After listening to the Senior Prom CDs last week, I listened to this double CD set of 1960s music. It contains another head shaking mix of songs. I could do without Trini Lopez’s “If I Had a Hammer” and Andy Williams’ “I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” Including the “James Bond Theme” by The John Barry Orchestra is a surprise.
Then there are the songs I haven’t heard in 50 years or so like “Itchycoo Park” by The Small Faces and Marmalade’s version of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”.
On the plus side, there are plenty of classic songs from the 1960s by The Drifters, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, Simon & Garfunkel, Van Morrison, The Beach Boys, The Everly Brothers, Mary Wells, Diana Ross and the Supremes, The Shirelles, and The Temptations. Do you remember these songs? Any favorites here? GRADE: B+
TRACK LIST:
DISC ONE:
Simon & Garfunkel–Mrs. Robinson3:37
Van Morrison–Brown Eyed Girl3:03
The Monkees–Daydream Believer2:53
The Four Seasons–Sherry2:30
The Foundations–Build Me Up Buttercup2:54
The Beach Boys–Good Vibrations3:36
The Surfaris–Wipeout2:36
Tom Jones–It’s Not Unusual1:59
Dusty Springfield–Son Of A Preacher Man2:24
The Turtles–Happy Together2:53
The Zombies–Summertime2:17
The Overlanders–Michelle2:21
Herman’s Hermits–No Milk Today2:57
The Spencer Davis Group–Keep On Running2:42
Booker T. & The MGs*–Green Onions1:32
The Kingsmen–Louie Louie2:44
Trini Lopez–If I Had A Hammer3:00
Chris Montez–Let’s Dance2:48
Marmalade*–Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da2:58
Gary Puckett & The Union Gap–Young Girl3:02
The McCoys–Hang On Sloopy2:40
Mamas & The Papas*–California Dreamin’2:32
The Chiffons–He’s So Fine1:53
The Everly Brothers*–Cathy’s Clown2:26
Dion (3)–The Wanderer2:41
The Animals–Don’t Let Be Misunderstood2:26
The Easybeats–Friday On My Mind2:41
Shocking Blue–Venus2:28
The Small Faces*–Itchycoo Park2:44
The John Barry Orchestra*–James Bond Theme1:58
DISC TWO:
The Archies–Sugar, Sugar2:48
Diana Ross & The Supremes*–Baby Love2:33
Mary Wells–My Guy2:46
Little Eva–The Loco-Motion2:24
The Isley Brothers–Twist And Shout2:32
The Kinks–Sunny Afternoon3:33
Johnny Tillotson–Poetry In Motion2:21
The Shirelles–Dedicated To The One I Love2:04
Gerry & The Pacemakers–How Do You Do It?1:54
The Love Affair–Everlasting Love3:00
Sonny & Cher–I Got You Babe3:13
Dionne Warwick–Do You Know The Way To San Jose?2:54
Andy Williams–Can’t Take My Eyes Off You3:10
Sandie Shaw–Puppet On A String2:20
Helen Shapiro–Walking Back To Happiness2:27
The Searchers–Sweets For My Sweet2:26
The Cascades (2)–Rhythm Of The Rain3:00
The Drifters–Under The Boardwalk2:40
The Young Rascals–Groovin’2:23
Otis Redding–(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay2:37
Marvin Gaye–I Heard It Through The Grapevine3:03
The Temptations–My Girl2:55
Arthur Conley–Sweet Soul Music2:17
Jackie Wilson–Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher And Higher2:51
Aretha Franklin–Think2:15
Wilson Pickett–In The Midnight Hour2:33
Sam & Dave–Soul Man2:37
Ben E. King–Stand By Me2:47
Percy Sledge–When A Man Loves A Woman2:50
Louis Armstrong–What A Wonderful World
Talk about a mixed bag. I could do without a lot of these-Archies, Andy Williams, Gary Puckett, Johnny Tillotson, The Cascades, Marmalade, Trini Lopez, The Foundations and The Four Seasons ( detested them back then and like them even less now-just hate that falsetto). Favorites- Beach Boys, Animals, Small Faces , Everly Brothers, Kinks, Dion and almost all of the black artists. The one by The Zombies seems an odd choice But who the hell are Helen Shapiro, Love Affair and The Overlanders? Getting rid of the crap and narrowing it down to one album would produce an A-. As it stands a C for me.
