Category Archives: Music of the 60s

Music et al, Music of the 60s, Today in history

October 17 Music et al

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October 17 Music et al

Some dates just seem to have a whole lot a music et al going on and October 17 is one of those days. Just look at what happened on October 17 throughout the 60s.

“Save the Last Dance for Me”

October 17 – 23, 1960:  “Save the Last Dance for Me” by the Drifters was #1 on the  Billboard Hot 100.

The story behind the song is that Doc Pomus found a wedding invitation in a hatbox. The invitation reminded him of his own wedding reception and watching his brother Raoul dance with his new wife, Willi Burke, a Broadway actress. Doc watched because the effects of childhood polio kept him in his wheelchair.

The memory inspired him to stay up all night writing lyrics. He used the invitation for stationery.

Earlier that day, Doc’s musical partner, Mort Shuman had played a Latin melody. Doc wanted the lyrics to sound like a poem translated into English  They do suggest jealousy: “If he asks if you’re all alone, can he take you home, you must tell him no.”

Pomus ended his night of songwriting by writing down the words that would become the title: “Save The Last Dance For Me.”

Famous composers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller produced the song. Ben E King was the Drifters lead singer at the time. Ironically, equally famous Atlantic Records Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler decided to put “Save the Last Dance for Me” on the B-side. Dick Clark of American Bandstand flipped over the single, listened to “Dance,” realized what a great song it was, and played it on his show American Bandstand.

It was the Drifters only #1 hit.

The song’s popularity continues into our 21st century. Unfortunately, Pomus and Willi Burke’s marriage did not make it out of the 60s.

October 17 Music et al

Beatles first Christmas wishes

October 17 Special Music Edition

October 17, 1963 was a(nother) busy day for the Beatles that began mid-afternoon. First they recorded their first Christmas disc. Click below to hear it, likely hear it again. American fans did not receive this recording because Americans did not yet know about the Beatles. The Beatles continued to record these annual fan club gifts until 1969. The Official Beatles Fan Club mailed this disc out on December 9.

Later, the Beatles again recorded Smokey Robinson’s “You Really Got a Hold On Me,” but were still not satisfied. The version we hear on With the Beatles is actually a combination of earlier attempts.

The main goal of the day was to record their next single, “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” It took 17 takes.

They then recorded (in 15 takes) “This Boy.” They overdubbed some of the vocals which are the hallmark of the song.

Their day ended at 10 PM though they had taken a break between 5:30 and 7 PM.

October 17 Music et al

Do Wah Diddy Diddy

October 17 Music et al

October 17 1964 was the first day that Manfred Mann’s version of Do Wah Diddy Diddy hit #1 on Billboard’s Hot  100. It remained there until October 30.

Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich wrote the song and the American group the Exiters first recorded it in 1963.

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (see above) had hired Barry and Greenwich who are also famous for many other songs such as  “Chapel of Love”, “People Say”, and “Iko Iko,”  “Remember (Walkin’ in the Sand),” and “Leader of the Pack”

Manfred Mann recorded the song (with the extra Ditty in the title) and had the number one hit with it.

October 17 Music et al

Hair

1967’s October 17 Special music event is the first one that feels like the 60s as many remember it. Very much so.

The play, Hair premiered off-Broadway at the Public Theatre and ran for a limited engagement of six weeks. Although the production had a “tepid critical reception”, it was popular with audiences.

James Rado and Gerome Ragni wrote the play. Galt MacDermot the music. and music by Galt MacDermot. The play reflected the counter-cultural times with its depiction of the use of illegal drugs, sexuality, and treatment of the flag.  A nude scene caused much comment and controversy. It became the blueprint for future so-called “rock musicals.”

October 17 Music et al

Brian Epstein

October 17, 1967:  although the Beatles had not attended manager Brian Epstein’s funeral on August 29, John, Paul, George, and Ringo attended the memorial service for Brian Epstein at the New London Synagogue, Abbey Road. [Beatles Bible article] (see Nov 27)

Sugar Sugar

And we come full cycle. October 17, 1969, just two years after Hair opened (and continued to run) was the last day  Archies’ “Sugar Sugar” was the Billboard #1 song. Who co-wrote “Sugar Sugar”? None other than Jeff Barry whom we find in the middle of today’s post with his wife Ellie Greenwich.

October 17 Music et al
Birthdays, Grateful Dead, Music of the 60s

Robert Hall Bob Weir

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Robert Hall Bob Weir

Happy birthday to you…

October 16, 1947

Jimmy come lately

I quickly admit that I was not much of a Dead fan until my brother-in-law George directed me to the Internet Archives site [Internet Archive Grateful Dead] with its hundreds, no, thousands of Dead recordings. I learned the letters SBD (soundboard), AUD (audience), Matrix (someone’s incredible mixing of both a SBD and and AUD), and BB (a Betty Board as in Betty Cantor-Jackson, onetime soundboard tech for the Dead).

I also learned that, and this was the tipping point for this penurious person, I could download any file I wanted for free. That generosity did not last. Today, only the audience recordings are still available for free download. Many of those are simply outstanding recordings. The soundboards are available to listen to, but not to download.

