#167 – Would You Like To Swing On A Star?

#167 – Would You Like To Swing On A Star? by Bing Crosby – but I learned it from a cartoon!

Not the cartoon!

– There’s a good chance this version of The Classic Rocker will come off sounding like it was written by a five or six year old kid. There’s a good reason – since that’s the age this golden oldie imbedded itself into my memory bank and has stayed buried in there ever since.

Would You Like To Swing On A Star? (officially titled Swinging On A Star) has nothing to do with Classic Rock. I’m sure we both know that and there’s no way to twist and turn any chord progression, lyric, meaning or artist’s rendition to make it fit that category. The original was by Bing Crosby in 1944 and Frank Sinatra also famously crooned it sometime later. But as I’ve made clear in past ramblings and even in About Dream Songs the only requirement for making this list is to have it running through my mind when I wake up in the morning.

Classic Cinema

In this case, my subconscious must have been deep into an alternate playlist when I opened my eyes to join the real world on September 6th. Since it has been so long since I’ve heard this song and it stretches so far back in my past, I’ll compare that night’s sleep to a journey in a time machine. And since I just made that reference, I’ll go ahead and wonder if the movie The Three Stooges Meet Hercules might have been an unconscious influence. It was one of my favorite films in 1962 and even inspired me to invent my own time machine out of cardboard boxes (it didn’t work). And since it was from the same era I’m about to visit in this Classic Rocker confession, I’ll go ahead and group the movie and song together and call it a major mind-blast from the past.

As a baby boomer, I’m among the first generation to grow up with a television in the house. I never knew life without one, just like kids today have no experience in a world without computers or cell phones. We’ve been described as having televisions instead of babysitters, but it really wasn’t any different than our parents and grandparents sitting around the house and listening to the radio. It was just another form of entertainment like online games and streaming videos are today.

Remote controlled flight

Except our graphics weren’t as good as what my kids are watching and if someone mentioned “remote controls” we probably thought they were referring to an episode of The Jetsons. That’s a good reason why my kids compare my childhood experiences to The Flintstones.

At four years old I graduated (yeah, there was a ceremony) from nursery school and was shipped off to afternoon kindergarten the next school year. The school also had morning kindergarten, but my parents must have already recognized my night owl tendencies. To this day I have a difficult time putting words together before noon, but can come off as a semi-genius after lunch.

So up until around 1 pm every weekday, I took mornings easy with lunch in front of the television before heading off to the afternoon grind of organized playgrounds, crafts and nap time. Then after graduating (yeah, there was a ceremony) my system was sent into total shock the next year when first grade was an all-day experience with a starting time somewhere around the outrageously early hour of 8 am.

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Luckily, I lived close enough to the school during the early boomer era when it was actually safe for a first grader to walk home alone for lunch. Since we lived not far away in an apartment above the family business, I could take almost the full hour to eat and watch television because my grandpa would take a break from work to drive me back to school. This cut out the time needed for me to walk back and also use the authority I assumed by being his only grandchild at the time.

In other words, I’d ask grandpa to drive me around the block a few times before I had to go back into the school. He always did.

Captain Penny

For kids my age in the Cleveland, Ohio viewing area a local legendary character, Captain Penny, hosted our lunchtime “must watch” television show. In the real world his name was Ron Penfound and he starred in his own kid’s show from 1955 until 1971. Captain Penny dressed as a railroad engineer with hat, gloves and neckerchief and was as popular with us little kids as The Beatles would be years later with us teenagers.

He is also the one who introduced us to The Three Stooges, The Little Rascals and cartoon shorts. All these had been popular with generations before us, but since this was still the days of having only three television channels and not a lot of original programming (old movies were still shown in primetime), this was our main source of broadcast entertainment.

Captain Penny would caution us after each Three Stooges short to “Don’t do this at home.” And at the end of his show he made sure we all knew, “You can fool anyone – but you can’t fool mom.”

The cartoons we watched (broadcast in black and white) had been movie shorts our parents watched in theaters when they were little kids. Popeye The Sailor was big among Captain Penny aficionados, along with another character that didn’t seem to last as long…

Lulu and Tubby

Little Lulu was a mischievous little girl who had a best friend, Tubby Tompkins. They were also the popular stars of comic books, which were also a major source of entertainment since pictures were easier to read than our first grade See Spot Run books. I remember having a major collection of comics stuffed into a small closet in our small apartment. I’d open the door and stacks would spill out onto the floor where I’d sit and read before stuffing them back into the closet to be saved.

