Early ‘70s country-rock, blues and soul from Marin County
Clover was a Marin County, California four-piece that formed in the late ‘60s and recorded this pair of albums for Fantasy Records in 1970-71. Their renown, however, stems from later exploits, including the slot as Elvis Costello’s backing band on his 1977 debut, My Aim is True, as well as spinning off Huey Lewis and the News, and launching the solo and songwriting (including Tommy Tutone’s “867-5309/Jennyâ€) career of Alex Call. Their original albums didn’t catch on upon initial release, and have been tough to find. Reissued on this two-fer, the performances reveal a band drawing inspiration from both the San Francisco scene and the country-rock wafting up from Los Angeles, and with additional dashes of blues and soul Clover was ready to rock the local clubs and bars.
Timi Yuro was an anomaly in the world of 1960s soul – a small girl of Italian descent with a gigantic, hugely emotional voice. The opening notes of her million-selling 1961 debut single, “Hurt,†suggest no less than Jackie Wilson with their power and vibrato, leaving listeners to momentarily wonder if they were hearing a man or a woman. She could sing more tenderly, but the biggest thrills in her catalog came from the sort of wrecking ball outbursts that Phil Spector helped capture on her subsequent “What’s A Matter Baby.†Barely missing the Top 10, this latter single is perhaps the single greatest kiss-off in the history of pop music; from it’s opening drum roll to Yuro’s derisive laugh after singing “I know that you’ve been asking ‘bout me,†to the soul-crushing finale “and my hurtin’ is just about over, but baby, it’s just starting for you,†this is a five-star kick in the teeth delivered point-blank to a deserving cad. Even the distortion on Yuro’s voice connotes indignation so strong that the microphone should’ve stepped back.
Yuro’s commercial fortunes never topped these two singles, but she continued to release fine albums and singles forLibertythroughout the rest of the 1960s. The bluesy choke in her voice suggested DinahWashington, as did the string arrangements with which she was often supported. The material for her early singles was drawn in large part from pop standards, ranging from early century classics to Tin Pan Alley to the hit parade. As with her two biggest hits, songs of romantic discord and joy, such as the non-charting “I Know (I Love You)†and its Drifters-styled flipside, “Count Everything,†provide the sort of material Yuro could really sink her teeth into. Perhaps not coincidentally, both of those sides were co-written by Yuro’s producer Clyde Otis, who also co-wrote “What’s a Matter Baby.†The flip, “Thirteenth Hour†was co-written by Neil Sedaka’s writing partner, Howard Greenfield, and provides another great stage for Yuro’s passionate delivery.
Otis left Libertyin the middle of producing “What’s a Matter Baby,†and she subsequently charted with a Burt Bacharach arrangement of “The Love of a Boy.†Joy Byers’ bluesy “I Ain’t Gonna Cry No More†was actually a better fit, but as a B-side, it didn’t get much exposure. Yuro’s material shifted from pop standards to more recent soul and pop compositions, and with the release of her 1963 album Make the World Go Away, to a deep well of country songwriters. Yuro had become friends with Willie Nelson, and recorded several of his tunes (including “Are You Sure†and the choked-up “Permanently Lonelyâ€), along with titles from Hank Cochran, Don Gibson and Hank Snow. Ray Charles had developed a country-as-soul template on Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, and Yuro took the concept to the next level with her highly charged vocals.
The New Christy Minstrels were a relentlessly upbeat folk revival group. The Minstrels generally hewed to the lighter side of the folk revival, often appearing in coordinated ensembles, and more likely to be seen on a mainstream television variety program, such as the Andy Williams show, than at a social demonstration or political rally. Aside from their musical roots in traditional material, their entertainment style had more in common with 1950s vocal choruses than with 1960s protest singers. Their hits were celebratory rather than confrontational, starting with a cover of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land†that (to be fair, like several other covers of the time) didn’t touch any of the socially-charged verses.
