for those who never gave up their turntables
DOES JACKIE DeSHANNON belong in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? Making an argument for her or any artist is not easy for two reasons. First, the Hall does not have any set of criteria by which fans can assess potential candidates. Each year each vote appears to be a reflection of the mood of the nominators and voters of that year. [Continue reading]
JACKIE DeSHANNON entered 1963 as a 21-year-old singer with fifteen singles under her belt, not one of them a hit! Hundreds of artists who had been more successful—they’d heard thunder boom with at least one hit record!—had come and gone during that time, yet Liberty Records showed great faith in her and kept with her through the rest of the decade. [Continue reading]
I LEFT WIKIPEDIA ALONE for the past few months, even though critiquing their entries is like shooting fish in a barrel. When it comes to “definitions” of persons and terms regarding popular music, Wikipedia’s theme song seems to be a well-known song by Elvis: “If you’re looking for trouble, you’ve come to the right place. [Continue reading]
THIS IS THE FOURTH in a series of ten articles listing and addressing the #1 records of the year as they appeared on Cash Box magazine’s Top 100 chart from 1960 through 1969. It was originally published as “Walk Right In And Go Away Little Girl” on my publication Tell It Like It Was on Medium on March 13, 2019. [Continue reading]
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]
IT’S NO SECRET that most of us form strong emotional bonds with things during our teenage years. This includes attachments to humans (think your best friend), food (think pizza), even sports teams (think “Go, Phillies!”) This seems especially so about music: usually, whatever the hits on the radio were that we loved when we were 15-years-old, we are going to love—for better or worse—until we are 95-years-old! [Continue reading]
THE AVID COLLECTOR’S GUIDE to Wild In The Streets Part 2 addresses records made that are associated with this movie—both singles and albums. All were released in the wake of the very successful movie in 1968, but few were hits. Before commencing, I recommend that you first read “On Wild In The Streets As Political And Social Satire” and then the first part of this four-part series of articles about the movie and its music. [Continue reading]
IT IS ACCEPTED “FACT” that two seminal works of popular music—the Beach Boys’ PET SOUNDS and Bob Dylan’s BLONDE ON BLONDE—were released on the same day, May 16, 1966. And there was a second reason to celebrate that date: BLONDE ON BLONDE was also the first rock double-album of all-new studio recordings, beating the Mothers of Invention’s FREAK OUT! [Continue reading]
THE ORIGINAL TITLE to this piece on David Bowie was “Damn That Damn Disco Music!” But that was really an inadequate opening for the tone of this ‘true story’ about conversion. Then I dallied with variations on “The Day I Came Out as a David Bowie Fan,” which was an allusion to his androgynous Ziggy Stardust period. [Continue reading]