BLAST FROM THE PAST

Great idea!

I like anything by Sam Cooke, but this is my favorite.

Oooo . . . very cool, thanks . . .

This is the original version that almost no one under 50 has heard: (sorry about the ad)

The furthest my musical memory goes back are these:

Kimba, around 1966


Chirpy Chirpy, around 1969 I think


And here's the first piece of classical music I ever loved (and still do). I remember playing this on an LP Album which my father had to mark with an "X" on the side with the correct song because I hadn't learned to read yet. Our phonograph at the time was a big phillips box which stood about 4' high with speakers on the bottom and the turntable on top. It had a big heavy grey "arm" with the needle on it which you had to place onto the record manually (no small feat for a 4yr old standing on a chair to reach the top). I played in our cool damp basement listening to that song over and over and over again.

Here, let's mix classical and rock. This performance is from1969. Watch Ray Thomas (singer on the left) at the beginning. He's doin' that little 60s white boy cool dance, stiff and shufflin' his feet around. Cracks me up . . .

This was one my entire family knew by heart. It was one of the songs we sang on long car rides.

Wow . . . i'm the right age, but i don't remember ever hearing that before . . .

The Small Faces


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsAl416Ovu0&feature=related

I thought his comments at the start of the video were very interesting.

Over the last few days, i looked at several Moody Blues vids. I originally went there because they have entire albums you can play, and i was using those for background music while i was playing a PC game. But i noticed they had some vids from the late 60s, early 70s, and when i checked those out, i was surprised. They were obviously not lip-synching the songs, and the performances were just as good as the songs that come out of the studio on their recordings. So i watched carefully, and came to the conclusion that even if they aren't great virtuosos--not a Clapton, or a Ginger Baker--they're still highly competent, and very professional. I suspect that several of them had formal musical training, and certainly Ray Thomas, who does vocals, harmonica, flute and piccolo (at least). Off to go check it out.

Ray Thomas was in the Birmingham Youth Choir, and in addition to harmonica, flute and piccolo, plays the oboe (one tough intrument!). John Lodge, bass player, went to the Birmingham College of Advanced Technology to study engineering--i guess he taught himself bass guitar. Mike Pinder (these three were the original members who stayed together when the first band broke up in the mid-60s) does not seem to have had any formal musical training, but, interestingly, he worked for the company that developed the Mellotron, an electric keyboard instrument with parallel magnetic tapes for "pre-recording" which could be used for playback-sampling. He, of course, was the keyboard (and, rarely, rhythm guitar). Justin Hayward (vocals, lead guitar and songwriting--he's the guy at the beginning of your vid) had no formal musical training, either. He worked hard in Birmingham bands when he was a teenager, and saved up enough money to buy himself a Gibson guitar. The drummer, Graeme Edge, was also a poet, and wrote many of the songs. I couldn't find a bio, so i don't know if he had formal musical training. I'm even more impressed by their competence and professionalism given the style of music they evolved, and the lack of formal musical training.

One of the members of the original, early 60s R&B version of the group, Denny Laine, was co-founder of the group Wings, with Paul McCartney.

Back to the music.

In honor of the season, from 1970, here's Mungo Jerry:

This one is for The Girl . . .

In the early 70s (my mid teens) I was listening to a lot of Jim Croce and Loggins and Messina. I was a big Jim Messina fan.

I still have the vinyl version of Loggins and Messina's Full Sail. Still love that album.

Mike Love's favorite dance ...

This reminded me of The Brothers Four (they did a rendition of this song too), which brought me to 1965 and Try To Remember.



1965 was the year my brother graduated from high school. The Beau Brummels were one of his favorite groups.

This one was banned in Corpus Christi

Oh man, he's struttin' his stuff, ain't he!

"Help Me Rhonda" always reminds me of doin' summer time farm labor, that and "Summertime Blues."

Here's that song from the late 60s by the psych-o-delic three man power band, Blue Cheer. This is sometimes cited as the first heavy metal song: