Today we’re continuing to muck about in the music industry of the sixties, an inglorious task if ever there was one. But someone’s got to do it, so we know what the artists whose songs we’re hearing in this series were actually dealing with to mainfest their talent and get those songs out into the world.

Behind the scenes, the sixties music business was anything but the glamorous and lucrative one for artists that it appeared to be, as I laid out in excruciating detail in my previous post below.

I promised you some outrageous stories about what actually happened to some of our beloved artists, and here they are.

As they say, you can’t make this stuff up or believe that it went down.

The music industry makes Dynasty and Succession seem like child’s play.

We’ll look at these three stories and a surprise bonus at the end:

• Dionne Warwick’s “marriage of music” with her songwriter-producers, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and their acrimonious three-way ‘divorce’

• how Neil Sedaka recorded a hit song only to have it killed by his record company

• how Ronnie Spector and the Ronettes had their career deliberately murdered by their producer, Phil Spector.

I include videos that not only add background and spice to the stories, but also show what we lose when brilliant artists like these are prevented from sharing their talent with the world—because of music industry shenanigans.

Tip to new readers: Click on the title of the post and open it in a new browser window. Then you can play videos without being bounced around or subjected to advertisements. You can also change settings and make other adjustments.

Story #1 - “Don’t make me over,” Dionne tells Burt and Hal

At age 21, Dionne Warwick was recording demos for songwriters Burt Bacharach and Hal David when they asked her if she’d be interested in becoming a solo recording artist. She loved one of the songs she’d done a demo for, “Make It Easy on Yourself,” and agreed to sign a production agreement with the stipulation that one of her first recordings be this song.

To her great dismay, soon thereafter she was listening to the radio and heard Jerry Butler doing that very same song. It was supposed to be her song, not given to someone else to record.1

She confronted them about their broken promise. “‘We have a problem here. You want me to record with you? I am who I am. Don’t make me over, man!’”2

That phrase—‘don’t make me over’—was slang for ‘don’t promise me you’ll do this thing and then do something completely different.’ Apparently, Burt and Hal were so taken with it that it became the name of the first song they wrote for her, “Don’t Make Me Over.”

It was a song that almost missed becoming a Top 40 hit because the head of the label, Florence Greenberg, hated it as well as the other two Dionne songs they had submitted to her.

Stuck with what she viewed as equally unpalatable options, Florence consigned “Don’t Make Me Over” to the B side of “I Smiled Yesterday,” a song that eventually charted but failed to become a hit.

In a major piece of luck, or maybe the intervention of Fate, DJ Ernie Durham in Detroit fell for “Don’t Make Me Over” on the B side, put it in constant rotation, and brought it to audiences who voted with their ears and their wallets.

Not only did “Don’t Make Me Over” (below) go to #5 on the R&B chart and #21 on the Billboard Hot 100, it also became the title song for her debut album the following year and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000.

You would think that, with her admonition to Burt and Hal to keep the faith with her and her ability to bring them a major hit on her first time at bat, they would reciprocate in kind. But then the same dang thing happened yet again.

“Anyone Who Had a Heart” was recorded and released in the U.S. in November 1963 and became an immediate hit. A song that gives me chills when she sings it below with Burt accompanying her. You can even see how emotional he gets about it while she’s performing and afterwards.

Unbeknownst to Dionne, a scout for George Martin heard her record and recommended the song to him, and George in turn approached Burt about making a cover. According to Burt:

At one point it looked as if Shirley Bassey would record the song... but The Beatles producer George Martin suggested Cilla and I agreed immediately. It was late in 1963 and Liverpool was taking over popular music with some great songs and great people. There was an awareness that things would never be quite the same again—and Cilla Black was part of that… The great thing about the British is that they've always 'got' my songs right away. They are also one of the most loyal audiences in the world. I think Cilla reflected that kind of ability. She understood the song and she had a kind of long-term stickability, which is so very hard to achieve in this business.

George hustled Cilla into the studio and the song debuted on January 31st, 1964. Unfortunately for Dionne, her version was not released in the UK by Pye Records, the licensee for her U.S. label, Scepter Records, until the following week.

Cilla’s cover debuted at #28 and had already reached #10 by the time Dionne’s original entered the UK market. In the weeks to follow, Cilla’s whizzed to the very top, whereas Dionne’s late-to-the-party version spent only two weeks on the chart and failed to rise higher than #42.

Dionne was scheduled to promote the single in London after performing at the Olympia Theatre in Paris and introducing the song there. You can imagine her shock at arriving in London ready to flog her Bacharach and David single only to discover that she’d already lost the market to a cover by someone else.

She had to have wondered, how in the world could this have happened? Surely no one at the label and neither songwriter would have sanctioned this cannibalization of our new release.

But cannibalizing it is exactly what that cover did, in the UK and other markets.

By the end of April, Cilla’s version had achieved a million units sold, and kept on going. It was also climbing the charts in other countries, eventually reaching #1 in Ireland, New Zealand, and South Africa and #6 in the Netherlands. An analysis by BBC Radio 2 in 2010 determined that Cilla’s version was the biggest female UK chart hit of the entire 1960s. We’re talking huge sales.

You might conclude that Dionne was over-reacting, that this was just sour grapes on her part. After all, covers are common in the music industry and it’s not the first time that they’ve hit the market at around the same time as the original.

But, as Dionne explains, this wasn’t just another cover. It was a version that she maintains was “flat-out copied—note for note, word for word,”3 not a true cover in the sense of making the song one’s own, of imbuing it with one’s own style and interpretation. Instead, in Dionne’s view, what Cilla had done was, in essence, plagiarize Dionne’s musical work and pass it off as her own.

I’m not a musician and unable to give an informed view on this. What I will say is that, in her autobiography, Dionne reviews a number of songs she’s recorded that have also been done by others, including Dusty Springfield, Jackie DeShannon, her sister Dee Dee Warwick, and Aretha Franklin, and she doesn’t have the same issue with them. Cilla’s cover is the one that outraged her and that she’s never gotten over.

Here’s Cilla’s cover, so you can judge for yourself.

But, perhaps, there were some other issues that made this lodge itself in Dionne’s craw that had nothing to do with Cilla. After all, Cilla was new to the business herself and taking her lead from powerful and experienced mentors, including George Martin and her friends the Beatles.

The first issue, of course, is the feeling of betrayal in thinking she had an understanding with Burt and Hal, only to find that Burt had given his blessing and encouragement to making a UK version that could potentially hit the market at the same time as hers.

As we know from my previous post, artists did not earn decent royalties from record sales as it was. To lose record sales in the UK and other international markets because Burt hedged his bets—and put his own royalties ahead of his star artist’s emotional and financial wellbeing—would no doubt have come across as a betrayal.

Dionne was a once-in-a-lifetime talent. Did he think, for whatever reason, that he didn’t have to worry about losing her? That she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, walk? (Probably the case, given their production agreement and Burt and Hal’s experience and connections in the business. Would she have a career if she did?)

Burt’s pull-quote above, from 2015, is clearly an attempt to rationalize his action after the fact. The British invasion had yet to happen and there wasn’t an indication in late 1963 that “things would never be quite the same again.” But what difference did that make in this case? And Cilla had only achieved one song in the charts at that time, peaking at #35, so how would he know she had “long-term stickability”?

Another issue, of course, is what Dionne would feel arriving in London to promote her record and, as happened with the Jerry Butler version of “Make It Easy on Yourself,” find that someone else’s song had arrived ahead of hers—and no one had told her or warned her. Not the label, and not the songwriters who had promised the same thing wouldn’t happen again.

A third issue is why her label and Pye were so slow in getting the single into the UK market. The recording was completed in November, and yet it took three months to get released in the UK. As Dionne said, “Sometimes there are good reasons why a recording of the same song by different artists is an honest coincidence; other times there’s something a bit sinister about the way it’s done.”4

What was behind that delay? Was it done on purpose, was it incompetence on Scepter or Pye’s part, or was there an unavoidable delay for some reason? Clearly, she never received answers, because she was writing about it in her autobiography forty-six years later.

You aren’t going to believe this, but the same sort of betrayal happened to Dionne yet again in 1971, leading to the complete breakdown of her relationship with Burt and Hal.

She had forgiven all the shenanigans before, and considered the three of them to be friends, only to read in the music trade papers—at the same time as everyone else in the industry—that Burt and Hal had ended their partnership.

Not a word from either one of them to her personally, despite the fact that the three of them had recently signed a new contract with Warner Bros. and the breakup would put all of them in breach of contract.

Her father had heard rumors, but she had refused to believe them. She insisted that Burt and Hal would have told her if they were true.

Yet again, she felt betrayed and hurt, and she wasn’t even a new act anymore. She’d given them eight years of hits, been part of what was referred to by others as a “marriage made of music,” and interpreted Bacharach-David songs that many of her peers found daunting and she sometimes equated to “taking an exam.”5 It wasn’t easy singing that music and those lyrics, and yet she made it look like a hot knife slicing through cold butter.

Apparently, the breakup was over Hal going on vacation when he and Burt needed to redo the film score for Lost Horizons, leaving Burt to handle it alone. Years later, Burt told Dionne that he believed the three of them had already had their time and it was meant to be over, which she (and I) believe to be more rationalizing after the fact. (She called it “a crock.”)

After they missed a recording deadline, Warner Bros. CEO Mo Ostin called her in to discuss it and let her know that the company would have to sue her (and them) if she were unable to persuade them to resume their writing and producing partnership.

He arranged for her to fly on the label’s private jet to Lake Tahoe, where Burt was appearing at Harrah’s, to try to persuade him to mend fences with Hal. After sitting through his performance, she went backstage and explained to Burt what trouble they were in, and he was adamant that he would never reconcile or work with Hal again.

Reporting back to the Warners CEO, Dionne was again warned that legal proceedings against all three were likely to commence. Mo advised that, because Burt and Hal were in breach of their producing relationship with her, her only real alternative was to sue them for breach of contract. She, of course, seeing no other recourse, proceeded to do so. (As we know, artists don’t have the resources to defend themselves in an extended and expensive lawsuit with a record company.)

She settled out of court with Burt and Hal, and Hal called soon after the settlement to apologize for what had happened. Burt and Dionne, on the other hand, would not speak for the next 12 years despite performing on the same television special and crossing paths in various locales.

A reconciliation finally came about after Burt was commissioned by Aaron Spelling to write the theme song for Finder of Lost Loves in 1984, and Aaron insisted that Dionne be the one to sing it. Burt visited Dionne and apologized, the relationship was restored, and she let bygones be bygones and worked with him (and his new(-ish) writing partner and wife, Carole Bayer Sager) on various projects in the coming years.

In 1993, the “marriage made of music” would reunite when Burt and Hal wrote their first song exclusively for Dionne since the early seventies, for her Friends Can Be Lovers album, appropriately called “Sunny Weather Lover.”

They would also collaborate again on new and old material for her 50th anniversary album, called Now, released two months after Hal passed away in November 2012. (Burt would pass away in 2023.)

Dionne, Burt, and Hal were 71, 84, and 91 respectively at the time they made the album, and the old sixties magic was still there, as you can hear in this gorgeous song, “Be Aware.”

Relationships obviously have their ups and downs, but this one had clear signs of trouble from the moment she signed that contract. Dionne had dignity and stood up for herself, but she had to contend with an industry that had a pattern of treating its stars in a rather cavalier and disposable fashion. This extended to songwriters, producers, and managers, something we’ll see again in the other examples below.

Lest you think this kind of thing only happens to someone without power, experience, or a track record in the industry, and especially to someone who’s a woman and/or a minority, our next story will dispel that belief.

This is, in fact, a story about how a record company torpedoed the career of an established and high-profile artist who had made them mucho dinero over the years—and they didn’t care. What have you done for us lately? they no doubt asked.

Story #2 - Neil loses his Top Ten song to another artist

By 1964, Neil Sedaka had already had a stream of Top 10 hits, including:

• “Oh! Carol” (1959, #9 on the Billboard Hot 100)

• “Calendar Girl” (1960, #4)

• “Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen” (1961, #6)

• “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” (1962, #1)

• “Next Door to an Angel” (1962, #5)

In 1962 alone, Neil had pulled off two top five hits, including a number one. You can’t argue with success like that.

All of them were written by Neil with writing partner and lyricist Howard Greenfield.

Neil was a singer-songwriter who clearly loved what he did and shot out bolts of pure happiness onstage. He was also someone who had no need for auto-tune, as you’ll see in the live performance below of “Breaking Up is Hard to Do,” re-released as a ballad in 1976.

It is a song that, I believe, demonstrates his undeniable musical genius, hitting #1 with a faster version in 1962, and then repeating that same success in 1976 with a slower version that reached #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart and #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.

But his label apparently didn’t recognize his musical genius, nor appreciate his generous contribution to the company bottom line and to their salaries and pension funds.

In 1964, Howard Greenfield decided to offer Neil a song he had written with another Brill Building songwriter, Helen Miller, called “It Hurts to Be in Love.”

Howard and Helen had already co-written a hit song the year before, “Foolish Little Girl,” which The Shirelles had taken to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

So there was every reason to believe that this new song could be a hit with these three consistent hitmakers involved.

Neil upped the probability by convening a stellar group of musicians to record it with him, including Bill Suyker, Charles Macy, and Vinnie Bell on guitar, Milt Hinton on bass, Artie Kaplan on saxophone, Artie Butler on organ, Gary Chester on drums, and Toni Wine on backing vocals.6

Neil as usual played the piano. In case you don’t know, he was a classically trained pianist who was so impressive that he would be selected to represent the United States at the Tchaikovsky classical piano competition in Moscow in 1966.

When Neil finished the recording and presented it to his record label, RCA Victor, they refused to release it. It hadn’t been recorded in one of their own studios, apparently a violation of a clause in his contract that required him to do so.

We have to keep in mind here that Neil may not have been informed about that particular clause by either the label, his lawyer, or his manager. It very well could have been buried in legalese in a long legal document that he was unable to navigate and interpret.

Also keep in mind that the label was, in effect, telling someone who had already brought them five Top Ten hits, including one single that hit the top of the charts, that he would have to pay for the record to be made twice. Because, as we know from last week’s post, all recording costs are charged against the artist.

Either the label suits were making an example of him, or they were miffed at the loss of that income to RCA Studios, not to mention all those other production-related costs they would be unable to charge against Neil’s royalties.

Neil had no other choice but to remake the record in RCA’s studios, which he proceeded to do. But he wasn’t happy with the results.

One has to ask at this juncture, had there been a legitimate artistic reason that Neil opted to avoid their studios and make the recording somewhere else?

I don’t have any first-hand information on Neil’s intentions, but reading between the lines with information online, it appears that the RCA studios in New York, which he had used in the past, had become technically outdated by the time he recorded this song. RCA’s investment at that time was going into building Studio A in Nashville, and New York would not get new studios until 1969.

Perhaps RCA’s studios just weren’t up to the task even in terms of putting a new vocal track on the backing track he’d already recorded.

Because doing that is exactly how someone else got a hit from this song.

With Neil admitting defeat, Howard and Helen offered the song to Gene Pitney, who in the past two years had had hits with two Bacharach-David songs, “(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance” (1962, #4) and “Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa” (1963, #17).

The song wasn’t even really in Gene’s typical style, either then or later, but he wasn’t going to turn down a potential hit.

To Gene’s credit, he kept absolutely everything the same, not one single change, except replacing Neil’s voice with his own.

And, sure enough, he got a hit with the song (below), which spent 16 weeks in the Billboard Hot 100 and made it all the way to #7.

Gene and his record company, Musicor, got themselves a Top 10 hit, and didn’t even have to do anything except lay on new vocals. It even became the title track on his 1964 album, It Hurts to Be in Love and Eleven More Hit Songs.

Neil and his record company, RCA Victor, on the other hand, had the exact opposite outcome—losing out on what appeared to be a surefire hit. We have to ask whether the record company even cared when all the costs were being born by Neil.

Those costs were not only the recording costs he was forced to eat himself and the extraordinary loss of income he was forced to forego from what would likely have been a top ten hit. It was also the impact on his career.

The song represented an opportunity to make the transition from doowop to a more rock and roll sound, and to shift his perception as an artist in the mind of a public now embracing the sound of the British invasion.

That same year, 1964, Neil was also dealt a major blow when he discovered that his manager (his stepfather) had misspent the earnings from his string of hits. That dramatic setback, combined with the loss of “It Hurts to Be in Love,” would dog him and hinder his recovery as a performer until the mid-seventies.

To wound him even further, RCA Victor cancelled his contract in 1966 after three of his singles made it onto the Hot 100 but not to the top of the charts. (That’s commitment for you.) Neil reunited with the label in 1971 and they released his Emergence album, his own favorite and one with a cult following. But it also tanked in the absence of any promotion by RCA Victor. (Promotion is vital for getting radio play and TV appearances.)

Neil kept himself going through those ten lean years—the mid-60s to mid-70s—by writing hits recorded by the likes of the Monkees, the Fifth Dimension, and ABBA, moving to the UK (where many Americans go to revive and sustain their careers), and touring the UK and Australia where he remained as popular as ever.

It took running into good ol’ Elton John and being invited to sign to his Rocket label for Neil to get his big comeback in the U.S., with his second #1 single, “Laughter in the Rain,” in 1975.

[Elton has been a godsend to so many artists. Perhaps all labels should be owned and run by and for artists.]

Was all this trauma necessary? Maybe it was Neil’s karma, or maybe it was just ridiculously short-sighted and punitive management on the part of RCA Victor and a manager unable to resist the lure of easy cash. (A very similar manager fiasco beset Billy Joel.)

Would Neil have had a hit in 1964 if the record label had accepted the demo recording? Would his life have had a different trajectory?

Here’s his version of “It Hurts to Be in Love,” finally released in 2007 on an album called The Definitive Collection. I’ll let you be the judge.

Now we turn to our third story, of a producer who deliberately killed the goose who was laying golden eggs for him. Namely, Phil Spector and the Ronettes.

Story #3 - Ronnie and the Ronettes watch as their ‘wall of sound’ crumbles

The Ronettes, unfortunately, had quite a dismal experience with their first label, Colpix, and their first producer, Stu Phillips. Neither seemed to know what to do with the group.

As lead singer Ronnie Spector noted in her autobiography:

For a singer, having the right producer is like an actor having the right director. A good producer knows how to use your voice, and how to get it on record. He has to be able to write songs that work for your sound, or else be smart enough to choose ones that do.

At the beginning of 1963, the Ronettes decided enough was enough. They were going to line up a new producer, and the one they were determined to get was a young wunderkind, only twenty-two years old, named Phil Spector.

Phil had written his first #1 song at age 18, made a string of top ten records, and become a millionaire by age 21. The guy had the magic touch.

When they auditioned for him, he not only liked their sound, he jumped up from the piano bench and shouted, “‘That’s it! That is it!… That is the voice I’ve been looking for!’”7

It was Ronnie Spector’s voice that had entranced him, as well as Ronnie herself. And she was likewise bowled over by him.

The Ronettes were not of legal age, and Phil commenced a charm offensive to convince Ronnie’s overprotective mother to sign the contract on their behalf. He told her:

“that girl of yours can sing. I just hand her a song and she flies with it. A lot of singers will worry a lyric to death, trying to get it just so, but not Ronnie. She just jumps in and attacks it—and it doesn’t even matter whether she’s even got the words right. You don’t notice. When that girl wants to sing, there’s just no stopping her. She’s obsessed with music… The other two girls are okay, but it’s Ronnie’s voice that I want.”

Those other two girls, Estelle Bennett and Nedra Talley, happened to be Ronnie’s older sister and cousin, and Ronnie’s mother said it had to be the Ronettes as a group or nothing. She signed the contract on their behalf once he agreed to that condition.

From that day forward, the group was Phil’s obsession, and he rehearsed them every single night for months before doing their first recording. An hour with all three on the harmonies and background vocals, the rest of the evening alone with Ronnie focusing on her lead vocals. (You can probably see where this is going.)

The first song the group recorded was “Why Don’t They Let Us Fall in Love,” but Phil refused to release it because he considered it a good song but not a number one.

You can listen to it here. I’d have to agree that it wasn’t top-of-the-chart material, but, being 1963 before the British invasion, it might have charted in the top 40. If he had their best interest in mind as a group, he might have released it to build visibility and interest. But he was obsessed with being at the top of the charts.

What did come out of all this rehearsal and recording experience, according to Ronnie, was that Phil “knew exactly what to do with my voice. He knew my range. He knew my pitch. He even knew which words sounded best coming out of my mouth.”8

And he used that knowledge to construct what he considered to be the perfect song for Ronnie’s voice, “Be My Baby,” co-written with veteran songwriters Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich.

He also applied that perfectionism to the recording of the song, going all out to produce his unique “wall of sound” and rounding up what he viewed as the best talent on offer. This included Jack Nitzsche doing the arrangements, Larry Levine as engineer, the musicians in his ‘house’ band at Gold Star Studios in L.A. (the famous Wrecking Crew), Darlene Love and Sonny and Cher (among others) as backup singers, and a full orchestra.

Who didn’t happen to be included in what Phil expected to be the first hit for the Ronettes? That would be two out of the three Ronettes themselves, Estelle and Nedra, not there among the backup singers despite the contract signed with Ronnie’s mother.

Phil did succeed in his quest to produce a top-charting record for Ronnie, as promised. “Be My Baby” went to #1 on the Cashbox Top 100, #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #4 in Hot R&B singles, as well as reaching the top five in the UK and other countries.

It would be the Ronettes’—or should we say, Ronnie’s—biggest hit, a critical and commercial success, and a song that earned a distinctive place in pop music history as one of Phil Spector’s most ambitious, iconic, and influential recordings using his Wall of Sound approach.

And yet, despite all the kudos to Phil, it was unquestionably Ronnie’s song. I believe that she demonstrated this in spades over fifty years later, at the grand ol’ age of 72, when she performed “Be My Baby” without that massive wall of sound on Jools’ Annual Hootenanny on New Year’s Eve (below).

The problem was, when a guy went to the lengths Phil did to impress her and give her a massive hit, how could she then say no to his requests? He was making her dreams of becoming a famous and esteemed singer come true.

The Ronettes were booked and ready to promote the record on Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars tour that fall, in fact were leaving the next day, when Phil insisted that Ronnie come to California instead, to record another song he’d written with Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich.

The song, you won’t be surprised to learn, was called “Baby I Love You,” another love letter from Phil to Ronnie set to music.

What you might be surprised to learn is that her cousin Elaine played “Ronnie” on the tour, and Estelle and Nedra were again not included on a Ronettes recording. Ronnie had been unable to say no to her producer and proceed with the tour.

The exclusion of Ronnie’s sister and cousin from the recordings would, in fact, get established as the norm. Phil viewed Nedra and Estelle as just some easily replaceable background singers, and, as Ronnie noted, “As long as Nedra and Estelle appeared at our live shows and continued to share the credit and the money, who could complain?”9 Sonny and Cher and the Blossoms (Darlene Love, Fanita James, and Gracia Nitzsche) did the backup vocals.

But, as we’ll see, things started slipping with “Baby I Love You” (below) and continued from there.

“Baby I Love You” and their other releases in 1964 peaked further down the charts:

• “Baby I Love You” - November 1963 - #24 on the Billboard Hot 100

• “(The Best Part of) Breaking Up” - April 1964 - #39

• “Do I Love You” - June 1964 - #34

• “Walking in the Rain” - October 1964 - #23

No doubt the British invasion had an effect. But, according to Ronnie, the Ronettes turned out to have their biggest year in 1964. Not only did they have four songs in the Top 40, but they also did every major television show, toured with the Rolling Stones in the UK, and made more live appearances than any other girl group besides the Supremes.

The problem was that their producer had lost interest in producing them and giving them number ones. Phil had recorded them doing another song he had co-written with Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich called “Chapel of Love,” but refused to release it.

His excuse for not doing so was that it didn’t sound like a hit. It was then given to the Dixie Cups, and not only did they have a hit (below), but they knocked the Beatles out of the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for three weeks.

You can listen to the Ronettes’ version here. The problem, in my view, is not the singing but the production. Either Phil’s producing chops were waning, or he was losing interest in the group. Or, more likely, he was distracted by his increasing obsession with Ronnie when he was still married to his first wife, Annette.

It was Darlene Love who broke it to Ronnie that she was involved with a married man. Despite being devastated at this news, Ronnie opted to stay in the relationship and pretend that she didn’t know for professional and financial as well as personal reasons:

I also had my career to think about… If I put an end to our relationship as lovers, Phil would never record me again. And for a girl singer in the sixties, your producer was your lifeline. Without Phil, it would’ve been back to Colpix for the Ronettes. Or worse. If I said bye-bye to Phil, I would’ve been saying bye-bye to my career. And I had a sister, a cousin, and lots of other relatives depending on me for a living… I could keep my mouth shut and hold on to my career, my relationship, and my family. Or I could confront Phil and throw it all away.

In retrospect, staying with Phil may have been the equivalent of throwing it away, as Ronnie herself attributed the Ronettes’ subsequent slump and the demise of the group10 to Phil. In her view, he lost interest in the group in April 1964.

He didn’t lose interest in hitmaking in general, as evidenced by the fact that he had the biggest hit of his career in November with the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling.” A song he co-wrote with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and solo produced, it would hit the top of the charts, be ranked #5 for the year, and be considered one of the greatest songs of all time.

But his loss of interest in the Ronettes would not become fully apparent until 1965, when their string of Top 40s was behind them and they needed to put out fresh material to keep audience interest and maintain their fan base. Phil had them record a stream of songs but refused to release most of them, citing one technical issue after another. Rather than fix the issues, he shelved them and didn’t release them until after their divorce in the seventies, on some oldies albums in England. Ronnie believed that those songs had the potential to be the group’s best.11

Only two songs were released in 1965, “Born to Be Together” in February and “Is This What I Get for Loving You” in June, which peaked at #52 and #75 respectively on the Billboard Hot 100. The Ronettes’ last song was “I Can Hear Music,” released more than a year later and just making the chart at #100.

Many of their songs came to be covered by other groups and artists with greater success. The songs clearly weren’t the problem.

