Learning Music

(some guys)

I didn't begin to put it all together until I was around age nine. At nine I saw Manfred Mann and most importantly, Roy Orbison, on TV for the first time. "Oh, Pretty Woman" was the absolute, bar-none best song I'd ever heard in my whole life (to date).

And this song was profound (okay, not really), but I really, really liked it:

But I also lived in an apartment attached to a country-western bar, so I was confused. Buck Owens and Bobby Bare poured out of my uncle's juke box, while my little plastic table-side radio blasted out The Dave Clark Five and the Animals. I was warbling, "There goes my baby with someone new" as part of my little cousin trio. I had the Beatles, of course, tucked in my pocket. The Beatles were still my secret in 1964.

1964 was a Pop Rocks explosion of music. Once I moved back home to the farm, I had Shindig on ABC TV, where I saw the Righteous Brothers and Gerry and the Pacemakers and the Beach Boys. And I had my big brother -- the supreme arbiter of musical taste.

It wasn't until 1965, though, that it all became clear to me. In addition to my brother, I had a best friend who I discovered music with. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to discover music with somebody who shares your sensibilities. My brother was an expert, but my friend Cathy heard the same songs at the exact same time I did, and we reveled in our shared awe.

Music was joyous in 1965. Maybe it was partly me, but I really think the music was buoyant. It was a musical renaissance. Sort of like today's sensibilities, the music before '65 had been all message-driven. It wanted us to think (think!) about things. I blame Bob Dylan. I was too young to think! Think about what? I didn't even know what the heck the folkies were complaining about. But they sure were bitchy. That wasn't music to me. Music was supposed to be fun. That's why they were called "songs"; not "dissertations". Even today, I hate, hate when people try to preach to me. "The answer is blowin' in the wind". Okay, well, blow away, dammit! Leave me the F alone!

Even the sad, morose, songs in 1965 at least had a catchy beat.

And there were the songs that made no sense, and that was the point, A guy from Dallas, Texas, named Domingo Samudio could dress as an Arab sheik and do something like this:

 

I frankly thought "Sloopy" was an unattractive name for a girl. It sounded like "Sloppy", or like someone who dribbled a lot.

I wonder whatever happened to the McCoys. (I used to do The Jerk, too. Didn't everybody?)

I never could figure out why Sonny Bono dressed like Fred Flintstone. It was a fashion choice, yes, but not necessarily a wise one. I half-expected him to scuttle away in a car that was powered by his fat bare toes. Nevertheless, who hasn't attempted this song on karaoke night?

I never could quite get into the Rolling Stones. That still holds true today. I have honestly tried -- honestly. I want to like them. My husband reveres them. They just don't do it for me. 

My recollection of this song is me standing outside in my circular driveway, holding my tiny transistor to my ear, and hearing a guy talking about someone smoking cigarettes, which I could relate to, because my dad smoked cigarettes. But other than that, ehh.

Shindig loved the Righteous Brothers. I loved the Righteous Brothers. This track was produced by an insane killer, which unfortunately colors my memories of the song, but geez, it's Bill Medley:

The Beach Boys were gods. Still are. I didn't know which one was Brian, or which one was Carl or Dennis, and it didn't matter. What mattered were those overly-tight white pants (just kidding! But not a wise fashion choice.) This track is notable due to the fact that they finally let Al Jardine sing lead. Of course, I didn't know that then. To me, the Beach Boys were the Beach Boys. I was not obsessed with who sang what. I still liked Little Deuce Coupe the best, although that was like a foreign language to me. I thought they were singing, "little do scoop". Which has nothing to do with this song:

Back to my brother:  He liked this song. I'd never heard the term "boondocks" before (or frankly, since). I remember pondering that word. I finally settled on "boondocks" equals "woods". I think that's wrong. But at ten, I pictured Billy Joe Royal singing about his life living inside a grove of trees. You be the judge:

My brother also had this single. He informed me that Gary Lewis was Jerry Lewis's son, like that was supposed to be a big selling point. I thought Jerry Lewis was a whiny overgrown child who was definitely not funny. There was an actual child in my household who was three years old and he was funnier than Jerry Lewis. I didn't actually mind Gary Lewis, but his entire recording was a fake, recorded by the Wrecking Crew, with even someone in the studio "helping" Gary with his vocals. 

Of course, I didn't know that in 1965. I didn't even know, or think about, how records were made. I thought they appeared by magic. I had absolutely no conception of someone standing behind a mic in a studio. In my ten-year-old mind, a bunch of guys got together and sang. That was the entire process. It was like Elvis breaking into song on the beach -- no instruments; yet I heard them. No microphone -- his voice carried across the rolling waves with nothing but a trio of dancing "friends" behind him in the sand. It's sort of how food appears on one's plate. Somebody disappears behind a door and comes out with a platter. I love magic.

