KFOG 10 at 10 Plays 1967

My musical friend Geri texted me today at a few minutes past 10 a.m. to tell me that KFOG 104.5 was playing my favorite year on their "10 at 10" program. Well, gee, I had to work, so I decided to tune in tonight instead. They play it at both 10's, luckily for us working types.

1967 was a pivotal year for me. I turned 14. It was the summer of love. Puberty was in full swing. But most importantly, I started playing the guitar that summer (that's me in the photo!). Suddenly, music wasn't just the soundtrack of my life, but I was an active participant. I listened to the Big 30 survey each week on KFRC, the Big 610, and bought albums (mostly Beatles). I learned the songs off these media by ear, and sang them in my bedroom in my own key. Today, I'm in a band, a Beatles duo, a community orchestra, and I still do a pickup gig now and then when time allows.

So, here it is, time for KFOG's pick of "10 great songs from one great year." I'll walk through it with you.

"Let's do the time warp again....."

Tour guide - Renee! Used to be Dave Morey, for all those years.

We start with the Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour. I remember this album. It was the successor to the iconic Sgt. Pepper.It had new stuff to go with what turned out to be a lame movie (compared to Hard Day's Night and Help). And--the put a bunch of singles on the other side--kind of cheating. The Beatles, amazingly, would issue albums with NO single from them. Now that's confidence.

Magical Mystery Tour--a real Paul song. Full of life and good cheer, not much significance. Still sharp and strong all these years later.

Ends with Paul's bass in the foreground....

Next... Jimi Hendrix! Castles Made of Sand. I had two Jimi albums and I used to play them through my Koss headphones while lying on my bed backwards (the cord wouldn't reach the stereo otherwise). I think my dad bought me these albums for my birthday (he had no clue of the contents and would surely not have enjoyed listening to them). But, as I found out later, my dad would support me in what I liked. He later would read every one of my weekly automotive stories, and sent me car books. He contributed to my camel collection. Sadly, he hasn't got to see all my musical activities over the last 10 years.

Sadly, too, Mr. Hendrix lasted a very short time. But, he lives on forever on 10 at 10.

Oh boy, Things I Should Have Said - The Grass Roots! More pop musicky after Jimi and the sacred Beatles. But a favorite, with nice harmonies, and the kind of bass parts that made me want to play one. Bongos. The bridge goes another way, as sixties songs do.... bongo solo --- or are those congas? "She closed the door, said I don't want to see you anymore..."

Sly and the Family Stone - Dance to the Music. Not my favorite, because they yell so much at the beginning, but the rest is actually pretty cool. Not very melodic, as usual for them, but very energetic and rhythmic. Bump bump bump bump.... Drums + guitar + bass (bottom for the dancers) - fuzz bass no less -- + organ (ride, Sally, ride -- kind of rude). Then, the horn section. Pretty cool actually. "All the squares go home!"
"Listen to the voices....."

"Here's Nancy Sinatra with some sound advice..." an ad for  Coke! Things go better with Coke! I remember Beegees Coke commercials, too. She was fresh off her "These Boots are Made for Walking." She sang the wonderfully haunting "Summer Wine" in 1967 with Lee Hazlewood. I liked "Some Velvet Morning" even better, but that's 1968.

Arthur Conley, Sweet Soul Music. A classic. I remember the girl I had a crush on with this one, Ramona, a dark-haired beauty. Arthur had one hit--this one--and sang about all the great soul music singers. "Spotlight on Wilson Pickett..." Otis Redding, (hear that horn section). James Brown, yeah, he's the king of them, y'all. Ending with yeah yeah and the horn section...

Oh ... Traffic's Dear Mr. Fantasy. Cool after the heat of Sweet Soul Music. Psychedelic...Steve Winwood was a teenager, but what soulful singing. Waaaaaa! (x4). "Please Mr. Fantasy, play us a tune...." There's that psychedelic lead, in the Hendrix mode... Not sure who the guitarist is. I realize later that I didn't know the names of the members of most of the bands I heard. Just the Beatles, really, and the Monkees. Their personalities were so public (especially the pre-fab four). The guitar solo takes us out..... and the bass thumps away as the tempo doubles.

Hear that 12-string guitar beginning. King Midas in Reverse... Now that's kind of obscure. Not a big seller for the Hollies, but I have it somewhere. Hear that flute in the bridge... Trumpets. Someone's been listening to Sgt. Pepper, methinks. A little like an early BeeGees song. It almost sounds like it's playing in reverse...

