Monday’s Music Moves Me: Top 5 from KHJ, June 21, 1967

I had to laugh when I saw the topic for this week’s M⁴:

Summer officially starts on Tuesday. Let’s play songs about summer!

See, I did this on Memorial Day, choosing five songs from a playlist I built for the Writer’s Workshop a year ago. Furthermore, last Thursday I posted the Top Ten from WCFL from this day in 1968.

So, I was stuck. And, any time I get stuck like that, I pop on over to Oldiesloon and go searching through surveys. Since nothing says summer like Southern California, I chose a survey from KHJ (930 kc) in Los Angeles, the radio home of such legendary disc jockeys as Robert W. Morgan, Charlie Tuna, and The Real Don Steele. Here’s what they were listening to on June 21, 1967…

#5: San Francisco – Scott McKenzie 1967 was a significant year for my family. My father died in January, and my mother was considering moving us to northern California. How serious she was about it, I have no idea, but we spent a week in the Bay Area with friends of hers (during which time she had at least one interview) and went into San Francisco frequently. The Summer of Love was in full swing, and the flower children were out in full force. This was an anthem to them, and to all that was peace, love, and flowers.

#4: Don’t Sleep In The Subway – Petula Clark We featured Petula during my series on The British Invasion, which was still running strong in 1967.

#3: Windy – The Association The Association were just off of their performance at the Monterey Pop Festival a few days before (if Wikipedia can be trusted), where they were the first act. They almost seemed out of place, a group of clean-cut young people who sang soft rock and folk rock, but they were a huge hit. This song made it to the top of the Hot 100 the following month.

#2: The Oogum Boogum Song – Brenton Wood I had a hard time placing this one until I heard it. Brenton had two hits in 1967, this and “Gimme Little Sign.” He’s still active on and off.

#1: Light My Fire – The Doors Their first #1 song. Hard to believe it happened this early; I placed it about a year later. This is the single version, without the long jam in the middle; they did a pretty good job of cutting it down to three minutes for Top 40 radio (the album version is here).

Hope you’ve enjoyed this look back to the Summer of Love. That’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for June 20, 2016.

Monday’s Music Moves Me is sponsored by X-Mas Dolly, Callie, Stacy, and Naila Moon, so be sure and visit them, where you can also find the Linky for the other participants.