ROCKAEOLOGY.COM

Badfinger: "Come And Get It"

2012-02-18T01:06:32Z

In 1968, the Iveys (their name a take on the Hollies) were a struggling British band with a lot of promise thanks to the songwriting of members Pete Ham and Tom Evans. Paul Du Noyer writes that the Iveys’ big break came when their manager, Bill Collins, called on a friend with a connection to the Beatles.

Bill’s mate was the Beatles’ old roadie, Mal Evans. An ex-Cavern bouncer, Mal was a key member of The Beatles’ inner circle…

He promised Bill he’d get a tape to the Fabs themselves. When he did, Paul McCartney was encouraging, though he doubted there was a hit single there. George Harrison was more positive, and declared that Apple should sign them. John Lennon agreed.

After the band signed with Apple Records, the first order of business was a name change. “Bad Finger Boogie” had been the working title of the Sgt. Pepper track “With a Little Help from My Friends”; Badfinger would be the new name for a band that looked and sounded uncannily like the Beatles.

But by 1969, Apple Records—and the Beatles themselves--were in disarray. The label was steadily losing money and the group's Abbey Road would be their swan song. Badfinger languished until bassist Ron Griffiths complained.

We’d been submitting songs of varying quality to Apple and they never gave us any credit, metaphorically binned it. So I bleated to one of the music magazines, I moaned and groaned that The Beatles weren’t giving us any assistance.

When McCartney read the article, he decided to give the group a song he once considered for Abbey Road, then for the sound track of the movie The Magic Christian. Sir Paul described in The Beatles Anthology how “Come And Get It” was first recorded.

I'd written the song “Come And Get It,” and I'd made a fairly decent demo. Because I lived locally, I could get in half an hour before a Beatles session at Abbey Road - knowing it would be empty and all the stuff would be set up - and I'd use Ringo's equipment to put a drum track down, put some piano down, quickly put some bass down, do the vocal, and double-track it.

The demo, recorded July 24, 1969, sounds remarkably polished considering it was recorded in less than an hour with Paul playing all the instruments. Paul would use the demo as a template to guide Badfinger.

I said to Badfinger, “OK, it's got to be exactly like this demo,” because it had a great feeling on it. They actually wanted to put their own variations on, but I said, “No, this really is the right way.”

Badfinger went into Abbey Road studios on August 2, 1969 with McCartney producing and playing piano. Ron Griffiths told Dan Matovina that McCartney auditioned the band members to determine who would sing lead.

“Paul asked each of us to sing a verse,” said Ron, “Pete was too ‘muggy.’ I tried and he said it was a bit nasal, sounded like Reg Presley of the Troggs. Then Tom gave it a shot.”

Evans stepped up and the “magic" hit. It was a perfect song for Tom’s rich, Liverpudlian pipes. Much of the Iveys' material had put Tom in a less natural vocal range, and he tended to overcompensate with histrionic emotion. But “Come And Get It” fit him like a warm glove. He was controlled, confident, and believable.

Badfinger’s “Come And Get It” appeared in The Magic Christian and reached #7 on the charts; the single launched the band’s career that included hits like "No Matter What," "Baby Blue" and "Day After Day." Tom Evans said that McCartney gave the band the impetus to deliver a great track.

Paul had told us that if he didn’t think our version was as good as his original demo, he’d put it out himself. Of course that challenge really made us work hard in the studio.

Dire Straits: "Money for Nothing"

2012-02-12T17:39:51Z

With “Sultans of Swing” and two LPs that featured Mark Knopfler’s tasty jazz guitar and Dylanesque lyrics, Dire Straits grew a loyal following in the late 70s and early 80s, an era when disco and punk rock ruled. The group broke big in 1985 with the Brothers in Arms album; its highlight was “Money for Nothing.”

Knopfler told Michael Parkinson (at 07:30) how he came to write the monster hit.

It was in New York and I was in a kitchen appliance store. It had a kitchen display in the window and there’d be a row of microwaves or cookers or things like that and in the back of the store was a big wall of televisions all tuned to MTV.

And there was some bonehead who worked for the store, a great big macho guy with a checked shirt and a cap and a pair of work boots, and he’d been delivering stuff at the back. So he was watching MTV and he was saying all these great lines about “You know, that ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it,” stuff like that. And “What’s that Hawaiian noises?”...

I just thought it was so classic that I went and asked for a pen and paper and started writing the lines down.

The British band recorded Brothers in Arms at George Martin’s AIR Montserrat studio in November and December 1984; since its opening in 1979, the cutting-edge facility set on a sleepy, sun-drenched Caribbean island had attracted musicians like Paul McCartney, Elton John, Michael Jackson, the Rolling Stones and the Police.

Audio engineer Neil Dorfsman, who co-produced the album with Knopfler as well, told Richard Buskin that Sting contributed one of the most identifiable parts of “Money for Nothing,” heard in the intro and close of the song: “I Want My MTV.”

(I)t was while Sting was visiting Montserrat on vacation, having already recorded there with the Police, that Mark asked him to sing on “Money For Nothing,” lifting the tune from “Don't Stand So Close to Me.” I knew Mark had already written the line “I want my MTV,” but I wasn't sure if he had the melody of “Don't Stand So Close To Me” in mind. It was one of those things where Sting just sort of did it in three passes, I comped the thing, and then I walked around thinking “There's something amazing about this.” It was done in about an hour.

It was Sting’s MTV name-check at the close that most mirrored “Don’t Stand So Close to Me.” When Sting’s lawyers learned of the similiarity, they demanded and received from Knopfler co-writing credit for Sting.

Another memorable element: Knopfler's powerful guitar riffs. Dorfman recalled the unorthodox studio set-up that helped produce the iconic sound.

I remember Mark's Les Paul Junior going through a Laney amp, and that was the sound of “Money For Nothing.” We were actually going for a sort of ZZ Top sound, but what we ended up getting was kind of an accident…

One mic was pointing down at the floor, another was not quite on the speaker, another was somewhere else, and it wasn't how I would want to set things up — it was probably just left from the night before, when I'd been preparing things for the next day and had not really finished the setup. Nevertheless, whether it was the phase of the mics or the out-of-phaseness, what we heard was exactly what ended up on the record. There was no additional processing on that tune during the mix.

Dorfsman told Blair Jackson that Knopfler’s growling vocals could be attributed as much to cigarettes and impatience as technique.

I would try to get him to not smoke while doing a vocal but it never happened. I had vowed after Love Over Gold, “I'm going to ask Mark to work harder on the vocals.” But it was always just a couple of takes, a couple of punch-ins – “See you later.” It is what it is, and you either like it or you don't.

Millions loved it. Helped by a ground-breaking computer-animated video, “Money for Nothing” reached #1 on the charts, where it stayed for three weeks. Knopfler told Ken Tucker and David Fricke that songs like “Money for Nothing,” told through the voice of another person (in this case, the appliance store worker), can distort the writer's intended meaning.

The layers of irony in "Money for Nothing" have certainly confused people….

(I)t suggests that maybe you can't let it have so many meanings—you have to be direct. In fact, I'm still in two minds as to whether it's a good idea to write songs that aren't in the first person, to take on other characters. The singer in "Money for Nothing" is a real ignoramus, hard-hat mentality—somebody who sees everything in financial terms. I mean, this guy has a grudging respect for rock stars. He sees it in terms of, well, that's not working and yet the guy’s rich: that's a good scam. He isn't sneering.

The Righteous Brothers: "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'"

2012-02-05T18:57:42Z

By 1964, Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield, the Righteous Brothers, had achieved moderate success on Moonglow Records with rockin’ R&B numbers like "Little Latin Lupe Lu" and "Koko Joe." Jack Doyle tells how the duo got its name.

Their stage name came about after a black U.S. Marine, attending one of their early nightclub acts, shouted out approvingly: “That was righteous, brothers!” The label stuck, and the two singers became a distinctive duet, with Bill Medley, the taller of the two, providing the bass-baritone, and blond-haired Bobby Hatfield singing tenor. Their style would later be dubbed “blue-eyed soul,” and there was no doubt about their vocal talent.