According to Ronnie, by 1966 Phil had started doing the same thing to every artist on his Philles label. He went into retirement after he produced Tina Turner’s “River Deep, Mountain High” that year, a song that became a big hit in England but not in the U.S., an outcome that deeply depressed him. He would not resume producing until 1970 when the Beatles commissioned him to work on Let It Be.

In the meantime, he destroyed the only career the still-popular Ronettes had left, which was doing performances and touring. The group was invited to tour the U.S. with the Beatles in August 1966, but Phil forbade Ronnie from going on the tour. She was replaced yet again by her cousin Elaine, much to the Beatles’ disgust. The Ronettes agreed to call it quits in early 1967.

Phil and Ronnie would get married in 1968, but he would continue to destroy her career and her confidence as a singer. In 1969, he presented her with a new song called “You Came, You Saw, You Conquered,” co-written with Toni Wine and Irwin Levine, but cocked up the production at A&M’s unfamiliar and state-of-the-art studios and produced a flop.

Then, in 1971, he arranged a contract for her at Apple Records and brought her to London to record a new song with him and George Harrison. It was one of George’s compositions left over from All Things Must Pass, called “Try Some, Buy Some.” The problem wasn’t George’s song but rather that Phil, who knew Ronnie’s range to a ‘T’, had already done the backing track in a key he knew to be too high for her.

The B side was called “Tandoori Chicken,” not even a song as Phil made it up on the spot, mostly having Ronnie sing the title over and over again. John Lennon joined in. It appeared that Ronnie had been punked with this one, probably payback for not being on their American tour. No doubt Phil had not told them that he was the reason she didn’t show up.

Phil had produced “My Sweet Lord” for George Harrison and “Instant Karma” for John Lennon, and “Tandoori Chicken” for her (below). At least “Try Some, Buy Some” managed to make it onto the charts, reaching #77 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Not surprisingly, the writing was on the wall. Although Phil was keeping her a virtual prisoner in their mansion in Los Angeles, she would escape with her mother’s help in 1972 and finalize the divorce in 1974. You can read the whole sorry story in her autobiography.

Ronnie would go on to re-form the Ronettes with Chip Fields and Denise Edwards, but it was too late. Ronnie would then go solo, and in 1988 the original Ronettes would unite in suing Phil Spector for unpaid royalties in a case that would take 14 years to resolve and go all the way to the New York Supreme Court.

What came out in the case was that the only monies the Ronettes had ever received for their hits had been $15,000. That’s it.

Depressing, I know. So let’s end this post on a high note.

Bonus story: How Dionne and Gladys one-upped Patti’s controlling manager

Although this post is focused on the sixties, I’m going to give you a bonus story set in the mid-eighties because I ran across it in Dionne’s autobiography and I think it highlights another way in which managers can work to the detriment of an artist’s career.

Dionne got a call one night from Gladys Knight, a good friend and a fellow hitmaker from the sixties onwards. Gladys normally recorded with her family group, Gladys Knight and the Pips, but she had this idea of doing a television special with two other women called “Sisters in the Name of Love.”

She wanted Dionne and Patti LaBelle to be her ‘sisters’ on the show. Patti was the so-called Godmother of Soul and another hitmaker since the sixties, first with Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles, then LaBelle, and recently as a solo artist.

Dionne immediately agreed to participate, and Gladys shared that she was having trouble reaching Patti.

She had contacted Patti’s management, who told her that no, Patti would not do the show. No consulting with Patti directly.

Dates had not even been set yet, so it wasn’t a matter of timing that conflicted with Patti’s schedule. They just gave Gladys—a friend of Patti’s, and Gladys Knight, y’all!—an unequivocal ‘no.’

Not to be deterred, Gladys asked where she could reach Patti directly, and management claimed that Patti was unable to be reached.

Is that right? Is she on another planet, pray tell?

You should never mess with the sisters. They haven’t been in the music business for decades for nothing. They have their ways.

Dionne, being a people person and knowing everyone, called Patti’s husband, Armistead, and got Patti’s number at a hotel in Canada. She called Patti and told her about the show.

Of course, Patti told her exactly the opposite of her manager. ‘Yes.’ An unequivocal ‘yes.’ And Dionne relayed that to Gladys.

The three superstar ‘sisters,’ Gladys, Patti, and Dionne, went on to do the show, and it was an unequivocal hit. Not only a hit, but it won major awards.

You can watch the entire one-hour show here, but I’ll share this video of their opening number, “Everything You Touch is a Song,” which gives me actual goosebumps because these three are so dynamic together.

Dionne had this to say about what happened:

I know from my own experience that inviting an artist to participate in a project by contacting the agent first can get crazy. Management can and do act as if they are the acts. I usually go directly to the artist and if they agree, they can let their management know.

A lesson to artists here is don’t delegate completely to your manager. Always review what they’re doing—requests and invitations, bookings, receipts, finances, taxes, you name it. (Dionne herself got embroiled in an IRS audit for years.)

And always remember—and remind them—that they work for you, not the other way around. Don’t let them get too big for their britches. Managers are replaceable. Your reputation and your money, not so much.

And for heaven’s sake, don’t fall in love with and marry your manager or producer. Ask Ronnie Spector and Mariah Carey. They’ll tell you. Major conflict of interest and big big big mistake.

Questions for you

What do you think these artists should have done in these situations?

What would you have done?

Does it change what you think about these artists, their talent, and their musical legacy?

Apologies to everyone, but there may be a delay in my next post. I’m working on a book proposal due next week. Things should get back to normal after that.

Coming up next, a focus on the positive, namely the factors for success in the sixties music business. Then on to the hits of 1965.

Imagine that it’s 1964 and you’ve become a household name—everyone knows who you are!—after having a Top Ten hit.

Your song has blasted from radios across the land, if not the world, and magazines and newspapers have clamored to do profiles on you. Your picture is everywhere.

Ed Sullivan and Dick Clark have invited you to perform on their television shows, reaching tens of millions of Americans, and you’ve appeared on both Ready Steady Go! and Top of the Pops in the UK.

Your record has achieved gold or platinum status in one country after another—from north to south and east to west—and those millions of sales have earned you an avid fan base who snap up every album and single you release.

Tours in country after country have further cemented your image, as a triple icon of music, performance, and glamor.

You have it all—commercial success, cultural influence, artistic importance, and a place in musical history.

Obviously, you’ve got it made. Rolling in the dough. Living la dolce vita, the sweet life. Adored by millions of fans and treated by your producers and record company like the musical royalty that you are.

Right? That’s the way it is, right?

Oh, if that were only so.

Beware of reading autobiographies of rock and pop stars from that golden age of music as I do. When you peek behind the scenes of the music industry, you enter a funhouse of mirrors where everything is distorted from what you have come to believe and expect.

Your musical idols transform before your very eyes, from figures of adoration and envy to people who were dramatically overworked and underpaid and forced to do battle with producers, managers, and label representatives.

You no longer wonder why so many musicians became addicted to sex, alcohol, and drugs, or had bouts of ‘losing it,’ as Dusty Springfield did.

Dusty got so frustrated with the situation backstage at the Brooklyn Fox theater that, according to Ronnie Spector, she threw cups and saucers at the stage door, and then sent her valet to a local five-and-dime store to buy more.1 After five minutes of breaking china, Dusty was able to smile and carry on.

Not a bad strategy for releasing tension and, at the same time, communicating frustration to those in charge who failed to provide artists with the decent working conditions they so clearly deserved.

Dusty was the ‘talent,’ after all. One of the reasons all those people had come to see the show, those ‘punters’ who kept the cash registers jingling, the theater open, and the owners and managers in the green. Her name was on the showbill and the marquee, in the theater program, and issuing forth with great acclaim from the emcee’s mouth.

At least that’s how things looked from the outside. Step inside the industry, however, and one enters that funhouse of distorted mirrors and begins to question one’s assumptions. Who were considered the real talents here, and who was getting the lion’s share of the rewards?

As Bob Dylan sang, “It ain’t me, babe.” And in this case he’s right, because it wasn’t the talent, babe.

Other Substack authors have written about this darker side of the music industry in the sixties, seventies, and beyond, such as Michael Walker of Letter from Laurel Canyon in his recent post on Peter Frampton’s shakedown by his manager and the Mafia in the wake of the unexpected and stupendous success of Frampton Comes Alive!.

[Mafia involvement in the music industry is something I’ve also covered in a post about Tommy James and the Shondells and their protest song “Sweet Cherry Wine.” The travails of that group during the sixties and how they dealt with it is another shocking and interesting case. You can read that post here.]

I’ve decided to cover this topic—the compensation and conditions faced by artists in the music industry in the sixties (and still largely relevant to this day)—for several reasons.

By knowing what these artists were dealing with, we swiftly come to realize what an uphill battle they were fighting and why so many artists were unable to sustain long-term careers in the business—and why we lost their talents far too soon.

We also come to the realization that those artists who managed to prevail over a longer period of time were not just extraordinary in their talent but also in their determination and ability to succeed. They are worthy of our esteem not just for what they’ve done, but for who they are.

They were strivers, achievers, and survivors. People able to serve as inspirations and role models for us all, especially in these similarly challenging times.

And last but perhaps most important, the way these artists dealt (or not) with their career travails suggests strategies for endurance and success in any walk of life. I believe that the exploitative American music industry has, over the past sixty years, become a template for industries across the board.2 Exploiting the talent has become a way of life.

Ironically, the suits have always believed that they are the talent, drastically overpaying themselves and underpaying everyone else, including the real talent that brings in the cash and manifests the profits. We need to understand the suits’ tactics and how the talent responded to them. There’s always something to learn.

Today and in a follow-up post I’m going to share examples from three different artists in 1964, of the challenges they encountered in trying to keep their artistic integrity and at the same time make it in what I enjoy referring to as the perfidious music business.

Those artists are Ronnie Spector, Neil Sedaka, and Dionne Warwick. (Some other artists will also get mentioned.)

We’re going to start with Dionne, who, in her autobiography, lays things out on a platter for us and notes that “everybody was being robbed by their record company.”3

Because this is a big topic, I’m going to cover the general conditions in the record industry in the 1960s in today’s post, and will follow with another post giving some specific and telling examples from our three artists.

Prepare to be shocked.

I’m thinking this may become a regular part of this series as the years proceed and I run across more examples. I find it really pertinent to understanding that era and also quite fascinating, but let me know in the comments if you value this and wish to read more as we go forward.

Also have to warn you that this is a text-heavy post about a serious topic. No images or videos. Next week we’ll return to the fun and joy of the music.

Recording and selling records: A “mere pittance”

Fortunately, we don’t have to guess what artists made in the sixties because Dionne Warwick gets down and dirty with the numbers.

Unfortunately for the artists, those numbers ain’t pretty.

From 1964 to 1971, Dionne had hit after hit and was named a Best Selling Artist by the recording industry publication Cash Box for all but one of those years.

Over the course of that eight-year period, she sold a total of 16 million records in the U.S. alone and 35 million worldwide.

So she must have become a millionaire, right?

Sorry to say, wrong. They weren’t called slave contracts for nothing.

I’m going to get into the numbers, but fear not if numbers make your eyes cross. It’s only going to be the next few paragraphs of heavy going and then a number thrown in here and there. You’ll want to read them because, as you’ll see, they’re outrageous.

Getting down into the nitty gritty, according to Dionne artists were being paid a typical royalty rate of around 2 percent of the money earned from record sales.4 The rest of it—98%—went to the label.5

Given that the typical in-store price for a record at that time6 was about 80 cents for a 45 single, $2 for a mono album, and $4 for a stereo album, her royalties could have amounted to, say, $1.4 million, or about $175,000 per year. 7 In today’s dollars, that’s about $15 million total for that time period, or $1.9 million per year.

To put those numbers into perspective, consider two things. One is that the record company was getting the rest of the money—almost $70 million, or about $750 million in today’s dollars.

Consider also that the top three recording artists in 2025, Kendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift, and The Weeknd, each made between $100 and $300 million. So they’ve earned on average about 100 times what Dionne would have made if she had received that full 2%.8

But, alas, she didn’t get even that. Her royalty payments were reduced by three things:

• recording costs over which she had no control (and saw no invoices), including the costs of the producer(s), musicians, backup singers, the engineer and assistant engineer, music arrangements (which Dionne says were almost never received), studio time, and any other recording-related costs

• “free goods,” meaning the cost of records given away for free to disc jockeys, journalists, and others to encourage them to promote that record (and let’s also add in the other ‘incentives’ they were given, including payola (aka bribes), drugs, hookers, concert tickets, and even travel to concerts and luxury accommodations in faraway locales)

• “breakage,” meaning the cost of records breaking during production, shipping, and distribution, with labels claiming that this happened to about 10% to 20% of them.

Note that record breakage may have been a significant cost when they were made of shellac but not after they became more durable vinyl in the late forties to mid-fifties. In other words, this deduction was, in essence, a direct form of theft from artists to pad the label’s profits. Even more outrageous is the fact that labels carried the breakage deduction into the CD and digital eras.9

Further note that deductions also included the cost of the record sleeve and album artwork.

In other words, the artist rather than the company was expected to cover all the direct costs of doing business out of their paltry 2%.

To put it another way, the artist assumed all of the risk while the label grabbed all of the profits. If you’ve studied investment, you know that higher return is justified by higher risk. But the record companies in essence found a way to offload the majority of the risk onto the artists while keeping the profits, as well as expecting them to create, record, perform, and personally promote the creative product itself.

Can you understand why so many artists have referred to these as ‘slave contracts’?

No other industry (that I know of) got away with this kind and degree of exploitation. Publishing companies, for example, assumed their share of the risk by giving authors advances that the companies lost if the books didn’t sell.

The bottom line here was that hired guns—the producer, musicians, backup singers, arrangers, and engineers—all got their agreed payment right off the top.10 And the record company made sure that they got their direct costs and indirect overhead covered, as well as whatever else they could get away with charging to bring artist costs to a minimum without inciting a lawsuit or an audit.

Lacking a manager willing to deploy a baseball bat or a court of law, the poor artist made what Dionne characterized as a “mere pittance.”

Don’t forget that, in addition to this, many artists and bands were paying their manager a percentage of their royalties, typically 10% to 15%. As we know, Colonel Tom Parker took 25% of Elvis Presley’s earnings early on and increased that to 50% over time. Although a unique and particularly exploitative case, it demonstrates that trusting or naive artists, or artists who signed bad contracts, could also find themselves making their managers rich at their own expense.

Even more outrageous was the fact that the major labels expected the artists to pay them back if the costs of a particular record (or tour) exceeded revenues, despite the fact that the label suits were the ones responsible for artist development and management, song approval, and record promotion, and the artists did not have control over most of the production, distribution, and promotion process and the expenses involved. Joe Cocker, for example, ended up owing A&M Records $800,000 (about $5 million today) by the mid-70s despite a string of hits.11

In terms of labels failing to fulfill their part of the bargain and do their damn job, Dionne gives the example of her sister Dee Dee Warwick, who like Dionne had been a backup singer for a who’s who of artists, including Aretha Franklin, Jackie DeShannon, and the Drifters. When it came to going solo, however, label support and promotion weren’t there during the majority of Dee Dee’s career (1963 to 1975) and the sales were consequently lackluster. Given the success of some of her mid-sixties recordings, including the Grammy-nominated “Foolish Fool,” it wasn’t a question of talent. Dionne suggests that what might have been behind this lack of promotion of Dee Dee’s solo records was her unwillingness to give her entire life over to the record company, to spend most of it in the recording studio and on the road. (We’ll talk about the demands of touring below.)

Compounding this overall travesty even further was creative accounting and poor record-keeping on the part of the record companies. Dionne had her father, who was a certified public accountant, review one of her royalty statements and he discovered that she was being shortchanged. Not surprisingly, she had audits done of her label, Scepter Records, which found that, at least as far as the official books were concerned, Scepter was guilty of keeping inadequate and unreliable accounting records.

How could artists possibly trust that they were being compensated fairly in this kind of environment? As Dionne points out, within a few years she became a major artist and had negotiating leverage, but even then she only got the maximum royalty rate of 6%. And, somehow, the costs charged against her share of the reveues increased in tandem, resulting in that “mere pittance” of a record royalty payment remaining essentially the same.

Dionne notes additional problems. One was that artists were pressured to sign recording contracts without legal representation, the contracts being characterized by the record company as “standard.” In actual fact, labels made artists feel that they were lucky to be awarded a contract at all and placed pressure on them to sign immediately or have the deal withdrawn.

Another remarkably shady practice was that of the same attorney representing the record company, the producer, and the artist when there were disagreements among the parties to the contract. This conflict of interest was rife within the record industry. Dionne wondered “why record companies, already having a contractual advantage, felt the need to exploit us further through these cozy backroom relationships.”12

Let me also point out that benefits commonly offered to employees in the sixties, such as pensions, paid vacations, holidays, health insurance, sick leave, and life insurance, were not provided to the artists. Record company employees, on the other hand, not only received such benefits but generous salaries and, in some cases, company stock and cash bonuses.13

As Brad Kyle and I indicated in our recent post on John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy album, record companies also began to take out life insurance on their artists to protect their investment. Geffen Records received a large insurance payout when Lennon was murdered, as well as reaping a massive benefit from the subsequent surge in record sales. (This does not seem to have been a common practice until the eighties.)

Perhaps you can now see why I refer to the U.S. record companies in that era as ‘perfidious,’ and why I suggest that the corporate and institutional world over the past sixty years has essentially copied and refined the music industry template and extended it from artists to all employees, by making employment, salaries, and benefits less fair and secure and enriching the coffers of favored contractors, executives, and investors at the expense of the talent actually responsible for the creation and innovation behind those products and services.

[I know that was a mouthful, but you get what I’m saying.]

So the question we now need to ask is, if making hit records wasn’t the lucrative income stream we assumed it was for artists at that time, how else did they bring in the bucks?

Let’s take a look at some other moneymaking avenues available to them, starting with going on tours and doing live performances.

Touring and live performance: 1.5 million miles

Then as now, touring has proved to be a reliable and steady source of income for an artist like Dionne with a ‘name’ and an enduring fan base.

But it’s never been as lucrative as one would think, unless the artist is the headliner and the major draw. On either side of that pinnacle, artists can’t afford to ease off on the pedal and slow down their touring, for two reasons. One is the need to keep their fan base engaged and keen to see them perform (and pay for the privilege), and the other is to ensure an income stream that keeps the lights on and the mortgage paid.

Dionne began touring as soon as she became a star act for Scepter Records in 1963. One of her first tours was with headliner Sam Cooke and fellow acts the Drifters, the Crystals, Johnny Thunder, Betty Wright, “Little” Esther Phillips, and Solomon Burke, supported by the band The Upsetters and emcee Gorgeous George. Another was with headliner Jackie Wilson, fellow acts Chuck Jackson and the Orlons, and, again, the Upsetters and Gorgeous George.

What she discovered was that touring was exciting but also hard work and low pay. Getting paid fairly, or getting paid at all, “seemed to be more work than the show itself.”14

In her autobiography, which came out in 2010, she talks about how often people express the desire to change places with her—until she describes her daily schedule.

A career in entertainment is anything but easy. There is the preparation, the travel, the performance, and then there are the interviews, press conferences, and television appearances that promoters all expect you to do on the day you arrive at some of the places where you’ll be performing that evening. Youngsters in the business today would turn up their noses at my schedule and probably insist that promoters know there has to be at least two days between performances. Ah, the luxury of being new to the game.

She goes into detail, describing a typical tour day as getting picked up at 4:30 am for a 7 am flight that lasts three to four hours. Checking into the hotel and doing a sound check upon arrival. Taking a shower and doing her own makeup and hair. Performing until about 10:30 pm and hitting the bed. Only to do the same exact thing every day in a new location.

She’d been doing this rigorous schedule off and on for almost fifty years, and was 69 at the time of writing this. Sixty nine!

Artists are also in a position where they have to perform no matter what, something challenging to contemplate for those of us in regular employment or retired. As mentioned earlier, artists don’t get sick days and they don’t get paid if they don’t play. Sick, depressed, hung over, whatever, they’re expected to show up and do what they have contractually obligated themselves to do, or suffer the legal consequences.

It should come as no surprise, then, that artists like Dionne hire family members and friends to be their manager, their opening act, and/or their backup singers. Dionne’s son David was opening her shows and her niece was working as her road manager. This is not nepotism but rather what we could call a smart personal and business strategy. Not only does it allow the artist to maintain more control over expenditures and keep those salaries in the family, but it also means having someone with them on the road who can troubleshoot on their behalf and keep them company on the road. No small thing when loneliness, boredom, and longing for family are what make many turn to food, sex, alcohol, and drugs as comfort and distraction.

Some artists spend most of their time on the road for years. You can see why artists’ kids often end up being raised by other family members, typically stay-at-home spouses or grandmothers, or enrolled in boarding schools (as Dionne’s two boys later were).

Dionne claimed to have racked up about 1.5 million frequent flyer miles over 30 years on just two of the airlines she flew. That’s 50,000 miles per year.

How many would be willing to do this to sustain their career?

How many could do this and have a viable family life?

The desire to be with their boyfriends, get married, and have kids was, according to Ronnie Spector, what broke up the Ronettes. The dislike of traveling and being a ‘homebody’ is what scuppered Dee Dee Warwick’s career. Carole King likewise couldn’t stand being away from her kids, and I’m guessing her career post-Tapestry may have suffered as a result.

Is there another way they could get exposure, attract fans, sell records, and make some money without touring all the time? How about appearances on top-rated television shows?

Appearing on television: a ‘big’ deal

As Dionne notes, people probably assume that artists received millions of dollars when they made an appearance on a high-rated television show, but it’s actually the opposite.

The Beatles made $3,500 for their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964, or $875 each, and they were the top act in the world. Most performers were willing to accept much less, even union scale, in order to get exposure to a national audience of tens of millions. More than anything else, it was viewed as an opportunity to promote one’s self as an artist and to peddle the latest single or album.

The amount could vary by type of show, but performers were generally paid something called “scale.” According to Dionne, this was more in the range of $300 per appearance (about $3,100 today) and covered the manager’s cut as well as any musicians used. You can see why lip synching or singing to a backing track happened so frequently on national television.

Appearing on the tube was also sporadic and not a regular occurrence, generally coinciding with the release of a new record. As we can therefore see, it wasn’t a significant money-making opportunity either.

So what other ways did an artist have to make money?

Songwriting: Singing royalty, songwriting royalties, or both, that is the question

Artists have been known to write one song and live off the royalties for the rest of their lives.

An example of a 1964 song that has generated that level of income is Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman,” which over its lifetime has made consistent earnings and generated an estimated $30 to $50 million.

Another example from that year is Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come,” which not only became an anthem for the Civil Rights Movement but also generated many covers and was licensed for use in films and commercials. Two of his other songs, “You Send Me” and “(What A) Wonderful World,” have also generated high lifetime earnings.

Dionne considered Sam Cooke “a smart man who saw the importance of owning his songs.”15 He recognized the importance not only of writing his own songs, but of ensuring that he copyrighted them, published them himself, and owned his catalog. He set up his own music publishing and record label, SAR Records, as a means to do this.

In 1964, the year he died, most artists were selling their songwriting copyrights to publishing companies rather than retaining those rights themselves, something that many would come to regret if their songs had any enduring popularity.

We’re not going to go into the mechanics of song royalties and payments here, which can get rather complicated,16 but, generally speaking, a song is likely to generate significant ongoing income for an artist if it accomplishes any or all of the following:

• is frequently licensed for public performance (for example, “Happy Birthday” before it entered the public domain)

• is in regular rotation on radio station playlists

• sustains a high volume of online streams

• generates a high number of covers by other artists

• appears in movies, television shows, or commercials (called synch licensing)

• becomes a holiday classic.

Another example of a 1964 song that has done extremely well is “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” written by Phil Spector, Barry Mann, and Cynthia Weil and made famous by the Righteous Brothers. One of the most-played songs in history and used in Top Gun, the highest-grossing film worldwide in 1986, it has over its lifetime generated an estimated $32 to $65 million.

“Yesterday,” a 1965 Beatles song that will appear in an upcoming post, has been covered by other artists over 2,200 times and has generated over $30 million.

One thing we can conclude from these examples is that, if an artist in the sixties had wanted to ensure a steady stream of income from their music, their best bet would have been to master the art of songwriting and follow in Sam Cooke’s footsteps in maintaining control of the publishing and composing rights. Much easier said than done, of course.

My guess is that this is still true today, and has been true all along.

Other options—team up with someone else to write songs. Or marry a songwriter.17 (Anyone available?)

Something else to keep in mind in this regard is that artists who lose control of their songs have no say in how they are used. One thing Dionne complained about was the acqusition of many of her Scepter, Arista, and Warner recordings by Rhino Records, whose special products division proceeded to flood the market with compilation CDs to the point that she felt compelled to ask them to stop.

So our question now needs to be, if an artist was a singer with no songwriting chops, and no prospect of partnering with or marrying someone who was, how else might they make some major dosh?

Being a celebrity: Perfume, TV hosting, and beyond

As we’ve seen, an artist who had hits in the sixties, or even an artist who became a bona fide star as Dionne Warwick did, was unlikely to be rolling in the dough and living la dolce vita.

Well then, who was? As we’ve learned, it was the investors, the executives, and the hit-making songwriters like Phil Spector who were more likely to be buying the mansions, acquiring the ‘trophy wives,’ and using nannies and exclusive private schools to bring up their kids.

Which was why so many performers opted to become ‘celebrities’ to branch out into other money-making opportunities, as Dionne herself did.

I’ve already laid out Dionne’s accomplishments in a previous post here, so I would recommend reading that for more in-depth coverage. But what’s worth mentioning as typical examples of her forays into other celebrity opportunities are her television specials, her television hosting gigs, and her development and executive producing of a TV show called Dionne and Friends.

She also became the musical coordinator for a film, The Woman in Red, commissioning Stevie Wonder to create the soundtrack. That collaboration resulted in a hit soundtrack album and an Academy Award for his song “I Just Called to Say I Love You.”

Not surprisingly, like Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, and other songsters before her, Dionne took a shot at movies and played a small role in Rent-a-Cop with Burt Reynolds and Liza Minnelli.

And like Madonna, she wrote a children’s book that has been in print for almost twenty years now, and was one of the first artists to have her own fragrance.

