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Post by Kapitan on Jul 9, 2024 11:29:07 GMT
I had never heard this one, either the Elvis version of the Dowell version. And honestly it's another of those "this hit #1?!?" songs for me. "Wooden Heart" is a wooden performance, stiff and uninteresting.
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Post by kds on Jul 9, 2024 13:24:45 GMT
I had never heard this one, either the Elvis version of the Dowell version. And honestly it's another of those " this hit #1?!?" songs for me. "Wooden Heart" is a wooden performance, stiff and uninteresting. I actually recently listened to that Elvis #1's comp, and I can't say I recall this song at all.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jul 9, 2024 13:37:42 GMT
My goodness...I thought we were done with these forgettable songs (and that's being kind). I don't know what's more surprising, that Jo Dowell hit #1 with this song or that Elvis hit #1 in the U.K. - for six weeks!
Yeah, kds, "Wooden Heart" is indeed included on the Elvis: 30 #1 Hits comp. I'd say they took some liberties. 
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Post by jk on Jul 9, 2024 13:56:04 GMT
I know the Big E's version back to front but I must have heard Joe Dowell's cover as well, as I recognize the organ intro. I keep mixing up Joe Dowell with Joe Barry, another boring Joe who had a hit at around the same time with the Domino-esque "I'm A Fool To Care" (Joe B's pronunciation of that last word was briefly the subject of great hilarity in the school quad): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Barry_(singer) |
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 9, 2024 14:05:25 GMT
(Joe B's pronunciation of that last word was briefly the subject of great hilarity in the school quad): Louisiana accents are tough even for many Americans to understand. Quite a blend of ethnicities go into that stew ... or should I say, into that gumbo? French immigrants to Eastern Canada and the Northeastern US, then pushed down into the south where it blended with other ethnicities and cultures that were already there (or that moved in), plus their own evolution over time. It's wild.
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Rob
The Surfer Moon
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Post by Rob on Jul 9, 2024 16:24:29 GMT
One of the albums I bought as a kid was a Gary Lewis and the Playboys record, "Everybody Loves a Clown". Those records were everywhere in the 70's/80s. Always just a couple hits surrounded by mediocre covers of other peoples hits. "Tossin' and Turnin" was on that album. I at one time had a 45 of their She's Just My Style, a very BB-like tune which I always loved. I bet they'd have made a good cover of it.
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Post by lonelysummer on Jul 10, 2024 7:17:50 GMT
One of the albums I bought as a kid was a Gary Lewis and the Playboys record, "Everybody Loves a Clown". Those records were everywhere in the 70's/80s. Always just a couple hits surrounded by mediocre covers of other peoples hits. "Tossin' and Turnin" was on that album. I at one time had a 45 of their She's Just My Style, a very BB-like tune which I always loved. I bet they'd have made a good cover of it. Don't get me wrong, Gary and the boys had some of my favorite hit records of the 60's. Their albums, though, were pretty weak.
