1960s – Page 7 – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

My love of Pinball Machines

When I would go skating, the best part was playing all of the pinball machines. I’ve always favored them over the video games at arcades because they were machines instead of a screens. Some took some skill and bumping the machine a little but not too much to tilt. I remember Baseball pinball machines, the Elton John model, KISS model, The Who Pinball Wizard model, and many bicentennial models. Below is a quick history of these works of art.

The start of pinball machines started in the 19th century with a “Bagatelle-Table”, a sort of hybrid between a “pin table” and pool table. Players tried to hit balls with cue sticks and get them into pockets or slots surrounded by nails and pins. Another step towards the modern pinball form occurred sometime at the end of 19th century when inventor Montague Redgrave patented a device called a “ball shooter”, which was based on the recently invented steel spring.

The first coin-operated “pinball machine” was invented in 1931 by Automatic Industries and was called the “Whiffle Board”. But the gaming industry really began in the mid-1930s with the production of a game called “Ballyhoo”. It was invented by one Raymond Maloney, who later started the Bally Manufacturing Company of Chicago, IL.

Pinball machines really grew in popularity after World War II. The ten-year period of 1948-58 is referred to by some as the “Golden Age” of pinball, due to the invention of flippers in 1947 by the D. Gottlieb Co. in a game called “Humpty Dumpty”, and was one of the main reasons for the renewed interest in pinball machines at the time. Humpty Dumpty was the very first pinball machine with flippers!

In 1966, the first digital scoring pinball machine, “Rally Girl” was released Rally. In 1975, the first solid-state electronic pinball machine, the “Spirit of 76”, was released by Micro. In 1998, the first pinball machine with a video screen was released by Williams in their new “Pinball 2000” series machines. Versions of pinball are now being sold that are completely software-based.

I still like the software-free machines…some were like works of art.

I didn’t know they had a Beatle pinball machine.

I have to close this out… with what else?

Purina Chuckwagon Commercials

I loved these commercials when I was a kid. I wasn’t allowed to have a dog in the house (which is probably why I’ve had three Saint Bernard house dogs). Some poor dog would be bewildered by a miniature chuck wagon, then scurries through the home and into the kitchen cabinet or tv after it.

In 1967, Purina launched “Chuck Wagon” as their latest dog food innovation. Packaged as dry dog food, adding warm water would rehydrate the serving to some extent, as well as cause the meal to produce its own gravy

The commercials had a Western theme, playing into Chuck Wagon’s branding as a hearty, wholesome meal for dogs. The animated mini chuck wagon would appear from unexpected places—such as behind a cabinet door, under a table, or from inside a dog food bag…creating a playful and imaginative effect. I can’t tell you how much this worked during that time period.

In some shots, stop-motion animation was used, where the wagon was moved frame by frame to give the illusion of self-propelled motion. In other cases, puppetry techniques such as invisible wires or rods helped guide the wagon across the floor.

Now… this was hard to believe but in 1983 Atari released a video game based on this commercial called “Chase the Chuckwagon.“

Magic 8 Ball

I was told as a kid that a Magic 8 Ball could predict the future. I bought it hook line and sinker…I was also told by my older sister (8 years older) that snakes bite the second person in a line while I was merrily leading the way hiking in the woods as a 5-year-old…so I caught on pretty quick after I stepped on a snake…didn’t get bit though…but I never let her forget it.

I bugged my mom till she got me the mysterious Magic 8 Ball. I was amazed at this toy…well it wasn’t a toy to me. I thought this was great. So being 5-6 years old I thought I would put it to use… Oh, Magic 8 Ball should I color in the encyclopedias with my crayons? I shook it up and waited for the triangle to give me the answer… “signs point to yes”…those signs must have pointed in a different direction than my Mom… she wasn’t a fan of the Magic 8 ball after that.

Abe Bookman invented the Magic 8 Ball, a fortune-telling toy currently manufactured by Mattel.

During World War II, a man named Alfred Carter in Cincinnati created a tube-like fortune-telling toy. To help him he got his brother-in-law to help…that would be Abe Bookman. they created a 7″ tube device with glass on both ends with a pair of floating dice with responses. It was sold as the “Syco-Seer: The Miracle Home Fortune Teller.” Their company was called Alabe Crafts.

Carter died in 1948 and Bookman revised it into a crystal ball but it still didn’t sell really well. Then the Brunswick Billiards company commissioned Bookman to make them one shaped like an 8 ball as a promotional giveaway.

After the giveaway was finished Bookman kept producing them shaped like an 8 ball.