Robert Hall Bob Weir

Get to the point

I didn’t get the Dead because I was familiar only with the Dead’s studio work, which didn’t do much for me. Yes their two 1970 masterpieces, Workingman Dead and American Beauty, both made my 8-track collection, but by 1971 I was married, by 1973 a father, and working two or three jobs. Concerts were rarely part of the budget.

Robert Hall Bob Weir

Bob Weir

When the Dead began to play in 1965, Bob Weir was just 17. Even by the counterculture’s egalitarian standards, Weir was still a kid.

The kid had not been a good student. His behavior defined the then American education’s definition of the poorly performing student: a lazy misfit. Fortunately, while in the system he met John Perry Barlow. Fortunately, Weir knew enough to get kicked out of the system and back to his hometown of San Francisco.

And fortunately, he met Jerry Garcia, too. Instruments in hand, they morphed from Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions into the electric Warlocks, and quickly tripped from there into the Grateful Dead.

Faced with the daunting task of playing beside the genius guitar playing of Garcia, Bob became one of rock’s best rhythm guitarists. He became the co-lead-vocalist with Garcia, and with old school friend Barlow wrote many of the Dead’s best songs such as…

  • Black-Throated Wind
  • Cassidy
  • Looks Like Rain
  • Lost Sailor
  • Mexicali blues
  • The Music Never Stopped
  • Saint of Circumstance
Robert Hall Bob Weir

Keeps on truckin’

Following the demise of the original Dead after Garcia’s death in 1995, Weir continued to play music: sometimes with other Dead band mates, sometimes with others.

In 2016, Weir released Blue Mountain. 

The Pitchfork site had this to say about it: As Weir’s sixth studio full-length outside the Grateful Dead, Blue Mountain functionally serves as a reboot for the guitarist, whose solo sensibility long ago veered far from Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter’s cosmic Americana and into the AOR waters of 1978’s Heaven Help the Fool (made with Fleetwood Mac producer Keith Olsen), the pastel fusion of Bobby and the Midnites in the ’80s, and the dense jam-jazz of Ratdog in the ’90s. With an ambient C&W production that often subsumes lead guitar into the reverb swirl (and occasionally swallows Weir), Blue Mountain will likewise probably prove inseparable from the historical period in which it was recorded. But, unlike Weir’s previous albums, Blue Mountain also finally seems like the right album at the right time for Weir. Quietly adventurous, wise, and a welcome late-career turn, Blue Mountain builds an ethereal home for a rhythm guitarist who was tempered in the chaos-friendly environs of Dead.

Don’t just read about it, though. I’m listening to it as I write this and it is sounds are smooth and soothing.

And he’s still out there performing.

Robert Hall Bob Weir
Music et al, Music of the 60s, Woodstock Music and Art Fair

Paul Butterfield Blues Band album

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Paul Butterfield Blues Band album

released October 1965

Paul Butterfield Blues Band album

In October 1965, future Woodstock Music and Art Fair performers the Paul Butterfield Blues Band released their first album: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Paul Butterfield was 23; Mike Bloomfield was 22; Elvin Bishop was 23; Mark Naftalin was 21; Jerome Arnold was 28; and Sam Lay was 30. (only Butterfield himself would be in the Woodstock line up.)

Lining two walls in downstairs hallway of the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts are pictures and brief bios of each band and its members who performed at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. When I watch or listen to guests visiting the Museum, the usual artists they hover over or speak about are Jimi Hendrix, the Band, Janis Joplin, the Who, or other so-called “big names.”

I cannot remember any guest hovering at the Paul Butterfield  Blues Band.

They should be.

Paul Butterfield Blues Band album

Paul Butterfield Blues Band

Rock and Rolls’ roots are obviously from rhythm and blues whose roots are simply the blues. Jimi, Robbie, Janis, and Pete would all acknowledge and tip their hats to a Paul Butterfield for so brilliantly playing those blues.

The band’s first album is an excellent example of the style and strength the various band line-ups presented over its time.

All Music’s Mike DeGagne says this about the first album:

“…a wonderfully messy and boisterous display of American-styled blues, with intensity and pure passion derived from every bent note. In front of all these instruments is Butterfield’s harmonica, beautifully dictating a mood and a genuine feel that is no longer existent, even in today’s blues music. Each song captures the essence of Chicago blues in a different way, from the back-alley feel of “Born in Chicago” to the melting ease of Willie Dixon’s “Mellow Down Easy” to the authentic devotion that emanates from Bishop and Butterfield’s “Our Love Is Drifting.” “Shake Your Money Maker,” “Blues With a Feeling,” and “I Got My Mojo Working” (with Lay on vocals) are all equally moving pieces performed with a raw adoration for blues music. Best of all, the music that pours from this album is unfiltered…blared, clamored, and let loose, like blues music is supposed to be released.”

You should give it a listen, again I hope, but if not for the first of what will likely be many times.

Paul Butterfield Blues Band album