Day: April 30, 2012

FLASHBACK POP MUSIC HISTORY: APRIL 30

From the MCRFB music calendar:

Events on this date: APRIL 30

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1953: Frank Sinatra begins working with his new arranger, Nelson Riddle.

1955: Perez Prado’s “Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White” hits No. 1 on the charts.

1962: The Orlons records “Wah-Watusi” in the Parkway Records studio.

1965: Bob Dylan begins the tour immortalized in the documentary Don’t Look Back, performing at the City Hall in Sheffield, England.

1965: Herman’s Hermits make their U.S. stage debut, with the Zombies as the opening act.

Well, Twiggs looks happy he got away with that one…. (1975 photo).

1966: The Young Rascals hits No. 1 on the national charts with their single, “Good Lovin’.”

1968:  Organist Al Kooper announces that he’s leaving Blood, Sweat and Tears.

1968: The Cilla Black Show, featuring the theme song “Step Inside Love” written by Paul McCartney, debuts on the BBC, making Cilla the first English woman with her own TV show.

1969: “Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In” by the Fifth Dimension is certified gold.

1970: Allman Brothers tour manager Twiggs Lyndon is arrested for stabbing a club manager over a contract dispute. Incredibly, in a strange turn of justice, Lyndon gets off by pleading temporary insanity caused by being the tour manager for the Allman Brothers. At one point Lyndon’s lawyers declared that touring with the Allman Brothers alone would have been enough to drive anyone insane. (Twiggs died nine years later in a freak sky-diving accident).

1976: Bruce Springsteen, fresh from a Memphis concert, attempts to vault a fence at Graceland to see his idol, Elvis Presley, but was unsuccessful and was escorted away by security.

1976: The Who’s Keith Moon pays $100.00 to nine different New York City cab drivers to completely block off a city street end-to-end, allowing the drummer to throw all his furniture through the hotel room high-rise window while watching them literally smash below onto the street.

Led Zeppelin jamming before 77,000 fans at the Pontiac Silverdome in 1977. (Click on image for larger view).

1977: Led Zeppelin break the single-act attendance record for a concert when 76,229 fans pay to see them perform at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan, breaking the previous record set by the Who, who also had performed at the Silverdome as well.

1983: To celebrate the 25th anniversary of London’s legendary Marquee Club, Manfred Mann reforms in their original sixties incarnation to play the venue they (they and so many others) started in.

Michael Jackson is booked on child molestation charges in 2003. (Click on image for larger view).

1988: For the first time since since its release 11 years earlier, Pink Floyd’s landmark LP Dark Side Of The Moon leaves the Billboard Charts, only to return a few months later.

2003: Sixties blues man and soul-icon Earl King is buried in his hometown of New Orleans with an authentic jazz funeral. Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton send their condolence.

2004: Michael Jackson is arraigned on his child molestation charges, pleading not guilty to ten different counts, also including extortion and false imprisonment.

2004: Ray Charles appears at his Los Angeles recording studio to attend a ceremony marking it as an historic landmark.It will be the last public appearance he will ever make.

 

 

 

 

 

And that’s just a few of the events which took place in pop music history, on this day….

 

 

Loading

NEW FOLK-WAVE HITS POURS ON . . . JUNE 12, 1965

From the MCRFB NEWS archive: 1965

Folk Swinging Wave On – Courtesy of Rock Groups and Artists

 

 

 

 

Hollywood –With Bob Dylan as the stimulus and the Byrds as the disciples, a wave of folk rock is developing in contemporary pop music.

The Byrds in New York City in 1965 (click on image for larger view)

British groups, such as the Animals and the Nashville Teens, have on occasions used pure country-folk materials. But their identity has been really in the Beatles vein. The Byrds, on the other hand, with a similar driving sound, are the first American rock group to obtain the majority of its material from the folk field and make a success out of it. Their Columbia single release, “Mr. Tambourine Man,” is the No. 6 record in the “Hot 100” survey this week.

The five folk singers switched over to rock and roll when the Beatles made it fashionable to wear long hair and play amplified guitars.

Since the Byrds single was released, with San Francisco and Los Angeles were the first two markets accepting the Dylan-authored song, a host of other rock groups have caught the message. And the race is on the get on the folk-rock bandwagon.

Such acts as Billy J. Kramer, Jackie DeShannon and Sonny and Cher have all begun using folk-oriented materials on their singles. A new group, the Rising Sons, displayed a folk-rock style at their Ash Grove bow in Los Angeles recently. Joe and Eddie, Crescendo Records top folk artists, are now reportedly switching over to blend of folk-rock. An act billing itself as the Lovin’ Spoonful, reportedly is working in the New York area with a folk-rock sound.

Byrds’ Gene Clark and Bob Dylan at Ciros in Los Angeles, 1965 (click on image for larger view)

When the Byrds played their first engagement at Ciros in Los Angeles, many folk artists attended. The boys rubbed elbows with Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary and, with Bob Dylan as well, who attended the Byrds’ L. A. venue. It was reported that several disk-men brought portable tape recorders to the club to catch their sound. The Byrds’ sound combines falsetto voicing with blaring guitar chords along with a rock bottom drum beat, songs already applicable for dancing with the current pop scene.

