I was tempted to start with The Singing Nun, Bobby Vinton and such. Check out what the big hits of 1963 were! Sugar Shack, Surfin' USA (ok, that's 1 good one), The End of the World (by Skeeter Davis...a slow number), Rhythm of the Rain, He's So Fine, Blue Velvet (the bad one by Bobby Vinton), Hey Paula, Fingertips (that makes two good ones), Washington Square, Can't Get Used to Losing You (by Andy Williams!!), Dominique, I Will Follow Him...it was pretty dire. But really, why subject all of us to those songs? The important thing is, life changed in December 1963.
After a couple of years of Limbo Rock and Lazy, Crazy, Hazy Days of Summer and Judy's turn to Cry, we heard this. For you youngsters, you can't possibly feel how thrilling this was. I think maybe if you go and download the songs listed above, burn them, then listen to that CD constantly for two months until you want to cry, and then listen to I Want To Hold Your Hand you can approximate what it felt like but then you'd know it was coming. Back then we were doomed to a lifetime of Trini Lopez amd Tony Bennett and Henry Mancini and Lou Christie. Some of it was good, no doubt about that, but none of it was fresh, new and exciting. Until this...
"The one in the middle" (a phrase from one of their songs) is Paul Jones. He was the singer on the early hits, left to go out as a solo artist where he had some success, and the band continued with Mike D'Abo on lead vocal to have a huge hit with "The Mighty Quinn". Manfred himself is the goateed keyboard player.
For goodness sakes! This band was always coming in 2nd or 3rd to the Beatles in the Mersey Beat poll, run by Liverpool's premier music newpaper. The flip is cool too, called "Now I Must Go" and written by two of the Blue Jeans. They had been the Swinging Blue Genes in honor of Gene Vincent but changed the spelling because it made more sense this way.
The first British band I ever saw was the Dave Clark Five, in New York City, sometime in 1964. It was what the experts call "loud". I had a good idea of what songs they were playing but I could have been wrong. The girls sure were screaming. The only other crowd I've ever been in like that was in 1976 when shaharazade and I went to see the Bay City Rollers. Anyhow, years later my own group would record this song as the B side to our one and only single. Of course, this one here is much better.
Honey Lantree was the drummer for the Honeycombs. Back in those days women were rarely musicians. Think about the history of popular music. There were "all girl" orchestras in the swing days but all the musicians in the famous groups, Benny Goodman's, Glenn Miller's, Tommy Dorsey's, Count Basie's, were all men. All the musicians in the rock 'n roll days were men. Little Richard's band....well, anyway, the Crickets, the Blue Caps, Elvis' band...all men. So this was seen as a gimmick but I suspect Honey was responsible for big changes ahead. I know when I saw Paul McCartney playing left-handed it had a major impact on me. I realized I could reverse the strings and play that way. It's likely that lots of young girls saw the Honeycombs and picked up instruments that week.
Here's my favorite British female singer of that day, Dusty Springfield. I remember seeing her in Los Angeles when she opened for Peter Allen. Anyone remember Peter Allen? He was popular at the time, in the 70s. We walked before he came on because we were there for Dusty. One of my favorite stories about her (no...nothing to do with Sandi Shaw) is about her recording with the Pet Shop Boys. Neil Tennant, the singer of that group, says he was driven nutty by Dusty's preferred method of recording, which was a line or two at a time, rather than singing the whole song. She was such a perfectionist that she wanted to make sure that every syllable was in its place and that was her way of doing it!
From Newcastle in the North of England, this was originally The Alan Price Combo, with Alan Price on keyboards. They changed the name when Eric Burdon joined. Here's their first big hit. By the way, The Animals were one of many groups that used a style called "rave up" where they'd have an extended (for those days) section of, well, raving up! The music would get a bit frantic. Other groups that were really good at that were The Yardbirds and The Searchers.
Some call this the beginning of heavy metal. I don't know. I think it's just a great riff that was some sort of morphed Louie Louie. I was pretty impressed back then with their clothes. It's funny how I never heard about bandmates fighting with each other before the British groups got popular. Dave Davies, who does that great lead here, and Mick Avory, the drummer, got in lots of fights with Mick sending Dave to the hospital one evening, slashing Dave's scalp with a cymbal....while performing! That must have been a great show.
I know Buddy Holly was wildly popular and The Beatles became Beatles because it was like The Crickets. And the Hollies...well that's kind of obvious. Did the Searchers name themselves The Searchers because it was the name of a movie which had "that'll be the day" as a line of dialogue? Or did they just think the movie was American and used the title as a name for the same reason that American groups were soon calling themselves The Sir Douglas Quintet? Here's The Searchers' first big hit, written by Jack Nietzsche and Sonny Bono.
Poor Billy J. Kramer! So much has been written about his "weak voice" and his lameness on stage. Hey...it's still a great Lennon-McCartney song! I liked his other hits too, like Little Children and From a Window. He also does a great rocking version of Beautiful Dreamer. The production and piano work on this tune are by George Martin.
Bonus video! By request! This song really should be in next week's entry but I don't mind seeing it now. This is a live version by The Hollies. Enjoy!