The Magic 8 Ball that we have known since then has contained a 20-sided polygon inside a hollow plastic ball, floating in a liquid-filled, 3-inch diameter tube. The liquid largely consists of dark blue ink and alcohol. The predictions, yes, no, or non-committal, appear on each triangular face of the polygon.

Bookman marketed it as a conversation piece, a paperweight and then a toy.

Ideal Toys bought Alabe Crafts in 1971. Next, Tyco Toys bought the ball in ’87. Mattel owns it today and sells one million units a year.

Here are the magical statements of the Magic 8 Ball

As I see it, yes
Ask again later
Better not tell you now
Cannot predict now
Concentrate and ask again
Don’t count on it
It is certain
It is decidedly so
Most likely
My reply is no
My sources say no
Outlook good
Outlook not so good
Reply hazy, try again
Signs point to yes
Very doubtful
Without a doubt
Yes
Yes, definitely
You may rely on it.

Keep On Truckin’ Poster

I have this hanging in my music room. I saw it on shirts, bumper stickers, and walls everywhere once upon a time. This phrase was used in a song from the 1930s called “Truckin’ My Blues Away” by Blind Boy Fuller and is the origin of this image.

In the seventies as a kid…I remember this phrase and picture everywhere. I saw bumper stickers, pics in magazines, and on patches for pants. In one local restaurant I went to as a kid they had this poster in the dining room. Fast forward to the 90s and the picture was still there. The place was sold in the 2000s and I tried to get the poster but they threw it away…arghhhh. It would have been cool to have that original one.

Besides the smiley face…it’s one of the most iconic graphics of the 1970s. It was created by Robert Crumb for Zap Comics in 1968. The image was used many times without his permission for years. It was claimed that the Trademark symbol ™ was not on the original drawing.

Crumb went to court and the court ruled it Public Domain. The decision was later reversed in 1977. He sued many for using it including Amazon 2005. Crumb also came up with Fritz the Cat…

Quotes from Robert Crumb on the drawing.

For a while I was most well known for that [the Janis Joplin album cover, and for “Keep on Truckin’.” That was a drawing that came out of LSD trips, and the words came from a Blind Boy Fuller song from 1935. I drew it in my sketchbook and then for Zap. It sort of caught the popular imagination. It became a horrible popular thing.

Take Keep On Truckin’… for example. Keep on Truckin’… is the curse of my life. This stupid little cartoon caught on hugely. … I didn’t want to turn into a greeting card artist for the counter-culture! I didn’t want to do ‘shtick’—the thing Lenny Bruce warned against. That’s when I started to let out all my perverse sex fantasies. It was the only way out of being “America’s Best Loved Hippie Cartoonist.”

Johnny Rivers – Seventh Son

In the 1980s I worked at a printing place and I was a stock guy basically. I was in a locked cage full of printer and copier parts and my job was to put the place in order. They never had a stock boy before and I organized everything. When I was there I would listen to an oldies channel that played 50s – 70s songs and I learned about Johnny Rivers that way with Poor Side of Town, Slow Dancing, Summer Rain, Secret Agent Man, and many more including Seventh Son.

This is a song written by the blues legend Willie Dixon. Willie Mabon did the first version of this song back in 1955. The song is based on the folklore that a seventh son of a seventh son has mystical powers, such as prophecy and healing. The blues version never really hit big but this pop/rock version by Rivers did.

Rivers recorded live at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles, like many of his early hits. River’s version of it brought it to a mainstream audience. Rivers was different than many of his peers, he successfully mixed blues, rock, and pop for a teen audience. Rivers never wrote much but when he did…it was fantastic. He wrote his biggest hit Poor Side Of Town but only wrote a few more songs in his career to date.

The song was released in 1965 and peaked at #1 in Canada and #7 on the Billboard 100. It came from the album Meanwhile Back at the Whisky à Go Go and it peaked at #21 on the Billboard Album Charts.

Willie Dixon: The Seventh Son is kind of a historical idea. In New Orleans and Algiers, Louisiana, they have these people calling themselves born for good luck because they’re the seventh sister or seventh brother or the seventh child. The world has made a pattern out of this seven as a lucky number. Most people think the seventh child has the extra wisdom and knowledge to influence other people.

