For many songs of the 60s and early 70s, all I knew was the 2-second sample of them from the K-Tel, Ronco, Adam VIII, and Sessions compilation album TV commercials that were popular back then. I didn't hear the whole things until I got them on CD.
You have to remember that we have a lot of younger people here, and people who didn't have Beatles albums in their homes, like me. Robin Gibb was also the first way I heard the song in 1978. It was also the first time I had heard "Got To Get You Into My Life" by Earth, Wind & Fire. And, according to Philip Bailey's book, the band didn't even know the song until 1978.
Well, I have to grant (no pun intended) those points. Both of those songs, actually, were pretty decent especially the EW&F song. I had forgotten Robin had sung Oh Darling.
The first time I heard either of these songs was on top 40 radio. When "Oh Darling" came on the high school band room, some of the guys would mock it. I didn't know what that was all about. I thought they were mocking Robin's strange falsetto. They probably were. But, I grew up with, say, The Horse" by Cliff Nobles & Co, which was a huge hit back in 1968. When we played that one in band, i'm sure there were a fair number of fellow bandmates who didn't remember it, or didn't know it. So, there you have it.
No, but their version of "In My Life" is, for my money, the best Beatles cover ever. Regrettably, they never recorded it. They only performed it once on the Andy Williams show, and the copy of that on YouTube sounds like it was recorded on a portable tape deck held up to a TV speaker in 1973. I even asked them (on their Facebook page) if there was a decent recording of that performance available for sale anywhere. Whoever handles their page said not that she knew of.
Which made their rendition all the more remarkable. Beats Aerosmith's by-the-numbers cover of "Come Together" by miles (those and Robin's "Oh! Darling" did manage to go Top 40, with the EW&F entry the most successful). But as you say, we're jumping way ahead again . . .
True . . . but that grandstanding must've been a particularly embarrassing moment for Mr. Conniff himself, that's all I'll say about it . . .
Which yielded the hit "Tumbling Dice" and one of the few singles on which Keith Richard(s) sang lead, "Happy."
Same here! I remember they had a Rolling Stones greatest hits TV offer, and for years I knew those songs mostly from this commercial. I still sometimes segue the songs in my head when I hear them on the radio to match the commercial! What do you know? It's on YouTube:
I remember that Stones album commercial, and I was like 6! I also remember a similar one for CCR. BTW $7.98 in today's money is about $31.48.
Oh, and an interesting addendum: the backup band in this clip is none other than the 1970 edition of the Strawberry Alarm Clock. They also perform Incense and Peppermints earlier in the film, to lock this in with our thread!
Nuggets was rereleased in 1998 as a 4 CD box set. That is what I have, along with some later Nuggets box sets (specifically, Nuggets II - and - Children of Nuggets).
After reading this, I am glad that it worked out that I was blessed to have older siblings who introduced me to the Beatles practically from Day 1 (which for me was 1967). As a result I never wandered anywhere near that 1978 Sgt. Pepper's soundtrack. To get back to 1972, I remember hearing the Rolling Stones "Happy" that summer. It is one of my favorite songs by them, and it is my favorite song from them that wasn't released in the sixties.
We'll get back to this in six years of chart discussion, but I will say that I did grow up with Beatles music via hit radio in the 60s. I just wasn't familiar with most of their albums until the CD age. Tucson radio played their album cuts up until 1966. I'm not sure why that changed after that point. After '66, I only remember radio playing their chart singles. But, even in 1978, the Sgt. Pepper Soundtrack was a joke to us, save the EWF track.
In 1995 I shared a flight to Fort Lauderdale with Ms. Flack. My first thought was "Oh no! Former celebrity on a small plane! We're doomed" Needless to say we arrived perfectly safe but Roberta was what would now be referred to as a 'hot mess' but it was pre-9/11 and of course pre social media so it went unreported. Somewhere between drunk, high and paranoid is how I would describe her that day
This one is probably gonna catch a lot of flack, but I loved this song when I was a tyke. Wasn't quite up there with the theme from Shaft or "Me And Bobby McGee", but came pretty darn close. This was Diamond's second #1, after "Cracklin' Rosie" in 1970, and his final solo #1 (which should be a big clue regarding his next #1). "Song Sung Blue" finds Diamond shifting even further into what we'd consider light rock. I guess in an era of singer songwriters, where acts like Neil Young, The Carpenters and America were all scoring ultra-mellow #1's, he had to go somewhere to distinguish himself from the crowd. I think unfortunately for Diamond, this would end up with him careening completely out of the critics' graces and out of favor with discerning listeners, flinging himself into the outermost, unhip reaches of pop's Oort Cloud. It's not quite Lawrence Welk, but it's getting close. It didn't help that a lot of his mid-'70s hits to come are somewhat tuneless bores anchored by his increasingly annoying, schmaltzy voice. He seems to have lost both his compositional abilities and his taste by '75 - I think his last good hit of the decade was '74's "Longfellow Serenade", and even it's pretty creaky. Well, and then there's the duet, but he had a lot of help with that one - we'll get to it in a few years. I will say, unlike most people I thought his Jazz Singer tracks from '80 and '81 were a fantastic return to form - catchy, better performed, and not as tacky and dated sounding as many of their '70s predecessors. Unfortunately that comeback didn't last long, and he vanished over pop's event horizon by '83. All told though a pretty impressive pop career - he charted top 5 singles from '66 clear thru '82, a whopping 16 year span. "Song Sung Blue" is one of the earliest songs I have a very distinct contemporary memory associated with - a Greyhound bus trip from our hometown east of Phoenix down into the city one cold rainy overcast day with my aunt Helen, to stay at her place for a week or so. That must have been in the fall or early winter of '72. I got a ride back from my dad about a week later in his pickup truck. Anyhow, every time I hear this song, I think of that bus trip, particularly the start of it, waiting on the bus in my hometown for it to hit the road.
My mother LOVES Song Sung Blue... as for me, I can take it or leave it, it's pleasant enough... but nothing to rock my world.
Around this time was released my second favorite song of 1972, and it was absolutely criminal that it only got to #5, such a perfect power pop song, and a great change of pace from the mellowness that the first half of 1972 exhibited:
Oh, and say what you want about "Song Sung Blue" - I still love it - but it's a beautifully-recorded thing. It was inspired by the 2nd movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto #21, FWIW.