The Righteous Brothers caught the attention of Phil Spector, by 1964 a legendary producer with a string of hits that included “Da Doo Ron Ron” and “Then He Kissed Me” by the Crystals and “Be My Baby” and “Walkin’ in the Rain” by the Ronettes. Spector bought out the Brothers’ contract from Moonglow and moved them to his own Philles Records.

Despite the Righteous Brothers’ affinity for R&B, Spector wanted them to record a ballad that would showcase their vocal range. Spector turned to Brill Building songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Mann told Dale Kawashima that Spector first played them the Righteous Brothers’ Moonglow recordings.

They had a Sam and Dave sound, and they’d had two local hits with uptempo songs. We loved what we heard, went back to the hotel and wrote two verses and choruses of "You’ve Lost That Lovin' Feelin'.” We weren't sure how to end the chorus and thought the title wasn't strong enough. We called and played what we had over the phone for Phil. He told us that when we hit the line "something beautiful's dying" it brought tears to his eyes. We told him we'd come up with a better title but he said "No! That's it.” Then we met with him to work on the end of the chorus, write the bridge and complete the song.

On the Righteous Brothers’ website, Bill Medley says he was skeptical at first.

(W)e liked ballads and I suppose we did them OK but that wasn't where we were emotionally and musically coming from. And Barry Mann wrote this ballad and I remember him telling me he wanted to write a song that was like the Four Tops records and he wanted to do that kind of a song.

So they wrote this ballad and Phil Spector and Barry Mann sat down at the piano and sang it to us. And they both had real high voices. And when they got done I said man, that's a great song for the Everly Brothers. ‘Cause they sounded like the Everly Brothers. They had these real high thin voices. And I couldn't imagine this was the song Phil Spector wanted to do with us. Two crazy little rock and roll guys.

So we started learning it and the complexion of the song changed dramatically by trying to find the right key. The song has a pretty huge range to it. And to get up to the (sings) "You've lost that lovin' feelin'" real high note you have to start out low. We started out (sings) "You never close your eyes anymore" and then I couldn't get to (sings) "You've lost that lovin’ feelin'." So we'd drop a little lower to (sings) "You never…"

The Righteous Brothers went into LA’s Gold Star studios with Spector in August 1964 to record “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'.” The production was arguably the greatest example of Spector’s “Wall of Sound” technique, which melds all the instruments into a tidal wave of sound. Members of the Wrecking Crew performed the complex orchestration, which included four acoustic guitars, three pianos, three basses and a horn section with two trumpets, two trombones and three saxophones. Gene Page wrote the arrangement and backing vocals were sung by the Blossoms with an assist on the crescendo by a young Cher.

Gold Star engineer Larry Levine told Dan Daley that Spector, who worked for hours on one song, would trick the musicians to achieve the sound he wanted.

Phil used the time to get the musicians tired. When they had run the song down a lot of times, they tended to become subservient to the overall sound and meld together better, instead of any one or two instruments sticking out when the musicians were fresh. By the time the sound was where he wanted it, the track would go down in two or three passes. There were all these psychological operations going on at every session.

Levine said it wasn’t the only trick Spector played. “Lovin’ Feelin'” clocked in at almost four minutes long; too long to garner much radio play in that era of AM radio.

It was running 3:50, and Phil was really worried that no DJs would play it. So I suggested that we mark the record 3:05, and if anyone asked we could say it was a typo. Phil went along with that. We knew the programmers would figure it out after they listened to it. But at least it made sure that it got played once. It's a good thing, too.

“Lovin’ Feelin'” went to #1 on the Billboard charts in February 1965; BMI cited it as the record that received the most radio and television play in the 20th Century. Bobby Hatfield told Gary James that the duo was surprised by the song’s success.

We were surprised for a couple of reasons. “You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'” was originally so slow and too long. It was right there in the middle of the Beatles invasion and it was a ballad and there weren't many ballads that were hits at the time.

“Lovin’ Feelin'” would be the last big commercial success for Phil Spector; when “River Deep, Mountain High” by Ike and Tina Turner barely charted in 1966, Spector abruptly quit the record business at age 25.

Little Richard: "Tutti Frutti"

2012-01-29T20:11:37Z

By 1955, Little Richard Penniman had spent four unproductive years recording for RCA Victor and Peacock Records. On the advice of R&B singer Lloyd Price, best known for songs like “Stagger Lee,” Richard sent a demo of two songs to Art Rupe, owner of Specialty Records.

The songs, “Baby” and “All Night Long,” did not sound like the outrageous Little Richard of rock and roll legend. Instead, the Little Richard of 1955 was a blues singer in the mold of B.B. King and Ray Charles. Though Rupe had his doubts, Specialty A&R man Robert “Bumps” Blackwell liked what he heard and Richard was signed to record a handful of blues and R&B tracks in New Orleans at Cosimo Matassa’s studio.

Though backed by Fats Domino’s band, which included saxophonists Lee Allen and Alvin “Red” Tyler, guitarist Frank Fields and drummer Earl Palmer, Little Richard turned out eight unimpressive sides, including “Lonesome and Blue” and “Kansas City,” by midway into his second day.

During the musicians’ lunch break at a local haunt, the Dew Drop Inn, Richard took over the bandstand and pounded out a song he’d played live for years: “Tutti Frutti.” But his lyrics were unlike the version so well known today: "Tutti Frutti, good booty / If it don’t fit, don’t force it / You can grease it, make it easy."

Richard told Marc Myers how lyrics like “Tutti Frutti, good booty” became “Tutti Frutti, all rooty” (hipster slang for “all right”).

I used to go up on stage in clubs to sing boogie-woogie blues but I'd forget the words. So I made up dirty ones to fill out the songs [laughs]. I was doing then what the rap groups do today. When I recorded "Tutti Frutti" for Specialty, we cleaned up the words [laughs]. We had to. No radio station was going to put those original words on the air.

The song, Richard told David Dalton, had its roots in Macon, Georgia, where Richard worked at the Greyhound bus station.

I was washing dishes at the time. I couldn’t talk back to my boss man. He would bring all these pots back for me to wash, and one day I said, “I’ve got to do something to stop this man bringing back all these pots for me to wash,” and one day I said, “A wop bop alu bop a wop bam boom, take ‘em out!” and that’s what I meant at the time.

When “Bumps” Blackwell heard the ribald song, he thought it could be a hit but realized the lyrics would have to be changed. With only the remainder of the day left, Blackwell asked Dorothy LaBostrie, an aspiring local songwriter, to come up with sanitized lyrics. Glenn C. Altschuler writes that Richard resisted, too embarrassed to sing the song to a woman. LaBostrie, in turn, was also uncomfortable.

With time running out, Blackwell asked Little Richard “if he had a grudge against making money” and reminded LaBostrie that she was twenty-one, had several kids, and needed the income. A few hours later, the lyrics had been changed to “I got a gal named Sue / She knows just what to do / She rocks me to the east / She rocks me to the west / She’s the gal I love best.”

By the time LaBostrie finished the new lyrics, only fifteen minutes of studio time remained, but Richard pounded out “Tutti Frutti” in three takes.

While a sax-packed band pulsated with energy, Little Richard embellished the words of “Tutti Frutti” with screams, squeals, rasps, or sirens, in effect exhorting listeners to get loose and go crazy. The only performer Blackwell knew “who would beat the piano so hard he’d break an eighty-gauge piano string,” Richard accompanied himself for what turned out to be two and a half minutes that made rock ‘n’ roll history.

Robert Palmer describes Richard’s vocal style, which came to define rock and roll.

Even Little Richard’s most elaborate melismas find him hitting each note squarely on the head, and his innovative use of percussive vocal phrasing displayed an extraordinary affinity for drum patterns. If modern jazz, or bebop, began with rhythmic onomatopoeia such as “oop-bop-she-bam,” rock & roll can be said to have begun with the urgent “wop-boppa-lu-bop” that introduces Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti.” Popular music hasn’t been the same since.