There were those who argued that artists like Dionne should not have strayed from music or besmirched themselves by taking advantage of celebrity opportunities such as these. But my guess is that such musical purists were not aware of the economic realities facing artists, especially singers, who had to keep hustling and finding ways to continue plying their craft in one form or another in order to bring home a sufficient paycheck.

As we’ve seen, it’s not easy to make it in the music business as an artist even with luck and talent. The vast majority who try end up crashing and burning, becoming one-hit wonders, or pivoting to roles like producing and backup singing.

That’s why I believe that those artists who have made it in this rigorous and exploitative system, and in the process have managed to retain both their integrity and their humanity as Dionne has done, are deserving of a great deal of respect as well as a very generous amount of leeway in putting out perfumes and acting in silly movies.

Next time we’ll consider some specific examples of artist travails in the music business in 1964, involving Dionne, Neil Sedaka, and the Ronettes (and a few others).

QUESTIONS FOR YOU

Did you know any or all of this?

Does it shock or surprise you?

If you were entering the music industry in the sixties, knowing what you know now, what role would you have preferred to play?

Has the industry changed all that much? Discuss.

I’m going off coffee this week1 and have been experiencing withdrawal symptoms, including brain fog. So, as usual, don’t hesitate to point out any errors or nonsensical musings.

Today’s post is dedicated to reader favorites for 1964. These are artists and groups, or specific songs, that readers have indicated in comments or emails that they hold in high esteem. Thanks to those who shared their missed favorites.

No question about it, I have a definite bias in my own selections, and I want to recognize and honor the songs you love as well.

Case in point, I’m not a big doo-wop fan and will default to more straightforward rock and roll. But, as you’ll see below, some readers love the girl groups and believe that their hits deserve to be on the list.

I’m also doing this because, so far, I’ve been relying on the U.S.-centric Billboard Top 10 and Top 100 lists, but there are great 1964 songs that didn’t make these lists.

Some songs didn’t make it to the American market at all, despite being hits elsewhere. Some made it to the American market but couldn’t dent the charts, often because they weren’t given the promotion and accompanying band exposure essential for breaking through. And then there were those songs that did succeed in making it onto the charts but happened to peak below the Top 10.

For example, the UK band The Pretty Things (included below) had hits in the UK, Europe, and Australia but not in the U.S.

The Beatles, on the other hand, made it onto the Billboard Hot 100 with “And I Love Her,” but it peaked at #12 and therefore didn’t appear on the Top 10 lists.

Both of these are cases that argue for casting a wider net and including reader favorites in yearly listings. So that’s what we’re going to do. If you feel a song is being cast out into the wilderness unfairly by yours truly, sound off in the comments and I’ll include it in the readers’ favorites post. (Conditions apply.)2

In terms of what’s next, I’m going to write more about the girl groups. My friend Susan sent me a book about the Shangri-Las (who are included below), and this made me realize that 1964 was, in some key ways, a watershed year for women in popular music. I want to explore that with you before we move on to 1965.

Paid subscribers, I’m working on a follow-up post about Dionne Warwick. And Untouchable fans, the next chapter is in the works.

On to reader favorites for 1964, which include songs by Lesley Gore, Dusty Springfield, the Ronettes, the Shangri-Las, the Nashville Teens, the Pretty Things, and the Beatles.

Tip to new readers: Click on the title of the post and open it in a new browser window. Then you can play videos without being bounced around or subjected to advertisements. You can also change settings and make other adjustments.

Please note that I search for the best live performances, both for my own enjoyment and to give you a real sense and experience of these artists.

“You Don’t Own Me” by Lesley Gore

Songwriters: John Madara and Dave White

Producer: Quincy Jones

Label: Mercury

Chart: #2 US and NZ, #4 Australia, #5 Canada — #36 Billboard Year-End Hot 100

Lesley was championed by three readers. Here are their comments about her:

• “My favorite of that year has to be Lesley Gore’s ‘You Don’t Own Me.’ Such an anthem!!” - Mark Nash of Joy in the Journey

• “I would have put Gore in the first string. ‘You Don't Own Me’ was covered so many times, not least by Joan Jett. Gore was so far out in front it's crazy. She lived in an openly gay partnership for much of her life, with a lot less blow-back than one might expect for that era.” - Charles in San Francisco of Zapato’s Jam: Music without Borders

• “Leslie, I feel, is extremely underrated and passed over. Her hit path was relatively short but growing up in Iowa her music was all over the radio. She was from Minneapolis so that was local to us.” - Daniel Helkenn

“You Don’t Own Me” was released in December 1963 and peaked in early 1964. It reached #2 in the U.S. but was kept out of the top spot by those pesky moptops and their breakthrough hit “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” This was her last top ten.

The performance below, from the 1964 T.A.M.I. show, is a masterclass in how to sing live.

“Stay Awhile” and “I Only Want to Be with You” by Dusty Springfield

Songwriters: Mike Hawker and Ivor Raymonde

Producer: Johnny Franz

Label: Philips

Chart:

• “Stay Awhile”- #13 UK, #27 Australia, #38 US Billboard Hot 100

• “I Only Want to Be with You” - #4 UK, #6 Australia, #7 Ireland and NZ, #12 US Billboard Hot 100, #21 Canada

There were two reader comments about Dusty, one extolling her work and the other giving some insider intel that Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin fans will especially enjoy:

• “‘Dusty In Memphis’ was vinyl I played to extinction. I was excited when she had her brief stint with The Pet Shop Boys.” - Daniel Helkenn

• “[Jimmy Page] and Dusty Springfield were an item during his session days.” - Michael Walker of Letter from Laurel Canyon

Dusty’s debut album in the US, Stay Awhile/I Only want to Be with You, included three singles that had already been sequentially released, the two in the title and “Wishin’ and Hopin’.”

Her UK debut album released two months earlier had only included “Wishin’ and Hopin’” and not the other two singles, because the two markets operated differently. The UK labels tended to leave singles as singles and issue them independent of albums, whereas the US labels tended to corral them into albums with other material.

The situation also gets very confusing when we look at the other singles releases and album tracks in the two countries and how they differed that year. Believe me, my eyes are crossed from trying to figure it out.

Instead, I searched out some great Dusty performances from that year. Below is a medley of “Stay Awhile” and “I Only Want to Be with You” from The Ed Sullivan Show, broadcast in May after the singles had come out and just prior to the June release of the album.

This is another masterclass in live performance.

“Wishin’ and Hopin’” by Dusty Springfield

Songwriters: Burt Bacharach and Hal David

Producer: Johnny Franz

Label: Philips

Chart: #4 US Billboard Easy Listening, #6 Billboard Hot 100, #2 Canada and Australia

I also wanted to include a performance of “Wishin’ and Hopin’” given that it was a Top 5 hit in the US. This is a Burt Bacharach and Hal David tune that Burt apparently had to talk her into recording.

You might think she’d be nervous as a new solo artist, but Dusty was already a performing pro by this point, having dueted with her brother in folk clubs, become a member of pop group The Lana Sisters (1958-1960), and co-founded the successful folk-pop trio The Springfields with her brother and Tim Felid, both from The Kensington Squares (1960-1963). The Lana Sisters had toured with Cliff Richard, Adam Faith, and Morecambe & Wise and performed at the Royal Albert Hall, and The Springfields were voted Top British Vocal Group by readers of New Musical Express (NME) two years in a row (1961-1962).

That stage experience may not have involved lip synching, but she shows in this video from a Shivaree TV broadcast that she can hold her own with the best of them, not something we can say about Los Angeles DJ and show host Gene Weed as he misses his trumpet cues. These two were just having too much fun. But then they are fronted by some very goofy go-go dancers.

“Walking in the Rain” by The Ronettes

Songwriters: Barry Mann, Phil Spector, Cynthia Weil

Producer: Phil Spector

Label: Philles

Chart: #8 US Billboard R&B, #23 Billboard Hot 100, #16 Canada

The Ronettes are a favorite of founding subscriber Daniel Helkenn, and Ronnie Spector is someone he has personally met.

According to Ronnie’s autobiography, Be My Baby,3 “Walking in the Rain” was her favorite of the records she did with Phil Spector, and the only one she did in a single take.

Ronnie always recorded late at night, alone in the studio with Phil and engineer Larry Levine. But that night songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil were there because they were still trying to nail down the lyrics. They finally decided to leave the knotty line “Johnny, no, no, he’ll never do” as it was, but Barry and Cynthia stayed to see how it sounded.

Ronnie assumed that they were going to run through a rough take and not record it. But as she went into the recording booth, Phil told her he had a surprise for her. Standing in her usual spot, she put on the headphones.

“Everything was quiet. Then all of a sudden I heard a low rumble, like there was thunder coming in from every corner of the room. It was the intro to the song, but Larry and Phil had mixed the sounds of a real thunderstorm in with this beautiful melody. It was absolutely perfect. I closed my eyes and I was in a whole other world… I was really into it, and I kept singing all the way through the whole song. When I finished, I oopened my eyes and found myself standing in complete darkness…

“‘That’s the one,’ [Phil] said. ‘We can go home now.’”4

And there you have it. Recording magic. You can listen to that version here. But to see some of the Ronettes’ magic live, here’s a TV performance from 1973. I can’t find what show it comes from, but it’s a brilliant performance.

“Give Him a Great Big Kiss” by the Shangri-Las

Songwriter: Shadow Morton

Producer: Shadow Morton

Label: Red Bird

Chart: #18 US Billboard Hot 100

This song is here because friend and subscriber Susan B sent me the book Golden Hits of the Shangri-Las (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Ada Wolin. (Thanks again, Sue!)

Four singles from the group’s debut album, Leader of the Pack, were released in 1964. Three of these went Top 20, with one reaching #5 and “Leader of the Pack” hitting the top of the charts:

• “Remember (Walking in the Sand)” - #5 US, #14 UK

• “Leader of the Pack” - #1 US, #11 UK (1965), #3 UK (1972), #7 UK (1976)

• “Give Him a Great Big Kiss” - #18 US

• “Maybe” - #91 US

What’s great about the Shangri-Las’ songs is that the lead singer, Mary Weiss, converses with, and answers questions from, the other girls—Betty Weiss and Marge and Mary Ann Ganser—as part of the performance. This is song as theater, or in some cases (depending on the song) humor, tragedy, or melodrama.

I will be writing more about this group in another post, as no one like them had come before. They were innovators in both style and subject matter.

I wanted you to see a live performance, and the video below of “Give Him a Great Big Kiss” is one of the few available of sufficient technical quality. I’m not sure where it’s from, but the group is accompanied by a band, with the drummer bizarrely sitting in front of them.

“Tobacco Road” by The Nashville Teens

Songwriter: John D. Loudermilk

Producer: Mickie Most

Label: Decca (UK), London (US)

Chart: #3 Canada, #6 UK, #9 NZ, #14 US

This song was one I picked up from a recent post by Dan Epstein of Jagged Time Lapse in which he mentioned discovering Parrot Records’ 1967 compilation The Greatest Hits from England and being stoked to find certain songs, including this blues rock cover. As Dan is a subscriber, I thought I should include that song here, especially as I remembered loving it—and it’s one of those hit songs that hovered below the Top 10.

The Nashville Teens were a one-hit wonder in the US with this song, but had other chart hits in the UK and backed some big-name artists. I think they did a darn good impersonation of Nashville fellas in their sound and performance.

The enhanced performance below is not usually what I would choose, preferring to stick with the original, but the original black-and-white version is a bit hard to hear and watch and they didn’t do too badly enhancing it.

The producer, Mickie Most, also worked with The Animals on their “The House of the Rising Sun,” covered in this previous post. I love this arrangement with the emphatic piano and dual lead vocals. You will probably recognize the song, and if you don’t, it’s well worth discovering.

“Don’t Bring Me Down” by The Pretty Things

Songwriter: Johnnie Dee

Producer: Bobby Graham

Label: Fontana

Chart: #10 UK, #34 Canada

This band is a favorite of Michael K. Fell,5 who said “I’ll add two from 1964, both from my favorite British band of the 1960s. ‘Rosalyn’ and ‘Don't Bring Me Down’ by The Pretty Things.”

Both songs were released as UK singles in 1964 and as tracks on the North American version of their self-titled debut album in 1965.

David Bowie was a fan of the band and covered both songs on his 1973 album Pin Ups.

The Pretty Things were known for their provocative behavior and wild antics, something that may have contributed to their lack of welcome (and success) in the U.S.

All I can say is that it’s very entertaining watching the contortions of lead singer Phil May as he sings “Don’t Bring Me Down.” This particular performance is from the Beat From Blokker TV broadcast out of Holland in April 1965.

Songs from A Hard Days Night by The Beatles

Last week we covered the Beatles hits that appeared on the Year-end Top 100. You can find that post here.

Robert C. Gilbert of Listening Sessions commented that “Other great ‘64 Beatles cuts would have to include ‘Tell Me Why,’ ‘Matchbox,’ ‘And I Love Her,’ ‘If I Fell,’ ‘Every Little Thing,’ etc. etc.”

Three of those—“Tell Me Why,” “And I Love Her,” and “If I Fell”—come from the album A Hard Day’s Night, which came out in July 1964. I’ve always loved that cover, and, full disclosure because you expect nothing less, have the large-scale poster hanging on my bathroom wall.

Of those three songs, “And I Love Her” as a single reached #12 on the Billboard Hot 100, just missing the Top 10.

Its B side was “If I Fell,” which charted at #53 in the US, #28 in Canada, and #1 in Norway.

“Tell Me Why” was released as an album track on both A Hard Day’s Night and Something New but not as a single.

In this clip from the film, the boys record “Tell Me Why” and “If I Fell” along with “I Should Have Known Better,” a song written expressly for the film and released as the B side to “A Hard Day’s Night.”

Being a film, you get close-ups from every angle and even get to see John’s dental work.

Also from the film, they record “And I Love Her.” Fortunately, this is not in front of a live audience like the one above and the band gives a quiet, lovely performance. Another nice close-up, of George’s pickin.’

“Every Little Thing” by The Beatles

Another pick by Robert C. Gilbert is “Every Little Thing.” This was included in the Beatles for Sale album released in the UK in December 1964, and the Beatles VI album released in the US in June 1965. It wasn’t released as a single.

Personally, I think it should have been released as a single. But there were so many Beatles songs in the charts at that time, maybe they thought it would cannibalize another one. Hard to space so many great songs out over the course of a year.

This is a Paul McCartney song, and it’s a goodie. Just love it.

“Matchbox” by The Beatles

“Matchbox” is a Carl Perkins rockabilly tune covered by the Beatles on their UK EP Long Tall Sally released in June and on the US LP Something New released in July.

Also released as a US single in August, it became a Top 20 hit, rising to #17 in both the US and Canada.

The 1963 performance below is from the BBC radio show “Pop Go the Beatles,” included on the 1994 compilation Live at the BBC.

Lead vocals were originally handled by drummer Pete Best, in this performance by his replacement, Ringo Starr.

Comments and feedback

Had you already heard these songs?

Were any also your favorites?

If you were one of the Beatles in 1964, which would you be?

Any other reactions, observations, comments?

We’re moving forward year by year and, at the moment, we’re in the fourth week of our first year, 1964. You can find the previous entries—on the women artists, on the British invasion, and on the confused and confusing American male artists—here.

Today we focus on the last major piece of the puzzle for this shapeshifting year.1 Of course, we’re talking about the Beatles, the group that led the British invasion and smashed down the door meant to protect American teens from a whole spate of musical hooligans from across the pond.

The Beatles, the Animals, the Rolling Stones, the Zombies, the Kinks, the Moody Blues. Their names said it all!

These long-haired ruffians had already managed to debauch the youth and upend civilized society over there. No way could they be allowed to bring their wanton ways and louche attitudes to America.

Not to mention that no one wanted to take the economic, legal, and professional risk of violating the Federal law banning the Interstate Transportation of Obscene Material and, in so doing, draw the attention of the authoritarian, vindictive, and extraordinarily powerful head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover. (The Kingsmen inadvertently did this with their song “Louie, Louie.”2)

From the beginning, rock and roll had been considered “obscene” and “filth” and its purveyors subjected to ongoing surveillance and harassment from officialdom. As argued in my previous post, the first wave of rock-and-roll was effectively vanished from the airwaves at the national level by the late fifties and early sixties, and this was a key reason why.

It should therefore come as no surprise that the powers-that-be at Capitol Records rejected their legal option to release and promote the Beatles in the United States. Capitol’s parent company, EMI, might have been making money hand over fist from the moptops in the UK and want Capitol to follow suit in the U.S. But ‘No, uh uh, it’s a big pass from us’ was their response.

The suits claimed that it was a business decision based on the American market, and there was actually some truth to this. Record companies were loath to spend money promoting British bands in America when UK acts had not proved popular with US audiences in the past. (See my post on the British invasion for stats on this.)3

However, you’d expect a business decision to be reconsidered in light of evolving sales figures over time. The Beatles’ debut single in the UK, “Love Me Do,” a Top 20 hit in November 1962, was followed soon thereafter by a string of hits— “Please Please Me” peaking at #2 in February and “From Me to You” and “She Loves You” topping the charts at #1 in May and September.

Even more compelling, and what should have triggered an urgent reassessment by Capitol Records, were the sales figures for the Beatles’ debut album, Please Please Me. Released in March 1963, it hit the top of the charts in May, stayed at #1 for 30 weeks, and was only knocked off its perch by the Beatles’ next album, With the Beatles, which had half a million advance orders by the time it was released that November.

Money is supposed to talk, especially in the U.S., but the other major U.S. labels made a hard pass on the Beatles as well. You’d almost think they were trying to keep rock and roll off the charts—and ‘the kids’ occupied with doing silly dance moves like the Pony and the Monkey and pining after the “he’s so fine” teen angel next door.

Those fast beats and provocative lyrics could lead to ungodly and unlawful behavior. Witness the uppity students questioning the government’s authority to wage war and demonstrating against the suppression of free speech on university campuses. We surely can’t be having that.4

Fortunately, we’re able to get a quick, eye-opening peek behind the scenes from producer, session musician, and songwriter P.F. Sloan (below), who at that time was the very young A&R head for Screen Gems Music, the largest music publisher on the West Coast.56

Sloan had received a package from Beatles manager Brian Epstein containing four demos, for “Please Please Me,” “Thank You Girl,” “Love Me Do,” and “From Me to You.” After listening to the demos, Sloan was convinced the band was going to be bigger than Elvis and played them for his boss, Lou Adler.7

Adler’s reaction was that they sounded like “‘Two guys doing a bad imitation of the Everly Brothers.’”8 He threw the acetate demos in the garbage can, but when Sloan offered him a week’s salary for them, Adler reconsidered. He called Epstein and shared Sloan’s prediction that the group would be huge, and then convinced Jay Lasker at Chicago-based Vee-Jay Records to pursue a deal with EMI. Lasker secured a licensing agreement that gave the label the right of first refusal on Beatles records for five years.

[As a sidenote, when Sloan received a similar package from Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham and told Adler the Stones would be as big as the Beatles, Sloan was fired.]

Unfortunately for Brian Epstein and the Beatles, Vee-Jay issued some singles but didn’t have the promotional budget or radio industry connections of a major label, both critical in the U.S. market, and experienced paltry sales.9

In 1963, Beatles lead guitarist George Harrison happened to visit New York, St Louis, and Illinois where his sister lived, and checked if record stores had any of the three Beatles records. He found that they hadn’t even heard of the band.

The situation was equally dire at the Top 40 radio stations. It appears that one of the only DJs keen on the Beatles and avidly promoting them was Dick Biondi (below), who succeeded in getting “From Me to You” on the playlist at KLRA in Los Angeles. (I’m proud to report that Dick grew up in Endicott, the town right next to mine.)

You wouldn’t be crazy to think that Capitol Records, being right there in Los Angeles where the Beatles had regular radioplay and made the local hits chart in July and August, would say ‘Hey, maybe we should revisit our decision to reject the Beatles option.’ But no, instead they continued to resist pressure from their UK parent company, EMI, to release and promote the Beatles in the U.S.

It took EMI head Sir Joseph Lockwood sending his deputy to Los Angeles in November 1963 to knock some sense into Capitol’s head, essentially telling Capitol that they were going to do this or else. As John Lennon notes in The Beatles Anthology,10 increasing interest across America and widespread pressure on disc jockeys to play their records also came about after two prominent U.S. weekly magazines, Time and Newsweek, wrote articles about the band.

On December 26—after the Christmas sales season!—Capitol finally released their first Beatles single, “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” It entered the charts in mid-January and hit #1 on February 1, remaining there for seven weeks until being displaced by another Beatles song, “She Loves You.”

Let’s look more closely at the delay in songs crossing the Atlantic, and how long American teens lagged behind UK teens in getting another hit of that elusive and hard-to-capture wonderdrug that was high-quality rock-and-roll.

The Beatles wracked up their first hit in the UK in November 1962, “Love Me Do,” which would not be released in the U.S. until April 1964. That’s a delay of almost 1.5 years. It’s not as if there was no welcome, considering that the song went to #1 in the U.S.—vs. only #17 in the UK.

Or, if you want to talk #1 hits, there was about a year between the first UK hit, “From Me to You,” in April 1963, and the first US hit, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” in February 1964.

Is it any wonder that a counterculture formed among youth when they were being denied the music they craved, willfully and deliberately, by the powers-that-be—as well as the rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly that they were guaranteed by law?!11

You can only hold back a surging torrent for so long, and the dam finally gave way in early 1964.

That year, the Beatles would manage to smash all expectations and enrich the coffers of the undeserving Capitol by achieving eleven Top 10 songs in the Billboard Hot 100. Ten of these reached the top five and six of them hit the top of the charts. This amazing run of songs includes, in order of appearance:12

• “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (#1)

• “She Loves You” (#1)

• “Please Please Me” (#3)

• “Twist and Shout” (#2)

• “Can’t Buy Me Love” (#1)

• “Do You Want to Know a Secret” (#2)

• “Love Me Do” (#1)

• “PS I love you” (#10)

• “A Hard Day’s Night” (#1)

• “I feel fine” (#1)

• “She’s a woman” (#4)

Beatles songs had a cumulative 72 weeks in the top ten and dominated the top slot for 18 weeks—a phenomenal 35% of the year.

“I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You” took the two top slots on the year-end Hot 100 singles chart for 1964. Only three songs failed to make that list: “PS I Love You,” which peaked at #10, and two songs that were released too late in the year (November) to qualify, “I Feel Fine” and “She’s a Woman.”

A significant promotional budget13 helped attain these results, but the band also benefitted from two other unprecedented opportunities. One was a three-week run on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. The other was a concert film that hit local theaters across America.

Tip to new readers: Click on the title of the post and open it in a new browser window. Then you can play videos without being bounced around or subjected to advertisements. You can also change settings and make other adjustments.

Please note that I search for the best live performances, both for my own enjoyment and to give you a real sense and experience of these artists.

The Ed Sullivan Show

Talk about serendipity, or Fate, the band happened to be returning from their first tour of Sweden at the same time that Ed Sullivan was getting off another plane at Heathrow, in late October 1963. Ed witnessed the thousands of screaming fans and booked the band on the spot. According to Ringo, “He didn’t know us and we didn’t know him.”14

For those of you who were alive and of sufficient age in February 1964, you probably remember the Beatles’ initial appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show with the same sense of clarity and awe as other earth-shattering events in life.

The first show, on February 9, 1964, had an unprecedented 73 million viewers, or about 60% of the television viewing audience.

I was one of those viewers, and I remember a neighborhood girl and I singing the closing song in the show, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” at the top of our lungs on the sidewalk in front of our houses the next day. I was only seven, but I was now in love with a bloke with a funny accent named Paul McCartney (the one on the left in the video below), replacing my crush on Gary, David, and Peter, the boys nextdoor.15

We remember that first performance because it was so iconic, but most of us seem to have forgotten that the Beatles actually appeared on Ed’s show three weeks in a row in February 1964:

February 9 (New York) - They performed five songs: “All My Loving,” “Till There Was You,” “She Loves You,” “I Saw Her Standing There,” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. Watch the entire 15-minute performance here.

February 16 (Miami) - They performed six songs: “She Loves You,” “This Boy,” “All My Loving,” “I Saw Her Standing There,” “From Me to You”, and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Watch the entire 15-minute concert here.

February 23 (pre-recorded in NY) - They performed three songs: “Twist and Shout,” “Please Please Me,” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Watch the nine-minute performance here.

There was also a taped performance of “You Can’t Do That” accompanied by an interview with the band that aired on May 24.

This opportunity alone made the Beatles a household name among the 40% of the U.S. population who saw the broadcasts. But what about the other 60%?

Never fear, because the Beatles were also coming to local movie houses in cities and towns across the country. You couldn’t find a better way to reach the teen market than by appearing in their favorite haven for escaping from parents, meeting with friends, and scoping out the local action. “Roll over, Beethoven,” the Beatles are in town. Your town.

The Washington Coliseum Live Performance

Immediately after they performed on Ed Sullivan, the band hightailed it to Washington, D.C. for what Ringo described as “a miserable event in the British Embassy… where someone came up behind me and snipped off a piece of my hair.”16 John complained of people touching them as they walked past, and left the party swearing after the Ringo hair incident.

Despite that inauspicious start, the D.C. trip turned out to be a big boon for the group when, on February 11, they played a concert in a boxing ring surrounded by a live audience. Filmed for broadcast, the concert was subsequently shown in movie theaters across America along with a filmed concert of the Beach Boys, stoking demand for their upcoming tour in August.

This concert is what has made me fall in love with the Beatles all over again. We tend to forget the high-voltage charm, energy, and good humor they brought in the beginning, and what a breath of fresh air that happened to be in a highly regulated—ever sweet, sanitized, controlled, and clean-cut—entertainment environment.

What’s also fun about this concert is that it’s like a Marx Brothers skit. The band was told to play to all four sides, and Ringo was required to leap off his round turntable so Mal Evans could swing it around between songs—and of course it got stuck. They also had to keep moving the microphones, resulting in some songs where George can’t be heard at all and others where he comes in louder than Paul or John doing lead vocals.

