1968 ~ Fifty Years

I've been watching the CNN series, "1968" (trust me; the only thing I watch on CNN), which was co-created by Tom Hanks, who I like a lot, as long as he keeps his politics to himself.

Need I say, fifty years ago??

Every individual's reality is their own. The series is somebody's reminiscences about that year.  Mine naturally differ.

I was thirteen that year. I'd just completed seventh grade with its attendant awkwardness. I was a mess in '68 and I knew it. I just kept hoping that life would get better, or at least I would get better, but all signs pointed to no. In the realm of supreme ineptitude, I excelled. I had zero social skills. I had pimples that I tried to mask with a heavy application of Cover Girl ivory foundation, which resulted in a freakish zombie-like appearance. Nobody advised me on my hair, so I let it do whatever it wanted, and it wanted to cling greasily to my scalp.

I was skinny as hell, but I convinced myself I was fat. I stood sideways in front of my bathroom mirror and detected a "stomach bump". This made me despondent and determined to stop eating all together.

Needless to say, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were not foremost in my mind.

1968 was the year that pop culture left me behind. It's been fifty years and it's still not reconciled itself with me.  And it won't, ever. We who lived in the heartland had differing priorities, different realities. I was just trying to get by, with what is now politely called a "dysfunctional family", so anti-war protests and fire hoses and things were just images on the TV screen. The Viet Nam world only touched me in the sense that my big brother enlisted in the National Guard to thwart his number from being culled from the bingo jar that determined who would potentially die in the stultifying jungle.

Side note:  In May of 1969, my state became infamous for the "Zip To Zap", which was, I guess, the (really) poor man's Woodstock. Zap was a hamlet in western North Dakota, populated by approximately 300 souls. It had two local bars and not much else. Some kids from North Dakota State University apparently scoured the map and pinpointed a town name they could build a slogan around. The AP picked up the story and soon thousands of bored beer-seeking kids from parts unknown began arriving in the hapless town that had initially embraced the off-the-cuff notion as a potential tourism enticement.

When the pair of taverns ran out of beer and the temperature plummeted, things turned ugly. Kids ripped timbers from the skeleton of an abandoned building and blazed a bonfire in the middle of Zap's lone street. Town residents, petrified and no longer civic-minded, shoved bureaus up against doors and cocked their shotguns; peered from behind lace curtains at the vomit-spewing, wantonly urinating revelers.

Before daybreak, the governor called in the National Guard to disperse the loopy mercenaries. Our local paper, that evening, featured a jumbo photo of jeeps heading down the highway, packed with baffled gun-toting military men.

And my brother got to go!

They tell me 1968 was a turbulent year, and I don't dispute that. However, the number one hit on June 1 was this:

So, how turbulent was it...really?

I was ensconced for the week at my brother and sister-in-law's apartment while Big Bro was away at Guard camp, and this song playing on the clock radio lulled me to sleep (and why wouldn't it?):

...when my sister-in-law shook me awake to tell me they were talking about "Kennedy getting shot" on the radio. "I don't know if they're talking about John Kennedy or what," she said. We propped ourselves up on pillows and listened as the announcer described the scene in Los Angeles in the aftermath of yet another Kennedy assassination. My thought in the middle of the night was, you gotta watch out if you're running for anything, because someone will pull out a pistol and kill you. 

I don't remember if I started walking down to the local Catholic church before or after that, but I essentially spent that week in town genuflecting before the out-sized crucifix in the church's sacristy. I understood that the world was essentially insane, but I still thought it was only my world. I was disconnected from the planet at large. Bobby Kennedy's murder was just one more peg in the corkboard of my gloom.

By August, I felt a bit better, until I watched the anarchy of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago unfold on CBS news. I wasn't on anybody's side; but I was (and still am) a fan of order, and I didn't appreciate the messiness. On the one hand, I was not in favor of people getting beaten with clubs; but on the other hand, I thought these people were a bit too melodramatic. Fake outrage was born in 1968, and fifty years later, it's alive and kicking. Theater. I'm a big fan of honesty.

Meanwhile, this song was number one:

I knew, at thirteen, that whomever the Democrats nominated wouldn't matter. They'd already committed suicide.

By fall I was enrolled in eighth grade; still in the turn of the century fat brick building that resembled a prison. 

My US History teacher was the same asshat who'd student-taught Mr. Reisenauer's geography class the year before. We'd all hated him because he was stuffy and joyless and grew miffed when we giggled at the filmstrip unwinding from the projector, coiling onto the floor. I strolled into his classroom the day after Labor Day unwilling to tolerate any supercilious bullshit. I had enough to deal with at home, thanks.

