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F.I.T. April 22, 2016


LCK

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Townes Van Zandt has been a major influence, not only on me, but a ton of songwriters. This is reportedly the first song he ever wrote.

 

[video=youtube;l4zfEkKs2ZM]

An even bigger influence is Johnny Mercer. Here's one my favorites.

 

[video=youtube;OgoqYHtBEOY]

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An influence is an influence... and the Seeds had a strange, maybe unexplainable attraction... Sky Saxon just didn't, you know, GAF. And that spoke to me...

 

[video=youtube;G48q-u3GznY]

 

I guess I always liked a raw, garagey sound... Blues Magoos conjured up the rural, southern end of that... though they were from... the Bronx. ;)

 

[video=youtube;TOWOdKs6KUo]

 

 

Speaking of Taurus/Stairway... that Blues Magoos tune above was from 1966... check this surprisingly ballsy version of "Summertime" from 1962... (I don't remember Ricky suing The Blues Magoos over it... and how would that work anyhow, arrangement theft? But who knows what a jury or even some of these judges will do, huh?)

 

[video=youtube;NSngzjqMF38]

 

That thing has been stashed away in the back of my head since way back then, I think, judging from my fascination with odd stylistic approaches to the song.

 

Wikipedia writes of the near identical bass lines:

The group's biggest song, "(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet", whose bass ostinato and Vox Continental organ seem to mirror a riff in the 1962 Ricky Nelson cover version of "Summertime" (Deep Purple also quote the riff in their hit "Black Night", as did Liverpool Five in the song "She's Mine"), was released as a single in 1967 with "Gotta Get Away" as the b-side. The song reached number 5 on the US charts, although it did not fare nearly as well in the UK.
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[video=youtube;NSngzjqMF38]

 

That thing has been stashed away in the back of my head since way back then, I think, judging from my fascination with odd stylistic approaches to the song.

 

Wikipedia writes of the near identical bass lines:

 

Amazing! They stole the idea from Ricky!!

 

You know, Dylan said that Ricky Nelson was a major influence on his music...

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It's generational, I think.

 

We watched little Ricky growing up and when he became a rock star we all looked at ourselves and thought, if that little twerp (big brother David's favorite term of affection for his little brother, IIRC) can do it...

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We would watch Father Knows Best all the way through just for the performance clips at the end with Ricky doing his thing. He was sort of the Bing Crosby of rock and roll, in that he had that smooth, laid-back delivery that made you want to sing in the shower just like that.

 

nat whilk ii

 

 

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We also had a big stack of 45s from 64-67 with that bass riff/vox or farfisa organ, jangly electrics and white guy singers imitating the soul singers -

 

You know Paul Revere and the Raiders were actually a pretty rockin little band. Smoother and more produced than the rough and raw garage bands, but I still like this stuff a lot:

[YOUTUBE]GMcfPPAwJ1g[/YOUTUBE]

 

The Music Machine - you can hear the transister organ even 'tho they didn't set it up for the lip sync:

[YOUTUBE]iZExWt-bj-k[/YOUTUBE]

 

The Standells - one of the best of all the tough garage rock tracks

[YOUTUBE]4JLNnXgQeqU[/YOUTUBE]

 

 

nat whilk ii

 

 

 

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We would watch Father Knows Best all the way through just for the performance clips at the end with Ricky doing his thing. He was sort of the Bing Crosby of rock and roll, in that he had that smooth, laid-back delivery that made you want to sing in the shower just like that.

 

nat whilk ii

 

 

Ricky was on Ozzie and Harriet, not Father Knows Best.

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We also had a big stack of 45s from 64-67 with that bass riff/vox or farfisa organ, jangly electrics and white guy singers imitating the soul singers -

 

You know Paul Revere and the Raiders were actually a pretty rockin little band.

 

The Music Machine - you can hear the transister organ even 'tho they didn't set it up for the lip sync:

 

The Standells - one of the best of all the tough garage rock tracks

 

 

Good choices! I like the Raiders' "Kicks" better than "Hungry." (Both were written by Barry Mann & Cynthia Weill.)

 

But, yeah, these are all cool "grunge" tracks before grunge was a thing...

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We would watch Father Knows Best all the way through just for the performance clips at the end with Ricky doing his thing. He was sort of the Bing Crosby of rock and roll, in that he had that smooth, laid-back delivery that made you want to sing in the shower just like that.

 

nat whilk ii

 

And that was real determination -- since Ricky Nelson was on Ozzie & Harriet. :D

 

I'm not sure if either of the Father Knows Best teens gave pop a shot (Elinor Donahue did have a further acting career -- she was even Andy Griffith's pharmacist GF for a short time in the early days of his show -- they grow up so fast!)* but both Paul Petersen and Shelley Fabares from Donna Reed had some minor hits. (Shelley's "Johnny Angel" might have even sold pretty well. Maybe when I check the spelling on all these folks I'll find out how big a hit that was.)

 

*On further research, I found that FKB's male teen, Billy Gray, was for many years a motorcycle racer -- and invented some high tech guitar picks. Oh, yeah, and had his career stymied because he got popped for pot in 1962 at the age of 24 (and then was libeled by the doltish, low brow, film reviewer, Leonard Maltin, who falsely claimed Gray was recruited off the street for a role as a heroin dealer in 1971 and refused to remove the false info from his moronic books for 20 years -- until Gray sued him).

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Speaking of Taurus/Stairway... that Blues Magoos tune above was from 1966... check this surprisingly ballsy version of "Summertime" from 1962... (I don't remember Ricky suing The Blues Magoos over it... and how would that work anyhow, arrangement theft? But who knows what a jury or even some of these judges will do, huh?)

 

[video=youtube;NSngzjqMF38]

 

That thing has been stashed away in the back of my head since way back then, I think, judging from my fascination with odd stylistic approaches to the song.

 

Wikipedia writes of the near identical bass lines:

 

Wife and I saw Ricky at a small venue in the late 70's in Colorado and as it was the custom of the day his manager after the show invited her back to meet him just as my back was turned. Said he was real handsome and a little jittery...can only guess why, but she felt he was a bit troubled or something, but was a very nice guy...they were both born in Long Beach, Ca

 

 

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Townes'[video=youtube;zWNxtUCHBfw]
influence on me came with this song.

 

Yeah, one of my favorites too, though I never learned to play it.

 

I did learn "Tower Song," "Come Tomorrow," "Pancho and Lefty," "Quicksilver Daydreams of Maria," "Don't You Take it Too Bad," and I think that's about it.

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