The songs the group performed were “Roll Over Beethoven,” “From Me To You,” “I Saw Her Standing There,” “This Boy,” “All My Loving,” “I Wanna Be Your Man,” “Please Please Me,” “Till There Was You,” “She Loves You,” “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” “Twist And Shout,” and “Long Tall Sally.”

This is the master tape of that 35-minute concert, well worth the watch in my view. You can read the story behind it here.

Other live performances of 1964 hits

There’s nothing like viewing other live performances from that time to understand why their songs took the world by storm and why the Beatles both individually and as a group were so compelling.

They had “it,” however we want to define that.

I’ve chosen performances of the hit songs from 1964 that show different sides of the band. In a few cases, I’ve also included some fun videos that give a behind-the-scenes story from a Beatle or George Martin.

I realize that this may seem a lot of videos. Think of it as an archive of sorts for me and you, to dip into as we so desire. Another way to enjoy the brilliance of the Fab Four.

“She Loves You”

The band shows off their lip-synching skills in front of a live audience on what I believe to be the UK TV show Thank Your Lucky Stars in October 1963. (But I may be wrong as the video is not labeled.)

Apparently 3,000 fans had tried to storm the building, and the audience is right at their feet. Probably relatives of the ITV employees doing the filming.

And apparently George is ‘playing’ his new Rickenbacker 425 bought in America.

“A Hard Day’s Night”

The Beatles are sweating in this live performance—I know not where but maybe Melbourne, Australia?—and John starts them off.

It’s an official Beatles video from Universal Music Group. I wished they’d label them! And I don’t know why Ed Sullivan is pictured because this is not from his show.

Ringo talks about the film A Hard Day’s Night (rather than the song) in this six-minute video from his appearance on The David Letterman Show in 1998. I had to include it because Ringo talks about those early days and what it was like, but also because he’s very entertaining as a chat show guest.

“Love Me Do”

This is apparently a performance from Live At BBC for “Easy Beat,” on October 20, 1963. It’s not the best quality, but we get to see John’s harmonica playing and lead singing and George trying not to look at the camera.

Paul tells a story about being terrified when George Martin asks him to sing one of John’s lines in “Love Me Do,” in this one-minute clip.

“Please Please Me”

This is the performance from the Washington Coliseum, with Paul introducing the song.

George Martin talks about having the group record “How Do You Do It?” and having them turn it down. (He gave it to Gerry and the Pacemakers, who took it to #1.) Instead, they wanted to do their own “Please Please Me,” inspired by Roy Orbison and Bing Crosby.

“Twist and Shout”

The group played at the Royal Variety Performance in front of the Queen Mother.

As an introduction to this song, John said, “For our last number I'd like to ask your help. The people in the cheaper seats clap your hands. And the rest of you, if you'd just rattle your jewellery.” He grinned and the Queen Mother gestured. Fun to watch.

This is a song that really taxed John’s voice, and you can see why. It’s a great live performance.

In this brief video, George Martin and the Beatles talk about the making of the album Please Please Me, and in particular the difficulty of “Twist and Shout” for John.

“Can’t Buy Me Love”

John clowns around while introducing this song at their Festival Hall performance in Melbourne, Australia in 1964. Not the greatest sound quality, but some unusual close-up and stage shots that make it an interesting watch.

“Do You Want to Know a Secret”

This BBC on-air performance is a good one for hearing Paul give the song different inflections and emphases.

“I Saw Her Standing There”

How could the nation not be gripped watching this song performed by the Beatles their first time on The Ed Sullivan Show? We’d never heard anything like it.

The song was released by Capitol as the B side to “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Although it peaked at #14 on the Hot 100, it still made it onto the year-end Hot 100, at #95.

“I Feel Fine”

The lads are looking quite moptoppy in this live performance at the ABC Theatre in Blackpool.

This song went to #1 almost everywhere and was the fifth best-selling single of the 1960s in the UK.

“PS I Love You”

Another BBC on-air performance, Paul’s voice as lead and the harmonies come across in a different and interesting way from the recorded version.

“She’s a Woman”

Released as the B side to “I Feel Fine” in November 1964, this song still went all the way to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The live performance below, at the New Musical Express concert in 1965, features the lads with a new look. Watch the full 15-minite performance here.

Comments and feedback

Are there Beatles songs from 1964 that you think should have been included here? Let me know if songs that didn’t make the charts were personal favorites.

Beyond that, are there any songs from 1964 that have been left out in the posts so far and that you believe should be showcased—whether they were hits or not? Cult classics? Personal favorites?

If I get enough responses, I’ll put out a ‘Reader’s Choice’ list.

Coming attractions

We’ll be moving on to the year 1965.

Nominate your favorites, Place your bets. It’s going to be another rip-roarin’ year as the American musicians battle to regain ground from the British invaders and women try to get a bigger piece of the action.

We’re moving forward year by year and, at the moment, we’re in the third week of our first year, 1964. You can find the previous entries—on the women artists and on the British invasion—here.

Today we look at the male American artists, groups, and bands of 1964. It’s a watershed year for them, caught unawares by an onslaught of British rock-and-roll bands and, as a result, losing an inconceivable number of positions on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the corresponding sales of millions of albums.

Why were they so vulnerable to this attack? If we take a step back, we find that at the beginning of 1964 one element had been largely eliminated from the American airwaves, and that element was homegrown rock ’n’ roll.

It wasn’t for lack of demand. Teenagers had been delirious in response to the early rock-and-roll artists of the fifties, such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bill Haley and His Comets, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, and Elvis Presley. Out-of-control fans and even riots had been a common occurrence at concerts and appearances.

No, the problem was on the supply side. Authorities from the local to national level, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), had lashed out at rock and roll as an unacceptable threat to society. By the early sixties, whether through design or circumstance (or both), most of the rock-and-roll artists had been sidelined or marginalized for one reason or another (jail, military service, blacklisting, death, etc.).

At the height of his popularity, the biggest rock-and-roll act in the world, Elvis Presley, had been conscripted into military service for two years, from 1958 to 1960, and soon after being discharged found himself diverted away from live performances into making movies.

Only a few of the big-name artists, notably Bo Diddley and Fats Domino (below), had managed to stay out of trouble with authorities and remain popular with audiences. Some, like Little Richard and Bill Haley, decided to leave the hostile U.S. for wildly enthusiastic audiences in other parts of the world—Europe, Latin America, Australia, and notably the UK—where they were welcomed with open arms.

With the elimination of the rock and roll ‘threat,’ the American airwaves were again dominated by the ‘safe’ music of the doowop artists and the boy and girl groups,1 who wisely stuck to topics like falling in and out of love and feeling lonely away from home. Even more wisely, they stuck to tempos and melodies that didn’t excite uncontrollable lust or incite riots, just the way the authorities and the older generations wanted it.

In the face of this rock-and-roll drought, only a few sources of real excitement (and incitement) remained for American teenagers heading into 1964.

One was the R&B/soul groups and artists from labels such as Motown, Stax/Volt, and Atlantic who tapped into a winning formula—marrying rambunctious or soul-stirring melodies with traditional soppy love themes and boy- and girl-next-door personas—in a way that proved reassuring to the powers-that-be and enabled their crossover to the pop-dominated Billboard Hot 100. No matter what happened, the labels weren’t about to mess with this formula.

A second source was the Beach Boys, still on the edge of clean-cut, but, couldn’t quite put one’s finger on it, had something vaguely dangerous swirling about them. After all, they were surfer boys from California, that strange and mysterious land of perpetual sunshine, wild movie stars, fast cars, and loose girls doing the Twist on the beach in skimpy polka-dot bikinis. Boys to keep an eye on!

Last, but perhaps most significant as a harbinger of what was to come, was a band called The Kingsmen, who managed to look and sound unkempt with their 1963 debut single, “Louie, Louie.” Are they performing drunk, and are those indecent lyrics? As we’ll see below (because this song hit the top of the charts in early 1964), they provoked the same reaction from authorities as the first wave of rock and roll.

We almost have to laugh knowing the tsunami that’s about to hit the U.S.

Thus, at the start of 1964, teens bored by the ‘same-old same-old’ were primed for the thrill that fifties teenagers had experienced with the early rockers and Elvis.

Their parents, on the other hand, were alarmed at what they knew could ensue with such dangerous influences.

Is it any wonder, then, that the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 1964 reflects the influence of a mishmash of competing agendas and expectations from different segments of the American music ecosystem—teens, parents, artists, labels, and even the powers-that-be?

Or that all of these segments were unprepared for, and thrown off balance by, the ‘surprise’ British invasion?

Except for the teens, of course, who were as usual up for anything.

My favorites from 1964 below reflect this disconcerting mishmash, a trend that will continue throughout the decade as the Billboard Hot 100 reflects an America that, given internal turmoil, can’t decide who it should be or what it should stand for.

Tip to new readers: Click on the title of the post and open it in a new browser window. Then you can play videos without being bounced around or subjected to advertisements.

Please note that I search for the best live performances, both for my own enjoyment and to give you a real sense and experience of these artists.

“Louie, Louie” by The Kingsmen

Songwriter: Richard Berry (1956)

Producer: Ken Chase and Jerry Dennon

Label: Jerden (May 1963), Wand (October 1963)

Chart: #2 US (Dec 1963 - Jan 1964), #1 Canada, #26 UK

Fun facts:

• The Kingsmen learned the song and added it to their live set list after seeing the version by Rockin’ Robin Roberts and the Wailers (1961) played for hours on the jukebox at a popular club. They found that they got the same response—kids rushing onto the dance floor.

• With no preparation and a long gig the night before, the band recorded “Louie, Louie” at 10 in the morning in a three-mike studio in only one take. It was meant to be the demo for a gig on a summer cruise ship! Lead singer Jack Ely had to lean back and shout his singing into a mike suspended from the ceiling above his head, and he also had braces on his teeth, these two conditions leading to lyrics that came across as slurred—and to allegations by parents and authorities that this band was drunk and profane.

• The band wanted to re-record it, but the band’s manager, Ken Chase, liked the raw sound and debuted it on his local radio show. Despite Paul Revere and the Raiders having a competing version at that time, the Kingsmen’s version shot to the top of the charts across the U.S. and Canada.

• Teens, parents, authorities, and even the FBI and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) heard what they thought to be indecent lyrics in the slurred singing, with the Governor of Indiana banning the song. (In fact, drummer Lynn Easton did yell an expletive at 0:54, but everyone missed this.) All this attention only made the song even more popular.

• The band’s first album, The Kingsmen in Person (above), which included hits “Louie, Louie” and “Money (That’s What I Want),” was on the Billboard Top LPs chart from January 1964 to August 1966 (131 weeks).

• Here are the young lads from Portland, Oregon doing a stellar job of lip-synching to their ‘profane’ song.

“The Way You Do the Things You Do” by The Temptations

Songwriters: Smokey Robinson and Robert (Bobby) Rogers

Producer: Smokey Robinson

Label: Gordy

Chart: #11 US Hot 100, #1 Cash Box R&B

Fun facts:

• The song was written by two members of The Miracles, a well-established Motown group with an impressive run of top hits, and produced by their frontman and chief songwriter, Smokey Robinson.

• It turned out to be a magic song, giving The Temptations their first single on the Billboard Hot 100 and just missing the top ten.

• But it also proved its enduring magic across time and artists, becoming a Top 40 hit in four consecutive decades: for the Temptations in 1964, Rita Coolidge in 1978, Hall & Oates featuring David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks of the Temptations in 1985, and UB40 in 1990.

• The video below is the Temptations performing the song with Diana Ross on a Motown Productions TV musical revue called TCB, in 1968. I just happen to love their humorous collaboration, as well as the Temps’ vibrant green suits in contrast with Diana’s inner and outer sparkle.

“Don’t Worry Baby” by the Beach Boys

Songwriters: Brian Wilson and Roger Christian

Producer: Brian Wilson

Label: Capitol

Chart: #24 Billboard Hot 100

Fun facts:

• Brian Wilson wrote the song in direct response to The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” and originally intended it for The Ronettes rather than The Beach Boys. It appears that that desire might have been nixed by Ronettes producer Phil Spector, but it would eventually be fulfilled by lead singer Ronnie Spector, who would include the song on her She Talks to Rainbows EP (1999).

• The Beach Boys version was released as the B-side to their #1 hit “I Get Around,” introducing a more melancholy mood and heartfelt lyrics into what had heretofore been only a ‘California boys surfing, hot-rodding, and partying with girls’ image, still brightly reflected on the A side.

• Brian considered it the best vocal he did for The Beach Boys and probably the best vocal of the band in terms of balancing and harmonizing their voices. The critics and other artists appear to agree, considering it one of the defining songs of The Beach Boys, of that generation, and, most notably, in the entire history of rock ’n’ roll.

• The lyrics were penned by Roger Christian based on Brian’s ideas. In my view, they are an incredible presage of things to come in the sixties and in relations between men and women, but at the same time take us on an unexpectedly emotional personal journey. Perhaps that’s their brilliance.

“Baby I Need Your Lovin’” by The Four Tops

Songwriters: Holland-Dozier-Holland

Producers: Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier

Label: Motown

Chart: #11 Billboard Hot 100, #4 Canada

Fun facts:

• Six months after The Temptations had their very first Motown hit, reaching #11, The Four Tops followed suit with a song penned and produced by one of Motown’s crack hit-making teams—25 #1 singles!—composed of brothers Brian and Eddie Holland and Lamont Dozier.

• Holland-Dozier-Holland composed the entire instrumental track without any definite intentions in terms of artist or focus. They then decided to remake it into a mainstream pop song for The Four Tops, a group due for a break after ten years in the business and the promise of great things to come in their backup vocals for The Supremes and Martha and the Vandellas.

• This video demonstrates what I think of as The Four Tops’ earnest and heartfelt sound that would lead them to a string of hits, including “Reach Out I’ll Be There” and “Bernadette” (which will be covered later in this series).

“Oh, Pretty Woman” by Roy Orbison and the Candy Men

Songwriters: Roy Orbison and Bill Dees

Producer: Fred Foster

Label: Monument

Chart: #1 in many countries (top 10 in others)

Fun facts:

• The song was apparently inspired when Roy’s wife, Claudette, interrupted a songwriting session to say she was going out, Roy asked if she needed some cash, and songwriting partner Bill Dees quipped that “A pretty woman never needs any money.”2

• Roy recorded and performed the song with the Candy Men, a quintet who often worked as his backing band but also had chart singles on their own in the late sixties and opened for Pink Floyd on their first US tour. The members of the Candy Men would go on to form the Southern rock and blues band Atlanta Rhythm Section in May 1970.

• Leave it to Van Halen to produce a brilliant cover that topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart and then illustrate it with a video that got banned by MTV. Said video features a man cross-dressing as a captive girl being fondled by a pair of dwarves, who gets rescued by the band members dressed as a cowboy (Eddie), samurai (Michael), Tarzan (Alex), and Napoleon (David Lee Roth). You just can’t make this up! Watch that here.

• Roy Orbison also made a song video for airing on Top of the Pops in the UK, filmed in the rooftop garden of a department store in London. See that here. But I prefer watching the live performance of Roy on The Ed Sullivan Show on October 11, 1964. I’m assuming the Candy Men are backing him.

“How Sweet It Is (to Be Loved by You)” by Marvin Gaye

Songwriters: Holland-Dozier-Holland

Producer: Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier

Label: Tamla

Chart: #6 Billboard Hot 100 and #3 Hot Rhythm and Blues Singles

Fun facts:

• How could this song not be a hit when it was written and produced by the Motown hit-makers Holland-Dozier-Holland, sung by Marvin Gaye backed by the Andantes,3 and played by the incomparable in-house studio band, the Funk Brothers? Of course it made the Top 10.

• Not to mention, this is a song about meeting the right person and recognizing your luck in finding and falling in love with them. It’s the ultimate feel-good song for lovers and partners everywhere.

• Ten years later it would become a Top Ten hit again, as a single from James Taylor’s album Gorilla that went to #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. Find that cover here.

• We’re so used to seeing the more mature Marvin of later years, which is why the beaming young Marvin below is such a treat to watch.

“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” by The Righteous Brothers

Songwriters: Phil Spector, Barry Mann, and Cynthia Weil

Producer: Phil Spector

Label: Philles

Chart: #1 US, UK, Canada

Fun facts:

• I shouldn’t be including this song in 1964 because it’s one of the Top 5 hits for the entire year of 1965. I’ve done so because it came out in November 1964 and charted in December, so it qualifies, but also because there are so many songs to cover in the coming year.

• The organization managing performance rights, Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), in 1999 announced that it was the most-played song on American radio and television in the entire 20th century.

• Let’s be honest, this song had so much going for it. The vocal talent of duo Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield, aka The Righteous Brothers. The hitmaking chops of Tin Pan Alley songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil in combination with those of Phil Spector. And, as if that weren’t enough, being one of the finest examples of Phil Spector’s famous production technique called The Wall of Sound. Yowza!

• Mann and Weil said it was inspired by the Four Tops’ song “Baby I Need Your Loving,” currently rising in the charts as they sat down to write.

• The performance below is from a few years after the song came out, but it’s a live performance and gives you a real feel for the Righteous Brothers.

“Goin’ Out of My Head” by Little Anthony and the Imperials

Songwriters: Teddy Randazzo and Bobby Weinstein

Producer: Teddy Randozzo and Don Costa

Label: DCP

Chart: #6 US, #1 Canada

Fun facts:

• This group formed in 1957 as a doo-wop group and achieved big success the following year with “Tears on My Pillow.”

• They had two hits in 1964, this one that came out in December (peaking in 1965) and “I’m on the Outside (Looking In),” which reached #15 in the Billboard Hot 100.

• The group was not with one of the usual R&B/soul labels, having signed with the new Don Costa Productions at the recommendation of record producer, songwriter, and childhood friend Teddy Randazzo.

• The video below, from a live performance on The Midnight Special in 1974, demonstrates what makes this group distinctive—Jerome “Little Anthony” Gourdine’s high-pitched voice. And I don’t know why, but I always find myself mesmerized by syncopated dancing of people in matching outfits. (What is that?)

• Just to note that the Zombies did a cover in 1966 that was never released in the U.S. Despite being a Zombies lover, I prefer the Imperials version.

Honorable Mentions

“Hello, Dolly!” by Louis Armstrong, the great Satchmo

“Everybody Loves Somebody” by Dean Martin, the King of Cool

“Memphis” by Johnny Rivers in his first hit (#2)

Where am I finding the songs?

Here are online lists I’m consulting to find the songs:

Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1964 here - this is the ranked list for the entire year

List of Billboard Hot 100 top-ten singles in 1964 here - this shows every single that entered the top ten, including date of entry, peak ranking, peak date, and weeks in top ten

List of Billboard Hot 100 number ones of 1964 here - this shows the songs in the #1 position over the course of the year

Also two books:

The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits: 1955 to Present by Joel Whitburn (Billboard Publications, 1983).

Rock ‘n’ Roll: The First 25 Years by John Tobler and Pete Frame (Exeter Books, 1980). The authors give year-by-year lists and commentaries from both sides of the Atlantic (US and UK).

Coming Attractions

Next week, the invaders of all invaders, the Beatles, will be our focus as we spin the hits from the year 1964 here on WELN, Endwell’s premiere rock and roll station on the AM dial.

Comments and feedback

• Anything you loved that year that I haven’t covered?

• What are your personal favorites from 1964, and what do you love about them?

• Like me, did you think some of these came out in a different year?

Welcome, everyone, to my series spinning and showcasing the hits of the wildest decade in music, 1964 to 1974.

We’re moving forward year by year and, at the moment, we’re in the middle of our first year, 1964.

This is a transformational year for the American music industry and the listening public as a new form of rock-and-roll muscles its way to the top of the Billboard charts, imported from across the pond by insufficiently coiffed and weirdly suited young men with much-too-charming accents.

The British invasion has begun. Teenage girls are delirious with excitement, their parents disapproving and starting to become alarmed. They want to do what? Hold her hand? Not on your life, young man. Can we ban this music? Lock up our daughters?

The “moptop” Beatles lead the way, kicking the door open in January and enabling a scrum of brash young English bands to elbow their way in right after them.

Paul McCartney’s roommate, Peter Asher, and his partner in the duo Peter and Gordon arrive first, in February, peddling a Lennon-McCartney song that spurts to number one.

This is only the beginning, and it only gets worse as the year goes on. The numbers tell a sorry story for the outmatched American bands who lose chart positions and massive revenues to these brazen and relentless invaders.

The previous year only one of the 50 best-selling singles in the US had been British, the instrumental “Telstar” by The Tornados, held over from 1962.

A whopping twelve—one-quarter!—were British in 1964.

To put it another way, only two British acts had managed to achieve a number one on the Hot 100 chart before 1964, the aforementioned Tornados and Mr. Acker Bilk with a clarinet instrumental, “Stranger on the Shore.”1

All of a sudden, in 1964, there were nine Hot 100 number ones by UK bands—six by the Beatles and one each by Peter and Gordon, Manfred Mann, and The Animals.

These four acts were joined in the top ten by the Zombies (reaching #2), Gerry and the Pacemakers (#4), the Honeycombs (#5), the Rolling Stones and the Dave Clark Five (#6), the Kinks (#7 twice), Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas (#9), and the Moody Blues (#10). We can add the Searchers and Herman’s Hermits if we’re talking top twenty.

Just one UK #1 hit failed to chart in the U.S.—“Juliet” by the Four Pennies—but this was an old-style slow tune and not the newer sound.

The Brits were arriving with a smirk and a wink—“Just for you, darlin’”—and teenage girls were shrieking and grabbing. Yes, please!

Boys were equally attracted to the new sound and the bands’ cool, confident demeanor with a hint of swagger. They had disposable income and impatience with the dated doo-wop sound of their parents’ generation that had been dominating the charts. And for crying out loud, why are we listening to Rat Pack crooner Dean Martin and Lorne Greene from the TV show Bonanza?2

Radios were blaring and turntables spinning in teen bedrooms across America, and we kids just couldn’t get enough.

Our parents merely rolled their eyes in disdain. That is, until the Brits had the unbelievable gall to invade not just the airwaves but also their favorite Sunday evening television entertainment, The Ed Sullivan Show. Unbelievable! Is there no escape from these smart-singing hooligans?

No, apparently not. Because on February 9th the Beatles drew the biggest Ed Sullivan audience in history—around 73 million, or 40% of the US population.

They would soon be followed by Ed welcoming even more of the UK bands—what was Ed thinking!—and things, as they say, would never be the same.

Herewith, in chronological order by when the song was released, my favorite British invasion songs from 1964, which include some Ed Sullivan performances.

Tip to new readers: Click on the title of the post and open it in a new browser window. Then you can play videos without being bounced around or subjected to advertisements.

Please note that I search for the best live performances, both for my own enjoyment and to give you a real sense and experience of these artists.

“A World Without Love” by Peter and Gordon

Songwriters: John Lennon and Paul McCartney

Producer: Norman Newell

Label: EMI London

Chart: #1 in US, UK, Canada, Ireland, NZ, and #30 on Billboard Hot 100 for 1964

Fun facts:

• In 1963, Paul McCartney was living in the family home of his girlfriend, Jane Asher, and sharing a room with her brother, Peter, who asked if he could use this song. Peter and Gordon Waller had just signed a recording contract as the duo Peter and Gordon and were looking for material for their debut album.

• Paul had written it when he was 16 but didn’t think it was good enough for the Beatles. According to John Lennon, “we always used to crack up” at the first line—”Please lock me away.”3

• Although Paul made a demo of the song (listen here), it was never recorded and released by the Beatles.

• Only two Lennon-McCartney songs done by an artist other than the Beatles have reached #1 in the US—this song and Elton John’s “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” (1974).

• “A World Without Love” is record-setting in another way, as part of a longstanding songwriting record achieved by Lennon-McCartney that year—seven songs to reach the top of the U.S. charts.

• Whereas Gordon eventually left the music business, Peter went on to become a manager and record producer for a stable of prominent artists, including James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt. Since 2018 he’s back to performing, with Jeremy Clyde of Chad and Jeremy in a duo called Peter and Jeremy.

“Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” by Gerry and the Pacemakers

Songwriters: Gerry Marsden, Freddie Marsden, Les Chadwick, Les Maguire

Producer: George Martin

Label: EMI Columbia (UK, Australia, NZ), Laurie (US), Capitol Records (Canada)

Chart: #4 US and Canada, #6 UK and NZ

Fun facts:

• The group was originally called Gerry Marsden and the Mars Bars, but had to change it when the Mars Company complained about trademark infringement on the name of one its most popular candy bars.

• The band had four things in common with the Beatles. It was from Liverpool, managed by Brian Epstein, recorded with George Martin, and broke records with its number of hits.

• Gerry and the Pacemakers was the first—and held the record for 20 years—to reach #1 on the UK singles charts with their first three singles. (Liverpool band Frankie Goes to Hollywood would break their record.)

• The song was credited to four members of the band, but the song was apparently written by leader Gerry Marsden for singer Louise Cordet, who had toured with them and with the Beatles following her UK hit single “I’m Just a Baby.”

• When Louise’s version failed to chart, the band decided to record it themselves, and it became their breakthrough hit in the U.S.

• The band then re-released their earlier hits in the U.S.—that’s why it felt like an invasion!—and performed the song on The Ed Sullivan Show in May 1964.

“Have I the Right?” by The Honeycombs

Songwriters: Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley

Producer: Joe Meek

Label: Pye (UK), Interphon (US)

Chart: #5 US, #1 UK, Canada, Australia, Sweden, NZ

Fun facts:

• The Honeycombs had a female drummer, Anne “Honey” Lantree, who started with an amateur band called The Sheratons that was renamed The Honeycombs once the band got a record contract. Honey was an inspiration and influence for later female drummers, including Karen Carpenter.

  

• Two things created the unusual sound of this song. One was Honey’s drumming. The other was the sound effects created by recording the group stomping on wooden stairs, using five microphones attached to the banisters with bicycle clips.

• The recording was also sped up, making it impossible for the group to recreate the same sound in live performance.

• Their record producer was the highly innovative Joe Meek, known as a pioneer in experimental and space age pop and the use of the recording studio as an instrument. In fact, the recording was made at his home in Islington (London), the third of three #1 hits he produced there. (The other two were by John Leyton (1961) and The Tornados (1962).)

• This irresistible earworm was the group’s only hit.

