Generally, in this column, I like to dig deep into the archives and find music that is lost to the sands of time. Deep tracks and unheard of great music is my specialty but this week I am mixing it up once again.
Today, we look at pop songs that were hits (major and minor) way back in the late 60’s through the early 70’s.
I hardly think any of these songs are classics but listening to them will surely bring back some pretty good memories and I think that’s one of the major pleasures of listening to music, it evokes strong, mostly happy, memories.
I start with Donovan’s “Atlantis”. For the longest time I never realized how important and how connected Donovan Leitch was in Rock and Roll history. I just thought he was some seriously good Scottish storyteller but Donovan was friends with all of the elite artists in Britain during the 60’s. He also was a great songwriter and while he had a slew of hits back in the day, my favorite is still “Atlantis”. I love any song where it breaks into this long repetitive chorus. The song is a mixture of folk and psychedelia that rarely has been successful.
The next selection is The Grass Roots’ “Let’s Live For Today”. The band was very popular in the late 60’s, charting consistently over a three or four year period. Most of their stuff was very poppy however,I have always found this song a little deeper, a sign of the times. A love song but it just sounded a bit more sophisticated than the rest of their catalogue.
The Turtles (Later as Flo and Eddie) had such a wide range of rock experiences it’s hard to believe that they would produce a pop song like “Elanore”. Originally, I thought it was a takeoff on “Elanore Rigby” by the Beatles but one had nothing to do with the other. Anyone who lived on Long Island during the late 70’s early 80’s will remember how Flo and Eddie seemed to be everywhere. They eventually turned into this rock Comedy group and they seem to have disappeared.
Paul Revere and The Raiders had this American Revolutionary war thing going on that maybe at the time was interesting, it really overshadowed the talent in this band. Paul Revere was the leader but Mark Lindsey was the voice. They transformed from this horrible bubblegum band to a band that could sing about causes. It was a tossup for me between “ Kicks” and “ Just Like Me”. “Kicks” was a vague reference about drug use and for a bubblegum band that was a game changer. “Just Like Me” is that 60’s beat set to an emotional love song.
Ambrosia’s “Nice, Nice, Very Nice” may not fit in with these other songs but it was a record that FM Dj’s love to play and occasionally and AM Disc Jockey would throw it on at 3 in the morning. The album version is much better than the single. One interesting fact is the Kurt Vonnegut Jr had a hand in the writing of the song.
I will always have one of those “Don’t shoot me” songs and lets go with the Association’s “Along Comes Mary”. Yup, I said it. This was a band that had some of the best vocals every recorded and people hated them. They sang these bouncy tunes while the country was in flames during the Vietnam War. Sometimes you need music to escape and that’s what these guys brought to the table.
And in my “ I don’t care what you think” category comes pretty much any song from The Guess Who. This group is my guilty pleasure and Burton Cummings had one of the greatest voices in rock and roll. I know I have to pick one song so I will go with “Guns, Guns, Guns”. Just the instrumentals and the vocals alone would force me to pick this song over “No Sugar Tonight/Mother Natures Son”. The lyrics are anti gun, anti hunting which did not sit well with the bands core audience but they had something to say and they said it.
One song that everyone from that era will remember fondly is “Green Tambourine” by The Lemon Pipers. How could you not love this song? It’s psychedelic without being too trippy. The rarest instrument in Rock I think is the Tambourine and these guys are playing it for all it’s worth. Actually, truth be told, you can barely hear it until the end.
Another group that used beautiful harmonies and soothing almost elevator type melodies was Spanky and Our Gang. “Like to Get to Know You” is a perfect example of that pleasant pop that would not offend anyone and had some beautiful arrangements.
Going back to something a bit more obscure. Spirit’s “It’s Nature’s Way” doesn’t really fit the bill as a pop classic like some of the others but it is a really nice song with a message we can still understand today.
Another song that doesn’t truly fit the bill is Sugarloaf’s “Green Eyed Lady”. This band had a few hits in the 70’s but none bigger than this one. It’s a really good rock and roll song and I think the album version is significantly better than the 45.
The next selection is one of those rare songs that I will include that was released at the edge of my memory. The Vogue’s “Five O’Clock World” was released in 1966 so, at 9 I was just beginning to listen to the radio, while my siblings were listening to The Beatles and The Stones.
The Classic IV had a tendency to write songs with one word titles. My favorite is “Spooky”. This is another group that you could put in the Association category of smooth pop, elevator music. It’s a neat song coming in at a little under three minutes.
Digging so deeply into this pile of pop has made me head towards The Cowsills. Most of their stuff is just out of my reach. I can’t listen to it, but I do like “Hair”. Just a funny little song from the musical Hair. Which, btw had multiple number one hits come out of it.
My last selection for this edition is “Fire” by the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. This is a strange song no doubt but if you can find the album version (original, not remastered) you will see that Arthur Brown deserved the moniker. It is a rock and roll semi-masterpiece.
Next week, my Christmas Spectacular!
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