Over the group’s core folk years of 1961-65, a number of folk, pop and rock luminaries passed through its ranks, including Barry McGuire (whose co-write withSparks, “Green, Green,†was a hit for the group), the Modern Folk Quartet’s Jerry Yester, and future Byrd Gene Clark. Randy Sparks had formed the group inLos Angelesin 1961, and led them artistically and commercially into 1964. Upon his departure, the group’s stage direction was turned over to Barry McGuire, and with McGuire’s subsequent departure, they expanded into pop and comedy, truing the variety of their show to the 19th century group after which they were named. The comedy team of Skiles and Henderson added skits to the show, and Kenny Rogers and Kim Carnes cycled through the group on their way to greater fame.
The Minstrels’ folk-era albums included many traditional songs, but Real Gone’s collection focuses more heavily onSparks’ original material. On the one hand, this leaves the group seeming unconnected to folk tradition, on the other,Sparks’ material is musically apiece with the traditional tunes they revived on their albums and in concert. The darker themes heard in other groups’ recordings are omitted here, as the track list sticks primarily to upbeat celebrations, historical tales and comedic romps. The Christys were built for entertainment, rather than social commentary, and though their contrast with the folk movement grew in the era of Dylan and Ochs, their entertainment value never diminished.
These twenty-five tracks trace the group’s transformation from an earnest folk chorus to a crossover pop act in search of direction. Their three biggest chart hits, “Green, Green,†“Saturday Night†and “Today,†are here, along with a previously unreleased studio outtake of their concert opener, “Walk the Road.†A wonderful Art Podell live performance of “(The Story of) Waltzing Matilda.†shows off the group’s impressive charisma, deftly mixing folk history, story-telling, harmonies, comedy and audience sing-along. The group’s post-RandySparksdrift into pop, gospel and film themes produced covers of “Chim Chim Cher-ee†and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,†backings from HugoMontenegro’s orchestra, and eventually the soft rock “You Need Someone to Love.†By the time the latter was recorded in 1970, the original membership and their folk roots had both been obliterated.
Mono mixes of the Electric Prunes’ singles 1966-69
For those who weren’t there in ’66 and ’67, the oldies radio shorthand for the Electric Prunes has been their one big hit, “I Had to Much to Dream (Last Night),†as anthologized (as the lead off track, no less) on Lenny Kaye’s legendary Nuggets compilation. The few strokes of shading inclues their chart follow-up, “Get Me to the World on Time,†and an oft-anthologized ad for Vox Wah-Wah pedals. It’s an abbreviation that shortchanges the band’s recorded legacy. Reissues of their albums along with single- and double-disc compilations (including Birdman’s Lost Dreams and Rhino’s Too Much to Dream) expanded the group’s posthumous reputation, and are now joined by this collection of twenty-four mono single mixes. As a group whose tenure spanned across AM Top 40 and the birth of underground FM radio, their singles are just as interesting as the stereo album tracks.
Like several other groups of their era, including the Chocolate Watchband and Grass Roots, the Electric Prunes name was applied to several wholly different aggregations of musicians. The original lineup shifted subtly through the group’s first two albums (I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) and Underground), but with their third, the David Axelrod-produced orchestral Mass in F Major, the original band essentially broke up. The album was completed with studio musicians, and its follow-up, Release of an Oath, was produced similarly by Axelrod. The final album released under the Electric Prunes name, Just Good Old Rock and Roll, was recorded by a newly recruited group of musicians, wholly unrelated to the original lineup.
The singles gathered here span all three eras of the Electric Prunes – variations of the original lineup on the first two albums (1-12, 15 and 24), the Axelrod years (13-17), and the “new and improved†lineup (18-23). Original members James Lowe and Mark Tulin appeared on two of Axelrod’s productions (“Sanctus†and “Credoâ€), but the compositions and productions are so far divorced from the group’s earlier garage psych as to be nearly unidentifiable as the same band. The new lineup held on to only hints of the original group’s roots, bringing hard rock, boogie, funk and soul sounds to the Electric Prunes name.
Jerry Reed’s country and Nashville Sound beginnings
Singer, songwriter and certified guitar player Jerry Reed found his musical calling as a child, and by the time he turned 18 in 1955, he was already making records. Sides cut for Capitol (catch the rockabilly “When I Found You†here), NRC and Columbia failed to ignite a performing career, but his songwriting and session guitar work garnered traction in Nashville. By 1965 he’d come to the attention of Chet Atkins, and two years later he released his debut LP, The Unbelievable Guitar & Voice of Jerry Reed, on RCA. The album was stylistically schizophrenic, ranging from folk-country tunes similar to Waylon Jennings early RCA sides to faux British Invasion pop to rootsy blues-country. It’s the latter, including the album’s first single, “Guitar Man,†that came to define Reed’s sound.