“The House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals

Songwriter: Unknown (old American folk song)

Producer: Mickie Most

Label: Columbia

Chart: #1 US, UK, Canada, Spain, Finland; top 10 in many countries

Fun facts:

• The origin of this song is lost to time, but the lyrics were printed in 1925 and recordings made in Appalachia in the 1930s. Speculation is that it was brought to the southern US from Europe, like many folk songs.

• There are many versions of the song, in folk (Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Dave Ron Ronk, early Bob Dylan), the blues (Lead Belly, Nina Simone), country (Dolly Parton), Afropop (Miriam Makeba), soul (the Chamber Brothers), and even heavy metal (Five Finger Death Punch), but the most successful version by far has been the folk/blues rock version of the Animals.

• The band discovered the song when lead singer Eric Burdon heard it being performed in a Newcastle club by Northumbrian folk singer Johnny Handle. Deciding to add it as the closing number in their joint tour with Chuck Berry, the band was overwhelmed with the audience response and producer Mickie Most became convinced of its potential to become a commercial hit.

• The band popped into a London studio inbetween tour stops and recorded it in one 15-minute take.

• Issued three times in the UK, it charted all three times at #1, #25 (1972), and #11 (1982).

• What distinguishes the Animals’ version is two things. One is being played in 6/8 meter, whereas other versions are in 4/4. The second is Eric Burdon’s unique voice. Does his charisma come through in the recorded version? Because, as this performance on The Ed Sullivan Show demonstrates, Eric sure had it.

“She’s Not There” by The Zombies

Songwriter: Rod Argent

Producers: Marquis Enterprises

Label: Decca (UK), Parrot (US)

Chart: #2 US and Canada, #1 Japan and NZ, #12 UK

Fun facts:

• Early in this substack, I wrote a lengthy post on the background and music of the Zombies, available here. Head on over there for more, but I’ll share a few of my favorite fun facts below.

• “She’s Not There” was penned by founder, leader, and keyboardist Rod Argent. It got the band a contract with Decca and took them to number two on the Billboard Hot 100. Santana also had a hit with a cover that spent 14 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1977. Rolling Stone ranked the song number 297 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2016.

• A defining quality of the Zombies was that, despite being so young, all five members brought a high level of expertise in terms of both musicianship and singing. Two of them had fathers who played in dance bands. Decca Records promoted the band as “the group with more than 50 ‘O’ levels,” meaning these kids were smartie pants.

• Another defining feature was lead singer Colin Blunstone’s unique voice, a combination of what has been called a “smoked-silk” or “menthol” quality with excellent grammar school enunciation.

• Members of ZZ Top—bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard—were part of a fake Zombies touring group in 1969, organized by a company that also fielded fake versions of the Animals and the Archies.

• The original Zombies would not survive, but four of them would go on to found Argent, which had the top ten hit “Hold Your Head Up” in 1971. The Zombies was eventually resurrected as a band by original members and still tours.

• This promo video for the song, with the posed women and artifacts, cracks me up. Gotta love British humo(u)r.

“Time Is On My Side” by The Rolling Stones

Songwriters: Norman Meade (a.k.a. Jerry Ragovoy), Jimmy Norman

Producer: Andrew Loog Oldham

Label: London

Chart: #6 US, #1 Canada, top 10 in five other countries)

Fun facts:

• The Rolling Stones would have two U.S. hits in 1964, this one and “It’s All Over Now,” which went to #1 in the UK but only #26 in the U.S. It seems Americans preferred this song, Brits the other one.

• It was their first top ten hit in the U.S.

• The song had already been recorded the previous year by jazz trombonist Kai Winding, who played the melody while session singers Dee Dee Warwick, Dionne Warwick, and Cissy Houston came in with “time is on my side, you’ll come running back.”

• Irma Thomas recorded an R&B version in 1964, with session singer Jimmy Norman penning the lyrics as they recorded. The Stones heard it as soon as it came out and rushed into the studio to produce a rock-and-roll version, replacing the horns with organ and guitars.

• Mick copied Irma’s ad-libs, and she never forgave the Stones for not acknowledging her, refusing to perform the song again until the early nineties. A rapprochement occurred in 2024 when the Stones invited Irma to perform the song with them at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

• As we’ve seen with other bands, the Stones performed live on The Ed Sullivan Show, Mick fronting their scruffy, tough-guy brand but Brian Jones sporting an impeccable Beatles-esque coiff.

“You Really Got Me” by The Kinks

Songwriter: Ray Davies

Producer: Shel Talmy

Label: Pye (UK), Reprise (US)

Chart: #7 US, #1 UK, top 10 in four other countries

Fun facts:

• Like the Stones, the Kinks had two hits in 1964, this one and “All Day and All of the Night.” Both reached #7 on the U.S. chart and #1 and #2 respectively in the UK. I’ve included “You Really Got Me” here just because it’s my personal favorite.

• The song was written by lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Ray Davies, who claimed the music was a tribute to blues greats Lead Belly and Big Bill Broonzy and the lyrics inspired by seeing a girl on the dance floor during a college gig. “When we finished, I went off to find her, but she was gone and never returned to the club. She really got me going.”4

• Lead guitarist Dave Davies called it “a love song for street kids. They're not going to wine and dine you, even if they knew how to chat you up. [They say] ‘I want you—come here’.”5

• The band’s manager, Larry Page, said the riff came about when they were trying to work out the chords to “Louie Louie” by The Kingsmen. We’ll cover that song next week.

• Contrary to rumor, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Jon Lord of Deep Purple did not play on the track.

• The song’s construction around power chords is cited as an influence on the later development of hard rock and heavy metal. According to Dave Davies, “I think, in all humility, it was the first heavy guitar riff rock record.”6

“Go Now!” by The Moody Blues

Songwriters: Larry Banks and Milton Bennett

Producer: Denny Cordell

Label: Decca (UK), London (US)

Chart: #1 UK, #2 Canada, top 10 in US and three other countries

Fun facts:

• “Go Now” was originally released in January 1964 by R&B/soul singer Bessie Banks, with backup vocals by Dee Dee Warwick and Cissy Houston. Bessie was the ex-wife of songwriter Larry Banks. That version was produced by the hit-making producers and songwriters, Jerome Leiber and Michael Stoller, and reached #40 on the US Cash Box R&B chart.

• Denny Laine, co-founder, lead singer, and guitarist for the Birmingham-based beat group The Moody Blues, heard Bessie’s R&B version of the song and convinced his bandmates to record a rock ’n’ roll version.

• The band added the exclamation mark to the song’s title.

• With the Moody Blues having no more hit singles in the mid-sixties, Denny Laine decided to quit the band in 1966 and was eventually replaced by Justin Hayward. Whereas the Moody Blues only continued performing the song for a short time, it became a concert staple for the band Denny co-founded with Paul and Linda McCartney in 1971, Wings. It’s included in the Wings Over America (1976) live album.

• The original is included in The Very Best of the Moody Blues.

• What’s fun in the live performance below is seeing Denny Laine’s stagecraft as the band gets off to a false start and his assured presence as lead singer.

Honorable mentions

“Do Wah Diddy Diddy” by Manfred Mann, which went to #1 in both the US and UK - video here.

“Glad All Over” by the Dave Clark Five, released in 1963 but went to #1 in the UK in January 1964 and #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in April - video here

“Bad to Me” by Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, which went to #1 in the UK in 1963 and #9 in the US in 1964 - video here

“Needles and Pins” by The Searchers, which went to #1 in the UK and #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 - video here

“I’m into Something Good” by Herman’s Hermits, which went to #1 in the UK and #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 - video here

Other favorites welcome in the comments. Hits can cross years, and I may have categorized something as 1963 or 1965 even though it was at the top in 1964. No reason to disqualify it from this list.

Coming attractions

I’ll be covering the American bands trying to hold off the British invasion in next week’s post, and the band that won the war—or was it just the battle?—on behalf of the Brits the week after next. That, of course, would be the Beatles. So stayed tuned to this channel, WELN Radio from Endwell,7 for more exciting music.

We’re moving forward year by year, starting with 1964—a year of major transition in the music business as we witness the full-scale British invasion and the ensuing confusion among the crooners, boy and girl groups, and old-style rock-and-rollers. How to respond to the moptops and miscreants from across the pond?

As we’ll discover today, some new(er) female artists alongside some seasoned pros were breaking out and commandeering the charts in both the US and UK, and they were working with some of the biggest names in the business—Burt Bacharach and Hal David, George Martin, Tony Hatch, Holland-Dozier-Holland at Motown, and John Barry—but for the most part they were sticking to the pop star script.

As you’ll see in the videos of their live performances, they still had that ‘Doris Day in Pillow Talk’ elegance—gowns and sparkle galore—and the coiffed hair and the winsome charm. Methinks it’s going to be a while before we see the hard-livin’ cookies, the Graces and the Janises, who can go toe-to-toe with the snarling bad boys.

However, we do have glimmers of a new day in the discovery of Cilla Black, championed by the Beatles and producer George Martin, and the promotion of Marianne Faithfull by Mick and Keith of the Rolling Stones and their producer Andrew Loog Oldham. A British incursion into the female camp, if you will.

What we don’t see yet is these women writing their own tunes. Carole King managed to have a hit with her 1962 “It Might as Well Rain Until September,” but she’s now back to co-writing songs for others with her husband, Gerry Goffin. Jackie DeShannon is in a somewhat similar position, having success writing tunes for others and singing others’ tunes herself, but not so much in marrying the two. The singer-songwriter phenomenon is coming, but it’s not destined to arrive for a while.

In terms of performance, the other thing to note is the phenomenal avenues for promoting new songs that existed at this time. A slot on The Ed Sullivan Show in the US gave you, on average, 25 to 30 million viewers. No wonder The Supremes, one of Ed’s favorite groups, had three number one hits during the year.

Likewise, in the UK, the BBC’s weekly Top of the Pops began broadcasting on January 1st of this year, with Dusty Springfield’s “I Only Want to Be with You” (which went to #4) the first featured song and the Rolling Stones the first featured band.

Performances on these shows were meant to promote the single and were often lip-synched rather than performed live. Who could afford the musicians to recreate that highly polished studio sound on-air?

Lip-synching or not, what’s striking about these performers (see clips below) is what phenomenal entertainers they were. We tend to forget that these aren’t just singers. They are song interpreters and entertainers who imbue both the song and the performance with emotion, personality, and charisma.

If there’s anything I remember about this era before hippies and flower power took over, it was the singing chops, the choreographed moves, and the suave elegance. It’s never been the same since. (We have Cher to thank for carrying this sixties glamor aesthetic into the seventies with her variety shows and Bob Mackie gowns.)

Herewith, in chronological order by when their song was released, my favorite female performances in 1964, from Cilla, Dionne, Marianne, The Supremes (Diana, Mary, and Florence), Shirley, Martha and the Vandellas (Betty and Rosalind ), Sandie, and Petula.

Tip to new readers: Click on the title of the post and open it in a new browser window. Then you can play videos without being bounced around or subjected to advertisements.

“Anyone Who Had a Heart” by both Dionne and Cilla

Songwriters: Burt Bacharach and Hal David

Producers: Burt Bacharach and Hal David (Dionne); George Martin (Cilla)

Label: Scepter (Dionne); Parlophone (Cilla)

Chart: #8 US and #47 UK (Dionne); #1 UK, Ireland, South Africa, New Zealand (Cilla)

Fun facts:

• The song is a challenging one both musically and lyrically. According to Burt Bacharach, it “changes time signature constantly, 4/4 to 5/4, and a 7/8 bar at the end of the song on the turnaround. It wasn’t intentional, it was all just natural. That’s the way I felt it.”1

• Dionne recorded the song in a session in November 1963 that also included “Walk on By,” her other hit of 1964 (see below).

• According to Burt Bacharach, he backed George Martin in recording a UK version of the song with Cilla. “The great thing about the British is that they've always 'got' my songs right away. They are also one of the most loyal audiences in the world. I think Cilla reflected that kind of ability. She understood the song and she had a kind of long-term stickability, which is so very hard to achieve in this business.”2

• Cilla was a fellow Liverpudlian and friend of the Beatles.

• Dionne’s song reached the top 10 in the US, Cilla’s the top of the chart in the UK. The separate versions effectively prevented success in both markets as Dionne’s debuted first in the US and Cilla’s in the UK.

• BBC Radio 2 claimed in 2010 that Cilla’s version was the biggest chart hit by a female in the entire decade of the 1960s.

• As Dionne’s other hit is featured below, Cilla’s remastered performance from Live at the Savoy (1966) is showcased here. (It looks like George Martin is conducting.)

“Walk on By” by Dionne Warwick

Songwriters: Burt Bacharach and Hal David

Producers: Burt Bacharach and Hal David

Label: Scepter

Chart: #6 US, #14 Canada

Fun facts:

• I remember singing this song in our high school chorus. Written expressly for Dionne, it’s another challenging song from Burt and Hal.

• It gave Dionne an international and Grammy-nominated hit. She also recorded a German version called “Geh vorbei.”

• The song has been covered by many artists, including Isaac Hayes (#30), Bobby Kris and the Imperials (#8 in Canada), the Stranglers (#21 UK), and Melissa Manchester (#6 US Adult Contemporary).

• Dionne’s extraordinary musical dexterity is demonstrated in this live performance below.

“As Tears Go By” by Marianne Faithfull

Songwriters: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Andrew Loog Oldham

Producer: Andrew Loog Oldham

Label: Decca

Chart: #2 Canada, #9 UK and Ireland, #22 US

Fun facts:

• The song was purportedly written when Andrew locked Mick and Keith in the kitchen to force them to write a song together. He told them, “I want a song with brick walls all around it, high windows and no sex.”3

• Marianne was only 17 at the time of recording. Andrew played her a demo of Mick singing it accompanied by Big Jim Sullivan on acoustic guitar and handed her a sheet of paper with the lyrics “scrawled” on it. The song was done in a couple of takes and Andrew told her “Congratulations darling. You’ve got yourself a number six.”4 (It went to #9.)

• Marianne later remarked that, contrary to popular belief, the song had not been written for her. That would have been weird, given that it was a song about a woman looking back on her life with nostalgia.

• The Stones released their own version the following year on their US album December’s Children (And Everybody’s) (#6 US). They performed it on their third appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

“Where Did Our Love Go” by The Supremes

Songwriters: Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland

Producer: Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier

Label: Motown

Chart: #1 US, Canada, New Zealand; #3 UK

Fun facts:

• The Supremes—lead singer Diana Ross and backup singers Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard—would have three #1 hit singles this year. The other two were “Baby Love” and “Come See About Me.”

• This song was, in fact, the first in a run of five #1 singles.

• The song was originally offered to the Marvelettes, who turned it down, and the Supremes weren’t all that keen on it at first.

• The band was the legendary Funk Brothers.

• The Supremes started Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand Caravan of Stars” tour at the bottom of the bill, and by the end, due to the phenomenal success of this song, they had top billing.

• The go-go dancers in this performance at the T.A.M.I. Show in November 1964 crack me up. They are so intense. Actress Teri Garr—from one of my favorite movies, Tootsie—is one of the dancers. Future pop star David Cassidy and filmmaker John Landis were apparently seventh-grade attendees.

“Goldfinger” by Shirley Bassey

Songwriters: John Barry, Leslie Bricusse, and Anthony Newley

Producer: George Martin (but actually John Barry)

Label: EMI

Chart: #8 US, #21 UK

Fun facts:

• This was the theme song for the James Bond film of the same name.

• John Barry was the composer of eleven James Bond scores, including this one.

• He had also been the conductor on Shirley’s national tour the year before and they had had an affair.

• Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones played on the instrumental version of the song.

• Shirley had to keep slipping behind a partition and removing her bra for every take to hit the final note.

• The song was a global hit and became Shirley’s signature song.

“Dancing in the Street” by Martha and the Vandellas

Songwriters: Marvin Gaye, William “Mickey” Stevenson, and Ivy Jo Hunter

Producer: William “Mickey” Stevenson

Label: Gordy

Chart: #2 US, #3 Canada; #28 UK (#4 when re-released in 1969)

Fun facts:

• Although Marvin Gaye intended it to be a love song, Martha Reeves convinced him and Mickey Stevenson to let them sing it as an upbeat party song.

• It also became an anthem for the civil rights movement.

• The Vandellas were Betty Kelly and Rosalind Ashford, accompanied on backup vocals by producer Mickey Stevenson and co-songwriter Ivy Jo Hunter.

• The band was, of course, the legendary Funk Brothers.

• Martha and the Vandellas had a hit earlier in the year with “Quicksand,” which went to #8.

• The Rolling Stones used lyrics from the song in their 1968 “Street Fighting Man,” changing them to “Summer’s here and the time is right for fighting [instead of “dancing”] in the street.”

• The song has been covered by The Mamas & the Papas (#73), Van Halen (#38), and David Bowie and Mick Jagger (#1 UK and #7 US), as well as others.

“(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me” by Sandie Shaw

Songwriters: Burt Bacharach and Hal David

Producer: Tony Hatch

Label: Pye (UK), Reprise (US)

Chart: #1 in UK, Canada, South Africa, #52 in US

Fun facts:

• Dionne Warwick originally recorded this as a demo for Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

• Sandie debuted the song on the TV pop music program Ready Steady Go! and it zipped up the UK chart.

• It didn’t take off in the US because a version by Lou Johnson had already been released mid-year and reached #49, but her version went top ten in several cities.

• A new singer that year, with only one previous single that failed to chart, Sandie would go on from this #1 to have two more and become one of the most successful British singers of the sixties.

• With her third #1 song, “Puppet on a String,” she took the UK to their very first victory in the Eurovision song contest, in 1967.

“Downtown” by Petula Clark

Songwriter: Tony Hatch

Producer: Tony Hatch

Label: Pye (UK), Warner Bros. (US)

Chart: #1 US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Germany; #2 UK

Fun facts:

• I’ve already written a post on the career of this extraordinary woman — “The other British Invasion.” Read that here.

• If you don’t like groovy dancers, skip to the 45-second point in the video below to see Petula’s dramatic entrance and performance on The Dean Martin Show.

Honorable mentions

“Let It Be Me” by Betty Everett and Jerry Butler, a cover of an earlier Everly Brothers hit that went even higher in the charts (#5) - video here

“I Only Want to Be with You” by Dusty Springfield - video here

“You Don’t Own Me” by Lesley Gore, an early female empowerment song - video here

“People” by Barbra Streisand - how can I not include this?! - video here

It’s Christmas, darling, and we’re celebrating with a jump back in time to when I was a wee lass, caught up in the holiday season and beside myself with excitement over the impending visit of Santa.

Although I eventually learned through the schoolyard grapevine that he was not real (and sadly, not the delightful Edmund Gwenn in Miracle on 34th Street), I was sworn to secrecy for my little brother’s sake and still got my share of packages from the jolly bearded fellow in the red, fur-trimmed suit. “To Ellen, Love Santa.” Fine by me, Mom and Dad!

If you’re not American, or you don’t celebrate Christmas, or you didn’t celebrate the holidays back in the ancient years of my youth, don’t worry, as the songs I’m going to share with you are popular classics and — guaranteed! — will warm the cockles of your heart and even, in some cases, tug at your normally resistant heartstrings. They are that good, and, in my estimation, well worth the investment of your time and attention to give them a listen.

If you want to know who influenced my taste in Christmas music back then and, full disclosure, right up to this very day, you’re looking at ‘em.

Lee and Jan (above, with me in-between) were the quintessential suburban sixties couple. Dad met Mom in the early fifties through his hell-raising escapades with her brother, Junior. Dad’s nickname was “Popeye” because he was a small guy, just an inch over five feet, who would brawl in bars with the best of them. And I know for a fact that he ate his spinach.

Despite Dad’s family thinking Jan wasn’t good enough — they had considered the girlfriend before her even worse, “loud and brash” according to Aunt Dot — he decided to marry and settle down with her in a house he built in the suburbs and gifted her with two unruly and mouthy kids. (The other two trouble-makers would arrive later.)

Every year we had a get-together with Dad’s extended family on Christmas Eve and with Mom’s family on Christmas afternoon. Mom was good-natured about going to the in-laws whereas Dad always groused, complaining that Grandma (below) buttered his toast without asking. She did butter everyone’s toast, made from the most delicious Italian-American bread, before it got too cold.

She never sat down either, my grandfather always exclaiming “Siddown, Pearl!”, something we loved to imitate. Grandpa (below) was also renowned for bribing us to scratch his back with sticks of Wrigley’s spearmint or teaberry gum.

As you can see from the photo of my parents, we didn’t believe in getting dressed on Christmas Day unless we left the house, a tradition I honor to this day. That fuzzy red sweater was one of my Christmas presents, which I adored and insisted on wearing over my unmatching flannel nightgown.

I don’t remember those skis, assume that they were my brother’s and I was just holding them for dramatic effect as he snapped the photo with his new camera from Santa. (The film would not get developed for many months, my parents being my parents, and also overwhelmed by a new kid.)

My father had the ever-present Camel or Winston cigarette between his fingers, à la Rat Packers Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and Frank Sinatra (below) and most of his peers.

Mom was pregnant with my second brother, due to be born in early January, causing her new pink robe to bulge. Every Christmas Dad would take me and my brother with him to Burt’s on the Avenue to buy her a new robe, holding up something similar to what he’d given her the year before and asking our opinion as we chased one another around the racks. At least he didn’t get her power tools like some dads.

Those eyeglasses. Those curtains. The Christmas tree twinkling in the bow window behind Mom, giving her an angel’s wings and halo. The barely-seen enormous television behind Dad. I really miss the sixties — except for those severe Bettie Page bangs Mom insisted on giving me in spite of my protests. She would’ve given me pouffy retro fifties hair like hers if I had let her. (She once had the beauty parlor give me a Shirley Temple perm when I said over and over again that I wanted banana curls like my favorite doll. No more visits to that salon after the temper tantrum I threw, but also no more perms like Mom’s 1930s childhood idols.)

This substack has been, to some extent, a product of nostalgia triggered by my high school reunion. So, not surprisingly, the songs in this post are those that enriched my growing-up years in Endwell, accompanied by memories that reveal why they were so special to me. I hope you enjoy this festive jump back in time to the swingin’ sixties.

And oh yeah. I do have one more favorite not included in this list. It’s on a Christmas playlist over on Dan Epstein’s substack. Check out my Tony Bennett selection there, along with the holiday favorites of an intriguing bunch of other substack writers.

OK now, hang on to the sleigh, because here we go…

[Clop, clop, clop of horse’s hooves and sleighbell jingle-jangling sound effects]

“White Christmas” by Bing Crosby and Marjorie Reynolds (1942)

Believe me, there was no shortage of sentimental, get-out-the-hankie movies trotted out every year in the lead-up to Christmas. Only three major networks — NBC, ABC, and CBS — and yet we felt spoilt for choice. Luckily, my brother and I pretty much controlled the TV and agreed on what to watch.

My favorite ‘adult’ movie was It’s a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, a feel-good tearjerker if ever there was one, about a guy who’s planning to throw himself off a bridge until an angel named Clarence shows him how impoverished and corrupt his town would have become if he’d never been born. A holiday must-watch.

I have to admit that White Christmas, with Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Danny Kaye, and Vera-Ellen flirting, arguing, dancing, falling in love, and — finally! — performing a version of the title song (by Irving Berlin) at an inn in Vermont during a snowstorm, was a close second.

For pure listening pleasure on the hi-fi or radio, I like the original version of “White Christmas” from Holiday Inn the best. Did you know that Bing Crosby’s single is the best-selling physical recording in the world with over 50 million sold?

“The Christmas Waltz” by Frank Sinatra (1957)

Don’t quibble with me over which Frankie tune to include here. I know there are many contenders from his A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra and later Christmas albums, including the single “Mistletoe and Holly” (which I have, but which is not one of my favorites).

My mom had lots of albums by “Ol’ Blue Eyes” and we were enthusiastic and enduring fans of his movies. I think Dad identified with him as a skinny guy who exuded machismo but knew when to run from a fight. Frankie was a down-home guy with street smarts.

Mom, of course, thought he was hot. I myself liked that he was a wisecracker who appreciated trampy ladies who were hungry for dinner before eight (me too!) and invited them to come fly with him, in airplanes and helicopters I presumed.

Let’s also not forget that Frankie founded Reprise Records to give artists creative freedom and ownership, a label that down through the years, until now, has represented a who’s who of artists from a range of genres, including rock ’n’ roll.

Frank’s “The Christmas Waltz” is, in my opinion, unique among all Christmas songs because it makes you want to dance in big sweeping movements around the living room on your tippy toes. Probably because it’s a waltz.

“Sleigh Ride” by Ella Fitzgerald (1960)

The blonde hi-fi cabinet in the photo below — the piece against the wall sporting the pussy willows and Santa Claus sticking out of a vase, a cut glass dish containing various colors of striped ribbon candy, and what looks to be a tall chocolate advent calendar or cardboard Santa decoration — was my mom’s pride and joy.

As you can see, bedlam reigned on that Christmas Day, and on every day actually. A few times a year Mom would go on a spontaneous cleaning and furniture relocation binge, sometimes even going so far as a triple bedroom swap, but otherwise chaos was the order of the day.

If I remember right, the hi-fi had the 33, 45, and 78 rpm turntable on one side, with storage for records below, and the speakers on the other. Mom was the record maven and loved the crooners and the jazz singers. She persuaded Dad to take her to a nightclub to see Nancy Wilson when they visited New York City, the highlight of the trip in her eyes and something she reminisced about for years to come.

Ella Fitzgerald, well-represented in Mom’s record stash, had the best version of “Sleigh Ride” on her 1960 album Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas:

“The Christmas Song” by Nat King Cole (1961)

Mom also loved Nat King Cole, but then who didn’t love that deep, pitch-perfect, smooth-as-eggnog-with-buttermilk voice?

Nat started on the organ at age 4, trained in classical, gospel, and jazz piano, played in nightclubs with his band the King Cole Swingsters (then King Cole Trio), and served as house pianist for Jazz at the Philharmonic before segueing into a career as a pop star.

I knew many of his hits as a girl because Mom loved to play them, including the swinging “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66,” the uber-romantic “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons,” the moody “Nature Boy,” and of course the elegant “Unforgettable,” which his daughter Natalie Cole repopularized when she added her voice to his recording.