Incredibly, writes Altschuler, Art Rupe of Specialty Records didn’t like “Tutti Frutti."

He expected Little Richard to produce the “big band sound expressed in a churchy way,” characteristic of mid-‘50s black rock ‘n’ rollers. With little enthusiasm, Rupe finally agreed to distribute “Tutti Frutti.” Little Richard was also convinced that the song would not be a hit, even with sanitized lyrics.

They miscalculated. Little Richard became an exception to the “rule” that whites would not accept a black shouter. Within weeks, “Tutti Frutti” reached number 2 on the R&B charts. Despite almost no radio airplay, the song also climbed to number 18 on the pop charts.

The Zombies: "Time of the Season"

2012-01-23T00:34:32Z

When the Zombies arrived at London’s Abbey Road studios in August 1967, their creativity was high but their successes were in the past. The British Invasion band had had two innovative hits, 1964’s “She’s Not There,” followed the next year by “Tell Her No.” Keyboardist Rod Argent and bassist Chris White wrote the band’s songs; the group was rounded out by singer Colin Blunstone, guitarist Paul Atkinson and Hugh Grundy on drums.

The singles to follow were a disappointment. Argent told Dorian Lynskey that after signing with CBS Records in 1967, a change was needed.

Our producer (Ken Jones) did a very good job on “She's Not There,” but we felt he mixed some of the balls out of the subsequent singles. Chris and I desperately wanted to produce an album ourselves before we finished so we went to CBS and asked for a small amount of money. I remember being given £1,000, which wasn't very much.

The Zombies arrived on the heels of the Beatles, who had just finished recording Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. For the pioneering LP, the Beatles had demanded more tracks than the studio’s 4-track machines could deliver. So engineers Geoff Emerick and Peter Vince slaved together 4-track machines; when the Zombies arrived, the engineers were busily disconnecting the recorders.

Robin Platts writes that Paul Atkinson was shocked to see the engineers unplugging the patch cables.

We said, “Wait a minute, what are you doing? Plug those back in again.” And they said, “No, no, please. We’ve had six months of this. It’s been driving us crazy. We want to unplug all this stuff and get back to recording normally.”

I think they had six or eight four-track machines lined up against the wall of the control room, all connected by patch cords. So we made them plug them back in again and we used the same technique. So we benefited directly from Sgt. Pepper.

The group was now able to record overdubs, a luxury they’d never enjoyed. The band also took advantage of the instruments left behind by the Beatles, particularly the Mellotron, a keyboard that could mimic violins, cellos, horns and other instruments. Used by the Beatles on "Strawberry Fields Forever," Argent played it for the first time at Abbey Road. On a tight budget, the group was able to avoid hiring an orchestra thanks to the Mellotron’s versatility.

The result was 1968’s Odessey and Oracle, a groundbreaking album whose title was unintentionally misspelled by the cover artist, Terry Quirk. Its highlight: “Time of the Season." The track was written by Argent, who told Lynskey how one of its classic lines came about.

“Time of the Season” was the last thing to be written. I remember thinking it sounded very commercial. One of my favorite records was George Gershwin's “Summertime”; we used to do a version of it when we started out. The words in the verse - "What's your name? Who's your daddy? Is he rich like me?" - were an affectionate nod in that direction.

Though Odessey and Oracle received great reviews, it sold so poorly in the UK that it wasn’t released in America. But Al Kooper, late of Blood Sweat & Tears, was starting a stint as an A&R rep for Columbia Records in 1968. On a trip to England, Kooper picked up a copy of the LP and championed it for release in the States. Columbia took a shot, releasing “Time of the Season” as a single on subsidiary Date Records in April 1968. By then the Zombies had disbanded; Rod Argent and Chris White had formed a new band, Argent.

To everyone’s surprise except Kooper's, “Time of the Season” became a smash in 1969, reaching #3 on the Billboard charts. Kooper’s recollection may help explain the title of his book, “Backstage Passes & Backstabbing Bastards.”

A buncha Zombies crossed the ocean to take photos and get gold records. No one at CBS thanked me for this; I received no gold record or cash recompense. But the Zombies, who knew what really happened, made sure to come to my office and thank me profusely. That was worth it all to me at that time.

Otis Redding: "Try a Little Tenderness"

2012-01-16T03:49:07Z

Few songs are so strongly identified with soul singer Otis Redding as “Try a Little Tenderness.” Though everyone from Three Dog Night and Tom Jones to Michael Bublé and Chris Brown have attempted to put their own stamp on it, no one has been able to improve on Redding’s definitive performance.

But “Try a Little Tenderness” did not originate with Otis. The song was first recorded in 1932, nine years before Redding was born, by the Ray Noble Orchestra with vocalist Val Rosing.

Written by American lyricist Harry M. Woods, who wrote "When the Red, Red Robin (Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along)" and British composers Jimmy Campbell and Reg Connelly, whose best known work is “Show Me The Way To Go Home,” “Try a Little Tenderness” became a standard of the Swing Era, with stars like Bing Crosby waxing popular versions. The journey from crooner Crosby’s smooth take to Redding’s blistering track was a gradual one.

Aretha Franklin recorded the song in 1962, which was heard by Redding’s idol Sam Cooke, who incorporated “Try a Little Tenderness” into his live performances as part of a medley with “For Sentimental Reasons” and “You Send Me.”

At the suggestion of his manager, Phil Walden, Redding recorded “Try a Little Tenderness” in 1966 with the Stax Records house band, Booker T. and the MGs (Booker T. Jones on organ, Steve Cropper on guitar, Donald “Duck” Dunn on bass and drummer Al Jackson, Jr.). Joining the session were arranger Issac Hayes and the horn section of the Mar-Keys.

Rob Bowman writes that production of the classic was helped by a happy accident.

The arrangement was atypical of Stax, rhythm and blues, and pop. Issac Hayes was responsible for much of it, including the three-part, contrapuntal horn line in the intro (inspired by the strings on Sam Cooke’s "A Change Is Gonna Come”) and the cymbal break in the climax (which Hayes later reused on “Theme From Shaft”). The idea of having Al Jackson lay out during the first verse and then come in on the second verse of the song simply tapping quarter-beats on the rim of the snare came about accidentally when the drummer idly tapped along while Redding was running down the tune. Jackson suggested that he actually hold off from using his full kit until two-thirds of the way through the song.

“Al came up with the idea of breaking up the rhythm,” recalls Booker T. “And Otis just took that and ran with it. He really got excited once he found out what Al was going to do on the drums. He realized how he could finish the song. That he could start it like a ballad and finish it full of emotion.”

Recorded in three takes, the track would reach #25 on the Billboard charts. Matthew Greenwald describes how Redding builds the excitement of “Try a Little Tenderness” to a crescendo.

Starting with a down-tempo, soulful melody, the song moves through several melodic changes before culminating into a power and fury that is capped by an absolutely intense modulation on the choruses. It's precisely here that Redding turns to interpreting the song to commanding it. It's positively spellbinding.

The song’s ending, writes Bethlehem Shoals, helped make “Try a Little Tenderness” the highlight of Redding’s live performances.

In Redding's hands, "Try A Little Tenderness" became a celebration, not only of romance, but of honesty and self-discovery. Redding, who isn’t even talking about his woman but gets just as caught up as if he were, makes the song about discovery, not problem-solving. For the narrator, “Tenderness” is an occasion to tear the house of self down.

Or, as it turned out, just to tear the house down. "Try A Little Tenderness" joined "I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)" as Redding's live show-stoppers. The two songs could not have been more different, but they shared the same smoldering, meandering pace, with a grand finale that was both inevitable and open-ended.

