Tag: pop

Lemon Pipers – Green Tambourine

When I first started to blog, mostly all I did was older hits and pop culture. I then started to experiment with album cuts and they seemed to go over pretty well. I’m surprised that I never blogged this song at the beginning. I’ve always liked it… it’s a mixture of pop, bubblegum, and a little psychedelia. What stuck out to me is the sitar…which I love to hear.

Bubblegum has a bad name but there is good bubblegum and I do like some of it. I never cared for The 1910 Fruitgum Company and The Ohio Express but some I did like. Crazy Elephant’s Gimme Gimme Good Loving and songs like that…I’ve always been fond of.

The Lemon Pipers were formed in 1966 in Oxford, Ohio, by students from Miami University. The band played harder psychedelic and blues rock. Buddah Records had different ideas. They pushed The Lemon Pipers into more bubblegum-type music. The tension between the record company and The Lemon Pipers eventually broke the band up in 1969.

You could probably consider The Lemon Pipers a one-hit wonder. They had some other charting songs but none in the top 40 on the Billboard 100 except the song Rice Is Nice which peaked at #6 in New Zealand.

This song did well here and everywhere. It peaked at #1 on the Billboard 100, #3 in Canada, #3 in New Zealand, and #7 in the UK in 1967. The song has appeared in various films and television shows and made its place as a symbol of 1960s pop culture.

Green Tambourine

Drop your silver in my tambourine
Help a poor man fill a pretty dream
Give me pennies, I’ll take anything
Now listen while I play
My green tambourine

Watch the jingle jangle start to shine
Reflections of the music that is mine
When you toss a coin, you’ll hear it sing
Now listen while I play
My green tambourine

Drop a dime before I walk away
Any song you want, I’ll gladly play
Money feeds my music machine
Now listen while I play
My green tambourine

Listen and I’ll play

…

Why The Beatles are still Relevant

This is the post excerpt.

“They have been gone for such a long time” sure but their music is timeless.  I first found the Beatles in the 1970’s growing up and as a young kid, I bought that terrible repackaged album that Capital released called Rock and Roll music…some great music but a truly terrible silver cover that made the Beatles look like they came from the fifties. I first bought the Hey Jude Again album in 2nd-grade in 1975. I was transformed. When I heard those songs I started to buy more of their albums and I could not believe the quantity and the quality of the songs….the great songs kept coming like a well that never runs dry. I missed them of course when they were active but I could not believe one group could have so many great songs. I felt…and still feel that I was born too late and missed out on something great. I could not imagine listening to Sgt Peppers on the radio in 1967 when it was all new. I did find other groups…On my 3rd grade notebook, I would write the names of bands like others did… that I was just finding out about…The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds. A little late but better late than never.

Now getting back to the title of this post…In the 1980s being a Beatle fan was not a  popular thing…not that I cared…but…since the 1990s the Beatles are current again and remain current in 2018. My son is 18 and him and his friends all like them. They also like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who, The Stones. Beatles albums still sell consistently. Here is a youtube video of different people from Rap Artists to Ozzy Osborne talking about the Beatles…

Here is an interesting one with Lemmy from Motorhead talking about the Beatles.

Most have read about their appearance on the Ed Sullivan show on February 9, 1964.. I recently was with a friend who bought two Kustom bass cabinets from an older country drummer. The Beatles got brought up in conversation and he told me about that night when he sat on the couch and watched them. He said the next day the world was a different place. Not just hairstyles but attitudes. I asked him to compare the mania to something since then….his answer was Michael Jackson in the 1980s times 1000 or maybe more…Now that is a statement. Is it coming from someone famous? No, but he was there. I have talked to others who say the same that was there.

An answer from Mick Jagger about being compared with the Beatles…

The Beatles were so big that it’s hard for people not alive at the time to realize just how big they were. There isn’t a real comparison with anyone now. I suppose Michael Jackson at one point, but it still doesn’t seem quite the same. They were so big that to be competitive with them was impossible. I’m talking about in record sales and tours and all this. They were huge.

Of course, I’m a fan and have read a lot about them so I am biased (I recommend Tune In) and a great website…their story is almost as great as their music. I’ve had fun arguments with friends about Beatles vs Elvis… Beatles vs Stones etc. It’s all in good fun though…although I have always been right…