Nat had a hit with “Frosty the Snowman,” but my favorite Christmas song of his is “The Christmas Song,” which just might be my #1 holiday favorite of all. You know the one: “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…”

“It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by Andy Williams (1963)

Andy Williams earned the name “Mr. Christmas” because he had an immensely popular Christmas special every year in addition to his ongoing variety show series, The Andy Williams Show. Also because he put out eight Christmas albums during his 75-year singing career and originated one of the most popular Christmas songs of all time, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”

He recorded the song, written by vocal director George Wyle and Edward Pola, for his second Christmas show and included it in his first Christmas album issued that same year. By performing it every Christmas thereafter, Andy eventually, over 30 years or so, succeeded in making it into a Christmas standard.

My mom seemed to have all of Andy’s albums, but I don’t remember knowing the song back then. What I can say is that it’s been on just about every Christmas compilation I’ve ever purchased, and I’ve always loved the feeling of joie de vivre it conveys — similar to the giddiness I felt sledding or toboganning down a long, steep hill at the high school or the nearby country club and capsizing at the bottom. Thrilling.

“I’ll Be Home for Christmas” by Doris Day (1964)

Doris Day was the romcom queen of that era, and I adored her in Pillow Talk with Rock Hudson (and her other films with Rock, James Garner, and Cary Grant). Still do, although the subtext in Pillow Talk is no longer lost on me.

She was also a favorite singer, her style harking back to her big band days singing with Les Brown and His Band of Renown. Folks may not realize it now, but she was one of the biggest film and singing stars of the fifties and sixties, capping off her career with a popular sitcom called, of course, The Doris Day Show, which ran from 1968 to 1973.

What also endeared her to me was her early advocacy for animals on film and TV productions and her animal sanctuaries, foundations, and lobbying.

She also managed despite her busy career to raise a talented kid in one Terry Melcher, who became a producer for some not-too-shabby musical acts like the Byrds, Paul Revere and the Raiders, and the Beach Boys.

Doris produced quite a few Christmas covers over the years, and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” is one of my favorites.

“A Holly Jolly Christmas” by Burl Ives (1964)

The stop-motion animation special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was a holiday must-watch at my house.

We were glued to the television as Rudolph the misfit reindeer teamed up with Hermey the misfit elf, who yearned to be a dentist, and Yukon Cornelius, the silver and gold prospector. Together they made a daring and heart-stopping escape from the Abominable Snow Monster and sought refuge with all the poor little unwanted and discarded playthings on the Island of Misfit Toys. I get tears in my eyes just thinking about it.

There was even a romantic angle involving Clarice, who told Rudolph he was “cute.”

On top of the killer adventure-and-romance plot and extremely sympathetic characters, you had narration and singing by the incomparable Burl Ives. No wonder this remains a Christmas classic and his songs, including “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” have become holiday standards.

“Christmas Time All Over the World” by Sammy Davis Jr. (1965)

Sammy Davis Jr. made everything look easy — acting, singing, and dancing, crossing the color barrier to achieve extraordinary success in Hollywood and on stage (the first interracial kiss on Broadway), and being bosom buddies with Frank Sinatra and other members of the Rat Pack (and starring in the original Ocean’s Eleven).

It helped that he’d been performing in vaudeville from age two and on screen from age seven. But that belied the fact that he grew up in a segregated America, lost his eye in an automobile accident, and was publicly castigated for dating white women (illegal at that time). As he joked when asked about his golf handicap, “Talk about handicap. I'm a one-eyed Negro who's Jewish.”

Even before his massive hit, “Candy Man,” I was a Sammy Davis Jr. fan. His “Christmas Time All Over the World” was a holiday favorite.

“You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” by Thurl Ravenscroft (1966)

For a kid, there are no more satisfying lyrics than those in the Mr. Grinch song from Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!.

Btw, I’m so happy that there’s no ‘s’ after the apostrophe and an exclamation point at the end of that title. Kids weren’t coddled with things being easy or making sense in the sixties. The attitude was “Keep up, kid, and if you don’t understand something, just go along and pretend that you do.” Heaven forbid that you asked your parents what something meant. That wasn’t their job, explaining things to you. Go to school and ask your friends, f’crissakes. Do your job and be a confused kid who grows up without proper guidance. We did it; now it’s your turn.

With lyrics like “cuddly as a cactus” and “garlic in your soul,” Dr. Seuss knew how to throw major shade, all packaged in a heartwarming animation starring the Grinch, Cindy Lou Who, and Max, the overworked yet loyal and poorly-disguised-as-a-reindeer dog. Christmas animations don’t get any better than this.

“My Favorite Things” by Barbra Streisand (1967)

My father loved to comment on women’s looks, being a guy who worked and hung out with ‘manly men’ (a term my brother and I loved to throw around). Being the height of the feminist movement, he would make his deliberately sexist comments, I would make my kneejerk protest — “Dad!” — and he would grin with delight.

The funny thing was that Dad fully supported my career aspirations and encouraged me to go into business, but he wasn’t a particular fan of women who made it big. Lucy, Carol Burnett, Barbra Streisand — not top of the scorecard in his books.

I, on the other hand, was fascinated by Barbra, with her Brooklyn accent, expressive hands capped by long, glamorous fingernails, and impeccable Borsch Belt sense of humor and timing. And then there was that voice that could take a standard like “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music and make it sound as if it had been written expressly for her. (Although I love the Julie Andrews versions too.) That unique phrasing and those little Barbra quirks made it sound like a private performance even when issuing from a vinyl record and a stereo sound system. She is a one-off, that girl.

“Merry Christmas, Darling” by The Carpenters (1970)

Among all the songs here, this one is the earworm. Since listening to it a few days ago, it keeps popping into my head whenever I’m not thinking about anything (which is frighteningly often).

There has never been a voice quite like Karen Carpenter’s, combining a drummer’s sense of rhythm and a range to kill for with what I experience as a sense of vulnerability and hopefulness.

I could completely relate to Karen back then as a teenage girl who was trying to navigate the shoals of a social scene and a dating milieu I never quite understood. If you saw me at my high school reunion recently downing a double gin and tonic to deal with my social anxiety, you’d know that I haven’t progressed all that much in the past fifty years.

Karen and I — simpatico. Sisters from different and equally complicated mothers who hoped that, someday, the world might inexplicably make perfect (or at least better!) sense.

The Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah

During high school my friend and I sang in the church youth choir — as did one of my subscribers! — and one year the choir leader, Mr. Fry, who lived right around the corner from me, had us perform the magnificent and daunting Handel’s Messiah at the Christmas service. Reaching those high notes as a soprano was a challenge, and being a bunch of kids we were all over the place, but we had a great time doing it.

The Hallelujah Chorus never fails to move me, but lately it makes me break down in sobs. There is something deeply moving about this piece, something inspired by the Divine, something that speaks of the ineffable and reminds us of our humanity. If we ever lapse in our recognition that music is one of God’s best gifts to us, the Hallelujah Chorus jolts us back to that recognition. Music is one of the basic and irreplaceable elements of life, right up there with fire. We are profoundly blessed to have it.

Happy holidays, everyone! See you after Christmas!

I know Trevor from an amateur improv comedy practice group my friend Ellie had joined and persuaded me to attend with her. Trevor was one of the regulars and cracked me up all the time. Hard to keep a straight face around the talented Trevor, who also does stand-up comedy in London pubs. What I wouldn’t give to see his gyratory acrobatics. I’m sure I would be doubled up on the floor.

Song of the day

You might have read that Jimi Hendrix is one of the greatest and most influential electric guitarists of all time, but I don’t think you really ‘get it’ until you see and hear him play. To that end, here’s a live performance of “Purple Haze” at the Atlanta International Pop Festival in 1970 in which you are given an up close and personal view of Jimi’s guitar work. Not to mention, we get some glimpses of Jimi’s brilliant bandmates on The Cry of Love Tour, Billy Cox on bass guitar and Mitch Mitchell on drums.

Jimi and producer Chas Chandler pioneered a number of innovative guitar effects and sound recording techniques when making the studio version that appeared on the group’s debut album Are You Experienced. That version has the original Experience lineup of drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding. I’d feel remiss if I didn’t include it here. After all, “Purple Haze” is considered one of the greatest guitar songs of all time, and I’m quite sure this is actually the version Trevor is keen to do his gyratory dance acrobatics to.

By the way, substacker Nic Briscoe worked with producer Chas Chandler back in 1983 as sound engineer doing overdubs and mixing for the Animals’ album Ark. Nic details that story in a post that’s just come out on Brad Kyle’s stack here. You can also find more of Nic’s fascinating and often humorous stories from the London recording scene at The Song's the Thing.

Song credits

Songwriter - Jimi Hendrix

Producer - Chas Chandler

The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Jimi Hendrix - lead vocals, guitar

Noel Redding - bass guitar, backing vocals

Mitch Mitchell - drums

Today’s song is for Anna, who loved the TV show The Monkees as a girl. Likewise, I was a religious watcher for its two seasons (1966-1968), as well as having all of the Monkees record albums. If broadcasting and merchandising were their main aims in creating this boy band, it sure worked on us pre-teen girls.

But we shouldn’t forget that it also produced some unforgettable tunes, like this international number one hit and double Grammy-nominated song written by Neil Diamond, backed by top studio musicians (see credits below), and sung by the now only remaining Monkee, Micky Dolenz (with fellow Monkees Davy Jones and Peter Tork on backing vocals). The album — their second, called More of the Monkees — went five times platinum and was, not kidding, the best-selling album of the year in the U.S., the first time for a pop/rock album. Why oh why did I sell my Monkees vinyl albums?

The B-side to “I’m a Believer” was “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone,” a Top 20 hit, which almost doesn’t sound like the Monkees with its psychedelic vibe and outraged tone. Written and produced by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, I offer it here as a bonus danceable tune that shows another side to this outwardly sunny and madcap group — or at least to Micky Dolenz as a lead singer.

I suspect we’ll be hearing more Monkees hits in the coming months.

Song credits for “I’m a Believer”

Songwriter - Neil Diamond

Producer - Jeff Barry

The Monkees

• Micky Dolenz – lead and backing vocals

• Davy Jones and Peter Tork – backing vocals

Additional personnel

• Al Gorgoni, Sal DiTroia – electric guitars

• Neil Diamond – acoustic guitar

• Stan Free – organ

• George Butcher – electric piano

• George Devens – tambourine

• Russ Savakus – bass

• Buddy Saltzman – drums

• Artie Butler – arranger

Song credits for “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone”

Songwriters and producers - Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart

The Monkees

• Micky Dolenz – lead vocals

Additional musicians

• Wayne Erwin – guitar, backing vocals

• Gerry McGee – guitar

• Louie Shelton – guitar

• Bobby Hart – organ, backing vocals

• Larry Taylor – bass guitar

• Billy Lewis – drums

• Tommy Boyce – backing vocals

Unconfirmed personnel and duties

• Percussion

Song of the day

Here’s a 1967 number one single from the psychedelic rock vault called “Incense and Peppermints,” by L.A.-based Strawberry Alarm Clock from their debut album of the same name. Does it bring up groovy memories for you like it does for me? Or did you perchance get acquainted with it more recently in either Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery or Daisy Jones and the Six? Or is today your first time hearing this psychedelic standard?

These guys are still making albums and performing — with five of the original members! Check them out on their website.

Album and song credits

Songwriters: John S. Carter, Tim Gilbert (uncredited: Mark Weitz, Ed King)

Producers: Frank Slay, Bill Holmes

Strawberry Alarm Clock:

• Mark Weitz – organ, piano, harpsichord, vocals

• Randy Seol – drums, bongos, vibraphone, vocals

• Ed King – lead guitar, vocals

• Lee Freeman – rhythm guitar, harmonica, vocals

• George Bunnell – bass, vocals

• Gary Lovetro – bass, vocals

with:

• Steve Bartek – flute (uncredited)

• Greg Munford – lead vocals on "Incense and Peppermints" (uncredited)

• Gene Gunnels - drums, cowbell on Incense and Peppermints (uncredited)

Technical

• Paul Buff – engineer

• Ed Caraeff – photography

Mea culpa. As usual, I procrastinated on a work project until the deadline loomed — story of my life — and had to work like a whirlwind to get it done. In the meantime, my two posts on Carole King and James Taylor have racked up a record number of views and made me realize that you don’t just want to read about songs and artists — you are thirsty to hear about their creative life and process.

Plus — my 50th high school reunion is getting closer fast and I’m not ready to dance for hours. So I’m going to resurrect my original intent for this substack and start posting a danceable song from my school years (1964-1974) every single day (except Sunday). I won’t be providing any commentary (if you believe that…Florida…land…sale), just posting the video with the credits beneath.

Not keen on getting the daily song? Everything is in a separate section and you can opt out of anything you want. It’s very easy. Follow the directions here.

OK, let’s get on with today’s show.

Song of the day

Groove out to this great dance song from the Rolling Stones, released in 1969 on their Let It Bleed album, and check out the fantastic piano and organ work:

And here’s a live version when the lads were in their prime, with Mick singing to camera and doing some righteous shimmying. This was filmed in 1968 but not released until 1996 because the Stones were disappointed with their performance in relation to other bands and artists on the bill for their concert film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus. It was directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who would go on to do the Let It Be documentary. See what you think, but imho you can never go wrong picking up moves from Dancemeister Mick. This was Brian Jones’ last performance with the Stones, and yes, that is John Lennon at the end.

Credits for the album version

Songwriters: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

Producer: Jimmy Miller

The Rolling Stones

• Mick Jagger – lead vocals

• Keith Richards – acoustic and electric guitars

• Bill Wyman – bass guitar

Additional personnel

• London Bach Choir – choral arrangements by Jack Nitzsche

• Al Kooper – piano, organ, French horn

• Jimmy Miller – drums

• Rocky Dijon – congas, maracas, tambourine

• Madeline Bell – backing vocals

• Nanette Workman – backing vocals (credited as "Nanette Newman" on the LP)

• Doris Troy – backing vocals

Credits for the concert version:

• Mick Jagger – vocals

• Keith Richards – guitar

• Brian Jones – guitar

• Bill Wyman – bass guitar

• Charlie Watts – drums

• Nicky Hopkins – piano

• Kwasi Rocky Dzidzornu – percussion

To get a better sense of what brought you here and what you want to read going forward in terms of content and length, I’ll be sending out a survey or poll this week.

As you may have noticed, I’m going back and forth between rock music and pop music. I find the stories behind both to be really interesting, but I suspect they are serving two different audiences. So it would be good to be able to target you with different content, if that’s what you want.

Today is more of a pop music article. Later this week it’s back to rock music. Enjoy.

Our song of the day

If you want songwriting magic, take a look at what the partnership of composer Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David conjured up — and this is just a tiny part:

• “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” — written for the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid — B.J. Thomas version #1 in US

• “What’s New Pussycat?” — written for the film — Tom Jones #3 in US

• “Walk On By” — Dionne Warwick #6 in US — also done by Isaac Hayes, Gloria Gaynor, The Stranglers, Average White Band, D Train, Dina Carroll, Sybil, Gabrielle, and Melissa Manchester

• “The Look of Love” — Sergio Mendes #4 in US — also done by Gladys Knight & the Pips, Dusty Springfield, Diana Krall, Isaac Hayes, T-empo

• “This Guy’s in Love with You” — Herb Alpert #1 in US, #3 in UK

• “One Less Bell to Answer” — The Fifth Dimension #2 in US

Their partnership lasted almost two decades — from 1956 to 1973 — and although both would work with other partners throughout their careers, it was with one another that the stars appeared to become perfectly aligned. Together they penned over 230 songs for the record industry, movies, TV, and Broadway, and were nominated for multiple Academy Awards, Golden Globes, and Grammies, as well as a Tony Award for Best Musical.

They took home an Academy Award for Best Original Song (for “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head”) and a Grammy Award for Best Score (for their Broadway musical Promises, Promises). As a duo they are ranked an astounding number 32 on Rolling Stone’s 2015 list of The 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time, and were the first songwriting team to be awarded the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song by the Library of Congress, in 2012.

What brought this magic about? I have my own opinion as a longtime fan of their music, plus I have experience trying to learn their song “Walk on By” as a member of my high school chorus. Our conductor, Mr. Stewart, got noticeably frustrated with us as we tried and failed, again and again, to nail the tempo of that song. I also had the pleasure in the early 1990s, in Honolulu of all places, of seeing Burt Bacharach in concert on a bizarre double bill with choreographer Tommy Tune. Burt performed and gave commentary on many of his best-known tunes, and it struck me listening to one tune after another how different his songs have always sounded in comparison to everything else on the charts.

Based on those experiences, here’s what I suspect makes this songwriting duo so distinctive. As a lyricist, Hal David was to Burt Bacharach what Bernie Taupin has been to Elton John — someone who could accommodate any wild change in tempo or chord progression with evocative lyrics that told a heart-grabbing story. Burt’s music took us on an emotional journey and Hal’s lyrics told us why we were feeling that way. Burt riled us up and Hal calmed us back down so we could go on with our lives. In other words, Hal was the cool head both expressing and reigning in Burt’s tempestuous heart. And we loved every single moment of that emotional roller coaster ride that Burt was sending us on because we knew that, by the end, Hal would deliver us back to the place where we got on, shaky on our feet but thrilled by the experience we’d just had.

Maybe I’m wrong, but as a psychologist that’s how I would explain the magic. That’s why Burt and Hal were the ideal songwriting match, and why they would produce hits for many singers in the late 50s and early 60s — including Marty Robbins, Perry Como, and Gene Pitney — and why starting in 1962, and throughout the rest of their partnership, they would generate one hit after another inspired by, and in collaboration with, the songstress who was their perfect muse. Miss Dionne Warwick.

Burt discovered her in a recording session with the Drifters, and even as a backup singer she captured his attention with her signature voice and her dynamic presence. She already had many years of experience performing as a gospel singer and as a member of the Gospelaires (renamed the Sweet Inspirations), a group that sang backup on many studio recordings, as well as having received formal training at the Hartt College of Music. Using Dionne to make song demos, he found that he could throw anything at her and, not only could she accommodate it, but she would also make it into something extraordinary.

She was only 21 when she signed with Burt and Hal’s production company and recorded her first song with them. That debut song as a solo artist, “Don’t Make Me Over,” went all the way to #5 on the Billboard R&B chart and #20 on the Billboard Hot 100. Burt had finally found someone whose technical dexterity from her musical training and backup singing, combined with her emotional range from singing barn-raising and soul-stirring gospel, made her perfectly suited to handle the complexity and the emotional intensity of his songs. As he exclaimed in a Time interview, “What emotion I could get away with!”

Among her hits with Burt and Hal were “Anyone Who Had a Heart”, “Walk on By,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose,” and “Promises Promises.” But my own personal favorite is “I Say a Little Prayer,” the focus of this post.

In yet another example of the stars aligning or the gods intervening (as I have found in so many of these stories), this song almost didn’t see the light of day. Recorded in April 1966, Burt was not satisfied with the tempo after making Dionne do ten takes and refused to release it as a single. It was only added to Dionne’s The Windows of the World album at the insistence of Florence Greenberg, President of Scepter Records. Following the album’s release in September 1967, the song became a DJ favorite and Scepter rushed out a single to capitalize on its popularity. By December the song had reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, #8 on the Billboard R&B chart, #4 on the Canadian chart, and #3 on the Record World Top 100 chart. In January it was certified gold.

Let’s hear Dionne perform “I Say a Little Prayer” on The Ed Sullivan Show in January 1968, where you can see her effortless performance of this complex song with its odd time signatures, and also hear the emotional longing and even pathos she imbues into a seemingly upbeat tune:

One measure of a great song is that another artist can take that song, give it a completely different interpretation or put a radically new spin on it, and deliver something equally brilliant. (We might even say that generating such a song, time after time, is the hallmark of a master songwriter.) Let’s look at four examples of how that was done with this song, starting with the incomparable Aretha Franklin.

Although Aretha wrote some of her own material, producer Clyde Otis noted that she “had a thing for covers…as an interpreter, she always felt she could outdo the original” (as quoted in the biography Respect, by David Ritz). He had warned her off doing Burt’s melodies because they worked well with Dionne’s softer, subtler approach, but “you’re too strong for his stuff.” Her producer at the time of the recording, Jerry Wexler, also advised her not to do “I Say a Little Prayer” for a similar reason, that the melody “was peculiarly suited to a lithe instrument like Dionne Warwick’s—a light voice without the dark corners or emotional depths that defined Aretha.” He also considered it “not smart business” to record a song only 12 weeks after the original hit the top of the charts. Wait at least eight months to a year, he told her.

Aretha ignored this advice, having already come up with her own interpretation and arrangement of the song involving a new groove for the Muscle Shoals rhythm section and a new backup vocal arrangement for the Sweet Inspirations. When Jerry listened to the recording (produced by engineer Tom Dowd), he thought “she blew the fuckin’ doors off the song…turning what had been delightful fluff into something serious, obsessive, and haunting,” but he still didn’t think it was going to be a hit.

As he admitted, he was completely wrong. As a B side (not even an A side!), Aretha’s version went gold, reaching #3 on the R&B singles chart and #10 on the Hot 100. In music weekly NME’s list of the top 150 singles of all time, as ranked by music critics in 1987, it was at the very top — #1! — and in Rolling Stone’s Top 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2021, it was ranked 117. Not bad for a cover following right on the heels of an original hit!

Undoubtedly the most significant stamp of approval came from Burt Bacharach (quoted in Ritz’s Respect), who said “‘As much as I like the original recording by Dionne…there’s no doubt that Aretha’s is a better record. She imbued the song with heavy soul and took it to a far deeper place. Hers is the definitive version.’”

There are two things I personally love about Aretha’s re-interpretation: the change in chords that, for me, makes it almost a “you must love me too” anthem, and the jolt you get when you think the song is ending and then she comes back even stronger and more insistent. Take a listen and see what you think:

Now we turn to a version I must extol for its humor and sheer inventiveness, and for the way it shows how a great song can be adapted to fit voices and situations the songwriters never in a million years could have predicted. Sung by a table and then a restaurant full of people, enjoy this wacky version from the 1997 romantic comedy film My Best Friend’s Wedding, starring Julia Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, Cameron Diaz, and Rupert Everett (as well as many wonderful comedy actors, whose faces you may recognize). Also note the funny name of the restaurant on the wall sign near the end of the clip:

Not to be outdone by its cinematic cousin, the television show Glee did their own version of “I Say a Little Prayer.” Pivoting from wacky to Machiavellian, we get to see a devious and cunning cheerleader and her posse use the song to send a message that “this man is mine so keep your hands off him, [expletive deleted here].” I’ve left in some footage of their scheming afterwards with cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester, played by the deliciously funny Jane Lynch:

And last but not least, a version I hadn’t seen before but just discovered in the researching of this post, from the animated musical comedy film Sing 2. In fact, I ended up watching both Sing and Sing 2, I was so taken with this version. Why are some of the cleverest and most enjoyable films these days animated movies for kids starring animals? I loved both films!

In this scene, we see the song used in yet another radically different way — as a joyful and uplifting declaration of love. The characters singing are two elephants named Meena and Alfonso, voiced/sung by Tori Kelly and Pharrell Williams. Enjoy this version — it’s just so good:

Of course the aging rock star is a lion!

Some fun facts

• Hal David’s lyrics for the song were reportedly meant to be a woman singing about/to her man serving in the Vietnam War. (I haven’t confirmed this.)

• Aretha covered several other Bacharach and David songs recorded by Dionne Warwick, including “Walk On By” (listen here), “This Girl’s in Love with You” (listen here), “Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart” (listen here), and “You’ll Never Get to Heaven” (listen here).

• Covers of “I Say a Little Prayer” by other artists include: a reggae version by Jamaican artist Diana King included in the soundtrack for My Best Friend’s Wedding (here), a country and western medley of “I Say a Little Prayer” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” by Anne Murray and Glen Campbell (here), an instrumental version by Brazilian bossa nova/jazz/funk musician Sergio Mendes (here), and a marimba version by Julius Wechter and the Baja Marimba Band (here).

• Songwriter Jay Asher, who’s written for such artists as Whitney Houston, Donna Summer, and Julio Iglesias, has always revered Bacharach and David. For a lovely homage by Jay to his musical idols, I recommend this post on Brad Kyle’s music substack.

• The four key cast members of My Best Friend’s Wedding — Julia Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, Cameron Diaz, and Rupert Everett — talk about the filming of the restaurant scene for People TV in this 2019 video clip. The cast had no clue about many elements of that scene until they happened. As Dermot said, it was “unspooling beneath our feet.” The full People TV video with the cast here is also a fun watch, especially when Julia feels compelled to defend her character who does her darnedest to sabotage the wedding.

Questions for discussion in the comments

• How big is your prayer? Is it little, medium-sized, or supersized?

• If you could be any animal, which would you be? And what would you wear?

• This may seem like it’s the same question, but it’s not. If an animal played you in an animated musical comedy film, what animal would it be? (Be honest. It’s OK if you’re the human version of a warthog or cockroach. Kind of.)

• What is the worst or most embarrassing thing you’ve done at a wedding? Describe in exquisite detail.

• If you came back in another life, would you like to reincarnate as a cheerleader, an elephant named Alfonso, a devious and ruthless coach named Sue, or Rupert Everett?

To have the best experience:

• open the post in a separate browser window for the best playing of videos

• hit the ‘like’ button if you enjoy the post — this lets others know it’s worth reading, and we writers crave any kind of positive reinforcement!

• leave a comment — I want to know what you think or feel — about the music, your reactions to the post, or your responses to my questions.

Our song of the day

I just finished watching the documentary about Paul Simon called In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon, which I cannot recommend highly enough if you’re interested in Paul Simon’s six-decade body of work or in learning about his creative process. It’s 3½ hours long, but, by the end, I was disappointed it was over.

Paul is a fascinating subject, but it’s also the case that such disappointment happens to me often with films made by Alex Gibney, who has also brought us documentaries about Jimi Hendrix, Fela Kuti, James Brown, Frank Sinatra, and the Rolling Stones, not to mention what appears to be his specialty — highly controversial topics like the release of top secret government documents by Wikileaks, the opioid epidemic, and the various legally dubious and self-serving shenanigans and machinations of the rich and powerful.

