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Post by Kapitan on Jul 18, 2024 17:37:08 GMT
Here is Robert Thomas Velline's 1972 release of "Take Good Care of My Baby." It features him on vocals and acoustic guitar, Les Emmerson on acoustic guitar, and Red Rhodes on pedal steel. (Les Emmerson was the lead vocalist and guitarist for the Five Man Electrical Band, and wrote their 1971 hit "Signs.") Quite a different take on the song.
It was released as a on the 1972 album Nothin' Like a Sunny Day and as a single in 1973 on United Artists (which had merged with Liberty Records) under the name of Robert Thomas Velline. Neither album nor single charted.
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Post by jk on Jul 18, 2024 20:15:10 GMT
”Take Good Care of My Baby,” by Bobby Vee
September 18-October 2, 1961 (3 weeks) The first time I heard of Bobby Vee was at school in the very early 1960s, when his "Rubber Ball" was written off as imitation Buddy Holly -- ironic, considering his then recent history, which was anything but common knowledge in those days. My first earful of Bobby was "More Than I Can Say". But the one that really took my fancy was "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes", which reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the early months of 1963: All this aside, "Take Good Care..." is one of those gorgeous records I only came to appreciate later. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Has_a_Thousand_Eyes_(song)
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jul 19, 2024 23:13:02 GMT
That's a great story above in Kapitan's post about Bob Dylan "conning" his way into Bobby Vee's band. I never heard that one before. And Dylan never forgot...
"Take Good Care Of My Baby" is a good song. It has a nice home on all the oldies stations. Actually, Bobby Vee had a very nice run of hit singles in the early 1960s. All of those singles are catchy and immediately recognizable. And, there was always an audience for the young, clean-cut singers! Bobby Vee fit that role perfectly.
"Take Good Care Of My Baby" also got the attention of a then-unknown band from Liverpool. This was recorded on New Year's Day in 1962:
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Post by lonelysummer on Jul 21, 2024 4:58:59 GMT
I never liked Bobby Vee. Never liked his voice. I know his music was loved by millions, including some of my older friends, but there was something about his voice I found annoying; and those cloyingly sweet productions.
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 21, 2024 12:17:01 GMT
I have to say, I have no strong feelings about him one way or the other. His back-story was interesting. And this King-Goffin song is a great one.
But I've never been particularly into very-early '60s pop music, and so most of these characters are interchangeable to me--not to say they are actually similar (though some are), but just that when you're not familiar, it all seems the same. I've known a lot of the names, and I've known a lot of the songs, but in most cases I couldn't tell you who did which, or what else they did. To their real fans, I'm sure that would be sacrilege, but for me, Bobby Vee, Bobby Vinton, Dion, Rick Nelson, Bobby Rydell, Bobby Darin, Frankie Avalon, Fabian ... they're all the same thing to me.
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Post by kds on Jul 21, 2024 13:37:03 GMT
This is another one of those songs I always heard growing up, then kinda forgot about. I don't recall ever knowing the artist, but I think I'd assumed it was an early 60s British band.
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Post by lonelysummer on Jul 22, 2024 20:08:50 GMT
I have to say, I have no strong feelings about him one way or the other. His back-story was interesting. And this King-Goffin song is a great one. But I've never been particularly into very-early '60s pop music, and so most of these characters are interchangeable to me--not to say they are actually similar (though some are), but just that when you're not familiar, it all seems the same. I've known a lot of the names, and I've known a lot of the songs, but in most cases I couldn't tell you who did which, or what else they did. To their real fans, I'm sure that would be sacrilege, but for me, Bobby Vee, Bobby Vinton, Dion, Rick Nelson, Bobby Rydell, Bobby Darin, Frankie Avalon, Fabian ... they're all the same thing to me. The Bobbys, lol. Mom liked Bobby Vinton, so I have a soft spot for some of his songs - Blue Velvet, Blue on Blue, Roses Are Red, his remake of Sealed with a Kiss. Very syrupy stuff, not something I would typically choose to play, but if the oldies stations plays them, I do enjoy them. Dion was a great singer, great voice, so he's got a handful that I really "dig" - A Teenager in Love, Ruby Baby, Donna the Prima Donna, never did like the braggart of The Wanderer, though. "I love em and I leave em, they don't even know my name". Rick Nelson is one of my favorite all time artists. The rest - Bobby Vee, Rydell, Fabian, Avalon - I'm sure they're all talented guys, but I have never bought any of their records.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jul 22, 2024 20:34:10 GMT
