Top Ten Tuesday: 1966, The Next Ten

Counting down numbers 11 through 20 on the year end Billboard Hot 100 for 1966. The list is here, in case it won’t play here.

#20 – Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders, "Groovy Kind Of Love": A song by Carole Bayer Sager and Toni Wine based on a melody by Muzio Clementi. The Mindbenders’ version reached #2. Phil Collins covered this in 1988 for the movie Buster and reached #1.

#19 – Lee Dorsey, "Workin’ In The Coal Mine": Written and produced by Allen Toussaint, this reached #8 in the US and UK.

#18 – Johnny Rivers, "Poor Side Of Town": Johnny moved to a more soul-based sound from his earlier rock days, and he reached #1 in both the US and Canada with this song.

#17 – Lou Christie, "Lightnin’ Strikes": Written by Lou and Twyla Herbert, this also reached #1 in the US and Canada as well as #3 in New Zealand and #11 in the UK.

#16 – Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs, "Little Red Riding Hood": This record was kept out of the #1 spot by "Wild Thing" by The Troggs and "Summer In The City" by The Lovin’ Spoonful. Nevertheless, it achieved Gold status and was Sam and crew’s second Top 10 hit.

#15 – The Happenings, "See You In September": Harmonizing vocal groups were still popular in the mid-’60’s, and with this remake of The Tempos’ 1959 hit reached the Top 10, peaking at #3.

#14 – Bobby Hebb, "Sunny": A song for his brother, who had been murdered. Hebb wrote it to remember to choose a "sunny" attitude over a "lousy" one. The song peaked at #2 in late summer.

#13 – The Supremes, "You Can’t Hurry Love": Written and produced by Holland-Dozier-Holland, it topped the chart in 1966. Sixtteen years later, Phil Collins reached #1 with his cover.

#12 – Righteous Brothers, "Soul & Inspiration": Their first hit after leaving producer Phil Spector. Written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, it peaked at #1.

#11 – The Rascals, "Good Lovin’": A song by Rudy Clark and Arthur Resnick that was originally recorded by R&B singer Limmie Snell. The Rascals took it to #1 in 1966.

And that’s Top Ten Tuesday for June 15, 2021.

Song of the Day: One Man Barbershop Quartet, “The Stars & Stripes Forever”

Bluebird of Bitterness, whose blog you absolutely must follow because it’s great, posted this yesterday for Flag Day. "Stars & Stripes Forever" was written by John Phillip Sousa and is the National March of the United States and it’s one of my favorite pieces of music, but I never knew it had lyrics. Wikipedia tells us "In 1942 the John Church Company published a four-part choral version of the march with a piano arrangement by Elmer Arthur Tidmarsh. This arrangement has additional lyrics written by Tidmarsh for the Breakstrain section of the march." Dan Wright sings all four parts, and he’s pretty amazing.

Monday’s Music Moves Me: Early Favorites

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

This is a little long (16 songs), but then, you’ve come to expect that from me, haven’t you? I put together a list of some favorites of mine from my early, impressionable years. These are all instrumentals and all things I remember hearing in the ’60’s or ’70’s.