Steve, you’re right about the odd choices and filler on these CDs. I like your idea of narrowing it down to one CD of Good Songs.
Steve, my favorite Frankie Valli line is by humor writer Dave Barry: “Every time I hear Frankie Valli sing “Walk Like a Man,” I want to say, “Frankie, SING like a man.”
@Steve: Helen Shapiro was (is? I think she’s still alive) an English singer who was very much a part of the English music scene in the 1960s and even toured with the Beatles. She’s essentially unknown in the States.
As for this collection, it’s a total mish-mash of styles & artists, some of whom I like more than others. However, my main takeaway is that the record company couldn’t afford the rights to the Beatles singing their own music so grabbed a couple of Beatles covers (“Michelle”, “Ob La Di”)—neither of which (by these artists) was ever a hit.
You’re probably tired of me mentioning the “History of Rock & Roll in 500 Songs” podcast, but the episode on “Itchycoo Park” is really good, touching on everything from how much influence Lionel Bart’s “Oliver” had on the development of 1960s English pop music to the evolution of Peter Frampton from pop pretty boy to brilliant guitarist. Great stuff.
Deb, thank you again for recommending the HISTORY OF ROCK 8 ROLL IN 500 SONGS podcast. I listened to the latest episode on “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and found it brilliant! Now, I have to go back and start at the beginning!
Speaking of “Itchykoo Park,” Deb… years ago (1999) we went to visit my newly married sister in Phoenix, and drove with her and her husband to Tucson for a couple of days. We stopped at Walmart so she could get a drink, and they were doing a joint promotion with Cool 92.9 Oldies Radio! It was to raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network, and of course I couldn’t resist Lost 45’s Vol. 1.
We Ain’t Got Nothin’ Yet, Blues Magoos
Guitarzan, Ray Stevens
Shapes of Things, Yardbirds
Oogum Boogum Song, Brenton Wood
Little Town Flirt, Del Shannon
Pushin’ Too Hard, Seeds
Shakin’ All Over, Guess Who
May I, Bill Deal & the Rhondells
Sunny Afternoon, Kinks
Killer Joe, Rocky Fellers
Psychotic Reaction, Count Five
Itchykoo Park,. Small Faces
Not bad.
Jeff, wow! That CD includes some songs I haven’t heard in decades! I remember the Seeds’ “Pushin’ Too Hard” being a Big Hit in Western NY. Heavy rotation back in the day…
Amusing mix, there, too. I first heard some of those in the ’70s on Pickwick LP anthologies, the ancestors of this and similar CDs. Most memorably, the Blues Magoos song.
Hey, Deb, one thing I learned from episode 75. There Goes My Baby – the song was NOT written by Leiber & Stoller, although they did arrange and produce it, and got partial writing credit, but was written by Benjamin Nelson, aka lead singer Ben E> King.
Another trip across my formative years, from elementary school to second year of college. Good stuff by Aretha, Marvin, Sam&Dave (forget the detestable Belushi-Ackroyd travesty of “Soul Man”), Rascals, Dionne (“San Jose” was on the radio when I returned my senior prom tux), Kinks . . . pretty much everything on the CD.
Fred, I remember just about all these songs even though our local “Oldies” radio station rarely plays songs from the 1960s any more. Their promo ads says “The Great Hits from the 80s and 90s!”
I was just wondering why you never see Gene Pitney on any of these collections? The Beatles, Stones, The Who I can understand , but never anything by Gene.
I love Gene Pitney. We played his greatest hits CD last week, by coincidence.
Steve, I’ve wondered about the absence of Gene Pitney, too. I bought his albums and listened to them a lot. He certainly was a successful singer in the Sixties.
Those were simpler times although it didn’t seem like it then.
Patti, I started College in 1967 so that trigged years of fun and learning. My High School years…not so much.
