THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
711) Poet and the One Man Band — “The Days I Most Remember”
Utterly magical heavy folk rock by some future musical luminaries, including guitar legend Albert Lee and two future members of Sandy Denny’s Fotheringay. The band must have been named after the line from Simon & Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound”.
The band doesn’t get nearly the respect it deserves, even from its CD reissue label. The liner notes I got with my CD state:
Poet & the One Man Band try a bunch of approaches vaguely related to late-’60s trends in folk-rock, singer/songwriter-oriented, and psychedelic music on their sole and obscure LP. None of them are embarrassing, but none o them are noteworthy or exciting, either. . . . [S]ome of the stronger tracks are those that get into the moodiest territory, like “The Days I Most Remember,” which is a little like the circa-1967 Zombies and Moody Blues gone a bit more downbeat and gothic. . . . [but it] sure would sound better as sung by Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent of the Zombies, though . . . .
liner notes to the CD reissue of Poet and the One Man Band
What kind of marketing is that?! This is Richie Unterberger talking, though the liner notes are uncredited, since the notes are identical to Unterberger’s discussion of the album on All Music Guide (https://www.allmusic.com/album/poet-the-one-man-band-mw0000843418). Anyway, Unterberger goes on to add that it is “a fairly average psychedelic-era album with some slight resemblance to the late-period Zombies, though there’s some typical, and unmemorable, songs in a more straightforward, harder-rocking late-’60s British style.” (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/poet-the-one-man-band-mn0001060807)
And for some background, Unterberger notes that “Jerry Donahue and Pat Donaldson would soon move on to Fotheringay, the British folk-rock group fronted by Sandy Denny, and play on their sole album; guitarist Albert Lee, Tony Colton, Ray Smith, and Pete Gavin would form Heads, Hands & Feet.” (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/poet-the-one-man-band-mn0001060807)
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
709) Blossom Toes — “When the Alarm Clock Rings”
David Wells calls “Alarm Clock” the “aural encapsulation[] of the English psychedelic pop ethos” and the album from which it comes (We Are Ever So Clean) a “sterling ’67 studio Britpsych effort”. (Record Collector: 100 Greatest Psychedelic Records: High Times and Strange Tales from Rock’s Most Mind-Blowing Era)
Fred Thomas goes under the Toe:
Under the guidance of rock impresario Giorgio Gomelsky (early mentor of the Stones and manager of the Yardbirds and Soft Machine among others) the band created their colorful and mind-warping 1967 debut We Are Ever So Clean and managed one more record before disbanding at the end of the ’60s. . . . Blossom Toes formed in London in the mid-’60s, initially starting out as an R&B/beat band called the Ingoes. . . . They changed their name to Blossom Toes in 1966 upon signing to Gomelsky’s Marmalade Records. Their sound shifted dramatically with their name change as well, moving from stompy rock and roll standards to a highly orchestral take . . . psychedeli[a]. . . . Their 1967 debut . . . didn’t meet much commercial success . . . . [It] embrace[d] Baroque instrumentation and vivid, cheery psychedelia . . . . [r]eleased just four months after . . . . Sgt. Pepper’s . . . . The bright, curious melodies . . . filled out with an overabundance of brass, strings, and theatrical orchestral elements. . . . Blossom Toes’ song structures are unconventional . . . . There’s barely a trace of darkness or anxiety in these wide-ranging songs, putting the album in a rare class of well-adjusted psychedelia, a good trip with no painful comedown.
Wells writes “[b]ooked into Chappell Studios with an arranger, a handful of self-penned songs and an advance copy of Sgt. Pepper, Blossom Toes were shamelessly told by manager Giorgio Gomelsky to find and explore their own Pepperland. . . . Melody Maker . . . [referred to it] as ‘Giorgio Gomelsky’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.'” (100 Greatest Psychedelic Records) However, guitarist Jim Cregan recalls that: “We’d started taking acid at the time we were making the [album], so our music began to be a little more drug-induced. Our songwriting wasn’t influenced by Sgt. Pepper’s, as is often assumed.” (liner note to the CD reissue of We Are Ever So Clean)
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
708) The E-Types — “Put the Clock Back on the Wall”
’67 A-side was on the third of four singles by the “Salinas [CA] Beatles”. (http://www.montereybaymusic.com/E-types.html) It was the band’s “finest hour . . . [a] groovy psychedelic rock gem. . . . [that] was played constantly on the soundtrack to the nifty soft-core exploitation picture ‘Blonde on a Bum Trip.'” (https://m.imdb.com/name/nm1257034/bio) Beverly Paterson says that the song was a “psychedelic pop classic” that had “trippy lyrics scrawled by the ace songwriting team of Alan Gordon and Gary Bonner (The Turtles, Petula Clark, and the Lovin’ Spoonful)” and “bristled with tight orchestration, circled by the E-Types’ signature pitch of right on choruses.” (http://the-etypes.blogspot.com/2009/03/e-types-biography.html?m=1)
Paterson tells us that the band drove “local audiences into a wild frenzy via their accomplished blend of Byrdisian Folk Rock and Merseybeat fashioned power pop” and that though they “were not shy went it came to tackling raw punk – and anyone who as fortunate enough to have seen the band LIVE can attest to their remarkable interpretations of Yardbirds tunes – their forte’ clearly remained in the harmony department, fostered by vocals so spotless and impeccable.” http://the-etypes.blogspot.com/2009/03/e-types-biography.html?m=1
“Two of their records peaked at #1 on the local radio charts, but the group never had a major national hit.” (https://m.imdb.com/name/nm1257034/bio) Montereybaymusic.com tells us that:
The E-types perform[ed] constantly in the Monterey and San Francisco bay areas headlining shows and sharing the bill with [band such] as Paul Revere and the Raiders, The Lovin’ Spoonful, ? And The Mysterians, Martha And The Vandellas, Roy Head, The Jefferson Airplane, and The Yardbirds. In 1965 the band won 6 battle of the bands contests including the huge KLIV contest that had 80 bands compete and took 4 months to complete. The E-types broke all the attendance records at the Coconut Grove ballroom in Santa Cruz except for the Righteous Brothers. . .only by a handful of votes.