Seventh Son

Everybody talkin’ ’bout the seventh son
In the whole wide world there is only one

And I’m the one, I’m the one
I’m the one, I’m the one
The one they call the seventh son

I can tell your future, it will come to pass
I can do things to you make your heart feel glad
Look in the sky, predict the rain
Tell when a woman’s got another man

I’m the one, oh, I’m the one
I’m the one, I’m the one
The one they call the seventh son

I can talk these words that will sound so sweet
They will even make your little heart skip a beat
Heal the sick, raise the dead
Make the little girls talk outta their heads

I’m the one, oh, I’m the one
I’m the one, I’m the one
The one they call the seventh son

I can talk these words that will sound so sweet
They will even make your little heart skip a beat
Heal the sick, raise the dead
And make the little girls talk outta their heads

I’m the one, oh, I’m the one
I’m the one, I’m the one
The one they call the seventh son

I’m the one, hey, hey
I’m the one
Oh, I’m the one, babe
Ooh, I’m the one
I’m the one, I’m the one
The one they call the seventh son
I’m the one, I’m the one
The one they call the seventh son

…

Roy Orbison – Crying

When I played music as I was younger our singer could sing Journey songs and AC/DC songs (from both singers) but when it came to Orbison…a totally different story. Mark is a very good singer but he balked at Roy Orbison. He told me that couldn’t happen…at least not in the way Roy did it.

Not only did the man have a once in a generation voice he was also known to be an extremely nice and good guy. He went through so many tragedies in his short life. He lived around 30 minutes from me but I never got to catch him in concert or just seeing him.

There was a quote that Tom Petty gave…that when he joined the Wilburys he called his mom and told her “Mom, I’m in a band with Roy Orbison!” Not Mom I’m in a band with Bob Dylan or a Beatle George Harrison…no it was Roy. That voice was golden and magical but he paid for his success dearly as you will read below.

In 1957, Orbison married his sweetheart, Claudette Frady. She was 17 at the time and he was 21. As the young couple’s romance was soon thrust into jeopardy given Orbison’s rapid rise to fame, cracks began to appear. In November 1964, Orbison divorced Claudette over her alleged infidelities. However, within ten months, the pair had reconciled their differences and were once more in a loving relationship. They had three children.

It started on June 6, 1966, when Claudette and Roy were riding motorcycles. Claudette hit the door of a pickup truck and was killed instantly. Orbison poured himself into his work after that. He wrote and toured but was out of step with the mid to late-sixties music. It was in Birmingham, England in September 1968 when catastrophe struck once more. News reached Orbison that a fire had broken out at his home in Tennessee and that his two eldest sons had tragically passed away. His younger child went to live with his grandparents.

This song was written by Orbison and Joe Melson and released in 1961. It was a smash here, peaking at #2 on the Billboard 100, #3 in Canada, #11, and #25 in the UK. It would hit again in 1980-81, with Don Mclean covering it. It peaked at #5 on the Billboard 100, #1 on the Canadian Country Charts, #7 in Canada, #11 in New Zealand, and #1 in the UK.

Roy Orbison died suddenly on December 6, 1988, in Hendersonville Tennessee. His new album Mystery Girl would be released around a month and a half after Roy passed. The album was hugely successful peaking at #5 in America and #4 in Canada.

Crying

I was alright for a while, I could smile for a whileThen I saw you last night, you held my hand so tightWhen you stopped to say, “Hello”You wished me well, you couldn’t tell

That I’d been crying over youCrying over you then you said, “So long”Left me standing all aloneAlone and crying,

Crying, crying, cryingIt’s hard to understandThat the touch of your handCan start me crying

I thought that I was over youBut it’s true, so trueI love you even more than I did beforeBut darling what can I do?For you don’t love me and I’ll always be

Crying over youCrying over youYes, now you’re goneAnd from this moment onI’ll be crying, crying, crying, crying,Crying, crying, over you

…

Terry Reid – Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

A blogger named Warren brought up this song and I want to thank him. This is a great song by a great singer/songwriter who turned down Jimmy Page to join Led Zeppelin. He is the one who recommended Robert Plant to Page. Some people may know this song from Cheap Trick as they covered it on their debut album in 1977.

This was his self-titled second album released in 1969. I can see why Page wanted him…his voice was fantastic. His nickname was Superlungs for a good reason. He wasn’t a bad songwriter either…the artists that has covered his songs are many. The Hollies, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jackson Browne, Arrival, Marianne Faithfull, Cheap Trick, Jack White with The Raconteurs, Joe Perry, Rumer and Chris Cornell.

In around 1967 or 68 Jimmy Page was ending the Yardbirds or continuing a new version of them. He was looking for a singer and Terry Reid fit what he wanted. Reid told Page that he was already committed to two tours with The Stones and one with Cream at the time. He did tell Page that if he paid him the lost money and talked with the Stones to get him out of it he would join. It didn’t happen but Reid also told him of a lead singer he knew named Robert Plant from the Band of Joy that might fit what he was after. Oh, it most definitely did.

