THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,685) The Bee Gees — “Like Nobody Else”
Freakbeat by the Bees Gees?! Yes, indeed. This ‘66 demo — not “officially” released until ‘70 — is smoking!
Wikipedia tells us that:
Inception/Nostalgia is a 1970 compilation album of previously unreleased songs recorded by the Bee Gees in 1966. . . . contain[ing] a mixture of both self-penned songs and covers. The first LP in the set is titled Inception while the second LP is titled Nostalgia, hence the album title. . . . [It] was first issued by Karussell in Germany and by Triumph in France, both being Polydor budget labels and therefore linked to their licensing deal with Festival Records. The Gibb brothers were unaware of its release until Maurice saw one during a skiing holiday in Switzerland. It did not remain in print for long . . . . The original songs, those written by one or more Gibb brother, were all written and recorded during or shortly after the recording of what made up the Spicks and Specks album . . . . Those twelve songs could have made up the contents of a subsequent Bee Gees album, but were ultimately turned over as demos for other artists to record . . . .
1,686) Los Bravos/The Brave — “Like Nobody Else”
Los Bravos [see #1,538] turn “Nobody Else” “into . . . Hollywood-ized Kinks” (Stephen Thomas Erlewine, https://www.allmusic.com/album/to-love-somebody-the-songs-of-the-bee-gees-1966-1970-mw0003021427), pop rock extraordinaire as only Mike Kennedy could do it on a ‘67 A-side.
Here is an utterly fab clip of Los Bravos performing the song in the ‘68 Spanish comedy Dame un poco de amooor…!/Give Me a Little Loooove…!
As to the plot, Jsanchez writes:
Mike, the lead singer of the famous group “Los Bravos,” is kidnapped by Chou-Fang, a follower of the doctrines of the fearsome Fu Manchu. Chou-Fang’s goal is to dominate the world through a chemical formula whose secret is known to a retired scientist. The professor’s daughter, the beautiful Sao-Ling, believes Mike is a superhero and involves him in the dangerous story.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0063852/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl
BRAINIAC-2 enthuses:
This wild rock-n-roll spy comedy starring Spanish rockers “Los Bravos” plays almost like a hyper-paced extended Spanish “Monkees” t.v. episode but with really decent production values! The Los Bravos music is a bit on the “pop” side of rock-n-roll but still has it’s charm. There are some wild psychedelic effects, some very groovy sets and an awesome animated sequence towards the end done in a sort-of psychedelic rotoscope style! Los Bravos perform several of their hits and if you are a fan you will want to seek this one out.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0063852/reviews/?featured=rw1573198&ref_=tt_ururv_c_1
Richie Unterberger tells us of Los Bravos:
In 1966, this Spanish quintet became one of the very few rock groups from a non-English-speaking country to have an international smash with “Black Is Black,” which got to number four in the U.S. and number two in the U.K. Lead singer Mike [Kennedy, real name Michael Volker] Kogel’s overwrought, pinched vocals sounded so much like Gene Pitney [see #382] that many listeners assumed [it] was a Pitney single, and the strong resemblance remained intact throughout Los Bravos’ career, both in the singing and arrangements. Indeed, with their brassy pop/rock songs and production — which sounded about halfway between New York mid-’60s pop-soul and Jay & the Americans — Los Bravos sounded far more like a mainstream American pop/rock group than a Spanish or British one. Most of their records were sung in English, and although they never made the American Top 20 again, they were far more popular in Europe, even placing another single in the British Top 20 in late 1966 with “I Don’t Care.”