People's memories are selective. Sure, when we think about '65, we know about the Beach Boys and Bob Dylan and Blah-Blah and the Blah-Blahs. But do we remember the Beau Brummels?  Well, we should, because they were on the radio all the time. You couldn't click on your transistor or flip on the car radio without hearing this song:

Speaking of Dylan, here's the deal:  I didn't know who this guy was in '65. I liked Rainy Day Woman #12 and 35, because I found it weird, and weird was good at ten years old. My brother told me the guy's real name was Robert Zimmerman and that he was from Hibbing, Minnesota. Okay. Well, good. My brother bestowed this knowledge upon me like it was very important. That's why I remember it to this day. I guess you had to be nineteen to "get" Bob Dylan; not ten. 

I still think he is a bad singer -- I mean, come on. Nevertheless, the man can write. This became clear to me when I was watching a documentary about Duluth, Minnesota, and the narrator recited a line about the city that I thought, "Wow; great line!" and then she said, "This was written by Bob Dylan." That's when I finally got it. 

This song is preternaturally long. The Beatles' tracks were 2:30, tops. It's not as long as "American Pie", which is like comparing "Achy Breaky Heart" to "Amarillo By Morning". Apples and putrefied oranges. But it's still long. Again, I did not understand at age ten that DJ's needed bathroom breaks. I thought they just sat there and listened to the records like I did. And every once in a while, they shouted out the station's call letters and the current temperature. But disc jockeys, just like real people, had to heed nature's call, so they really (really) liked this song:

I was fascinated by Roy Head when I saw him on Shindig. This was the most rubbery performer I'd ever seen! I remember worrying that his tight pants would split, but that could be just a false memory. Still, this guy was limber!

My boys were everywhere in '65. There was the Saturday morning cartoon, which was awful, but they played the songs, so, of course, I watched it. There were Beatles figurines. My mom bought me Ringo (thanks, Mom).

(notice that they all look basically the same)

 Of course, if I still had that figurine today, I would be a multi-millionaire! (Okay, maybe not.)

My boys had three records in the Billboard 100 in 1965. Here's one that doesn't get played a lot:

Another artist who's mostly forgotten, but shouldn't be, is Johnny Rivers. "Live At The Whisky A Go Go" was monumental. Never mind that they apparently didn't know how to spell "whiskey". In the early two thousands, I had the opportunity to see Johnny Rivers live, and he was still phenomenal. And everything that Jimmy Webb wrote in his awful book about Johnny means absolutely nothing to me. Mister Balloon Man.

Johnny hit the charts in 1965 with this:

Let me tell you about joyous music.

The first time I heard The Lovin' Spoonful was when "Daydream" wafted out of my transistor's speaker. What a day for a daydream. My best friend, Cathy, and I skipped along the streets of downtown Grand Forks with our radios pasted to our ears, warbling "I'm lost in a daydream, dreamin' 'bout my bundle of joy".

Then there was Zal Yankovsky. 

Zal knew that music was joyous. I don't even have to point him out to you in this video -- you'll know him. That's how music is to me.

1965 is when I learned music.

Revisiting 1965 In Rock Music

I've long held that the music of an era reflects the mood of the people. Why was seventies music so awful? Because the times were awful. Jimmy Carter may think he was the greatest president ever, but all her ever did for me was make me poor. Even the colors in vogue at the time reeked of desperation -- orange shag carpet to match the lime green papered walls. Who but someone severely depressed would consciously choose that decorating scheme? Consequently, we were subjected to Helen Reddy singing, "I Am Woman" and to bad recordings by Ringo Starr. Sure, there were sporadic great artists -- Elton John and Jim Croce and the Eagles -- but that's not who we heard on our radios. (We only remember the good; not the godawful). Essentially, if it wasn't for ABBA, everyone would have undertaken psychotherapy (if the could actually afford it). Even the late seventies, and disco, weren't happy, really. Disco was a means for people to pretend to be happy. The reason disco lyrics were indecipherable was its the artists didn't want anyone to know they were singing, "My life sucks; really sucks".

Conversely, the eighties were supremely optimistic. We were walking on sunshine all over the place (1983). Scoff if you will about eighties music, but I loved it, and I loved it mostly because it was happy. Yea, the musicians might have been pounding out their melodies on Casios, but the tunes had a certain something that made one happy. Why was that? Because we were happy. We were optimistic. The most we can hope for in the leader of our country is to not F things up. We're okay if they essentially do nothing. It's when they try to "fix" things that we get in trouble. It takes an extraordinary president to actually make things better. In the eighties, we were better.