Reid had a busy solo career as a songwriter and performer. He has some songs in movies and many artists as I’ve listed above have covered him. He also works with younger bands now and sometimes as a guest vocalist. Robert Plant called him the outstanding voice of his generation.

He has released 7 studio albums, the last being in 2016. After hearing his voice and his songs…I am surprised he didn’t hit more. In the later half of the 20th Century he worked with the Eagles drummer, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Marianne Faithfull, Joe Walsh, and many others.

Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Piece

Yesterday feels like running awayFeels like givin’ the childGettin’ lost losin’ my mindI’m feelin’ low and I got no place to goGettin’ all tied upFeelin’ all tied up yeah yeah

Oh yesterday feels like running awayAnd I know, I’m givin’ up my timeTo still love still loveLove’s got me blind

My mind sees the things I don’t knowAnd I got no place to goGettin’ all tied upFeelin’ all tied up

Things I need to tell you loveYou’ll be true I knowThere’s still a chance for a better lifeYes, I know

…

Overlooked Pop/Rock Masterpieces

I hope I’m wording this right and what I’m trying to get across are songs that are not just regular pop/rock songs. Some of these have sections instead of 3 or 4 chords and it’s over with. Intricate songs to duplicate and fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. I’ll give you an example…Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody or The Beach Boys Good Vibrations. Those are not songs you just run into a studio and record in one take. Many of these songs took days, weeks, or months to get right recording different sections.

I usually like down-to-earth and rootsy kind of songs but sometimes I do like listening to these great songs. These are overlooked by the masses with people often connecting with a big hit by the band instead. I’ve picked 3 songs to present here. Being a musician…I can sure appreciate what it took to record these.

Overnight Sensation (Hit Record) – The Raspberries

I posted a Raspberries song this weekend but this one remains my number 1 song even over Go All The Way because it’s so epic.

Overnight Sensation (Hit Record) is an epic, ambitious, grand, lofty, extravagant, and brilliant song from the Raspberries. They were swinging for the fences when they made this song and they hit it out of the park. It’s on the album Starting Over released in 1974.

Put some headphones on and listen to this completely to the very end… When I hear it, I think this is what it would sound like if The Who, Beach Boys and Beatles made a song together…this would be it. Musically you have a little of everything. Sliding bass lines, tasteful guitar licks, great vocals, a sax solo that gives way to more lyrics as the song morphs into an AM radio sound… and then comes a solo piano.

Stay until the very end because they dupe you into a fake ending and the drums will come in as if the world is going to end. Then… a Beach Boys final huge crescendo wave will wash over you like a warm summer moonlit night. It’s a wall of sound of ecstasy that you wish would go on forever.

Bruce Springsteen: “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record) should go down as one of the great mini-rock-opera masterpieces of all time”

Broken Arrow – Buffalo Springfield

The song Broken Arrow is a song that was made in sections and it’s hard to explain it with words… Something is haunting and beautiful about it. I listen to it now and it’s like Buffalo Springfield’s own A Day In The Life. It was produced in 1967 during the psychedelic era. One of my favorite songs of all time…any song with the lyric “He hung up his eyelids and ran down the hall” grabs my attention. Neil Young wrote this beautiful song. Gregg Allman cornered Neil backstage somewhere in the 2000s and pleaded with him to start playing this song again. He did when Buffalo Springfield reformed.

Care Of Cell 44 – The Zombies

This is one of my favorite pop songs of the 1960s. The vocals are reminiscent of the Beach Boys. It’s a sunny and bright song musically about a guy writing to his girl…in prison. The song doesn’t express or explain why she is in prison just that he will be with her when her stay is over.

The song is arranged beautifully. with the vocal-only arrangements, You can hear Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney’s influence on this recording. Chris White’s (Zombies bass player) bass playing is phenomenal in this song.

It is on the album Odessey and Oracle, one of the best albums of the sixties. The hit song on the album is Time of the Season but it is full of great songs. It charted a year after it was released at #95 in the Billboard 200 album charts in 1969. The song/album would be on my desert island list.

…

Steve Miller – Space Cowboy

I’m getting into this pre-fame hits, Steve Miller. The music was a little more edgier and deeper. I think Miller’s hits have been a huge victim of radio overplay and I realize that is not his fault…doesn’t mean “Jet Airliner” is not any good…we have sometimes heard those songs too much. I have songs like that…but give it some time and I can listen to them again.