The second week of September, Mr. Hamann assigned us to create presidential campaign signs. Pissed at my dad and not yet realizing it, my fresh brain synopses suddenly firing, I went home and pasted felt letters to a sticky foam board. My finished project read, "This time, vote like your whole world depended on it. Nixon/Agnew." Before I toted my completed product to school, I tacked it up on the garage wall just outside the kitchen door where Dad couldn't miss it. I hovered in the background and watched him alight the two steps to the doorway, stop, scan the words, then shake his head in disappointment. I felt only a tiny tinge of guilt. Mr. Hamann, on the other hand, spying my poster Monday morning, smiled faintly and said, "That's plagiarism, isn't it?" I didn't know what "plagiarism" meant, but I knew I'd met a kindred spirit. From that moment on, Mr. Hamann and I were fast pals.

It was a little thing, but I found an inkling of an identity in eighth grade. My home life didn't get better and it wouldn't get better for the rest of my teen years, but I realized it was okay to be "me" and not a little clone of two people whose demeanor I abhorred.

So I guess 1968 was a rather momentous year after all. Even for me.

However, I still wouldn't do it again.

The Summer of 1967

My parents moved us in the gloomy month of December, 1966. Three kids, two of whom were barely toddlers; and me, an awkward, bashful eleven-year-old. Like most things we humans think will be magnificent experiences, reality is a letdown. Initially, in the late summer of '66, when my parents casually informed me we would be moving far away, I was elated. Country life had its virtues, but I'd experienced (tiny) city life by then, and I was sick of being isolated. All I had was my bicycle, after all, and it was a long trek into town on a bike.

In my fanciful notion of a new life, as I twirled down the dirt road on my bike, arms outstretched to the winds, I pictured a quaint town where I would window-shop, drop the kickstand down on the concrete, mosey into a little store and purchase an emerald frock. The shopkeeper would smile benevolently and perhaps pat my hand as I proffered my four dollars.

Reality was a sun-dimmed, dirty snow-pile parking lot and a musty apartment far from any town I could traverse on a bicycle. The motel my parents had laid down their life savings for was nineteen rooms laid out in a semi-circle with a cement speed bump smack-dab in the middle and a three-foot-high American elm holding on for dear life poked up through the concrete. Welcome to upward mobility!

The dank apartment attached to the motel's office had two full bedrooms with one microscopic bathroom between them. Thus, I became ensconced in a bunk-bedded room with two waifs sharing the bottom bed and me on the top. "My" room was so minuscule, I could extend my arms and touch the opposing walls.

I hadn't even met my new school yet and I was miserable. It was winter break, so I had approximately seven days to acclimate to my new home. I hated everything about it. Back in Minnesota, I had my own room (albeit shared with my tiny sister) upstairs, away from everyone, where I could play my records as loudly as I pleased, and nobody bothered me, ever. I had privacy. Now I could hear every snap of the bathroom tap; every time my dad got up in the middle of the night to fetch a drink of water.

I set up my battery-operated record player inside the three-shelf recessed closet in my room, stuffed my (two) albums in the cubbyhole above, and made believe that this was "home".

My best friend's brother had warned me that North Dakota was backward. When I spied my new sixth grade classroom, his words scorched my ears. I showed up in the tall-windowed eighteenth century chamber, settled into my third-desk-from-the-back, cracked open my fat World History textbook and pretended not to notice that everyone in the room was eyeing me. I looked around and didn't see one friendly face. It took a couple of months (which seemed like years) to find one single person who would deign to talk to me.

I desperately wanted to go back home. Sadly, "home" was now occupied by a family of strangers, which was an insult in itself. They'd probably changed things -- ruined my basement Imagine Land by turning it into a carpeted den or something. Replaced the breezy lace curtains in the living room with heavy damask draperies.

I ached to go home right up 'til the day a girl in my new classroom shot me a grin at something ridiculous Mrs. Haas had uttered, and I instantly realized this skinny blonde girl was somebody simpatico. And just like that, I had a best friend.

Life didn't suddenly become sublime -- I hated, hated my apartment (I refused to call it "home"). I hated the claustrophobia of being tightly packed among people I could barely tolerate on good days. I hated that I couldn't take a walk outside without running into complete strangers.

But, even though she lived miles away and traveled a different bus route, my breath was lighter knowing I had a friend -- Alice.

My big brother was an apparition. Some days he was there; some days no one had any idea where he'd gone. He'd ostensibly moved to North Dakota with the rest of us, but he was his own man, at age twenty. There obviously wasn't room for him in our little dormitory, so he got a motel room all his own; exactly what I yearned for, but didn't possess the requisite number of years to claim. Fortunately for me, my brother was gone a lot, and the motel office had passkeys.

