Category: The Vinyl Dialogues Book Page 5 of 16

Guitarist and lead singer Tom Johnston of the Doobie Brothers rocks the encore on Nov. 4 at the Sands Casino in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

A weekend of rock and roll ended with me doing something I don’t normally do — rushing the stage for the band’s encore.

Of all the concerts I’ve seen, I don’t ever recall rushing the stage. I think that’s because I normally don’t sit close enough to the stage for most shows. I once sat in the front row for an oldies show and there was no place to rush to. I was already there. Mostly, though, I sit in the cheap seats, the ones so far away from the stage you’d need to hail a cab to get up front.

The other aspect is at this age, I don’t “rush” to go anywhere. I usually mosey, lumber, meander or traipse, with an occasional dilly-dally thrown in, and when I’m really motivated, a lollygag or two.

The music weekend kicked off Nov. 2 with a show by The Hooters, a Philly band that had some commercial success in the mid-1980s with the singles “All You Zombies,” “Day by Day,” “And We Danced” and “Where Do the Children Go.” Since I’m a Midwestern transplant to Philly, I didn’t grow up with these guys and was unfamiliar with the band’s catalog of music.

But they’re big here in Philly and I had not seen them live. The Blonde Accountant, a big Hooters fan, planned the entire evening, complete with a pre-concert pizza party along with several other friends and Hooters fans.

Guitarist Eric Bazilian and drummer David Uosikkinen of The Hooters rocked out Nov. 2 at the Keswick Theater in Glenside, Pennsylvania.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Our seats were stage left, about two-thirds of the way back, in a packed venue. The band was excellent, but there was no way I was going to rush the stage that evening.

That’s because it was a “Hey You Kids Get Off My Lawn!” night for me. The fact that we were too far away from the stage for me to rush it was irrelevant because it was one of those shows where we stood and danced for much of it. While my head and heart are perfectly happy doing that, the dancing offends my knees and hips quite a bit and they don’t hesitate to bark at me about it. In addition, the temperature inside the venue was hot enough to cook a turkey. Rather than thinking about rushing the stage, all the standing, dancing and sweating had me considering calling an ambulance.

The second concert of the weekend was a much different story. The Doobie Brothers were in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 4 and I usually find a way to see those guys when they’re in the neighborhood. Here’s the thing, though: I’m more of a Tom Johnston early Doobies fan while my wife is more of a Michael McDonald later Doobies fan. I like both versions of the band, but McDonald has been a solo act for a long time now and Johnston, a co-founder of the Doobies and lead singer and lead guitarist on a lot of their early songs, is one of the originals.

So, I only needed one ticket for the show, and when you need only one ticket, you can get a pretty good seat. Which I did: Stage right, second row, right on the end. Face value on the ticket, under $100. To me, that’s a pretty good deal to be that close to the band.

And my route to the stage was easy. One step into the aisle, then about seven feet to the stage. In addition, the Doobies attracted a little older crowd — who can still rock, by the way — but preferred to mostly stay in their seats for much of the concert. So not only were my knees and hips happy with that, I had only a short mosey to the stage if the opportunity presented itself.

Doobies guitarist and lead singer Pat Simmons performs “Busted Down Around O’Connelly Corners” from the 1973 “The Captain and Me” album.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

The Doobies actually had a special show for us. They had earlier announced that they would be doing their first-ever full-album performances at the Beacon Theatre in New York. They’re going to perform “Toulouse Street,” their second album from 1972, on Nov. 15. And then the next night, they’re going to perform “The Captain and Me,” their third album from 1973, on Nov. 16.

So they were practicing some of the deeper cuts from those albums – songs they haven’t performed in concert – in preparation for those upcoming New York shows. Among the songs we got to hear was “Busted Down Around O’Connelly Corners” from “The Captain and Me.”

Doobies guitarist and co-founder Pat Simmons detailed the story behind that song in “The Vinyl Dialogues Volume I.”

“That was a tune that a friend of mine had written,” said Simmons in The Vinyl Dialogues. “There’s actually more to it than what’s on the record.”

Before he joined the Doobie Brothers, Simmons hung out in southern California perfecting his craft. After playing club gigs, Simmons and his friends would oftentimes head over to another friend, Mike O’Connelly’s place, in an apartment building on Main Street in Los Gatos, California, to relax, play their guitars and sing.

“We’d sit around and somebody would play a song and the rest of us would sing along. It was kind of like a poor man’s Bluebird Cafe,” said Simmons, referring to the famous club in Nashville, Tennessee, that attracts singers and songwriters to its intimate setting.

The group would hang out at Mike’s place so often that they started referring to the apartment building as “O’Connelly Corners.”

“One time, Mike had walked outside the apartment building and was getting into his car to go someplace,” said Simmons. “And he had a joint on him or something, and the cops arrested him.”

And that was the inspiration for the song “Busted Down Around O’Connelly Corners,” written by James Earl Luft. By the time the Doobies were recording “The Captain and Me,” the record’s producer, Ted Templeman, had become a big fan of Simmons’ traditional ragtime guitar picking.