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Post by jk on Jul 10, 2024 9:04:41 GMT
One of the albums I bought as a kid was a Gary Lewis and the Playboys record, "Everybody Loves a Clown". Those records were everywhere in the 70's/80s. Always just a couple hits surrounded by mediocre covers of other peoples hits. "Tossin' and Turnin" was on that album. I remember hearing a French version of this song when putting up with a sea of largely mediocre French stuff while waiting to hear the latest American releases on an enlightened French radio station. This is Claude François and "Tout le monde rit d'un clown":
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jul 11, 2024 10:25:59 GMT
One of the albums I bought as a kid was a Gary Lewis and the Playboys record, "Everybody Loves a Clown". Those records were everywhere in the 70's/80s. Always just a couple hits surrounded by mediocre covers of other peoples hits. "Tossin' and Turnin" was on that album. I at one time had a 45 of their She's Just My Style, a very BB-like tune which I always loved. I bet they'd have made a good cover of it. Hey, Robert, check out this thread - thebeachboystoday.proboards.com/thread/549/imagine-beach-boys-covering
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 12, 2024 17:50:29 GMT
”Michael,” by the Highwaymen
September 4-11, 1961 (2 weeks)A folk song is like a regional dish. Unlike a published classical work—or for that matter, a specific restaurant’s signature dish—its specifics can be hard to pin down. Consider chili. Home cooks (and consequently, restaurants) across America make versions whose only real similarity is the use of chili peppers (or powder). What kind of meat, if any? Beans? Tomatoes? Onions? Corn? Celery? Pineapple? Potatoes? Noodles? Is it more of a soup, a stew, or a sauced meat? Even discounting modern, intentionally unique recipes, most of the above are included in somebody’s traditional version of chili. (And others are vehemently rejected.) Thus the folk song. Historically, folk songs were shared person-to-person, learned from parents, friends, or teachers, performed over time, and taught again to someone else (very much like home recipes were shared). Whatever the original idea might have been, anyone who has ever played a game of “telephone” will understand how these songs evolve across time and space. And it’s not all mistakes, either: individual performers (as individual cooks) may intentionally put their own spin on a work by changing a word, a line, a verse, or a chord, or even the song structure. “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore,” aka “Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore,” aka “Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore,” aka “Michael, Row That Gospel Boat,” aka “Row, Michael, Row” is as good an example as any. Its Wikipedia page lists no fewer than eight lyrical variations, some of unknown origins, others by specific, modern performers. The song was first documented in 1863 as a spiritual sung around the Sea Islands of South Carolina during the Civil War. It was then included in an 1867 songbook titled Slave Songs of the United States. It was revised by Boston folk singer Tony Saletan in 1954 into the basic version that was used (and further revised) by modern folk and gospel singers almost immediately. That period, the mid-50s, was also the middle of a folk music revival in the U.S. What began in the 1940s especially among New York-based, politically progressive musicians was tamped down in the ‘50s by the Red Scare and fear of left-wing associations before eventually spreading to mainstream popular culture among college students nationwide in the early 1960s. It’s that latter era of the American folk scene that gave birth to the Highwaymen. Five freshmen at Wesleyan University, a private school in Connecticut, formed the group in 1958. Lead singer Dave Fisher arranged a version of “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore” that he’d learned from Saletan’s book. They quickly secured a recording contract, and their “Michael” (as it was titled for their record) was released by United Artists in 1959. As the group continued to record and perform (while still attending university), the single slowly—very slowly!—gained popularity. It finally reached the top of the Hot 100 in September 1961, remaining at the top of the charts for two weeks. In addition to popularizing “Michael,” the Highwaymen were a primary driver of the rediscovery of Leadbelly’s “Cotton Fields,” a version of which they released in 1960, which hit No. 13 on the Hot 100. Membership in the Highwaymen began to change in 1962, when Steve Trott became the first of the original members to leave the group. (He did so to attend Harvard Law School.) He was replaced by Gil Robbins, father to a young son named Tim who went on to a hugely successful movie career. In 1964, the mostly-original group separated to allow each member to pursue his assorted academic and artistic muses. Fisher remained in the music business, where he had a successful career first leading a new Highwaymen, and later writing and arranging for movies and television. Other members went to assorted graduate schools and ended up in law, business, politics, and academia. They occasionally reconnected in later decades for reunion shows. (As one might suspect, there were legal issues between the Highwaymen and the country music supergroup of the same name that emerged in the mid-80s. The originals eventually granted a nonexclusive, nontransferable license to the supergroup to use the name.) Three of five original members and one of two “original” replacement members have now passed away, including the group’s leader, Fisher. Other notable versions of “Michael” include those by Pete Seeger, Lonnie Donegan, Trini Lopez, and the Smothers Brothers. It was also arranged by Brian Wilson and recorded by the Beach Boys in spring 1976 for their 15 Big Ones album, but was never released.
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Post by jk on Jul 12, 2024 19:43:36 GMT
Back in the 1960s I tended to pair off American records that charted at the same time, and not always for logical reasons. One reasonably logical pair is "The Way You Look Tonight" by The Lettermen... ...and this one. I also recall Lonnie Donegan did a more uptempo UK version but The Highwaymen's was always the one for me.  |
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Post by lonelysummer on Jul 13, 2024 5:22:21 GMT
I had never heard this one, either the Elvis version of the Dowell version. And honestly it's another of those " this hit #1?!?" songs for me. "Wooden Heart" is a wooden performance, stiff and uninteresting. Another time the Presley people lost out on an American hit was "Suspicion". In fact, I heard the cover version many times before I heard Elvis' original. I like Elvis' version much better. Can't even think of who sang the cover version. It wasn't Joe Dowell. Ray Donner?
