Singles – Page 74 – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Blue Ash – Pleasant Dreams

Blue Ash is one of those bands that should have made it to the masses. That has always interested me why great bands like Blue Ash, Big Star, and so many others couldn’t find their way to mass popularity. I’ve been listening to their debut album and it stacks up against their peers at the time and definitely now!

This song reminds me of a great FM album track. Blue Ash toured and opened for such acts as The Stooges, Bob Seger, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, and more but for lack of sales they were dropped by Mercury Records in May 1974. You would think with those bands they would have picked up a lot of fans.

Blue Ash was formed in the summer of 1969 in Ohio by bassist Frank Secich & vocalist Jim Kendzor. Guitarist Bill “Cupid” Bartolin and drummer David Evans were recruited later that summer. They got their name from a road sign outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, pointing towards a small town called Blue Ash. During a three-year stretch of 1970-1973 the band recorded numerous songs along with hitting the road playing western New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia along with Ohio, performing over 250 shows a year. Think about that for a second… 250 – 300 shows a year!

Their first album No More, No Less was released in May 1973 and received rave reviews in the rock press. This album is usually always in people’s top twenty power pop albums. It is considered a power pop classic and is regarded as highly collectible among fans of that genre.

This one transports me to the seventies. The intro is around a minute but I love the sustained guitar that kicks in after the intro ends.

Pleasant Dreams

When day is done and night has begun
A smile comes on my face
I know that I’ll be taking me
To a very pleasant place
It’s half-way across my mind
It’s not so hard to find

I’ve been there many times before
And everytime ti’s seems
I know that I’ll be back for more
I’m hooked on pleasant dreams
Without reality there’s
Nothing i can’t see

Can’t wait to go to sleep
It’s gonna be alright, It’s going to be alright
Can’t wait to climb in bed
Lay me down so I will have
Pleasant dreams tonight
Pleasant dreams tonight
I know that tonight
It’s gonna be alright

A copper king, a movie star
I’m anything I please
I slip into my private world
Which sets my mind at ease
I do the things I feel you know
I feel the the things I do

Can’t wait to go to sleep
It’s gonna be alright, It’s going to be alright
Can’t wait to climb in bed
To lay me down so I will have
Pleasant dreams tonight
Pleasant dreams tonight
I know that tonight
It’s gonna be alright

I wake up in the morning and
It seems I’ve come undone
I make believe I’m not asleep and
I’m pretending that it’s fun
I’m half the man I am
I’m twice the man I’m not

Can’t wait to go to sleep
It’s gonna be alright, It’s going to be alright
Can’t wait to close my eyes to
Lay me down so I will have
Pleasant dreams tonight
Pleasant dreams tonight
I know that tonight
It’s gonna be alright

Rolling Stones – Midnight Rambler

Sorry if you have seen this already today but it vanished in the reader so I’m republishing it. it…thank you.

Today we look at a song that is best known by the live version. Midnight Rambler is up there with Sympathy For The Devil for setting an eerie atmosphere. I’ve always liked this one…partly because it’s not worn out like many other Stones songs of this era.

The Boston Strangler was the likely inspiration for this song. As for the song, while the lyrics do not directly relate to the case, Jagger implies it when he sings, “Well you heard about the Boston…” before an instrumental stab cuts him off.

n 1965, Albert DeSalvo (the Boston Strangler), who was serving time in a mental institution on rape charges, confessed to the murders and was later sentenced to life in prison. There was no clear physical evidence that DeSalvo committed the crimes, however, and his confession has been questioned, with some forensic experts stating that there may have been multiple killers. DeSalvo died in prison in 1973; new evidence has come up in the case from time to time.

This song was on their great Let It Bleed album released in 1969. But the version that is more known is the version on what I think is their best live album… Get Your Ya Ya’s Out…it was released in 1970. They recorded the version in Madison Square Gardens on their 1969 tour. The sound they had with Mick Taylor was fantastic. His guitar tone was raw and fat and it is instantly recognizable. When he joined the Stones onstage recently…the Stones had that great sound again. Since Mick Taylor left they sound really thin live…to me.

