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.

1964 Was Fifty-Three Years Ago!

Yes, over half a century. If we're counting, I was nine years old.

I don't know about other nine-year-olds, but I, for one, was enveloped in music. Maybe all nine-year-old girls are -- I've never taken a survey. Or maybe we didn't have a lot going on in 1964 -- I remember The Ed Sullivan Show and black and white episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show that seemed like reruns, but they weren't.

I remember lying on my stomach in front of our giant console TV -- honestly, our TV was the epicenter of my life. But what else did I have, really? Sauntering into the kitchen to stir a packet of French's onion soup mix into a container of sour cream? At nine, that was the extent of my "cooking" knowledge.

Somebody -- my dad? My brother? bought me a tan rectangular transistor radio, which was THE BEST THING I EVER HAD IN MY LIFE. Everything I know or would ever know emanated from the cathode ray tubes of our Motorola or the scratchy sounds sprouting from the diamond-shaped holes of my transistor's speaker.

Those are the two things that set me on my life's path.

Of course, I didn't know that at the time. I had other stuff going on. For one, I went to school. I didn't want to go, but I made the best of it. I had my accordion lessons (yes). I trolled the streets of Grand Forks, North Dakota with my best friend and tried to find trouble (disclaimer:  I found it.) I did other dorky things, like tramp the dirt paths that surrounded our farm and make up melodies while chewing on a stalk of tall-leaf grass I'd plucked from its bed on the roadside. I played imaginary games inside the shelter belt behind our house; played pretend. I was big on "pretend", because there frankly wasn't much going on. I can say I at least learned how to use my right cortex. Many people born later never mastered that skill. I pondered the weird sounds that emanated from my dad's car radio -- goofy stuff like Dean Martin and the instrumentals of Billy Vaughn. I was in my dad's car a lot, considering any time I needed to get to town, my dad had to drive me the seven or eight miles along the gravel road, past our distant neighbors' pig farm and sundry sloppy/neat (depending upon their income) homesteads 'til we reached the blacktop, so he could drop me off at Cathy's house; wherein she and I would devise devious schemes to cause as much mayhem as nine-year-old minds could conjure.

The only thing that salved my endless restlessness, between the horror of sadistic Mrs. Granger's fourth grade classroom and interminable school bus rides was MY TRANSISTOR RADIO.

Looking back, I think was always old; I just didn't know it. I don't remember being cynical, but I believe I was. One should not be cynical at age nine. That's not to say I didn't marvel at the wonders of discovery (did I mention MY TRANSISTOR RADIO?). Music essentially saved my life and kept me living. Life in those days didn't consist of therapist appointments or "concerned teachers". Those things didn't happen or exist. Life was something you plowed through. It didn't even register that I had a crappy home life. Everybody's life was crappy -- that's how life was. One lived for the fleeting happy moments, like floating tied inside a life vest in a seaweed-strewn lake on a Sunday afternoon, far away from Mom, far enough away to not hear the bitching and unremitting criticism. Life consisted of diverting. That was how we dealt with it. A half hour in front of the TV, enveloped in Rob and Laura's latest escapade; a playful smile from Dad every so often; a big brother who taught her silly stuff and brought home new music and allowed her to listen to it. Two and a half minutes that seemed like thirty; shimmering from a round disc.

I hated my life at nine. Things were upside-down. Our family was oddly-formed -- a sister married with a baby of her own; two odd little child creatures inhabiting our household that Mom viewed as two little burdens, atop the huge burden that was me. She'd only wanted three kids; yet through no choice of her own, she ended up with three more; one freakish one and two who were kind of cute. Two little ones who held promise and one she had no earthly idea what to do with. The one who was a miniature version of her husband, for whom she held very little patience. That one was okay, as long as she performed -- got good grades in school, so Mom would at least have something to brag about. That one knew she was put on earth to perform and heaven help her if she didn't. That one kept stuff bottled up inside; dumb stuff like yearning to sing and wanting to fly away to somewhere where people would recognize her huge talent and would tell her she was pretty and pretty awesome. She kept wishing for that, but that never actually happened. So she soldiered on.

But her TRANSISTOR RADIO!

