1967: the previews

Here are all the songs I posted leading up to the 1967 a-go-go party, held on September 2nd, 2017.

1967 PREVIEW JAM #1: "San Francisco"

We're two weeks out from this lil shindig! (And, I gotta say, the vocal harmony rehearsals are sounding RIGHTEOUS)

Every day until party-time, I'm gonna share a classic 1967 jam to help get you in the groove. Here's an obvious place to begin: pretty much the unofficial anthem of the Summer of Love, and a not insignificant factor in encouraging hordes "gentle people" to congregate in the bay area over the course of the year...

It was written by John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas (who are from LA, by the way), and performed by Scott McKenzie, whose other main claim to fame is having written the Beach Boys' "Kokomo," twenty years later.

Apparently it was the second biggest-selling 1967 single worldwide – 7 million copies! (the Bee Gees' 'answer song' "Massachussetts" was the fourth) – which means, interestingly, that it was a substantially bigger hit outside of the US (where it only reached #4; and #48 on the year-end chart.)

Between the glockenspiel and the obligatory sitar, it does a decent job of summing up the '67 pop zeitgeist too (just missing some vocal harmonies.) Killer bridge too!

1967 PREVIEW JAM #2: "So You Want To Be A Rock'n'Roll Star"

By the way, none of the songs I'm sharing here will be performed by the band at the party... no spoilers – you'll just have to come and find out what made the setlist.

I did initially hope we'd do this one – for some reason, it's one of the first things I thought of when I concocted this whole crazy idea. Funny thing is that it's not really a rock'n'roll song at all – more like a slightly psychedelic Latin number. Not too many pop/rock songs feature a guiro. The trumpet is played by South Africa's Hugh Masakela, whose big hit "Grazin' in the Grass" wouldn't come out until '68.

I've always loved the lyrics, whose utterly deadpan sarcasm regarding the commodification of rock'n'roll (complete with hordes of screaming fangirls) makes an interesting juxtaposition with the song's fairly progressive, hard-driving, decidedly non-cookie-cutter music.

It was apparently inspired by the Monkees, who had only arrived on the fast-moving scene a few months earlier. (Their TV show debuted in September '66; their first LP came out in October; their second dropped on January 9th – the same day as this song!; by the end of the year they'd become a fully autonomous band and release two more albums.) But it also feels a bit self-mockingly autobiographical, especially as it grows a little more reflective in the final stanza.

Anybody know where I can get some Byrds™ plasticware?

1967 PREVIEW JAM #3: "Pleasant Valley Sunday"

And speaking of the Monkees... and cynicism...

This one's great. Such a flamboyantly sneering takedown of suburban Squaresville (a.k.a. "status symbol land") – it's like they were DETERMINED to convince you they weren't on the side of the normals. I guess with the Byrds writing that kinda song about you, you might feel like you had something to prove...

This was a #3 hit single and was also on their THIRD album of the year, the oh-so-1967-titled Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, Ltd. It was written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin which explains a lot about why it's so awesome.
(Their other major writing credit of the year was Aretha's "Natural Woman," which might be one of my top 5 favorite songs ever.) But a good chunk of it is also down to the instrumental performances, the best of which - that killer lead guitar riff and the neat piano figure in the bridge – were indeed actually played by Monkees.

I do kinda wish we were playing this one too – but instead we're playing a possibly even radder Monkees tune... come find out which one!

1967 PREVIEW JAM #4: "All Because Of You"

Yesterday I saw the film Detroit, which is an extremely intense and powerful (and shamefully relevant) portrayal of, surely, one of the most hideous events to take place in 1967: the Algiers Motel Incident during the Detroit riots of the long hot summer. A far cry from the Summer of Love. I highly recommend seeing it – it's playing at the Cinemark in UCity ($5 tix on tuesdays!) – but definitely brace yourself before you go.

One of the more surprising elements of the story presented in the film is the involvement of Larry Cleveland Reed, a member of the R&B group the Dramatics. (Apparently, there were actually two members of the Dramatics there during the incident, though the movie only shows one.) Reed's presence gives the filmmakers an opportunity to inject some music, including this song – which was indeed a 1967 single – and creates a narrative link to the most notable musical force in Detroit at the time, which was of course Motown records.

