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announcing my new column “the avid record collector”

BE THE FIRST ON YOU BLOCK to read my new column, The Avid Record Collector! Sub-titled “From the Cut-Out Bin,” it can be found on the Sixties Music Secrets website! In each column, I will look at records that were mass-produced in the 1960s and subsequently deleted from record company catalogs. [Continue reading]

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the #1 hit records on the pop charts 1965

THIS IS THE SIXTH in a series of ten articles addressing the #1 records of the year on Cash Box magazine’s pop chart from 1960 through 1969. It was originally published as “Let’s Hang On To Our Ticket To Ride” in my publication Tell It Like It Was on Medium back on June 2, 2019. [Continue reading]

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why the hell isn’t gene clark in the hall of fame? (gene clark part 4)

ONCE UPON A TIME, it looked like the Byrds had a long, successful, productive career in front of them. In 1965, they had two #1 hits, Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn! Turn! Turn!, that effectively defined the recently coined term folk-rock. Their two albums were pivotal in the transition of rock musicians from being primarily singles-oriented to being primarily album-oriented. [Continue reading]

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reissues of “gene clark with the gosdin brothers” (gene clark part 3)

IN JULY 1966, COLUMBIA RECORDS announced that Gene Clark had left the Byrds. A month later, Clark was in the studio recording as a newly signed Columbia solo artist. In November 1966, his first single, Echoes, was issued with great fanfare and considerable expense. Nonetheless, it bombed. In February 1967, his album was issued with considerably less enthusiasm from and a noticeably smaller promotion campaign by Columbia. [Continue reading]

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when was “gene clark with the gosdin brothers” released? (gene clark part 2)

GENE CLARK’S FIRST SOLO ALBUM came almost a year after his final record with the Byrds. For a long time, Gene Clark With The Gosdin Brothers was considered rather lightweight, especially from the man who wrote songs like She Don’t Care About Time, Set You Free This Time, and Eight Miles High while a Byrd. [Continue reading]

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the echoes in your head continue showing (gene clark part 1)

THE BYRDS’ FLIGHT TO ENGLAND in August 1965 began a disastrous tour for the group. Fortunately, it wasn’t a wasted trip, as it inspired Gene Clark to pen some psychedelically-enhanced poetry. These words became the basis for “Eight Miles High,” which was released as a single in March 1966, opening a new phase in music. [Continue reading]

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real rarity, relative rarity, and the “wow!” factor

IN RECORD COLLECTING, we bandy about certain terms so often that they lose their meaning. One such word is ‘rare,’ which should be considered a bugaboo not just record collecting, but all fields of collectables. Another abused word is ‘psychedelic,’ or, as it is more often used, ‘psych.’ [Continue reading]

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a requiem for those timeless good good good vibrations

MAJOR RECORD COMPANIES usually released new titles on Monday in the ’60s. On April 12, 1965, I rushed home from school, ran upstairs to my room, tossed my books on my bed, pulled my money out of the drawer, ran to the garage, picked up my bike, and zoomed off to Joe Nardone’s record shop. [Continue reading]

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look, pa! I’m somebody’s blog of the month!

ON OCTOBER 29 OF LAST YEAR, I published an article titled “on william strunk and elements of style (and concise vigorous writing)” on my Neal Umphred Dot Com website. It’s as boring as the title makes it sound—you’d have to give a damn about the most important figure and the most important book in the history of American writing on the inses and outses of writing readably! [Continue reading]