{"id":994,"date":"2019-05-11T22:07:24","date_gmt":"2019-05-12T02:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/?p=994"},"modified":"2019-12-07T12:51:58","modified_gmt":"2019-12-07T17:51:58","slug":"the-backstory-of-making-the-groovin-album-by-the-young-rascals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/the-backstory-of-making-the-groovin-album-by-the-young-rascals\/","title":{"rendered":"The backstory of making the ‘Groovin” album by The Young Rascals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dino<\/a>

Dino Danelli conceived the cover for The Young Rascals’ ‘Groovin” album.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

Musicians work primarily on Friday and Saturday nights. And the women in their lives, well, they don\u2019t like that too much.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the way it was in the mid-1960s for Felix Cavaliere of the Young Rascals. By the end of 1966, the band\u2019s self-titled debut album had reached No. 10 on the Cashbox album chart and No. 15 on the Billboard Top 200 albums charts. The record featured the group\u2019s first No. 1 single, \u201cGood Lovin\u2019\u201d and positioned the band to begin writing and recording more of their own material.<\/p>\n

It made the Young Rascals in demand as well, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights, much to the dismay of their wives and girlfriends.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not exactly their cup of tea because, hey, you can understand when they say, \u2018What do I do while you\u2019re out there entertaining?\u2019 So it\u2019s a normal situation and any musician will tell you that they go through a lot of changes with that,\u201d said Cavaliere. \u201cAnd so groovin’ on a Sunday afternoon became the only time that we had together.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also became the inspiration \u2014 along with Cavaliere\u2019s girlfriend at the time \u2014 for what would become the next No. 1 hit for the Young Rascals.<\/p>\n

\u201cGroovin\u2019\u201d<\/em> was the title track from the band\u2019s third album, released in 1967. Written by Cavaliere and bandmate Eddie Brigati, the song reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts and stayed there for four weeks.<\/p>\n

Cavaliere\u2019s girlfriend at the time was a young woman named Adrienne Buccheri, and he believes that she served as a muse for him at that point in his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the age where all of us were kind of like dating and getting engaged. That\u2019s what happened to me, basically. I fell madly in love with this woman who actually turned out to be a muse, no question about it,\u201d said Cavaliere. \u201cThat\u2019s really the only reason she was in my life. It was very strange. We were engaged, but never married. I really feel like she was like the old poetic muses. They just come into your life for a reason and spark that kind of emotion and feeling that generates those types of songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was no coincidence then, given the relationship of Cavaliere and Buccheri at the time, that the next single off the Groovin\u2019<\/em> album to become a Top 5 hit for the band was \u201cHow Can I Be Sure,\u201d which got to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.<\/p>\n

\"Felix<\/a>

Felix Cavaliere said that the environment in which Atlantic Records put the band in was positive and helped contribute to the band’s success.
(Photo by Jack Leitmeyer)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cShe was very young, much younger than I was, and it was totally crazy. It culminated in \u2018How Can I Be Sure.\u2019 I woke up one day and said, \u2018What the hell am I doing? I\u2019m going out with a kid.\u2019 It was strange,\u201d said Cavaliere. \u201cShe ended up marrying a very dear friend of mine and they had couple of children together, then unfortunately she passed. That\u2019s the story. It\u2019s kind of strange, you know. I have to be careful with it now because my present-day wife doesn\u2019t like that story too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brigati was also battling his own personal struggles during the making of the album, none greater than what he was experiencing when trying to finish the song \u201cHow Can I Be Sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were trying to finish an album. We had to go in Friday and finish it because we had to go on the road Saturday and Sunday,\u201d said Brigati. \u201cI had kind of a breakdown over it. I couldn\u2019t finish it and we had to go in (to the studio). The melody wasn\u2019t actually created yet, the storyline wasn\u2019t created.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn that particular song, I got a block and I was freaked out about not finishing it. My brother (David) put a bunch of different things in it and he was never properly acknowledged for it,\u201d said Brigati. \u201cIt\u2019s 50 years later and I\u2019m still asking, \u2018How can I be sure?\u2019 It was a genuine situation with being honest with what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Cavaliere, the music business in the mid- to late-1960s was a singles-oriented world. Radio at the time was based on the Top 40 and the challenge for bands of that era was to get enough air play to score a hit single.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt certainly wasn\u2019t easy with the competition that was out there, which was phenomenal,\u201d said Cavaliere. \u201cBut it also raised the bar to a high level, so a lot of music from that time is still here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band\u2019s label, Atlantic Records, ended up releasing eight of the 11 songs on Groovin\u2019<\/em> as A- or B-side singles. Cavaliere and Brigati co-wrote eight of the songs, while guitarist Gene Cornish wrote two, \u201cI\u2019m So Happy Now,\u201d which was the B-side of \u201cHow Can I Be Sure,\u201d and \u201cI Don\u2019t Love You Anymore,\u201d one of the three songs that wasn\u2019t released as a single.<\/p>\n