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I consider the Ballroom’s version the best. Sagittarius’ is a bit too busy and overproduced for my taste and omits some verses. Aquarium Drunkard says (in reference to Sagittarius’ version) that:
[It is] a song overflowing with love, but mixed with lamentation that it’s not the right time, and fear that it might never be. Boettcher’s pure, ever-smiling voice floats on sonic sunbeams through the wistfulness, striking a strange mix of happy and sad that feels particularly compelling, like hugging a loved one goodbye. He sounds so hopeful that less sensitive type might even miss the pangs of pain entirely – the unanswered questions, the hesitation, the love too strong to end happily, the longing for better times, and the pining for affection that is actually returned . . . .”
First making his mark as part of the early ’60s folk group The GoldeBriars—where he showed a knack for complicated vocal arrangements—Boettcher became an in-demand producer for acts who combined the dreamy with the catchy, like The Association, for whom Boettcher produced the hit singles “Along Comes Mary” and “Cherish.” Boettcher formed his own band, The Ballroom, and recorded an album for Warner Bros. that went unreleased, but got passed around among other young studio wizards like Wilson and Columbia Records songwriter/producer Gary Usher. Boettcher joined the Columbia fold and helped Usher with his experimental pop band Sagittarius, while assembling some of the top songwriters and session-men in Los Angeles for his own project, The Millennium. On the surface, the music Boettcher recorded with The Ballroom, Sagittarius, and The Millennium . . . is right in the mainstream of radio-friendly pop from 1966-68. His songs had the angelic harmonies of The Association and The Mamas & The Papas, the aspirational naïveté of The Beach Boys, the live-inside-the-music atmospherics of The Beatles, and the lysergic tinge of every California band from San Francisco on down. But Boettcher and Usher were also interested in the avant-garde and classical music, and their highbrow approach to the sweet and fluffy didn’t connect in an era where rock ’n’ roll was getting harder and rowdier. Both Sagittarius’ debut album Present Tense and The Millennium’s debut album Begin [see #397, 506, 586, 662] were expensive flops for Columbia in 1968, and Boettcher and Usher lost their wunderkind cachet.
In late 1966 The Ballroom was formed in Los Angeles. The band consisted of Boettcher, Michele O’Malley, whom Boettcher had recently befriended, oboist Jim Bell . . . and Sandy Salisbury . . . . It’s likely that Boettcher didn’t like The Ballroom being labeled as a Mamas and Papas-type band because that’s not the sound he was going for. He had been using hallucinogenic drugs, and in accord with that experience he was trying to “create music that was not only inspired by psychedelic drugs, but would recreate the psychedelic experience with all its freedom and possibility, in the mind of the listener,” explains Dawn Eden, noted Boettcher historian. To the ears of most Ballroom fans, the sound achieved was much like a hybrid of the two styles . . . . The Ballroom recorded enough songs to fill an album, with Boettcher and colleague Keith Olsen, who had recently left The Music Machine, co-producing. Two of those songs, the Peter Pan-like “Spinning, Spinning, Spinning” and “Baby, Please Don’t Go,” an absolute gem of a freakout, were slated for release as Warner Bros. 7027 in May of 1967. It’s likely there were never stock copies made of that single, but it was shipped to radio stations, and apparently “Spinning, Spinning, Spinning” was heard by several people, among them a band from New Zealand called The Simple Image, whose recording of it . . . soared to #1 on the local charts in mid-1968. Unfortunately, the Ballroom version did not experience a similar fate anywhere in the world, and any plans Warner Brothers might have had for releasing a Ballroom album were scrapped. . . .
liner notes to the Magic Time: The Millennium/Ballroom comp
Richie Unterberger adds that:
Boettcher had already made his mark on the Los Angeles pop/rock prior to the formation of the Ballroom in late 1966, primarily for his production work with the Association. The Curt Boettche production “That’s the Way It’s Gonna Be,” [#18] a single by Lee Mallory, won the admiration of Brian Wilson. . . . The Ballroom recorded an album’s worth of material for Warner Brothers, produced by Boettcher, who wrote many of the songs as well. The Ballroom’s recordings were bedrock sunshine pop: super-optimistic lyrics, ultra-sweet commercial melodies, sophisticated and sometimes experimental production and arrangements, and high harmonies . . . .
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
706)Eternity’s Children — “Lifetime Day”
Sweet ’68 album track and ’69 B-side about two lovers who don’t need to engage in the games others play. Dawn Eden says “[t]he cherubic [bassist Charlie] Ross had the most angelic voice among them, conveying a sweet innocence that can be heard . . . on . . . ‘Lifetime Day’.” (liner notes to the CD comp Eternity’s Children)
Dawn continues:
They were from Mississippi, yet they excelled in West Coast soft pop. They were co-produced by the legendary Curt Boettcher, yet they made some of their best music without him. They were intelligent and college-educated, yet they signed their lives away to a pair of entrepreneurs whose previous management experience extended only to a chain of health clubs. . . . [They were] the best West Coast soft pop group ever to come out of Biloxi.
liner notes to Eternity’s Children
Straight outta Biloxi!
Jason Ankeny gives some more history:
Eternity’s Children were formed in Cleveland, MS, in 1965 by . . . students at Delta College. . . . [They] began developing the complex, overlapping vocal harmonies that remained the hallmark of their sound throughout their career. . . . With the addition of local folksinger Linda Lawley, the fledgling band adopted the more contemporary moniker Eternity’s Children, and after Baton Rouge health club magnate Ray Roy caught one of their live appearances, he convinced business partner . . . to form a management company . . . which soon signed the group to a contract. Eternity’s Children quickly recorded a demo that made its way to A&M . . . and in the spring of 1967 recorded their lone effort for the label . . . . The record went nowhere . . . [and they] were quickly dropped by A&M. . . . [They] landed . . . a deal with Capitol’s tax-shelter subsidiary, Tower . . . . During production of the album, relations between the members of Eternity’s Children and their management became increasingly strained, and prior to the LP’s mid-1968 [three Band members] exited. . . . An appearance on American Bandstand spurred “Mrs. Bluebird” up the pop charts, but Tower did little to promote the single or the band, and after three weeks at number 69 on Billboard, both quickly plummeted out of the Hot 100. Eternity’s Children nevertheless reconvened to begin work on their second album . . . . Tower abruptly scuttled [its] U.S. release; the album did appear on Capitol’s Canadian branch (“Mrs. Bluebird” was a sizable hit north of the border).