1967 was a transitional year for Motown: there were still plenty of hits to be sure (including several all-time killer jams that we'll be performing next Saturday...!), but most of my favorite, iconic "classic era" Motown singles came earlier, while the edgier, more experimental and progressive stuff didn't get started until '68 (the Supremes' "Love Child"; the Temptations' "Cloud Nine," etc.), which was also the year that Berry Gordy started shifting the whole operation to LA – a move inspired at least partly by the '67 Riots. Not unrelatedly, 1967 also marked the end of Motown's relationship with Holland-Dozier-Holland, who had written many of the label's biggest hits.

But the Dramatics, even though they were from Detroit, weren't on Motown (though, according to the movie, they were trying hard to get signed there) – this single came out on a tiny, short-lived local label (Sport), and they later (in the '70s) had a bunch of hits on Stax/Volt. Still, this song is obviously right in line with the Motown sound – "Get Ready," in particular, is a rather audible influence. Who knows, maybe it even featured some of the same players. Love that big honking sax!

Further connections: both "All Because Of You" and its flip (the ballad "If You Haven't Got Love," which is actually the A-side) were written by Sidney Barnes – shortly thereafter a member of the psychedelic soul group Rotary Connection, whose 1967 debut is well worth checking out – and Andre Williams, a longtime legend of weird, funky leftfield R&B (and a proto-rapper of sorts) who started out in the '50s and is still at it (he put out a pretty great album last year.)

1967 PREVIEW JAM #5: "If This Is Love (I'd Rather Be Lonely)"

Keeping it on the Northern Soul tip – this red hot lil number was originally recorded by a Detroit group, The Precisions, who had a minor hit with it in 1967 (#26 R&B, #60 pop.) This version, evidently cut quickly thereafter, uses the exact same (totally killer) backing track.

But while the original is great I'd say this one gets a slight edge thanks to the gritty, desperate vocals of Lynval "Eddie" Spencer, a Jamaican-born singer who settled in Toronto after touring there with a ska band earlier in the decade. (I first heard it on the great Light in the Attic compilation Jamaica to Toronto: Soul Funk & Reggae 1967-1974 – evideyntly there were enough such transplants to make up a scene very worthy of documenting.) I'll have more to say about Jamaica before this series is through...

Mothership connection: one of the song's three co-writers, the awesomely named Cholly Bassoline, is/was later a manager of Parliament-Funkadelic for many years (he's thanked on the liner notes of many P-Funk albums, and is the namesake/subject of a track on Funkadelic's 1978 One Nation Under A Groove.) I have no way of knowing this, but it seems possible he was already involved with (perhaps even managing?) George Clinton and his group at the time, The Parliaments, who scored their first big hit with "(I Wanna) Testify" – recorded in Detroit even though the band was based in New Jersey – in (you guessed it) 1967.

1967 PREVIEW JAM #6: "Tell Mama"

So there was obviously plenty going on up North, for my money Southern soul is really where it was at in '67... in Memphis, Stax/Volt was riding high with Sam & Dave, Eddie Floyd, Booker T & the MGs, Carla Thomas, and of course Otis Redding (in his final year – he died on December 10th), while James Carr cut a string of classics for Goldwax (so good!)

Meanwhile, an equally ridiculous bounty of iconic soul grooves were being laid down at FAME studios down in Alabama, including timeless work by Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett, both Northerners who were sent to record there by Atlantic's Jerry Wexler. Leonard Chess (of Chess records) did the same for Etta James, effectively rebooting her career with this fiery, indelible anthem – a slight tweak of Clarence Carter's "Tell Daddy" (does it really count as an 'answer record' if all you do is switch the genders?) – as well as the eponymous full-length that followed in early '68.

It's interesting what James had to say about the song, looking back – apparently she never really liked it: "Maybe it's just that I didn't like being cast in the role of the Great Earth Mother, the gal you come to for comfort and easy sex. Nothing was easy back then."

Fair enough, but it's hard to deny the track's monster groove, nor how fiercely James rips into it. (Incidentally, the single's B-side – the blues ballad "I'd Rather Go Blind" – is completely different, yet every bit as potent and classic.)

1967 PREVIEW JAM #7: "Pata Pata"

Is there a happier piece of music in existence?

