THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,887) Sandy Salisbury — “I Just Don’t Know How to Say Goodbye”
From another of the great lost albums of the 60’s, here is a gentle, bittersweet, and “breathtaking harmonica-led” (Stanton Swihart, https://www.allmusic.com/album/sandy-mw0000108193) ode to the end of a relationship written by Sandy Salisbury (see #1,723) and Joey Stec. “[It] is an almost perfect realization of the styles of [the Association (see #1,264), the Beach Boys (see #667) and “the budding country-rock of The Byrds” (see #1,430, 1,605)] though the tune and loose, gentle optimism of Salisbury’s vocal give it a strength to stand on its own.” (Dominique Leone, http://therockasteria.blogspot.com/2017/06/)
“Such a beautiful song. Had this gotten the proper distribution at the time should have been a huge hit”. (willrue, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX78M0tD0n0) It hit me like a punch in the gut when I read Dawn Eden Goldstein’s account of how close the song actually came:
It’s been a while since I’ve posted about this beautiful tune penned by Graham Salisbury . . . and Joey Stec, which nearly made it onto the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack. Although I prefer the version that Curt produced that kicks off Sandy’s solo album, this version by the Groop is evocative and haunting. Here is what Salisbury said about the song when interviewed by Bryan Thomas of NightFlight.com a few years back: “The Four Star Music Company, led then by Dave Burgess, held out for one more point in royalty in order to allow this song to be used in Midnight Cowboy. So the film producers went elsewhere. That one fussy bit of monetary disagreement was VERY short-sighted on Four Star’s part. But that was the way it was done. Money, money, money…. Looking back, it would have been amazing to have had “I Just Don’t Know How to Say Goodbye” as part of the Midnight Cowboy production. No question about that! But I don’t look back with anything but gratitude for all that came my way in the music industry. There are riches far, far greater than a few coins and a bit of fame. Just making music with a bunch of talented good-guys is one of them.”
https://www.facebook.com/groups/curtboettchersunshinetoday/posts/10157632883108859/
Here is Stanton Swihart’s story of (the sadly unreleased at the time album) Sandy:
Sandy Salisbury was the shy romantic of the loose group of musician friends who formed the legendary studio combos Sagittarius and the Millennium [see #397, 506, 586, 662, 810, 1,002]. He was also the one to eschew drugs entirely, a distinction that could not necessarily be made based on the evidence of this previously unreleased solo album, originally recorded for Together Records in 1968 . . . . Like the music his bandmates made both solo and collectively, Sandy Salisbury is a heady, trippy, captivating concoction. In fact, of the first series of sensational albums that Poptones cobbled together or excavated from the Sagittarius/Millennium vaults, it is the finest, most complete work of the lot, nearly on a par with even the classic albums officially released by the collective. The album is a showcase for a talent who could sometimes get submerged in the shuffle of the group. Salisbury wrote or co-composed most of the songs in collaboration with various of his MIllennium cohorts, and drenches them in one of pop music’s most angelic tenors, a voice that is nearly identical in creamy, heavenly grace and elegance to that of Curt Boettcher [see #1,881, 1,886], who co-produced the album along with future Fleetwood Mac engineer Keith Olsen. Musically, the album is luminous, hallucinatory, and full of typically cherubic sweetness. The collective’s signature romantic fervor surfaces throughout . . . . [W]hile the album has all of the familiar Boettcher hallmarks, the production diverges in some minor but intriguing ways. . . . The album is simply joyous and celebratory . . . . Salisbury’s performance is . . . bouyant and accomplished throughout, and if it threatens to burst the album at its seams, it is also what makes this such a satisfyingly unforeseen delight.
“[T]he question of why [Salisbury] isn’t a household name becomes inevitable as [his] great sunshiney songs fill your head with melodies a surgeon would have a hard time removing. Just sublime bubble-gummy pop.” (Scott Homewood, https://therockasteria.blogspot.com/2017/07/sandy-salisbury-do-unto-others-1969-us.html) As to Salisbury’s solo songs, most unreleased at the time, “The sense of hook, the clean, gorgeous vocals, the sappy melodies, and the Baroque stylings . . . make them all ready for pop heaven. . . . This is magical, beautiful, and yes, sappy pop music. It’s lush, textured, and overly sentimental, as innocent as it gets, and as pretty as it gets.” (Thom Jurek, https://www.allmusic.com/album/falling-to-pieces-mw0000663715)
Tim Sendra tells us of Salisbury:
Sandy Salisbury is a singer and songwriter whose main claim to fame is being one of the integral members of sunshine pop guru Curt Boettcher’s cast of singers and players, appearing on records by the Ballroom [see #707] and the Millennium in the late-60s. He also recorded solo during that time, though most of his work . . . remained unreleased until they were discovered and issued decades later. Salisbury was born and raised in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, but moved to Santa Barbara, California to pursue his musical dreams. After playing with a group called the Chances for a year, touring the state and cutting an album that was never released, he moved to Los Angeles. Once there, he met . . . Boettcher, who was riding high off his work on the Association’s “Along Comes Mary.” The two found that their musical sensibilities and high, angelic voices were a good match and decided to pair up in a new group Boettcher was starting called the Ballroom. The group blended vocal harmonies and baroque melodies to come up with a singular sound, but their existence proved shortlived and soon Salisbury and Boettcher formed the very similar-sounding Millennium. Salisbury wrote songs as well as sang, and . . . did work on Sagitarrius’s classic 1967 album Present Tense as well as other Boettcher projects. The Millennium released only one album before the members went their separate ways. Salisbury went solo and tracked a record for producer Gary Usher’s Tomorrow label that featured most of the members of the Millennium . . . . to be called Sandy, but it was never released due to problems at the label. Also consigned to the vault were numerous songs written and performed by Salisbury over the years. He thought that Boettcher was sharing them with his music publisher, or that he might be able to record them himself, but instead the songs were kept under wraps to be used on future Boettcher-helmed projects. These imagined projects never happened, mainly because the producer lost favor with the music business and pretty much disappeared as the decade ended. Salisbury, too, put his musical career on the back burner. After reverting to his given name of Graham, he began writing well-received children’s and young adult books. . . .
[Boettcher] worked with a core group of musicians, and none of them were more talented than Sandy Salisbury. His pure-as-a-Hawaiian-beach singing was a key part of the Boettcher sound, and . . . the producer used him on a variety of sessions for artists like Tommy Roe and Paul Revere & the Raiders [see #109]. Salisbury was also a strong and prolific songwriter, and the duo worked on writing and demoing tracks at a furious pace for a few years in the late ’60s. Almost none of the songs were released . . . . and Salisbury quit the music business thinking that his songs weren’t good enough. . . . Both Boettcher and Salisbury possess high and clear voices that sound untouched by care or wear.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/sandy-salisbury-mn0000833169#biography , https://www.allmusic.com/album/try-for-the-sun-mw0004043481
Thom Jurek adds in dismay:
[Salisbury] wrote dozens of songs and recorded them demo – style on a sound – on – sound tape recorder in his California beach house before turning them over to his publisher, who did absolutely nothing with them because he was instructed by the band’s producer and arranger, Curt Boettcher, to shelve them for further band productions. What Boettcher essentially accomplished was keeping under wraps pop songs that would have . . . landed Salisbury near the top of the pop heap.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/falling-to-pieces-mw0000663715
Talk about bittersweet.
Here is a longer version, with Sandy accompanied by a chorus of voices:
Here is the Groop:
Here is the Millennium:
Here is Johnny Chester (’74):
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