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
705) Al Kooper — “First Time Around”
Another glorious Band-y cut from Kooper’s second solo album, ’69’s You Never Know Who Your Friends Are (see #642). Kooper himself says that “This is one of my favorite albums and arrangement-wise, it’s probably song-for-song, my best batch. It’s recorded primarily with a big-band, and in the Summer of ’69, I took that big band on the road for my first tour since having left Blood Sweat & Tears the year before.” (https://alkooper.com/solo.html)
Kooper should have long ago been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Bruce Eder says that Kooper “by rights, should be regarded as one of the giants of ’60s rock, not far behind the likes of Bob Dylan and Paul Simon in importance.” (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/al-kooper-mn0000509524)
Eder goes on:
[H]e was a very audible sessionman on some of the most important records of mid-decade . . . . Kooper also joined and led, and then lost two major groups, the Blues Project and Blood, Sweat & Tears. He played on two classic blues-rock albums in conjunction with his friend Mike Bloomfield. As a producer at Columbia, he signed the British invasion act the Zombies just in time for them to complete the best LP in their entire history; and still later, Kooper discovered Lynyrd Skynyrd and produced their best work.
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This apparently sordid story starts with the Strawberry Alarm Clock’s (see #127, 272) guilty pleasure and era-defining #1 hit — “Incense and Peppermints” — and ends with a cool and “extremely Strawberry Alarm Clock-sounding” guilty pleasure that “closely approximates the sound of ‘Incense[‘] without sounding too explicitly derivative.” (Richie Unterberger, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/crystal-circus-mn0000719957)
As to “Incense”, Bruce Eder tells us that:
[The] Strawberry Alarm Clock[‘s] . . . . name is as well known to anyone who lived through the late-’60s psychedelic era as that of almost any group . . . mostly out of its sheer, silly trippiness as a name and their one major hit, “Incense and Peppermints,” which today is virtually the tonal equivalent of a Summer of Love flashback. . . . In the spring of 1967 . . . [the band was] working out a new single, the A-side of which was to be a sneering punkish piece called “The Birdman of Alkatrash,” written by [Mark] Weitz [keyboards and co-lead vocals]. They needed a B-side, and an instrumental titled “Incense and Peppermints” — also put together by Weitz with help from guitarist Ed King — was duly recorded, and producer Frank Slay . . . ended up sending a tape . . . to a friend, songwriter John Carter, who had scored a . . . hit with . . . “That Acapulco Gold,” for . . . the Rainy Daze [see #540], earlier that year. He delivered the words to “Incense and Peppermints[.]” . . . [T]he band . . . felt offended by Slay’s maneuver, and neither Weitz nor [Lee] Freeman [the other vocalist] was willing to throw themselves into the lyric the way they should have, especially as Carter came down to the session . . . . It was his choice [to sing], backed by Slay, of Greg Munford, a 16-year-old friend of the group who happened to be hanging out at the session. . . . [N]obody seemed overly concerned . . . . This was “just” a B-side, after all . . . . [But] the single actually began getting airplay, but it was the B-side, “Incense and Peppermints,” that DJs were choosing and airing. . . . Uni Records . . . picked it up for national distribution. . . . The song swept across the airwaves gradually, fueling a sales wave that built into a number one chart placement over the next three months, in November of 1967.
In 1968, a band calling itself Strawberry SAC, featuring Greg Munford . . . recorded twelve songs for a planned album on All-American [which released “Incense”]. Two songs (“In Relation” and “Merry Go Round”) were pressed onto a rare promo DJ 7″, but the rest of the recordings were only released in 2001, on a vinyl LP from Akarma credited not to Strawberry SAC but to Crystal Circus . . . . Munford was never a member of Strawberry Alarm Clock . . . . [whose] manager/producer Bill Holmes, always looking to exploit a situation, put [him] in a new band, shamelessly dubbed “Strawberry SAC”. . . . There are a few odd discrepancies between the label on th[e single] and the liner notes of the 2001 album release: The 45 calls its a-side “In Relation”, while the album adds the parenthetical “(To Our Times)”. . . . [and] the album adds producer Holmes as a writer.
While I, of course, don’t know what actually happened, Lynching tells us that:
Strawberry SAC . . . . was Bill Holmes taking Greg . . . after being discovered by the Alarm Clock he was managing badly. He put this group together as his response but the musicians didn’t know what he was up to. They were a great bunch of guys and talented. . . . [and w]ere told by Holmes to write all this original music in the “vein” of the SAC and that’s what they did. Then Holmes ripped them off for everything and copyrighted the songs himself, giving the actually composers part credit and no money. He sleazes off to Italy behind their back, had the album pressed and sold in Europe. Like Strawberry Alarm Clock, the SAC were victimized and lied to by Holmes.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
703) John Bromley — “Old Time Mover”
A delightful and whimsical McCartneyesque retro number by English songwriter John Bromley, who has written “over 200 works with over 60 recorded and performed worldwide by major artists such as Shirley Bassey, Sacha Distel, Petula Clark, Richard Harris, Paul Anka . . . John Farnham”, Jackie De Shannon and the Ace Kefford Stand. (Facebook). He also recorded some of his songs in the 60’s, releasing them as singles (backed by The Fleur De Lys [see #32, 122]) which were eventually collected on his sole album, ’69’s Sing (see #337, 350).
Bromley says that:
This was my attempt at trying to write a 1940s Dance Hall type of song — you know, out of tune sax, swing rhythm. The lyrics found themselves really and I just threw any old words together that fitted the meter and the rhyme. I suppose they tell a sort of story, but it is not autobiographical. A lot of my songs were based on imaginary relationships or incidents.
liner notes to the Songs CD (an expanded CD reissue of Sing)
Bromley “never thought of himself as a singer. . . . ‘I was really only interested in performing on my own original recorded demos’”. (Mark Johnston’s liner notes to Songs). The way he was discovered comes right out of a movie:
[He was working in a record shop in London when Graham Dee] overheard a bored Bromley busking behind the shop’s counter with a cheap plastic guitar. Graham was . . . trying to place the tune that was being sung. . . . [and] was suitably impressed to learn that the song that he thought he recognized, “What a Woman Does”, was actually a John Bromley original. . . . “He asked me to hold on and he ran around the corner and came back five minutes later asking if I could slip away for twenty -minutes to record a demo of the song.” . . . Dee ran off with the demo to Atlantic Records’s European managing director Frank Fenter[, who] was impressed enough by what he heard to rush John into his office the very next day. John was shocked, “Frank loved the song . . . . he offered me a recording contract for three singles and one album on the spot! I was hoping to get one of my songs placed with a major act by Frank, not a recording contract for myself.”Mark Johnston’s liner noes to the CD reissue of Sing
Mark Johnston’s liner notes to Songs
Reviewers often comment on how it and other of Bromley’s songs are imbued with the spirit of Paul McCartney: Rob Jones calls his songs “Macca-esque psychedelia” (https://thedeletebin.com/2014/09/01/john-bromley-sings-so-many-things/) and John Reed calls Bromley “a singer-songwriter firmly rooted in the Macca tradition – and it’s possible to hear echoes of Beatles ballads such as Yesterday or Eleanor Rigby in many of his compositions.” (https://recordcollectormag.com/reviews/album/john-bromley-songs). “Old Time Mover” would not have felt out of place on the White Album or ’70’s McCartney.