I know very little about Miriam Makeba, although she was clearly a highly fascinating, multifaceted figure. (Did you know she was married to Stokely Carmichael?) Anyway, this song was a #12 hit in the US, and it's not hard to hear why, even if listeners at the time had next to no context for African music. (Save, I guess, for "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" aka "Wimoweh," which Makeba also recorded, in its original Zulu, on her first album in 1960.) If anything, she initially reached an American audience in more of a folk context (she did a Grammy-winning 1965 LP in collaboration with her longtime supporter Harry Belafonte), but this is a pop song through and through.

Supposedly Makeba originally wrote (and recorded?) "Pata Pata" in 1957 when she was still in South Africa. But it also has a co-writing credit from (Philly-born!) R&B/pop songwriter Jerry Ragovoy (who also wrote "Piece of my Heart" – which was also originally released in 1967.) Not sure what the story is there, but I'm intrigued.

The B-side is a rather pro forma rendition of the schmaltzy/maudlin Broadway tune "Ballad of the Sad Young Men." I guess she wanted to show her range?

By the way, the song is Makeba's native tongue, Xhosa (except the parts that are in English, obv.) The title means "touch, touch." Ok, I think it's Pata Pata time!

1967 PREVIEW JAM #8: "Whiter Shade Of Pale"

From "Johannesburg way" to Kingston town... Down in Jamaica, '67 was the heyday of the relatively slow, deeply groovy genre of rocksteady – essentially, the link between ska and reggae – which originated in 1966 and was on the way out by 1968. Though short-lived, the style gave us plenty of enduring, oft-covered island classics, including Alton Ellis' "I'm Still In Love With You," Desmond Dekker's "007 (Shanty Town)," Dandy Livingstone's "Rudy, A Message To You" and the Paragon's "Tide Is High" (all originally from 1967.)

Of course, Jamaican musicians' relationship with (in particular) US R&B and soul music being what it was, the covering went the other direction as well. Ellis, called the father of rocksteady, included renditions of several then-current international hits on his aptly titled Sings Rock and Soul LP, including the Foundations' "Baby Now That I've Found You," the Bee Gees' aforementioned "Massachussetts," and this, the highest-charting and best-selling 1967 single worldwide.

"A Whiter Shade of Pale," as the original song is properly titled, was the debut single for England's Procol Harum and, obviously, by far its most successful. (Though they did have a couple of other hits I'd never heard of.) My dad recently picked up a two-CD set of the band's first four albums, which DOESN'T include "Whiter Shade," even as a bonus track – it's slightly mind-boggling to me that such an item exists. (Their rationale for leaving the song off their debut LP, which didn't come out 'til '68, was essentially "well, if The Beatles can do it...")

It's not hard to see why it caught on (for one thing, organs were seemingly as zeitgeisty in 1967 as they were in 1667), but also why its success was hard to duplicate – what's harder to divine is why it works as well as it does. It seems like it should come across as numbingly pretentious, what with all that flowery, allusive, high-minded lyrical poetry and the proto-Prog Bach-cribbing harmonic complexity – yet it manages to feel at once solemn and sprightly. Even after five decades of overplay there's something fresh about it. I guess that's just the magic of 1967.

And if the biggest problem with the original version is that you can't really dance to it...well, now you can!

1967 PREVIEW JAM #9: "Pictures of Lily"

English rock bands? Oh yeah, there were a few of those around. We'll be taking on some of the more obvious suspects this Saturday, as you might imagine, but still sadly/inevitably giving short shrift to several of the greats.

The Who, for instance, had an(other) amazing year in 1967, which they closed out by releasing probably the best concept album of the year, The Who Sell Out – the best, in part, because its concept is actually reasonably coherent: it's designed to resemble a continuous broadcast from a pirate radio station (which were outlawed in the UK in August '67), complete with station jingles and "fake" advertisements (some for real products) which blur into the actual songs. It's the only album I know of to inspire (and deserve!) a full-length one-woman a-cappella cover version. (By the inimitable Petra Haden – absurdly ambitious and well worth hearing.)

Before that, though, there was this barnstorming one-off single, which has been pegged as ground zero for power pop. Or, anyway, Pete Townshend evidently coined the term in reference to it. Somehow, goofily galumphing French horn solos didn't become a standard trope of the genre.

It's pretty delightful lyrically, too, recounting a childhood episode that's a pretty obvious, winking allusion to masturbation – but rendered with more genuine sweetness (and subtler humor) than you might expect. The punchline isn't the suggestive subject matter itself, but rather the (gloriously harmonized) reveal that the titular object of fascination – speculated to be 19th century vaudeville star Lillie Langtree – has been dead since 1929. (Ba-dum-bum.)