“So Ted said, ‘Hey Pat, you got something you can put on this album?’” said Simmons. And that’s how the first 48 second only of “Busted Down Around O’Connelly Corners”made it onto Side Two of “The Captain and Me.”

We got to hear the entire song at the Bethlehem show. It’s not one I’ve ever heard them play live in other shows I’ve seen over the years. And it was the first time I’d heard more than the 48-second version of the song that appears on the album.

Among the deep cuts the band performed during the 19-song show included “Mamaloi” and “Cotton Mouth” from the “Toulouse Street” album; and “Clear as the Driven Snow,” “Without You,” “Evil Woman” and “Ukiah” from “The Captain and Me” album.

When the Doobie Brothers returned to stage for their encore — “China Grove,” my favorite Doobies tune, and “Listen to the Music” — Johnston waved the crowd up to the stage. And since I had it all planned out in my head beforehand, it was an easy meander down to the stage, where I found myself right at Tom Johnston’s feet as he blew up the guitar strings during “China Grove.”

Very cool. My knees and hips were happy to accommodate me for two songs without much complaining about my dancing, and I was able to multi-task on a few photos and a little video while rocking with the Doobies.

You gotta dance like nobody’s watching when you get the chance to be down at the stage to listen to the music.

Philly’s own The Hooters performed for three hours for the home crowd Nov. 2 in suburban Philadelphia.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

John Sebastian reminds us of the magic of The Lovin’ Spoonful at inaugural Pocono Folk Festival

By Mike Morsch

On September 16, 2018

In The Vinyl Dialogues Book

John Sebastian of The Lovin’ Spoonful was the headliner for the inaugural Pocono Folk Festival Sept. 15, 2018, in Delaware Water Gap, PA.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Singer-songwriter and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer John Sebastian was the headliner for the inaugural Pocono Folk Festival Sept. 15 in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, and he reminded us – as he has for more than 50 years – just how good his band The Lovin’ Spoonful was in the mid- to late-1960s.

With hits like “Do You Believe in Magic,” “You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice,” “Daydream,” “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind,” Summer in the City,” Nashville Cats” and “Darling Be Home Soon,” Sebastian has written on his website that, “We were grateful to the Beatles for reminding us of our rock and roll roots, but we wanted to cut out the English middlemen, so to speak, and get down to making this new music as an ‘American’ band.” Which is exactly what the Spoonful did from 1965 to 1970

Sebastian is a storyteller, with both his songs and with his in-between-song banter with the crowd, and he brought his A Game to the first-ever Pocono Folk Festival.

One of my favorite Sebastian stories that evening was about Spoonful co-founder and lead guitarist, Zal Yanovsky. Sebastian said that Yanovsky loved to suggest ideas for new songs, but he didn’t like to write them himself. One of those ideas eventually became “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind,” written by Sebastian and released as the second single (the first being the title track) off on the Spoonful’s debut album, “Do You Believe in Magic” in November 1965. “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind” reached No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The single “Do Believe in Magic” got to No. 9 on the singles chart.

(Photo by Mike Morsch)

But that’s not my favorite Zal Yanovsky story. Around that same time in 1965, right before The Lovin’ Spoonful released its first album, Barry McGuire had a hit with “Eve of Destruction” in August 1965.

McGuire’s circle of musician friends reads like a Who’s Who of 1960s folk-rock royalty then, including Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot, who would go on to star with The Mamas and The Papas; and Sebastian and Yanovsky of The Lovin’ Spoonful.

But McGuire was the only musician with a steady gig as a member of the New Christy Minstrels, and as such, he was the go-to guy for supplying the marijuana for his group. The rest were just singing for nickels and dimes wherever they could find them and really couldn’t afford the drugs.

According to McGuire, as he told me in an interview that was featured in “The Vinyl Dialogues Volume II: Dropping the Needle,” one evening after a New Christy Minstrels’ show at the Latin Quarter, he was looking for a cab to grab a ride to visit Doherty, who had a room at the Hotel Earle in the Washington Square area of New York City. At one time, the Hotel Earle was considered to be in one of the best residential areas of the city. But by the 1960s, the hotel had declined considerably and had a reputation as a seedy boarding house that was home to several musicians trying to make the big time.

In addition to Doherty, the hotel had played host to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, John Phillips and Michelle Phillips – the other half of The Mamas and The Papas – Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, Barbra Streisand, and the Rolling Stones, as well as comedians Phyllis Diller and Bill Cosby and writers Ernest Hemingway, Dylan Thomas, and P.G. Wodehouse.

(Photo by Mike Morsch)

But that evening, McGuire found his regular marijuana dealer in a quandary. The guy needed some ready cash in a hurry and he offered McGuire a great deal on a half-kilo of marijuana.

“I thought, well, I can’t pass this up. So I bought half a brick, put it under my arm and down I went to Denny’s place,” said McGuire.