In the first line of this song, he references his first real hit, Living In The USA, and he even brings in some musical elements from it. I like the bottom-end riff that drives this song. He would recycle riffs and phrases at times. The phrase “Some call me the Space Cowboy” would later be referenced in Miller’s massive 1973 hit, “The Joker”. This era of the Steve Miller Band should have received more attention in real-time. The talent he had in that band was outstanding.

The music on this album could be labeled as blues and psychedelic in some ways considering the era it was recorded in. The title itself was partly because of the countercultural movement, space exploration going on that year, and free-thinking of the American West.

His earlier songs have more of a blues feel. The former members of his band have included Boz Scaggs, Nicky Hopkins, Doug Clifford (CCR drummer), Ross Valory, Lonnie Turner, and about a page more of many more names.

The song was on The Steve Miller Band’s 1969 album Brave New World, which peaked at a respectable #22 on the Billboard Album Charts and #38 in Canada. This is the same album that featured My Dark Hour, a collaboration between Miller and Paul McCartney.

Glyn Johns produced this album and four albums altogether for Steve Miller. They worked great together. Glyn was a busy man at the time. While he was finishing up this album he would go and work on Let It Be and also cross the hall at Olympic and work on the Stones album Let It Bleed as a sound engineer. He also helped George Harrison produce an album by Billy Preston…all of these projects were at the same time.

Glyn Johns: I returned to California to start the Steve Miller Band’s third album, Brave New World. We were getting on fine until I got a call from The Beatles, asking if Steve would let me go for a couple of weeks, to return home to London to do some sessions for what became Abbey Road. They made him an offer he could not refuse, saying they would pay all the expenses incurred by the delay to his recording schedule. So the band got to hang out in a hotel in L.A. courtesy of The Beatles, while I disappeared back to London for what proved to be a somewhat grueling few days.

I went straight from the plane to Apple for a couple of days, and then to Olympic Studios for an all-night session with the Stones till six a.m. Then to Apple again in the afternoon before going on to the Albert Hall that evening to record Jimi Hendrix in concert.

Space Cowboy

I told you ’bout living in the U.S. of A.
Don’t you know that I’m a gangster of love
Let me tell you people that I found a new way
And I’m tired of all this talk about love
And the same old story with a new set of words
About the good and the bad and the poor
And the times keep on changin’
So I’m keepin’ on top
Of every fat cat who walks through my door

I’m a space cowboy
Bet you weren’t ready for that
I’m a space cowboy
I’m sure you know where it’s at
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

I was born on this rock
And I’ve been travelin’ through space
Since the moment I first realized
What all you fast talkin’ cats would do if you could
You know, I’m ready for the final surprise
There ain’t no way around it
Ain’t nothing to say
That’s gonna satisfy my soul deep inside
All the prayers and surveyors
Keep the whole place uptight
While it keeps on gettin’ darker outside

I’m a space cowboy
Bet you weren’t ready for that
I’m a space cowboy
I’m sure you know where it’s at
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

I see the show downs, slow downs, lost and found, turn arounds
The boys in the military shirts
I keep my eyes on the prize, on the long fallen skies
And I don’t let my friends get hurt
All you back room schemers, small trip dreamers
Better find something new to say
Cause you’re the same old story
It’s the same old crime
And you got some heavy dues to pay

I’m a space cowboy
Bet you weren’t ready for that
I’m a space cowboy
I’m sure you know where it’s at
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

…

Gene Vincent – I’m Goin’ Home (To See My Baby)

I love this man’s music. He is severely overlooked by many who only know Be Bob A-Lula. His voice goes with that slapback echo better than any other singer. His influence can be heard through the decades including Springsteen in Glory Days. This song has been covered 15 times including The Zombies.

One thing about Vincent. You can hear people emulate Elvis and Johnny Cash but no one sounded like Vincent. Besides, no one sounding like him… no one looked like him either. No pompadour. No huge hair. Just a curly sort of quiff-ish look.

Union restrictions prevented his own band, the Blue Caps, from crossing the Atlantic with him, Gene Vincent had been forced to use a British backing group, and the group selected for his UK tour was Sounds Incorporated.

The song is different in some ways. I love the sax in this song and the drumming (Tony Newman). The song has some cool dynamics built in as it starts off with just Gene and a nice guitar…it then starts with the drums and plows ahead until the end. Sounds Incorporated backed him on this song and the B-side Love Of A Man. This was their big break and after this, they also backed Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Brenda Lee, and Sam Cooke.

I’ll mention Springsteen again because the man knows dynamics in songs and artists like this inspired him. The song was written by Bob Bain and was released in 1961. It peaked at #36 in the UK Charts. It was a pure single…not off an album.