With that kind of social justice streak in his work, it’s no surprise that Mr. Gibney was attracted to Paul Simon as the subject of a documentary, given the significant impact and legacy of Paul’s work with South African musicians during apartheid. But the final part of the documentary dealing with that part of Paul’s life is not what I want to focus on in this post. What I want to focus on here is his work during the sixties with Art Garfunkel, and specifically on the songs he wrote and co-performed for the soundtrack of Mike Nichol’s film The Graduate (1967). And even more specifically, on the song that made the biggest impact — “Mrs. Robinson.”

If you weren’t around at the time, you may not know that both the film and the music were a cultural phenomenon. I was only a kid, but I remember arguing with my mother from the backseat of the car when one of the Simon and Garfunkel songs from the soundtrack, “Scarborough Fair,” started playing on the radio and she dismissed it as ‘that longhair music.’ My mother had a prized hi-fi stereo in the living room and a cabinet of LPs by her favorite crooners and orchestras, not a rock-and-roll record to be found in her stash. My brother and I would soon change that with our own record collections — I remember having a 45 of “Incense and Peppermints” as well as all of the Monkees albums — although I would play mine on a small mono record player in my bedroom.

The argument with my mother may seem like typical teenage musical rebellion against the parental status quo, but my mother’s use of the term ‘longhair’ and my father’s railing against the ‘beatniks’ and ‘hippies’ was a cultural fault line between the older and younger generations distinct to that time and especially to that year — 1967, the year of the infamous Summer of Love. That fault line was reflected, in a somewhat refracted and less threatening form, in The Graduate. Rather than portraying the draft card burnings and anti-Vietnam War protests of the students (“Hell no, we won’t go!”), which sent the blood pressure of the older generation zooming, The Graduate instead portrays a young man, Benjamin Braddock, played by Dustin Hoffman, who’s just graduated from an elite college and can’t seem to get motivated by his parents’ paint-by-numbers suburban world of barbeques and martinis around the backyard swimming pool. Nor can he get excited at the prospect of joining the ladder-climbing corporate world that his father and his father’s cronies inhabit, nor by the opportunity they dangle in front of him of getting in on the ground floor of that sure-to-be-lucrative product called “plastics.”

Instead, after spurning her advances, Benjamin eventually allows himself to be seduced by one of his parents’ friends, Mrs. Robinson, played by the divine Anne Bancroft. The innocent young knave Benjamin has indeed been ‘seduced’ by his parents’ world, but not in the socially sanctioned way encouraged by the menfolk, and would have gotten away with breaking their tacit rules about infidelity if only…well, I’ll let you see the movie rather than spoiling it for you. There are many videos online, like this one, giving you highlights from the film, but I encourage watching the film in its entirety and experiencing the music within the context of the story.

The film had a generational message, captured perfectly on the movie poster: “This is Benjamin. He’s a little worried about his future.” (The film was based on Charles Webb’s novel written just after he graduated from college.) That message would resonate with Paul Simon, who had himself grown up in the Flushing, Queens suburb of New York City (you can see where he lived in the documentary) and whose songs expressed personal and cultural themes of alienation, disillusionment, and anxiety. After reading the novel, he agreed to director Mike Nichol’s request to provide three songs for the film.

Two of the songs were rejected, “Punky’s Dilemma” and “Overs,” which ended up on the next Simon and Garfunkel album, Bookends. But one song Mike Nichols loved despite it’s being incomplete, which was “Mrs. Robinson.” We’ll hear from Paul about the process involved in creating it, but first let’s hear the completed version:

You might assume, as I did, that that is the same version as what appeared in the film and in the soundtrack album, but it’s not. There are two versions in the soundtrack album and they’re both only a little over a minute long, whereas this version is over four minutes, and it only appears on Simon and Garfunkel’s album Bookends that came out the following year (1968). That seems highly unusual, so what happened?

In the clip below, Paul explains to talk show host Dick Cavett how he came up with song pieces for the film “on the spot,” based on a work-in-progress he brought with him but didn’t think Mike would be interested in. As I understand it (but it’s not entirely clear), Paul needed to come up with music for a chase scene playing on-screen and was just riffing and playing a fill when he came up with the opening for the song. And then, because he tends to write in a stream of consciousness, the words for the chorus just came into his head, and he added a lot of “dee-dee-dees” and “da-da-das” because he didn’t have anything else to fill in the screen time. Those pieces ended up becoming part of the film. The actual song that became a chart hit, the four-minute song above, was finished and recorded after the film wrapped.

Dick also asked him about some of the quirky lyrics of the song and Paul shared some amusing anecdotes. I’ll share those in fun facts below, but Paul tells it so much better in this clip:

It’s one of the inscrutable laws of the universe, that some of the best songs come out of nowhere, arriving incomplete and in the moment, and proceed to win our hearts and minds and become icons, representing something important to us even if we’re not sure exactly what that something is. Exhibit number one — “Mrs. Robinson.”

The song reached the top of the Billboard Top 100 chart and was the first rock song to win the Grammy for “Record of the Year.” It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, and ranked 6th in the American Film Institute’s 2006 100 Years…100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema.

The soundtrack album and Bookends didn’t do too badly either, both achieving number one on the Billboard Top 200 and going double-platinum. Paul Simon and Dave Grusin won the 1968 Grammy for “Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Special,” and Simon and Garfunkel won for “Best Contemporary-pop Performance, Vocal Duo or Group.”

I guess it doesn’t hurt mentioning that the film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Film and Best Director, and won the latter for first-time film director Mike Nichols (who got turned down by every studio in Hollywood!). Or that it also won five BAFTAs and five Golden Globes, including Best Film and Best Director for both. Or that the American Film Institute ranked it the 17th greatest American film of all time in 2007 (ranking it 7th before that). Or that it was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” in 1996. Or that, adjusting for ticket price inflation, it’s ranked 22nd among the highest grossing films in the U.S. and Canada ever.

Not bad for an independent comedy-drama with a first-time film director that had trouble getting financing. I can’t imagine it having that level of success without the iconic songs by Simon and Garfunkle either, can you?

Some fun facts

• In the first version of the song, Paul sang “God bless you please, Mrs. Roosevelt.” As Dick Cavett quipped, “that would change the plot of the movie a lot.” Paul quipped back that it would “add a political element [Mike] didn’t want in there.”

• Dick asked “How did Joe Dimaggio get in there? Was he playing catch with Mrs. Roosevelt in your mind?” Paul went into a somewhat lengthy explanation and concluded by saying, “I asked myself later what it meant, and well, it means something. It’ll mean something.” [Audience laughter.]

• Anne Bancroft was married to comedic director and actor Mel Brooks, who told Paul that The Graduate was making his life miserable because everywhere he went people sang “Yoo-hoo-hoo, Mrs. Robinson” at him.

• In the Gibney documentary, Paul shared that, even though he and Art played at the Monterey International Pop Festival, they never felt part of the countercultural movement given that they were not political or into drugs like other acts on the bill. In fact, they were considered square and corny. He expressed astonishment at both The Who and Jimi Hendrix destroying their equipment onstage, something he seems to have found foolhardy if not even sacrilegious for a musician.

• Roy Halee was the producer and recording engineer for “Mrs. Robinson.” He worked with Simon and Garfunkel during their tenure at Columbia Records (initially under Tom Wilson, taking over when Tom left) and with Paul on his first two solo albums after the duo broke up. Paul spoke very highly of him in the documentary, as being a skilled technican and engineer and an innovator, with an artistic temperament, a great ear, a perfectionist bent, and a talent for helping create sound collages. Roy won a Grammy for his work on “Mrs. Robinson” and four more for work on Bookends and the song “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

Questions for discussion in the comments

1. Who was your Mrs. Robinson? (Or Mr. Robinson?)

2. What songs did you argue with your parents about?

3. What songs did your parents ban?

4. What’s your favorite Simon and Garfunkel or Paul Simon song?

5. What’s your favorite film starring Dustin Hoffman? Anne Bancroft? Mel Brooks?

PLEASE hit the ‘like’ button at the bottom if you enjoy today’s post, and hit the ‘comment’ button if you have thoughts and reactions. We writers live for feedback, and it lets others know this newsletter might be worth reading.

HOT TIP: For best playing of the videos, click on the post title and open it in a separate browser window. Videos then play in the browser (not on YouTube) and you avoid the adverts.

Our songs of the day

When was the last time you boogied down and danced to tunes you love in front of other people?

Might this be your response? (Select all that apply.)

• “Hey, dancing’s not my thing, dude.”

• “I can’t dance, OK? Not making a fool of myself, yeah?”

• “I can’t dance because I have a problem with my [feet, lower back, neck, etc.]

• “No one wants to see me dance, trust me, alright?”

• “I can twerk, on a good day.”

• “I’d rather lay on a bed of nails or walk across hot coals than dance in front of other people. Not gonna happen. No! Nein! Nyet! Is that clear enough for ya?”

I assure you, you would never have thought or said those kinds of things when you were a little kid. Not because you were a well-behaved little tyke, but because it wouldn’t have occurred to you to turn down the opportunity to dance.

You scoff? Here’s what bestselling author Robert Fulghum found when he asked people at different ages — kindergartners (around age 5), college students, and adults — about their ability to dance and do other creative things:

Ask a kindergarten class, “How many of you can draw?” and all hands shoot up. Yes, of course we can draw—all of us. What can you draw? Anything! How about a dog eating a fire truck in a jungle? Sure! How big you want it? How many of you can sing? All hands. Of course we sing! What can you sing? Anything! What if you don’t know the words? No problem, we make them up. Let’s sing! Now? Why not! How many of you dance? Unanimous again. What kind of music do you like to dance to? Any kind! Let’s dance! Now? Sure, why not?…

Try those same questions on a college audience. A small percentage of the students will raise their hands when asked if they draw or dance or sing or paint or act or play an instrument. Not infrequently, those who do raise their hands will want to qualify their response with their limitations: “I only play piano, I only draw horses, I only dance to rock and roll, I only sing in the shower.”

When asked why the limitations, college students answer they do not have talent, are not majoring in the subject, or have not done any of these things since about third grade, or worse, that they are embarrassed for others to see them sing or dance or act. You can imagine the response to the same questions asked of an older audience. The answer: No, none of the above.

What went wrong between kindergarten and college?

What happened to YES! of course I can?

(That’s from his brilliant book, All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten, full quote here.)

What a ridiculous state of affairs, that we have these wonderful bodies and lose the ability to enjoy them by the time we reach college. This cannot stand!

Never fear, as Chubby Checker has come to our rescue with a cover song about a dance move called “The Twist” that went to number one on the US charts not once but twice — in September 1960 and again when it was re-released in January 1962. It took 58 years for a two-time hit like that to happen again, with Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” in 2020.

Not only that, for about six decades, until 2021, Chubby’s version was the most successful single in history on Billboard’s “Greatest Hot 100 Songs of All Time” charts, and Billboard declared it the biggest hit of the 1960s. It is also on Rolling Stones’ list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The 1960 version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, and archived in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2013.

Is it any wonder then to discover that Chubby has been a tireless advocate for getting on the dance floor? The proof is definitely in the pudding, as he’s still going strong and doing full concerts at the ripe ol’ age of 82. (You can book him here.) I think what he would say in response to any excuses for not dancing is the following:

• Of course you want to move to your favorite music — you’re human, man!

• Everyone can dance, and boy, do I have the dance for you.

• You can be any age and in any condition to dance to this, you just have to be able to move some part of your body.

• No one cares how you look — it’s about getting down and having fun!

• Just watch me and learn how.

If you take Chubby’s advice, you will never have to go to a party, wedding, concert, or other event again and sit or stand around watching as others throw decorum and caution to the wind. Nor will you have to down some ‘liquid courage’ or imbibe some ‘substance’ to get your booty shaking and groove on the dance floor.

All you have to do is watch Chubby do “the twist” — along with video clips of people of all ages doing it — and try his easy-to-follow directions:

As you can see, it’s not about technique so much as swinging or twisting your body parts in fun ways that feel good. It doesn’t matter what body part — your whole body if you can, your torso if you’re sitting in a chair or a wheelchair, your head if you’re on a bus, train, or plane, your hands and toes if you’re lying down. If you’re standing, you don’t even have to move your feet.

And it doesn’t matter what the tempo is — you can do the twist to any song, fast or slow. Chubby has even recorded a slower twist with Dee Dee Sharp (1962), which reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts and was also covered that same year by the Marvelettes. Here’s Chubby and Dee Dee’s version:

Perhaps, like me and like the British public, you’re not that taken with the song “The Twist” or its slower cousin above. If so, try Chubby’s second twist hit, “Let’s Twist Again,” which I much prefer and which was a Top 10 hit in the US, UK, and a number of European countries:

Or, if you’re into rap, get down with Chubby and the rap group the Fat Boys, whose 1988 version of “The Twist” reached number 2 in the UK, number 1 in Germany and Switzerland, and number 16 in the US. This is a really fun video, and Chubby smashes it with his suit:

Or maybe you’re a country fan. Chubby has recorded a song to address that need too. I love this — it makes me want to get on down to a honky-tonk in Austin, Texas and do the two-step with a fella in roachkiller boots and a cowboy hat:

Is hard rock your thing? How about Chubby performing “The Twist” with rockers Foghat (“Slow Ride”) in 2014. For some reason, you get to see the finish of their last song before they introduce him, but Chubby’s intro to the song is worth the watch as well as his collab with the Foghat guys.

Some fun facts

• As always happens, the dance that came to be called “the twist” arose among teenagers to express themselves to the new rock and roll music. As soon as adults adopted it and it became part of mainstream culture, the dance lost its cool among teenagers and they created new dances to replace it. You can see a list of dance fads down through the decades here.

• Hank Ballard wrote “The Twist” (1959) after witnessing teenagers dancing to it in Tampa, Florida, recorded it with his band The Midnighters, and made it the B side of his single “Teardrops on Your Letter.” By 1962, his version had sold a million copies. However, controversy surrounds his authorship of the tune, with Midnighter Lawson Smith claiming that Hank stole the melody from someone else and put new words to it.

• Chubby’s version came about when Dick Clark, a radio and TV personality and host of the TV show American Bandstand, unsuccessfully tried to book Hank Ballard on his show. He’d also seen how popular the dance was and decided to produce his own recording through Cameo Records. Searching for a singer, he chose Chubby because his voice was similar to Ballard’s and because he came across as wholesome. Chubby was only 18.

• Following his appearances on American Bandstand and The Dick Clark Saturday Night Show, Chubby’s version sped to the top of the charts. This isn’t surprising, given that Dick Clark’s shows were staples of the American TV diet, as I know from having watched them. They had far more significance than it might seem, in three critical ways: by launching many new musical acts over more than three decades, by preserving and fostering youth culture, and by facilitating integration within the industry by mixing black and white performers and audiences. Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve has been broadcast continuously since 1972.

• Many artists capitalized on the twist craze and racked up hits in the early sixties, including Danny & the Juniors, Joey Dee and the Starliters, Gary U.S. Bonds, the Marvelettes, Sam Cooke, the Isley Brothers, Bill Black’s Combo, King Curtis & His Noble Knights, the Dovells, Billy Joe & the Checkmates, and, of course, the Beatles with “Twist and Shout.”

• Chubby appeared in two films in 1961 — “Twist Around the Clock” and “Don’t Knock the Twist.”

• He also did songs about other dances, including the pony, the limbo, the hucklebuck, and the swim.

• The Flintstones parodied “the twist” with “the Twitch” and The Dick Van Dyke Show with “the Twizzle.”

Questions for discussion in the comments

1. What would your parody of “the twist” be called?

2. If you created a dance fad based on your own signature moves on the dancefloor, what would you call it?

3. Have you ever wooed someone with a twist song?

4. Explain the relationship between the Twist, Twisters the action thriller, the game Twister, and the twister in The Wizard of Oz that killed the bad witch, in ten words or less.

5. Are you a Twister champion? What was your strategy for winning (in detail)?

PLEASE hit the ‘like’ button at the bottom if you enjoy today’s post, and hit the ‘comment’ button if you have thoughts and reactions. We writers live for feedback, and it lets others know this newsletter might be worth reading.

HOT TIP: For best playing of the videos, click on the post title and open it in a separate browser window. Videos then play in the browser (not on YouTube) and you avoid the adverts.

“Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” is a 1967 song by Mickey Newbury that was intended to warn kids off using LSD — by showing them the crazy hallucinations they would experience being on a mind-bending ‘acid trip.’

For more recent generations the song has a much different emotional sensibility, one more associated with humor, bemusement, and enjoyable confusion than fear of going off the deep end, as it has become closely associated with the perpetually high and eminently lovable Dude in the film The Big Lebowski (1998), played by the brilliant Jeff Bridges. After the Dude has his drink spiked by a porn kingpin (Ben Gazzara), he finds himself in a phantasmagorical and highly pleasurable dream involving bowling, a Viking queen (Julianne Moore), and…well, you really have to see it for yourself to ‘get’ it. The point being that the song “Just Dropped In” accompanies the Dude (and you, vicariously) as he navigates through this bizarre and surreal drug-induced dream world.

Note that the film was co-written and co-directed by the Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan, who have an incredible filmography as both filmmakers and screenwriters. Between them they’ve been nominated for 15 Academy Awards and won for Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Adapted Screenplay. In addition to The Big Lebowski, a number of their films are on my own personal list of favorites, including Raising Arizona, Fargo, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, and True Grit (which also stars Jeff Bridges).

Here’s the dream clip from the film. For the best psychedelic effect, pay attention to both the lyrics and the sound effects of the song. The song starts at 0:30 if you want to skip right to it, but I recommend seeing the outrageous intro to the dream, narrated by Sam Elliott.

You’ll find some fun facts about the film and the song below. But first let’s focus on the unusual and interesting background to the song in terms of the people who chose to put it out into the world. Not at all the people you would expect to do so.

First there’s songwriter Mickey Newbury, who appeared a contradiction in terms, being an Air Force veteran who became a ‘hippie cowboy,’ joined the music industry, and penned this classic of psychedelic rock that, against all conventions, was meant to discourage rather than promote the enjoyment of psychedelic drugs. He would then go on to be a significant influence on the outlaw country movement that developed in the 70s, with its disdain for the music industry, its hard-drinkin’, hell-raisin’ ways, and the more progressive and introspective themes of its songs, and yet would reject participating in that movement himself as “playing cowboys” and acting “like a kid.”

Also ironic is the fact that many of those he influenced, such as Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, made it big as country singers, but Mickey himself never did. His influence as a songwriter was profound, however, with in excess of 1,500 versions of his songs recorded by an impressive array of artists in a wide range of genres. Elvis Presley made Mickey’s “An American Trilogy” one of his concert staples, and Kris Kristofferson claimed that he “learned more about songwriting from him than any other writer... He was my hero and still is.”

No surprise hearing Kris say that, considering the fact that at the same time “Just Dropped In” was a big hit for the First Edition in 1968, reaching number five on the Pop/Rock chart, Mickey had number one hits as a songwriter on three other charts at the same time — Eddy Arnold’s “Here Comes the Rain Baby” on the Country chart, Solomon Burke’s “Time is a Thief” on the R&B chart, and Andy Williams’ “Sweet Memories” on the Easy Listening chart — a feat that has never been repeated. Mickey was also the youngest ever (at the time) to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, in 1980 (around age 40).

As I said, Mickey Newbury is not the guy I would have expected to be the author of this classic psychedelic rock song. But the song has quite a good pedigree, wouldn’t you say?

It’s a further irony that Kenny Rogers, both with the First Edition and during his career before and after, was not known for psychedelic rock either. Like Mickey, he was a musical chameleon who was perhaps best known for country (he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013) and pop, but also sang soft rock, folk, and jazz. Imagine my surprise when I realized that it was Kenny Rogers heading the First Edition and that they were playing a song (“Just Dropped In”) that veered towards hard rock. It was the new group’s first top ten hit and also the first of the more than 120 in Kenny’s career. (The guy is one of the most popular and best-selling musical performers of all time.)

It’s probably worth mentioning that the members of the First Edition were not newbies to the music business. Most of them had been with the folk music group New Christy Minstrels and left in 1967 to form their own group out of frustration with Minstrels’ management. Drummer Mickey Jones alone came with a different background, having backed Bob Dylan on tour. “Just Dropped In” would be their first big hit, the following year, and they would rack up four more Top 20 hits, including country song “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” (1969).

In listening to the fantastic version of “Just Dropped In” below, from a live TV performance at that time, I have to express chagrin that Kenny and the First Edition didn’t decide to become a hard rock band as many bands were deciding to do at the time. (But then think of the gazillions of disappointed country and pop fans!) As you listen to this, I’m wondering what you think.

The First Edition broke up in 1976 in the wake of declining popularity and finances. My own view, looking back, is that the band never figured out exactly who they were or what kind of band they wanted to be. Rock, pop, country — all over the map. It’s clear that they were all really talented, and they appeared to love playing together, so I feel sorry that it didn’t work out. That said, drummer Mickey Jones went on to become a character actor, guitarist Terry Williams worked with Kenny in his recording studio, and Mary Arnold married singer Roger Miller and toured and recorded with him, as well as performing with other artists. So I can’t feel too sorry, the world having benefitted from their talents in other, and arguably equally important, ways.

Some fun facts

• Jeff Bridges got himself in a bit of trouble on the set of The Big Lebowski when they were filming part of the dream sequence, as he related to Conan O’Brien on his late night talk show Conan. Jeff had decided to invite his wife and daughters to the set because he thought they were going to do the Busby Berkeley-style dance scenes. Instead, they were filming the shots where he is going through the women’s legs like a bowling ball and looking up their skirts. Uh-oh. Even worse, unbeknownst to him the women had decided to pull a prank and got the props department to outfit them with masses of fake pubic hair sticking out of their costumes. It turned out that his wife and daughters and the rest of the crew were in on the prank. You can watch Jeff share the story with Conan in this clip from the show.

• Besides being used in The Big Lebowski, the First Edition of the song “Just Dropped In” has also appeared in the film Faster and the TV series True Detective, Goliath, Young Sheldon, Chuck, Difficult People, and Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, as well as in some video games and a comic book.

• You can watch a rather amusing version of the First Edition performing the song on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967 here. This was the group’s first appearance on national television. Tommy Smothers does a funny intro, and Kenny is almost a Jeff Bridges look-alike here. See if you agree.

• Although not a member of the group, Glen Campbell plays the reverse guitar solo at the beginning (as a session musician). See my post on Glen and his hit “Wichita Lineman” here.

• The song was also recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Nelson, and many other groups and singers representing a range of countries and genres.

• Some fun trivia: When Thelma Camacho left the group after the release of the song (you can see her in the Smothers Brothers video above), Karen Carpenter auditioned to be her replacement, but the role went to Thelma’s roommate, Mary Arnold.

• There’s a quite enjoyable one-hour on-the-road documentary called The First Edition: Tell It All with bus, rehearsal, and backstage footage, filmed in 1971 for PBS, which you can watch here.

Questions for discussion in the comments

1. Should the First Edition have become a hard rock band?

2. Have you ever dreamed about a Viking queen?

3. What’s your favorite Coen Brothers film?

4. What’s your favorite Jeff Bridges film?

5. Has someone spiked your drink and sent you on an acid trip? Was your dream the same as the Dude’s?

PLEASE hit the ‘like’ button at the bottom if you enjoy today’s post, and hit the ‘comment’ button if you have thoughts and reactions. We writers live for feedback, and it lets others know this newsletter might be worth reading.

HOT TIP: For best playing of the videos, click on the post title and open it in a separate browser window. Videos then play in the browser (not on YouTube) and you avoid the adverts.

Our song of the day

You can’t keep a great song down. It will find the ideal humans to realize its perfection and to channel it as a gift to the world.

Today’s song is “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” and I offer six examples of how the perfect song is a gift that keeps on giving.

I could give a raft of examples, but today we are going to hear versions from the following artists: Gladys Knight and the Pips; Marvin Gaye; Tom Jones with Smokey Robinson and the Miracles; Creedence Clearwater Revival; Paul Weller and Amy Winehouse; and Tina Turner.

We shouldn’t be surprised that the song came from the inspired hands of two Motown stalwarts — Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong. Barrett was the co-writer and performer of Motown’s very first hit single in 1959, “Money (That’s What I Want),” while Norman had collaborated on hits for such artists as Marvin Gaye and the Marvelettes as a member of the Motown songwriting team. Following Norman’s success co-writing and producing the Temptations’ 1966 hit single “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” he took over producing and composing duties for the group and soon formed a remarkably prolific songwriting partnership with Barrett.

During their eight-year tenure with the Temptations, this dynamic duo managed to churn out a gobsmacking string of Temptations hits, including “Cloud Nine,” “I Can’t Get Next to You”, “Ball of Confusion,” “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me),” and “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone,” as well as hits for other artists, such as Edwin Starr’s “War,” Marvin Gaye’s “Smiling Faces Sometimes,” and, of course, our song of the day, which was recorded by four different Motown acts and went all the way to number one for two of them. Not surprisingly, Norman and Barrett were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004.

Gladys Knight and the Pips were the first to release a single of the song, in September 1967, although not the first to record it. (The Miracles and Marvin Gaye versions were recorded earlier but would be released the following year.) After hearing Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” Norman decided he wanted to produce a song that would “out-funk” Aretha. I don’t know if that’s even possible, Aretha being Aretha, but this was one heck of a good try as this version went to the top of the charts, stayed in the top 10 of the Hot 100 for almost two months, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2018. Here’s Gladys and the Pips — Merald “Bubba” Knight, William Guest, and Edward Patten — performing the song on The Midnight Special in 1973. I dare you to stay sitting during this performance!