When he got there, McGuire was uncertain how to break open such a large amount of marijuana without spilling most of it on the floor. Yanovsky was there and suggested turning the coffee table upside down, creating something of a trough, which would contain the grass if it spilled.

The musicians didn’t waste any time indulging and were all smoking and laughing when a few minutes later, in walked Sebastian. He had brought with him the first 12-string Rickenbacker guitar that any of them had ever seen. Yanovsky was already known as a killer guitar player, so naturally, he couldn’t wait to try out the new instrument.

“Well, it was summertime and the windows were open. Denny’s place was on the first floor and by now it’s three o’clock in the morning,” said McGuire. “Smoke was drifting out across the sidewalk and everybody was getting loaded and singing ‘Go Johnny go, go Johnny go-go-go.’ And Zally was playing the guitar and I was sitting in the windowsill looking at this room full of doped-out crazy people singing. There was an upside-down coffee table with a half-kilo of grass in it and I was thinking, Johnny is going to jail.”

McGuire decided to play it safe, so without telling anyone he climbed out the first floor window, grabbed the first available cab and headed home.

The next night, it was pretty much the same routine. McGuire did the Minstrels’ show at the Latin Quarter, then took a cab over to Doherty’s place at the Hotel Earle, ostensibly to see who from the previous night’s party had gotten arrested.

The official poster of the first-ever Pocono Folk Festival, signed by John Sebastian.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Thinking that the party was over, McGuire knocked on the door and immediately, Yanovsky appeared in the doorway, a surprised look on his face. Yanovsky stuck his head out into the hall, looked left and right, and said, “McGuire, how did you get out into the hall?”

“He didn’t even know I was gone, twenty-four hours later,” said McGuire.

It’s a story that McGuire has told many times during his performances. And it’s those friends and the times they had that would become the inspiration for the autobiographical hit single, “Creeque Alley,” written by John Phillips and Michelle Phillips, that hit No. 5 on the U.S. Billboard Pop Singles chart in 1967.

The small, intimate crowd at the Pocono Folk Festival showed its appreciation for Sebastian with a warm response and by singing along with the songs that they knew. I got a chance to meet Sebastian at the merch table after his set. He was as friendly and engaging as he was on stage and I got him to sign an official Pocono Folk Festival poster, which will look real nice in my music room.

The entire festival lineup provided a pleasant and laid back day of music. Organizer Jim Della Croce is to be complimented for having the vision to put the festival together and I hope he can grow it in the coming years.

Still riding the ‘Love Train’ with The O’Jays

By Mike Morsch

On August 13, 2018

In The Vinyl Dialogues Book

The O’Jays – from left to right Eric Nolan Grant, Eddie Levert Sr. and Walter Williams Sr. – performed Aug. 12, 2018, at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Kenny Gamble had written a song, but it wasn’t complete. He was stuck without a second verse, and he couldn’t quite get it.

But The O’Jays were in the studio – Sigma Sound Studios at 12th and Race in Philadelphia – and ready to go. They had already laid down nine other tracks for an album as well as the background vocals to the final song and were anxious to see how the rest of it would sound.

Gamble called for a five-minute break, left the recording booth and retired to a small back room at Sigma Sound to work on writing the second verse of the song.

The O’Jays – Walter Williams, Eddie Levert and William Powell – thought that a couple of songs for the album had the potential to be something special. They had a technique they used with background vocals – they would double and sometimes triple the background vocals so that they would sound more powerful – and had recorded those first for the song.

Original member Eddie Levert Sr.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

When it came to lead vocals, Williams and Levert – who shared lead vocals and sometimes double-lead vocals on some songs – each had a microphone and baffle so that their voices wouldn’t bleed into each other. During the recording of the album, The O’Jays had introduced the idea of double-lead vocals to Gamble and Leon Huff, co-founders of Philadelphia International Records, and the producers liked it because they could better control the sound.

So everything in the studio was set up and ready to go. Now, The O’Jays were just waiting on Kenny Gamble to finish writing the song.

A few minutes later, Gamble came out and said he had it. He gave the second verse to The O’Jays and they went back into the recording studio to learn it.

“You know, you’ve got to try it a couple times so you can get it right. And it fit like a glove,” said Walter Williams. “We were able to use those words and make them fit into the feeling and the spirit of it.”

By 1972, Williams had already learned a valuable lesson about singing from his friend Stevie Wonder, a lesson that he was anxious to employ now for Gamble and Huff.

“He told me, ‘You can sing a song and you can sing it perfect. But if the spirit doesn’t live in it, you have nothing.’ And he’s absolutely right about that,” said Williams. “It didn’t dawn on me that was the case until I started to experience it. You know you can even sing bad notes, flat notes, but if the spirit lives in it, it’s a good song.

Original member Walter Williams Sr.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

“What he meant by that is that songs are accepted from other people and from the singer. If I’m the singer, it’s from my heart to yours, from my soul to yours. And I’ve got to make you feel what I feel. Once I understood that concept, then I was able to go into the studio and record and set up lyrics and put the right kind of touch on things.”