Their repertoire is heavily Dylan influenced, espousing his causes just above their din of their own playing. Their new album has four Dylan tunes and one by Pete Seeger. For some, the blending of folk lyrics with a rock beat becomes a natural extension for the current new folk sound. For the Byrds, this sound has become their key to their success.

They have already played dates with Britain’s own Rolling Stones, and a tie-in with the Beatles on their planned forthcoming United States tour has been mentioned. For the Byrds, TV appearances have already been in the making, giving more exposure to the new folk-rock sound.

If the folk-rock movement takes hold, a song’s lyrical contents could become as influential as the dominating beat that has always been the pride of rock and roll at best. With the Beatles in the mainstream as one from the old rock-and-roll-school, and the Rolling Stones along with the Righteous Brothers, with their white R&B acts infused with euphoric soul, the Byrds are in flight towards a new plateau, combining the imagery of folk lyrics along with the wave the group is now riding with their newly-acclaimed sound. END

___

(Information and news source: Billboard; June 12, 1965)

BILLBOARD HOT 100 JUNE 12, 1965

A MCRFB viewing tip: On your PC? For a larger detailed view click above image 2x and open to second window. Click image anytime to return to NORMAL image size.

Click your server’s back button to return to MCRFB.COM home page.

On your mobile device? Tap on image. Open to second window. “Stretch” image across your device screen to magnify for largest print view.

MCRFB.COM Logo (2)

Loading

FOLK ROCK: AN ERUPTING NEW SOUND . . . AUGUST 21, 1965

From the MCRFB NEWS archive: 1965

Rock, Folk, and Protest Equals An Erupting New Sound

 

 

 

 

New York — Call it folk-rock, urban folk, protest music or rock with a message. It’s so new the trade lexicographers haven’t yet agreed on a name. But whatever it’s called, the new sound is selling — and selling big.

Here’s what’s happening. The traditional folk music and the folk-oriented pop product are still selling, but not nearly as much as a few years ago. The hard rock product is still the core of the singles market, but again, it’s not selling as well as it did a year ago. And the sound is not quite as hard today as it has been in recent past.

Fresh Urban Lyric

A hybrid, combining the best and instrumentation of rock music with the folk lyric — usually a fresh urban lyric, and combined with a lyric of protestation — is selling across the board.

Sonny and Cher with Bob Dylan in 1965 (click on image for larger view)

Among the leading exponents of this new form of music are Sonny and Cher, whose Atco record, “I Got You Babe,” hit the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for the second week in a row. “All I Really Want To Do,” another single in the same vein, is on the charts with versions by Cher on Imperial and by the Byrds on Columbia. Two weeks ago, Sonny and Cher’s “Look At Us” album was released on Atco Records.

Also released were singles by Sonny on Atco, and Cher on Reprise. Bob Dylan, the Columbia artist influential in spearheading the “new” folk-rock sound, is also back on the charts with his latest single, “Like A Rolling Stone.”

Elektra, a traditional folk label, announced last week that its fall program would include a heavy dose of the rocking urban-folk product. This Week, Verve-Folkways, another traditional folk label, said it would branch into the folk-rock field this coming fall.

Sound And Message

Barry McGuire folk-rocked the charts with “Eve Of Destruction” in 1965

With many notable exceptions, folk music has been more concerned with the message and narration with the new sound. And rock music has been more concerned with the sound than the message.

The latest development has been is to take the rock sound and instrumentation and use folk-oriented lyrics. The singer or group has something to say. Until recently, the message would be delivered with a guitar with a plaintive voice. Now it’s delivered, often by a group, by hard rock instrumentation behind their lyrics, what they seem in trying to convey of their message.

A case in point is Barry McGuire’s “Eve Of Destruction,” released last week on Dunhill Records. The beat is solid, but the lyrics, aimed at teenagers (are adults listening?), deals with social disarrays at the present, such as the possibility of dropping a nuclear bomb somewhere on the planet, maybe during this lifetime.

Capitol Records recording artist Jody Miller circa 1964

Jody Miller’s “Home Of The Brave” on Capitol, which defends the rights of youngsters to dress as they see fit, is another of the protest genre that is served up with a rock-influenced beat.

Donovan, the British artist on Hickory Records with his current release on the charts, “Colours,” falls in that same category, along with a message of protestation.

The reconstituted Highwaymen, making their first ABC-Paramount album, have come out with a Bob Crewe produced rock sound, but the message remain in the traditional folk idiom.

The songs are plain enough. Traditional folk, while it will continue to serve it’s specialized market, and what has come to be considered rock music, is being influenced to a major degree by the wave of the new folk sound, evidently heard in lyric and in message with today’s ever-expanding music scene. END

___

(Information and news source: Billboard; August 21, 1965)

Loading