P.F. Sloan himself was the subject of a song written by Jimmy Webb and recorded by the Association which lamented his disappearance from the American music scene.
Per wikipedia, the song "P.F. Sloan" "first appeared on Webb's solo debut album, Words and Music, in 1970. He also rerecorded it on his 1977 album, El Mirage."
Also: "Rolling Stone writer Jon Landau called one of the album's cuts, 'P.F. Sloan', a 'masterpiece [that] could not be improved upon'."
That wasn't me, Michael. That's a nice mention by David; I had forgotten about the Webb song about Sloan, who's almost as a perplexingly enigmatic and mysterious L.A. music figure (despite his hit-songwriting presence!) as Tandyn Almer, about whom I've written. Almer landed his "Along Comes Mary" with The Association (and co-wrote a couple Beach Boys songs with Brian Wilson), so that may be why my name came to your mind!
From what I read, Sloan was your average L.A. hit songwriter until he went to England with Barry McGuire and returned as someone who wanted to be a singing star rather than the person putting words in someone else's mouth. It's the same lament as the screenwriter who really wants to be an actor.
I'll have to read your Tandyn Almer post - don't know about him!
My pleasure! I'm awfully proud of this one....much like my Mark Eric piece, there's precious little about either on the 'net, and I'd like to think I scraped every crook'n'nanny for all the info available, and now, this is the place where folks can go for their one-stop peek into both Almer's and Eric's careers!
Yesterday writing the post I ordered a copy of Sloan's autobiography, and maybe he'll mention it in there. I got fascinated reading the wikipedia entry on him, which mentions his first meeting with Jimmy Webb and Sloan crying at how wonderful Webb's compositions were (Wichita Lineman, MacArthur Park, Up Up and Away, By the Time I Get to Phoenix) and giving him encouragement. That had to have meant a lot to Webb given how many hits Sloan had had.
A rare P.F. Sloan sighting....nice, Ellen! Just from my memories of early-'70s rock mag reading, I recall Sloan being referred to as mysterious, enigmatic, and elusive, for whatever reasons. A fun story about Adler freaking and demanding the song get yanked off radio! Hey, if radio's getting phones on a song, they're not budging! I must say I covet McGuire's Wrecking Crew jacket!
Thanks for this post, Ellen, and for the others on protest songs. 'Eve of Destructrion' was a favourite of mine when I was getting into that era of songwriters and folk/protest music. The Webb song about Sloan is also a favourite.
Are you familiar with the covers of 'Eve of Destruction' by The Dickies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLuCA2ZWJh8) and Public Enemy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bis6c-22jUU)? I ask because I think they have a bearing on some of the broader questions about protest songs that you and NickS have been having. One apsect of that is topicality: how can a song about those 1960s concerns you mention work in 1979 and again in 2007? Does it? The other thing is genre and how punk and then hip hop became the genres more associated with protest in subsequent eras.
Hi Richard. No, I wasn't familiar with those covers and thanks for bringing them to my attention.
I think you're right to raise the issue of covers of these protest songs in later periods and genres. Why is the song seen as relevant to that period? Are the very same issues rearing their heads, or are they other issues but the music and lyrics work for those issues as well? (I tend to suspect the former -- that the same issues keep coming around again and again in slightly different clothing. I've been shocked at how relevant the lyrics to these songs are right now.)
The other question I think you're raising with genre is, I think, two-fold. One is the role of rock 'n' roll in protest over time. Was protest suppressed by an increasingly corporatized music industry? Or did it move into emerging genres and sub-genres like heavy metal, punk rock, and hip hop (which, from what I understand, the music industry resisted recognizing or supporting)?
And why the timing of those genres and sub-genres? Are they responses not just to developments in music and the music industry, but also almost inevitable responses to political and economic circumstances?
I'm not a music or general historian, but suspect there are some interesting answers to these questions out there. It's something that greatly interests me and that I hope to delve into further. If you have answers or sources, I welcome hearing about them.
I have quite a few more protest songs coming, and when I finish plan to write a summary post about what I think they tell us. So I appreciate your raising these questions as something I might want to address or at least consider in that post.
Yes, I think you're right about the corporatization of music, which affects everything from protest songs to flash mobs (where the radical potential of surprise gets reworked to promote banks and similar organisations). And re the two examples I shared, I think convincing arguments could be made that the pop-punk of The Dickies was perhaps not the most protesty (?) that punk could be and that Public Enemy in 2007 represented a different level of risk than PE two decades before.
