for those who never gave up their turntables
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]
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]
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]
ARGUING THE ‘BEST’ ROCK GUITAR PLAYERS of the ’60 is probably a pretty dumb way to waste time—and “Surfing Guitars” will not be doing that! Considerably more constructive and interesting would be an argument as to who were—and that’s intentionally plural—the most ‘creative’ players. Of course, to reach any kind of consensus there would require that we first agree on a definition of ‘creative’ in that context! [Continue reading]
IT WAS TWENTY YEARS AGO TODAY—give or take a few hundred days one way or the other—that I finally found a stereo copy of DICK CAMPBELL SINGS WHERE IT’S AT (Mercury SR-61060). I was at a record show in New York, and happily paid $100 for it! I had been looking for a copy for years and may have been the only person there that day willing to pay the seller’s asking price. [Continue reading]
MIND GARDENS, one of David Crosby’s contributions to the Byrds’ legacy, has been a bone of contention among fans since its release on the YOUNGER THAN YESTERDAY album in 1967. Actually, using that euphemism is inaccurate: almost everyone has something negative to say about the recording—the lyrics, the singing, the music. [Continue reading]