Readers didn't take too kindly to Gary Theroux's Pat Boone comments that ran yesterday ... or Frannie's assessment of Mike Love's latest face lift ... read on ...
The Fat Man:
>>>Pat Boone often gets knocked as a white guy who sometimes stole "black songs" by people unaware of the fact that in the '50s black and white artists perpetually covered each other's material. They included Fats Domino -- whose biggest hit, "Blueberry Hill," was in 1956 his cover version of a 1940 chart-topper by white bandleader Glenn Miller -- who in turn had found the song on the soundtrack of a Gene Autry western! (Gary Theroux)
One comment about Pat Boone ...
While Fats did a
remake of a 1940 hit, Blueberry Hill, Pat competed on the charts with Fats with
Ain't That A Shame and Little Richard with Tutti Frutti. There is a big
difference between REMAKING an older hit record and COVERING a current record
and competing on the charts with it.
Mark the Shark
I just wanted to say that there is a HUGE difference between reviving an old song
and taking it to the top (Blueberry Hill) and jumping on a brand new recording
and covering it simultaneously specifically to appeal to a different
audience.
Hil
Mike Love:
>>>Frannie says she was totally creeped out by Mike Love's latest face lift ... to the point that she thought she actually might have nightmares! (One comment she made was something to the effect of "he almost looks as if he were recently embalmed"!!!) kk
I'm always kind of offended when our aging stars are criticized for trying to
stay stage perfect looking. To have a job that you're really great @ & then
to have people be nasty about your looks seems cruel. I personally tho't Mike
Love looked wonderful even aside from whatever cosmetic aids he may've needed to
pursue to achieve that. Not many people stay shiny, out of the box perfect
their entire life.
Patti
Hi Kent -
Thank you for providing
the Beach Boys Memorial Day performance on your email so whoever
missed it can enjoy it!!!
It's a free country to express your
views, but Frannie, lighten up
about Mike Love's looks. For being almost 75, he has the stamina to still
perform in great style ... Let's just all enjoy the music while some of the
original Beach Boys are
still around. We have already lost too many of our
favorites.
Keep Rockin ... or should I say Keep Surfin......
Carolyn
This And That:
Hi Kent,
Maybe others beat me to the punch, but if not, Goin' Down was
not on Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd, (1967).
I believe there's a version on the CD release, but I still
have my vinyl and it's not there.
The Girl I Knew Somewhere wasn't on Headquarters either, but
it was the flip of A Little Bit Me A Little Bit You. Had Headquarters on vinyl,
too. The Girl I Knew could also be on the CD reissue
though.
BTW. I'm with you, I love the new CD. Sounds old, yet new.
Adam Sleshinger did a wonderful job.
Bill
That set list (and the song credits) came from Vintage Vinyl News ... and my guess is the references are where you would find these tracks TODAY, looking for material that is still in print.
"The Girl I Knew Somewhere" and "Goin' Down" were both non-LP B-Sides at the time ... and both are great tracks. (Ironically, I HATED "Goin' Down" when it first came out ... I just couldn't relate to it ... but today it's one of my favorites. Micky really cooks on this track and it shows just how wide a musical range The Monkees covered back then.)
The new CD is outstanding ... I've probably listened to it at least nine or ten times now. And I agree ... the perfect mix of old and new. I read yesterday that it was Amazon's #1 best seller from vintage artists ... and deservedly so. Here in Chicago Me-TV-FM is doing Monkees twin spins this week ... something from the brand new album coupled with one of their original hits from the '60's. Hard to believe 50 years have gone by ... yet if you watch the old reruns, they haven't aged a day! (kk)
Yeah, the Tin Tin
song has that warbly sound like Here Comes the Sun to my ears. Love "Is That The Way" follow-up, too. I agree on "Pretty Lady", too. What a perfect
song!
Clark Besch
Got this from FH Reader Tom Cuddy ...
Chicago,
Foreigner, REO Speedwagon and More Will Be Singing “Greatest Hits” for
ABC
by | Jun
1, 2016 | Music
News
The
musical lineup for the new ABC show Greatest
Hits has
been announced. Among the performers for the decade-spanning song tribute series
are Chicago, Foreigner, REO
Speedwagon andRick
Springfield.
The six-episode
music series will feature iconic music artists and current chart-toppers from
various genres performing hits from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Each show will
focus on a five-year period in time and feature duets, tributes and solo
performances.
