Hi
Kent:
Enjoyed your show with Mark
Dawson. My worst two records of ’67 were “Release Me” by Engledink and
“Somethin’ Stupid” by Frank and Nancy. Those songs were just very lame to an 11
year old kid.
The only problem sometimes with
those kind of shows is that the versions being played are not the original 45
hit versions. Probably only bothers purists like me though. Fun
anyway.
Ken
It was a fun show to do.
Unfortunately the music was added afterwards so even though we talked about
airing the 45 version of "My World Fell Down", it was the album track that was
used. Disappointing, too, that "Let It Out" was a remake version ... but too
late to fix now.
I'll be taping another show next
week to be aired on WRCO in Wisconsin in April. This time, Phil Nee and I will
be picking our Top Ten Favorites. (I had to mix mine up a little bit so as not
to do an exact repeat of what we played on Mark's show. But as I've said
numerous times before, I could easily pick 200 Favorites from 1967, so we can
easily put together several more "countdown favorites" shows like this to air
during the rest of the series!
Hardest songs for me to break up
the rock and roll spirit of the mid-to-late '60's? "Strangers In The Night" by
Frank Sinatra (which eventually went to #1 ... and I LOVED "That's Life" ...
and still do) and "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" by Frankie Valli, which seemed SO
out of place at the time when The Four Seasons were doing tracks like "Watch The
Flowers Grow" and "C'mon Marianne", but proved to be a timeless classic overall
... I love it now! (kk)
Seriously, have you and Mark Dawson
talked about teaming up to do a show together? It was a lot of fun listening to
you guys count down your 1967 favorites and there seems to be a real, natural
chemistry there between you two. (The fact that you're both total music geeks
just makes the whole thing that much more fun ... especially for us music geeks
listening in!) You guys really ought to give this some serious
consideration.
Tim
Thanks, Tim - I think we've both
heard that a lot since the show aired so who knows! (That's a tough to do over
the phone because part of that chemistry requires reacting to one another and
then jumping in at the right moment to move the conversation forward ... and
that's hard to do when you're 1200 miles away and can't see each other!)
I can tell you this ... Mark has a
very large and faithful following ... I heard from more people after this
appearance than I have for any other radio show I've been on ... and that
includes some of the "bigs" like Sirius/XM and The True Oldies Channel ... his
oldies fan base is the real deal. I'm sure I'll be back on before our '67
Series runs its course ... and I'm looking forward to meeting up with him
again (kk)
Hi Kent,
Thanks for the tip on Bruce's book. What a great project Sgt Pepper's was.
Take care, mi Amigo
Barry
Thanks for the tip on Bruce's book. What a great project Sgt Pepper's was.
Take care, mi Amigo
Barry
I would guess Mairzy Doats came
from the musical, Sound of Music.
It went something like
this:
Mares eat oats and does eat oats
and little lambs eat ivy.
CPass
CPass
Nope ... it dates back even further than this ...
check out Gary Theroux's detailed history below ...
Where did a crazy
song like "Mairzy Doats" come from? Well, as it turns out, one day the four year old daughter of
songwriter Milton Drake came home from school singing "Cowzy tweet and sowzy
tweet -- and liddle sharksy doisters." When Mr. Drake asked the little girl
what the song meant, she slowed it down. “Cows eat wheat -- and sows eat wheat
-- and little sharks eat oysters.” That in itself was an old English nursery
rhyme. Wondering if something new be made of that kind of double talk, Milton
made up his own lyrics and got Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingston to set them to
music. Then for a year that trio tried to get any music publisher interested in
the result -- but every single one turned down such a silly song. Finally, in
1944, Al Trace & his Silly Symphonists took a chance on the tune -- and
within weeks there were five hit versions of "Marizy Doats" all on the charts at
the same time! This one by The Merry Macs reached #1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC-6tRf-Q6A
(Gary Theroux)
I show the U.S. release
of Purple Haze to be in June, not August. It also began charting regionally in
June. I show My Foolish Pride as being released just ahead of it, in late May.
Not that that changes the result any.
Tom Diehl
Hate to sound like a commercial, but looking down the
WLS chart this week, I cannot help but notice how many of these songs have been
released on CD and vinyl in pristine remixed quality by Sundazed. Over the last
25 years, I have been involved in many of their releases and can say without a
doubt that Bob Irwin and his gang have been a Godsend to 60's collectors. To
ME, just being able to be a part of my favorite group, the Cryan' Shames' CDs
they have released, is a dream come true. They have given so many Chicago bands
their past due, yet I count fifteen titles out of just this one week that are on
Sundazed releases and often sounding better than they did on their original 45
versions. They even issued the "Feature Album of the Week," which is quite
surprising, since it is the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
album!