By this time the UK was where all of the 50’s rock stars went because America was too busy listening to Paul Anka, Fabion, and Pat Boone. It was a sad state of music at that time for rock and roll. The parents probably loved the no soul no trouble singers. Then thankfully…the British invasion and Motown were coming up.

I’m Goin’ Home Home (To See My Baby)

Well, I’m going home, to see my baby
Yeah, I’m going home, to see my gal
Well, don’t you know, she really loves me
Ah, don’t you know, she really cares

Yeah, I’m going home, to see my baby
Well, I’m going home, to see my gal
Ah, don’t you know, she really loves me
Yeah, I’m going home, to see my gal

Well, I’m going home, to see my baby
Yeah, I’m going home, to see my gal
Ah, don’t you know, she really loves me
Ah, don’t you know, she really cares

She’s there to love me every night
Don’t you know she treats me right
Yeah, she’s alright, yeah…

She’s there to love me all the time
Don’t you know I’m glad she’s mine
Yeah, she’s alright, yeah…

Well, I’m going home, to see my baby
Well, I’m going home, to see my gal
Ah, don’t you know, that she’s my baby
Well, don’t you know, that she’s my gal

She’s there to love me all the time
Don’t you know I’m glad shе’s mine

…

Beatles – Cry Baby Cry

The king of Marigold was in the kitchenCooking breakfast for the queenThe queen was in the parlorPlaying piano for the children of the king

One song off the White Album that I found when I was 13 years old. It’s a good reason why I’m happy they kept it as a double album. I wouldn’t have this song and a few more. When the chorus kicks in it sticks in your head. That is the beauty of the White Album…it has something for everyone. Lennon had a way of delivering sometimes dark imagery, forming it around a catchy melody and it worked. It’s just part of the album’s huge tapestry.

The track includes a coda not originally part of the song… a snippet of Paul McCartney singing a few lines known as “Can You Take Me Back?” That was an unfinished song by Paul. This fragment segues into Revolution 9 on the album and adds an eerie, unresolved feeling to the end of the track. They would explore this more on the B side of Abbey Road.

Although the songs differ in style they all have that Beatles touch to them whether it be the hard Helter Skelter, country Rocky Raccoon, or even the fairytale-like Cry Baby Cry. The sessions were not the happiest time for the band (the Esher Demos were though) but they came up with the most eclectic batch of songs they ever produced. The demos they made gave another look at the song.

When John Lennon was killed in 1980 there were three albums I bought that long winter. Double Fantasy, The White Album, and Abbey Road. I’m back there again in that 1980-81 winter and spring when I hear this album.

The White Album is as diverse as you can get… Pop, Rock, Country, Folk, Reggae, Avant-Gard, Blues, Hard Rock and some 20’s British Music Hall thrown in the mix. It has plenty of songs that you have heard of and many that the masses have not heard as much. John Lennon wrote one of his best songs for this album… Dear Prudence.

The Beatles more than many bands could bend to a style of music and play that style well.

Of all the songs I heard on this album…this is the one where I thought…hmmm… John Lennon was so different in writing songs compared to Paul. I love this example of John’s fairytale. He wrote the song in 1967, inspired by a commercial jingle he heard on Television. The lyrics play on the nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence, with lines like Cry baby cry, make your mother sigh evoking a fairy-tale atmosphere.

Ian MacDonald, in his book Revolution in the Head, described this song as “a charmingly wayward waltz” with “a whimsical, mildly satirical undertone.”

The White Album was released in 1968 and peaked at #1 in the Billboard Album Chart, #1 in Canada, #1 in the UK, and #1 about everywhere else

The demo of Cry Baby Cry. You can hear John double his voice.

Cry Baby Cry

Cry, baby, cryMake your mother sigh

The king of Marigold was in the kitchenCooking breakfast for the queenThe queen was in the parlorPlaying piano for the children of the king

Cry, baby, cryMake your mother sighShe’s old enough to know betterSo cry, baby, cry

The king was in the gardenPicking flowers for a friend who came to playThe queen was in the playroomPainting pictures for the children’s holiday

Cry, baby, cryMake your mother sighShe’s old enough to know betterSo cry, baby, cry

The duchess of Kirkcaldy always smilingAnd arriving late for teaThe duke was having problemsWith a message at the local bird and bee

Cry, baby, cryMake your mother sighShe’s old enough to know betterSo cry, baby, cry

At 12 o’clock, a meeting ’round the tableFor a seance in the darkWith voices out of nowherePut on specially by the children for a lark

Cry, baby, cryMake your mother sighShe’s old enough to know betterSo cry, baby, cryCry, baby cryMake your mother sighShe’s old enough to know betterSo cry, baby, cry

Cry, cry, cryMake your mother sighShe’s old enough to know betterSo cry, baby, cry

Johnny Cash – Ring of Fire

Johnny Cash crossed genre’s probably better than anyone. I’ve met metal, punk, and rock fans who love this man. It’s probably a combination of personality and music that draws people into his orbit. He is still crossing genres even after being gone for years.