I slipped the lock on his door, dropped the phonograph needle on this 45 and exhaled:

I loved The Turtles, to the point that I memorized the number of times Flo (or Eddie) sang, "so happy together" at the end of the song. And no, Ferris Bueller didn't invent this song:

I loved this one even more:

I almost feel sorry for those who weren't yet born in 1967, because they missed songs like this:

...but not really. Maybe I'm not "cool", but I was at least alive (and kicking) when some of the best music of all time burst into being.

My brother was a carpenter and an entrepreneur, and he knew a good gig when it stabbed him in the eye. He hammered together a fireworks stand and perched it on the edge of our new motel property, placed his mail order requisition, and proceeded to rake in the bucks. 

By late June the sun was hot and I was barefoot, scorching my toes on the melting asphalt. My little brother, Jay, and his best pal Royle, pedaled up to the fireworks stand on their bikes and tried to wheedle Rick out of giving them free bottle rockets (he did).

Dad had invested in an outdoor swimming pool to drive new business, so I reveled in this new windfall. I slipped on an orange two-piece, donned my cheap plastic Woolworth sunglasses, tiptoed across the driveway in front of Rick's little kiosk and settled on a chaise lounge beside the turquoise waters, flipped up the volume on my transistor, and heard this:

And meanwhile, Felix sang this:

This song was so sixth grade:

Not to be outdone by Ray Kazmarek's organ riffs, Procol Harem showed they were no slouches. The only quibble I have with this track is that it unnaturally fades. They could have tacked on another 30 seconds or so, because it seems to end weirdly:

Another of my clandestine break and enters featured this song (which was, in fact, the only song by Herman's Hermits I ever actually liked):

Yes, I liked this one a lot. The Grass Roots don't get the acclaim they deserve. Aside from being the first live rock 'n roll concert I ever attended, these guys had scores of hits in the sixties:

The best thing Graham Nash was ever a part of:

God bless you, Neil Diamond -- you're still going strong -- and you had one of my favorite singles of 1967. I still remember that black and yellow BANG! record label:

So, while 1967 personally sucked mostly for me, I can still say that the music was awesome, and I was there.

So life, in essence, is a series of yins and yangs; searing pain and soaring heavens.

We take what we get and try to remember the joys.

I've Apparently Forgotten About The Year 1966 -- On Purpose?

Mostly, 1966 was a good year for me...until December. So, yes, mostly good. The year started out well. I had a birthday party in May. That was only the second birthday party I'd ever had in my life, and I have no memory of my first one, since I was five and had no "friends"; only cousins. For this one, in 1966, I got to invite actual friends. I had a best friend, Cathy, and a new friend who'd just moved to town -- I think her name was Denise...or Debbie (obviously it wasn't a long-term friendship). Having a new friend created some friction between Cathy and me, which was rather unfair. I didn't quiz Cathy on who she hung out with in her neighborhood while I was ensconced out at the farm. The best thing about staying overnight at Denise/Debbie's house was that she lived next door to my boyfriend, Chuck. At night we'd hold up notes in her bedroom window and Chuck would write notes back and hold them up for us to read (okay, it was fifth grade, for heaven's sake). Chuck was my boyfriend by default -- he picked me. I'd come to school in the morning and find anonymous notes inside my desk. It took me a while to figure out where they'd come from. The fact that Chuck stared at me incessantly was my first clue.

So, I had a boyfriend and a birthday party. I invited all my school friends and Cathy, who attended a different elementary school. I would like to say that I invited all the girls in my class, but I'm sure I didn't. Girls are not inherently nice. We have our feuds and resentments and just genuine dislikes. I remember one girl, Kristin, who I absolutely hated. I don't remember why, but I was not nice to her, nor was she to me. She'd apparently pissed me off one too many times. One Saturday afternoon, I phoned the local pizza parlor from my sister's apartment and ordered mass quantities of pizza and a bucket load of sodas to be delivered to Kristin's house. (In those days, there was no credit card required.) It was a crappy thing to do, but at the time I felt very proud of myself. When I think about it now, I just feel like a creep. The funny thing is, today if I knew Kristin, we'd probably be pals. Or maybe not. So, no, I didn't invite every girl I knew to my birthday party.

Cathy and I perused Popplers Music in Grand Forks every Saturday afternoon, and I let her know as my birthday approached which certain '45 I really, really loved. The trouble was, I loved a lot of current '45's. But I had to pick one so she'd know what to get me for my birthday. I picked this one:

Why did I like this?? Now when I hear it, all I can think of is the Dating Game. Let's just say this single did not stand the test of time.