Roy Head and the Traits: "Treat Her Right"

2012-01-10T21:17:38Z

In 1965, during the height of the British Invasion, Roy Head and the Traits scored a huge hit with “Treat Her Right.” An electrifying blue-eyed soul singer with dance moves inspired by Joe Tex and Jackie Wilson, Head co-wrote the song with band member Gene Kurtz. Head told Margaret Moser that the song came out of performances at sock hops and dance halls across Texas.

The song was a mistake. I wanted to do "Ooh Poo Pah Doo" by Jessie Hill, and the guitarist played the wrong riffs. So I made up a song about talking to a cow. "If you squeeze her real gentle, she'll give you some cream." It was risqué, but in a hillbilly way. The dance floor packed up…

Gene came to me one night and said, "Why don't we make this song about a woman instead of a cow?" We went over to Gold Star Studios on Broad Street in Houston and did it on the first take, I think. Session cost about $500 to $600.

The band—Johnny Clark on lead guitar, Frank Miller on rhythm guitar, drummer Gerry Gibson, trumpeter Dickie Martin, Doug Shertz on tenor sax and bass man Kurtz—recorded “Treat Her Right” on June 6, 1965. The song, which reached #2 on the charts, was released on Don Robey’s Back Beat Records, a recently-integrated soul label. Rick Kennedy and Randy McNutt write that “Treat Her Right” broke big after Head attended a convention of black disc jockeys against Robey’s advice. Head said Robey believed that if the DJs didn’t know Head was white, there was a better chance they’d play his record.

Don Robey wouldn’t let me do any TV, so nobody knew I was white. The people at the convention weren’t going to let me sing. Then (Robey’s musical director) Joe Scott said, “Oh, put the boy on!”…

They had to push me onto the stage. But then they started playing “Treat Her Right,” and I started doing my flip flops and dancing, and the crowd went nuts. The record became an instant hit because all the DJs heard it.

Head told Mal Thursday (at 32:40) the secret of the song’s success.

We just inked a little old song that had a little catchy rhythmic pattern to it. The whole making of that song was that everybody could play it. It was not real hard, it was pretty simple, it was pretty repetitious.

The song’s ending, Head says, was inspired by a late-night TV ad for Ajax laundry detergent.

Remember the commercial “Stronger Than Dirt”? That’s where we got the tag.

Arthur Conley: "Sweet Soul Music"

2012-01-01T17:06:05Z

By 1965, soul shouter Otis Redding’s career was at a crossroads. Rumored to be unhappy with Stax Records, Redding established Jotis Records with managers Alan and Phil Walden and producer Joe Galkin (the “J” in Jotis). With Jotis, Redding hoped to break and produce new talent.

That year, Redding discovered Arthur Conley, a singer who sounded remarkably like Otis. Redding became Conley’s mentor; the second release on Jotis was Conley’s “I’m a Lonely Stranger,” which Otis produced.

Though the song met with little success (and Jotis soon folded), Redding believed in Conley’s talent. In January 1967 Redding brought Conley to legendary producer Rick Hall’s Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama for his next sessions. Hall told Randy Poe how Conley came to record at Fame.

“Phil Walden was and is my bosom buddy,” says Rick Hall. “He’s one of us Southern rock & roll boys who have a lot in common.” Long before Otis Redding passed away, Walden and Hall had worked out a handshake deal that would serve them both well. “Phil said to me, ‘Look, anything that you can find that don’t have management that you produce, I’d appreciate you sending them to us. And in turn, anyone that I manage that needs a producer, I’ll send them to you.’ To give you an example, Phil sent me Arthur Conley.”

“We brought Arthur Conley to Rick Hall and put him on Fame Records,” says Alan Walden. “I believe he did four sides there—two singles. Rick decided that he didn’t want to continue doing Arthur himself. But Otis believed in Arthur Conley, and he said, ‘I’ll take Arthur Conley and go to Fame Studios with my road band and produce him myself.’ So Otis and Arthur Conley and I went to the studio with Otis’s band. Jimmy Johnson was the engineer. We recorded ‘Sweet Soul Music’—which, of course, became a million-seller.”

Redding and Conley co-wrote “Sweet Soul Music” based on “Yeah Man,” a little-known tune by Otis’ idol, Sam Cooke. Careful listeners will also note that the opening horn intro sounds very similar to Elmer Bernstein’s score for “The Magnificent Seven,” more popularly known as the Marlboro cigarette theme.

But what makes the track memorable are the name-checks of the great soul artists of the era. Stewart Mason writes that the song “cheerleads for Stax/Volt Records and the Muscle Shoals sound.”

So what makes this song different?...

It's the sense of a scene celebrating itself, for no other reason than they know that they're doing good work, music that will last for years, and they want to take a moment (or two minutes and 20 seconds) to give themselves a pat on the back. If any group of musicians deserved a little burst of self-approbation, it's these guys.

The song celebrates "Going to a Go-Go" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, "Love Is a Hurtin' Thing" by Lou Rawls, "Hold On, I'm Comin' " by Sam and Dave, "Mustang Sally" by Wilson Pickett and Redding’s own "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song).” James Brown is crowned “King of them all.”

The funky sound of “Sweet Soul Music” was no accident. The Fame rhythm section, later immortalized by Lynyrd Skynyrd in “Sweet Home Alabama” as “the Swampers,” would become one of the hottest house bands in recording history. By 1967, the band would include drummer Roger Hawkins, gutarist Jimmy Johnson, keyboard player Barry Beckett, and Albert “Junior” Lowe on bass.

“Sweet Soul Music” would rise to #2 on the Billboard charts in 1967. Though Conley never enjoyed comparable success again, the song remains a reminder of a golden age in soul music.

The Royal Teens: "Short Shorts"

2011-12-27T18:57:53Z

The hard rocking sound of “Short Shorts” by the Royal Teens burst through transistor radios in 1958, an alternative to the doo wop sound then so popular. The New Jersey group really were teenagers; some barely teens at that.

When they recorded “Short Shorts,” saxophonist Billy Crandall was 14 years old, writer and pianist Bob Gaudio was 15, 16-year-old Billy Dalton played guitar and drummer Tom Austin was the oldest at 17.

Signed to the small independent Power Records, the group found little success with their first two singles. At New York’s Bell Sound studios to cut two more songs, the band’s producer decided to use some unused time to record an instrumental often used during the band’s stage act.

The Royal Teens site tells how the lyrics for the jam were written one afternoon in 1957.

Gaudio and Austin were driving up Washington Avenue in Bergenfield, New Jersey in Tom Austin's red and white 1957 Ford Fairlane 500, trying to figure out what to call the latest song they had written…

Just then, two girls came strutting out of Luhmann's (the local teenage sweet shop) wearing cutoff jeans that were cut so short they were almost illegal. Gaudio and Austin both looked at each other and instantly knew that their new song would forever be called "SHORT SHORTS."

Most memorable, perhaps, is the song’s opening. Austin provided the wolf whistle, which Dalton mimicked on guitar. Crandall contributed, “Man, dig those crazy chicks!” Diana Lee, a young singer who happened to be in the studio, was assigned a few lines. The result would become a #3 hit.

Bruce Eder describes what made the track so catchy.

The record, often perceived as one of the dumbest of novelty tunes, is actually better than most people remember it, and has everything a great rock & roll song needs to transcend its simplicity -- the sax part is thick with places for the soloist to have fun, there's a hot guitar break, and the beat is relentless and intoxicating, especially as punctuated by the honking sax, a song you can laugh at, dance to, and play variations on for five minutes or more.

Bob Gaudio would go on to join and write many of the hits of the Four Seasons. Despite Al Kooper (of Blues Project and Blood Sweat & Tears fame) joining the band in 1959, the Royal Teens never again achieved the chart success of “Short Shorts.” But the band did get a jump start in the 1980s from the song’s use in a series of Nair commercials; today “Short Shorts” is featured in Jersey Boys, the Broadway show based on the career of Gaudio and the Four Seasons.