This song was written by his best friend June Carter Cash and Merle Kilgore in 1962. The inspiration came from June’s feelings about her relationship with Johnny Cash. At the time, their relationship was intense as Johnny was struggling with addiction and the complications of his personal life. When she wrote the song, they were just close friends at the time and not married yet. They would not get married until March 1, 1968.

Johnny wasn’t the first to record this song though. That would be Anita Carter who was June’s sister. She did a really good version of it but without those horns…it just doesn’t click like Johnny’s version does. Cash claimed that he dreamed of the song’s eventual arrangement, including the Mexican-style trumpets. He wanted the song to have a mix of country, rock, and mariachi sounds.

The song peaked at #1 on the Billboard Country Charts and #17 on the Billboard 100 in 1963. It appeared on the compilation album Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash in 1963.

Vivian Cash (Johnny’s Ex-Wife): “She didn’t write that song any more than I did. The truth is, Johnny wrote that song, while pilled up and drunk, about a certain private female body part.”

Ring of Fire

Love is a burnin’ thing
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire
I fell into a ring of fire

I fell into a burnin’ ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire, the ring of fire

The taste of love is sweet
When hearts like ours meet
I fell for you like a child
Oh, but the fire went wild

I fell into a burnin’ ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire, the ring of fire

I fell into a burnin’ ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire, the ring of fire
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire, the ring of fire
The ring of fire, the ring of fire

…

Bob Dylan – Girl From The North Country

If you go when the snowflakes storm
When the rivers freeze and summer ends
Please see if she’s wearing a coat so warm
To keep her from the howlin’ winds

This is one of the most beautiful songs that Bob Dylan ever wrote. I learned this song on guitar and harmonica when I was in my twenties. When we were playing out the equipment would break down like the guitar player’s amp or my amp…I would grab an acoustic and a harmonica with my harmonica rack and play this one. It always went over well. The song hits me deeply for some reason…you can tell this song was genuine.

I read Robert Shelton’s book about Bob Dylan, and the song appears to be about Echo Helstrom (If I would have had a daughter…I wanted to name her Echo), a girl he knew in Hibbing, Minnesota before he made it. As with every Dylan song, there is another rumor that it’s about a folk singer and actress named Bonnie Beecher. I tend to believe the Shelton book on this one and go with Echo but who knows which one it is? He knew both in Minnesota so it could have been either one. Some say Suzy Rotolo was it but he didn’t meet her until he was in New York.

It was originally released on his 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and later re-recorded as a duet with Johnny Cash for Dylan’s 1969 album Nashville Skyline. Unlike some Dylan songs…this one is not a musical novel. It’s a little over 3 minutes and gets right to the point in the most elegant way. Bob did take the melody of Scarborough Fair for this one.

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan peaked at #22 on the Billboard Album Charts and #1 in the UK in 1963. It was his second album and here is where he started to get real traction with people and build an audience, especially in the UK. The folk purists would get two more albums until the electric instruments of 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home would shatter their Dylan folk singer dream.

Johnny Cash: “I had a portable record player that I’d take along on the road, and I’d put on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan backstage, then go out and do my show, then listen again as soon as I came off. After a while at that, I wrote Bob a letter telling him how much of a fan I was. He wrote back almost immediately, saying he’d been following my music since ‘I Walk the Line,’ and so we began a correspondence”.

This live clip is from Hard To Handle when Dylan used Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers as his backing band. I learned it from this live version.

Girl From The North Country

If you’re travelin’ in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

If you go when the snowflakes storm
When the rivers freeze and summer ends
Please see if she’s wearing a coat so warm
To keep her from the howlin’ winds

Please see for me if her hair hangs long
If it rolls and flows all down her breast
Please see for me if her hair hangs long
That’s the way I remember her best

I’m a-wonderin’ if she remembers me at all
Many times I’ve often prayed
In the darkness of my night
In the brightness of my day

So if you’re travelin’ in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

Zombies – This Will Be Our Year

I love tradition so here we are again! Happy New Year 2025.

For the past few years, this has been my first post in the New Year. If you have followed me for a while you should know this one. Again for 2025 my first post!

Next to Auld Lang Syne, this is my favorite New Year’s Song. A favorite of mine from one of my favorite bands. Everyone… I wish you a Happy New Year in 2024.