A lot of these comics were saved for so long that more than a few decades later I cashed in by selling many on eBay. I would’ve definitely needed a time machine made from something other than cardboard boxes to imagine that business endeavor while stuffing comics back into the closet when it was time to watch Captain Penny.

But wait. Even though the memory bank is running on full, it’s about to take a U-turn…

Between 1957 and 1963 there was a popular primetime sitcom called The Real McCoys. It starred movie character actor Walter Brennan as Grand Pappy Amos McCoy and future movie character actor Richard Crenna as his son Luke McCoy. Kathleen Nolan played Luke’s wife Kate and their kids were Hassie and Little Luke. The farmhand, since they lived on a farm, was Pepino.

Yeah, I remember all that. As mentioned, the brain is running on full right now.

It was about a family moving from West Virginia to California. It was sort of like The Beverly Hillbillies, but without a mansion and Mr. Drysdale to watch the money.

The show also had a VERY catchy theme song that is about to merge with Little Lulu and Bing Crosby. You can check it out here…

 

 

Probably more times than I should admit to during nursery school, kindergarten and first grade while sitting in front of the tube, I watched Captain Penny show us a Little Lulu cartoon – probably more times than he would’ve like to admit – where she skips school to go fishing. In a dream-like sequence, Would You Like To Swing On A Star? is heard (with a brief visit from a cartoon Bing) while she swings on a star in the night sky and warned she could end up as a pig or a fish if she doesn’t get back to school.

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The song stuck in my head and I’ve never been able to shake it out. But the words got… sort of… mixed up with The Real McCoys Theme Song.

Yeah, I already know. Complicated…

So the version of Would You Like To Swing On A Start? running through my much older mind was the same one that has been with me since a very, VERY much younger time. It’s a combo of the two already mentioned, with some added lyrics from a very inventive five or six year old kid.

A Bout With A Trout!

So if you know the tune, feel free to sing along:

Would you like to swing on a star
Carry moonbeams home in a jar
Would you like to be as you are
Or would you rather be a pig
A pig is an animal with zillions of feet
Roars like a lion but is gentle as a lamb
And now here’s Luke who beams with joy
As he makes Kate Mrs. Luke McCoy
Da da da da dada da da da
Or would you rather be a pig?

So there you go. After all this rambling from a Classic Rocker, the beginning musical seeds were seemingly planted by Little Lulu, Captain Penny, Bing Crosby and Grand Pappy Amos McCoy. Who would’ve ever thought that?

Have a comment (or memory)?

Please use the form below – and keep rockin’!

And who would’ve ever thought we could actually sit back today and watch the cartoon – drawn in the 1940’s – that had such an influence? No need to bring back The Three Stooges and a working time machine because we have the internet. Here’s Little Lulu learning a life lesson to Would You Like To Swing On A Star? The full length cartoon is called A Bout With A Trout and can be found on YouTube.

You might enjoy that also because it includes the catchy Little Lulu Theme Song. I remember it, but that would turn into another long story…

 

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2018 – North Shore Publishing

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#168 – I Want To Take You Higher

#168 – I Want To Take You Higher by Sly & The Family Stone

 – At the risk of sounding like I’m standing alone in the middle of a large field with no one else to support my opinion, I believe every teenage guy that played an electric guitar in 1970 learned the opening riff to this song. Okay, maybe that’s too much of a general assumption, but I’m basing it on personal experience.

I fit that demographic and pretty sure I wasn’t alone.

Sly & The Family Stone were definitely not alone in a field when they took the crowd higher with this blast of gospel rock ‘n’ roll at Woodstock in August 1969. For the 400,000 people camped out at Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, New York – which over the decades grew to millions that claimed to be there –  the band’s performance was a festival highlight and a super charged Sunday morning wake-up call when they hit the stage at 3:30 am.

If anyone in that particular large field surrounded by people slept through it, I’ll make a general assumption they were in one of the emergency medical tents after dropping the brown acid the stage announcers warned festival-goers not to take.

How do I know this? Was I one of the thousands – later millions – who claims to have been at Woodstock?

Nope. I saw the movie.

Millions were there?

The Woodstock movie rolled through our area of northern Ohio during the summer of 1970. Most of us in my group of friends had listened to the three disc soundtrack LP, but the visuals proved to be an important part of the experience. I remember a carload of us (including my then current and future girlfriends – which is a different long story) heading to the theater decked out in our best hippie garb. In Ohio fashion sense, that just meant bellbottoms, a favorite t-shirt and probably blue-tinted round sunglasses. The girls enhanced their looks with southwestern style ponchos and yellow-tinted round sunglasses.

Yeah, we thought we looked cool.