That’s what The O’Jays did with the song they were recording for Gamble and Huff that day in 1972.

It was from their hearts, their souls, and they recorded it with such spirit that it would become the biggest hit the group would ever have.

The song was “Love Train,” and it would go to No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 singles and the Billboard R&B Singles in early 1973.

It would also be the final song that would complete The O’Jays’ first album for Philadelphia International Records, “Back Stabbers,” a breakthrough album for the group that would be released in 1972 and hit No. 10 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart.

“The Bible speaks of love. So how could you not accept the song that speaks about love, especially love all over the world? Global love. We singled out some of the places that were special and that we thought needed more love, and those places were talked about in the song – England and China and Russia,” said Williams. “We knew the song was special, but we didn’t know it was going to be like that. Once that song came out, I think in two weeks, it was damn-near platinum. That’s moving a lot of records. And you know what? You can’t really keep up with a record that moves like that.”

Eric Nolan Grant joined The O’Jays in 1995.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Williams believes the combination of the quality songwriting, the expertise of Gamble and Huff and the addition of Charles “Cholly” Atkins, a choreographer who taught The O’Jays the dance steps to go along with the songs, were the perfect elements that were added to the The O’Jays’ innate talent. And that was the recipe for the group’s success in the 1970s.

“Cholly Atkins was an old hoofer and he actually really knew what he was doing. So he staged our shows, he taught us what to do and how to do it. It was just like the other ingredient that we needed,” said Williams. “Eddie and I could perform, Gamble and Huff could write and produce and Cholly Atkins could stage it. That seemed to be the other part of the puzzle that came together that shot us out into orbit, where we needed to be. But the fuel was the songs and the production of the songs. And that was Gamble and Huff.”

As for the “Back Stabbers” album, Williams said it’s the one that put The O’Jays on the map, both in the United States and internationally.

“It’s very special. ‘Love Train’ was on that album and that’s our biggest hit today. There’s nothing bigger than ‘Love Train.’ There’s no greater message than ‘Love Train.’ I think that’s the one that told everybody – especially after they’d seen it and experienced it – that this is a good, wholesome group. They’re not doing any of the sexual, vulgar type things onstage. It’s the one I think that told people that they’re doing good music and I want to hear it and I want to see them perform it. That’s the one that started everything.”

More than 45 years later, it still a treat to see The O’Jays sing “Love Train” live as they did Sunday, Aug. 12, at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. It’s as great a song today as it was when they first recorded it in 1972. And The O’Jays still sing it with just as much heart and Philly soul as they did at Sigma Sound Studios in the early stages of what we now know as The Sound of Philadelphia.

We got on board the “Love Train” then and we’re still riding it now.

Eddie Levert Sr.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Walter Williams Sr.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

The backstory behind the hit ‘Sara Smile’ by Hall & Oates

By Mike Morsch

On July 15, 2018

In The Vinyl Dialogues Book

Even though both Daryl Hall and John Oates are credited with writing “Sara Smile,” it’s a Daryl Hall song.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Daryl Hall was living on the Upper East Side of New York in 1975 when he and John Oates began producing material for the “Daryl Hall & John Oates” album – which would come to be known as “The Silver Album” because of its glam rock style cover. Living with Hall at the time was his girlfriend, Sara Allen.

Oates had introduced Allen to Hall a few years earlier. According to Oates, he had met a flight attendant – called “stewardesses” in those days – and a girlfriend of hers on the streets of New York and had struck up a conversation with them. One of those flight attendants was Sara Allen.

Oates eventually took that chance meeting and turned it into a song titled “Las Vegas Turnaround” that appeared on the duo’s second album, “Abandoned Luncheonette,” released in 1973. He also eventually introduced Hall to Allen.

By 1975, Allen and Hall were a few years into a personal relationship that would end up lasting more than 30 years. And Hall was inspired enough by his feelings for Allen that he wrote a highly personal song, one that would end up being on “The Silver Album.”

That song was “Sara Smile,” which became the first Top 10 hit for Hall & Oates, reaching No. 4 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in early 1976.

“It was a song that came completely out of my heart. I’ve said this many times – it was a postcard. It’s short and sweet and to the point,” said Hall.

But there was no big first-time reveal of the song to Allen.

“She was there, in the house. I was just writing the song. I don’t think there was a first time that I played it for her. She listened to the evolution of the song,” said Hall.

Both Hall and Oates are credited as writing the song but it’s a Daryl Hall song, according to Oates.

John Oates contributed some lyrics to “Sara Smile.”
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

“When you think about that song, the one thing you have to understand about Daryl and I and our songwriting process is that if one of us kind of had a handle on the idea, the other one would help and kind of function almost like an editor, to help make the song happen.” said Oates. “It could have been as simple as throwing out an arrangement idea or it could have been a 50-50 collaboration or anything in-between. There were no rules involved with any of this stuff.”

Oates said Hall had the song, the music, the chord changes, he was singing the melody and had the chorus.