The stuff coming out of that radio speaker was wondrous and diverse. Strange -- each melody or turn of phrase got tucked inside a special pocket -- none of it gelled into a cohesive core, because it was all so divergent, and it flummoxed yet excited her. Some voices were not conventionally pleasing, yet they were. Some guitar riffs sounded discordant, but worked in a non-linear new world. Some singers were heavenly; some brass orchestrations punched her in the gut. 1964 was a pummel of sound.

She listened for the disc jockey to spout the name of the artists; rolled the names around on her tongue; memorized them; pondered their odd spelling; appreciated the weirdness in a nine-year-old way of appreciating. Learned, but never mastered, the art of four-part harmony. Recognized that Motown was significantly different from California pop, but accepted it all as simply "music". Assimilated the power of image from staring at her rare decorated 45-RPM sleeve. Wasn't sure why the Righteous Brothers were so righteous, but knew that that deep baritone reverberated somewhere deep inside her gut.

She would never be the same.

She obviously was in love with music, but didn't fall in love-love until a certain sound pierced her ears:



In hindsight, this recording wasn't all that. Listening to it today with mature ears, the sound is tinny, the vocal mix isn't George Martin's best effort. John doesn't really sound like John. He sounds harsh. There's no nuance. The harmonies are slap-dash. I'm thinking it was a first take. I will say, though, if I heard it for the first time now, in 2017, I'd be enraptured. It has something. I'd get online and research this new band that spells its name so strangely. In 1964 "online" meant what? My mom's clothesline? All I had was an orange and yellow disc and if I was lucky, a poster tacked up on the wall at Popplers Music Store. Somehow, maybe from Tiger Beat Magazine, I knew that these were four guys with "long hair" -- bearing in mind the accepted style of the day was crew cuts. They were English. I assumed John was Paul, because Paul was the cute one and therefore the best singer must be Paul. They hadn't yet made their American television debut, but by the time they did, I already had a treasure trove of favorite Beatle songs bunched in my heart -- She Loves You and Please Please Me and I Saw Her Standing There.

I was primed and ready to see, finally, in person, on my TV screen, the GREATEST THING THAT HAD EVER HAPPENED IN MY LIFE. I never ever asserted myself with my mom, because that would've only led to repercussions, but I asserted myself that Sunday night. I plopped myself dead in front of the black and white television screen, while Lassie once again saved Timmy, and refused to move, lest Mom change the channel on me before seven o'clock. I was so afraid that once Ed announced that night's guests Mom would say, the heck with this and flip the knob to Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color and I WOULD MISS IT AND MY LIFE WOULD BE OVER. Mercifully, neither Mom nor Dad cared enough to get up out of their upholstered easy chairs, so they left me to my own devices. Perhaps they both realized how crucial this TV appearance was to me. If so, that would have been the very first time they noticed me as a person. Maybe they saw me chewing my fingernails and realized I would have a breakdown if they deprived me. And no doubt I would have. In the fourth grade, it was very important to be up on pop culture. It was the difference between someone who would hide in the bushes at recess time and a kid who attracted a gaggle of admirers around her. But frankly, even if I didn't even know any other nine-year-old kids, seeing the Beatles...if I died tomorrow...would be etched in my mind as one of the greatest events of my life.

So, I guess I kind of liked the Beatles.

I was so in love with music in 1964 I thought I might explode.

There was this guy I saw on TV who wore sunglasses, on some show called The Lloyd Thaxton Show, apparently a syndicated program, which makes it even stranger that the little tiny town I was living in then carried it. Lloyd Thaxton was Shindig before there ever was a Shindig. My musical muscle memory was formed thanks to Lloyd Thaxton.

Anyway, this sunglasses guy growled. His voice reached up and touched heaven. I knew nothing about anybody named Roy Orbison -- I think I might have heard Blue Bayou once. This guy's voice I would never let go:

Then there were five California boys who did something I could never master -- sing in beautiful harmony -- and still keep that beat. I figured anyone who was anyone could do that. As far as I knew, good music appeared fully formed. I don't think I even consciously considered that someone had to write the song. The song just was, and people got up and performed it. I've since learned differently:

A band with a weird sounding name, again from England, whose lead singer sang words that meant nothing and yet something, yet nothing; but it didn't matter.