Now, Debbie/Denise also wanted to know which single I wanted for my birthday. I told her this:

When I opened Debbie/Denise's present, I exclaimed, "Oh, I love this song!" Cathy replied, "I thought you said you loved the Tijuana Brass." 

"Well, I love them both," I hurriedly replied. Cathy was pissed for the rest of the day. 

So, yes, I loved a lot of tracks in 1966. (The Righteous Brothers single at least holds up today.)

In 1966, we had a lot of the (by today's standards) old standbys. They weren't old standbys at the time. We had The Mamas and the Papas, The Supremes, The Rascals, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys. The Beatles, of course. Believe it or not, there was a time when these acts were new. Rubber Soul had been released in '65, but it was still reverberating in 1966. The album was world-shattering.

In browsing the list of the top 100 singles of 1966, I decided to pick out the ones I like the best (and, no, Herb Alpert is not included.)

The Vogues:

Later, sometime in the early seventies, I saw The Vogues performing in a little basement bar in Mandan, North Dakota. They were awesome! Sad that they were stuck performing in little basement bars, but did I mention they were awesome? I think they just loved performing. I saw Bobby Vee in that same little basement and he was loving it, too. Some bands wouldn't admit to themselves that they'd sunk to performing in little holes in the ground. The Doobie Brothers played there, too, and were a bit too haughty for their modest circumstances. I'd forgotten about that little bar, which is sad, because it was only 500 feet away from my parents' motel. 

But I digress.

The Lovin' Spoonful:

I think hearing this song was the first time I realized that good music could be quiet. I'd been raised on big pounding drums and big pounding piano and big electric guitar solos, so this song smacked me hard. I never realized it, but The Lovin' Spoonful influenced the way I write songs. As geeky kids, Cathy and I trolled the streets of Grand Forks with our transistors clamped to our ears, and this song in particular made me feel joyful. I've seen John Sebastian on some of those PBS specials and documentaries about Greenwich Village, et cetera, and now he's an old dude, but he definitely had something. To me, the most joyous pop song of all time is "Do You Believe In Magic", largely because of Zal Yanovsky, who's passed away, but boy, what a joie de vivre Zal possessed. That's what music is supposed to be - joyful.

Neil Diamond:

Neil is currently on tour, celebrating fifty years of performing. Fifty! No, that doesn't make me feel old at all; not at all. Cherry Cherry was Neil's first big hit and it charted in 1966. I followed along with Neil's career; purchased his singles recorded on the yellow Bang label. I bought a bunch of them. Neil Diamond was someone who wouldn't let you down. Probably the worst actor off all time (see The Jazz Singer), but sure enough, I watched that movie on HBO over and over, and I have no earthly idea why, other than that I liked Neil Diamond.

The Rascals:

My husband posits that The Rascals could have had a much longer career than they did, because they were so good. I don't know what happened, but I miss them. Granted, those of a certain age will associate this song with a Dr. Pepper commercial, but be that as it may, The Rascals were great.

Here's one...

Okay, yes, Nancy Sinatra only had one true hit, but...have we forgotten it? Nope. It's a weird thing about songs. Nobody can predict what will stick. I mean, think about Ode To Billie Joe, which was, in essence, a real downer, and yet it was gold. Gold! Same with this one. I've karaoked it, because well, who wouldn't?

The Beatles:

I probably fell in love with my husband in 1966, but I was eleven, so...

Chuck was a faded memory by then. Chuck was actually kind of a loser anyway. My (now) husband visited our farm with his family in the summer of 1966. We bonded over my Beatles singles (specifically We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper). Oh, I was eager to share my record collection with him, and he "got it". Most people I knew didn't. When you meet someone who is tripping the same line as you are, you don't forget, because that doesn't happen...hardly ever.

So, this one is a biggie for me:

Johnny Rivers:

Back on the streets of Grand Forks, Cathy and I had become taken with the whole "secret agent" fad. "Get Smart" was playing on our TV's; "The Man From U.N.C.L.E" was a big hit on network TV. I guess James Bond was going strong at the cineplex (we, however, were still mired in bad Elvis Presley flicks). Thus, we decided we, too, could be secret agents. We surveilled the downtown department stores. Our transistors became official transmitters. We had "code names". And Johnny Rivers did this song:

My fun and frolic ended in December when we moved to a new state. Obviously, I knew no one. I was keenly alone. For a painfully shy kid, a friend meant everything. I didn't have any friends. Everybody was a stranger. I don't think I'd ever, up 'til then, initiated a friendship. Friends found me. And I was picky about friends. I couldn't just be friends with any random person. So, everyone in my class was a phantom. What does one do when she needs friends but has none? She creates friends. These became my friends:

As 1966 slid into 1967, I found someone. It took a while, considering my exacting standards. But I made a friend for life. And yes, she approached me.