As always, depends on who or where you were. Not simpler for everyone…but things tend to be simpler for young people who aren’t deprived nor abused.
Todd, Life becomes way more difficult when you have to make a lot of Hard Decisions. Kids are vulnerable because most don’t have the experience in decision making and risk management. Our local TV stations are running a Public Service Announcement about a local teenager who went to a party where she was offered a “pill” and told it would make her feel “wonderful.” She took it. Then her sad parents appear on the screen and explain their daughter never smoked, never did drugs. This was the first time she ever tried anything like this. And it killed her. The pill was fentanyl. Tragic.
Indeed, blithely trusting “peers” is never a good idea. Never has been, either.
Todd, but many kids don’t know any better and are too trusting…in this case with fatal results.
What a very, very odd group of songs. There is a British thing going there, with Sandie Shaw and Helen Shapiro, but in general it is just all over the place, No Frankie Valli, but Andy Williams doing “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”? What’s up with that? That can’t help but remind me when we went to see Andy Williams in concert at what was then called the Garden State Arts Center ONLY to see the opening act – Steve Martin. There were a handful of Martin fans in the audience, some with arrows through their heads, and we cheered wildly. Then Andy came out and sang “The Theme From Rocky (Gotta Fly Now)” – and we left. I mean, is this happening or is it he hash, as Lily Tomlin once put it.
Anyway, there are some favorites there, but such odd choices – Sweets for My Sweet, not by The Drifters but The Searchers? Summertime by The Zombies? What’t that like?
I agree with you on Trini Lopez. Yuck.
The Zombies’ reading of “Summertime” is a straightforward jazz-pop arrangement, and rather good. Like much of this anthology, it hopes to catch your eye with familiar music, one inexpensive way or another.
In my later youth, my parents told me that they would sing “Summertime” to me as an infant, as a lullaby. Probably part of the reason I’ve been fond of the song as long as I remember.
https://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2012/08/saturday-music-club-summertime.html includes the Zombies’ version.
Todd, my favorite rendition of “Summertime” is the Billy Stewart classic.
It’s certainly among the most eccentric. I included a video of his version in that 12yo post, as well…
These may not be the best (No Milk Today???) but I recognize and have enjoyed most of them.
And, Deb, I love Itchycoo Park.
Beth, yes, there are a bunch of head scratchers on this CD. But, there are enough Good Songs to make the Listening Experience enjoyable.
Between Deb’s and Dana Gould’s recommendations, I tried out and cautiously recommended the “History/500” series as well and, while I don’t claim to be first, I’m enjoying being ignored in pointing out the podcaster’s warning he doesn’t know other music as well as he knows rock is very much in evidence, particularly when he made a shallow set of connections about the jazz influences on the Byrds because he really doesn’t know jazz that well. Inasmuch as he’s a fairly obsessive researcher in other ways, this doesn’t amount to a trivial flaw. A bit like writing about the Nixon Administration without once mentioning Agnew. As a famous clown was wont to note, trust, but verify.
This is both typical of top 40 radio as it existed in the ’60s in all its odd juxtapositions, as filtered through what was cheap to assemble at time of release and would catch the browser’s eye as nostalgia-inducing familiar songs…and some artists one hadn’t heard of, if at all, for decades.
“Itchykoo Park” helped popularize certain recording techniques…and, because the Small Faces have a coterie following at best these decades, not expensive. And it’s an amusing song.
I remember most of these songs – they were running in the background everywhere when I was a student in the 60s. But not many were among my favourites.
Gimme some real Rock!
Wolf, I’ll be posting about real Rock in a few weeks!
Can’t stand Trini Lopez and his pig grunts, don’t like Sonny & Cher, and there a couple of others in this set I could do without, but most of it is solid listening! I learned about Helen Shapiro last year and sent away for her CD! What a gyp! She was fine but the songs were arranged like early fifties big band music and they stunk! Very disappointing! I’ll give a thumbs up to The Four Seasons if no one else will!
Bob, I enjoyed the musical based on The Four Seasons: JERSEY BOYS.
So did I!