Our 1967 Bonus Material is now being posted on this special
website. (Damn ... that means I've now got FOUR active
websites going!!! This was supposed to be my "take it easy" year!!!) You'll now receive bonus emails with links to take you to this page.
(Please remember to also check the daily calendar page here: http://forgottenhits60s.blogspot.com/ ... featuring brand new postings EVERY SINGLE DAY at 6 am Chicago time!
Meanwhile, other columns (like special features, The Sunday Comments, concert reviews, etc.) will continue to go out via email ... so if you're not already on the list ... and you don't want to miss a thing ... you need to email me NOW so I can add you to the list!)
And now on with the show! (kk)
Kent,
I just listened to the Phil Nee program ... What a fun show! I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the whole thing driving down the Interstate. The songs were among those we'd all choose from '67, and the commentary from both of you was interesting. I hope you two do some more of these soon. I was tempted but didn't pull over and do the Davy Jones shimmy. Excellent job all around, and great audio, too.
David
Thanks, David. Others can catch our segment here: http://forgottenhits60s.blogspot.com/1970/01/phil-nees-those-were-days-program-with.html
Early 1964 brought Beatlemania to America. Three years later it was Monkeemania.
Upon first hearing the record "Live", I thought it was the prefab four using a different name much like the Four Seasons did as The Wonder Who? After all, just like the Beatles, the Monkees back then could seem to do no wrong.
But The Merry-Go-Round turned out to be a Los Angeles area band led by Emitt Rhodes. A message song to the young, it first charted on February 24, 1967 at the Florida station where I was a deejay. A much requested single, it spent four weeks in our top 10 beginning in mid-March. It was a scattered regional hit around the US and reached only #57 in Cashbox (#63 Billboard) after spending nine weeks in the Cashbox Top 100 charts. When the group disbanded in 1969, Rhodes had a brief but somewhat successful solo career. He was a darling of music critics. Having grown up in Hawthorne like the Beach Boys, he wrote his own songs and was sometimes likened in comparisons to Paul McCartney.
A lot of people think that "Live" was a Bangles song when the girl group included in on a 1985 album. The original is truly a sixties forgotten hit.
Mike G
Disc Jockey Phil Nee picked The Merry-Go-Round version of "Live" as one of his Top Ten Favorites from 1967. He, too, mentioned The Bangles version, which I finally downloaded today. (They do a damn good job on this song!) I remember Linda Ronstadt recording a version of Emitt's "You're A Very Lovely Woman" before she broke through to her mainstream audience ... so Emitt definitely had his fans.
You can count me among them. I bought everything he ever did (and that wasn't an easy task for some of those releases!) His first solo album (featuring the hit "Fresh As A Daisy") got a lot of attention because Emitt played all of the instruments and did all of the vocals himself, something Paul McCartney had just done with his first solo release ... and he just happened to sound a lot like Macca ... which drew even more attention to this disc. This is one of those that should have been a MUCH bigger hit than it was ... solid straight through and still one of my all-time favorite albums. (kk)
Styx told me I've got too much time on my hands!
Here are various followups to some of what you've covered recently ...
"Yellow Balloon" was a classic summer of love song fer sure. You see Luke R. Yoo playing drums who, of course, is Don Grady from My Three Sons. That Shebang show was entirely from the stadium and included Casey interviewing Angels players. Yellow Balloon was also recorded by Jan & Dean and, in an unusual circumstance, I was able to work on both Jan and Dean's and Yellow Balloon's Sundazed CDs, as well as supplying photos for Nancy Sinatra's CDs! Despite a pretty phony (at times) persona, she was beautiful for sure. AND she did some great songs!
I listened to some of your Phil Nee show, too. Great stuff. Now, if only you could get Weber, Riley and Card on there!!! Glad to hear Tom Doody confirm Dex as the Shames' discoverer, as I have written in my liner notes for their CDs.