Other artists
also confirmed to give Greatest
Hits performances include Bonnie
Raitt, Wilson
Phillips, En
Vogue, LL
Cool J, Boyz
II Men, Backstreet
Boys, CeeLo
Green, John
Legend, Coolio, Meghan
Trainor, Pitbull and Wiz
Khalifa.
Greatest
Hits will be co-hosted by Arsenio
Hall and
country singer Kelsea
Ballerini. It premieres Thursday, June 30, at 9
p.m.
ET.
The WCBS-FM top 500 list is a joke. To think that
this once great oldies station is playing Can't Help Fallin' In Love by UB40
and not Elvis is upsetting. Good thing there are MP3 players full of my favorite
all time songs.
Mark
It certainly was a mixed bag of music ... Aerosmith's "I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" from 1998? Doesn't a song have to be at least 25 years old to even be considered an "oldie"?
It's funny because "Real Oldies" used to only focus on songs from 1954 to about 1965 ... then they expanded to around 1970, which widened their audience. Still there are oldies "purists" who insist "real oldies music" should stop at 1963, the year before The Beatles came over here and "ruined everything." (Radio programmers, on the other hand, have all but abandoned this era of music, save a select few, preferring to program to, in their words, "people who are still alive".
True Oldies used to stop at around 1976 or so ... before the Disco Era came along to, once again "ruin music" forever. They now regularly program songs well into the late '80's (although Scott Shannon promises that The True Oldies Channel will NEVER play Bon Jovi!!! lol) Bon Jovi, by the way, made The Top Ten Memorial Day 500, however, on WCBS-FM ... the station the employs Scott Shannon in the mornings!
We did a popular series a few years ago called "What Is An Oldie" and got a tremendous response to it. Everybody has their own opinion. The word "oldies" is now considered "condescending" because fans of this music don't want to be reminded that they're old. We ARE old!!! And we stand by this music. Me-TV-FM has proven that the mix we have always talked about here in Forgotten Hits will work ... music played side-by-side from ALL eras. They do a GREAT job of selecting the "music of our lives". (This is ESPECIALLY true if you happen to be a huge Gordon Lightfoot fan ... which I am not!!!) Their "timeless and memorable music" motto falls of the rails several times a day but by and large they are still the BEST music on the dial here in Chicago. (kk)
>>>I've featured on the site a couple of times now is this new version of
"Reflections Of My Life" by Marmalade front man Dean Ford ... actually gives me
chills every time I hear it ... (not to mention a lump in the throat and a tear
in the eye) ... powerful stuff! (kk)
When we first start paying attention to songs on the radio as kids, we are attracted to the SOUNDS of the hits we love. That's because we haven't had the life experiences yet to fully grasp what the songs' LYRICS are really about.
Sometimes it is years later when we hear again something we loved when we were very young, Almost magically, that old track takes on a whole new meaning because now we fully understand -- and have lived through ourselves -- the
emotional portrait the recording paints. Dean Ford's remake of "Reflections Of My Life" comes complete with 46
years of poignancy. He sounds a bit like Roy Orbison now.
If you like thoughtful, poignant, reflective tracks which touch the heart and often include elements of romantic regret, check out Mickey Newbury, who is best known
for writing the First Edition hit "Just Dropped In" and his own show-stopping single "American Trilogy."
Below ate two non-hit Mickey Newbury tracks -- both
from the same album -- beginning with the flip side of "American Trilogy":
Mickey explained that the starkness of those tracks was due largely to the fact that he was given only a micro budget to record the LP -- and had to pull a lot of favors from Nashville friends who worked on the album with him for reduced rates or even nothing out of respect for his talents. Newbury cut those tracks for Elektra and eventually moved to ABC Hickory, which bought up all his Elektra material. Then MCA bought all the ABC labels and Mickey's recordings kind of got lost in the shuffle. (MCA put out one sort-of "greatest hits LP which was obviously mastered from worn vinyl sources and sold poorly.) After Elektra turned down my request to license some of Mickey's stuff for a folk album I was assembling, I learned of the sale of his Elektra tracks to MCA and licensed several from them. I then got Mickey's phone number and called him up to tell him to expect royalty payments. To my surprise, his response was, "Oh no!" It seems that Mickey had been trying to buy back his "forgotten" Elektra and Hickory masters from MCA and my out-of-the-blue request to license some of them had alerted the label that Newbury's stuff did have licensing value! I don't know if he was ever able to buy the masters back after that or not. Mickey
Newbury died at age 62 in 2002.
Gary Theroux
Be sure to stop back tomorrow for another one of our "50 Years Ago Today" features! (kk)