A speech from Dr. Martin Luther King. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies....Glaring contrast of poverty and wealth..." Anti war, as well as anti-racist.

Marving Gaye/Tammy Tyrell - Ain't No Mountain High Enough... One of the all time greats. So much great Motown music in 1967. I realized later that the collective group of songs was played by the same musicians--and I loved it. James Jamerson and Bob Babbitt--a black man and a white man--were the bassists that drove this incredible music. Marvin Gaye and I have the same birthday, too--April 2--but he, like other great artists, didn't stay here long enough. Murdered by his own father. Sigh.

The Rascal's Groovin' is a perfect song, and one that deserved its rise to number 1. It's a sweet, happy pop song that encapsulates the positive and happy energy of 1967. There was some of that, besides the Summer of Love events. Hear that harmonica, background singing. The bass bum - bim bim bum, bim bim... Ah ah ahhhh.... The Rascals did a wacky song in 1967called It's Wonderful that I loved, but it was a totally different deal.

Peter Sellers is James Bond... Ursula Andress is James Bond. David Niven is James Bond. Woody Allen is James Bond.... Casino Royale....

Cream - Strange Brew. Here's British Blues in all its 60's glory. Mr. Clapton staring a long career, which somehow, through it all, he survives to play another day. Sounds so essential now, but it was something very different from, say, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, or, god help us, the 1910 Fruitgum Company. As pop started to shift to bubblegum later in the decade this music retreated to the world of the lp--and FM radio. I moved along with it. You could listen to KMPX in the 60's, but it KSAN that really took off and played this kind of music in the 70's. YEAH--

Oh, no, that was tune number 10! Already it's over. It was a great 38 minutes of a great year.

The Flower Furnace - Hitting My Musical Sweet Spot - Again

Light show and all, the Furnace rocks the Bistro

Today, I read a long article in the November 26, 2012 issue of the New Yorker on the music of the Grateful Dead. In Deadhead - The Afterlife, Nick Paumgarten recalls when he first discovered the band in the 1980s as a teenager. Describing his strong attachment to that period of the Dead's output, he says, "People say that the music you liked when you hit puberty is the stuff that sticks with you." He's so right.

That's why I love the Flower Furnace. Their music, ranging from 1965 to 1975, hits my sweet spot--and a little more. In 1965, I was 12, and glued to the radio, where I absorbed Motown, the British Invasion (led by the Beatles, Stones, Dave Clark 5, the Who) and the American hits by the Beach Boys, Four Seasons, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Paul Revere and the Raiders and many more.

I have what I consider a "phonographic memory" for songs from 1964 to 1968 (and maybe 1969 too)--my middle school and high school years. I know all the words and can nearly always sing along. It does help that I started playing the guitar in 1967 and was actually strumming some of these songs myself, but no other period of my life contains music that affects me this deeply.

Watching and listening to the band at the Bistro in Hayward, California (for the second time -- read my first post here) just reinforced this. How wonderful to be able to absorb the Jefferson Airplane's Somebody to Love -- the Furnace's opener-- LIVE! 1967 is the epicenter of that 60's musical earthquake that happened in San Francisco, and that song is about as emblematic of the way I felt then as it gets.

What about I am the Walrus--the band's finale? Not even the Beatles played that one live! And although the Fleetwood Mac, Peter Frampton and Kansas songs the Furnace knocks off so meticulously are not in my golden period, I owned those vinyl albums too. I just couldn't sing along quite as easily on Saturday.

The Bistro crowd responds to these songs, and cheers the musicians on. Three powerful sets delivered the goods. The show went 20 minutes past midnight, and I'm sure we would all have stayed another couple of hours if they had kept playing.

Jack Casady - Bassman Then and Now

I remember the thumping sound of Jack Casady's bass playing in Somebody to Love and other songs by the Jefferson Airplane. I also see an ad in the June 2011 issue of Bass Player showing Jack, who's now a great deal older, playing like a madman on the Epiphone Jack Casady Signature Bass--in an ad for the guitar maker. Looks like a fine instrument.

I have a CD--Jack's first solo effort, from 2003, called Dream Factor. On it, he plays fine and low with hand-picked musicians on a variety of cuts. Still a great listen.