The Johnny Otis Show: "Willie and the Hand Jive"

2011-12-18T18:26:58Z

Johnny Otis earned the title “Godfather of Rhythm and Blues” through decades of work as record producer, bandleader, DJ, talent scout, label owner and TV host. But most know Otis for his 1958 Top Ten hit, “Willie and the Hand Jive.”

Otis was born Ioannis Alexandres Veliotes to Greek-American parents in Vallejo, California. His father owned a grocery in the black section of town and Johnny's love of the community’s culture and music led him to live as a black man. He wrote, “As a kid I decided that if our society dictated that one had to be black or white, I would be black.”

Taking the blacker-sounding name “Otis,” the young musician found that with his dark Greek complexion and hipster persona, he was accepted into the black community. Otis told J.J. Perry that he blended easily with black musicians.

I was just another musician in that pool. And we played music, there wasn't anything special about that. They accepted me as black, and there were plenty of black players who were much whiter looking than myself—Willie Smith, Earl Warren.   I didn't try to pass, it was just a foregone conclusion that “he's black,” nobody questioned that. Because it was against the law, why would we do that?

Otis got his start during the Big Band era of the 1940s, playing drums with swing orchestras. As the big bands' popularity diminished, Otis scaled down his orchestra and helped pioneer what would become rhythm and blues. He had an eye for talent, discovering future R&B greats Etta James, Jackie Wilson, Hank Ballard and Little Willie John.

As The Johnny Otis Show, Otis toured with a troupe of performers that was a forerunner of the rock and roll and soul revues of the 1960s. History of Rock describes their wild performances.

Otis' stage shows were something else. They would open with him doing a solo on the drums and vibes that would last ten minutes before the rest of the band would come on stage. There were always female vocalists (Little Esther, Willie Mae Thornton, and Marie Adams) that could really shout the blues. They would then be followed by a male vocalist (Mel Walker) who was smooth with the ballads. The show climaxed with a vocal group (the Robins) followed by a number or two by the Otis band with Otis frantically switching back and forth from the drums and vibes.

Otis’ most memorable song was inspired by rock pioneer Bo Diddley, whose “Bo Diddley beat” has been the core of countless hits; Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away,” Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ “Mickey’s Monkey” and “Marie’s the Name” by Elvis Presley are just a few.

In creating the sound of “Hand Jive,” Otis took various elements: the sounds of a chain gang he heard while touring in the early 1950s; the Diddley beat—three strokes/rest/two strokes; and the infectious handclaps of the 1952 song “Hambone,” recorded by Red Saunders and the Hambone Kids (and later hilariously adapted by kids' show host Sandy Becker).

The roots of “Hand Jive” go back even further, writes David Cranstoun Welch.

The Hand Jive… involved an intricate pattern of handclaps on various parts of the body which follow and imitate the percussion instruments. Fundamentally, it was a more refined version of the schoolyard game of Pat-a-cake.

The Hand Jive involved thigh slapping, cross-wrist slapping, fist pounding, elbow touching and a move known as the hitch hike. The Hand Jive had its roots in much earlier forms of African American musical expression like the Juba Dance or the “hambone,” both known by the earlier term of “Pattin' Juba,” which itself derives from the African “Giouba.”

George Lipsitz writes that the lyrics of “Willie and the Hand Jive” came to Otis not from Africa, but from England.

While scouting British rock ‘n’ roll shows in anticipation of a Johnny Otis tour in England, (promoter) Hal Zeiger noticed that the theaters there did not allow dancing in the aisles. Teenagers at rhythm and blues and rock ‘n’ roll shows stood at their seats and let their hands do the “dancing,” waving them in synchronized motions not too dissimilar from the “eephing” and “hambone” clapping and patting that accompanied the Bo Diddley Beat on street corners throughout the United States. Johnny wrote a song about a “cat named way-out Willie” who did the “hand jive.”

At live shows, Marie Adams and the Three Tons of Joy would demonstrate the movements of the hand jive. With fists closed, they would place one hand over the other and “clap” them together to the beat of the song. Then, after reversing hands, they would extend the fingers of their hands and roll their arms like a football official signaling a penalty for illegal motion.

With the scorching guitar of Jimmy Nolen, Earl Palmer’s relentless drumming and Otis’ vocals, “Willie and the Hand Jive” became a 1958 dance craze and a huge crossover hit for Johnny Otis.

The Drifters: "White Christmas"

2011-12-13T21:16:38Z

When composer Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas” in 1941, he insisted that the superstar of the day, crooner Bing Crosby, be the first to record it. Crosby’s version, recorded for Decca on May 29, 1942, became the best-selling record of all time. But is it the best version of the song of wishing to be home for the holidays?

Facts of how and where Berlin wrote the song are murky, with accounts that he may have written it at one of his homes in New York or Beverly Hills; one account has the song composed poolside at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona.

Though written in 1940, the song made its first appearance in the 1942 movie Holiday Inn. As troops left home in the shadow of World War II, the song’s tale of longing to be home for Christmas became more poignant… and ensured its success.

Second Hand Songs lists more than a hundred cover versions of “White Christmas,” from country (Chet Atkins) to gospel (Mahalia Jackson) to rock (Elvis Presley) to modern R&B (Babyface). Even Twisted Sister recorded the song. But for many, the Drifters’ 1954 version remains the gold standard.

The Drifters of the early 1950s was a group that had scored hits on the rhythm & blues charts like “Money Honey” and “Honey Love.” Built around high tenor Clyde McPhatter, who had just left Billy Ward and the Dominoes, the group included Bill Pinkney, brothers Andrew and Gerhart Thrasher and Willie Ferbie.

McPhatter was a revolutionary figure, fusing his gospel style with the R&B of the era to create the template for soul music. But McPhatter, singing falsetto, shared lead vocal duties on "White Christmas" with bass man Bill Pinkney, resulting in a unique and memorable sound. But it would be years before the song would even be heard by most of America... white America.

In the early 1950s, racism prevented black groups like the Drifters from getting airplay on radio stations with white audiences. When “White Christmas” was released, it reached number 2 on Billboard’s R&B chart, but only made number 80 on the pop charts. The song was rarely heard until used in the 1990 film Home Alone, lip-synched by a young Macauley Culkin, who sings into a comb as he applies his father’s after shave.

The song’s appearance in that hit movie (and subsequently in The Santa Clause) made the Drifters’ version a staple on rock, pop and country stations every Christmas season. It even became a popular Internet cartoon by animator Joshua Held. Ironically, the song’s release signaled the end to the first chapter of the Drifters’ story.

Clyde McPhatter was drafted into the Army soon after the song's release and thanks to its success, Atlantic Records decided to make McPhatter a solo act. McPhatter followed with two big hits, "A Lover's Question" and “Lover Please,” but his success was soon eclipsed by the soul singers he had inspired. McPhatter died in 1972.

What happened to Bill Pinkney and the other Drifters is part of rock history. In 1958, Drifters’ manager George Treadwell fired the entire group at the Apollo theater, replacing them overnight with the members of the Crowns. These “new” Drifters – Ben E. King, Charlie Thomas, Doc Green and Elsbeary Hobbs – and their successors went on to become one of the most popular singing groups in history, recording iconic hits like “There Goes my Baby,” “Save the Last Dance for Me,” “Under the Boardwalk,” and “Up on the Roof.”

The last of the original Drifters, Bill Pinkney, continued to record and perform with his group until his death in 2007.

Gerry Rafferty: "Baker Street"

2011-12-10T20:26:24Z

Scottish singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty abhorred the recording industry. His first success as a member of Stealers Wheel, 1972’s “Stuck in the Middle with You,” was a parody of Bob Dylan’s style that poked fun at an industry cocktail party.

Rafferty’s opinion was reinforced by royalties that disappeared and an onerous management contract that took three years to unravel after Stealers Wheel dissolved.

Unable to release any new material until his legal issues were resolved, Rafferty returned to Scotland, where he continued to write. Rafferty told Martin Chilton that the legal wrangling inspired what would become his signature song.