This little guy did a live album, live from the Whisky (sp) A-Go-Go. He had a bunch of hits from that album and I thought they were all his. I didn't know from Adam anyone named Chuck Berry. I guess my brother had played Chuck's song, No Particular Place To Go, for me a couple of times, but to my mind, the guy who sang this song was the guy responsible for it:

Being nine years old, I liked peppy songs. Those were my bread and butter. So it was unusual for me to fixate on any sound that was maudlin. I appreciated the dramatic songs for what they were, though, and somewhere inside the carbuncles of my heart stirred feelings. Most likely, if it wasn't for my big brother, I wouldn't have even tried to understand them. To wit:

Nineteen sixty-four was an odd time in my life. I experienced the exhilaration of, I guess, living the commercial life, with my mom moving me to my uncle's business in another town, another state; where I lived with my two cousins, and then moving me back home to my old school to face the most evil teacher I would ever be unfortunate enough to meet.

Let me tell you, the commercial life was far superior. I was as free as any nine-year-old in 1964 could be. Nineteen sixty-four was when I became a whole person -- when I congealed art and music and when I soared. My cousin Karen and I wrote (hand-drew) a comic book in 1964 that we sold to my uncle's patrons at the bar; a comic that combined penned illustrations with pop music. It was genius! Seriously, it was the most imaginative creation I ever conjured. I gave Karen half-credit, but it was ME. Three-quarters ME. I'd give all the money I have (which is a very puny amount) to get my hands on a copy of that comic. Damn, how we devalue stuff at the time and rue their loss fifty-three years later. I knew about country music, because it played ceaselessly on my uncle's juke box, but my veins coursed with unadulterated pop. Like this:

I wonder whatever happened to Little Millie Small. I would Google her, but I'm afraid the story wouldn't have ended well. I don't know why.

Nineteen sixty-four was more or less a watershed year in rock and roll. It had one toe still dipped in the previous decade, and a hand fluttering through the churning waters of awesome possibilities. The fifties were obsessed with girlfriends dying of horrible diseases -- and thus becoming angels -- and guys pining for them and swearing to God above they would never, ever forget their one true love. Maybe it was the atomic bomb scare. I don't actually know. I vaguely remember tales of people building underground bomb shelters, which I thought would be extremely cool. I always wanted a below-ground fort. I kind of remember seeing Khrushchev on TV. He was rather portly and bald and I didn't find bald-headed men attractive -- not even Mister Clean. President Kennedy had a nice head of thick hair and he was young like my dad, so I had no concerns about who would beat who in a war (whatever a war was). I frankly gave no thought to war -- I had a record player and playground cliques to contend with, which was war enough for me, thank you.

However, being nine, songs seemed like real life. We lived in the country, seven miles from town down a gravel washboard road, and my oldest sister (the rebel) had her driver's license; thus she got to ferry my other sister and my big brother home from town on Saturday nights. One night my mom and dad told me, shockingly, that Carole had rolled the car with the three teenagers in it. Astoundingly, when I inspected them, they all looked just fine. No scratches or bruises. It must have been one of those astronaut rolls. Nevertheless, this song haunted me every time it burst through the speakers of Mom's kitchen radio. It combined the earth angel vibe with unimaginable danger (sorry; apparently J Frank and his Cavaliers have no live performance videos):

Let me be clear about one thing -- Elvis didn't exist in my world. Elvis belonged to the fifties. My memories of Elvis are going to matinees with my best friend, Cathy, on Sunday afternoons and seeing him on the big screen, generally getting into fistfights and driving sleek sports cars and snorkeling and/or cliff diving, generally in Acapulco. I did marvel how he was able to get up on a deserted beach and do a song in the middle of the clambake, and his backing band was nowhere in sight, yet there was clearly a four-piece ensemble accompanying him as he snapped his fingers and swiveled his hips and snarled his left eyebrow. Even at the innocent age of nine, I was embarrassed for him. We laughed at him. We were prepubescent snobs.

Elvis had no top 100 recordings in 1964, so if you were waiting for an Elvis video, dang. He was busy doing songs like "Viva Las Vegas", which is rather a parody of itself. I would love to post the video just for fun, but since it didn't crack the top 100, out it stays. Although my dad did like the single, "Wooden Heart". Elvis's last big hit was apparently in 1962 -- "Return To Sender", which I thought was called, "Return to Cinda", Cinda being the name of some gal he loved and lost. Elvis needed to enunciate better.