“Over the years, I’ve always just tacitly acknowledged that it was his song, because it was. But he and I wrote the lyrics together,” said Oates.

But it was two Oates songs – “Camellia” and “Alone Too Long” – that were slated by the record company to be the two singles released from “The Sliver Album.” At that point in the process, “Sara Smile” wasn’t being considered for release as a single.

“When ‘Sara Smile’ was recorded, it was probably tracked in a half hour at the most. Daryl did all the vocals. In fact, the lead vocal is a live vocal tape. We punched in one word, the first ‘Sara’ before the first chorus because it was flat,” said Barry Rudolph, the engineer on the album. “Daryl is very much a live and immediate artist; he’s not much for punching in lead vocals. Backing vocals are different. But he really was a real-by-feel kind of singer.”

But Chris Bond – who co-produced the album with Hall and Oates – and Rudolph didn’t think “Sara Smile” was destined to be a single from the album.

“The first time I heard ‘Sara Smile,’ I thought it was a really neat song. And that’s all I thought about it. But it did definitely belong on this record,” said Bond.

“To be honest, everyone kind of thought that ‘Sara’ was a really cool kind of album cut. It was a really nice song and everyone loved working on it,” said Rudolph. “It was a very simple production, a very simple song. Daryl said to me, ‘When we do the backing vocals, I want it to sound like the Dells.’ I said OK. I sort of knew who they were.”

The Dells were a doo-wop group popular in the 1950s and 1960s who had an R&B hit with the single “Oh What a Night.”

“When I heard the playback the first time of the first take that we’d done of ‘Sara,’ I thought oh, something was happening,” said Bond. “I’m sitting in the control room thinking to myself, oh my God, to me this sounds like a hit record. But everybody kept insisting the hit single was ‘Camellia.’ This was the 1970s. Albums all had concepts – that’s what it was all about. And the concept with ‘Sara’ was that it was like an Al Green song. I wanted it to sound like an old Al Green song from Memphis.

“I cut ‘Camellia’ three different times, with three different sections. I did two different string dates on it. I tried it with two different drummers. I even tried cutting it in different studios to see if I could make it sound like a hit to me and it never did,” said Bond.

Once “The Silver Album” was released, the two singles, “Camellia” and “Alone Too Long,” did OK on the charts, but nothing spectacular. At that time in the music business, according to Oates, artists had to give a single six to eight weeks to see if it would make the charts and get regular radio play.

“By the time those two singles had been released – the album had been released prior to that – you’re talking about being into this album for more than six months. At that point in our careers, six months was an eternity. We were already getting ready to make a new record,” said Oates.

Still, RCA had no intention of releasing a third single from “The Silver Album.” (I interviewed Hall, Oates, Bond and Rudolph about the making of that album, which is featured in “The Vinyl Dialogues Volume III: Stacks of Wax.”)

“In their minds, we were going to make another record, and in our minds, we were going to make another record,” said Oates.

But while the duo was touring, a disc jockey on a small R&B radio station in Toledo, Ohio, decided to start playing “Sara Smile” as an album cut – just because he liked the song.

“Simple as that. And as soon he began to play it, the phones lit up, people kept calling and asking, ‘Who are these guys, what is this song that you’re playing and where do we get it?’” said Oates.

But Bond and Rudolph remember the “Sara” story differently.

“The story goes that Tommy Mattola (the duo’s manager at the time) took a second loan out on his house and borrowed a bunch of money and basically got the top 10 stations in the country to play ‘Sara’ in regular rotation for a week. And that put it over the edge,” said Rudolph. (I was unable to confirm that version of the story with Hall, Oates or Mattola.)

Nevertheless, word of the song’s popularity in Ohio quickly got back to RCA offices in New York and the record company officials decided to release “Sara Smile” as the third single off “The Silver Album.”

Hall & Oates were touring England when “Sara Smile” broke in the R&B world, becoming a hit on African-American radio. The song then crossed over into mainstream radio and became a pop hit as well.

“I will never forget the first time I heard it on the radio,” said Hall. “I was in California. I heard it on the radio amidst all the other songs, and I thought to myself, ‘This doesn’t sound like anything else that’s being played around it.’ It was totally unique and stuck out like a sore thumb – well maybe not a sore thumb – but it stuck out. I have a distinct memory of that. I’m sort of proud of that idea.”

The song went to No. 4 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles, No. 6 on the U.S. Cash Box Top 100 singles, No. 18 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks and No. 23 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Soul Singles chart.

The song that didn’t belong on the ‘Pet Sounds’ album

By Mike Morsch

On May 25, 2018

In The Vinyl Dialogues Book

Brian Wilson
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Brian Wilson’s masterpiece “Pet Sounds” – arguably one of the best albums ever made – was released 52 years ago this month by the Beach Boys. And as great as that album is, there’s a song on it that just doesn’t fit on the album, according to one of the band members.