You didn’t have to read my blog but you did and I really appreciate it…I want to thank all of you for reading and commenting in 2023.

This song sounds like it should have been a hit but it was never pushed as a single at the time. It was the B side to Butcher’s Tale (Western Front 1914) which is an experimental song and was a big surprise to the band that it was picked as the first single. Both are from the great album Odessey and Oracle in 1968. Several songs on this album could have been in the charts but Time of the Season was the only one that made it and it was a year after the album was released.

Bruce Eder of AllMusic gave the album five stars out of five, calling it “one of the flukiest (and best) albums of the 1960s, and one of the most enduring long-players to come out of the entire British psychedelic boom”.

On recording Odessey and Oracle…Rod Argent:

“We had the chance of going in and putting things down in the way we wanted people to hear them and we had a new studio, we walked in just after The Beatles had walked out [after recording Sgt. Pepper]. We were the next band in. They’d left some of their instruments behind … I used John Lennon’s Mellotron, that’s why it’s all over Odessey and Oracle. We used some of their technological advances … we were using seven tracks, and that meant we could overdub for the first time. And it meant that when I played the piano part I could then overdub a Mellotron part, and it meant we could have a fuller sound on some of the songs and it means that at the moment the tour we’re doing with Odessey and Oracle it means we’re actually reproducing every note on the original record by having extra player with us as well.”

This Will Be A Year

The warmth of your love
Is like the warmth of the sun
And this will be our year
Took a long time to come

Don’t let go of my hand
Now darkness has gone
And this will be our year
Took a long time to come

And I won’t forget
The way you held me up when I was down
And I won’t forget the way you said,
“Darling I love you”
You gave me faith to go on

Now we’re there and we’ve only just begun
This will be our year
Took a long time to come

The warmth of your smile
Smile for me, little one
And this will be our year
Took a long time to come

You don’t have to worry
All your worried days are gone
This will be our year
Took a long time to come

And I won’t forget
The way you held me up when I was down
And I won’t forget the way you said,
“Darling I love you”
You gave me faith to go on

Now we’re there and we’ve only just begun
And this will be our year
Took a long time to come

Yeah we only just begun
Yeah this will be our year
Took a long time to come

Otis Redding and Carla Thomas – New Year’s Resolution

This song is a great way to start a year! Anytime you can hear Otis…you are on the right path! Have a Happy New Year! Get ready for 2025. Their voices sound amazing. They complimented each other very well. I just wished they would have had time to do more.

Stax’s house band, Booker T & the MGs, provides the backing. Note Booker T’s subtle but effective organ lending the song a spiritual element, while Donald “Duck” Dunn’s bass and Steve Cropper’s tasteful guitar licks ground the track’s rhythm

Stax was hoping to replicate the success of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. Stax paired two of their greatest stars for the 1967 album King & Queen, which produced the hit “Tramp.” The album featured their takes on classics such as “Knock on Wood,” “When Something Is Wrong with My Baby,” “Bring It on Home to Me,” and “It Takes Two”

This song was on the King and Queen album released in 1967. This is the only album they got to make because Otis died in a plane crash on December 10, 1967. Carla Thomas would go on to a successful career with 2 top 20 hits plus many top 20 R&B hits.

I’m adding the song Tramp off of the album. This song peaked at #26 on the Billboard 100, #2 on the R&B Charts, and #1 on the UK R&B Charts in 1967.

New Year’s Resolution

I hope it’s not too late
Just to say that I’m sorry, honey
All I want to do
Is just finish what we started, baby

Let’s turn over a new leave
And baby let’s make promises
That we can keep
And call it a New Year’s resolution, hmmm

Oh, I’m a woman
And woman makes mistakes too
But will you, will you forget the changes
That I put you through

let’s try it again
Just you and me
And, baby, let’s see how happy honey, yeah
That we can be
And call it a New Year’s resolution, yeah, yeah, yeah

Many times we had our ups and downs
And times you needed me I couldn’t be found
I’m sorry
And I’m sorry too
I’ll never, never do it again, no, no, no
So baby before we fall out
Let’s fall on in, yeah, yeah
Oh, and we’re gonna try harder
Not to hurt each other again, oh
Love me baby, huh
Week after week
And baby let’s make promises
That we can keep
And call it a New Year’s resolution, yeah, oh
I know we can do it Carla
I’m gonna keep my promises
I’m gonna hold on that we can do it, baby
Oh, it’s not too late
You’re gonna love me
Nobody else
Oh Otis let’s finish what we started
Talk no mean