I have to say, I have no strong feelings about him one way or the other. His back-story was interesting. And this King-Goffin song is a great one. But I've never been particularly into very-early '60s pop music, and so most of these characters are interchangeable to me--not to say they are actually similar (though some are), but just that when you're not familiar, it all seems the same. I've known a lot of the names, and I've known a lot of the songs, but in most cases I couldn't tell you who did which, or what else they did. To their real fans, I'm sure that would be sacrilege, but for me, Bobby Vee, Bobby Vinton, Dion, Rick Nelson, Bobby Rydell, Bobby Darin, Frankie Avalon, Fabian ... they're all the same thing to me. The Bobbys, lol. The Bobbys
- Bobby Darin - Bobby Rydell
- Bobby Vee - Bobby Vinton - Bobby "Boris" Pickett
- Bobby Hatfield - Bobby Hart
- Bobby Goldsboro - Bobby Bare
- Bobby Fuller - Bobby Hebb - Bobby Womack - Bobby Bland
- Bobby Sherman - Bobby Dylan 
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Post by jk on Jul 22, 2024 20:44:09 GMT
Mom liked Bobby Vinton, so I have a soft spot for some of his songs - Blue Velvet, Blue on Blue, Roses Are Red, his remake of Sealed with a Kiss. Very syrupy stuff, not something I would typically choose to play, but if the oldies stations plays them, I do enjoy them. Dion was a great singer, great voice, so he's got a handful that I really "dig" - A Teenager in Love, Ruby Baby, Donna the Prima Donna, never did like the braggart of The Wanderer, though. "I love em and I leave em, they don't even know my name". Rick Nelson is one of my favorite all time artists. The rest - Bobby Vee, Rydell, Fabian, Avalon - I'm sure they're all talented guys, but I have never bought any of their records. Ironically, that's the only 45 by any of the artists you mention that I ever owned! The bit that intrigued me the most was those triplets in the background vocals during the bridge (I didn't know they were triplets at the time). Dion's bragging on it has never worried me -- it's too over the top to be taken seriously...
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Rob
The Surfer Moon
Posts: 216 
Likes: 102
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Post by Rob on Jul 22, 2024 21:27:49 GMT
Absolutely, it's such a cool song.  FWIW, I agree with most of the comments made to this thread in the past few days regarding some of these songs and artists of the ealy 60s and their apparent sameness. As a teenager in the 70s, I grew up in New York City, where we had the oldies FM station WCBS. This was not your typical oldies station that one would find in most other parts of the country that only play top 10 oldies, but one that routinely included some fairly obscure material into their daily playsists. So I've been familiar with these songs for a long time. It's kind of hard for me to put my finger on it, but it seems that while many of these songs were catchy melodies and probably deserved to become popular and successful in their time, they also quickly faded and didn't seem to have too much staying power over the years. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but many of the artists mentioned were not really musicians in the sense that they wrote their own music or even lyrics. They might have known how to play some instruments, may have had good voices and an overall sound that appealed to a contemporary audience, but their songs were basically taken "off the shelf" of some songwriter. They were kind of like throw-away songs. The Everly Brothers, as another example, don't resonate with me in hindsight to any large degree. Catchy songs when you hear them the first few times, but their sound quickly became borderline obnoxious to me.
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 22, 2024 21:44:25 GMT
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but many of the artists mentioned were not really musicians in the sense that they wrote their own music or even lyrics. They might have known how to play some instruments, may have had good voices and an overall sound that appealed to a contemporary audience, but their songs were basically taken "off the shelf" of some songwriter. They were kind of like throw-away songs. I don't know a TON about all of them (which is an understatement): in a lot of cases, they were just names attached to a few hit songs until this thread started. My research, such as it is, into each #1 song has taught me a lot about them. But you are correct. Most of these guys (not to mention the majority of other chart-toppers in the few years' worth of #1s we've covered so far) were getting songs by other professional songwriters or other artists who had done them first. We've had a lot of Brill Building songwriters, we've had some Nashville songwriters. But not a lot of singer-songwriters or self-contained bands. (Of course, that is going to change in the coming years, as we're only at late 1961.) I would not necessarily say they were throwaway songs, though. Tunes like this last one, "Take Good Care of My Baby," by the great Carole King and Gerry Goffin, is a really good song in my opinion. We've had others by that duo, or by Doc Pomus, or any number of other great songwriters. Some of the tunes have been weak--the novelty songs, especially, in my opinion--but a lot of the songs were good. They just weren't by, or somehow deeply connected with, the singers.