In 1967, though, Atkins was still trying to find a place for Reed within the Nashville Sound. Atkins added badly-aging harpsichord to many of the debut’s tracks, and though Reed, Wayne Moss and Fred Carter Jr. cut loose with gut-string picking on several tracks, including the instrumental “The Claw,†there were still the doubled pop vocals of “If I Promise†sharing track space with the sly talking ablues “Woman Shy†and the Everlys-styled “Long Gone.†It’s interesting, albeit a bit disconcerting, to hear Reed singing so far outside his earthier country sound, and the folk- and pop-flavored cuts haven’t the swagger of his blues. Elvis Presley covered “Guitar Man,†with Reed reproducing the guitar break from this recording, and “U.S. Male,†with the lyrical intro shifted from Georgia to Mississippi.
Reed returned Elvis’ favor with his next single “Tupelo Mississippi Flash,†on his second album, Nashville Underground. Released in 1968, this second album’s title proves itself ironic with music that’s even heavier on the crossover balladry. Try as he might though, Atkins couldn’t shave the Southern edges off Reed’s playing and singing, highlighted by the hard-picked guitar of “Fine on My Mind.†In addition to eight originals, Reed covers a pair of traditional titles (“Wabash Cannonball†and “John Henryâ€), and takes a playful, jazzy turn on Ray Charles “Hallelujah I Love Her So.†As on the debut, Reed’s versatility is impressive, but it’s the talking blues and arrangements stripped of Atkins’ crossover production that still leap most energetically from the speakers.
Clever late-70s studio rock finally rescued from obscurity
The Durocs 1979 debut (and, as it turns out, album swansong) was a singular combination of collaborators and the times in which they collaborated. The two principals, Ron Nagle and Scott Mathews, had already been working together for a few years when they signed a deal with Capitol in the late ‘70s. Nagle had co-founded San Francisco’s Mystery Trend in 1965, playing key venues and releasing a single on Verve. He went on to record a Jack Nitzsche-produced solo album, Bad Rice, in 1970, but garnered his primary renown as a ceramicist and university art professor. Mathews was a songwriter and producer whose multi-instrumental talents made him something of a child prodigy. The pair wrote songs for other artists and produced audio for film soundtracks, leading them, via their connection to Nitasche, to Capitol.
Nagle and Mathews produced the album with Elliot Mazur, in their own San Franciscostudio, overdubbing most of the instruments and vocals, and adding selected guests, such as sax player Steve Douglas. Their thick production sound brings to mind Todd Rundgren (both as an artist and producer), the Tubes (for whom Nagle co-wrote the signature “Don’t Touch Me Thereâ€), and Phil Spector’s later work on the Ramones’ 1981 End of the Century. Nagle explains in the liner notes, “restraint just wasn’t our forte at the time,†which explains both their over-the-top production and the enthusiasms of their lyrics. They’re equally unbridled confessing the shame of a cuckold as they are reveling in the connections of a successful relationship. They excoriate the excesses of ‘70s self-empowerment as easily as they offer reassurance to a partner in need.
Astonishing stereo re-masters and demos of Brill-era vocal group
Blue Cat was a subsidiary of the Red Bird label started in 1964 by legendary Brill Building songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. The parent label cashed in on the girl group craze with the Dixie Cups and Shangri-Las, but Blue Cat also cracked the Top 10 with the label’s second single, “The Boy from New York City.†Written by saxophonist John T. Taylor, the song had a jazzy swing that gave the then-recently rechristened Ad Libs a distinct sound. The New Jersey quintet featured Mary Ann Thomas singing lead and a smooth male quartet providing backing vocals. A second single, “He Ain’t No Angel,†was penned by Red Bird’s house team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich (and previously waxed by the Lovejoys for Tiger), but label turmoil stalled the single on the bottom rungs of the Top 100. Two more singles, “On the Corner†and “I’m Just a Down Home Girl,†fared even worse and led to the group’s departure from Blue Cat.