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Post by jk on Jul 13, 2024 6:15:00 GMT
I had never heard this one, either the Elvis version of the Dowell version. And honestly it's another of those " this hit #1?!?" songs for me. "Wooden Heart" is a wooden performance, stiff and uninteresting. In fact, I heard the cover version many times before I heard Elvis' original. I like Elvis' version much better. Can't even think of who sang the cover version. It wasn't Joe Dowell. Ray Donner? Well spotted, LS. It was Terry Stafford (and that should be Ral Donner):
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jul 13, 2024 13:15:48 GMT
I always liked the song, "Michael, Row The Boat". I'll bet the "folkies" really appreciated it, too, especially The Highwaymen's version. It gave them mainstream exposure which, while it may not have been their ultimate goal (it was the message and the power of the song/music), it gave them welcomed...publicity. I occasionally hear The Highwaymen's single on various oldies stations. It kind of fits in but not as much as other folk songs of that era.
Two quick things...I often wondered why The Highwaymen - with Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson - chose that name, knowing it would only result in confusion and possible conflict (which I guess it did). I mean, they couldn't come up with something else? Also, I really like The Beach Boys' version of "Michael, Row The Boat". I don't think it fit on 15 Big Ones and it didn't fit on the proposed 1977 Merry Christmas From The Beach Boys. However, I think The Beach Boys' version is a great example of Brian Wilson's production and arranging skills. He still had it.
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 17, 2024 17:49:04 GMT
”Take Good Care of My Baby,” by Bobby Vee
September 18-October 2, 1961 (3 weeks)
Fifteen-year-old Robert Thomas Velline and his band of family and friends made their “big-time” debut as a hastily organized, last-minute fill-in for some of the biggest stars of the time: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper. The date was February 3, 1959, and those three stars couldn’t make the show in Moorhead, Minnesota, because their plane had gone down in the wee hours of that morning near Clear Lake, Iowa. It came to be known as “the day the music died.”
Velline was from just across the Red River, in Fargo, North Dakota—Moorhead’s twin city. A city of about 130,000 (in a metro area of about 250,000 people) now, it was a smaller city then, around 50,000 residents (65,000 in the metro area). While the most populous city in North Dakota and a good-sized metropolitan area, it is surrounded by … well, by nothing. It is about a four-hour drive to anywhere in any direction, whether to Winnipeg to the north, to Duluth in the east, or to Minneapolis to the southeast. The land in which Fargo-Moorhead sit is the Red River Valley Flood Plain, a region of fertile soil, but challenged by extreme heat in summer, extreme cold and unbelievable quantities of snow in the winter, and regular flooding, as the Red runs to the north, so meltwater in spring comes upon still-frozen river in the north, causing ice dams and often devastating floods.
It is not an easy country.
Born in 1943 to Sydney (a chef and musician) and Saima (nee Tapanila) Velline, Robert—now Bobby—grew up in the first era of rock and roll. While he played saxophone in the high school band, that’s not where his interest lay. His older brother Bill bought a guitar, and later Bobby used his paper route money to buy one, as well: a $30 Harmony acoustic.
Bill began playing with two local friends, he on guitar and them on bass and drums, respectively. Bobby tried to join their group, but was shunned. Eventually he was allowed to join “if I would promise to keep quiet”—he was a younger brother, after all.
But a funny thing happened. The older boys didn’t know many of the songs’ lyrics, while Bobby knew them all. “I was 15 years old and my ears were glued to the radio.” He became the lead singer, and the group became a popular local group … at least as far as teenage amateur garage-and-basement rock and roll cover bands in the Fargo-Moorhead area went at the time.