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Post by lonelysummer on Jul 23, 2024 3:19:35 GMT
Mom liked Bobby Vinton, so I have a soft spot for some of his songs - Blue Velvet, Blue on Blue, Roses Are Red, his remake of Sealed with a Kiss. Very syrupy stuff, not something I would typically choose to play, but if the oldies stations plays them, I do enjoy them. Dion was a great singer, great voice, so he's got a handful that I really "dig" - A Teenager in Love, Ruby Baby, Donna the Prima Donna, never did like the braggart of The Wanderer, though. "I love em and I leave em, they don't even know my name". Rick Nelson is one of my favorite all time artists. The rest - Bobby Vee, Rydell, Fabian, Avalon - I'm sure they're all talented guys, but I have never bought any of their records. Ironically, that's the only 45 by any of the artists you mention that I ever owned! The bit that intrigued me the most was those triplets in the background vocals during the bridge (I didn't know they were triplets at the time). Dion's bragging on it has never worried me -- it's too over the top to be taken seriously... I had my own lyrics for it back in the 80's. I hug em and I squeeze em, cause to me they're all the same I love em and I leave em, and I've probably got AIDS
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Post by lonelysummer on Jul 23, 2024 3:24:06 GMT
Absolutely, it's such a cool song. FWIW, I agree with most of the comments made to this thread in the past few days regarding some of these songs and artists of the ealy 60s and their apparent sameness. As a teenager in the 70s, I grew up in New York City, where we had the oldies FM station WCBS. This was not your typical oldies station that one would find in most other parts of the country that only play top 10 oldies, but one that routinely included some fairly obscure material into their daily playsists. So I've been familiar with these songs for a long time. It's kind of hard for me to put my finger on it, but it seems that while many of these songs were catchy melodies and probably deserved to become popular and successful in their time, they also quickly faded and didn't seem to have too much staying power over the years. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but many of the artists mentioned were not really musicians in the sense that they wrote their own music or even lyrics. They might have known how to play some instruments, may have had good voices and an overall sound that appealed to a contemporary audience, but their songs were basically taken "off the shelf" of some songwriter. They were kind of like throw-away songs. The Everly Brothers, as another example, don't resonate with me in hindsight to any large degree. Catchy songs when you hear them the first few times, but their sound quickly became borderline obnoxious to me. Oh boy, now that's a bit of bloody blasphemy there! But I've noticed in recent years, the only 50's artist that really gets a lot of respect is Buddy Holly. So many times, people point to him as the first singer/songwriter - I guess they never heard of Chuck Berry or Carl Perkins. I can't think of any duo with better harmonies than the Everly Brothers. Great songs, production, the whole package. But I'm not gonna try to convert anyone here. There's no way to compare the hits of the Everly Brothers, Rick Nelson, or even Elvis with Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, or Metallica.
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Post by kds on Jul 23, 2024 12:27:02 GMT
My appreciation for pre Beatles / late 50s - early 60s rock/pop has grown in the last decade or so. I haven't taken too deep of a dive into any of it, but I do enjoy it quite a bit.
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 28, 2024 14:44:12 GMT
”Hit the Road Jack,” by Ray Charles
October 9-16, 1961 (2 weeks)Percy Mayfield was born in the small city of Minden, Louisiana, a county seat about 20 miles east of Shreveport and 20 miles south of the Arkansas border, in 1920. He enjoyed wordplay, writing poems and setting them to music even as a young boy. But because of his mother’s religious conservatism, the only singing he was allowed was in church. That wasn’t going to cut it, so he left home at age 15 and “ hoboed around the country on freight trains.” He began singing professionally during those next few years, and—unusual for blues and R&B artists—he mostly performed his own songs. In 1942, Mayfield settled in Los Angeles to pursue his music career. It took a while, but around 1947, he began selling music to small labels. There are contradictory versions of his start as a recording artist, with two or three different labels, a few songs, and a few deals having been reported as his big break. Considering the “Wild West” nature of the industry—at least among small labels—it seems entirely possible that there’s some truth in all of the stories, that he was signing more or less anything put in front of him to get his music out there. But Swing Time Records seems to have signed him in 1947 to release his recording of his own song “Two Years of Torture,” which sold well enough over the next couple of years for him to be signed to Specialty Records in 1950. It was for Specialty that Mayfield released “Please Send Me Someone to Love,” which topped the R&B charts and hit No. 26 on a mainstream chart that was a precursor to the Hot 100. Mayfield became a star, at least in the R&B world, with seven Top 10 R&B hits over the next two years. He was dubbed “The Poet of the Blues” or “The Poet Laureate of the Blues” for his storytelling lyrics, and performed on big stages such as the Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in 1951, where he shared a stage with giants like Billy Eckstine, Lionel Hampton, and Jimmy Witherspoon. But in 1952, leaving a Las Vegas gig, his chauffeured car hit a stationary truck. Mayfield, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, was pronounced dead at the scene, though he was not dead and after several years of convalescence recovered. He was, however, disfigured in the face to the extent that he eventually stopped performing live. During the latter 1950s, he continued to write and record music, including for Chess and Imperial Records. In 1960 he wrote and recorded an a cappella demo of a song that came to become his biggest success: “Hit the Road Jack.” The song came to the attention of Ray Charles ( whom we met previously), who didn’t just record the song for himself, but hired Mayfield as a staff writer for his own Tangerine Records. Charles went on to record more than a dozen of Mayfield’s songs. Charles’s “Hit the Road Jack,” featuring Raelette vocalist Margie Hendrix, was released in August 1961, and by October it reached the No. 1 spot on the Hot 100, where it stayed for two weeks. It was his second of three Hot 100 No. 1 records. Mayfield went on to record occasionally and perform live very rarely until his death in 1984, one day before his 64th birthday.
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