Here's Dex with the 1966 lineup from the '67 WLS Personality magazine.
Here are the Shames at Dex's Wild Goose Club with FH star Hooke front and center:
The New Colony 6, Buckinghams, American Breed and Ides of March ALL played at Dex's places as well as the other great bands of the day, as seen below, along with the greatest CFL and WLS DJs of the period.
Altho the Ides were likely pushing their new spring '67 45, "My Foolish Pride" at the above date, in 1970, Dex was still a backing member of the band. Attached, hear Dex introduce the Ides on stage at his club as they do a 6+ minute version of a Traffic classic!
As for the Riddles, it's hard to believe this great 45 was their only one. An October, 1967 release date for their follow up 45, "Your Kind of Loving" came and went without a release. The below press release came inside the Mercury DJ 45 sleeve of "Sweets":
And from Chicago's own "Psyche Pscene magazine:
Here are some more of my April, 1967 memories ...
The Ideals had some local success too, especiall with "The Gorilla."
A typical (for the times) varied list of artists:
And FINALLY, a photo of the BAND!
(Please remember to also check the daily calendar page here: http://forgottenhits60s.blogspot.com/ ... featuring brand new postings EVERY SINGLE DAY at 6 am Chicago time!
Meanwhile, other columns (like special features, The Sunday Comments, concert reviews, etc.) will continue to go out via email ... so if you're not already on the list ... and you don't want to miss a thing ... you need to email me NOW so I can add you to the list!)
And now on with the show! (kk)
Kent,
I just listened to the Phil Nee program ... What a fun show! I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the whole thing driving down the Interstate. The songs were among those we'd all choose from '67, and the commentary from both of you was interesting. I hope you two do some more of these soon. I was tempted but didn't pull over and do the Davy Jones shimmy. Excellent job all around, and great audio, too.
David
Thanks, David. Others can catch our segment here: http://forgottenhits60s.blogspot.com/1970/01/phil-nees-those-were-days-program-with.html
Early 1964 brought Beatlemania to America. Three years later it was Monkeemania.
Upon first hearing the record "Live", I thought it was the prefab four using a different name much like the Four Seasons did as The Wonder Who? After all, just like the Beatles, the Monkees back then could seem to do no wrong.
But The Merry-Go-Round turned out to be a Los Angeles area band led by Emitt Rhodes. A message song to the young, it first charted on February 24, 1967 at the Florida station where I was a deejay. A much requested single, it spent four weeks in our top 10 beginning in mid-March. It was a scattered regional hit around the US and reached only #57 in Cashbox (#63 Billboard) after spending nine weeks in the Cashbox Top 100 charts. When the group disbanded in 1969, Rhodes had a brief but somewhat successful solo career. He was a darling of music critics. Having grown up in Hawthorne like the Beach Boys, he wrote his own songs and was sometimes likened in comparisons to Paul McCartney.
A lot of people think that "Live" was a Bangles song when the girl group included in on a 1985 album. The original is truly a sixties forgotten hit.
Mike G
Disc Jockey Phil Nee picked The Merry-Go-Round version of "Live" as one of his Top Ten Favorites from 1967. He, too, mentioned The Bangles version, which I finally downloaded today. (They do a damn good job on this song!) I remember Linda Ronstadt recording a version of Emitt's "You're A Very Lovely Woman" before she broke through to her mainstream audience ... so Emitt definitely had his fans.
You can count me among them. I bought everything he ever did (and that wasn't an easy task for some of those releases!) His first solo album (featuring the hit "Fresh As A Daisy") got a lot of attention because Emitt played all of the instruments and did all of the vocals himself, something Paul McCartney had just done with his first solo release ... and he just happened to sound a lot like Macca ... which drew even more attention to this disc. This is one of those that should have been a MUCH bigger hit than it was ... solid straight through and still one of my all-time favorite albums. (kk)
Styx told me I've got too much time on my hands!
Here are various followups to some of what you've covered recently ...