So, life went on. It wasn't necessarily easy. That's why I don't really tend to remember 1966 fondly. Again, as memory goes, the majority of the year was pretty good, but humans latch onto the bad things, and the bad things overshadow everything else.

In retrospect, though, it was an eventful year in myriad ways.

Growing up isn't easy.

1966 ~ Yes, There's More

I'm really not obsessed with the year 1966. Really. If I was asked which years in rock music were the best, nineteen sixty-six wouldn't be my first choice, or my third. As I mentioned at the beginning of these (now four!) posts, this whole thing was an experiment to prove my husband wrong, who opined that 1966 was the best year in music. I'm sure I mentioned that '66 wasn't a primo year in my life. If one was to choose an ideal time to be ripped away from everything familiar and thrust into a new town, new state, new school, the awkward adolescent years are probably not going to be anyone's first choice.

Maybe that's why I remember that year so well. It was a dichotomy ~ part of the year was sunshine; the other part was the ravages of hell. I eventually settled in, but I thank God for my transistor radio.

I probably mentioned that I relied upon my big brother for musical guidance. He had every album worth having, while little me had a pittance of 45's, which mostly consisted of the Beatles. And he guided me along; talked to me about music. Explained things. I never was a big question-asker,  because I didn't want to give myself away as a rube, but I wondered about things. Things like, can a group really name themselves after a punctuation mark?

Apparently so. Here is ? and the Mysterians:

My best friend and I used to comb the streets of our town, looking for eleven-year-old action.  The only "action" we could find was the local disc jockey doing a remote broadcast from a men's apparel store. But to us it was exciting, even though there were approximately three people inside the store. Plus the guy gave out free 45's. "Daydream" had been the perfect summer song for me. Lazy, like me. Lemonade and creme cookies on the front porch. But the Spoonful's next song was different; dissonant. (And of course there was Zal.) Cathy liked the track better than I did, but I eventually came around:

I don't exactly know how I missed the Rascals. Later, of course, when they were "Groovin," they could not be ignored. Hot sun on concrete, sunbathing by the pool, white-framed sunglasses shading my eyes. But that was '67. Thank goodness for retrospectives. And, no, it wasn't the Dr. Pepper commercial that turned me on to them:

I never actually liked Paul Revere & The Raiders for their music. I liked them for the posters I hung on my bedroom wall.  If you'd asked me what my favorite PR&TR song was, I would be struck dumb. I was an eleven-year-old fraud. Nevertheless, this was one I sort of knew:

You youngsters out there (as Ed Sullivan would say) probably think this song was a huge deal in 1966, seeing as how it's been used in the soundtrack of every teen movie since the eighties. But it actually wasn't.  It certainly was no "Born To Be Wild". I wonder whatever happened to the Troggs, but I don't wonder too much.

One of the actual documented incidences of someone from the sixties using the word "groovy" is contained herein. Contrary to popular myth, people didn't go around using the term "groovy". I, in fact, don't think I ever uttered it, and I grew up during that time. Regardless, who can forget Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders?

I'm sure there is a reason I remember the Hollies, I think it may be because of "The Air That I Breathe" or I'm guessing "Carrie Anne".  I liked both those songs a lot.  This one was okay, but it's their most remembered song, so who am I to judge (apparently)?



Tommy Roe. I wanted to say he's a product of the sixties, but then I realized I'm talking about the sixties.  Tommy Roe is sort of Lou Christie without the falsetto, so that gives him a leg up automatically. Let me just say that in 1973 Tommy had a song called, "Working Class Hero" that was completely different...and good! Really good.

One day I grew up. No, I wasn't necessarily hopeless about good music. "Eyes of a New York Woman" in 1968 was, and still is, pretty much untouchable. I didn't know much about Hank Williams except for Jambalaya. (I know much more now.) And I guess I didn't know that this was a Hank Williams song:

I'm going to close out 1966 (really) with the song that my husband feels is the best of the year. This song was written by Paul Simon. The track wouldn't have even been an ink blot on the folds of my memory, but since my husband started this whole thing, I think it's fitting that I finish it with his song. This is The Cyrkle:

Adieu, 1966. 