Brian Jones is credited with percussion on the studio version. Even though he died before this album was released, a few of the songs were recorded during the Beggar’s Banquet sessions in 1968.

Keith Richards: “When we did Midnight Rambler, nobody went in there with the idea of doing a blues opera, basically. Or a blues in four parts. That’s just the way it turned out. I think that’s the strength of the Stones or any good band. You can give them a song half raw and they’ll cook it.”

Mick Jagger: “That’s a song Keith and I really wrote together. We were on a holiday in Italy. In this very beautiful hill town, Positano, for a few nights. Why we should write such a dark song in this beautiful, sunny place, I really don’t know. We wrote everything there – the tempo changes, everything. And I’m playing the harmonica in these little cafés, and there’s Keith with the guitar.”

Studio Album Version

Midnight Rambler

Did you hear about the midnight rambler
Everybody got to go
Did you hear about the midnight rambler
The one that shut the kitchen door
He don’t give a hoot of warning
Wrapped up in a black cat cloak
He don’t go in the light of the morning
He split the time the cock’rel crows

Talkin’ about the midnight gambler
The one you never seen before
Talkin’ about the midnight gambler
Did you see him jump the garden wall
Sighin’ down the wind so sadly
Listen and you’ll hear him moan
Talkin’ about the midnight gambler
Everybody got to go

Did you hear about the midnight rambler
Well, honey, it’s no rock ‘n’ roll show
Well, I’m talkin’ about the midnight gambler
Yeah, everybody got to go

Well did ya hear about the midnight gambler?
Well honey its no rock-in’ roll show
Well I’m talking about the midnight gambler
The one you never seen before

Oh don’t do that, oh don’t do that, oh don’t do that
Don’t you do that, don’t you do that (repeat)
Oh don’t do that, oh don’t do that

Well you heard about the Boston…
It’s not one of those
Well, talkin’ ’bout the midnight… sh…
The one that closed the bedroom door
I’m called the hit-and-run raper in anger
The knife-sharpened tippie-toe…
Or just the shoot ’em dead, brainbell jangler
You know, the one you never seen before

So if you ever meet the midnight rambler
Coming down your marble hall
Well he’s pouncing like proud black panther
Well, you can say I, I told you so
Well, don’t you listen for the midnight rambler
Play it easy, as you go
I’m gonna smash down all your plate glass windows
Put a fist, put a fist through your steel-plated door

Did you hear about the midnight rambler
He’ll leave his footprints up and down your hall
And did you hear about the midnight gambler
And did you see me make my midnight call

And if you ever catch the midnight rambler
I’ll steal your mistress from under your nose
I’ll go easy with your cold fanged anger
I’ll stick my knife right down your throat, baby
And it hurts!

Little Richard – Ready Teddy

Ready, set, go man go, I got a girl that I love so.

What else do we need to have a great rock and roll song? Not exactly Shakespeare but Shakespeare couldn’t write Gonna kick off my shoes, roll up my faded jeans, Grab my rock ‘n’ roll baby, pour on the steam. The song was written by John Marascalco and Robert Blackwell with probable help from Little Richard. Most Little Richard songs are like a shot of adrenaline…this one is no different.

This was originally a B-side to Rip It Up. Little Richard claimed to have helped write this song but he said he didn’t have the business sense at that time to demand credit. He said: “They brought me the words and I made up the melody, and at the time I didn’t have sense enough to claim so much money, because I really made them hits. I didn’t get the money, but I still have the freedom.”

The song peaked at #44 on the Billboard 100 and #8 on the R&B charts.

The song is about a girl who wants sex… a ready teddy. Like most of Little Richard’s songs, this contains a lot of innuendoes but most people were too busy listening to the music to notice or didn’t get the reference. If sex had a voice…it would be Little Richard.

This song was covered by a lot of artists including Buddy Holly, The Tornados, Elvis Presley, Tony Sheridan, and others. Elvis did this song on one of his Ed Sullivan appearances.

My dad told me about Little Richard before I ever heard him. He said he had the biggest voice he ever heard. He talked about a song called Long Tall Sally. I first heard it…it blew me away. Such a raw emotional power in that voice. He would take us to the edge of the cliff and then at the last minute pull us back.

His voice was one of a kind…