Which leads me to the sixties. I slice the sixties right down the middle. In the first half of the sixties, music was lilting; bright; buoyant. That lasted until about 1967. Then the country and everything along with it went to hell. It was our first taste of hell, really. Before 1967, we'd trotted along with the same sameness every day. Nothing much ever happened. It may have been boring, but everybody was okay with boring. We didn't know anything else -- except for the Beatles, who definitely were not boring. Maybe that's why their appearance on the scene was so jarring. What? There's actual breathing life out there? Who knew?

In 1967, we realized that our boys, good boys; innocent kids, were dying for no earthly reason, and we were pissed about that. My brother escaped the draft by joining the National Guard. All the boys were desperate to find a way to save their own lives and not end up dead in a rice paddy. For no reason. And so the music became angry, just like we were.

Which is why I like the first half of the sixties.

I was ten years old in 1965. Girls, being more precocious, absorb life sooner than boys. Granted, I was a music geek from about age one, but every woman can remember the music of her ten-year-old life. And 1965 was ripe with music.

Let's start here:

"Help!" was from the album titled, "Help!". Let me tell you about that album: It rocked! If someone was to ask me what my favorite Beatles album is, I would say, "Rubber Soul". That's because that would be the politically correct answer. Sure, some would say, "Sergeant Pepper" or "The White Album" or maybe "Revolver". In reality, my favorite Beatles album is "Help!". "Help!" was when I first heard an album as a cohesive whole. I think I even wrote (most likely only in my mind) a whole musical based on the songs on that album. They flowed -- they created a story. I doubt even Paul would cite "Help!" as the group's best album. But Paul would be wrong. No offense. Maybe he's just too close to the whole experience to see it for what it was. Or maybe I was ten. It matters not. It doesn't hurt that "Help!" featured John heavily. John is the best Beatle. I think my favorite Beatles song of all time is from that album -- "You're Gonna Lose That Girl" -- another John song. I would include it here, but it was hard enough to find a semi-decent video of "Help!" I guess it's one of those Prince things -- being stingy with videos. I see no reason for it, but I can only do what I can do.

The Beatles also did a weird thing -- they didn't put their best songs on an album. I'm sure there was a reason for that, but I don't know what. "Penny Lane" was never on an album. Neither was this one. I guess you had to plunk down your dollar for the single, which I did -- luckily, it turns out.

The Beatles, of course, weren't the only artists to have sublime hit songs in 1965. '65 was ripe with eternal songs. They didn't just resonate in that particular year; they echo still. I fell in love with this song and I don't know why. I saw a lot of Holland-Dozier-Holland beneath the titles of my Motown singles, and I don't know who these guys were; but they knew how to write. And the Four Tops knew how to sing:

Bill Medley isn't just the guy who coaxed Baby up to dance with Patrick Swayze. He had a whole career long before that. And Phil Spector, before he was a murderer, became famous for his Wall of Sound, which was cool and all that, but it was the output, stupid. We didn't need to know the nuts and bolts of the process. Neat that he had three drum kits going at one time and he had someone plinking the timpanis. And lucky that he had Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann write such a good song. Cool that he had a bass singer and a tenor who got together and formed a duo. Immeasurable that they created this recording:

At ten, I didn't know what the word, "sham" meant. I liked that it rhymed with "Sam". I've since learned that Sam was a sham; a fake. The Arabic robes totally sucked me in. I was high on believin', as BJ Thomas would say. This track was the number one song of 1965, and I remember the lyrics as:

Hattie told Hattie
About a thing she saw
Had two big arms
And a woolly paw

It didn't matter. One could sing their own lyrics along with the song, because the song had no meaning, and that was okay. It summed up 1965 just fine:

The Temptations will, possibly to their regret, always be remembered for their choreography. Regrettably, that takes away from what is an awesome song. Another song from 1965 that is eternal:

I had a friend in third grade named Debbie Lealos, who had an older sister named Rhonda. I'm guessing Rhonda Lealos either loves or hates this song, depending upon the number of times strangers have assaulted her with its chorus. "Rhonda" was not an everyday name in 1965, but Rhonda will be eternally enshrined by this song by the Beach Boys (the only song Al Jardine sang lead on?):

I will say that the other Boys were kind of mean to not let Al sing lead on more songs. He's a good singer! (Actually, I think Al also sang lead on Sloop John B, but that about wraps up his BB career.)