I met Jack for about 10 seconds once in 1971. I was coming out of a health food store in San Francisco and saw him--looking unmistakably like the guy in the photo above--and he was trying to carry a load of gallon jugs of cider. I asked if he needed any help. He said, "No," and that was it.

Now, he's one of my bass heroes. The sound he made in those early years is part of my inspiration.

Top 40 from Mid May, 1967--From the Bottom Up

I used to listen to the top 40 countdown--actually, the KFRC Big 30--and now, with SiriusXM Channel 6, you can do it again. My goal tonight is to listen to a period that was very important to me--from the bottom up. You see, you often hear the top 10 songs, but numbers 35-40 may have disappeared from the airwaves since they dropped off the survey. Those are the ones I want.

Here goes:

40. Every Mother's Son--Come On Down to My Boat. Well, this was a big hit later from this one-hit wonder band.

39. Yellow Balloon - Yellow Balloon. One of my favorite songs of all time. Sort of a Beach Boys sound with rich vocal harmonies and a bouncy 4/4 beat--with 3/4 bridge. By Dean Torrance (of Jan and Dean), which is why it sounds like Southern California in the 60's.

38. Jon & Robin and In Crowd - Do It Again A Little Bit Slower. A little corny... I've heard this a few times recently but didn't know it was from this particular period. Definitely pop--not rock.

37. Otis Redding and Carla Thomas - Tramp. The Stax sound makes it into the Pop chart. Very funky and cool--with their conversation back and forth. "I got six Cadillacs..." So different from "Sitting on the Dock of Bay" from less than a year later.

36. Booker T. and the MGs - Hip Hug-Her. More funky beats. No wonder I love playing the bass. This instrumental has all the greatness of this band. I can see the guy's Fender bass in the photo of the album cover on SiriusXM. Remember it well.

35. Dionne Warwick - Alfie. This song is timeless and is heard often today. From the movie of the same name with Michael Caine. I love Dionne Warwick and have her greatest hits on my iPod.

34. Jerry Jaye - My Girl Josephine. Originally done by Fats Domino in 1960! I don't remember EVER hearing this.

33. The Tokens - Portrait of My Love. The last song by the Tokens. Originally done in 1960 by Matt Monro. The Tokens are known for the big hit "The Lion Sleeps Tonight from years earlier. This didn't move up the chart much, I think. Has a Four Seasons sound to it--lots of trumpets.

32. Lou Rawls - Dead End Street. Very cool. I remember it. "The almight hulk--Mr. Wind." He narrates his way into it. Haven't heard it for a long street. It sounds MUCH better on satellite radio than on my old Panasonic AM six-transistor radio. A Grammy winner.

31. Marvelettes - When You're Young and In Love. Motown. This is one of the ones you never hear anymore. It has the sound of the Funk Brothers, just like so many songs by the Supremes, Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson....

30. Turtles - She'd Rather Be With Me. I'm very familiar with this one. It charted higher, I'm sure. This is the year that the group's Happy Together rose to number 1. These guys are the epitome of 1967 pop music.

29. Monkees - A Little Bit, A Little Bit You. A Neil Diamond-penned song, like I'm a Believer. Don Kirshner wanted another hit. I remember it well, but it somehow isn't as good as I'm a Believer. Davy takes the lead. I think Pleasant Valley Sunday--possibly my favorite Monkees song--followed shortly after.

28. Tommy James & the Shondells. I Think We're Alone Now. Very poppy. This one gets played frequently today on the oldies stations. It has a heartbeat in it in the middle. Lots of bass and tambourine. It was on its way down from a higher placement.

27. Parade - Sunshine Girl. Another of my special favorites. Great bass playing. More Southern California happy sound. I hear an oboe! This kind of song disappeared not long afterwards. A bit like the Association.

26. James & Bobby Purify. Shake a Tail Feather. Oh, so funky. "The boogaloo is outa sight!" The bass player is earning his money on this one. Huge energy in this one.

25. Herb Alpert - Casino Royale. An instrumental. I remember it--it's from the movie (which I didn't see). I don't think I've heard this in decades, though. Sounds pretty cool in stereo.

24. Eric Burdon and the Animals. When I was Young. This echoed through my adolescent consciousness. Of course, his youth (in the song) was precocious and intense--I was a nervous suburbanite. I felt this one in my guts.

23. Mitch Ryder & Detroit Wheels. Too Many Fish in the Sea... Other songs of his--and the Marvelettes' version of the first half of this medley--are more frequently played. I'm not sure I remember this. Exhausting--whew. Cool lead and bass part, of course.