1967 PREVIEW JAM #10: "I Don't Intend To Spend Christmas Without You"

One of my favorite '60s songwriters, Margo Guryan is probably best known for her 1967 song "Sunday Morning," recorded by Spanky & Our Gang among several others (but not to be confused with a certain other '67 "Sunday Morning"...) This one was recorded by (and commissioned for) Claudine Longet, a coquettish chanteuse with a rather colorful life story. But I much prefer Guryan's own version, which is technically a publisher's demo; undoubtedly recorded in 1967, but never released before it appeared on a (fantastic) 2001 compilation.

It's pretty astonishing that this is just a demo – the arrangement (written by Guryan herself) is just so rich and full, complete with vibes, horns, and multi-tracked harmony vocals. It's a typically tricky, harmonically (and rhythmically complex tune, drawing freely on her jazz and classical chops – and it's also just so darn funky.

And yeah, it's ostensibly a Christmas song – even though the lyrics don't say anything Christmas-related at all other than "it's cold" – but it's way too good not to listen to the whole year 'round.

1967 PREVIEW JAM #11: "The Proper Ornaments"

Although it's not like it was the MOST dorky kind of music that was popular circa 1967 (the schmaltzy crooner Engelbert Humperdink had the top-selling single of the year in the UK...fifth-highest worldwide), it's kind of astonishing how even a theoretically super-square genre like sunshine pop was actually incredibly hip and weird and interesting and musically rich. Why don't we have sunshine pop anymore?

(According to Wikipedia, the genre "peaked [commercially] in the Spring and Summer of 1967" – that's...oddly specific.)

Take the long-obscure, more recently hipster-famous family outfit The Free Design; the Dedrick siblings of Delevan, NY.  The title track of their (awesome) 1967 debut is "Kites are Fun," and it is about precisely that. (Key lyric: "see my kite, it's fun") This song, though... thinly veiled under all those chipper ba-ba-bas is a sardonic takedown of polite society that's leagues more bitter and scathing than, say "Pleasant Valley Sunday." It's pretty vicious stuff.

Musically, however, it is lithe, intricate, and freaking glorious.
It now has an indie-pop band named after it – a perfectly fine, jangly guitar-based outfit of the sort often said to be '60s-inspired. Which they may well be – but I'd be hard-pressed to name a current band of that ilk putting this level of craft and invention (not to mention social commentary) into what they do.

1967 PREVIEW JAM #12: "For What It's Worth"

This one speaks for itself. Buffalo Springfield's original (released Jan. '67) is a well-deserved classic, of course. But there's not much in the world that can't be improved by Pops Staples' guitar, let alone his daughters' voices.

So yeah, this basically slays. And, not to go there but it sounds absolutely as timely and relevant now as ever, if not more so.

By the way: out of all the artists I've featured here – with the possible exception of The Who – Mavis Staples is pretty much the only one who's still rockin' it fifty years later. And that's nothing – she started her singing career in *1950*. And she put out my favorite album of 2016, no foolin'. (Okay, okay, the Monkees also put out a surprisingly pretty fabulous album in 2016 too. Who knows.)

1967 PREVIEW JAM #13: "Can You Dig It"

So what was going on during the Summer of Love in the City of Brotherly Love? Good things! 1967 marked the end of Cameo/Parkway records, the local powerhouse which had been home to the likes of Chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell, Dee Dee Sharp, The Orlons ("South Street") and apparently ? and the Mysterians (who were from Michigan.) But it was also the year of the first Gamble/Huff hit, The Soul Survivors' still-killer "Expressway To Your Heart" (released on Jerry Blavat's Crimson label) and, as such, the true beginning of the Philadelphia International story.

Bunny Sigler ("Mr. Emotion") was one of a few artists to bridge those two eras of Philly pop/soul; he'd been cutting singles since 1959, several for Parkway, and his debut album, released in (you guessed it) 1967 was among Cameo-Parkway's final releases – and it was produced by Gamble and Huff.

This tune, like most of the record, is fairly obviously indebted to the sound of Hitsville USA (in this case, Marvin Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" being the most evident source of, er, inspiration.) But that doesn't prevent me from saying "yes sir I can indeed dig it Mr. Sigler sir."