Check Sundazed out, if you need some '67 classic rock
music. They are even having a 1967 "Golden Anniversary Sale"!!!! (Chet Coppick
can even get the vaunted Wayne Cochran album from 1967!!!)
WLSClark
While American teenagers were grooving all day long to
Beatlemania on transistor radios in early 1964, there was no equivalent in the
UK. The BBC had a monopoly on radio and had small regard for teenage music.
Purchasing power was with adults so music was very conservative. And contracts
with the musicians' unions specified that most music heard on radios would be
live from the studio. Only the BBC's Light Programme network had a minimal
amount of "needle time". Otherwise if you heard the teen hits of the day at all
on the radio, they were sometimes performed by studio musicians instead of the
originators. The only alternative was Radio Luxembourg where the major UK record
labels bought small blocks of airtime. Compare it to today's infomercials where
only portions of songs were heard so as to play as many as possible in a short
time. Otherwise it was word of mouth that might send you to record shops like
HMV on Oxford Street where you could listen in phone-like booths to records
before purchase.
Then a musical revolution occurred when the pirate
radio stations began broadcasting from ships outside UK territorial waters
starting in late March 1964 with Radio Caroline. Many of them financed by
American investors,they adopted US Top 40 style formats with US made jingles. An
American calling himself Emperor Rosko was one of the most celebrated of the
pirate deejays. Then in the summer of 1967 the British Parliament passed the
Marine Broadcasting Offences Act shutting down the pirates. In response to the
popularity of the outlawed stations,the BBC set up it's own pop music network,
Radio One, manned almost entirely by ex-pirate staff. When I got to London in
1968 with the US Navy there were three choices for hearing pop and rock music:
BBC Radio One, Radio Luxembourg, and AFN. Radio Luxembourg had by then
appropriated the pirate's style and AFN (the US Armed Forces Network out of
Germany) played US Top 40 hits. It wasn't until 1973 that the BBC monopoly ended
and independent commercial
radio stations began broadcasting in the UK.
Mike G
radio stations began broadcasting in the UK.
Mike G
Shutting down Pirate Radio will be covered in our 1967
Series later this year. In the meantime, if anybody out there hasn't seen the
film "Pirate Radio" yet, do yourself a favor and seek it out. It's one of those
movies that gets better with every viewing. And the soundtrack is simply
incredible!
Thanks, Mike ... I'm adding your comments to our
piece. (kk)
I don't care what The Chinese Calendar says, without a
doubt, 1967 was The Year Of The Monkees ... they're showing up in nearly every
posting.
For more on this exciting period, my we suggest Michael
Nesmith's brand new biography ... and the complete television series, now
available on BluRay with all kind of bonus and enhanced features!
|
If you've been waiting for nothing but Michael
Nesmith, wait no longer! Due April 14th, INFINITE TUESDAY: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
RIFFS, THE MUSIC features 14 of Nez's best from his days with The Monkees, The
First National Band, and his solo career.
The set flows in mostly chronological order, beginning in 1965 when Nesmith recorded "The New Recruit" using the pseudonym Michael Blessing. Monkee-mania took over a year later. Two songs by the Monkees included here neatly bookend Nesmith's tenure in the group, with "Papa Gene's Blues" from the band's 1966 self-titled debut, and "Listen To The Band" from THE MONKEES PRESENT, Nesmith's last album with the group for more than 20 years.
The collection focuses mainly on the numerous solo albums that Nesmith recorded during the Seventies. He started in 1970 with MAGNETIC SOUTH and LOOSE SALUTE, country-rock albums that featured Nesmith and The First National Band, a group he collaborated with for several years. INFINITE TUESDAY features a song from each album: "Silver Moon" and "Joanne," Nesmith's first Top 40 hit as a solo artist.
Nesmith embraced a multimedia approach to making music in 1975 to create THE PRISON, an album that was to be played as the "soundtrack" to a novella that came with the music. Represented on this set by "Opening Theme - Life, The Unsuspecting Captive," that album was also the first released on Nesmith's record label, Pacific Arts.
He then created "PopClips," the first-ever music-video program, which aired years before the dawn of MTV. That same year, Nesmith also recorded INFINITE RIDER ON THE BIG DOGMA, which featured "Cruisin'" and "Light," which also appear on this set. Nesmith made videos for those songs and others and released them in 1981 as Elephant Parts. A mix of comedy sketches and music videos, this "video album" won the very first Grammy Award for Music Video.
INFINITE TUESDAY ends with a pair of tracks from albums released after Nesmith returned from an extended recording hiatus: "Laugh Kills Lonesome" from ...TROPICAL CAMPFIRES... (1992), and "Rays," the title song from his 2005 album.