The story of “Pet Sounds” is well chronicled. By the mid-1960s, Brian had tired of touring with the Beach Boys and wanted to stay in California, writing and arranging new music for the band. He was growing as a songwriter and producer and wanted to focus more on those aspects of the music industry.

To fill in for Brian on tour, the Beach Boys first hired Glen Campbell, who had been a member of the famous “Wrecking Crew,” a group of brilliant Los Angeles studio musicians who were used by a lot of artists for their studio albums in the 1960s.

Playing bass guitar and singing some of Brian’s high falsetto parts, Campbell toured with the Beach Boys from December 1964 through March 1965 before deciding to leave the band and focus on a solo career. (Campbell was, however, among the Wrecking Crew musicians who played on the “Pet Sounds” recording sessions that started on July 12, 1965 and didn’t finish until April 13, 1966.)

Bruce Johnston
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

The Beach Boys now needed someone to fill in for Campbell on tour. So Mike Love called Bruce Johnston.

Johnston was an on-staff producer at Columbia Records, which was also the Beach Boys’ label, and he had met all of the Beach Boys. At the time, Johnston was working with Terry Melcher – the son of actress Doris Day – producing a song called “Hey Little Cobra” for the Rip Chords, on which Johnston and Melcher also added their own vocals. The song would spend 14 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1963, peaking at No. 4.

After that song hit, Melcher was assigned to work with a new band called the Byrds, a five-piece group that featured Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby, Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke in its original lineup, that had formed in 1964.

So Johnston was looking for his next project when the call came from Love.

Mike Love
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

“I was consulted by Mike, who I knew. He said ‘Glen Campbell was supposed to go on the road with the Beach Boys and he can’t and Brian is in the studio. Who do you know who can fill in for us?’” recalled Johnston during a series of interviews he did for The Vinyl Dialogues book series. “I called 10 people and nobody was available. So I said to Mike, ‘Look, the best I can offer you is me and I can get to airport.’ That’s how I got started with the Beach Boys.”

Johnston joined the touring band in April 1965 and also started appearing in the recording sessions as a vocalist. The first vocal recording Johnston made with the band was “California Girls,” which appeared on the “Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) album, released in July 1965.

“Probably one of the smartest things they ever did was take Brian off the road so he could realize his genius in the studio,” said Johnston. “The first year I was with with Beach Boys we did three albums. Did I think that was unusual? No. I wasn’t the guy who had to struggle like Brian with writing the songs, arranging them and producing them. All I had to do was come in and sing. You can imagine that Brian had to do all that and go on the road. He just couldn’t do it, it was too much for him.”

It was around this time – in the summer of 1965 – that Brian started the preliminary recording sessions for “Pet Sounds.” By the end of that year, Brian had heard the Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” album and it had added even more inspiration for him during the creation of “Pet Sounds.”

Al Jardine
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

Original Beach Boys guitarist and vocalist Al Jardine really liked the song “Wreck of the John B,” which had been a hit for the Kingston Trio. Jardine had a folk music background and persuaded Brian that the song would work with a Beach Boys treatment, with a five-part vocal arrangement. The band finished the vocals for the song, called “Sloop John B.” by December 1965, and then left in January 1966 for a 15-gig tour of Japan, leaving Brian in the studio to continue work on “Pet Sounds.”

Carl Wilson and Dennis Wilson kept in touch by phone with Brian while the band was in Japan and Brian would send them acetate recordings of what he and the Wrecking Crew had been doing in the studio for “Pet Sounds.” One of those recordings was of “Sloop John B.” featuring the backing tracks that the band members had previously recorded.

When the Beach Boys returned from Japan and got back into the studio to hear what Brian had been doing with “Pet Sounds,” it was different than any other Beach Boys album to that point. The only thing that sounded like the Beach Boys previous recordings was “Sloop John B.”

And that’s the song that Johnston doesn’t think fits on “Pet Sounds.”

“What does it have to do with that album?” said Johnston. “Nothing.”

The suits at Capitol Records disagreed. They were demanding a single and “Sloop John B.” was the closest thing to a Beach Boys-sounding track that was finished while work continued on “Pet Sounds.” So the record company released the song, but it gave the public no real idea of what was to come on “Pet Sounds.”

“So we had ‘Sloop John B.’ come out in the middle of making ‘Pet Sounds.’ It’s a brilliant record, but it just doesn’t fit on the album,” said Johnston. “Brian was thinking more thematic.”

Interviewing Bruce Johnston before a Beach Boys concert in 1986 in Rockford, Illinois.

History would prove Johnston correct. The inclusion of “Sloop John B.” on the “Pet Sounds” album somewhat contradicts a later interpretation of the record as a “concept” album.

But “Sloop John B.” performed well on the singles charts, peaking at No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Another single released from the “Pet Sounds” album to chart was “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” which got to No. 8 on the Billboard chart and No. 7 on the U.S. Cash Box Top 100 chart. The album itself made it to No. 10 on the U.S. Billboard 200 albums chart.