For rockers the movie highlights included sets by The Who and Ten Years After. But the major impact for us came from Sly’s “Medley” performance of Dance To The Music, Music Lover and of course, I Want To Take You Higher. It was about 15 minutes of sheer energy and a main reason later to pick up the stereo needle on our soundtrack albums, place it back at the beginning of this song triad and listen to it again and again and again…

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It was also another reason to want to be in a band.

That was probably the biggest inspiration for my gang of friends to start planning our own outdoor music festival on the shores of Lake Erie. Now, that’s another long story that includes the transition between girlfriends at the same time, so I’ll save the results of this rock ‘n’ roll endeavor for another time. But basically it was just a group of high school friends looking for an excuse to have another party.

The preparation included forming a band that would headline this outdoor local extravaganza. Our first rehearsal was in a small room behind my parents’ garage. I had an electric guitar, but no amp. My best friend borrowed a bass guitar, but also had no amp. Our next move was to borrow an amp we could both use. We commandeered my dad’s drum set, which was vintage 1940’s big band style with a HUGE bass drum and only available because my dad had decided to focus his talent on playing the trumpet. We included another best buddy who didn’t have the talent to play anything, so we made him the singer.

And as another footnote, he really couldn’t sing. But it still gave us enough members to have a band.

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The final results didn’t improve much after this first rehearsal. We learned to play the riff from I Want To Take You Higher and… well, that was about it for that song. We’d play it, stop, look at each other, play it again, stop and repeat the process. We did the same with a couple Led Zeppelin riffs, The Rolling Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash and then made plans for our next rehearsal.

Eventually we learned songs that were of the easier three-chord variety, like Blue Suede Shoes and Long Tall Sally, which in turn influenced the theme of our outdoor music festival. Instead of the hippie vibe of Woodstock, we renamed ours a “Rock ‘n’ Roll Revival” and now had a legitimate excuse not to play any song that had more than three chords.

Taking everyone higher!

But once again, I Want To Take You Higher and Sly’s performance in the Woodstock movie was the impetus to get our rock rolling. The song joined this Dream Song list on September 5th. The opening riff alone was a major jolt to my waking mind and no coffee was needed to kick start the day. But then again, I wasn’t going to skip my morning caffeine buzz just because my head was already buzzing. And since the song was currently in rotation on my digital playlist, it joins the recent memory category.

I don’t have any recent memories of Sly & The Family Stone, but they really made an impact all those decades ago. The more serious minded stoner hippie bands that stood on stage for too-long jam sessions were quite frankly mind numbingly boring for a group of 17 year old high schoolers looking for any excuse to throw a party, dance and laugh a lot. So when Sly appeared on the big screen and cut loose – it was like a rock ‘n’ roll magnet.

That’s what we were looking for – and that’s when we found it.

I Want To Take You Higher first came out in 1969 as the flip side of the band’s 45 rpm single, Stand. But I don’t remember anyone taking notice of it until Woodstock hit our local theater and the high-octane live version had us lifting up our blue and yellow round shades to get a better look.

I actually think I had the opening riff down on my electric guitar after only a few tries. It’s just too bad my borrowed amp wasn’t loud enough for anyone else to hear it.

Have a comment?

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Here’s a video of Sly & The Family Stone performing a live version of I Want To Take You Higher (sometimes called Higher and Higher) from 1969. It’s not Woodstock but still brings the energy!

 

To purchase The Essential Sly & The Family Stone with I Want To Take You Higher visit Amazon.com

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2018 – North Shore Publishing

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#169 – 25 or 6 to 4

#169 – 25 or 6 to 4 by Chicago

 – Sometimes there’s nothing like a solid horn section to punch up a great rock ‘n’ roll song. For me that feeling goes back to the early days of Little Richard (though I was too young to actually experience it at the time) when a dirty-sounding saxophone raged over his pounding piano. And even today since a young Little Richard is never too old for the digital age of listening, the volume is worthy of being turned up whenever The Upsetters – his backing horn section – kick it in with him.

The same can be said for Bobby Keys and The Rolling Stones. Brown Sugar would not be the same song without his sax, even if Keith Richards and Mick Taylor had practiced what Keef refers to as “the ancient art of guitar weaving” for the instrumental break.

Saxophone was one of the founding instruments in rock ‘n’ roll. But as also a big fan of rhythm & blues, soul and Motown, a horn section with brass trumpets and trombones are also requirements. I have a feeling any promoter suggesting James Brown, Otis Redding or Marvin Gaye could have cut costs by leaving the horns at home would have found himself with nothing but an empty stage to promote.