Judging solely by the charts, the Ad Libs were a four-single, one-hit wonder; but as this twenty-three track collection shows, there was a lot more to their catalog than found broad public acclaim. In addition to the group’s four A’s and B’s, Real Gone’s gathered a clutch of unreleased tracks, alternate versions and a cappella demos that give full testimony to the group’s vocal talent and their production team’s ability to craft memorable melodic and instrumental hooks. The B-sides are anything but throwaways, with “Kicked Around†sporting an incredible jazz bass line, sly organ bed and maddeningly memorable triangle figure behind Thomas’ thirsty flower vocal. “Ask Anybody†is a dance tune touched by doo-wop, blues and gospel, and the male leads on “Oo-Wee Oh Me Oh My†and “Johnny My Boy†show the group had more than one vocalist capable of holding the spotlight.
The finished track “The Slime†went unreleased, and, sadly, was deprived of the opportunity to ignite a worldwide dance craze based on melting like butter down in the gutter. The set’s other unreleased master, “You’ll Always Be in Style,†adds a touch of Latin soul. The set’s most arresting find, however, are seven mono a cappella demos that starkly highlight the group’s melding of doo-wop and vocal jazz. In addition to demos of singles sides (including a take on “The Boy from New York City†that shows the hit single’s more relaxed tempo to have been the right choice), four additional titles are featured, including the holiday-themed “Santa’s on His Way.†The five alternate takes include a version of “The Boy from New York City†with a distractingly present trumpet riff, and the disc is filled out with seven tracking sessions that provide a rare peak inside the studio.
The early ‘70s singer-songwriter roots of Rick Springfield
By the time that Rick Springfield hit it big as a pop star, with 1981’s “Jessie’s Girl,†his fame as an actor all but obscured his very real roots as a musician. But a decade before topping the U.S. charts, Springfield was a working musician in the rock band Zoot (on whose heavy cover of “Eleanor Rigby†a young Springfield can be seen playing guitar) and a solo artist with a Top 10 hit in Australia. A reworked version of that hit single, “Speak to the Sky,†reached the Billboard Top 20, and took this debut album into the Top 40. The 1981 view of a dilettante actor dabbling in music is wiped away by this record of his earlier work, for which Springfield wrote ten original tunes, sang and played guitar, keyboards and banjo.
Springfield’s songs and the production sound are heavily indebted to late ‘60s and early ‘70s rock, particularly the bass, drums and piano sounds of the Beatles, Badfinger and Big Star. The album mixes deeper numbers with bubblegum, showing Springfield’s voice to work well in both heavy and light arrangements. “The Unhappy Ending†anticipates the histrionics of Queen (and presages the opening of “Killer Queenâ€), while the happy-go-lucky (but war-tinged) “Hooky Jo†sports hooks worthy of Kasnetz-Katz and Graham Gouldman. Springfield’s infatuation with Paul McCartney is evidenced by the album’s chugging beats, but there are notes of soul, country-rock and pop.
Producer/arranger David Axelrod’s rock interpretation of Handel’s Messiah has twin histories. Originally released in 1971, it was part of a stream of God rock that included Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell and popular hits like “Spirit in the Sky,†“One Toke Over the Line†and “Jesus is Just Alright.†But as part of Axelrod’s personal oeuvre, it also followed in the footsteps of his literary and social-themed works of the late ’60s and his 1968 albums with (or perhaps, “asâ€) the Electric Prunes, Mass in F Minor and Release of an Oath. Taken in the retrospective stride of his full career, the album now feels less tethered to its 1971 theatrical contemporaries than to Axelrod’s long-running exploration of concept albums, jazz, soul and rock orchestration.
All four of those influences are heard here, with string arrangements that are as much Chicago soul as philharmonic concert hall, and full-kit drumming and fuzz guitars that reach back to his earlier experiments with psychedelia. The album was recorded with key Los Angeles sessions players, such as Carol Kaye, and features a 38-piece orchestra conducted by jazz legend (and Axelrod collaborator) Cannonball Adderley. Axelrod astutely observed that by 1971, rock music had developed album-oriented fans whose attention span was longer than the two-minutes-forty of AM radio hits, and that FM radio had developed listeners whose tastes spanned beyond pop music.