Everybody was suing each other, so I spent a lot of time on the overnight train from Glasgow to London for meetings with lawyers. I knew a guy who lived in a little flat off Baker Street. We'd sit and chat or play guitar there through the night.

“Baker Street” reached number two on the Billboard charts in 1978. The resolution of Rafferty’s legal troubles is reflected in the song’s final verse: “When you wake up it's a new morning/The sun is shining, it's a new morning/You're going, you're going home.”

“Baker Street” was co-produced by Hugh Murphy and Rafferty for the solo album City to City. Perhaps most memorable is its melancholy saxophone solo, which Rafferty has called “a bit of magic.” The solo has been credited with an uptick in saxophone sales and a renewed use of the instrument in pop music.

Rafferty told Colin Irwin that he’d written the line but wasn’t sure what instrument should play it.

When I wrote the song I saw that bit as an instrumental part but I didn’t know what. We tried electric guitar but it sounded weak, and we tried other things and I think it was Hugh Murphy’s suggestion that we tried saxophone. We phoned Pete Zorn to do it, but he said his lip had gone and he couldn’t do it, but he gave us the names of five or six other people.

We hadn’t heard of any of them, but one of the names was Raphael Ravenscroft so Hugh said with a name like that we’ll try him! So he turned up with this real beat up old saxophone; it was falling apart with the keys falling off and gaffer tape everywhere, but because Raph plays really, really hard it was just the right sound for the track. And the rest is history.

Despite Rafferty’s second ride to the top with “Baker Street” and other great tunes like "Get It Right Next Time" and "Right Down the Line," he continued to shun the star system, rarely touring or granting interviews. Rafferty told Chilton that he hated the celebrity that came with success.

Bob Dylan once said that fame was a curse. I think that, from an early stage in my career, I was aware there were many, many pitfalls of so-called celebrity. Once you have entered into that world you can no longer be the observer in life and I have always valued that highly. You become the observed.

The Beach Boys: "Surfin' USA"

2011-12-04T17:49:10Z

With their 1963 hit “Surfin’ USA,” the Beach Boys made surfing more than just a Southern California sport; it represented a break from the staid 1950s for baby boomers coming of age.

Jim Miller writes that though the Beach Boys were not the first to celebrate catching a wave, they did seize upon something unique.

In surfing, the Beach Boys had hit upon a potent image. Leisure, mobility and privacy—it was the suburban myth transported to the Pacific Ocean, but rendered heroic. There had been “surf bands” (such as Dick Dale’s) in California before the Beach Boys, but these bands played a homogeneous brand of instrumental rock, crossed with rhythm & blues. The Beach Boys, with their neatly trimmed harmonies, were projecting a world view…

While the blanched vocals harked back to the Four Preps, the guitars had the crude drive of a high school band. Coming in the midst of teen idols, Brill Building pop and seductive girl groups, the first Beach Boys hits managed to sound raunchy and vital, yet clean, somehow safe.

Keith Badman cites a radio interview in which Brian Wilson reveals his inspiration for the Beach Boys’ first Top Ten hit was a 1958 Chuck Berry tune.

I was going with a girl called Judy Bowles, and her brother Jimmy was a surfer. He knew all the [surfing] spots. I started humming the melody to “Sweet Little Sixteen” and I got fascinated with the fact of doing it, and I thought to myself “God! What about trying to put surf lyrics to ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’s’ melody?” The concept was about “They are doing this in this city, and they’re doing that in that city.” So I said to Jimmy, “Hey, Jimmy, I want to do a song mentioning all the surf spots.” So he gave me a list.

Bowles’ list was extensive; no less than 16 surf locations were included in the song, from the famous (San Diego’s Swami’s Beach and Hawaii’s Waimea Bay) to in-spots like Haggerty’s in California. Australia’s Narrabeen even made the cut.

The Beach Boys went into Hollywood’s Western Recorders in January 1963 to cut “Surfin’ USA” with Mike Love performing lead vocals. Peter Ames Carlin writes that during the sessions, Brian introduced a recording technique that would become a Beach Boys trademark.

(H)e figured out that double-tracking the vocals—recording them twice, the singers matching their previous performance as closely as possible, and then superimposing the tapes into one track—would give the harmonies a fullness and brightness that made them leap out of the speakers…

(V)ocal double-tracking would become a Beach Boys trademark. So too would his vocal arrangements, elaborate structures of melody and counterpoint that washed across the tracks.

Released in March 1963,"Surfin' USA" failed to credit Chuck Berry as co-writer; while the lyrics were different, the rhythm and melody were unmistakably borrowed from “Sweet Little Sixteen.”

Chess Records’ ARC Music, Berry’s publisher, noticed the similarities. Marshall Chess told Bruce Pegg that he threatened to sue.

It was total infringement. Had Brian Wilson’s lawyers come to Chuck and said “We’re doing this with our lyrics; let’s got 50/50 on the copyright,” it probably wouldn’t have happened. But Brian Wilson tried to steal the song, so it became a copyright infringement.

The Beach Boys’ publisher settled the case out of court. Brian's father Murry Wilson, the band's manager, turned the full copyright over to Berry without telling Brian.

Berry made “Sweet Little Sixteen” a universal teen anthem by referencing cities across the nation. The Beach Boys did the same (“If everybody had an ocean across the USA…”). The rapid-fire list of surfing spots made its listeners, even the land-locked, believe they were part of the surfer set.

Before the Ramones, the Rivieras: "California Sun"

2011-11-26T03:02:41Z

The surf music of the Beach Boys made California the dream destination of young people in the 1960s. But not all of the music was produced on the West Coast. One of the era’s signature songs, “California Sun,” was first recorded in 1961 by New Orleans R&B singer Joe Jones, who is known for his Top Ten hit, “You Talk Too Much.”

Written by Henry Glover (with Roulette Records president Morris Levy credited as co-writer), “California Sun” was recorded by Jones in a New Orleans R&B style backed by a honking horn section. “California Sun” didn’t succeed as a follow-up to “You Talk Too Much,” only reaching number 89 on the charts. But the song did achieve some popularity in South Bend, Indiana, where high school classmates performed it with their group, the Playmates.

The Playmates were bassist Doug Gean, lead singer and guitarist Marty “Bo” Fortson, guitarist Joe Pennell, drummer Paul Dennert and Otto Nuss on organ. When they learned that the Playmates name was already taken by a 50s group that had had a hit with “Beep Beep,” they became the Rivieras. Instead of the French coastline, they were named for the stylish Buick Riviera.

The Rivieras went into Chicago’s Columbia Recording Studios in 1963 and cut “California Sun” in three takes, replacing Jones’ horn section with a guitar and organ trading riffs. The track was supposed to be the B-side to “Played On,” which was also recorded at the session.

But WLS DJ Art Roberts recognized the potential of “California Sun” and it became the A-side. Roberts’ exposure of the song gained it national attention, reaching number 5 on the Billboard charts in 1964.

However, Fortson and Pennell never enjoyed the fruits of the song’s success; they left the group to join the Marine Corps shortly after the recording session.

The song was rarely out of the public’s consciousness; a staple of oldies radio, it was used in California tourism commercials and movies like Good Morning, Vietnam and Oliver Stone’s The Doors.

But the mid-seventies brought the song a new life. Enter the Ramones, the group considered by many to be the first punk rock band. The group would record surf rock songs like “Surfin’ Bird” and “Rockaway Beach” and in 1977 covered “California Sun” for their LP Leave Home. Steve Waksman writes that the Ramones built on the Rivieras’ track, taking it to another dimension.

(T)he Ramones leave the original lyric intact and add little in the way of vocal elaboration. They enact a pronounced transformation on the sound of the song, however. From the opening bars, “California Sun” becomes subject to the Ramones’ distinctive brand of musical minimalism paired with sonic excess. The chords go by in a blur of distortion; the drums and bass kick at seemingly twice the speed of the Rivieras…

(T)he Ramones reduce the song to its component parts and then supersaturate those parts to suit their own aesthetic ends.