However, I was enthralled with a single by a group that I don't think ever had another hit song. I wrote a whole post about this group, the Honeycombs, somewhere back in time. I'm fascinated, strangely, by their female drummer, which was frankly odd in 1964. I'm still of a mind that she was somebody's sister, and as all bands are, they were hard up for a drummer, so they gave Stella (no idea if that's her name) the gig. The thing one has to listen for, in this song, is the weird dissonance of sound. Most likely, they were just out of tune and I'm making far too much of it. But it worked! And "Stella" really added a kick of resonance to the track -- little did she know. She's a great-grandma now and one hell of a knitter. This song still holds up:

The Dave Clark Five were apparently the poor man's Beatles. That's not entirely fair. One has to appreciate a band for what it was and stop the comparisons. A friend a few years ago schooled me in the brilliance that was Mike Smith (and Mike Smith was cute). The Dave Clark Five was nothing like the Beatles -- they just happened to appear on the scene at the same time. Granted, one doesn't normally name a band after its drummer (or there would be a super group called Stella), and granted, they did record some cover songs. But I will say that I danced energetically at the YWCA Saturday afternoon dance with my best friend to "Over And Over", so the DC5 served an important purpose. And really, how could they ever be compared to the Beatles? After all, they were five and the Beatles were four. So there you go. 1964 was essentially owned by the Dave Clark Five (if one discounts the Beatles). They had five (apropos) singles in the Billboard Top 100. (And I don't know why, but I still remember that one of the guys was named Lenny):

Motown was a thing in 1964, a thing I didn't fully get. I liked the Four Tops because of one single, and I knew they recorded on Motown because Motown always slipped its records into colorful sleeves (that's my takeaway memory of Motown, sadly). I do know that I liked pretty things, and the Supremes wore pretty things. Unfortunately, this video is in black and white (and Mary Wilson was pretty - fyi):

Truth be known, 1964 was a cornucopia of competing sounds. A Jersey group had five singles in the Top 100 that year -- five! We're so snobbish now that we choose to forget, but the Four Seasons were hot in 1964. I chose this one from the five because my niece's name is Dawn (and yes, all the videos are spooky and grainy, so they are what they are):

It makes me laugh to remember that we were in that limbo in 1964, where somebody like Roy Orbison could soar and Manfred Mann could sing about a girl "walking down the street", and yet we had singles like this that busted to number twenty-two. I don't know what happened to Terry Stafford -- as far as I know, he could be living with Little Millie Small somewhere in Ohio. My older sister might shed some light on Terry -- he was of her time -- but the fact remains that he had a hit with this song:

I'm not sure how I missed this track when I was nine. Maybe I wasn't sure enough to dance in the street. I did dance in my living room, but every stupid little kid did that. Nevertheless, this is one of those songs that holds up, even fifty-three years later. Martha and the Vandellas recorded on Motown, but Berry Gordy siphoned all the good songs to Diana Ross (well, because...), except for this one. Oopsie, Diana didn't get her manicured claws on this song. One just never knows what will stand the test of time, does one?

I'm not going to lie, or subscribe to revisionist history. 1964 had some flaky, fluky hits. Here's a couple of the fluky, flaky ones that nevertheless scorched a hand print on our brains that is seared forever:

I don't know who Al Hirt is (was?). I know he played the trumpet, which me at nine referred to as "an instrument one blows into). Think Don Draper and you'll feel right at home:

The Trashmen is a rather deprecating name for a band -- it kind of signals defeat right from the get-go. However, this band (I've since learned) hailed from Minnesota, which is sort of my home state, and we're known for being self-deprecating here. I guess it's a Lutheran thing about not showing off. Nevertheless, I wouldn't name my band after garbage. Then again, if I'd recorded a song like this next one, "trash" would be fitting. Surprisingly, this was a big hit. It was in fact number seventy-five for the year 1964. I'll just say, you had to be there. Bear in mind that music was still essentially "new" -- transistor radios were the iPhones of the early sixties -- a marvel we hadn't yet learned to take for granted. We'd gobble up anything that came out of that tiny speaker. And novelty songs weren't really novelty -- they were just songs that blasted our ears with a tinny fervor. Thus:

And for something completely different:  My dad liked this song. My dad was pretty important in my life when I was nine. Generally, if he liked something, I liked it or at least learned to like it. Don't knock it; this was the number six song of the year:

The Serendipity Singers was an optimistic (and lucky!) name. Sadly, the serendipity didn't last past this song, which reached number 32 on the charts (which is still good, and judging by the number of times the DJ spun it, it really should have been much higher). And, as serendipity would have it, they lived out the rest of their working lives toiling away in grey-walled cubicles (just like me!), staring out the window, praying that it didn't rain. Sad, really. I see there are no live performance videos by the group, and judging by their pictures, their numbers seemed to multiply bizarrely. By the end of their reign, there were approximately one hundred and forty-nine Serendipity's. All the better to maintain anonymity. 

