“Pure Gold Hits” is a little bit strong, but I remember all these songs especially Sammy Johns’ “Chevy Van” (backed by The Wrecking Crew) which inspired a lot of fantasies back in 1973. This compilation includes classics like The Lovin’ Spooful’s “Summer in the City” and Linda Ronstadt’s “(Love is Like A) Heat Wave.” I’m also partial to Seals & Crofts’s “Summer Breeze,” which I wish we had right now with temps in the 80s!
Do you remember these songs? Do you have a favorite Summer song? And what do you think of Obama’s Summer Playlist 2024? GRADE: B
TRACK LIST:
| 1 | The Doobie Brothers– | Black Water |
| 2 | The Rascals– | Groovin’ |
| 3 | Tommy James & The Shondells– | Crystal Blue Persuasion |
| 4 | Seals & Crofts– | Summer Breeze |
| 5 | The Mamas And The Papas*– | California Dreamin’ |
| 6 | Christopher Cross– | Sailing |
| 7 | America (2)– | Ventura Highway |
| 8 | War– | Summer |
| 9 | The Lovin’ Spoonful– | Summer In The City |
| 10 | Sammy Johns– | Chevy Van |
| 11 | Mungo Jerry– | In The Summertime |
| 12 | Linda Ronstadt– | (Love Is Like A) Heat Wave |
I actually know and like a lot of the songs on the SUMMERTIME ALBUM. Black Water and California Dreamin’ top the list for me, but I consider Summer in the City to be near the bottom of the Spoonful pile; I hesitate to even mention that damned earworm In the Summertime. My favorite summer song is Summertime from Porgy and Bess, sung by just about any one.
As for Obama’s list, I think he released it just to make me feel very old. Don’t know the majority of the songs nor most of the artists. Major exception: Satisfaction, which I would put on full blast while cruising down the highway with the top of the convertible down.. I was cool back then.
Jerry, you are still cool now! I agree with you on “Black Water” and “California Dreaming'”–standards I play every Summer! Like you, I don’t recognize most of Obama’s Playlist.
The Summertime CD is pretty basic—although I like a lot of the songs. Obama’s playlist is more interesting to me: it’s eclectic and pop-culture savvy. I added “Tipsy” (at least, an EDM remix) to my Spotify playlist a couple of weeks ago, so I’m hip too, baby! And how did I not know about the Hubert Sumlin & Keith Richards record. Off to go listen to it.
Deb, Obama’s Playlist challenges me to listen to some of those songs. I’m sure you know more of them than I do!
Mostly thumbs up on the SUMMERTIME selections, all but the execrable “Chevy Van.” I’m with you on the Obama playlist. And really, who cares? George, if you’re bummed out by temps in the 80s, I’ll gladly swap the triple digits currently parked over Austin for at least the next week and probably longer.
Fred, I am NOT a fan of heat and humidity. When the Western NY temps go high in the 80s and flirt with 90s, I stay close to my A/C! I’ve enjoyed my trips to Austin, but I was never there when it hit 100 degrees!
Nobody is cooler than Obama but I guess I wished he didn’t have to prove it. A little more Jimmy Carter, please.
Patti, I’ll bet we would know ALL the songs on Jimmy Carter’s Playlist!
George, I think Patti’s asking for a bit (or any) more activism of the human rights sort that Carter chose to engage in throughout his post-presidential career…Obama, as with too much of his presidency, has simply been cruising.
It’d be hard to be a better ex-president than JC, but any effort at all would be nice.
Todd, I suspect Obama will be more active if Kamala wins!
We’ll see.
Most of Carter’s later career was non-partisan, of course…but still leaning toward egalitarian empowerment. He was a bad president, if not quite down to Trump. Bushes, Reagan or Nixon, but no worse than the Dem presidents who have followed him, with the possible exception of Biden.
Todd, it will be interesting to see what Biden does…next year.
A somewhat untethered post-election Biden might or might not take big swings…since Harris has for most of her career has been a solid neoliberal. We’ll see how much she sticks with that, vs. moves more toward the kind of New Deal/Great Society gambits Biden has been working toward (and we can hope she’ll take a stronger hand with Netanyahu than Biden or Obama have bothered to do)(not that most of the USG wants to lose Israel as a staging platform).