It was nice, yet scary and forbidding, to remember you.

Yea, Yea, The Summer of Love

I wonder who named 1967 "The Summer of Love". Obviously not a marketing person. Because if you're going to declare something the "Summer of....", you want to have that commercial tie-in.

For example, how about "The Summer of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese"?

You could give away wedge-shaped key chains; bumper stickers featuring globs of macaroni clinging together on a fork. You know. Marketing-type stuff.

From what I can tell, the Summer of Love really had no commercial potential, except for Bill Graham of the Fillmore West, who could tout his acts, the Jefferson Airplane and well, I guess that's just about it, on handbills, of which nobody could read, because all the kids were too stoned, and were just wandering aimlessly on the streets of San Fran, and playbills weren't really anything they could hawk to buy more drugs, so what good were they?

I sometimes wonder what happened to those kids from 1967? I guess they'd be retiring about now, but oh, the stories they can tell their grandchildren. Oh wait, maybe not.

"What did you do when you were a kid, Grandpa?"

"Oh, Thad, that's not important now. What's really important is that we get out there and vote for Obama! Wanna toke?"

If you watch newsreels from 1967, you would get the impression that everything was groovy, and kind of wavy, but the hit songs from that year don't necessarily reflect that.

But, you know, memory is selective.

1967, actually, was a pretty good year for rock music. Not to disappoint the old hippies, but most of it was pure pop.

While the kids on Haight Ashbury were zoning out, chillin' to seven and a half minute psych-o-delic jams, the rest of the population was buying 45-rpm records of songs such as this (yes, this was the number one hit of 1967):



(Kudos, Neil Diamond. Jan Wenner can ignore you all he wants, but this was the perfect pop song.)

I'm just going to go down the line here, and recount the top hits from that seminal year, in order, so let's see who wins ~ the hippie kids or possibly not.



(I always loved this song. Lulu; she never had another hit, but she was in a movie with Sidney Poitier, so she can be an American Idol mentor if she wants. Yea, yea, Petula Clark, sure. She had some hits. But was she in a movie with Sidney Poitier? Tough luck, Petunia ~ sorry, Petula.)



(Isn't Alex Chilton the epitome of every sixteen-year-old from time immemorial? Get that hair out of your eyes! And stop sulking, Alex! Stop being so moody! Ahh, the joys of raising a teenaged male. At least Alex was bringing home some moolah for the family, so they tended to overlook the bad posture and pouty look.)



(I know that this song is "mysterious"; or, in my opinion, "missing something". I used to sit in the back seat of the Ford Galaxy and hear this song blaring over the AM radio, and wonder, what the hell? But the main point I want to make about Bobbie Gentry is that she wore her hair in that long, dark "fall". Mesmerizing.)



(Let me just say how much I hated, and still hate, this song. I'll grant you, the Association had one good song ~ Never My Love ~ but this? It just grates on my nerves. No wonder kids took drugs. If I was on a desert island, and this was the only song I had to listen to, I would prefer to just drown myself and get it over with.)



(Ahhh, Felix. This song will still be played in the year 2112, and kids will say, yes! This song is cool! Really, was it from two centuries ago? I guess those neanderthals invented fire, after all.)

And speaking of fire, okay, I skipped the line a couple of songs, but well, c'mon:



(THIS was the song that I will always remember 1967 for. I was but twelve years old, and I don't know what it was about this song, and about Jim Morrison, but this was IT.)

Believe it or not, and the charts don't lie, THIS song superseded Light My Fire, by, in fact, a couple of spaces. So, though Grandpa Hipster may want entertain selective memory (or is it just dementia?), here ya go, Grandpa. Explain THIS to the grandkids:



Oh, look! The Monkees are back! Yes, the Monkees. Sure, pretend they weren't the biggest thing that happened in 1967. Pretend all you want. I was there. I remember.



I have nothing against Ferris Bueller (or John Hughes, for that matter), but you know, you didn't invent that song.

I happened to be there when it was happening.



Remember the Beatles? (ha)

Yes, they charted in 1967, too. Not with their choicest song, mind you. But, yes, they were still around.



The interesting thing (to me) about this song, by the Buckinghams, is that I have no idea what the backing singers are singing. But it's catchy, whatever it is.



You'd never know it, but this song was number thirteen in the year 1967. Yes, thirteen. Not that there's anything wrong with thirteen, but if you were to listen to the revisionists, you'd think this was the number one song of all time. It wasn't.



Okay, this video is horrendous, but it's the only one I could find of the Strawberry Alarm Clock performing this song.

And I'm officially nominating the Strawberry Alarm Clock for the worst band name ever.