Bear in mind that I'm just reporting the news; not filtering it. One could call this next song "cheesy", but I bet once you hear it, it'll become an earworm. Think cigarette holders and martini glasses while you listen to:

Here's someone I always hated -- when I first heard Bobby Vinton on the radio, he was unnaturally obsessed with blue velvet material. Even at age nine, I found that creepy. Apparently I was not alone. Even David Lynch found macabre inspiration in that song and fashioned a whole movie around it.  And, apparently bereft over the loss of his fabric fabric, Bobby Vinton crooned this song:

The Dixie Cups was a lazy name for a girl group. Their manager, Lenny, was in the men's room one day and spied one of those dispensers from which one could grab a funnel-shaped little cup, and he yelped, "Voila!". I actually have no idea if the Dixie Cups even had a manager, not to mention whether his name was Lenny or not, but this moniker sounds like something a Lenny would come up with. Now, I don't think the Dixie Cups ever had another hit, but one could not escape this song in 1964. It was innocuous, I guess. Moms didn't get uptight and yell to "Turn that down!", so naturally, it became a big hit. (The Dixie Cups are now living dormitory-style next door to Terry Stafford and Little Millie Small.)

  

Somebody who's been largely forgotten, and I don't know why, is Gene Pitney. Gene combined Broadway bravado with teen-idol angst. We (and by "we", I mean "I") liked him. He tended to do BIG songs, mostly written by Burt Bacharach. Gene was sort of the male Dusty Springfield -- big productions, pounding bass drum. And he was a star.

Bear in mind that Shindig wasn't yet on anyone's radar, nor was Hullabaloo (a pale imitation of Shindig -- all the cool kids watched Shindig). Therefore, we didn't know anything about some of these guys. One group I've wondered about from time to time is Jay and The Americans. Now, again, since Jay has separated himself from The Americans, does that mean that Jay was a foreigner? And if so, he has an awfully American-sounding name. I could understand Pedro and The Americans -- kind of a cross-cultural group. Jay and The Americans, whatever their heritage, had many hit songs in the early sixties. But much like J. Frank Wilson and his Cavaliers (lazily named after a Chevy), no one knows much about them. So let's learn together, shall we?

(Okay, I'm thinking they should have been called Jay and The Other Americans.)

I've taken up a whole lot of time, and used a whole lot of characters, to relive the year 1964. As you can tell, it was a momentous time in my life.

I will finish out the year with this song, again brought to me by my brother. There is a whole other post yet to be written about this guy, but that's for another Friday night. Suffice it to say that he influenced everybody who was ever anybody in rock music. How many can say that?

And here we go:

 

Does Today's Country Make Memories? Of Course.

Musical memories are tied up in many things. Mostly they're tied up in crisp ribbons of newness -- when one's synapses are popping and fizzing. There's a reason we remember music most from certain stages of our lives. For me it's when I was still formulating a whole person -- I'll go with age nine through eighteen -- and from when I was a giddy mom in my thirties. Not to be a buzz killer, but it's all downhill from there. You see, after a while nothing seems new. Do you get frustrated that Mom can't see the genius in the new track you just played for her? The one you are completely in love with? Wonder why Mom and Dad seem stuck in the fifties and can't appreciate the intricacies of beat and harmonies of the new girl/guy band whose single just hit number one on the charts? It's because they've heard it all before, and better. Mom and Dad aren't about making new memories; they are quite content with the ones they already have. They're not setting new markers. At some point, what music does is remind a person of a better time in their life. Maybe not better, but more alive. That's how life goes.