I suspect Trump/Vance will crash and burn this time out. Even “soft” chauvinism against her gender and ethnicities probably can’t’ “save” him (and help doom us much more than her winning likely ever could). Let’s hope to see Drumpf in a prison cell soon, and a Congress in a less antagonistic position with a proggy WH, and a SCUSA of considerably more balance, with term limits…even if it means Enlarging It Again.
Todd, Trump, Vance, and the Republicans will have to contend with angry and disappointed MAGA millions. Not gonna be pretty…
1. About Obama’s Summer Playlist, the less said the better, Don’t know or care about most of them. Exceptions: “Satisfaction” (of course) and the great Smokey Robinson song, “You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me.”
2. As I’ve said before, for me “Summer in the City” is THE perfect summer song. It was one of the relatively rare Summer-related songs that was actually a hit in the Summer. I was working in the city that summer (1966), and it was exactly like the song says – hot, dirty and gritty.
Other than that, #1 is “”Groovin’,” followed by “Summer Breeze” and “California Dreaming” and “Heat Wave.”
Jeff, “Summer in the City” is the only Lovin’ Spoonful song that reached Number One on the BILLBOARD charts. This Summer in Western NY it’s been hot, dirty, and gritty…and buggy!
Re “Summer Breeze,” just today I opened the 2022 cd SONGS WE WERE TAUGHT by Prog Collective (which is Billy Sherwood and a ton of guests), this one a set of covers of 60s and 70s popular songs, and one of them is Summer Breeze. Roine Stolt of the Flower Kings sings and plays guitar, with Steve Morse (Dixie Dregs, Deep Purple) on lead guitar, and Sherwood on everything else. Not going to replace anyone’s fond memories of the original, but an acceptable cover.
Jeff, I’ll check out SONGS WE WERE TAUGHT!
Solidly Not Bad summer song compilation CD, if stuck (for obvious reasons) on Affordable Hits. “Summer in the City” doesn’t offend me, as one of the most urgent of LS songs, around the time they were saving their own necks by narking on other drug dealers.
Barry’s playlist features some decent-to-great if unsurprising jazz selections, the ones I’m most familiar with, as I barely if at all keep up these days with hiphop and pop (and BO doesn’t seem to be keeping up with much new jazz, either (but perhaps thinks this would lose his intended audience). “Come Away with Me” and some other slightly retro jazz-flavored pop from a couple decades back. We (Obama and I) are definitely middle-aged now.
Did I dream/misread while half asleep last night (or tired eyes are missing it now) that someone in comments came out in favor of Gershwin’s “Summertime” as their favorite summer song? I’d have to claim a certain unfair bias for that one, as my parents apparently used it as a lullaby for infant me. There sure are enough good recordings of it.
Todd, my favorite version of “SUMMERTIME” is by Billy Stewart.
It’s amusing, but versions by Lambert, Hendricks and Ross (vocalese to the Gil Evans orchestration), and Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong are somewhat more faithful to the original spirit of the song…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HJCN3upMHE
And (L,H&R): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hVV6m66mG0
Not to be ‘that guy’ — but how is California Dreamin’ a summer song ??
All the leaves are brown
And the sky is gray
I went for a walk
On a winter’s day
I’d be safe and warm
If I was in L.A.
California dreamin’
On such a winter’s day
…
I stopped into a church
I passed along the way
…
Oh, the preacher likes the cold
He knows I’m gonna stay
…
Oh, California dreamin’
On such a winter’s day
Jee Jay, I’m guessing “I’d be safe and warm/if I was in L.A.” qualifies “California Dreamin'” as a fringe Summer Song.
Even has a secular use of Christian institution aspect to it.
(Still waking up!) Though, of course, these anthologies aren’t about actual attention to their putative concepts…
Todd, most of the compilation CDs with themes seem to have an elastic definition of the songs that “fit.”
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/95705-2024-obama-reading-list.html
Todd, thanks for the link! Obama loves to generate a lot of lists!