The B side of “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” released two months later, was “God Only Knows” – a song that Paul McCartney called his favorite song of all time – would reach No. 2 on the United Kingdom singles chart, but could only get as high as No. 39 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 songs. The song features Carl Wilson on lead vocals, with both Brian and Bruce on backing vocals and is considered by some as one of the most beautifully composed and arranged songs in the history of pop music.

In the ensuing years, “Pet Sounds” has also been recognized as an ambitious and sophisticated work that advanced the field of music production.

A collectively creative effort: Kool & the Gang still celebrating good times

By Mike Morsch

On April 29, 2018

In The Vinyl Dialogues Book

Kool & the Gang

Ronald Bell was sitting at the piano one day when his brother Robert “Kool” Bell walked in.

“You got anything for me?” said Ronald Bell.

“Yeah, I got two things for you,” said Robert Bell. “Hanging out. And ladies night.”

“A lot of people hang out,” said Robert. “But Ladies Night, man there’s one of those everywhere in the world. That’s gotta be a hit.”

The brothers and other founding members of Kool & the Gang had experienced some success with the group’s fourth studio album, “Wild and Peaceful,” in 1973. The album produced the band’s first three Top 10 singles – “Jungle Boogie,” which got to No. 2 on the Billboard R&B chart and No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles charts; “Funky Stuff,” which made it to No. 5 on the R&B chart and No. 29 on the singles chart; and “Hollywood Swinging,” which topped the Billboard Soul Singles chart and reached No. 6 on the pop chart. The album itself would go to No. 6 on the R&B chart and No. 33 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

But from 1974 through 1978, Kool & the Gang hadn’t been able to really capitalize on that success, and the band’s label, De-Lite Records, was looking for more hits from the group.

“Initially there was pressure to make a hit. But what is a hit? We had no clue. Not really. We understood we had to make a commercial record. We were familiar with the whole commercial part of it. But we were in it now, so let’s make something happen,” said Ronald Bell.

It would take a reality check, though, to help the band back on the road to the top of the charts. That happened at an in-store promotion in Jersey City in the late 1970s. Only one person showed up to the store to see Kool & the Gang and she was less than impressed. She referred to the band as “old hat.”

“Old hat? Oh, no, no,” said Bell. “I took that so personally.”

Some changes needed to be made. Kool & the Gang had started as an instrumental-driven jazz and funk band that featured a lot of street hollering and chants, but hadn’t to that point in the late 1970s featured a dominant lead singer.

The band needed a lead singer along the lines of Lionel Richie of the Commodores or Maurice White of Earth, Wind and Fire. So they hired James “J.T.” Taylor to handle the lead vocals and went to work on trying to write hit singles.

“We were in pursuance of doing something really great. We didn’t have a lead singer, we were doing some experimentation at the time and disco was alive,” said Bell. “We had to come up with something that worked.”

So when Robert “Kool” Bell mentioned the phrase “Ladies Night” to Ronald Bell that day, something clicked for the songwriters.

“We all made the connection, and we went in hard and came up with the song ‘Ladies Night.’ That was a peak moment, that album with a new lead singer,” said Robert Bell.

The “Ladies Night” album was released in September 1979 and featured two Billboard Top 10 hits: the title track made it to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart and No. 8 on the Hot 100 singles chart; and “Too Hot,” written by George Brown and Kool & the Gang, made it to No. 3 on the R&B chart and No. 5 on the singles chart. The album itself was No. 1 on R&B chart and No. 13 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

And the single “Ladies Night” would lead to the band’s next hit, which would become its signature song.

In “Ladies Night,” the female background vocalists can be heard singing, “Come on, let’s all celebrate.” And the pressure was even more intense from the record company for the group to follow up “Ladies Night” with another hit single.

Ronald Bell had been reading scripture about humans being created and the angels celebrating the creator for doing so. And he still had the line “Come on, let’s all celebrate” from “Ladies Night” fresh in his head.

Those two ideas combined to create “Celebration,” which would be the lead single from the band’s next album, “Celebrate!” released in September 1980. It ran up the charts to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart, the Billboard Hot Soul Singles chart, U.S. Cash Box chart and the U.S. Record World chart.

“I don’t care where we are in the world, people respond to that song,” said Bell. “It’s a beautiful thing to see that, where everybody is just dancing and celebrating to that song. We can’t play a song after that one.”

Bell said that with both “Ladies Night” and “Celebration,” he had a sense that both songs would be good for Kool & the Gang.

“There was one of those (a ladies night) everywhere, so why wouldn’t that be a hit?” he said. “Plus, ladies buy records like that. Guys don’t go in hard on those kind of records. This was a tribute to ladies and I thought, this is definitely gonna work.And then ‘Celebration’ came from the thought of ‘Ladies Night.’”

For many of the Kool & the Gang songs, the Bell brothers and the other members of the band shared writing credits, something that Ronald Bell said the band had collectively decided from its inception.