Then the music died that day, and Velline and his band stepped up to a surprisingly good reception in a hall packed with curious onlookers and rock and roll fans, all shocked by the day’s news. They were supposed to be in the audience watching their heroes that night. This band with a 15-year-old lead singer had never even played a paying gig. The emcee asked their name only when they got on stage for their introduction, and Bobby replied “the Shadows.” He led the young band—while using a guitar strap borrowed from Waylon Jennings—through a set including songs by Little Richard, the Everly Brothers, and Gene Vincent.
They did get a paid gig that Valentine’s Day. With their reputation suddenly growing, one local promotor in attendance on Feb. 3 got them $60 for a show just under an hour away. They drove in zero-degree (Fahrenheit; nearly -18 Celsius) temperatures in an unheated Oldsmobile and set up on a ad hoc stage comprising pushed-together benches … which, during the show, pulled apart. Their amps crashed to the ground. It was not a great start, but the money was extremely good for an unsigned local band’s first real gig.
In June, the group drove the four hours to Minneapolis and recorded a song of Bobby’s, “Suzie Baby,” on the dime of another Fargo-area manager who had heard the legendary February gig and was impressed. Credited to “Bobby Vee and the Shadows,” it became a regional hit—No. 1 on many local stations—and led to Liberty Records signing them in fall of 1959.
The group was going to go on tour, and was seeking a pianist. A young man—about two years older than Bobby—came up to Bill in Sam’s Record Land saying he’d just gotten off the road with Conway Twitty, and that he’d be available. (This, as was the case with most of what that young man said in the late 1950s and early 1960s, was a lie.) They went to a nearby radio station that had a piano to audition him, and he played Bill a raucous “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.” Bill was sold, and he was brought into the band.
The man turned out not to even own a piano, so they’d rely on venues to provide them. According to Bobby, the young man also couldn’t play much of anything else except “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”—and that only in the key of C. But they all liked him, liked his energy, liked that he knew all the same songs they knew, liked that he could help on the background vocals. And so they gave him a shirt they wore as their uniforms and brought him on the road. He went by the name Elston Gunnn (yes, with three Ns) at the time, but his real name was Robert Zimmerman. You know him as Bob Dylan. He was in the band for just a few shows before they went their separate ways. (In 2013, with Vee in attendance, Dylan paid tribute to those days by performing “Suzie Baby” live in St. Paul, Minnesota.)
Bill Velline didn’t last much longer. Not a fan of the touring life, he returned to Fargo to move on to other things.
But the Shadows continued to tour and record … or at least Bobby Vee did. By “their” second release, the 1960 single “What Do You Want?” the record was credited to Bobby Vee. Producing was Snuff Garrett, who had worked with Buddy Holly and whose approach was to feature Vee, surrounded by studio musicians, performing primarily Brill Building songs. The debut album was Bobby Vee Sings Your Favorites, also in 1960. When Liberty’s contract option came up in January 1961, they renewed it for Vee as a solo artist.
Vee had a handful of other hits in those first two years, including a pair of singles to reach as high as No. 6 in 1960 (“Devil or Angel” and “Rubber Ball”).
In 1961, Garrett heard a demo of Carole King (whom we met earlier with “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”) performing the King-Goffin tune “Take Good Care of My Baby.” He wanted it for Vee, but asked that they add an introductory verse. Ask and ye shall receive.
Vee recorded the song--with the new introductory verse--atop a track that included Earl Palmer on drums, Barney Kessel and Tommy Allsup on guitar, and Sid Sharp arranging the strings. Recorded in late June with Garrett producing, it was released on July 20, 1961. It hit No. 1 in mid-September and remained there for three weeks. It also topped the charts in the UK, Canada, and New Zealand.
The song has been covered many times, including again by Vee himself as a ballad in the early 1970s.
Vee never again topped the Billboard Hot 100, though he scored several more Top 10 hits and had some, albeit declining, chart success through the ‘60s. His career, especially in America, flagged, but Vee continued to tour. He and his wife moved back to Minnesota in the early 1980s. They lived in the college town of St. Joseph (near the larger St. Cloud, about three hours southeast of his hometown of Fargo) until he was forced into a care facility for the final year or so of his life: he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2012 and eventually required more care than he could receive at home.
Vee died in 2016 (aged 73) from complications of the disease that plagued him the final few years of his life.
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