"Yellow Balloon" was a classic summer of love song fer sure. You see Luke R. Yoo playing drums who, of course, is Don Grady from My Three Sons. That Shebang show was entirely from the stadium and included Casey interviewing Angels players. Yellow Balloon was also recorded by Jan & Dean and, in an unusual circumstance, I was able to work on both Jan and Dean's and Yellow Balloon's Sundazed CDs, as well as supplying photos for Nancy Sinatra's CDs! Despite a pretty phony (at times) persona, she was beautiful for sure. AND she did some great songs!
I listened to some of your Phil Nee show, too. Great stuff. Now, if only you could get Weber, Riley and Card on there!!! Glad to hear Tom Doody confirm Dex as the Shames' discoverer, as I have written in my liner notes for their CDs.
Here's Dex with the 1966 lineup from the '67 WLS Personality magazine.
Here are the Shames at Dex's Wild Goose Club with FH star Hooke front and center:
The New Colony 6, Buckinghams, American Breed and Ides of March ALL played at Dex's places as well as the other great bands of the day, as seen below, along with the greatest CFL and WLS DJs of the period.
Altho the Ides were likely pushing their new spring '67 45, "My Foolish Pride" at the above date, in 1970, Dex was still a backing member of the band. Attached, hear Dex introduce the Ides on stage at his club as they do a 6+ minute version of a Traffic classic!
As for the Riddles, it's hard to believe this great 45 was their only one. An October, 1967 release date for their follow up 45, "Your Kind of Loving" came and went without a release. The below press release came inside the Mercury DJ 45 sleeve of "Sweets":
As for the Riddles story, Tom Tourville's great 1994
"Back Door Men" book on Chicago rock shed a little light on the
subject:
And from Chicago's own "Psyche Pscene magazine:
Here are some more of my April, 1967 memories ...
This is what
was playing and appearing in today's, (1967's) Freeport, Illinois newspaper. A
few cool local faves!
How about this gig the Cryan' Shames played as a makeup
date for the one scheduled on the January snowstorm date and postponed for
obvious reasons. How do you follow Monk Higgins and the Ideals RNB with a pop
band??? Pretty cool!
Monk Higgins, a great sax player in Chicago can be
heard here on his biggest hit (?)
The Ideals had some local success too, especiall with "The Gorilla."
This coming week, the Shames headline the Burlington
Iowa STEAMBOAT DAYS!
Funny they used the raindrops ONLY, from a Shames photo
op on front page.
A typical (for the times) varied list of artists:
And FINALLY, a photo of the BAND!
Clark Besch
More on The Riddles ...
Our DJ Buddy Phil Nee had the chance to interview Ron Fricano of The Riddles when the Quill Records box set came out a few years ago. He sent us this clip to share with our readers ...
More on The Riddles ...
Our DJ Buddy Phil Nee had the chance to interview Ron Fricano of The Riddles when the Quill Records box set came out a few years ago. He sent us this clip to share with our readers ...
This clip is from a special I did when Collectables released a Quill Records salute. There were some strange cuts on there including the flip side of Sweets For My Sweet by the Riddles. This is with Ron Fricano. You mentioned The Riddles recently and I thought I would send
this along.
Phil
Phil also sent us this vintage clip from an interview he did with Arthur Conley, who was climbing the charts fifty years ago today with his big hit "Sweet Soul Music", essentially a reworking Sam Cooke's "Yeah Man".
I am sending you some rare interview clips that might fit well in your 1967 spotlight series. The first is a bit of a 1996 interview I did with Arthur Conley. He told me it was the first interview with an American dj since Sweet Soul Music was on the charts.