Stan Getz/João Gilberto, "The Girl From Ipanema": I played this about a week ago for João Gilberto’s birthday. From the 1964 album Getz/Gilberto, featuring Antonio Carlos Jobim (the song’s composer) on piano and Astrud Gilberto on English vocals. This was the song that started the bossa nova craze. My introduction to this was on a commercial for Tab, I believe…
Dave Brubeck, "Take Five": Another favorite around here. WGN-TV used this as the theme for its late movie, and I heard it first when I stayed up way past my bedtime one Saturday night when my parents were out.
Vince Guaraldi Trio, "Cast Your Fate To The Wind": We watched A Charlie Brown Christmas the first time it aired in 1965, and I immediately noticed the music, which was played by Vince Guaraldi. There was a show that followed that talked about the making of the cartoon, and it showed Guaraldi playing this song. I forgot about this until Joe Walsh played it on The James Gang’s 1970 album Rides Again. I like Guaraldi’s better.
Dukes of Dixieland, "Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay": Dad had an album by The Dukes of Dixieland that I’d listen to once in a while (the one pictured in the video). My Aunt Cash used to sing this on occasion, which is why I remember it.
Artie Shaw, "Begin The Beguine": Back in the ’60’s, sometimes a magazine would have a record made of very thin plastic attached to one of the pages. You’d take it out of the magazine and play it on your turntable. A friend of mine got one from Time-Life Records that advertised a series of "Swing Era" albums that were remasters of the classic songs. One of songs was Artie Shaw’s "Begin The Beguine," the Cole Porter song from 1935 that was written for his show Jubilee. Based on the sample on the record, I knew I liked it.
Ramsey Lewis Trio, "The ‘In’ Crowd": Yes, another song we’ve done recently. This was a Top 40 hit in the days when Top 40 hits didn’t have to be rock.
David Rose, "The Stripper": Noxzema had a series of commercials that featured the very beautiful and sultry Gunilla Knutson encouraging men to "take it off, take it all off," by which she meant their beards, using Noxzema shaving cream. They would then show a man shaving, accompanied by this song. My aunt Bitsy pointed out that there couldn’t have been a blade in the razor, not the way he was shaving, or he’d cut his face to shreds.
June Christy, "Something Cool": We got our first stereo from my Dad’s brother Ed, and he must have left this on the turntable, because it sat in our record collection for years after in nothing more than a paper inner sleeve. It was on Capitol Records, just like my Beatles albums, so I assumed that it was just as good. Well, it wasn’t what I expected, but… I kinda liked it. The older I get, the more I like it.
Henry Mancini, "Experiment In Terror": WGN’s Saturday night horror movie screamfest, called "Creature Features" (which I think might still be running), used this as its theme music. It’s from a 1962 movie called Experiment In Terror which starred Glenn Ford, Lee Remick, Stefanie Powers, and Ross Martin. I don’t know if they ever ran that movie on Creature Features…
Bent Fabric, "Alley Cat": I played this recently, I think. We had the album at home, with an adorable kitty on the cover.
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, "Tijuana Taxi": I went through a TJB period when I was in sixth grade. A friend of mine (sadly, no longer with us) was a big fan, and lent me his copy of Whipped Cream & Other Delights, the one with the woman dressed in a wedding gown made of whipped cream (it was actually shaving cream, though I’m not sure whether it was Noxzema) on the cover. This is from that album.
The T-Bones, "No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach’s In)": This was the music from an Alka-Seltzer commercial that caught on as a hit.
Bert Kaempfert, "A Swingin’ Safari": One of my favorite game shows that started in the ’60’s, The Match Game, which was a whole lot different than the version from the ’70’s. This was used as its theme music.
WDR Big Band, "Mannix": The TV series Mannix debuted in 1967, and while I didn’t learn to like the show right away, I though the theme music, written by Lalo Schifrin, was the coolest. It’s a jazz waltz.
Lalo Schifrin, "Mission: Impossible": Another TV theme by Mr. Schifrin, this time for the long-lived series of the same name.
Dick Hyman Trio, "Moritat": Another one you’ve heard often here. Radio station WFMF (later WLOO) in Chicago used this as its interval music at the top and bottom of the hour. My stepfather (who we called "Tex"; long story) loved this song, which was also called "Mack The Knife": as my brother (his son) said, this was the music his Dad loved. When we had Kuala the Dog from Hell, Tex would whistle this before he’d take the dog for a walk, and Kuala would go crazy. Tex also would tell Mom he was going to take the D-O-G for a W-L-A-K, which is both a dyslexic spelling of "walk" and the name of another radio station he and Mom listened to.

And that’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for June 14, 2021.

Monday’s Music Moves Me is sponsored by Marie, Cathy, Alana, and Stacy, so be sure and visit them, where you can also find the Linky for the other participants.

Song of the Day: James Cagney, “You’re A Grand Old Flag”

June 14 is Flag Day in the United States, commemorating the day in 1777 that the Stars & Stripes were adopted as the national flag. "You’re A Grand Old Flag" was written by George M. Cohan in 1906 for his musical George Washington, Jr. James Cagney played the role of George M. Cohan in the 1942 biopic Yankee Doodle Dandy and sang this song, which was a huge production number. I wasn’t able to find the complete video of the song from the movie, so here’s the audio.