Zager & Evans - In The Year 2525

Written in 1964 by one Rick Evans but not recorded until 1968 with his mate Denny Zager, 'In The Year 2525 (Exordium & Terminus)', its full pretentious title, tells the story of mankind in 1,010 year intervals from 2525 past 10,000 (like we're all likely to last that long) and reached No.1 in most English-speaking markets. However, this is such a one-hit wonder that, according to Wikipedia, the duo remains the only act to have a chart-topping hit on both sides of the Atlantic and never have another chart single in Billboard or the UK! Another interesting tid-bit: the song was recorded primarily in one take in 1968, at a studio in a cow pasture in Odessa, Texas.

Bonus clip: Their follow-up non-charting single 'Mr. Turnkey'. Charmingly inoffensive, but you can probably see why it bombed. It appears to be about a rapist and includes the lyric 'she was lovelier than oil rights'!

The 4 Seasons - Opus 17 (Don't You Worry 'bout Me)

One of my favourite 4 Seasons tracks. This single from 1966 is notable for the following reasons:

• '17' in the title is supposed to represent both the elements from classical music (according to co-writer Denny Randell) and the 17th single released by The 4 Seasons (although they had released singles under a permutation of names and Frankie Valli solo releases by then)
• This was the first 4 Seasons single with Joe Long singing bass. He had replaced original member Nick Massi. Unfortunately, Joe passed away from COVID-19 earlier this year
• Has the most number of chromatic key changes in a Top 40 song, tied with Bobby Darrin's 'Mack the Knife'

Bonus tracks: if we are looking for 4 Seasons related tracks that are somewhat silly, look no further than those released in the mid-60s under the nom-de-plume, The Wonder Who?, starting with this Bob Dylan cover...

... followed up by a cover of 'On the Good Ship Lollipop"...

... and seeing as it was mentioned above, here is 'Mack the Knife'

The Poppy Family - Which Way You Goin' Billy?

Another musical connection from the previous post. Last time, I posted The Poppy Family's cover of 'Different Drum' but here is their biggest hit which got to #1 and #2 in the Canadian and US charts respectively.

Terry & Susan Jacks were married at the time and the band also featured a tabla player (not that you can see him in this clip). After their debut album, The Poppy Family continued as a vehicle for the married couple plus session musicians but never reached similar success outside of their native Canada again. As the marriage foundered, Terry & Susan decided to drop the band name but continued to work with each other for some time after (more on that in the next post). A great compilation CD was released in the mid-90s called 'A Good Thing Lost' - highly recommended.

Bonus Clips: One of The Poppy Family's more psychedelic tracks, 'There's No Blood In Bone'...



... and the later 'Where Evil Grows'.

The Stone Poneys - Different Drum

Musical association time: having posted on Andrew Gold earlier this week brought to mind his association with Linda Ronstadt, who had a hit with this version of the Michael Nesmith-penned 'Different Drum' as part of The Stone Poneys (though it has been covered many times both before and since - more on that later). This is my favourite version, but not the one that first drew me to the song...

Bonus Clips: ... which was the cover by The Lemonheads released in 1990...

... another more recent live version by Susanna Hoffs & Matthew Sweet to plug their cover album from a few years back...

... one more by the Canadian band The Poppy Family featuring Terry Jacks (more on him coming up in a future post)...

... and finally a quick clip by the writer himself from an episode of The Monkees :-) (R.I.P. Mike)

The Moody Blues - Ride My See-Saw

The Moody Blues - best known, at least in their post-Denny Laine Mk II formation, for wildly over-the-top prog-rock albums full to the brim with every instrument this side of the kitchen-sink interspersed with some great pop tunes e.g. "Nights In White Satin", "Tuesday Afternoon" and this great slice of pop-psych.

The best thing about this performance (from the 60s TV show 'Colour Me Pop', I believe) is the dapper finger-snapping, foot-shuffling Ray Thomas, who looks like he's in the wrong band completely and channeling his best Peter Wyngarde impression! Plus the fact that it starts off with 'Departure', the 1st track off 'In Search of the Lost Chord' which of course is a spoken-word dramatic piece written by the drummer (natch), Graeme Edge (he unfortunately passed away recently so R.I.P. Graeme).