The set flows in mostly chronological order, beginning in 1965 when Nesmith recorded "The New Recruit" using the pseudonym Michael Blessing. Monkee-mania took over a year later. Two songs by the Monkees included here neatly bookend Nesmith's tenure in the group, with "Papa Gene's Blues" from the band's 1966 self-titled debut, and "Listen To The Band" from THE MONKEES PRESENT, Nesmith's last album with the group for more than 20 years.
The collection focuses mainly on the numerous solo albums that Nesmith recorded during the Seventies. He started in 1970 with MAGNETIC SOUTH and LOOSE SALUTE, country-rock albums that featured Nesmith and The First National Band, a group he collaborated with for several years. INFINITE TUESDAY features a song from each album: "Silver Moon" and "Joanne," Nesmith's first Top 40 hit as a solo artist.
Nesmith embraced a multimedia approach to making music in 1975 to create THE PRISON, an album that was to be played as the "soundtrack" to a novella that came with the music. Represented on this set by "Opening Theme - Life, The Unsuspecting Captive," that album was also the first released on Nesmith's record label, Pacific Arts.
He then created "PopClips," the first-ever music-video program, which aired years before the dawn of MTV. That same year, Nesmith also recorded INFINITE RIDER ON THE BIG DOGMA, which featured "Cruisin'" and "Light," which also appear on this set. Nesmith made videos for those songs and others and released them in 1981 as Elephant Parts. A mix of comedy sketches and music videos, this "video album" won the very first Grammy Award for Music Video.
INFINITE TUESDAY ends with a pair of tracks from albums released after Nesmith returned from an extended recording hiatus: "Laugh Kills Lonesome" from ...TROPICAL CAMPFIRES... (1992), and "Rays," the title song from his 2005 album.
| Pre-order it here » |
MONKEES.COM EXCLUSIVE:
THE MONKEES - COMPLETE TV SERIES BLU-RAY
Relive all your favorite Monkee-mania moments with THE MONKEES - THE COMPLETE SERIES on Blu-ray. This extraordinary collection features commentaries from all four Monkees, original Kellogg's Monkees commercials, the 1969 TV Special "33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee," the 1968 Monkees film "HEAD" in HD with never-before-seen outtakes, a bonus disc with hours of unseen material, unique packaging including a 7" featuring "Star Collector" b/w "Goin' Down" in rare TV mono mixes and much, much more.
| Strictly limited to 10,000 individually numbered sets, you will only find it at Monkees.com. » |
Saturday night the Box Tops played
a sold out show at the Wild Rose Casino in Emmetsburg, Iowa.
The crowd loved the songs, Memphis
stories and an impromptu tribute to Chuck Berry.
Watch for the Box Tops on this
summer's Happy Together tour.
Rick
Can't wait to see you guys when the tour hits
Chicago in August. (kk)
Just got this from Jim Peterik of The Ides of
March ...
Remember those little photo booths
they used to have in dime stores where you could put in a quarter and cram
yourself (or more) into the booth and try and put on a different expresssion
with each shot? Well, when I was 17, I had a better idea.
Jimbo
For those of you who may have missed it (we send
to multiple lists depending on the subject matter), here is our review of the
Tommy James and the Shondells / The Association concert last weekend at The
Genesee Theatre in Waukegan.
Saturday Night (March 25th) we caught Tommy James
and the Shondells (with Special Guests The Association) at The Genesee Theatre
in Waukegan.
This was Tommy's first appearance at The Genesee
... and the place was PACKED! Tommy opened his show with a story about the
first time he ever came to Waukegan back in 1965 ... he was still going by his
real name, Tommy Jackson, at the time, and the name of his band was The
Coachmen. They played a small club that no longer exists (in fact, he says, he
drove by its old location on his way to The Genesee and found it to be an empty
parking lot!) and this trip, for his show on Saturday Night was the first time
he's been back since.
What a shame. Tommy ALWAYS packs 'em in and
Saturday Night was no exception. (I heard several comments Saturday Night about
how The Genesee wished they had booked him sooner had they known he
would draw such a crowd ... and apparently they've had several opportunities to
do so. My guess is that this weekend's performance, he'll be back again for
sure.)
[And he won't have to wait another 52 years
between Waukegan performances - we've heard that talks are already underway for
a return engagement. Tommy loved the theater ... and the crowd ... an
enthusiastic bunch who cheered him on for every song. - ed]
He covered most of his hits, including the
obvious: "Draggin' The Line" (which opened the show), "Crystal Blue
Persuasion", "Hanky Panky", "Crimson And Clover", "I Think We're Alone Now"
(which he did as both the hit single version and an acoustic, stripped down
version that will play over the end credits of the film being made based on his
best selling book "Me, The Mob And The Music"), "Mony Mony" (during which time
he ventured out into the audience to shake hands with the fans) and, for the
encore, "Sweet Cherry Wine" and "Mirage."