The most iconic version, and the one most people will recognize, is Marvin Gaye’s. Released as the fourth song on his In the Groove album, it got so much radio play that Motown was forced to release it as a single two months later, in October 1968. It stayed at the top of both the Billboard Pop Singles and the R&B charts for seven straight weeks, was inducted for its “historical, artistic and significant” value into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998, and was ranked number 80 in Rolling Stone’s 2004 list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Although I love the recorded version, I think you’ll enjoy this live concert version in which Marvin sets the scene for the song with a phone call onstage — and then sings his heart out:

Smokey Robinson and the Miracles were the first to record the song, in August 1966, but their version was not released until 1968 as the first song on side two of their Special Occasion album. Motown boss Berry Gordy had not considered it strong enough to put out as a single. I was happy to see that the group still got the chance to perform it, as they do below with Tom Jones on his This Is Tom Jones TV show in February 1970. I think Tom and Smokey are wonderful complements to one another in both voice and style, and they seem to be having a lot of fun:

Of course, the best songs cross genres, and “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” is no exception. Rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival included an 11-minute cover jam in their 1970 commercially and critically successful Cosmo’s Factory album, which was later edited into a single and became a minor hit in 1976. The band disbanded in 1972, which seems such a shame when you hear their unique sound and see their joie de vivre in this performance:

I didn’t know that phenomenal singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse and rocker/soul singer Paul Weller had performed the song together on Jool’s Annual Hootenanny in 2006 until I ran across a video of it on Nic Briscoe’s post about Amy Winehouse yesterday. (I highly recommend Nic’s substack here.) It was a surprise pairing that, like that of Tom Jones and Smokey Robinson, seems like it might not work but then turns out to be a real treat, especially with back-up singers, an orchestra and, of course, Jools on piano.

Last but never least, we have the incomparable Miss Tina Turner performing the song on her Twenty Four Seven Millenium Tour in 2000. If there’s one thing you can say about Tina, she always put on a phenomenal show. If I could turn back time, I would beg, borrow, and steal to get tickets to this. In one word — wowza.

Some fun facts

• Are you kidding? I’m exhausted from writing and dancing. That’s it for today. See you in the next post.

Questions for discussion in the comments

1. Which version is your favorite, and why?

2. If you could be a Pip, a Miracle, or a backup singer and dancer with Tina, which would you be?

3. If you did a cover of the song, what genre/subgenre would you choose? (Don’t say karaoke! That’s not a genre.)

4. Should we all dress like pop stars in real life? Wouldn’t that be more fun?

5. Any other musings, mumblings, misguided ramblings?

PLEASE hit the ‘like’ button at the bottom if you enjoy today’s post, and hit the ‘comment’ button if you have thoughts and reactions. We writers live for feedback, and it lets others know this newsletter might be worth reading.

HOT TIP: For best playing of the videos, click on the post title and open it in a separate browser window. Videos then play in the browser (not on YouTube) and you avoid the adverts.

Our songs of the day

If there is a band from the 1960s that has an entirely unique and immediately recognizable sound, it is the Zombies.

That sound was there from their very first song. Penned by founder, leader, and keyboardist Rod Argent, “She’s Not There” got them a contract with Decca and took them to number two on the Billboard Hot 100. Santana also had a hit with a cover that spent 14 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1977. Rolling Stone ranked the song number 297 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2016.

Not a shabby start for a band formed by schoolboys in St. Albans, a small cathedral town just 30 minutes up the M1 motorway from London in the beautiful Hertfordshire countryside. I’ll say more about how surprising that is in a moment, but first let’s listen to the Zombie’s highly successful debut release in July 1964:

I myself lived in St. Albans for a time and witnessed the pimply and awkward schoolboys in their suit-like school uniforms walking the streets and hanging out in the town center. Rod formed the band at age 15, and it’s hard for me to reconcile my image of those schoolboys with the sophistication of what the Zombies produced a few years after graduating. Especially when the five of them went to all-boys schools.

It makes more sense when you discover that Rod and two other members of the band, guitarist Paul Atkinson and drummer Hugh Grundy, attended the elite St. Albans School. Founded in 948 (over a thousand years ago!), the school has an unbelievable roster of famous and influential alumni, and you can bet these guys had the benefit of a top-notch music program judging by what’s on offer now. Rod also benefitted from being a chorister in the elite St. Albans Cathedral Choir and Hugh and lead singer Colin Blunstone from singing in the choir at the ancient and historic St. Etheldreda’s Church in nearby Hatfield.

It also makes sense when you discover that Rod’s father led two semi-professional dance bands and Hugh’s father was an amateur violinist who made Hugh his first drum, while bass guitarist Chris White’s father played double bass in big band-style and swing dance bands. All five boys in the Zombies — Rod, Paul, Hugh, Colin, and Chris — brought impressive music pedigrees to the band. (Note that Chris White replaced original member Paul Arnold, who came up with the band’s name but left before it took off to train as a physician.)

Besides the high level of musicianship, another defining feature that makes the Zombies unique is Colin Blunstone’s voice, which combines what has been called a “smoked-silk” or “menthol” quality with excellent grammar school enunciation. Although working class, Colin comes across as a cool, well-heeled lothario lamenting the naughty girls he can’t seem to resist or control. To illustrate, here’s their second big hit, “Tell Her No”:

Released as a single in December 1964 and on their debut album The Zombies in January 1965, “Tell Her No” reached number six in both the U.S. and Canada.

Whereas Rod admitted to being influenced by the lyrics of John Lee Hooker on “She’s Not There,” it was the music and lyrics of Burt Bacharach and Hal David that influenced him in the writing of “Tell Her No.” He would also go on to write their biggest hit, “Time of the Season,” on the very morning of their last recording session for their critically and commercially successful album, Odessey and Oracle. (Bassist Chris White also contributed well-regarded songs to their albums.)

Beyond writing ‘cool boy contends with naughty girl’ hits, Rod’s psychedelic keyboard work, and in particular his fast-paced improvisation on “Time of the Season,” was another element that defined the unique Zombies sound. Here’s Rod zipping all over the keys, and Colin still sounding fantastic, on their U.S. Going Coastal tour ten years ago as they perform my personal favorite, “Time of the Season,” with its trademark ‘aah’ sounds:

In one of those bittersweet twists of fate, “Time of the Season” became a hit only because of the efforts of two persistent enthusiasts. One was musician-producer Al Kooper who discovered the Odessey and Oracle album on a scouting trip to England and insisted that head of CBS Records Clive Davis buy this “rose amongst thorns” no matter how much he had to pay. Clive had already passed on it, but to his credit he agreed. The song “Time of the Season” was only released “as a last gasp” after another song on the album, the anti-war “Butcher’s Tale (Western Front 1914),” had flopped, and it only caught on after a DJ in Boise, Idaho started to play it repeatedly and its popularity grew through organic word of mouth. Slowly but persistently the song climbed until it reached the top of the charts in the U.S. and Canada in March, 1969 — too late for the Zombies, however, as the group had already disbanded.

Under industry pressure they made a half-hearted effort to generate some new tracks, but they’d already moved on to other pursuits. Rod wanted to get into progressive rock and formed the band Argent, with Chris coming onboard as a producer and songwriter, and their new group hit the top ten with “Hold Your Head Up” in 1972. Paul and Hugh went into A&R at Columbia, and Colin worked in an insurance company before embarking on a solo music career, including doing studio vocals for the Alan Parsons Project.

The good news for fans is that the band has re-formed in various configurations since 1989, has been touring and putting out new albums (which you can sample here), and was recognized for its 1960s contributions with induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019. During the pandemic, Rod wrote new songs in what he found to be a “joyful experience,” and the band subsequently recorded them at his home studio the old-fashioned way that they had enjoyed in the sixties — as a whole band where they could “capture some magic in a particular take.” They are now touring their new album Different Game — tickets available through their website. Here’s one of the songs off that album, “Merry-Go-Round,” which shows that these septuagenarians have not lost any of their songwriting and performing magic:

Some fun facts

• Members of ZZ Top — bassist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank Beard — were part of a fake Zombies touring group in 1969, organized by a company that also fielded fake versions of the Animals and the Archies. Being a Zombie for even a short while and playing those tunes must have been a positive experience, because they formed ZZ Top with guitarist Billy Gibbons that same year.

• Director Robert Schwartzman made a feature-length documentary about the Zombies called Hung Up on a Dream (2023), which was an official selection for three film festivals, including the prestigious South by Southwest (SxSW). You can find a Den of Geek interview with the director and the band about the documentary and about the history of the band here.

• The Zombies were not happy with their recording experience at Decca’s studios in West Hampstead (North London) under their first recording contract. When they informed their previous producer, Ken Jones, that they had decided to self-produce their next album under their new contract with CBS, he kindly arranged for them to record at Abbey Road Studios where it was almost unheard of for a non-EMI artist to record. The Beatles had just finished their Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album two months earlier, and the Zombies found themselves assigned to the same Studio 3 where the Beatles had recorded and to the same recording engineers, Peter Vince and Geoff Emerick.

• They also had access to the state-of-the-art recording capabilities demanded by the Beatles, and John Lennon had left his Mellotron Mark II, which Rod used on various tracks. Rod said they were like kids in a candy shop in terms of trying out their own ideas for dubbing tracks and creating sounds. One of these was the unique clap and breath exhalation sound effect on “Time of the Season,” which came to Rod as a “eureka moment” while listening to a playback of the backing track. The band found their experience at Abbey Road “exhilarating.” For a great deal more depth on their recording experience, check out this Sound on Sound article.

• Geoff Emerick had an equally positive experience with the Zombies, as related in his autobiography Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles: “I enjoyed working with them. They meshed well as a team and were also willing to try new things, and, just as important, they wanted to carve out a sound of their own, not just be a clone of the Beatles.”

• The title of the album was meant to be Odyssey and Oracle, but the artist who did the cover, Terry Quirk, a childhood friend of Colin and Chris, misspelled it as “Odessey.” The band had gone on tour and didn’t see it until it had already gone to the printer. Rod made up “a load of bollocks” about it being a play on words as a story to cover the gaffe, and even members of the band bought into it until Rod finally fessed up over 30 years later.

• In the Den of Geek interview, Rod passed on his personal advice about being a musician and songwriter: “You have to do it with love and put your whole self inside of it. And that would be my advice to anyone starting out. Don’t try and copy fashions or anything. Just do what excites you and then stick to it. Because if you don’t believe in it yourself, you’re not going to end up with something that’s really good. And you may not anyway, but at the same time, you get to the end of the process and you can look back and say, ‘Well, I gave it my best shot.’”

• Colin added: “I think you need to learn everything you can about music and everything you can about the business, and then it can see you through a lifetime’s career. If you get too much into the partying side of the whole thing — it’s very, very tempting — then maybe you will only have a two-year career.”

• And, of course, musicians cannot disregard the fact that there are some unusual streams of income that might come their way. “Time of the Season” has been used in numerous advertisements and soundtracks, including a 1999 TV campaign for Tampax tampons.

Questions for discussion in the comments

1. Do you expect to be rockin’ in your 70s? Or are you already rockin’ in your 70s?

2. Are the Zombies really zombies? Is it the St. Albans water? Having lived there, am I now one too?

3. What product or service would you sell using the song “Tell Her No”?

4. Where do you think the Den of Geek is located, and what do you think happens there?

5. Any other thoughts, reactions, encounters with cool guys distraught about naughty girls you wish to share?

PLEASE hit the ‘like’ button at the bottom if today’s post tickles your fancy, and hit the ‘comment’ button and give your two cents if you have thoughts and reactions.

HOT TIP: For best playing of the videos, click on the post title and open it in a separate browser window. Videos then play in the browser (not on YouTube) and you avoid the adverts.

Our song of the day

“While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” the seventh track on The Beatles album (aka the White Album) released in November 1968, is one my favorite songs ever, and I’ve often wondered about the story behind it.

Fortunately, my friend Anna gave me a copy of The Beatles Anthology she didn’t want anymore (thank you, Anna!), in which George Harrison gives his recollections on the writing and production of that song. I’ve found other sources representing people who were also directly involved in the making of the album — fellow Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney, guitarist Eric Clapton, and sound engineers Geoff Emerick and Ken Scott — and pieced together the story.

I wanted to hear from people who were there, not people who were speculating or opining on what happened, and doing so has shifted my thinking not only about the evolution of the song, but also about the role that that particular song played in the history of the Beatles as a group that was soon to fall apart.

First, let’s take a close listen to the 2009 remaster of the version that appeared on the album. I was going to include the actual original but couldn’t find it online, and the 2018 mix has sparked wildly divergent reactions — from enthusiastic acceptance to derision and rejection — from musicians and fans, so I’ve opted not to use that. As you listen, the question to ask yourself is, what kind of song is this, and does it meet the expectations of a Beatles song?

To respond to any of you who say ‘I thought you’re only covering danceable songs,’ I agree that nowadays you wouldn’t dance to that. But back in the day we could dance to anything with a fast enough beat — with our arsenal of groovy sixties moves.

The song that George actually brought to the recording session at EMI’s Abbey Road studios on July 25th of that year was not danceable, however. It was a slow, plaintive acoustic version, included later as track 16 on the Anthology 3 compilation album put out in 1996. If you haven’t heard this beautiful acoustic solo by George, you’re in for a treat:

The other Beatles had heard the song already when they had gathered at George’s Esher home Kinfauns two months earlier to review the 27 songs they wished to be considered for the album and make preliminary recordings. The Esher demo of the song is noticeably livelier and includes a verse George later discarded. This just might be my favorite version.

After EMI recording sessions of the song with the full band on August 16th and then on September 5th, George recounted that he believed “they weren’t taking it seriously…so I went home that night thinking, ‘Well, that’s a shame,’ because I knew the song was pretty good.”

As usual, George’s compositions were taking a backseat to those of John and Paul. And yet, as EMI recording engineer Geoff Emerick recalled, George had just composed, produced, and released Apple Record’s first single as a label, the hard rock debut of Jackie Lomax called “Sour Milk Sea,” and knew exactly what he wanted, using Paul on bass, Ringo on drums, and his friend Eric Clapton on guitar. He was growing in confidence and coming into his own as a songwriter and producer.

This was the context in which Beatles history was made the following day on September 6th. Eric Clapton drove into London with George and, either when they were driving or upon arrival at the Abbey Road studios (their accounts vary), George asked him to come in and play on “When My Guitar Gently Weeps.” Eric was taken aback, flattered, and nervous, and didn’t even have his guitar with him. He protested that no one had ever played on a Beatles record and the others wouldn’t like it, but George insisted. “Look, it’s my song and I’d like you to play on it.”

When George brought Eric into the studio and announced to the others that Eric was going to play on the song, no one protested. Perhaps John was amenable because, as he later shared in a Rolling Stone interview, he and George had wanted to bring other exceptional artists like Billy Preston into the group but “they were never allowed.” He was also friends with Eric, and further, as Geoff Emerick observed, John and George seemed to be the only Beatles getting along during the making of the White Album.

Ringo might have been particularly supportive because, when he returned after having walked out in upset at the acrimonious climate in the recording sessions and stayed away for two weeks, George had been the one to welcome him back by decorating his drum kit with flowers.

Paul was perhaps the one most likely to protest under the circumstances, but as he shared in the Beatles Anthology, Eric “was very nice, very accommodating and humble and a good player…It was good fun actually. His style fitted well with the song and I think George was keen to have him play it — which was nice of George because he could have played it himself and then it would have been him on the big hit.” (p.306)

George’s own view was that Eric being there made everyone behave better and take it seriously, as he noted happened again when Billy Preston joined them on Let It Be. Paul “got on the piano and played a nice intro,” and Eric nailed his guitar part in one take. When they finished, John and Paul were non-committal but Eric thought the song “sounded fantastic,” and said that George seemed happy as he listened to it again and again in the control room, adding effects and doing a rough mix.

The song, as we know, made it onto Side 1 of the double album and Eric Clapton proved correct. The song was ranked 135th in Rolling Stones’ poll of musicians, critics, and industry figures for “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time,” and placed a whopping seventh (7th) in the “100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time” and tenth (10th) in “The Beatles’ 100 Greatest Songs,” not to mention that Clapton’s contribution was ranked 42nd in Guitar World’s “100 Greatest Guitar Solos” (2008).

But, as I hinted above, this song played a special role in the history of the group and, I would contend, helped to hasten its breakup. George had not only impelled the group into a violation of tradition by bringing Eric Clapton into the inner sanctum of their recording sessions as a participating musician, but he had also placed his musical stake in the ground alongside John Lennon’s — on one side of the emerging chasm between two diametrically opposed musical directions that were, one could argue, being forced upon the rock ’n’ roll industry in the late 1960s.

Before I explain, listen to this performance of “When My Guitar Gently Weeps” by rockers Prince, Tom Petty (the Heartbreakers), Jeff Lynne (ELO), Steve Winwood (Traffic, Blind Faith), and George’s son Dhani in 2004, when George was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — alongside Prince and Traffic. Prince does a knockout version of Eric Clapton’s solo. But what does this rendition tell us about the song?

As Bob Stanley explains in Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop (2013), if we go back to late 1967, we find a major inflection point in rock ’n’ roll that ushered in a split between pop music aimed at radio and TV audiences on the one hand and album-oriented rock on the other. The British Government passed the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act and in one fell swoop shut down Radio Caroline, Radio London, and other pirate stations broadcasting rock ’n’ roll music from a few miles off the coast in international waters and replaced them with one state-owned station, BBC Radio 1, on which middle-aged DJs played ‘safe’ pop music. In reaction to this aggressive and deliberate imposition of the music of ‘the Man’ aimed at parents and ‘grannies,’ many in the UK rock ’n’ roll world responded by jettisoning softness and orchestration and becoming louder, heavier, more political, and more belligerent. Of course, this paralleled other developments occurring on the other side of the Atlantic with the progression of the Vietnam War and the effect of the counterculture and the protest movement on music.

Six months later the Beatles are making the White Album and the battle lines between the old and the new have been drawn, with Paul on one side, John and George on the other, and Ringo as the drummer for everyone caught in the tumultuous middle. John, as usual, insisted on making his songs “Revolution I” and “Revolution 9” first, and turned the amp to ear-splitting level to get distortion because he wanted it to sound “dirtier” and “nasty,” such distorted guitar sounds having been introduced by such acts as Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The same was repeated on “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey,” with John and George turning their volume so high that Paul couldn’t compete and had to overdub his part later. John was quoted by Geoff Emerick as saying “This is the direction the Beatles should be going in from now on.”

Paul apparently had a big row with John over “Revolution 9,” which he didn’t see as Beatles music or the direction the group should be going in, and which he didn’t want included on the album. He in turn brought the song “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da” as his first song to record, which John in turn hated and called “granny music shit.” In his 1971 Rolling Stone interview, John observed that “Rock & roll is going like jazz,” whereas he considered himself “in the avant garde of rock & roll,” and placed Paul firmly on the opposing side by calling his post-Beatles McCartney album as “rubbish…’light and easy.’”

What the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame performance exemplifies is that George, like John, chose to abandon the ‘pop rock’ past that had defined the Beatles and follow his friends Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones into what came to be known as ‘hard rock.’ Whereas Paul’s collaborators in later years would be such artists as Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Tony Bennett, and pop superstar Lady Gaga, George would go on to co-found with Jeff Lynne the supergroup Traveling Wilburys, with Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty.

I’m not a rock historian and expert, but what my reading about the making of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” suggests to me is that this song was at the epicenter of the rock ’n’ roll faultline that, through accelerating and unstoppable political, economic, social, and cultural developments, eventually cracked the earth wide open and sent the Beatles (as well other middle-of-the-road pop-rock groups) hurtling to a much too early demise.

What I’m also saying is, it wasn’t Yoko (or “the wives,” as some contended). As much as it tickles my fancy to think that one tiny woman could sit quietly in recording sessions and exercise such awesome invisible power that she brought down the longstanding creative and business partnership of four remarkably self-assured, talented, and willful men, I’m not buying it.

I believe that, in the main, the Beatles’ demise was down to irreparable creative differences, exacerbated by discovering that they were bankrupt, losing their long-time manager Brian Epstein, and instigating the chaos that was Apple. (The documentary Beatles, Hippies and Hells Angels: Inside the Crazy World of Apple provides an eye-opening review of these factors.)

That’s my belief and I’m sticking to it…for now, at least.

Some fun facts

• One of the ongoing controversies surrounding this song is who played bass. Although credited to Paul, the Youtube channel You Can’t Unhear This makes a case (see video below) for it possibly being John on a six-string Fender Bass VI, one of the pieces of evidence being that producer George Martin’s son, Giles, said in an NPR interview that John did indeed play said instrument on the track. However, as someone in the comments below the Youtube video shared, George Harrison himself indicated otherwise in a November 1987 interview in Guitar magazine (quoted in Beatlesongs by William J. Dowlding, Fireside Books 1989): "‘When we laid that track down, I sang it with the acoustic guitar, with Paul on piano, and Eric and Ringo - That's how we laid the track down. Later, Paul overdubbed the bass on it.’”

• On the other hand, the recording engineer for the session, Ken Scott (after Geoff Emerick abruptly quit) recalled in his autobiography, Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust, that the four-string bass was doubled by a six-string bass on that as well as some other songs on the White Album, and that the two basses were "always played together, and never overdubbed individually," which would suggest that Paul and John overdubbed the bass together.

• Whatever you conclude, I recommend viewing You Can’t Unhear This’s video (below), as he reviews the evolution of the song from its earliest version (Esher demo) and isolates the sounds of the different instruments in the final version that appears on the White Album. It’s a fascinating look into the construction of the song. You might also find it fun to listen to Take 27 in which George gives his lunch order right before launching the band into the song.

Questions for discussion in the comments

1. Which version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” is your favorite?

2. Soft rock, hard rock, yacht rock, punk rock? Eenie-meenie-miney-moe — where do you end up?

3. How many rockstars does it take to change a lightbulb? (Finish the joke.)

4. Paul or John, who do you think played the bass, and why?

5. Were you diverted, perverted, inverted, alerted too? (Explain.)

PLEASE hit the ‘like’ button at the bottom if today’s post tickles your fancy, and hit the ‘comment’ button and give your two cents if you have thoughts and reactions.

HOT TIP: For best playing of the videos, click on the post title and open it in a separate browser window. Videos then play in the browser (not on YouTube) and you avoid the adverts.

Song of the day

Bobby Hebb clearly believed that he was inspired and blessed when he wrote “Sunny,” a song that rose to number one on Cash Box, number two on the Billboard Hot 100, and number three on the Hot R&B chart in 1966. Even more impressively, the song has been covered over the years by an astounding number of artists (over 500) across a wide range of music genres and has influenced numerous pop and jazz songs with its unique chord progression, including Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘bout a Thing.”

“I was in the right place at the right time and in the right frame of mind,” Bobby said in an interview before he died. “I was ready to receive what was being offered.”

He was musically ready as well. Bobby made his professional debut on his third birthday, doing a song-and-tap-dance routine with his nine-year-old brother Harold to help bring in money for his family. From that day onwards, Bobby was a working musician who received mentoring from, and performed and recorded with, one high-profile music industry insider after another. Biographers often focus on “Sunny,” but Bobby had a rich and varied career that I imagine most musicians would give their eyeteeth, or even sell their soul to the devil, to have. Because I can’t possibly do it justice, I encourage you to read Bill Dahl’s detailed summary of his career here.

Inspiration for his breakout song struck in 1963 after his brother was stabbed to death outside a Nashville nightclub the day after President John F. Kennedy Jr. was assassinated. As Bobby recounted, everyone was feeling negative at the time and needed a lift, and then, one morning, he saw a purple sunrise and both the lyrics and melody for “Sunny” came to him at the same time, something that he said “very seldom happens.”

I’ll share more of Bobby’s description of his creative process in the fun facts below, but let’s have a listen to the recorded version, produced by hitmaker Jerry Ross, which jumped to the top of the charts. Be sure to listen to the entire song, because it ramps up in excitement and intensity as it progresses. Here we go:

I think there are many reasons this song is so successful, but two of them are certainly Joe Renzetti’s arrangement and the backup vocals by Ashford & Simpson and Melba Moore. (It’s worth listening a second time to the role of the drums as well.)

Bobby performed the song live on the TV show Soul! in 1971, playing guitar himself and accompanied on bass guitar by jazz legend Ron Carter, who does a fantastic solo (around 5:00). (There’s more on Ron in fun facts below.) I think this version gives an even better sense of why this song is so compelling, and also why Bobby had such a long and impressive career.

Although I love Bobby’s version, it’s not the most danceable. I listened to a range of covers and my favorite, hands down, is the one below. Herewith the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald, who really lets loose and catapults us to our feet:

Some fun facts

• Bobby’s blind parents, William and Ovalla Hebb, were also musicians, leading Hebb’s Kitchen Cabinet Orchestra. His dad played the guitar and trumpet and his mom the guitar and piano.

• His brother Harold (‘Hal’) was a member of Johnny Bragg and the Marigolds, which had an R&B hit with “Rollin’ Stone” in 1955. Bobby said one of the intentions behind “Sunny” was to pay tribute to his brother.

• One of the people who gave Bobby a break was white bandleader and Grand Ole Opry star Roy Acuff. According to Bobby, “Roy Acuff was a pioneer breaking down the racial barrier, and he put me in a position to help break down the racial barrier.”

• Ron Carter, who accompanied Bobby on the Soul! TV show (above), is considered one of the most important bassists in history. He is also the most recorded, being on over 2,200 recordings. You can find an interview with him conducted by top music podcaster Rick Beato here.

• Trocadero (based in Hamburg, Germany) interviewed Bobby and released a wonderful eight-minute documentary (2016) that illuminates both his inspiration and his influence, as well as showcasing his spoon-playing skills, available on their website and also below.

• In that interview, Bobby reveals more of his creative process, saying that “The lyric spoke for itself…It produced a melody. It was just right there, under my fingers. All I had to do was just flick.” However, right up to the time of the recording session, he felt that something was missing, something that would capture people’s attention. When he added a drum roll at the beginning, he knew he had it. (I think the drums are key throughout.)

• Bobby toured with the Beatles as one of their opening acts on their last American tour in summer 1966, at a time when “Sunny” ranked above all Beatles songs then charting on the Billboard Hot 100.

Questions for discussion in the comments

1. What do you think made “Sunny” so successful?

2. What would you give your eyeteeth or sell your soul to the devil to have?

3. Do you agree with Ella that things ain’t what they used to be?

4. When were you in the right place at the right time in the right frame of mind? And what happened?

5. Have you ever tried to play the spoons? (Me neither. But I’ve tried to tap dance. Not for the weak of calf muscles, I found.)