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Bonus Clip: one of my fave tracks from the 60s, a cover of the Bessie Banks original by the Denny Laine Mk I line-up.

The Association - Never My Love

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have a certain thing for Bubblegum Pop and its myriad sub-genres (Glam, Soft Pop etc.). However I have yet to write an entry on one of my favourites - Sunshine Pop; basically soft-pop with close harmonies a la The Beach Boys.

The de facto godfather of Sunshine Pop is Curt Boettcher, the songwriter/producer behind The Millennium, The Ballroom and Sagittarius. Boettcher produced the first album by The Association but this later track is my favourite from the six-piece multi-vocalist band.

Bonus clips: 'Never My Love' was the group's 3rd No. 1, the previous being 'Windy' which has been recently parodied in an ad for 7-Up featuring Brad Garrett. Here's a great live performance from 1967...

...'Never My Love' was written by The Addrisi Brothers who released their own discofied version on Buddah Records some ten years later in 1977.

The Turtles - Elenore

Ah, I love The Turtles. Even though they had a few big hits, they were completely screwed over by their record company and managers (more on that later) and today they are rather under appreciated.

The story behind 'Elenore' is that after hitting big with a couple of pop songs ('Happy Together' and 'She'd Rather Be With Me'), the band wanted to branch out and had recorded a concept album with each track being by a different fictitious group ('The Turtles Present The Battle Of The Bands'). The record company however pressured the band with coming up with something commercial so they wrote down as many clichés as they could e.g. 'I really think you're groovy', 'Gee, I think you're swell', 'You're my pride & joy etc.' and, voilà, 'Elenore' was born.

Here is a great live version from 1968 with Mark Volman ('Flo') and Howard Kaylan ('Eddie') in fine form vocally and a marvelous performance from Jonny Barbata on drums. After record company pressure, the band split and Flo & Eddie (along with bass player Jim Pons) went on to join Frank Zappa and the Mothers Of Invention for a string of late 60s/early 70s gigs and albums.



Bonus clips: Flo & Eddie explain their managerial & record company woes...



... Flo & Eddie with Zappa and band sing 'She Painted Up Her Face' in a typically incoherent segment from the movie '200 Motels'...



... Another track from 'Battle of the Bands', 'I'm Chief Kamanawanalea (We're the Royal Macadamia Nuts)' has been sampled numerous times and formed the backbone of a precedent setting legal case brought by the band against De La Soul (along with yet another sampled track 'You Showed Me')

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Titch - Zabadak!

Although somewhat under appreciated, at least as compared to some of their contemporaries, DDDBMT (as they were sometimes known as) had a run of charting singles in the mid-to-late sixties and were reportedly one of the better live acts in the UK at the time. Their 'Greatest Hits' album was one of the tapes in constant rotation in my dad's car when I was growing up and my mum could never get their name right - she would begin 'Dave Dee, Dozy, Bozy...' and then would dissolve into fits of giggles!

Anyway, I always liked this bit of nonsense. Fun Fact: Dave Dee (David Harman) was a policeman prior to becoming a musician and was on the scene at the car crash that claimed the life of Eddie Cochran.

Bonus clips: The Germans have never met a novelty song they didn't like. Here is a cover version by The Saragossa Band from 1979...

...and to clear your ears from that, here's Hold Tight. This was recently featured to great effect in Tarantino's 'Death Proof', where one of the character's claimed that Pete Townshend contemplated leaving The Who to join DDDBMT (mind you, she also constantly called the band 'Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mitch & Titch). This song is almost 45 years old but still rawks!!!

The Wallace Collection - Daydream

You know this song, even if you have never heard of this band or indeed this version (although it is the original). Admittedly, I came to this track via a different route - all shall be revealed below (see Bonus Clips).

The Wallace Collection was a Belgian band working out of London in the late '60s. Daydream, a single from their debut album, was released in 1969 and was a big hit in mainland Europe but, strangely enough, not any English speaking countries. However, that's not the end of the story...