Along the way he also played some of his
"Forgotten Hits" like "Say I Am" (#15, 1966); "It's Only Love" (#26, 1966);
"Gettin' Together" (#14, 1967); "Do Something To Me" (#24 , 1968) and "Ball Of
Fire" (#10, 1969).
Tommy is a top-notch showman and the audience had
a ball. The energy was at an all-time high and I heard nothing but accolades
from audience members after his performance.
The Association opened the show with their
biggest chart hit, "Windy" (#1 for four weeks in 1967) ... although "Never My
Love" (also #1, 1967) has since surpassed it to become the second most played
song in pop music history, knocking The Beatles and "Yesterday" out of the #2
Spot and coming up right behind The Righteous Brothers' #1 monster hit "You've
Lost That Lovin' Feeling".
Most of their biggest hits were represented
(although I missed hearing "Time For Livin', one of my personal favorites by
them). These included "Everything That Touches You", #9, 1968) and "Cherish"
(#1, 1966) ... and they, too, pulled out a couple of "Forgotten Hits" along the
way like "No Fair At All" (#51, 1967, another of my favorites ... and a track
we've already featured a couple of times as part of our on-going 1967 Series)
and "Six Man Band" (#26, 1968 ... man, when's the last time you heard THAT
one?!?!)
Although it was mentioned, they didn't play
"Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies" which, quite honestly, was perfectly FINE with
me ... but they did play "Enter The Young", the song they opened The Monterey
Pop Festival with back in 1967. They also performed covers of "Walk Away
Renee", the Left Banke / Four Tops hit and "California Dreamin' by The Mamas and
The Papas, who helped to organize Monterey Pop ... and headlined and closed the
show.
(Lots more on Monterey Pop as our '67 Series
continues ... if you're not already following this, please check it out ... with
March nearly over, you've got a bit of catching up to do!)
They closed their show with their first hit,
"Along Comes Mary", another show-stopper.
I found The Association to be in excellent voice
Saturday Night ... probably the best I've heard them in years ... and they kept
the audience amused with entertaining stories throughout their set. They'll be
back at The Genesee in August as part of this year's Happy Together Tour, which
also features The Turtles (of course!), Chuck Negron, formerly of Three Dog
Night, The Cowsills, the recently resurrected Box Tops (who had one of 1967's
very biggest hits with "The Letter") and Ron Dante, the voice of The Archies,
The Cuff Links and The Detergents. Tickets are currently on sale for this
concert through The Genesee Theatre Box Office ... http://www1.ticketmaster.com/event/0700524FF52E852C?brand=genesee&camefrom=CFC_GENESEE#efeat4212
Hope to see some of you
there!
And this just in from Tom Cuddy and The
Premier Radio Network ... boy, talk about a fun show to see!
(Written by Mike McCann, Premiere Radio
Networks)
MICKY DOLENZ: Tour With Mark Lindsay is a
Go
The two '60s icons will hit the road together to salute the 50th
anniversary of the Summer of Love. Instead of going out with The
Monkees this summer, Micky Dolenz
will join up with the voice of another classic '60s band -- Mark Lindsay, from Paul Revere and The Raiders. In addition to
their own hits, they'll celebrate music from other bands who helped recharge the
rock and roll world in 1967.
Micky: "50 Summers of Love,
we're calling it. And it's Mark and I and a Beatle tribute band. It's to
celebrate to the '67 Summer of Love."
The longtime friends were in the two most-televised bands of their
time -- The Monkees with their prime-time sitcom and Paul Revere and the Raiders
on the ABC daytime series Where the Action
Is and Happening
'68.
Micky
Dolenz says he and Mark Lindsay are ideal tour partners ...
"We really have a very
similar sense of humor. So this is not going to be like one act opening for
another act. This is going to be more like a 'show-show.' We're going to be on
stage almost all the time together. We're going to be singing each other's
songs."
And both recorded -- within months of each other -- "(I'm Not)
Your Stepping Stone," which became a Top 15 song for The
Monkees.
Micky
Dolenz says that he and Mark Lindsay even have a song in common
...
"In fact, the Raiders
released 'Stepping Stone' even before The Monkees. But, of course, I had the
hit. And he's never forgiven me for that."
Right now I can only find a San Diego date booked on July 14th ...
but we'll keep you posted as more concerts are announced. Meanwhile, we're
going to see Micky right here in Chicago when he appears at The City Winery on
June 13th and 14th. Tickets available thru The City Winery online box office
...