22. Lovin' Spoonful - Six O'Clock - Another of my favorites. I heard this one over and over. It starts out with a high bass part. Now I realize what that is. Much of the same sound as "Summer in the City."

21. Dave Clark 5 - You've Got What It Takes. This was originally recorded by another artist in 1959. It's a surprising cover--updated. I remember it well, but didn't love it like, say, Nos. 22, 27 and 39 above. This was the group's last hit.

20. Whistling Jack Smith - I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman. What an oddball instrumental this was. But it was everpresent in it's day. Hey--Where's the Rock and Roll I remember?

19. The Who - Happy Jack. It was the Who's first big song in America. It was like nothing else at the time. Bum Bum Bum Bum went John Entwistle's bass.

18. The Temptations - All I Need. This is the 1967 sound of the group, but I don't think you hear this one near as often as some of their others. It doesn't carry any associations for me--just the sweet Motown Funk Brothers sound itself.

17. Hollies - On a Carousel. I liked this one pretty well. Young Graham Nash is the lead singer. Good solid bass part; I think he's using a pick.

16. Easybeats - Friday on My Mind. Another of my favorites. A group from Australia. I mentioned this song in a blog post recently. Great ringing guitars and lots of energy.

15. Peaches & Herb - Close Your Eyes. This song sounds old--in 6/8 time--like the 1950's--when it was originally recorded by another artist. Sweet, romantic, but after the Easybeats, I feel sleepy. They take a deep breath in the middle of the song.

14. The Tremeloes - Here Comes My Baby. This was written by Cat Stevens (I just learned). Peppy--sounds like it recorded in one take with no overdubs. "Ha Ha Ha."

13. Jefferson Airplane - Somebody To Love. Oh my--this song changed my life. The Airplane were local San Francisco heroes and altered the sound of pop music. Grace Slick's voice was incredible. This stood out of the survey then--and still does. And Jack Cassidy's bass...

12. Tommy James & the Shondells. Mirage. I don't remember this one as well as I Think We're Alone Now but it really sounds like 1967. I like that.

11. Frank & Nancy Sinatra - Something Stupid. This was EVERYWHERE. Nancy and Dad didn't sing much together. Sweet and pretty--but sounds pretty dated. It was on top of the Easy Listening Chart at the same time--no surprise.

10. Buckinghams - Don't You Care. I like to sing along with this one. These guys had a huge hit with Kind of a Drag, and in 1968, Susan. This has the Chicago horn sound. The singing sounds like Neil Diamond to me in the middle. Lots of vocal harmonies.

We're in the top 10 now -- these will all be huge hits, I assume... Let's see...

9. Neil Diamond - Girl You'll Be a Woman Soon. This is another one I loved then. It was Neil's 2nd top 10 song. Still pretty simple, pretty production. The old "you're too young" theme.

8. Paul Revere & the Raiders - Him or Me. This one rocks, in a 1967 kind of way. It sounds like it was produced by the same folks who brought us Monkees songs.

7. Mamas and the Papa's - Creeque Alley. This got lots of airplay. It mentions members of the Byrds and Lovin Spoonful. I found the story kind of annoying, but it sounds friendly and familiar. I have no idea where Creeque Alley is. Michelle Philips, the only survivor today, was HOT then.

6. Arthur Conley - Sweet Soul Music. Sexy. A big thumpin hit. He lists lots of other Soul artists--it's like reading a juke box. Very cool and memorable. Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, James Brown...

5. Engelbert Humperdinck - Release Me. Originally recorded in the 1950's and early 1960's. But here it is again! It launched Engelbert's career. When I think of 1967 this isn't what I remember, as lovely as it is.

4. Supremes - The Happening. Now this is more like it. Pure Motown. The other ladies got a word in edgewise still, although their next record would be by Diana Ross & the Supremes. Jamerson's finger goes wild on the bass part.

3. The Happenings - I Got Rhythm. This song goes back to 1930 and the Gershwins. Dit dit dit dit dit dit...... No relation to song number 4

2. Aretha Franklin - Respect. One of the greatest pop songs ever recorded--period. Still played all the time. Talk about respect. The Queen of Soul is coronated here.

1. The Young Rascals - Groovin'. Talk about frequent airplay. This is this group's signature song, but they had some other great ones.