If Bromley’s singles had been released a year or two earlier, they would likely have received the rapturous reception they deserved. Rob Jones perceptively notes that:
[B]y 1969, there had been a bit of a shift where this approach was concerned since the height of the psych period in 1966-67. The world had become less optimistic and open to whimsy by then, two years after the summer of love, and after some of the figureheads of the civil rights movement were no more. British psychedelia had begun to mutate into a more “progressive” and serious direction to contrast the nostalgic and twee nature of what psych bands had created. King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King is a good example of a darker, and less romanticized musical and thematic landscape from bands in Britain by the end of the 1960s when Bromley’s record came out. Perhaps this is why [Sing], didn’t take off. Bromley eventually left the music business for a time, escaping the ins and outs of an often callous industry. This record has been a sought-after treasure for vinyl collectors over the years since, an artifact perhaps of a lost era that is attached, ironically, to a new kind of hazy nostalgia for many. Listening to this song now, it’s easy to appreciate its charms . . . .
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
702) Lee Hazlewood — “Cold Hard Times”
I’ve never understood France’s love affair with Jerry Lewis. Sweden’s affair with Lee Hazlewood — that I understand. This is my third selection from my favorite album of Lee’s — his ‘70 soundtrack to his Swedish TV film Cowboy in Sweden (see #48, 269). Derek Anderson says that its “inimitable wistful, orchestrated country sound would prove perfect for the soundtrack to Cowboy In Sweden.”(https://dereksmusicblog.com/2020/04/18/cult-classic-lee-hazlewood-cowboy-in-sweden/) Ah, the movie:
Presented as a series of dreams, the movie alternates between absurdist skits and songs given totally incongruous visual settings. While much of Cowboy in Sweden is exactly what you’d picture—Hazlewood on horseback, cigarette dangling from his lips, alone with his doleful thoughts—there’s a whole lot in here you’d be unlikely to imagine on your own. . . . Punning on the song’s title, Hazlewood sings his lonesome prisoner ballad “Pray Them Bars Away” to a group of polar bears swimming in the blinding Scandinavian sun.
How did all this come about? Stephen Thomas Erlewine:
At the turn of the ’60s, Lee Hazlewood decided to leave America for Sweden. He had already spent time in the country, appearing as an actor in two television productions, so his decision wasn’t completely out of the blue — especially since he had become close with the Swedish artist/filmmaker Torbjörn Axelman. The year that he arrived in Sweden, he starred in Axelman’s television production Cowboy in Sweden and cut an album of the same name. . . . At its core, it’s a collection of country and cowboy tunes, much like the work he did with Nancy Sinatra, but the production is cinematic and psychedelic, creating a druggy, discombobulated sound like no other. This is mind-altering music — the combination of country song structures, Hazlewood’s deep baritone, the sweet voices of Nina Lizell and Suzi Jane Hokom, rolling acoustic guitars, ominous strings, harpsichords and flutes, eerie pianos, and endless echo is stranger than outright avant-garde music, since the familiar is undone by unexpected arrangements.
By 1969, Lee Hazlewood’s career was no longer going to plan. The man who had been around since the birth of rock ‘n’ roll was suddenly regarded as yesterday’s man. Suddenly, he was no longer in demand as a producer. Especially by a new generation of up-and-coming musicians. . . . Five years had passed since [his record company] LHI Records last enjoyed a hit single. . . . Hazlewood was fast running out of friends in the music industry. . . . [His] successful partnership with Nancy Sinatra ended in 1968. . . . However, he still had a few friends overseas. . . . He decided to move to Sweden with Suzi Jane Hokom. [H]is son who was a teenager, was almost old enough to be drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. . . . He had fought in the Korean War, and was keen that his son wouldn’t have to follow in his footsteps. . . .
Lee Hazlewood didn’t record the music especially for Cowboy In Sweden. Instead, [he] chose ten tracks he had recorded the music over the past couple of years. . . . Upon the release of Cowboy In Sweden, the film flopped. . . . Lacking the budget to promote Cowboy In Sweden properly, the album never stood a chance. . . . [and] the soundtrack . . . flopped. . . .
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Roberta’s version has two elements that subsequent versions (include Donny’s) hardly ever match: the masterful bass work of Ron Carter and the sublime vocals of Roberta Flack. Roberta overwhelms you with subtlety rather than shouting. Her floating long tones seem as effortless as breathing while sleeping, but nevertheless, the calmness in her delivery increases rather than diminishes the urgency of the lyrics. It’s almost as if her whispers are louder than any shout, and for certain are more beautiful. Ron Carter’s contribution is so distinctive that one can hardly think of the song without hearing that flowing four-note/three-note bass pattern. And of course, his vamp perfectly complements the pure long tones of Roberta’s phrasing, which are both caressing and arresting.
Throughout most of the eventful year of 1968, . . Roberta Flack was ensconced in a residency at Mr. Henry’s in Washington, D.C., an unfancy but inimitably hip jazz club . . . . Following the April 4 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., riots broke out in several cities, including the District. Flack continued performing her sets, lines forming around the block. . . . No artist working in the moment was doing a finer job of chronicling those tenuous, terrifying, revolutionary times. . . . [She] was admitted to Howard University’s top-flight music program at the age of 15, possessing prodigious jazz and classical chops and a voice splitting the difference between Sarah Vaughan’s elegant alto and Etta James’ deep-blue expressiveness. . . . She spent some wilderness years teaching high school, but word of mouth spread, and soon enough they came to her. When visiting jazz legend Les McCann was dragged along by friends to see Flack perform one night, he immediately provided his most forceful recommendation to Atlantic, and soon after she was signed. Flack’s debut, First Take [including today’s song] was recorded over a period of 10 hours at Atlantic Studios in New York, in February 1969. Her extraordinary backing band, consisting of stalwarts Bucky Pizzarelli on guitar, Ron Carter on bass, Ray Lucas on drums, and other heavy hitters gelled with seamless immediacy, as Flack lead them through a repertoire of . . . material she had spent countless hours perfecting at Mr. Henry’s.