I agree on the same topics coming around and around and keeping older protest songs relevant. For several years I ran a university course on American Popular Music which included a session on protest. Every year I left the possibility open that, given the number of things that could be subject to protest, the main focus and the case studies could change. But every year, without change, the main focus remained race and the case studies were predominantly from the civil rights era and more recent references back to that time (from artists like Beyonce, Solange, Common, Kendrick Lamar). I don't think that was just my laziness/reticence to update my teaching materials; I believe it was because those issues maintained their pertinence.
Brian Cross, It’s Not About a Salary: Rap, Race, and Resistance in Los Angeles (London: Verso, 1993).
Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1994).
Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison, Music and Social Movements: Mobilizing Traditions in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Peter La Chapelle, Proud to Be an Okie: Cultural Politics, Country Music, and Migration to Southern California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).
David Margolick, Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Cafe Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2001).
Ingrid Monson, Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
Mark Anthony Neal, What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (New York: Routledge, 1999).
Brian Ward, Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations (London: UCL Press, 1998).
This reading list is just so remarkably useful. I realize how much work goes into putting together a syllabus and reading list, so thank you so much for sharing it, Richard.
Just the first reference alone looks great, and I note from looking at the table of contents that I've got four of his songs on my list. I'll have to order and read this at some point, but not in the midst of the series as I don't want to be influenced or swayed. I'm enjoying the thought process, discussion, and discovery process looking into the songs. But I will want to read it afterwards, as well as explore these other references. More food for thought!
What a great post! Fabulous! I’d forgotten all about this!
Thanks, Michael. I never knew the bizarre story behind it. But I do remember, it was quite the sensation.
P.F. Sloan himself was the subject of a song written by Jimmy Webb and recorded by the Association which lamented his disappearance from the American music scene.
Total deja vu!! I remember reading (maybe even writing about it - or maybe it was Brad, dunno…) about this several years ago. Very cool!
Totally cool, and something I didn't know.
Per wikipedia, the song "P.F. Sloan" "first appeared on Webb's solo debut album, Words and Music, in 1970. He also rerecorded it on his 1977 album, El Mirage."
Also: "Rolling Stone writer Jon Landau called one of the album's cuts, 'P.F. Sloan', a 'masterpiece [that] could not be improved upon'."
Here is Jimmy singing it live at that time -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_W9HLWZfOo
Lyrics here - https://genius.com/Jimmy-webb-pf-sloan-lyrics
That wasn't me, Michael. That's a nice mention by David; I had forgotten about the Webb song about Sloan, who's almost as a perplexingly enigmatic and mysterious L.A. music figure (despite his hit-songwriting presence!) as Tandyn Almer, about whom I've written. Almer landed his "Along Comes Mary" with The Association (and co-wrote a couple Beach Boys songs with Brian Wilson), so that may be why my name came to your mind!
From what I read, Sloan was your average L.A. hit songwriter until he went to England with Barry McGuire and returned as someone who wanted to be a singing star rather than the person putting words in someone else's mouth. It's the same lament as the screenwriter who really wants to be an actor.
I'll have to read your Tandyn Almer post - don't know about him!
Here's the "master" Almer story. I've done a couple ancillary posts since then: https://bradkyle.substack.com/p/toytown-psychedelia-songwriter-tandyn?utm_source=publication-search
Thanks for referencing it for me and readers. Appreciated.
My pleasure! I'm awfully proud of this one....much like my Mark Eric piece, there's precious little about either on the 'net, and I'd like to think I scraped every crook'n'nanny for all the info available, and now, this is the place where folks can go for their one-stop peek into both Almer's and Eric's careers!
I didn't know that. Will have to look into it.
Yesterday writing the post I ordered a copy of Sloan's autobiography, and maybe he'll mention it in there. I got fascinated reading the wikipedia entry on him, which mentions his first meeting with Jimmy Webb and Sloan crying at how wonderful Webb's compositions were (Wichita Lineman, MacArthur Park, Up Up and Away, By the Time I Get to Phoenix) and giving him encouragement. That had to have meant a lot to Webb given how many hits Sloan had had.
A rare P.F. Sloan sighting....nice, Ellen! Just from my memories of early-'70s rock mag reading, I recall Sloan being referred to as mysterious, enigmatic, and elusive, for whatever reasons. A fun story about Adler freaking and demanding the song get yanked off radio! Hey, if radio's getting phones on a song, they're not budging! I must say I covet McGuire's Wrecking Crew jacket!
