1967 Archives – How Good It Is

168: Windy

The Association was a band that just kind of floundered for awhile. First in was in their early years when they were known as simply The Men, then, in 1966 after their first album did well, the second one did…not so much.

Part of the problem, it seemed, is that the band members playing their own instruments was mostly not a good idea. So for their third album, Warner Brothers (which had purchased The Association’s label and therefore their contract) brought in a new producer. That producer, Bones Howe, in turn brought in a bunch of session musicians who later became known as The Wrecking Crew.

The members themselves also made some changes with regard to their overall sound and the materials that they recorded, and they managed to break away from their Sunshine Pop sound and into a more eclectic feel. Some tracks were psychedelic, some were Baroque, some were folky, and there was even a touch of the Garage Band sound. That third album, titled Insight Out, performed about as well as the first one did and yielded two of their biggest hits. And in this episode we learn a little about one of those songs.

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166: Daydream Believer

I think that by now the Monkees have overcome their epithet of “Prefab Four,” which I suppose was clever but not especially accurate. At least three of the Monkees were musicians who could act. I’d argue that Micky Dolenz was an actor who could play music. (More on that below.) Having said that, however, he’s got one of the best voices of the rock and roll era, so my label comes from the fact that he came from acting rather than from music, as the others did.

That they didn’t write most of their own music is really of no consequence, given that the pressure for artists to write their own material wasn’t really there yet. Similarly, the Monkees were under a tight contract, which made that difficult. Every move they made toward autonomy was met with resistance. In Michael Nesmith’s case, it meant some acrimony between him and the label.

At any rate, as I mention early in the show, “Daydream Believer” was the Monkees’ last Number One hit, but it was only their second-to-last Top Ten in the United States. (Their last was 1968’s “Valleri,” which peaked at #3.) After that, it was the bottom half of the Hot 100 for the band until a brief comeback in 1986.

While the band members had achieved the autonomy they sought, they were also drifting apart as a group. Dolenz had lost interest in drumming, preferring instead to let session musicians take over. Producer Chip Douglas also noted that Dolenz was the weak link musically. He said that Dolenz’ work on Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. was cobbled together from several takes of the same song. The cancellation of the show and the poor reception of the film Head didn’t help either. Finally Peter Tork quit the group by buying out his contract at the end of 1968. By the time their television special 33⅓ Revolutions per Monkee aired in April 1969, Tork was long gone.

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144: Everlasting Love

The interesting thing about this song is that it was written for a specific singer. That said, it’s been a pretty big hit for many different artists over the years.

“Everlasting Love” was written in 1967 specifically to match Robert Knight’s voice, but it’s proven to be quite the malleable tune. It’s been rendered in R&B, in disco, in rock, in techno and god knows what else.

So the story behind the song isn’t incredibly interesting. Interesting, but not incredibly so. But the journey it’s taken to embed itself in the hearts of different generations is a fun one. Ride along with me, why don’t you?.

This is not the episode that I teased earlier. That one’s still coming; there’s an interview attached to it and we’ve had some scheduling issues.

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As promised, here’s the video of the song by Sandra from 1987. It’s got a very 80s feel to it. I think that comes from the editing and the “backstage” feel it’s supposed to be conveying. I dare you to tell me I’m lying about the Natalie Wood thing:

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Episode 105–Under the Covers, Part 6

True story: I hire models from Fiverr to do these pictures. All three of them, coincidentally, are from the same (non-US) nation. I don’t do that on purpose but I’m starting to think I have a “type”.

Thanks for your patience as the show migrates from one server to another. As I noted on the social media, I’m working hard to make it as invisible as possible if you listen via Google or Apple or Spotify, etc. And the website here is going to look kind of weird for awhile with a lot of double posts for previous episodes, until I pick my way through and fix them, one by one. Fun, Fun, Fun!