Classy, urbane, reserved, smooth, and sophisticated — all of these terms have been used to describe the music of Roberta Flack, particularly her string of romantic, light jazz ballad hits in the 1970s . . . . Her first two albums[, including] 1969’s First Take . . . were well received but produced no hit singles; however, that all changed when a version of Ewan MacColl’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” from her first LP, [see #61] was included in the soundtrack of the 1971 film Play Misty for Me. The single zoomed to number one in 1972 and remained there for six weeks, becoming that year’s biggest hit. Flack followed it with the first of several duets with Howard classmate Donny Hathaway, “Where Is the Love.” “Killing Me Softly with His Song” became Flack’s second number one hit (five weeks) in 1973, and after topping the charts again in 1974 with “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” Flack took a break from performing to concentrate on recording and charitable causes. . . . A major blow was struck in 1979 when her duet partner, one of the most creative voices in soul music, committed suicide. Devastated, Flack eventually found another creative partner in Peabo Bryson, with whom she toured in 1980.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
700) The Hardy Boys — “Carnival Time”
Feel-good sunshiny pop from The Archie Show rivals The Hardy Boys’ ‘70 sophomore album (see #436). Yes, the Hardy Boys!
Greg Ehrbar writes that:
Everyone connected with Saturday morning television and the recording industry sat up and took notice when almost half the nation watched The Archie Show when it premiered in 1968 and the studio band fronted by Ron Dante as The Archies [had] albums and singles flying off the shelves. [T]he next task was to find ways to duplicate this astonishing success. For ABC, Filmation zeroed in on the popular Hardy Boys book series. . . . [and] came up with a solution to The Archies one business setback: since they were animated, they couldn’t tour. . . . At the time Ron Dante himself was forbidden to reveal his identity as the real-life singing voice of Archie. In the case of The Hardy Boys mystery-solving gang . . . there would be flesh-and-blood counterparts . . . that appeared in live-action music segments in conjunction with the cartoon versions. Problem solved! [T]he songs are catchy and entertaining, not at all a bland attempt to rip off the sound of The Archies. . . . [N]either [Wheels] nor the debut album were very successful. . . . The music is first-rate sunshine rock . . . . The main reason Filmations Hardy Boys series didn’t catch on . . . Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
Due in part to the fact that The Monkees . . . rebelled and eventually took over their own career, producers began turning to actual cartoons when manufacturing new rock groups . . . . [with] usually uncredited studio singers and musicians. . . . While the real [Hardy Boys] band is pictured on the album covers . . , the fictional names were given credit. However, Frank and Joe Hardy were actually . . . Reed Kailing . . . and Jeff Taylor . . . . The rest of the lineup was put together by . . . Dunwich, legendary for excellent garage punk records during the company’s brief run as a record label. Though it’s likely the albums are largely performed by studio players, the assembled band were all musicians, and did do the singing and perform some live shows . . . . [O]verall the discs aren’t quite the strictly formulaic bubblegum as they’re usually tagged as. Many tracks were provided by the songwriting team of Ed Fournier and Ricky Sheldon, remembered best today for the “Fat Albert Theme[.]” Other songs are courtesy of writers such as Ellie Greenwich and Gary Loizzo of The American Breed. . . .
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
699) Paul Jones — “High Time”
Speaking of Manfred Mann, this fun, effervescent crowd pleaser was Paul’s (see #170) biggest post-Mann hit (get it?!), reaching #4 in the UK. But nobody in the U.S. heard it, so I’m playing it!
Richie Unterberger tells us that:
As lead singer of Manfred Mann from 1963 to 1966, Paul Jones was one of the best vocalists of the British Invasion, able to put over blues, R&B, and high-energy pop/rock with an appealing mix of polish and soul. That made the mediocre, at times appalling quality of his late-’60s solo recordings, on which he pursued a far more MOR direction, an all the more perplexing disappointment. As early as 1965, the press was speculating that Jones — the only one of the Manfreds with any conventional heartthrob appeal — would be leaving the group for a solo career. Jones and the group denied these rumors for quite some time, but Paul did in fact hand in his notice around late 1965, although he stayed with Manfred Mann through much of 1966 while they arranged for a replacement. The lure of going solo was not purely musical; Jones also wanted to pursue opportunities in the acting field, landing a big role right away as a lead in the ’60s cult movie Privilege, which unsurprisingly cast him as a pop singer. . . . Jones rang up a couple of British Top Ten hits in late 1966 and early 1967 with “High Time” and “I’ve Been a Bad Bad Boy,” although his solo recording career would never get off the ground in the U.S. Both of these were straight MOR pop tunes that sounded much closer to Tom Jones than the Paul Jones of old. . . . After [them], he wasn’t even that successful in Britain, let alone America, where he was soon forgotten. Jones . . . mov[ed] his focus from records to acting in the theater . . . .
Paul Jones was born Paul Pond in Portsmouth, Hampshire . . . . When he was 20 he joined Manfred Mann and three others in a group that took the keyboard player’s name. They shared a love of jazz and blues but the success of Do Wah Diddy Diddy meant they turned into a pop band – which was not a direction Paul wanted to pursue. So he left.
“As an adult I’ve always been interested in what’s sometimes called music of black origin. That means blues, rhythm and blues, soul, jazz. When we started with the Manfreds that’s exactly what we did. Gradually, as time went by, we started to do other things. I suppose it was the preponderance of Bob Dylan songs (that made him want to leave). Not that I’ve got anything against Bob Dylan but it just wasn’t what I wanted to do.”
Oh, and this might blow your mind — Ralph Burden writes that:
Paul was friends with Brian Jones in the early 1960‘s. Both were students and used to meet up at blues clubs. They both played in blues bands before they became successful. Brian Jones formed the Rolling Stones and asked his friend to be the lead singer, but Paul had other plans at the time and turned down the offer.
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For a band who’s previous release only a year before had been a singalong cover of Bob Dylan’s The Mighty Quinn, a dark, voodoo jazz-rock LP replete with Albert Ayler inspired free-jazz solos must have come as a shock to long term fans. Clearly this is not your Dad’s Manfred Mann. . . . Snakeskin Garter [see #79], One Way Glass, and Sometimes are all particularly memorable. Mike Hugg’s voice may be an acquired taste for some, but fans of the creepy juju stylings of early Dr John [see #177] are in for a treat.