As was the case with many bands then, the pressure from the labels to continue to produce hit singles and albums was intense. Cavaliere and Brigati were well aware of that pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the reason was because Atlantic was not a major label at that time, so money was an issue. Anytime you combine money with art, it\u2019s difficult,\u201d said Cavaliere. \u201cSo there was a lot of pressure from Atlantic to keep product going out. The other thing was, it was a challenge. But there was also a tremendous amount of good luck, good fortune and being in the right place at the right time. Yes, you felt the pressure but you felt it from a different angle, from the people who were behind the label.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Eddie<\/a>

Eddie Brigati said the language and lyrics of the songwriting collaboration between himself and Felix Cavaliere was upbeat and positive.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

Brigati said the the combination of the lack of nurturing by the record company and the fact that the band didn\u2019t have much, if any, down time away from the cycle of recording and touring, took it\u2019s toll, both physically and creatively on the band members.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere wasn\u2019t a rest period, there wasn\u2019t a recalculation,\u201d said Brigati. \u201cBasically I was broke and broken. And there was no rehabilitation. There was no such thing as taking six months off. You can\u2019t, you have to strike while the iron is hot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite that pressure, Cavaliere also admits that the environment in which Atlantic Records put the band was positive and helped contribute to the band\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always equate it as a very fertile type of land. All we had to do was pop a seed in there, man. And it grew, because the team that we had at our disposal was phenomenal,\u201d said Cavaliere.<\/p>\n

That type of creative freedom also was evident in the writing process for the songs on the album according to Cavaliere. And although it was hard work, he and Brigati were in the groove during their writing sessions for \u201cGroovin.\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two people writing these songs. I\u2019m writing most of the music and the titles and themes. My partner was filling in the verse repartee. It wore him out, man, I\u2019ll be honest with you,\u201d said Cavaliere. \u201cMusic to me comes very natural. For me to sit down and write a song, it\u2019s pretty easy. So I was way ahead in terms of the music being before the lyrical content. If you look at this job that you have as a blessing, then that makes life easy. But if you look at this job as a J-O-B, it will wear you out. It didn\u2019t wear me out because I loved every moment of it and I mean that truthfully.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a writer, when you get a concept in your brain and then all of a sudden it manifests itself in a studio on speakers, it\u2019s beyond belief. How cool is that?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe language and the lyrics of our songs were all upbeat,\u201d said Brigati. \u201cFelix and I collaborated on the majority of the songs. It was a positive viewpoint . . . what if? \u2018It\u2019s a beautiful morning, I think I\u2019ll go outside for a while.\u2019 These are all kind of flippant ideas, but all going toward the positive human, cooperative energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cavaliere said that he, Brigati, Cornish and drummer Dino Danelli were all pretty happy when they heard the finished album, like they were for all the albums they created.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were always very proud of what we did. You walk out of the studio and certainly there were periods of turmoil within the organization during the recording. But we always walked out of there smiling, saying \u2018Wow!\u2019\u201d said Cavaliere.<\/p>\n