I wonder whatever happened to the SAC. And who was in the band? And did any of them go on to bigger and better things? I wish I cared enough to look that up, but it's late, and all I know is, I heard this song a lot on my transistor radio as I was riding the stupid school bus, and listening to all the geeky boys talk about Star Trek, and I was bored out of my mind, and this song didn't help things, believe me. I do sort of remember 1967 as the year of perpetual boredom. But maybe that was just me.



I'll end this post with number fifteen.

And who could forget the Rolling Stones? Nobody. Because they're still out there, touring. Even at their age. Those kids from the year 2167 will be saying, "The Stones are still touring? Who do they think they are? Cher? Or Elton John?"

Nevertheless, you can't deny that this song, the number fifteen hit of 1967, is a great one.


In all candor, 1967 was a damn good year for music. I'll give it that.

But it's not due to some headband-wearing, greasy-haired, Nehru-jacketed seventeen-year-old who was tripping out on the California coast.

No, it was solely due to some awesome talent, and to some record producers who knew how to create mega-hits (Frank and Nancy notwithstanding).

I got through number fifteen, but I really only scratched the surface.

This calls for another blog post! Let's keep keepin' on with hits from the summer of love!

But I still say, let's rename it something that we, as consumers, can get behind. I'm thinking the Summer of Trix Cereal.

Because, Silly Rabbit. Trix are for kids. Moron.

That Rascal, Felix Cavaliere

Yes, I've been thinking about Felix Cavaliere lately.

First of all, let's just get this out of the way: Who names their kid "Felix"?

I mean, "Felix"? Really? Is that some kind of Italian curse?

Apparently, not, since Felix has one of the best soul voices of all time (at least of recorded time ~ I can't speak for unrecorded time ~ but no one knows, so that doesn't really count, does it?)

I was listening to a sampling of Rascals tonight, and I thought, whoa, this is some voice! Did he actually know he had the voice, or was it just something he took for granted? I wonder.

So, you know me, I wanted to do some research on Felix.

I found out that he was a backup player for Joey Dee & the Starlighters. Yea, of course, you don't know who Joey Dee was. If you were 109 years old, like me, you would.

Joey Dee & the Starlighters had a song that went a little bit like this:



But Felix went on to bigger and better things. That being, The Rascals; or the Young Rascals. They got younger as the years went by, I'm speculating.



Well, it was nineteen sixty-five, and a guy had to be hip; he had to be "with it". He couldn't let on that he was already 23 years old, after all. In the sixties, life ended after age 18.

So, what was a guy to do? Especially a guy named Felix, who already had one strike against him, what with that name and all.

You know, "Groovin'" was the number one song in 1967, when Felix was at the ripe old age of twenty-five. Gasp!

Could anyone actually still sing at that age? Wasn't he ready for the nursing home? Didn't he need a night nurse, to propel his wheelchair into the commons room, where the rest of the old folks were singing their hymns?


Young Rascals - I've Been Lonely To Long by DwightFrye

Even before that, when Felix was but a lad of 22, he, in his Blue Boy outfit...

...sang a song like this:



Of course, by July of 1968, Felix had assumed his Dennis Wilson persona, as evidenced here, no doubt in an effort to appear to be a "mid"-Rascal, as opposed to a "young" Rascal. Because the "mid" carried much more gravitas.



All these hits notwithstanding, be they young, mid-young, or post-LBJ-young, the song that will always represent the Rascals, and Felix, to me, will be "A Beautiful Morning" (AHHHH-ahhh).

Naturally, there is no real video of the Rascals performing this, their most famous song.

But if you want to see Felix on a boat, with a bunch of anonymous rich people milling about, well, here you go:



Or, if you prefer the clean version of the song, albeit with the static image of a smiley face, grinning ominously, you can hear it (if not watch it) here:



I don't mean to diminish Eddie Brigati at all. Heaven forbid. Eddie, you know, did the lead on all the ballads, including, nay, featuring, "How Can I Be Sure". Oh what the hell, watch this (even though this is Felix's post):



One thing about Ed Sullivan. He knew how to completely ruin a stellar musical performance. He, with his intrusive clips of faux models twirling around inanely. As if he just couldn't quite trust the music to stand on its own. Ed was in over his head, let us just say. But, you know, he relied on his advisers. They probably said, "Hey, Ed, this stuff is what the 'young people' (Ed was big on referring to the boomers as 'young people') are listening to nowadays. It'll never stand the test of time ~ you know, like Enrico Caruso."