A seventy-year-old guy who is hip to the latest riff is a pathetic pretender. He's just trying to impress you with his hipness, and he is a liar. In the seclusion of his bathroom mirror, he's jamming to the Marcels crooning "Blue Moon". And there's nothing wrong with that. That old man needs to own it. After all, it brings him back to the time when he sported a duck tail and weighed one hundred and forty pounds and when he revved the engine of his Corvair outside a sweet little brunette's rambler and waited for her to tumble out her front door and squeeze in next to him in the front seat and he'd zoom to the drive-in movie theater and they'd neck and go a little far, but not quite far enough and his muscles would throb with unspent testosterone.

And what's wrong with that? The truth of life is, it's those moments that matter.

Or maybe it's the time when the kids are old enough to stay home alone and he takes that little brunette who's added a few extra pounds to her five-foot-two frame out to a honky tonk and wraps his arms around her and nuzzles her perfumed neck and pushes her across the dance floor, and the sawdust and spilled beer bouquet stirs longings that he thought he'd long ago forgot. And Joe Diffie is playing on the jukebox. He's never, as long as he's on this earth, going to forget Joe Diffie.

I am prone to foisting my musical memories on you on this blog. I've never quite conquered the urge to convince you that my music is sublime. I'm the duck-tailed seventy/nineteen-year-old relic. Just think of me as thirty-five years old:

Eddie Rabbitt

If you like reminiscing, I heartily recommend Sirius Radio. I'm a reminiscing kind of girl, so this marvel is a punch in the gut -- in a good way. It's said that humans only remember twenty per cent of what they hear. My theory is, we think we only remember twenty per cent. My other theory is, if we hear familiar things from long ago, we suddenly remember all sorts of memories that were deemed lost.

Example:  Here's a memory I retrieved from listening to an Eddie Rabbitt song tonight:

I love a rainy night
It's such a beautiful sock
I love to feel the rain on my face
Taste the rain on my lips

See, my four-year-old thought Eddie was singing, "It's such a beautiful sock". Four-year-olds don't stop to think, "That doesn't make sense", so that's what they sing. Why was he singing along to an Eddie Rabbitt song? Well, that's a whole other story. What kind of music does a mom expose her child to? Led Zeppelin? There's really nothing on the radio that's wholly appropriate.

Which leads me to Eddie Rabbitt. Eddie had an unusual background for a country singer. He was raised in New Jersey, not exactly a hotbed of country music. He began his career as a songwriter, penning hits such as:

(Note:  Elvis kind of creeps me out. I'm thinking one had to have been a teenager in the late fifties to fully appreciate Elvis. Alas, I, like my son, was only four years old in the late fifties, so my rock 'n roll bar was set by "Summertime Blues", a song that Elvis's manager would never have allowed him to sing.)

Eddie also wrote:

which is much better.

Then Eddie decided, what the heck, I can be a singer! And what a singer he was.

One might think that "I Love A Rainy Night" was the only earworm that Eddie created. That's not true. Herewith:

Clint Eastwood made some strange movies in the late seventies. This was not the "Gran Torino" Clint. This was the "what the heck" Clint; movies in which his costar was an orangutan.  Nevertheless, Eddie wrote this song for the movie:

 Eddie died young -- only 56. It was 1998. But just because someone's been gone for 20 or so years doesn't mean they didn't leave a memory. 

It's such a beautiful sock:

What You Remember

The good news is, you remember more than you think you do.

The disturbing news is, the things you think you remember diverge dangerously from what you actually remember.

How do I know? I've been listening to Sirius Radio, specifically Prime Country and Willie's Roadhouse. Listening to these channels has caused a brushfire to burst inside my brain.

I've discovered a trove of embalmed remembrances; scattered jigsaw pieces that couldn't fuse with their silvery counterparts without a flash of jagged lightning.

Ray Price, Alabama, the Oak Ridge Boys; forgotten George Strait tracks, Lori Morgan, Patty Loveless, Faron Young singing a Kris Kristofferson song; recalling that the track was included on an album titled, "Precious Memories". Remembering the album cover -- a grey-tinged photo of Faron. Warbling along to "Heartaches By The Number". Charlie Walker singing a song called, "San Diego" that my best friend Alice and I harmonized with when it played on the radio. Wynn Stewart. Loretta Lynn's "Honky Tonk Girl". Barbara Mandrell when she was edgy.

As the song goes, I've forgotten more than you'll ever know.