John Fogerty: "Centerfield"

2011-11-22T02:47:09Z

In the mid-1980s, John Fogerty found himself at a creative dead end. His most productive period had been from 1968 to 1972, when he and his band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, charted 9 Top Ten singles, including rock anthems like "Proud Mary."

But 1972 saw the acrimonious break-up of the group and Fogerty claimed he lost millions of dollars to money managers. Two solo albums earned lukewarm sales and reviews. Fogerty told Jay Cocks that creatively, he had been bankrupted.

My creative switches had kind of gone off. There was an anvil over my head. I would owe music for the rest of my life. Writing, the music, my understanding of “arrange” and “produce” were gone. But I told myself that when I got good enough musically, it would come back. I knew that if I kept working on the music, not getting somebody else to play bass or anything for me, that if I somehow understood the music again the way I did in the beginning, when it was so personal, when I did it with my own two hands. I knew that somehow each of the motions would help release me.

Nine years would pass before a new album would emerge. Fogerty worked daily for months at his studio in El Cerrito, California, hoping to reignite his spark. Fogerty told Sean Daly that he looked to his childhood for inspiration.

The first book I can remember reading was called Lou Gehrig: Boy of the Sand Lots. I think I was in the third grade…

I got it in my mind when I was going to make (the album Centerfield) that it was a comeback of sorts and decided, well, What is really important to you? I have always felt my whole life that springtime and spring training is the most hopeful time. It's almost a metaphor for life. Everything is brand new, you're going to start all over. Everybody is in first place on Opening Day. So I tried to get that sense of hopefulness.

1985’s "Centerfield" became the title track of Fogerty’s triumphant comeback album on which he played all the instruments. The title, he told the Associated Press, grew out of the stories his father had told him about the legendary Bronx Bombers.

I remember that for me, the center of the universe was center field at Yankee Stadium. This is when I was a little boy. Through my own lore, the way I was kind of filtering this faraway dream, it seemed that was the coolest place. The No. 1 guy seemed to be a center fielder, and he seemed to play in Yankee Stadium.

The inspiration for the song’s most memorable line came to Fogerty during a tense moment during a ball game.

There'd be some guy out there, maybe a pitcher, or somebody else maybe not doing so well. And there'd be like a rookie, sitting on the bench, and I would transform me into that guy. I would always yell at the TV, “Put me in coach, put me in!”

The attentive listener will hear references to baseball greats Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Ty Cobb and the “Brown Eyed Handsome Man” of the Chuck Berry song, Jackie Robinson.

The Centerfield LP went to number one, its title track a between-innings staple at ballparks across the country. But Fogerty says its meaning is about more than the national pastime.

It is about baseball, but it is also a metaphor about getting yourself motivated, about facing the challenge of one thing or another...

About getting yourself all ready, whatever is necessary for the job.

The Grass Roots: "Let's Live for Today"

2011-11-18T02:17:44Z

The Grass Roots was a band created by producers P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, the songwriters behind "Eve of Destruction" and "Secret Agent Man." The two Los Angeles composers were the first to record under the Grass Roots name; when they began to receive some notice, they had to quickly assemble a touring group.

A San Francisco band, the Bedouins, was recruited and became the Grass Roots for a few months. After a falling-out with Sloan and Barri, an LA band named the 13th Floor became the new Grass Roots. That group—guitarists Creed Bratton and Warren Entner, drummer Rick Coonce, and bassist Kenny Fukomoto (later replaced by lead vocalist Rob Grill)—was rarely off the charts between 1967 and 1972, selling twenty million records.

The Grass Roots’ biggest success would be 1967’s “Let’s Live for Today,” a Top Ten million seller that Bruce Eder called “one of the most powerful songs and records to come out of the 1960s.”

As much as any single of the decade, it defines a mood and an era in emotionally and musically vivid terms…

(W)here the single really struck a resonant chord was among men serving in Vietnam; the song's serious emotional content seemed to overlay perfectly with the sense of uncertainty afflicting most of those in combat; parts of the lyric could have echoed sentiments in any number of letters home, words said on last dates, and thoughts directed to deeply missed wives and girlfriends.

While the group is strongly indentified with “Let’s Live for Today,” the song made a circuitous journey before the Grass Roots recorded it. Its origin was as an Italian pop tune released by an ex-pat British band.

By 1966, the Rokes had left the UK for Italy, where they had a hit with “Piangi con Me” (“Cry with Me”), co-written by singer and guitarist Shel Shapiro.

A few months later, the Rokes recorded an English version of their hit, titled “Passing Thru Grey.” The new track didn’t impress their publisher, Dick James Music. Staff composer Michael Julien was assigned the rewrite. The result: “Let’s Live for Today.”

The Rokes’ “Let’s Live for Today,” meant for immediate release in the UK, was instead shelved; a British group, the Living Daylights, was the first to release the new version, albeit with little chart success.

In May 1967, the Grass Roots released their much more energetic version, featuring a passionate Rob Grill vocal. The track would reach number 8 on the Billboard charts; today “Let’s Live for Today” is a staple of classic rock radio.

Billy Joel: "Allentown"

2011-11-10T19:36:28Z

By the 1980s, the steel industry of Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley had been in decline for more than a decade. Bethlehem Steel, one of the country’s largest steel producers, was shedding workers each year; it would eventually close its doors in 2003.

When singer-songwriter Billy Joel began touring in 1971, his fans in cities like Bethlehem and nearby Allentown were what Joel would call his “bread and butter.” Over the years, Joel saw how the area had been devastated by the loss of jobs.

By 1982, Joel was a superstar, mixing piano-driven ballads with flat-out rockers like “It’s Still Rock And Roll To Me,” his first number one single. That year Joel released the album he would call his favorite, The Nylon Curtain. Influenced by the songwriting style of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, the LP was a hit with critics and fans. Its opening track: “Allentown.”

Joel told Len Righi that the effect of the steel industry's decline inspired him to write “Allentown.”

It's a song about being out of work, and people may not put that together with rock stars. But rock stars aren't born, they're made, and they start out being musicians. Musicians know all about unemployment. You're unemployed a lot, and I think there's a great deal of empathy between musicians and people who are out of work...

To be fair, I was writing about the region, not necessarily Allentown itself. I talk about "they've taken all the coal from the ground." There's no coal in that area, but there is coal mining in Pennsylvania. I used Allentown as a metaphor for the region.

In fact, the song was originally about neither Bethlehem nor Allentown. Joel came up with the chord progressions for “Allentown” a decade earlier but struggled with the lyrics. The song, Joel told James Lipton (at 01:19:00), was based on his Long Island, NY hometown.

I wanted to write kind of a Woody Guthrie kind of song. It took years to come up with “Allentown.” It was originally titled “Levittown.” And I tried to write a song about Levittown. So it goes:

Well we're living here in Levittown / And there's really not much goin’ down / And I don't see much when I look around / The trees are green, the dirt is brown / And I’m living here in Levittown

Then in 1982 when the Rust Belt kicked into high gear and the steel industry took a big dump, we played in Allentown and I said, “Allentown. Allentown. That’s an American name, it’s like Jimmytown, Bobbytown, Tommytown.”

“Allentown” reached number 17 on the Billboard charts and became a blue-collar anthem. Joel said it was unusual for one of his songs to germinate for years before taking shape.

Usually when I'm writing, I try to write fairly quickly. If a song sits around too long, it starts to take on a stink. Most of my songs are written in one sitting, two sittings maybe. Those are the ones I like the best, anyway.

Them: "Gloria"

2011-11-06T19:24:28Z

In 1964, the band Them were favorites at the Maritime Hotel in their native Belfast, Northern Ireland. Fronted by 19-year-old Van Morrison, the group would perform an ad-libbed 20-minute version of a song Morrison wrote the year before: “Gloria.”