Mark Allan opines that: “This is as much jazz as rock. There’s hardly any guitar, but a swaggering horn section compensates. Imagine a darker, moodier Traffic with Mann manning the organ instead of Steve Winwood.” (https://www.allmusic.com/album/manfred-mann-chapter-three-mw0000467440)
Rovi Staff supplies some background:
Following the demise of Manfred Mann, Mike Hugg and Manfred Mann continued their jazz/rock path by forming Chapter Three, as a sideline to their lucrative career writing successful television jingles. This brave project was originally called Emanon and . . . featured session work from some of the finest contemporary jazz musicians . . . . The group immediately established themselves on the progressive rock circuit, but could not break out of the small club environment. Their two albums were excellent and imaginative but came as a considerable shock to any fans who expected anything akin to Manfred Mann. The band was blighted with problems due to Mann and Hugg having to support the venture financially, and because of trying to establish themselves as something other than a pop group. . . . Manfred soon returned to a more commercial path with Manfred Mann’s Earth Band.
The band’s approach centred around the “time, no changes” approach of Miles Davis and John Coltrane applied to slow, funky grooves with voodoo lyrics inspired by Dr John alternating with blaring big-band horn riffs and improvised free-jazz solos reminiscent of Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler. Although intelligible at a time when artists like Davis himself were crossing over into the rock/funk field and American “jazz-rock” ensembles such as Blood, Sweat and Tears and The Mothers of Invention espoused brass sections and atonality, the formula was limited and the band expensive to maintain, so it was short-lived and disbanded after two albums. Mann went on to form Manfred Mann’s Earth Band in 1971.
Chapter III was formed after the break up of the (Chapter II) line up of Manfred Mann in 1969 which featured singer Mike D’Abo, not forgetting the legendary (Chapter I) line up in the early 60s which featured singer Paul Jones. . . . Chapter III turned their backs on three minute Pop singles and light hearted songs to develop a more Jazz and Progressive sound often had lengthy tracks with solos. . . . Sadly for Manfred Mann’s Chapter 3 the band had unsuccessful record sales and paid the price for this and unfortunate for Manfred Mann’s Chapter III they had disbanded late in 1970. . . . A discovery has been made that an album “Volume 3” was recorded but was never released.
Mann had taken in bassist Steve York from the legendary progressive psychedelic band East of Eden. . . . Volume 1 was something that Mike Hugg and Mann had wanted to do for sometime but feared the possibility of a commercial failure. Hugg handles most of the lead vocals on a record . . . . The sound is very progressive, peppered with jazzy horns, keyboards/organ, a slow stoned ambience, creative arrangements and Hugg’s quite original although bizarre vocals.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
694) 49th Parallel — “Goodtime Baby”
You’ve heard of a fair weather fan. Well, here is an ode to a fair weather girl, all the way from Calgary. This sneering rocker is the B-side on the 49th’s (see #367, 481) final single.
Michael Panontin says:
Calgary’s torch bearers in the great sixties rock sweepstakes were 49th Parallel, whose 1969 chart success, ‘Twilight Woman’, garnered them a few deserved rays of limelight. . . . With MGM affiliate Maverick agreeing to handle US distribution, the single managed to tweak a few charts south of the border. Which of course gave Maverick the leeway to issue an entire LP, The 49th Parallel, an oddly schizophrenic mix of sunshine pop, Anglo lysergia and the gruffer acid-rock sounds of the era. . . .
[They] were originally known in the mid-60’s as a popular bar band by the name of The Shades Of Blond. With a stifling and musically limiting Calgary club scene they were never able to get farther than having one single — 1966’s “All Your Love”. . . . Throughout 1968 and parts of 1969 they toured throughout North America with an ever fluctuating roster. . . . [T]hey did hit and run recording sessions which bore several singles for Venture Records including “Twilight Woman” that managed seven weeks on the CHUM charts with a peak position of #16 in April 1969, and its follow-up, “Now That I’m A Man”, in September 1969 which managed a modest 3 week ride on the CHUM charts and a peak position of #22. . . . A full-length album was hastily assembled from singles and studio outtakes because the line-up was continually fluctuating and new recordings were impossible to conduct. . . . Eventually the band changed its name to Painter and released one album before mutating into the hard rock act Hammersmith who would finally succumb in the late ’70’s after two albums on Mercury Records.
The Calgary band had paid its dues: “By ’67 they’d changed their name to 49th Parallel, and had all but outgrown the local circuit. They played the prairies relentlessly for the next year or so, making over a dozen stops in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan at The Temple Gardens alone.” (https://canadianbands.com/artists/49th-parallel/)
As to “Goodtime”, Canbands tells us:
[Their album] was barely on the shelves for a month when [singer Dennis] Abbott left, who was replaced by new frontman Dorn Beattie. . . . They continued to tour sporadically over the next six months while writing material for a follow-up album. But after the single “I Need You” [with today’s song the B-side] went without a whimper on two separate occasions, the band packed it in by the spring of 1970.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
695) The Noblemen — “Short Time”
When one thinks of alumni of the University of Chicago, Milton Friedman, Philip Glass and Saul Bellow might come to mind. The members of a raw, fuzz-crazy garage rock band, not so much. Well, start rethinking, courtesy of Brace for the Obscure’s reeducation camp!
The Noblemen released only one single, but its A-side is one minute and 58 seconds of “pounding rhythm, pounding Fuzz and killer bass” (https://pennimanrecords.com/products/noblemen-short-time-7) — “a real LOUD Chicago screecher”. (liner notes to the Back from the Grave: Raw ‘N’ Crude Mid-60s Garage Punk, Vol. 4 comp) It had the honor of making Back from the Grave, Vol. 4, which also has this to say:
These guys were a 4-piece of freshmen students at the University of Chicago who formed in 1967, practiced at the U of C dorms, and recorded this prime cut about being stood up . . . . All 4 members had previously played in high school bands, and guitarist Jim Pearle had his first taste at wailin’ during ’65-66 in his band, the Marauders . . . . In ’68, with school work- getting a bit too extensive to keep up the practice sessions and gigs, they called it quits.
liner notes to the Back from the Grave: Raw ‘N’ Crude Mid-60s Garage Punk, Vol. 4 comp
Well, no one ever accused the U of C of being a party school!