This week, we’re taking yet another look at a few songs which you may not have known were covers, and nearly all of them were suggested by a listener named Kim, who didn’t feel that a shout-out was necessary, but obviously I don’t feel the same way. Kim had a list of songs that could work, and I said “Sure” to most of them, with a single exception, and that’s mostly because the story is a little convoluted and I may have to turn it into an episode of its own down the road a ways.

Anyway: a new hosting partner means a new player here on the webpage for you, and I do have a little bit of customizing control over it (something I didn’t previously have at all), so I’m happy to hear your suggestions. And, of course, please let me know if you hit any weird technical snags.

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Finally, as promised: here’s the original French song I discussed during the show. Check out those lyrics; it’s rather poignant.

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Episode 103–A Whiter Shade of Pale

Bear with me this week; I’m fighting off some kind of respiratory thing and I’m sounding like Peter Brady singing “Time to Change.”

By the way, isn’t it cool the way we get that flanging effect only when Marcia and Greg are singing solo, despite the group microphones?

Why yes, I am a fussbudget. Nice to meet you.

This week: it was Procul Harum’s debut single, and at last count it was the song most played EVER on UK radio. Not a Beatles or Stones tune; this one. How about that!

I feel a little badly because I didn’t really leave anything out of my script for the benefit of putting something cool here, so I guess you’re out of luck in that respect. But if you’re here to listen to the embed, I’ve got some good news for you: here it is!

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Episode 98–What a Wonderful World

Holy Cats. I completely forgot that my website host wasn’t working when I did Episode 97, and I didn’t do a post for that one. It was down for maintenance, and I never came back to it. Shame on me.

So for those of you looking for an entry for “Like a Virgin,” sorry. There isn’t one. We’ll just have to let it stand on its own.

In the meantime, I was thinking about doing the Sam Cooke song, but every time I hit the Internet to do some research, I’d bump into the Louis Armstrong song, so I figured, Why not do both in a single show? And so here we are, with a show that talks about both songs and the stories behind them. Especially interesting to me is that both songs picked up a following in Europe that didn’t have a lot to do with their performance in the US.

Click here for a transcript of this week’s show. And, of course, if your podcatcher hasn’t already picked it up, click below to listen/download it.

ADDENDUM: I noted during the show that next week’s episode was a listener request, and that wasn’t a lie. I should note, however, that the listener is another podcaster who calls himself Innkeeper Freddie, and he runs an interview podcast called Guestbook. Freddie runs a bed-and-breakfast or two in the heart of Washington, DC, and he interviews some of the people who stay at his B&B. Consequently he gets in a fascinating array of people, all of whom have some neat perspectives on life in general, plus the discussion is capped off with the “Seven Questions,” which is a fixed set of questions that he asks of all his guests. It’s definitely worth a listen, and you can check him out here. I got to meet Freddie a few weeks ago at the PRX Podcast Garage in DC, and now I’m playing catch-up with his show. He’s a really enthusiastic guy whose show isn’t getting the love it deserves.

Episode 77–Somebody to Love

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The Great Society was one of a number of 1960s bands with that name, but the thing that makes this one distinctive is that it had a singer by the name of Grace Slick. They were playing in clubs in the San Francisco area, and frequently opened for another local band by the name of Jefferson Airplane. When the Airplane lost their lead singer (on generally good terms), Marty Balin reached out to Grace Slick, and she accepted their offer, not knowing that Columbia Records was about to offer the Great Society a record deal. But it was this incarnation of the Jefferson Airplane that finally broke through to the public, and they pretty much stayed that way until a couple of members left in 1970 to form Hot Tuna. Eventually they regrouped and, in 1974, upgraded their technology (I guess?) to become Jefferson Starship.

I should note that while I often use digital sources (CDs or streaming downloads) for the music on this show, in this case both of the Great Society tracks I play in this episode came from a vinyl album I discovered in a thrift store in Selma, NC, titled San Francisco Roots, which is a compilation of music from bands based out of that area in 1964-65. I’ve run them through a little noise reduction, but it’s still pretty clear that you’re getting some surface noise on this one.