\"Gene<\/a>

Gene Cornish wrote two songs for the ‘Groovin” album, \u201cI\u2019m So Happy Now,\u201d which was the B-side of \u201cHow Can I Be Sure,\u201d and \u201cI Don\u2019t Love You Anymore,\u201d one of the three songs that wasn\u2019t released as a single.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cYou also walk out of there pretty tired. It was a lot of time. And I was present for every second of it. We never mailed anything in. I was there for everything and I enjoyed every aspect of the process, from the creation of the songs to the recording of the track to the singing and the mixing, even to the mastering whenever possible. First of all, I wanted to learn, and second of all, that\u2019s your product. You gotta be there,\u201d he said. \u201cI guess you always like it as a finished album, but you\u2019re apprehensive about whether other people are going to like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That apprehension about the Groovin\u2019<\/em> album turned out to be unfounded. Everybody liked it. The album reached No. 5 on the U.S. Billboard Top 200 Albums chart and No. 6 on the Cashbox albums chart.<\/p>\n

In addition to the album\u2019s title track making it to No. 1 and \u201cHow Can I Be Sure\u201d getting to No. 4 on the singles chart, two other Brigati-Cavaliere collaborations, \u201cA Girl Like You\u201d and \u201cYou Better Run,\u201d reached No. 10 and No. 20 respectively on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation with Groovin\u2019<\/em> in those days, all of us were kind of like tuned in to one another musically. And by that I mean the people in England \u2014 the Beatles people, the Stones people, the Kinks \u2014 and the Beach Boys, even though we were in a geographically different place,\u201d said Cavaliere. \u201cWe were all falling in love.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cover for the Groovin\u2019<\/em> album \u2014 which shows the band members drawn in caricature \u2014 was conceived, but not illustrated by drummer Danelli.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was pretty heavily into art in those days, so I kind of directed where we went with our graphics and things like that,\u201d said Danelli. \u201cI didn\u2019t do the actual cartoon drawing on the cover. That was done by a friend of mine, Lynn Rubin. But we talked about the concept, what we wanted to do, which was take a comic book approach to it. That was kind of the style in those days. I used to love doing the whole trip of the packaging of an album. It was just a ton of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cover also featured a sticker on the front that read \u201cThis LP has the big hit\u201d followed by either \u201cHow Can I Be Sure\u201d or \u201cA Girl Like You,\u201d both of which were Top 10 hits.<\/p>\n

The Young Rascals would eventually change their name to the Rascals after the release of the Groovin\u2019<\/em> album. The band would experience more chart success with two more Top 5 singles, \u201cPeople Got to Be Free,\u201d which got to No. 1, and \u201cA Beautiful Morning,\u201d which got to No. 3, both in 1968. The band would record seven albums from 1966 to 1971 with the original members before breaking up.<\/p>\n

The Rascals reunited in 2012 for the \u201cOnce Upon a Dream\u201d reunion \u2014 a combination concert and theatrical event \u2014 which lasted for 15 performances. The shows were produced and directed by Bruce Springsteen\u2019s E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt and his wife, Maureen Van Zandt.<\/p>\n

\"Eddie<\/a>

Eddie Brigati of the Rascals and the author.
(Photo by Judy Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Musicians work primarily on Friday and Saturday nights. And the women in their lives, well, they don\u2019t like that too much. That\u2019s the way it was in the mid-1960s for Felix Cavaliere of the Young Rascals. By the end of 1966, the band\u2019s self-titled debut album had reached No. 10 on the Cashbox album chart […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":1176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[110,283],"class_list":["post-994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tvdbook","tag-groovin","tag-the-young-rascals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1177,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions\/1177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}