Oh, by the way, the B-side is a totally sappy piece of sh*t:
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Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
695) Georgie Fame — “In the Meantime”
I like to think I was named in honor of Georgie Fame (see #103, 169, 634). Hey, my mother used to call me Georgie, and we share the same initials (along with gluten-free items!). If only I were so cool! Anyway, just to clarify, this cocky, swinging, exuberant number is a song that no one IN THE U.S. has ever heard. It did hit #22 in the UK (#97 in the U.S) in ’65. Millie Zeiler calls it GF’s tenth best song, “[r]eleased as a stand-alone single . . . this fun, jazzy number rightfully earned its place as a gotta-dance-to favorite.” (https://www.classicrockhistory.com/top-10-georgie-fame-songs/) Move on Up says:
Filled with soul and groove, ‘In the Meantime’ is absolutely perfect in every single way! If I was in a band I’d walk onstage to this belter of a track. Jazz and RnB intertwined to create a soulful masterpiece. Georgies’s vocal is spot on here and sounds sublime, the trumpets are crisp and the overall sound is smooth. Great track!
Georgie Fame . . . is one of British R&B music’s founding fathers. . . . [with immense] cultural influence. . . . The black music he championed with his band The Blue Flames brought new sounds to Swinging London and bossed venues like the Flamingo Club and the Marquee where he turned the English mod movement on to a whole bag of soul and authentic US urban and country sounds and also the ska and early reggae he heard in the Jamaican cafes and clubs in the Ladbroke Grove area of London. . . .
Georgie Fame’s swinging, surprisingly credible blend of jazz and American R&B earned him a substantial following in his native U.K., where he scored three number one singles during the ’60s. . . . Early in his career, he . . . peppered his repertoire with Jamaican ska and bluebeat tunes, helping to popularize that genre in England; during his later years, he was one of the few jazz singers of any stripe to take an interest in the vanishing art of vocalese, and earned much general respect from jazz critics on both sides of the Atlantic.
[He] depart[ed] to London aged 16 to seek his fortune. He touted his talents up and down the legendary Tin Pan Alley area of Denmark Street just off Soho where he was spotted by impresarios Lionel Bart and Larry Parnes who christened him Georgie Fame – somewhat against his will. Working with touring rock and rollers like Joe Brown, Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran young Fame became battle-hardened and was snapped up by Billy Fury in 1961 to lead his backing band The Blue Flames for whom he arranged and sang. The Blue Flames and Fury parted company and so Georgie took over . . . .
The[ Flames’] budding reputation landed them a residency at the West End jazz club the Flamingo, and thanks to the American servicemen who frequented the club and lent Fame their records, [Fame] discovered the Hammond B-3 organ, becoming one of the very few British musicians to adopt the instrument in late 1962. From there, the Blue Flames became one of the most popular live bands in London. In 1963, they signed with EMI Columbia, and in early 1964 released their acclaimed debut LP, Rhythm and Blues at the Flamingo. It wasn’t a hot seller at first, and likewise their first three singles all flopped, but word of the group was spreading. Finally, in early 1965, Fame hit the charts with “Yeh Yeh,” . . . . [which] went all the way to number one on the British charts . . . . His 1965 LP Fame at Last reached the British Top 20, and after several more minor hits, he had another British number one with “Getaway” in 1966. After one more LP with the original Blue Flames, 1966’s Sweet Thing, Fame broke up the band and recorded solo . . . .
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
694) The Lamp of Childhood — “First Time, Last Time”
’67 A-side is a gorgeous song of longing by an L.A. folk-rock group with a big connection to big rock royalty. As Jason Ankeny tells us:
Folk-rock combo the Lamp of Childhood was formed in Los Angeles in the fall of 1966 by singer/guitarist James Hendricks, the former husband of Mamas and Papas vocalist Mama Cass and her collaborator in the Big Three and the Mugwumps. Guitarist Fred Olsen, bassist Mike Tani and former Mastin & Brewer drummer Billy Mundi comprised the original Lamp of Childhood lineup, which signed to Dunhill to record its debut single, a cover of the Donovan classic “Season of the Witch” issued in early 1967. By that time, Mundi was already out of the band–he’d joined Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention–and after two more Dunhill singles, “First Time, Last Time” and “Two O’Clock in the Morning,” the Lamp of Childhood dissolved in June 1967.
“First Time, Last Time” was written by the band’s producer and Israeli classical pianist Gabriel Mekler. Andrew Sandoval notes that following TLOC, Mundi “recorded with Tim Buckley and nearly joined Buffalo Springfield . . . . Hendricks . . . moved on to songwriting for Johnny Rivers (“Summer Rain,” #14 in late ’67), Mekler wound up producing Dunhill hitmakers Steppenwolf, [guitarist] Fred Olson recorded with Mike Bloomfield, and Mundi briefly joined Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention.” (liner notes to the Where the Action Is!: Los Angeles Nuggets 1965-1968 comp) Misterjimi says that Mekler “himself had several flop singles on Dunhill [and was] producer/pianist for Janis Joplin, Steppenwolf, Genya Ravan, Etta James, Three Dog Night. Died young.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzBktQar-qw)
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. The playlist will expand each time I feature an available song.
All new subscribers will receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock magnet. New subscribers who sign up for a year will also receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock t-shirt or baseball cap. See pictures on the Pay to Play page.
When subscribing, please send me an e-mail (GMFtma1@gmail.com) or a comment on this site letting me know an e-mail address/phone number/Facebook address, etc. to which I can send instructions on accessing the playlist and a physical address to which I can sent a magnet/t-shirt/baseball cap. If choosing a t-shirt, please let me know the gender and size you prefer.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
693) Edwin Starr — “Time Is Passing By”
Super soul song from the SuperStarr’s first album, telling a girl who got hurt in love to dust herself off, get up and try again, ‘cause the clock is tickin’. I like Starr better when he’s making/singing about love than when he’s making “War”!
Steve Huey tells us that:
[Charles Edwin Hatcher] formed a doo wop quintet called the FutureTones while still in high school . . . . but Starr was drafted into the military in 1960, stalling the group’s momentum. When he returned in 1962 . . . he wound up joining Bill Doggett’s group as a featured vocalist . . . . Two years later, Starr wrote what he felt was a surefire hit in the spy-themed “Agent Double-O-Soul,” and left . . . to sign with Ric Tic Records . . . . [It] hit the R&B Top Ten later in 1965, and just missed the pop Top 20. . . . [He] return[ed] to the Top Ten a year later with “Stop Her on Sight (S.O.S.).” Motown head Berry Gordy subsequently bought out Ric Tic and took over its artist roster . . . . Starr [had] his biggest hit yet in 1969’s “25 Miles,” which reached the Top Ten on both the pop and R&B charts. . . . When he returned to the studio, it was with producer Norman Whitfield, who’d been reinventing the Temptations as a psychedelic soul act. . . . [and] had co-written a strident anti-war protest song, “War,” for the Temp[tations, but] Motown didn’t want the group to take such an aggressive stance. Whitfield recut “War” with Starr, and the resulting version was arguably the most incendiary song Motown ever released. It zoomed to the top of the pop charts in 1970 . . . .