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/los-bravos-mn0000290390#biography
Carlos Marcos tells us of Mike Kennedy:
Michael [Kennedy] was Spain’s first rock star . . . . As a teenager, he rose to fame as the lead singer of Los Bravos. He became known for his wild attitude, his carefree way of living, his persistent rebelliousness and his inevitable decadence. “He was a force of nature. He sang as well as Gene Pitney or Del Shannon, in the same register, but with more volume in his voice. [Nobody had ever heard] such a peculiar voice,” asserts Miguel Ríos, one of the pioneers of rock and roll in Spain . . . . In the 1960s, Kennedy — who was born in Germany — landed in Spain. He brought with him his outlandish character, his hypochondria and an anarchist attitude to a frightened, conservative country living under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. . . . He was born in a dreary Berlin in the 1940s. When he finished school, he moved to Cologne to live with his mother and stepfather. There, he worked serving beer in pubs and performing nightly in the clubs. “I learned to sing because I was a big fan of Elvis Presley. I imitated his voice, his gestures, his makeup. Pat Boone, Eddie Cochran and Ricky Nelson also fascinated me,” he explains. He learned English by listening to the American Forces Network (AFN), the broadcaster for U.S. troops stationed in Germany. His life was transformed when, while performing at a club in Cologne, he ran into some Spanish musicians from Mallorca, who were touring in Germany. They were called the Runaways. And when the group’s singer returned to Spain because his vocal chords were destroyed after working eight-hour-long days, Kennedy was left to occupy the position . . . . And that’s how Mike and the Runaways were born. After their German experience, the band returned to Mallorca, and he went with them. . . . While he was in Spain, Los Sonor, an established ensemble, signed Mike and some of the Runaways. And this is when composer Manolo Díaz comes into play. He had years of experience as the president of CBS Records in Spain and EMI Music in Latin America. “Los Sonor told me that they had gone to see this new singer, who was very good… but he was completely crazy and was a kleptomaniac and an anarchist. [He was] very punk … and we’re talking about the 1960s in Spain. But when he started singing, it was impressive. I recommended that [the members of] Los Sonor bear with him and support him, because his voice and his way of singing were among the best in global pop-rock. I told them: ‘You can’t miss out on this, you’re going to make millions.’” Díaz contacted Alain Milhaud, a Frenchman based in Barcelona who was responsible for getting 1960s Spanish pop to the global market. And then, there was Tomás Martín Blanco, a radio giant in Spain. The plan got quickly underway: with Díaz composing, Milhaud acting as producer and manager . . . and Martín Blanco pushing the songs on the airwaves, a new band was born. “[Los Bravos] became the most successful and international Spanish band of all time,” says Salvador Domínguez . . . . The album Black is Black was composed by a group of writers from Decca Records, based in London. . . . “I didn’t like Black is Black… I followed along without liking it. It seemed to me like an easy melody, [with lyrics] that didn’t say much,” Kennedy shrugs . . . . [He] gave the group a cosmopolitan air: he sang in fluent English and, despite lacking in Spanish, displayed a charismatic, uninhibited character. His songs in Spanish are tinged with the peculiar accent of an outsider. On top of that, at the time, the songs offered subtle messages that managed to get past the formal censorship. In the background, Manolo Díaz composed odes to youth, to fun and to freedom. The success of Los Bravos was ephemeral, lasting only two years, from 1966 until 1968, but intense. . . . Every song that they put out that took advantage of Kennedy’s aggressive and powerful voice — “Black is Black”, “Los chicos con las chicas“, “Bring a Little Lovin’“– had a huge impact, both in English and Spanish. . . . Kennedy assumes that, to a great extent, his own difficult nature caused the band to break up. The singer was spending a lot of time with a doctor, who was basically stuck to him. He explains: “I was a [total] hypochondriac. Everything started before a concert in Istanbul, in 1967. I wanted to try [some hashish] and it was mixed with alcohol and amphetamines. We took amphetamines like candy to hang in there, because we played for eight hours straight. Then, with that cocktail, I went to perform and felt terrible. I had arrhythmias, it felt like my heart was stopping, I had to hold myself up against a wall…” ” [That incident] became an obsession,” he notes. “. . . . I always brought the doctor with me, to be able to calm down.[“] Another incident marked the end of Los Bravos. In April 1968, Manolo Fernández, the keyboardist, had a car accident in which his wife was killed. A month later, Fernández, heartbroken, wrote a farewell note and shot himself in front of an altar in his house, which was covered with photos of his deceased wife. At the time, suicide was a taboo subject. This tragedy – along with the troubles that Kennedy was having with the rest of the group – put an end to the original band. Kennedy published 70 good songs over the course of his solo career, but he never reached the level of success that he had when he was with the band. He also refused to follow the rules, something that also didn’t help. . . . Manolo Díaz adds: “Mike didn’t have the business sense or discipline to move his career along. Milhaud and I took advantage of his enormous ability as a singer, but we weren’t able to help him establish himself. He continued to be an anarchist.”
Here they are:
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