And as usual, here is the file for your downloading/listening pleasure.

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58–Alice’s Restaurant Massacree

The early-to-mid 1960s was a great time to be a folk singer, whether or not you were the protesting type. And Arlo Guthrie, son of Woody Guthrie, had the decade pretty much fall into his lap. It didn’t hurt that he was actually kind of good at it. And when, as a freewheeling 17-year-old, he and a friend took a fateful trip to the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts to visit a couple of friends for the Thanksgiving weekend. It turned out to be an adventure that he later immortalized in a song. Between airplay on a single radio station in New York City and its inclusion on the Newport Folk Festival’s main stage, Arlo was able to get a record contract and the song became the entire first side of his debut album.

Arlo Guthrie in a still from
the 1969 film *Alice’s Restaurant*

And despite the song’s 18-1/2 minute length, and its subject matter (much of which was taboo then), and some of the language used (some of which is taboo now), the song continues to get radio airplay, in full, and unedited.

Although the restaurant and the microbus are long gone, Guthrie continues to perform the song from time to time, though he’ll update the lyrics so that they’re either more topical or less offensive. Or both.

And as usual, for the nine of you who don’t use the podcatchers, here’s the episode for listening or downloading:

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Episode 53–Both Sides Now

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Sweet Judy Blue Eyes. They’re still stunning to look at.

The late 1960s was a great time for the fusion of folk and pop music, and a lot of singer-songwriters made their marks with recording their songs, and those of other performers, during that time. So it was when Judy Collins first heard Joni Mitchell singing “Both Sides Now” down a telephone line one late night in 1967. Collins met with Mitchell and Al Kooper that very night in the bar from which Kooper placed the phone call, and the song wound up as the opening track to Side Two of Collins’ seventh album, Wildflowers.

For whatever reason, though, the song wasn’t released as a single for about a year, but releasing the song turned out to be a great idea, because it turned into Collins’ first foray into Billboard’s Top 40 and propelled Wildflowers to the Number 5 position on their albums chart.

Joni Mitchell, in the meantime, managed to score a recording contract of her own and recorded it, along with several other songs that had already been cut by other artists (including “Chelsea Morning”, which Collins had recorded and released as a single earlier that year) and a few new tracks. “Both Sides Now” became a stealth title track for her self-produced second album, Clouds, and finally propelled her into the public light.

The song has been covered literally dozens of times from 1967 all the way up to this decade, and by artists of all ages and genres so clearly this is a song whose impact will be felt for many years to come.

As usual, your podcast software should have this show by now, but if you dig listening to it from here (looking at you, Brother Of Mine), by all means have at it:

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Episode 46–Mellow Yellow

Donovan Leitch had already experienced some success in the UK, enough that Epic Records showed interest in distributing his music in the United States. When he signed the contract, however, it created a brief legal quagmire because his label in the UK had a distribution agreement with a different US label. As a result, there was a period where his albums and singles just couldn’t synchronize with one another. As a result, “Sunshine Superman” was released in the US months before it was in the UK, and in the meantime he’d moved on to his next project, which began with “Mellow Yellow”. Again the releases were asynchronous, but it was a Top 20 hit on both sides of the Atlantic and throughout Europe as well.

The song probably took on some extra popularity because it also became a song into which anyone could plug practically any meaning, at a time when theories about “what did the artist mean when he wrote this?” were really starting to thicken the air. And as it happens, he was largely being pretty straightforward.

As I mentioned during the show, the 1999 Gap ad has a few young future stars in it. Keep your eye peeled for Rashida Jones (Parks and Recreation) at the very end, for Monet Mazur (lots of one-offs but starring in All American starting October 2018) as the blonde girl singing the second line, and Jason Thompson (General Hospital) somewhere in between.

https://youtu.be/jIfTh0T6M8Y

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