“We decided to share our writing with each other. I was the primary writer. I was focused primarily on making hit records,” said Bell. “We did that and still do that. You might see my name on a lot of the hits, but you see Kool & the Gang also. We shared that with each so that when we got this old, that we would be all taken care of in some kind of way. And we continue that kind of mindset to this very day. There are no regrets with that.”

Bell added that sharing spirit has been the critical element of the group’s success.

“It was a collective creative effort – collective with a K – that was the genius of the band the Kool & the Gang,” he said.

With Judy Collins and Stephen Stills, ‘There were sparks right away’

By Mike Morsch

On April 21, 2018

In The Vinyl Dialogues Book

Judy Collins first met Stephen Stills when Collins was recording her seventh studio album “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” in 1968.

Judy Collins and Stephen Stills were driving around one day in Malibu, California, when Stills had an idea.

“He said, ‘You know, we need another song on this album,’” Collins says.

It was mid-1968 and Collins was coming off the success of her sixth studio album “Wildflowers,” which reached No. 5 on the Billboard Pop Albums charts after its release in October 1967. The album featured Collins’ Top 10 hit cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.”

Stills’ band Buffalo Springfield had just broken up in May, 1968. When Collins and producer David Anderle were planning the next album, “Who Knows Where the Time Goes,” they decided to record it in Los Angeles.

“This was an opportunity to go to California and I was thrilled to be able to do that,” Collins says. “My producer said, ‘I want to bring you to California to make sort of a live album.’”

Anderle then put together a top-notch band in Los Angeles that included musicians with whom Collins had not previously worked. Among them were Buddy Emmons — who played with the Everly Brothers, Roger Miller and Ernest Tubb — on pedal steel guitar; James Burton — who recorded and played with Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard — on dobro and electric guitar; Chris Ethridge — who would go on to play with Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers — on bass; Jim Gordon — a session drummer who backed the Everly Brothers — pianist Mike Melvin, who performed on the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” album in 1966 and Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life” album, also in 1966; Van Dyke Parks, a songwriting collaborator with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, on piano and electric piano; and Stills, fresh off the Buffalo Springfield gig, on guitar. (Collins has said in other published interviews that she believed Anderle had asked Stills to work on the album only to find out later that it was the other way around.)

“That’s where Stephen and I first met,” Collins says. “Stephen was somebody that I had never worked with before, so that was exciting. I didn’t know him and I really wasn’t aware of the Buffalo Springfield. I knew who they were but I didn’t know who the individual artists were. So it was a great surprise for me to meet him. And of course he’s a genius, so that was good.”

Not only that, but the attraction between Collins and Stills was there from the first moment.

“Yes, there were sparks right away,” she says.

There was an immediate attraction between Judy Collins and Stephen Stills when they first met.

So when Collins and Stills were driving around Malibu taking a break from recording sessions for “Who Knows Where the Time Goes,” Stills shared with Collins his idea about a song he thought they should record for the album.

“He said, ‘Let’s do “Someday Soon.”’ So that’s what we did,” Collins says.

Canadian singer-songwriter Ian Tyson, who with his wife Sylvia had formed the duo Ian and Sylvia in 1961, had written and recorded “Someday Soon” in 1964 but had not released it as a single. Collins was friends with Ian and Sylvia when they all lived in Greenwich Village in the mid-1960s.

“We used to hang out together. I had heard all of their songs,” Collins says.

So Collins didn’t need much convincing to record “Someday Soon” for the “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” album, and the song helped propel the album to No. 29 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart after its release in November 1968. The song itself would go on to become one of Collins’ signature songs.

Although the 1960s romance between Collins and Stills inspired Stills to write “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” for his then-new band Crosby, Stills and Nash in 1969, Stills won’t be featured in these two shows.

And even though the two are no longer linked romantically, they are still making music together. They toured as a duo in 2017 and plan to do so again in 2018.

“We’ve remained friends all these years,” Collins says. “And I always thought that maybe someday we’d do something together, but we had no idea what that would be.

“He was always so deeply involved with Crosby, Stills and Nash and at the time, there wasn’t very much room at the table for anything else.”

The two did finally make an album together, titled “Everybody Knows,” which was released in September 2017. The album features an updated version of the Sandy Denny-written “Who Knows Where the Time Goes,” and a new Collins song called “River of Gold.”

“It was thrilling to have a new song on board for that album,” Collins says. “Stephen and I are going out again on tour this year in May and June. It was so much fun. We want to work on some more new songs together if we can find the time.”

Stories behind memorable albums of the 1970s as told by the artists

Category: The Vinyl Dialogues Book Page 5 of 16

The Hooters and The Doobie Brothers: Rushing the stage at any age

John Sebastian reminds us of the magic of The Lovin’ Spoonful at inaugural Pocono Folk Festival

Still riding the ‘Love Train’ with The O’Jays

The backstory behind the hit ‘Sara Smile’ by Hall & Oates

The song that didn’t belong on the ‘Pet Sounds’ album

A collectively creative effort: Kool & the Gang still celebrating good times

With Judy Collins and Stephen Stills, ‘There were sparks right away’