Bonus Clips:... because the track was first picked up by the French chanson singer Claude François (he wrote the original 'My Way'), who recorded it as 'Rêveries'

which seems to be based on this library recording by Bernard Wystraete (also used as a sample by the likes of The Beatnuts, RZA, Dr. Octagon etc.)

Next up, the Australian easy-listening group The Gunter Kallman Choir (think of an Aussie version of The Swingle Singers) in 1970. Now this is the version you are probably most familiar with as, as well as appearing in countless commercials and as background music, it was also the basis for both...

...'Daydream in Blue' by I Monster in 2001...

...and 'Squares' by The Beta Band, which was originally going to be released at the same time as the I Monster single but was held back so to not cause confusion between the two tracks.

Steam - Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye

If you're in the UK you'll probably be more familiar with Bananarama's cover version. If you're a tween you might recognise this from 'Goodbye' by Kristinia DeBarge (who, being the niece of El DeBarge, is related to another Guilty Pleasure here). However, this is the original version and, yes you've guessed it, originally started out as yet another session recording by a fake band.

The story goes that the songwriters and musicians were in the studio recording a bunch of 'good' songs. Mercury Records agreed to release one and, not wanting to waste any of the already recorded tracks as B-sides, turned to a fragment of a song that they has written about 8 years previously. Needing to make the track longer, they created a chorus by basically throwing in a few Na-Na's and Hey's where they didn't have lyrics and that was that.

Embarrassed by the result, they attributed the track to the fictitious band 'Steam'. Of course, what happened next was that DJs flipped over the record, making what had been intended to be the B-side a hit and thus ensuring that the throwaway chorus became the only part of the song anyone remembers! A touring band was quickly put together as the creators wanted no part in it (and judging by the stellar lip-syncing job in this performance, it was probably just as well). A couple of follow-up singles and an album flopped and Steam dissipated (geddit?!) Now beloved by baseball fans around the US who would probably be surprised to know that there are verses too...

Bonus Clip: Here's Bananarama's version.

1910 Fruitgum Company - 1-2-3 Red Light

Another bubblegum classic. The 1910 Fruitgum Co. were the most successful Kasenetz-Katz band having hits such as 'Simon Says', 'Indian Giver', 'Goody Goody Gumdrops' and this one, which I first came across as a cover by the Welsh indie-pop band The Pooh Sticks (whose whole career is basically a Guilty Pleasure!). This clip is marvelous - just look at the great tambourine work by 'percussion guy' Bruce (it's all in the wrist, you know...)

Bonus clips: Just because I love this song, here's 'Goody Goody Gumdrops', with more sterling tambourine from Bruce:

... The Pooh Sticks version:

... and my next favourite 'tambourine guy', Tim Kubart from Postmodern Jukebox! Spot him in the background from 0:45 in this video:

Lou Christie - I'm Gonna Make You Mine

You've got to love the proto-video: "So we've got this bubblegum pop song about never giving up attempting to win some girl's affection. OK, put on your best Tom Jones gear and we'll film you wandering around a breaker's yard on a freezing cold day - try to at least look like you're half interested..."

Lou was from Philadelphia and was born Lugee Alfredo Giovanni Sacco!

The Ohio Express - Chewy Chewy

Back to bubblegum we go and another Ohio Express track. The thing I find most funny about bubblegum pop is. for a genre so obviously marketed to kids, most of it was full of double-entendres that Frankie Howerd would be proud of: 'Do it to me Chewy, chew me out of my mind'? Oooh no, missus!

The Ohio Express - Sausalito

I have an inordinate love of all things Bubblegum Pop and will be posting more in the future, though this one is less twee than most. Not sure who the longhairs in the video are as by the time this 1969 single was released The Ohio Express was, like a number of other Super K bands, just a front for various session musicians. In fact, this is actually 10cc 3 years before they were 10cc!

Bonus Clips: Other songs written and performed by future 10cc members for various Super K bands include 'There Ain't No Umbopo' released under the name Crazy Elephant in 1970.

... which was also re-recorded by Hotlegs and released under the name Doctor Father.

... and 'Susan's Tuba' by Freddie and the Dreamers (yes, them of 'I'm Telling You Now'). Not sure if this is Freddie Garrity or Graham Gouldman on lead vocals...