And Ed said, what the hell. Anything to get the 'young people' tuning in. "And I heard there's this British group, with an insect name. Let's book them. They'll never be another Freddy and the Dreamers, but, hey, this stuff is fluid."

I realize I have completely gone off-topic here.

So, in conclusion, let me just say, don't forget Felix. And don't forget Eddie.

You're not gonna find two better singers. These guys should be revered. Especially today, in hindsight. When we've all had a chance to sample the so-called "artists" of today. Those who cannot sing. Those who get by on hype.

I'm here to remind you that, yes, there was a time when the music prevailed.

Oh, if that were true today.

May 19 - A Not-Too-Shabby Date For Music Lovers

Since I'm just sitting around with nothing to do; no projects on the horizon, I thought I would continue with my "Number One Song on the Day You Were Born" theme. I love music videos anyway, so it's fun to rediscover some old tunes that make me happy.

So, yes, the year of my birth (05/19/55) does not reflect the best in the annals of music. Granted.

However, to compensate for that, I checked out the charts for May 19 in subsequent years, and found stuff such as this:

1956


1957

all shook up elvis presley (oldies)
Uploaded by onizuka-junior. - Explore more music videos.

Unfortunately, this video is from the "Karate Elvis" years, but it was the only decent one I could find.

1958


See, this is more my speed. Okay, the video isn't from 1958, but let's allow for better sound quality, shall we?

I was a big Everly copier, it seems. My little three-piece band, back in 1964, specialized in Everly covers. Not this one, but still. Beautiful song.

1959


Okay, I do know that the Beatles didn't originate this song. It was Wilbert Harrison. But this is where I first heard the song, and c'mon, it's the Beatles!

1960

Unbeknownst to me, Elvis played a big part in my early development, and I'm not even a big Elvis fan!

However, I do admit, this is one of my favorite Elvis songs. I clearly remember singing along to this, even though I just made up the words as I went, since I didn't quite catch them all:



1961

Now we're talking. This is one of my all-time favorite rock & roll songs. And yes, I was well aware of this Del Shannon song in 1961:



Fast forward to 1964, and this:



Now, of course, we move to the truly important music of my life, this one from 1965. I love this live performance, interspersed with the "music video" the boys did for the song (which is really dumb, when you see Ringo standing over the drum kit, looking embarrassed as hell, and why wouldn't he be, with that setup?)



This song was number one in May of 1966. Here are the Mamas and the Papas lip-synching to Monday Monday.



Can anyone explain to me why the Mamas and Papas songs were mixed so strangely? Any of them you hear, half the sound comes out of one speaker and half out of the other. Who's bright idea was this? Lou Adler's, apparently. Maybe he was deaf in one ear.

1967, the summer of love. Here's an iconic song, and surprisingly, one can only find one performance video of the Rascals, doing "Groovin'". I don't know for sure, but I'd guess this was from the Ed Sullivan Show, because Ed's people did NOT know rock & roll. They focus on the harmonica player almost the whole time! Or the tambourine guy. Basically anyone except Felix, who is the star of the band. Alas. But here is "Groovin'":



I would include 1968's Archie Bell & the Drells ("Hi everybody! We're Archie Bell and the Drells! From Houston, Texas!"), doing "Tighten Up", but the only available video is of horrendous quality, so just sing the song in your head. You remember it.

Ahh, the famous rooftop performance from 1969. The swan song, as it was.



1970, from the Midnight Special. Ha ~ remember that show well. I'd come home on a Friday night, after having a few too many.....Diet Cokes....and flip on my little portable TV, and catch the last acts on the show.

Seriously, along with Felix Cavaliere, one of the greatest voices in rock & roll, Burton Cummings. Here are the Guess Who:



1971, eh? No wonder the seventies sucked for music. This has to be one of my all-time most annoying songs. Maybe it's just that I had to hear it seventy thousand times back then, or maybe it's because it's a really stupid song. No offense, Hoyt. And can you imagine how much the Three Dog Night'ers hate doing this song, as they make their rounds of the various Indian casinos? Of course, money in your pocket cures a lot of heartburn.



And, believe it or not, it goes downhill from there. So, I'm going to stop with 1971.

Oh sure, I could include "The Streak", from 1974, but really, why would I want to? I could include some bombastic Whitney Houston songs. Or Madonna, or Paula Abdul. But why ruin a nice post about music with that kind of stuff?

Well, okay, I do like 1981's selection. No, it's not Madonna or Paula or Mariah. It's someone I actually enjoy listening to.





No, really there is. Just one more. 1976. It's not entirely a performance video, alas. But it is the official video, apparently, And what's wrong with that? I'd like to know. So here I go. Again.