Doggett’s manager, Don Briggs, . . invited [Hatcher] to join the combo . . . . After hearing Edwin’s voice, Briggs told him that he would be a star some day and said that he should use the name ‘Starr’ with the extra ‘r’. Starr traveled with Doggett’s organization for two-and-a-half years and gained valuable road experience. “If you’d done something wrong,” Starr recalled, “Bill would play a little riff on his organ, which meant you would be fined five dollars. One night he introduced me as Edwin Starr and played a riff, so I knew my new name would cost me five dollars.”. . .
We had like three or four days off in New York,” [Starr] told writer Bill Dahl. “I went to the movie while I was there, and the movie happened to be Goldfinger . . . . watched the movie like three times, and then went back to my hotel room . . . . I came up with ‘Agent Double-O-Soul’.” Starr went to Doggett and told him that he wanted to record his new song, but Doggett didn’t think he was ready for a solo career and advised him to wait a year. “I said to him, I can’t wait a year”, Starr recalled to Dahl. . . . [“]it’ll be old hat.” Convinced that his secret agent song was a surefire hit, Starr quit Doggett’s group . . . . [It] went all the way to # 8 on the Billboard R&B chart and reached # 21 on the Hot 100. . . .
During the 1980’s, Starr moved to England where he was a hero on the Northern Soul circuit.
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Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. The playlist will expand each time I feature an available song.
All new subscribers will receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock magnet. New subscribers who sign up for a year will also receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock t-shirt or baseball cap. See pictures on the Pay to Play page.
When subscribing, please send me an e-mail (GMFtma1@gmail.com) or a comment on this site letting me know an e-mail address/phone number/Facebook address, etc. to which I can send instructions on accessing the playlist and a physical address to which I can sent a magnet/t-shirt/baseball cap. If choosing a t-shirt, please let me know the gender and size you prefer.
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Of the album — Pilgrim’s Progress — from which it comes, Steve Simels says:
Despite the stellar personnel, the album was originally released on Hogfat Records, which must have been either a vanity label or the least heralded indie imprint in rock history. . . . The album itself is uneven; as somebody over at Redtelephone66 said, some of it sounds like Levine was trying to make the greatest rock record of all time and some of it sounds like he was just goofing around with some friends.
Songwriter Mark Levine was hanging out with some cool cats at the time, including a bunch of West Coast show biz heavyweights. Studio pros Mike Deasy, Larry Knechtel and Joe Osborn — all members of the fabled, A-list “Wrecking Crew” — anchor these loose-limbed psychefolkedlic sessions, along with drummer Toxey French and . . . roots music superpicker Ry Cooder, who was just finding his legs in the LA music scene, and a couple of years away from busting out as a solo artist.
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. The playlist will expand each time I feature an available song.
All new subscribers will receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock magnet. New subscribers who sign up for a year will also receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock t-shirt or baseball cap. See pictures on the Pay to Play page.
When subscribing, please send me an e-mail (GMFtma1@gmail.com) or a comment on this site letting me know an e-mail address/phone number/Facebook address, etc. to which I can send instructions on accessing the playlist and a physical address to which I can sent a magnet/t-shirt/baseball cap. If choosing a t-shirt, please let me know the gender and size you prefer.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
691) TheSunshine Company— “A Year of Jaine Time”
False advertising — a beautiful, laid back, sad song from the first album by southern California’s Sunshine Company! J Rodger says that:
[Q]uite a few tunes on the record contain moments of beautiful melancholia. Aside from a few happy go lucky ‘fluffers’ the sad undertones are a far more prominent theme. This is presented beautifully on . . . ‘A Year Of Jaine Time’. . . . [which] maintains it’s plaintive longing. [It] is the only track on the album written by a member of the group.
[The s]outhern California soft pop quintet . . . . [s]ign[ed] to Imperial Records in the fall of 1967 . . . [and] issued its debut LP Happy Is the Sunshine Company, scoring their lone Top 40 hit with the single “Back on the Street Again.” The album also generated the minor hit “Happy,” although with their self-titled sophomore effort, the Sunshine Company’s commercial momentum dissipated, and in the wake of their third LP, 1968’s Sunshine and Shadows, the group disbanded (although rumors of a completed but unreleased fourth effort, supposedly titled Think, continue to circulate).
Much of their material may have been pure sunny SoCal pop . . . . But their real heart lay closer to rootsy singer-songwriter folk than the child-like naivete conveyed by their name and some of their songs. . . . “It was a struggle with Imperial, because they kind of wanted to carbon-copy ‘Happy’ over and over,” confesses [singer/guitarist Maury] Manseau. “We didn’t like a lot of the pop, bouncy material they brought us. . . . [We had] this ongoing fight . . . with the record company . . . . We had to give a lot to get a few things on that we liked[.]” . . . [Producer Joe] Saraceno [says “]I said, ‘Look, let’s get a hit and then invite the public into your world after you’re popular,’ and they agreed to that.[“] . . . [He] calls them “the most talented group I’ve ever worked with or seen,” [and] puts a lot of blame on their failure to go further on the record company politics that had kiboshed the release of “Up, Up and Away” [lost to the Fifth Dimension] (“they really got screwed”). . . . Manseau recalls Bill Graham introducing the[m] at a San Francisco show at the Filmore with the words “I know that San Francisco audiences haven’t really warmed to this group. But I think it’s one of the few good things that ever came out of L.A.”
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. The playlist will expand each time I feature an available song.
All new subscribers will receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock magnet. New subscribers who sign up for a year will also receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock t-shirt or baseball cap. See pictures on the Pay to Play page.
When subscribing, please send me an e-mail (GMFtma1@gmail.com) or a comment on this site letting me know an e-mail address/phone number/Facebook address, etc. to which I can send instructions on accessing the playlist and a physical address to which I can sent a magnet/t-shirt/baseball cap. If choosing a t-shirt, please let me know the gender and size you prefer.
Just click on the first blue block for a month to month subscription or the second blue block for a yearly subscription.
Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! / Off the Charts: 60s Rock Revelations😊 