Phil
>>>As for the cover for Nancy Sinatra’s “Sugar Town” hit, it’s a beaut! (Mike Ogilvie)
Hi Kent:
There is one of the lingering questions of 1960’s Record Companies. You have Nancy Sinatra on your label and in her hey-day, you give her one picture sleeve. It’s not even that great of a pic somehow. How could Reprise (US) not have pic sleeves on all her 45’s???? Especially the “Sugar” Lp cover on Sugar Town or something!!! Talk about bad marketing, this probably would have jumped sales tremendously. Missed opportunity for sure.
Ken
You'll find a photo of that sleeve (from her #18 hit "Lightning's Girl") on the website shortly ... but here's a sneak peek ... she's still looking pretty damn good (if perhaps a little bit "Halloween-ish") on this one! (kk)
>>>Thanks to FH Reader padlercctx we just
got the definitive answer on that Sgt. Pepper's / Rolling Stones / Good Guys
Shirt scenario that we talked about last week. And, based on the
comments below the referenced article about the "Good Guys Welcome the Rolling
Stones" sweater, it sounds like its placement on the cover had absolutely
NOTHING to do with the radio station or even The Stones necessarily. (And it
turns out that it wasn't WMCA but WMPS ... so there goes THAT theory, too!)
Sounds like this is just the case of being in the
right place at the right time ... and having a creative photo shoot director
onboard. Read on ... this is VERY interesting (and I
can't believe I've never heard this story before in the 50 year since this album
cover was shot!) kk
>>>I
made the shirt as an entry in a contest to meet the Rolling Stones during their
November 17, 1965 concert in Memphis, Tennessee. I bought the child sized shirt
and sewed on felt lettersthat I cut out to spell out "The WMPS Good Guys
Welcome the Rolling Stones." It originally was mounted on a wooden form so that
it could be held up. When I found out that I was one of the winners of the
contest, I picked up the shirt from the radio station and took it with me (sans
the wooden support) when I met the Stones. In the course of conversation, Mick
Jagger noticed the shirt I was holding and asked if it was for him. I said, of
course he could have it. He held it up and that was the last that I saw of it!
I was later interviewed by Ann Hill for Hit Parader Magazine a year later. The
story was in the August, 1966 edition. When the Sergeant Pepper album came out
in May of 1967, someone at the radio station recognized the shirt. I first found
out when I read about this in a local newspaper. There was no photograph in the
paper, so I rushed out to the closest record store as soon as the album was
released to check it out. There was my shirt ... in living color! Needless to
say I was shocked, thrilled ... go ahead and add any other expletives of
disbelief! I did write a letter at one time to the record company inquiring
about the whereabouts of the shirt. That being in the day of snail mail and the
absence of the internet, I really did not know how to pursue my research. I
would really like to know what happened to that shirt. I heard some years back
that the cover was recreated somewhere. I wondered if the shirt was included. I
would love to see it again, if not to have it back. Do you know anything of its
whereabouts? By the way, I still have the newspaper article and the Hit Parader
magazine as well as my Stones autographs on the concert program. Thanks for
your interest in the story of my "claim to fame." (Mary May)
>>>It's probably changing hands for big bucks on EBay
these days!!! Has anybody ever heard this story before? Absolutely fascinating
... and so innocently come about! (kk)
Kent,
I know I haven't thought of this in a long, long time
- but as soon as I started reading I began telling myself "I Know This Story!"
Yes, this is very familiar to me. This was covered somewhere in the local press
here in Tennessee back in the day.
David
Definitely the very first time I've heard it EVER!!! Pretty cool
'tho. (And all these years people thought it said WMCA!!!)
kk
And, speaking of the brand new, deluxe 4-disc version of the 50th Anniversary "Sgt. Pepper" release, I had the rare opportunity to view a copy of this up close the other day and it looks absolutely AMAZING!!! Can't wait to get my copy and take it for a test drive! (kk)
And, speaking of the brand new, deluxe 4-disc version of the 50th Anniversary "Sgt. Pepper" release, I had the rare opportunity to view a copy of this up close the other day and it looks absolutely AMAZING!!! Can't wait to get my copy and take it for a test drive! (kk)