In contrast to his earlier instrumental work, and in deference to the piece being an oratorio, Axelrod arranged this with vocals, though sung in shades of soul and gospel that befit the era and arrangements, rather than with classical choruses. Axelrod interlaces electrically-orchestrated pieces with more strictly symphonic arrangements, such as “Pastoral Symphony,†lending the finished work the imprimatur of both rock and classical music. The set’s uncredited stars are its recitative leads, whose lead vocals give soul power to “And the Glory of the Lord,†“Behold†and “And the Angel Said Unto Them.â€
Frankie Avalon’s mid-60s sides for United Artists
Along with Bobby Rydell and Fabian, Frankie Avalon was one of the “Golden Boys of Bandstand†– handsome, talented teen idols whose appearances on the original Philadelphia-based American Bandstand provided a ticket to pop crooning stardom. Avalon’s biggest hits (including two chart-toppers, “Venus†and “Whyâ€) were recorded for the Chancellor label from 1958 through 1960, but in that latter year he began an acting career that led to starring roles in a string of beach party movies, including 1964’s Muscle Beach Party. The beach party films innovated on the surf-theme of the Gidget series by adding original music, including songs by Avalon, his co-star Annette Funicello and guest stars that included Donna Loren.
Unlike today’s consolidated marketing, in which soundtracks are developed in parallel with a film’s marketing plan, actual soundtracks to the beach party films weren’t typically issued at the time. The only full soundtrack was Wand’s issue of How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and a few film tracks turned up on Annette Funicello’s solo albums. Instead, Avalon, Funicello and Loren re-recorded songs from the films for their respective labels (Avalon for United Artists, to which he’d signed after leaving Chancellor, Funicello for Disney’s Buena Vista and Loren for Capitol), often in very different arrangements. Most notably, several songs sung as duets in the films were re-sung as solos on the artists’ respective albums.
In the case of Avalon’s 1964 Muscle Beach Party (Funicello released an album under the same title that year), the first side was dedicated to remakes of songs from Beach Party and Muscle Beach Party, while side two featured six additional film-related titles. Avalon’s remakes of the beach party music weren’t typically as interesting as the film originals; having developed himself into a nightclub singer, he was miscast singing ‘60s pop-rock, and it’s even more evident without Funicello to sweeten the up-tempo numbers. The remakes often had minimal arrangements, such as these title themes, in which Avalon croons to raucous rock ‘n’ roll guitar offset by nagging yeah-yeah-yeah background singers. The best fit from the film sessions is the ballad “A Boy Needs a Girl,†which points to the success of the album’s second side.
The album’s flip gives Avalon a chance to show what he does best: croon orchestrated pop ballads. With the tempos slowed and the arrangements given a bit of sophistication, you can hear Avalon relax into his Perry Como-influenced balladeering, and his sensitivity as an interpreter and the deeper qualities of his voice both become evident. This may not have been what the films’ teen fans were looking for, but they remain the productions most worth hearing. Highlights include a tender reading of “Days of Wine and Roses,†an intimate, melancholy take on “Moon River†and a dreamy version of “Again.â€
Real Gone’s CD reissue augments the album’s original dozen tracks with eight bonuses culled from additional United Artists releases. Avalon’s post-beach party singles failed to crack the charts but included some fine songs and performances, with the Brill Building-flavored “Don’t Make Fun of Me†chief among them. A shoulda-been-a-hit written by Neil Sedaka’s partner Howard Greenfield with his sometime collaborator Helen Miller, the song finds Avalon playing a wounded ex-boyfriend with a melody and arrangement that bring to mind dramatic hits by the Shangri-Las, Leslie Gore and Gary Lewis. Avalon’s four tracks from the soundtrack of I’ll Take Sweden, including the film’s title theme, are lightweight but charming, and the B-side “New-Fangled, Jingle-Jangle Swimming Suit from Paris†provides a cute take-off on “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.â€
Early ‘70s country-rock, blues and soul from Marin County