Signed by Decca Records on the strength of their appearances at the Maritime, Them (named after the 1954 sci-fi flick) went into the label’s West London studio on July 5, 1964 to record 7 songs. The standout was “Gloria,” which would become a rock anthem that long outlived the band.

Legendary producer Dick Rowe, wary of the band’s inexperience, added session musicians Jimmy Page (guitar), Arthur Greenslade (organ) and drummer Bobby Graham.

Bill Janovitz explains that the appeal of “Gloria” lies in its simplicity.

Them never varies from the three chords, utilizing only dynamic changes to heighten the tension. The arrangement features the famous syncopated staccato rhythmic 6/4 pushes. Jim Parker's swinging guitar lick, a droning organ from Pete Bardens, and "Bolero"-meets-"Peter Gunn Theme" bass line from Alan Henderson drive the song along until overdubbed timbales or tom-tom drums from John Starks explode and the song finishes in an orgasmic crescendo.

But most memorable is the growling, sneering vocal delivered by Van Morrison. Though the Gloria in the lyric is his girlfriend, Morrison reportedly used the name of a favorite cousin, Gloria Gordon, who’d died of cancer in 1961.

Despite its raw energy, Decca decided to release “Gloria” as the B-side to “Baby Please Don’t Go,” a blues standard first recorded by Big Joe Williams in 1935. Erik Hage explains the curious decision.

With the advantage of hindsight, it might seem strange that “Gloria” ended up the B-side, while the blues cover “Baby Please Don’t Go” was the featured A-side. But the Animals had just scored a monstrous hit with “House of the Rising Sun,” a variation of an old blues ballad, and the Stones had just shot up the charts with an inspired version of Willie Dixon’s blues number “Little Red Rooster,” which featured some searing slide guitar from Brian Jones. For the moment, young U.K. pop bands recording blues singles was the thing on the pop charts.

Further stifling the track’s chart success was the decision by Chicago radio station WLS and others to ban “Gloria” for its lyric, “She comes to my room / Then she makes me feel all right.”

Enter the Shadows of Knight, a suburban Chicago garage band clever enough to change the offending line to “She calls out my name.” Their December 1965 release of “Gloria” shot up the charts, reaching number 10. Lead singer Jim Sohns told Gary James that the success of his group's version was due to a slight change they'd made.

It's three chords, E, D, A and we added the open strum, which is actually a fourth chord, to not make the opening as hesitated as theirs was. That was one of the reasons ours was a hit and theirs was a B-side. It became super rhythmic, danceable.

The Shadows of Knight would never come close to another success like “Gloria.” Them eventually made the Top 40 with “Here Comes the Night” and “Mystic Eyes,” but dissolved shortly after Morrison left to pursue a solo career in 1966.

The Box Tops: "The Letter"

2011-11-01T18:17:03Z

When it comes to '60s blue-eyed soul, it’s hard to top the Righteous Brothers and the Rascals. But in 1967, the Box Tops blasted onto the scene with “The Letter,” a number one hit that would sell 4 million copies.

The band had been together four years before they were discovered by Memphis disc jockey Ray Banks, who asked Chips Moman of American Sound Studio to give them a tryout. Moman passed the group on to his assistant Dan Penn, who was anxious to produce his own records.

Penn was surprised to meet the band’s lead singer, Alex Chilton, who was only sixteen when the Box Tops arrived at American Sound one Saturday morning in 1967. “The Letter” was written by Wayne Carson Thompson, who’d recorded a demo that Penn liked. Penn told Randy McNutt that despite his age, Chilton didn’t require much guidance delivering the lead vocals.

He was a little timid. I gave him a couple of small lessons in screaming. I said, “Now, don’t say airplane. Say aer-o-plane.” It just came to me. Anyway, from that moment on, he picked it up, exactly as I had in mind, maybe even better. I hadn’t even paid any attention to how good he sang because I was busy trying to put the band together. I had a bunch of greenhorns who’d never cut a record, including me.

Those “greenhorns”—drummer Danny Smythe, guitarists Gary Talley and John Evans and bassist Bill Cunningham—were joined by Chilton after the band had become popular locally as the Devilles. The band became the Box Tops to avoid confusion with another Devilles group. Because of their lack of experience, Penn said he relied heavily on Thompson’s recording as a guide for the group’s track.

I borrowed everything from Wayne Thompson’s original demo—drums, bass, guitar. Even that good guitar lick. I added an organ with an “I’m a Believer” lick. I liked that kind of groove. We cut it all on the studio’s three-track Ampex, a great little recording machine.

Arranger Mike Leach contributed strings and horns and Penn added the roar of a jet takeoff, lifted from a sound effects record, to close the record. Penn said Moman liked the track but wanted to lose the plane.

(H)is words were, “Dan, I think you got yourself a pretty good little record there if you’ll take the airplane sound off at the beginning.” I said, “Give me that razor blade right there.” He said, “Why?” I said, “I’ll cut this damn tape up! The airplane stays on it, or we don’t have a record.” He said, “Oh, man, I was just suggesting. It’s your record.”

“The Letter” would establish the Box Tops as stars. Chilton explained to Russell Hall what differentiated the Box Tops’ music from the soul sound of nearby Stax Records.

Back then I was a big fan of Stax records, and that kind of thing. Somehow the straight-ahead soul music was a little more appealing to me than what we were up to in the Box Tops…

Dan Penn’s version of soul music is something I came to appreciate later on… It was pretty much a situation where everything had to be done his way. Of course, being a minor at the time, and not wanting to get sent back to school, I pretty much had to do what I was told. But that wasn’t necessarily what I wanted to be doing.

Roben Jones explains the song’s popularity.

It could have personal significance for couples en route over long distances to be married, and for lovers reuniting after a quarrel. It was perfectly possible for a listener to read into the song his or her own personality and experience.

Thanks to four weeks at the top of the charts, “The Letter” became the #1 hit of 1967. Joe Cocker reached the Top Ten with his bluesy version in 1970; it would be the most successful of more than 200 covers of the song.

Chess Records and the Birth of Rock

2011-10-30T20:18:28Z

Chicago's Leonard and Phil Chess were the old school record men who founded Chess Records in the 1940s. The Guardian looks back at the Chess brothers and their impact on rock, doo wop, and the blues.

The brothers were not musical visionaries; they were small-time "indie" record men making a quick buck from the poorest, least respected people in America. But their cheaply recorded, bread-and-butter discs of local street musicians and bar bands still sound as fresh today as they did 60 years ago. By failing to be timely, they succeeded in being timeless.

Chess is best known for blues musicians Muddy Waters and Little Walter, but rock pioneers like Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Ike Turner also spent time at the label. Their influence spread to England.

In the UK, there was far less African American music to choose from, so the Chess albums were coveted keys to a mysterious, faraway world. A bright 18-year-old named Mick Jagger ordered them directly from Chicago, and it was because he had a couple under his arm that he was approached by an erstwhile schoolmate named Keith Richards.

It was Waters' song Rollin' Stone that inspired Mick and Keith to adopt the name for their group.

Marshall Chess, son of Leonard Chess, told Phil Lewis that his father was surprised the Chess sound made it to the UK in the early 1960s.

Groups like The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds and The Kinks all started doing Chess material and talking about Chess artists. The Stones were pushing Bo Diddley and Howlin’ Wolf; The Yardbirds were pushing Sonny Boy Williamson... Plus there were shows like "Ready Steady Go," who’d bring the Chess artists over and put them on television in England... So yeah, I definitely credit the English with really helping break the legacy of Chess to a whole new audience.

Chess said a large part of the label's importance is due to Chuck Berry's role in the birth of rock and roll.

When Carl Sagan - the famous astronomer - sent Voyager 1 and 2 into outer space to contact aliens, they put a disc on the satellite. And that disc contained Shakespeare, Mozart, Beethoven - and "Johnny B Goode"! And I often told my children, when they were very young, "Your grandfather produced a record that’s representing the earth to ALIENS!"... Now, what could be better than THAT?!”