The most striking feature to me of this next duo was the fur vest and the straight bangs (and I'm not talking about the female half). The Flintstones was big in 1965 -- I think the show actually aired in prime time -- so I figured the guy half of the duo was emulating Fred Flintstone. Bear in mind I was ten. In hindsight, Sonny most likely didn't drive a car that was foot-powered.

The original Bono:

This guy was different. He was like a lounge singer, except one with Elvis-swiveling hips and long sideburns. He was the antithesis of Sonny Bono. How did he make the rock charts? I guess you had to be there. Top 40 radio in 1965 had the attitude, "Eh". "If people like it, we play it. That's our motto."

Now I'm regretting my previous choice of "Help Me Rhonda" as representative of the Beach Boys, because this next song is one of my favorites of all time. I try to only feature one song by a group in my retrospectives, generally, but this one can't be denied. Here's the genius of Brian Wilson -- that intro.  If you're not sucked in by that intro, then, well, there is really no hope for you:

Gary Lewis and his Playboys -- it must have been difficult growing up as the son of an a**hole. In 1965. when this song hit the charts, I'd heard that Gary was the son of Jerry, the buffoon. I gave Gary props for branching out. I suppose I was waiting for him to use funny voices and do pratfalls, but I was glad he didn't. He played it straight. This was a huge hit in 1965:

The McCoys (otherwise known as Rick Derringer and some other guys) had a big hit about a girl with an unfortunately unappetizing name. But if she knew what was good for her, she'd hang on:

"Minuet in G Major" doesn't exactly scream rock and roll. But slap on the name "A Lover's Concerto" and you've got a hit. The Toys was another unfortunate name for a singing group. Not to mention sexist, but we didn't know of sexism in 1965. Still, I wouldn't have gone with "The Toys", because that made me think of a rocking horse and one of those wind-up jack-in-the boxes. (We were severely deficient in toys back then.)  Not surprisingly, The Toys now live on the same block as Little Millie Small and Terry ("Creepy") Stafford. In June they all get together for the neighborhood block party and the other suburb-dwellers swoon over their Pabst Blue Ribbon amidst the microphone feedback:

I believe Rolling Stone Magazine named this next song the best rock and roll song of all time. But you know Rolling Stone -- they're rather self-obsessed. Let me tell you about how I viewed Bob Dylan in 1965: He had a weird voice. Not a bad voice, per se, but odd. I honestly thought he was faking it. I wasn't on the Bob Dylan bandwagon in '65, but I'll grant him this:  He's a hell of a poet. He should write a novel. Bob Dylan has a bunch of stuff crackling in his brain, and there's not enough years in one's life to explore all the tumbling thoughts that bleed from the cerebellum of a genius. One tiny quibble, though: this song was absurdly long:

I liked two-and-a-half minute songs. Those matched my attention span then (and now?)  Being a Mindbender carried with it heavy responsibilities. Apparently Wayne Fontana couldn't handle the pressure, because this was their one and only number one song. I personally think he should have applied himself more, but that's the age-old dilemma, isn't it?

If there ever was an earworm, this next song is a prime example. Burt Bacharach and Hal David were really on a roll in the sixties. I used to sing this song to myself -- in the woods -- alone. I bet I was a really great singer. The thing about this song is, everyone can be a great singer singing it. That's the Bacharach-David genius. Jackie de Shannon had a really cool name. And this is a really cool song:

Frankie Valli didn't really play a part in the Sopranos. Granted, someone made a reference in the show about pressuring his agent to get him to sing at a casino (or something). But that's fiction. The Four Seasons were still hot in '65. Who could resist that falsetto?

We were enthralled with any group from England. We even liked Freddie and the Dreamers. Herman's Hermits had a good run. And since Peter Noone was only sixteen when the group first hit the charts, we can still, today, enjoy his presence on PBS rock and roll retrospectives. 

"Boondocks" is an unusual word. I didn't know, at ten, what it meant. I got the gist, from this next song, that it wasn't necessarily a good thing. Turns out, I was essentially living in the boondocks and didn't even know it. This song, however, makes it clear that boondocks is not a place one wants to claim:

I will close out 1965 with a song that has a special resonance for me, by the underrated group The Dave Clark Five.  Kids do stuff that seems mundane in retrospect, but at the time means the world. My best friend, Cathy, and I would attend Saturday afternoon dances at the local YWCA. Sock hops, I guess you would call them. A record player and a group of giddy pre-teens doing their best Watusi's and Jerks. Cathy asked me, while this record spun, is he saying:

I went to a dance just the other night

Everybody there was there

So, to this day, those are the lyrics, even though I now know better:

1965 was the end of innocence. It all went downhill from there. Everything got complicated. So, ask me what my favorite years in rock music were, and I'll tell you 1964 and 1965.

That's me in a nutshell.