I know! - I loved the Adler angle in the story, and I had my eye on that Wrecking Crew jacket too!!!
Of course you would relate to the radio angle, having lived it through your dad. I can only imagine the dinner table conversation at your house!
Thanks for this post, Ellen, and for the others on protest songs. 'Eve of Destructrion' was a favourite of mine when I was getting into that era of songwriters and folk/protest music. The Webb song about Sloan is also a favourite.
Are you familiar with the covers of 'Eve of Destruction' by The Dickies (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLuCA2ZWJh8) and Public Enemy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bis6c-22jUU)? I ask because I think they have a bearing on some of the broader questions about protest songs that you and NickS have been having. One apsect of that is topicality: how can a song about those 1960s concerns you mention work in 1979 and again in 2007? Does it? The other thing is genre and how punk and then hip hop became the genres more associated with protest in subsequent eras.
Hi Richard. No, I wasn't familiar with those covers and thanks for bringing them to my attention.
I think you're right to raise the issue of covers of these protest songs in later periods and genres. Why is the song seen as relevant to that period? Are the very same issues rearing their heads, or are they other issues but the music and lyrics work for those issues as well? (I tend to suspect the former -- that the same issues keep coming around again and again in slightly different clothing. I've been shocked at how relevant the lyrics to these songs are right now.)
The other question I think you're raising with genre is, I think, two-fold. One is the role of rock 'n' roll in protest over time. Was protest suppressed by an increasingly corporatized music industry? Or did it move into emerging genres and sub-genres like heavy metal, punk rock, and hip hop (which, from what I understand, the music industry resisted recognizing or supporting)?
And why the timing of those genres and sub-genres? Are they responses not just to developments in music and the music industry, but also almost inevitable responses to political and economic circumstances?
I'm not a music or general historian, but suspect there are some interesting answers to these questions out there. It's something that greatly interests me and that I hope to delve into further. If you have answers or sources, I welcome hearing about them.
I have quite a few more protest songs coming, and when I finish plan to write a summary post about what I think they tell us. So I appreciate your raising these questions as something I might want to address or at least consider in that post.
Yes, I think you're right about the corporatization of music, which affects everything from protest songs to flash mobs (where the radical potential of surprise gets reworked to promote banks and similar organisations). And re the two examples I shared, I think convincing arguments could be made that the pop-punk of The Dickies was perhaps not the most protesty (?) that punk could be and that Public Enemy in 2007 represented a different level of risk than PE two decades before.
I agree on the same topics coming around and around and keeping older protest songs relevant. For several years I ran a university course on American Popular Music which included a session on protest. Every year I left the possibility open that, given the number of things that could be subject to protest, the main focus and the case studies could change. But every year, without change, the main focus remained race and the case studies were predominantly from the civil rights era and more recent references back to that time (from artists like Beyonce, Solange, Common, Kendrick Lamar). I don't think that was just my laziness/reticence to update my teaching materials; I believe it was because those issues maintained their pertinence.
Dorian Lynskey's book 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs is a good overview (https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571241354-33-revolutions-per-minute/). A more academic list from my old course (skewed towards the US, the 1960s and civil rights) includes:
Greil Marcus, Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes (London: Picador, 1997). Chapter 1.
Brian Cross, It’s Not About a Salary: Rap, Race, and Resistance in Los Angeles (London: Verso, 1993).
Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1994).
Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison, Music and Social Movements: Mobilizing Traditions in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Peter La Chapelle, Proud to Be an Okie: Cultural Politics, Country Music, and Migration to Southern California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).
David Margolick, Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Cafe Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2001).
Ingrid Monson, Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
Mark Anthony Neal, What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (New York: Routledge, 1999).
Brian Ward, Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations (London: UCL Press, 1998).
This reading list is just so remarkably useful. I realize how much work goes into putting together a syllabus and reading list, so thank you so much for sharing it, Richard.
Just the first reference alone looks great, and I note from looking at the table of contents that I've got four of his songs on my list. I'll have to order and read this at some point, but not in the midst of the series as I don't want to be influenced or swayed. I'm enjoying the thought process, discussion, and discovery process looking into the songs. But I will want to read it afterwards, as well as explore these other references. More food for thought!
A great song.
Agree!