friday five minute segment ... recap some of the headlines
from exactly fifty years ago and then play a song from that week's chart right
behind it ... but hey, we're still getting quite a bit of buzz from folks just
talking about the series and encouraging others to check it out ... so I really
can't complain ... [but, ala Joe Walsh, sometimes I still do].)
>>>We've been telling you for
a while now about the new Harvey Kubernik book spotlighting The Summer Of
Love. Meanwhile, Harvey has sent along an interview he did
with Travis Pike that did not make the final cut of his new book ... and has
suggested that we run it here in Forgotten Hits as part of our very special 1967
Series. (kk)
Hi Kent -
I had Harvey on my show a
while back ... a really interesting
guy.
The 1967 new series is
great!
Regards -
Geoff
For whomever was talking about Bittersweet,
here's a Stevens Point top 40 chart out of ... Wisconsin, of course. Davie
Allan's first hit of 67 also chiming in.
Clark
Man ... the charts are awesome, Kent ... thanks
for digging them up.
Another excellent read, Kent ... thanks ... and I did not know that about
LL Bean ... they have great clothes, too!Bless ya, my friend
-
Barry Winslow
Barry Winslow
The Royal Guardsmen
Speaking of cool charts, Ken Freck, one of the guys behind the brand new WRIT Milwaukee Chart Book, just sent us a couple from February, 1967, to share with our readers ...
>>>I don't think you've been on the list long
enough to know or appreciate the fact that the "Whipped Cream" album cover has
been sort of a running joke here for at least a dozen years now ... I'll bet
we've run this photo AT LEAST 200 times!!! (kk)
I've been with you long enough to appreciate how much time
and energy you put into the many facets of Forgotten Hits.
To that, I want to take a
second to give you a Big Forgotten Hits Thanx!
~~~ Chuck Buell
CB
A pet peeve of mine has always been that people
play and Warner Brothers releases the wrong version of this great song, "No Fair
At All". The single version is what should be out there and not the stereo one
that constantly appears on CDs. HERE is the mono 45 version that we heard in
1967 on the radio.
Sorry, Kent, but you fell into the alternate
trap that most of WB has also fallen into. Such a GREAT 45 version should not
go unheralded.
WLSClark
Hi Kent,
A special memory …
You mentioned the Gene Pitney tour. Yeah, it was
1967, and the Buckinghams were flying high on the charts. That year we became
part of the Gene Pitney tour which included The Happenings, The Music Explosion
and The Easybeats. It was quite the bus tour, as you can imagine, with a bunch
of 20 year old guys getting wild and crazy.
One thing I always remember is that Gene Pitney
was quite the card player, and he would always draw some of the guys into a
poker game and always managed to take their money … Gene always seemed to win.
Also The Easybeats were an Aussie band, and
those guys were a bit different. They always had cuts and bruises because they
were always fighting with each other! Where some of us would argue, they would
throw fists, ha! ... great group ... very talented.
Speaking of talent, Gene Pitney had a fabulous
voice ... so sad he is not with us anymore.
There are many stories in the magical year of
1967, more to come.
Carl
THE BUCKINGHAMS
I've heard Gene was quite the jokester, too, and kept everyone in
stitches with his pranks. I heard an interview Phlash Phelps did with him
shortly before he died on XM ... one of the best interviews I've ever heard.
Pitney's voice was SO unique ... he really stood out from the crowd.
(kk)
The Fifth Estate were on that tour, too ... in fact, it was Drummer Ken
Evans who sent us these shots ... a promo poster ... and a group shot, taken
outside one of the venues ... where you'll find some VERY young looking
Buckinghams amongst the crowd! (kk)
Hi Kent:
A big THANK YOU for the piece you did on The
Buckinghams and “Kind Of A Drag”. Any recognition at my age is greatly
appreciated.
But why do I feel like the Rodney “I get no
respect” Dangerfield of horn bands? (ha, ha)
The MOB started in January of 1966. We were the
only band in Chicago that had a full
horn section. We played regularly at Dan Belloc’s Holiday Ballroom. Dan, being a
former owner and leader of a big band back in the day, was a huge fan of The
MOB.
Seeing the MOB’s horn section perform “live”, a
young rock / R&B band at his ballroom may have possibly have influenced him
into putting horns on The Bucks early sessions. I don’t believe it was just
Dan’s previous big band experience.
Jimmy Guercio played bass with me the previous
summer on the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars Tours. I used him on some sessions I’d
produced. At the time, he was currently playing bass for Chad and Jeremy
and offered to produce us. We
passed.
Wanting to capitalize on something we thought
was unique, we went to New York in the spring of 1966, bringing along with us
Johnny Pate (famous producer and arranger for The Impressions) to supervise the
session. We recorded at A&R Studios with Brooks Arthur on the board and cut four
songs.
Since every pop band at the time (The Beatles,
The Beach Boys, Tommy James, The Rascals, The Bucks) consisted of guitar, bass,
drums and a Vox organ or maybe a B3, we figured we had something special.
A horn
section!
After the session our manager and I shopped the
tape. Neil Bogart’s (Kama Sutra Records) interest was peaked but passed along
with everyone else except Morris Levy at Roulette. Our lawyer recommended we not
sign with him if we wanted to get paid.
We flew to LA and met with Capitol Records. The
then President (Sal Innucci) said, “Get rid of the horns and add more guitars.”
We went back to Chicago with our tail between our legs, totally
depressed.
Nobody but nobody could see our vision of
having a horn section in a rock band.
A while later came the tsunami of horn bands
... The Bucks, Blood, Sweat & Tears, CTA, The Ides of March, CHASE,
Tower Of
Power ... and the horns
blow on ...
The real irony of the whole sad story is that
when we finally got our horn act together (i.e. quality recording / producing,
label behind us) in the 70’s, the train had already left the
station.
Programmers (after receiving our promo singles
in the mail) were saying, “These guys sound
like BS&T or CHICAGO. We don’t have room on the play list for another horn
band. But thanks anyway.”
No disrespect, Kent, and thanks
again for the article, but I just wanted to set the record straight. No pun
intended.
James Holvay
We've covered the story of The Mob before in
Forgotten Hits ... and how you guys hit your peak at the wrong time, after
pioneering the whole horn / rock sound in the mid-to-late '60's. The one big
Mob hit record ("I Dig Everything About You" ... gotta watch that ... probably
shouldn't ever really type "Mob hit" next to each other again!!!) got a TON of
airplay here in Chicago, eventually peaking at #20 on the WCFL Chart ... but
never made much of a ripple nationally, topping out at #83 in Billboard. It's
too bad, really, because I think you guys deserved
better.
Perhaps the strangest part of the story is that you
literally gave away FOUR Top Ten Hits to The Buckinghams, simply because The Mob
didn't think they really fit the style you were shooting for in the R&B vein
... all the more disappointing because the horns really helped drive the sound
of "Kind Of A Drag" and "Don't You Care" ... and "Hey, Baby, They're Playing Our
Song" and "Susan" are both pop gems. (Why did Guercio claim co-writing credit
on "Susan"? Was it because he slipped in that psychedelic hodge-podge in the
middle of the song? A track he literally "borrowed" from another
recording?!?! Sounds like Morris Levy wasn't the ONLY guy screwing his artists
in the '60's!!!)
kk