Merle Haggard singing, "Are The Good Times Really Over".

Songs I didn't necessarily like when they were new. Songs I really liked when they were new, but somehow forgot about. Songs that conjure a time and a place and the expensive Bang and Olufsen speakers I signed my life over to purchase in 1980 when my boys were tiny waifs, and now they're forty. And how did the years slip by so stealthily?

Songs like "Burning Memories" that bring my dad back to me.

Hearing these songs make me happy but sad. Sad and aching for what I can't get back. I miss my dad. I hope I get to see him again someday. But I don't know. I'm agnostic on that topic.

Sad and aching for my boys who've moved on and who've forgotten the moments we once shared. Forgotten that it was me who set them on their path, like my dad set me on mine. Everything is a chain; we just don't see it until time and longing plop us down in that place. In a perfect world, we'd remember the important things before they're gone. But we're not perfect -- we only see what's before our eyes. I took my dad for granted when he was with me. I'd like to have him here; talk to him; let his wisdom stuff my heart. My dad was the only person in my life who could ever teach me something I didn't already know.

All I am is a result of my dad. Dad and the music he loved.

Sure, I formed my own loves. Music Dad didn't understand. That's kind of what kids do. That's life's progression. But we always come back, don't we? One day, we come back.

Sorry for these sentimental waxings. I guess I'm in a nostalgic mood tonight. Music tends to do that. As a songwriter, I should know that, but it's different when you're in the zone -- you focus on the moment and don't consider the bludgeon of memory.

We all have those -- those things we forgot but remember. They might be tied to our dad or our mom or to somebody else who bathed our lives in light.

It's a damn glorious thing.

Two-Stepping

I don't know if country bars even exist anymore -- I mean the old-fashioned kind -- a live band, a little sawdust on the floor. Sure, I know about Billy Bob's, which is apparently akin to a gigantic convention center, but I'm talking about local watering holes that are a bit more intimate.

There was a time when I and my then-partner visited our hometown nightclub, the Dakota Lounge, every Saturday night. It was a way to get out of the house, out of our rut, and practice our dance moves while discreetly blending in with the other (better) dancers. I wasn't much of a drinker -- three beers made me three sheets to the wind -- but I liked nursing a bottle of Miller Lite and observing while I waited for the band to start their set. The regulars showed up every weekend -- the tall faux cowboy wearing his black cowboy hat, nonchalantly leaning against the bar while scoping out the single ladies. The brunette female bartender who had a gaggle of guys clamoring for her attention, and not because she was a world-class drink mixer. Three girls at a table and the same one getting hit on for a dance to the juke box over and over, while her two friends tossed their heads and tossed off the slight. Fake cowboy inviting himself to the table where a blonde in a fringed western skirt sat pretending not to notice him. Fake cowboy excusing himself five minutes later and sidling back to the bar.

Inevitably there was a group of people (from work?) who got up and line danced to someone like Charlie Daniels. Non-regulars. Some groups were actually quite good; some were embarrassing. But it was all part of the (my) show. It was a diversion before the real music started. Line dancing wasn't the name of the game at the Dakota, nor was showing off in general. Line dancing was for those not in the know.

The Dakota displayed its roster of upcoming bands on a scrolling marquee and I made note of the weekends when my favorites would be playing. The bar booked regional and local bands and some of them were awesome -- Me And The Boys, The Back Behind The Barn Boys, Firehouse, and my favorite, Live N Kickin', a North Dakota band that was so good they landed a label deal in Nashville. Alas, it was the nineties and nothing blossomed from their debut single, but they were good.

There were certain songs, no matter the band, that had to be played. The Dakota's goal was to sell lots of drinks; the single boys' and girls' goals were to find comfort for the night. My goal was to dance without tripping over my feet or otherwise calling undue attention to myself.

Hence is my short list of the best two-stepping songs.

The ultimate (this one got 'em every time):

There was one song, immensely popular at the time, that was impossible to dance to. Trust me, I tried. A great song, but getting a bead on the beat was impossible. Know people who have no rhythm? That was me, trying to wrap my body around this song. I looked like a toddler having a temper tantrum.

Thus my primer on basic two-stepping. Pick any of the songs above (except Fishing In The Dark) and you can't go wrong. You, too, can be a faux cowboy!

Last Christmas

Rest in peace, George Michael.