But when I was finally old enough to experience what was happening in the world of pop music, it was the beginning of The British Invasion. Other than The Dave Clark Five with Denis Payton on sax, groups featured guitar players. Even when American groups counterpunched with The Byrds and The Lovin’ Spoonful, no one was blowing into anything other than an occasional harmonica – and that includes Bob Dylan.

With a horn section!

In May 1966 The Outsiders caught my attention with Time Won’t Let Me and a great backing horn section. Then later that summer The Beatles released Revolver with the Motown influenced Got To Get You Into My Life. But it wasn’t so much that horns were changing the pop music we were listening to. It was more like pop was borrowing from the other styles to give us a lesson in what a big segment of the youngest baby boomers was missing by only listening to our local Top 40 AM radio stations.

What does that have to do with 25 or 6 to 4? I’ll tell you…

I remember a slight bit of personal confusion when Chicago hit big in 1970. Pop had morphed into rock and the main engine driver was a high-powered electric guitar. Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton were making that notion very clear. Horns could be a great background enhancement, but none of our radio favored bands seemed to have these jazzy players as permanent members.

So with embarrassed hindsight, my perception of Chicago predated the lyrics Dire Straits sang a few years later in Sultans of Swing:

“They don’t give a damn about any trumpet playin’ band. It ain’t what they call rock and roll.”

But then Chicago changed that.

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Their innovative style as a band in the pop-rock world wasn’t really new. Al Kooper’s original Blood, Sweat & Tears made the scene in the late 1960’s and was the first group I took notice of that had a permanent horn section. But just like the subsequent version led by David Clayton-Thomas, they were too jazzy for my tastes.

It ain’t what they call rock and roll.

Chicago’s first LP under the name Chicago Transit Authority went unnoticed by me. But the opening riff of 25 or 6 to 4 when it was released in June 1970 definitely caught my attention. It rocked. And I don’t think I’m saying anything dedicated classic rock fans will object to, but it struck a rock chord by sounding a lot like Babe I’m Gonna Leave You by Led Zeppelin. And then the horn section came in over the grungy guitar and…

That’s what they call rock and roll.

This sound was coming in through my grungy brain on the morning of September 4th. It rocks its way into the recent memory category because I had just heard it. In fact, this song has occasionally crept into my Top 25 list of Most Played Songs that iTunes so conveniently keeps track of. And by the way, in case you can’t tell from the countdown aspect of these Classic Rocker ramblings, I enjoy that feature immensely.

I should have been more welcoming to the brassy horn sounds of Chicago. But as mentioned, The Guitar Gods had taken hold of the rock scene. I say this because at the time I was a player that could have fit into either section.

My guitar fumbling (for lack of a better term) started soon after The British Invasion – like many other baby boomers. But my skills have never been anything to write home about. I tend to blame that on never having the best guitars. I went more for “looks” (does it look cool?) rather than ease of playing. But trumpet was the opposite. I had access to two very cool horns and a practiced ability to play them.

My interest in the trumpet didn’t start when my parents “told me” that’s the instrument I’d play in the junior high and eventually high school band. It was a tradition on my dad’s side that started with his father and continued with him. And believe me, they were both good players. Especially my dad who played bugle in the U.S. Navy and made trumpet his creative outlet by performing with numerous bands around where we lived. He could play anything from jazz, big band to marching band. I have memories as a very little kid going with my mom to watch his shows. He had invested in a very good (let’s call it expensive) trumpet in the 1950’s and yeah, he looked and sounded cool.

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My grandfather was a lot older than my friends’ grandfathers. He was 46 when my dad was born. I don’t know how young he was when he started playing, but know he had purchased a silver cornet in 1905 and was a member of the town’s concert and marching band. Not only do I still have my dad’s trumpet, but also my grandpa’s silver cornet – and the 1905 proof of purchase receipt.

Yeah, you could say I’ve always been good at hanging on to important stuff.

Herb Alpert & TJ Brass

I alternated between the trumpet and cornet when I joined the school band, but again – I didn’t have much interest. I thought the guitar was cooler. But in April 1967 I watched a television special by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass and beginning at that exact moment – by the end of the show – trumpet looked pretty cool. I’m positive that I immediately went to my room and started practicing on grandpa’s cornet. My dad – most likely shocked but overjoyed at the same time – got out his trumpet and started teaching me. Before long we were playing duets and it became a father-son bonding I’ll always have with him.

Another totally shocked victim of my new-found love for brass was our junior high band director. For close to three years I had been languishing in the lower reaches of the trumpet section, barely able to make any type of recognizable musical noise. A few weeks after the Herb Albert TV special we had tryouts for “chair placement” and I aced it.

I still remember him staring at me – smiling – and wondering out loud why this happened “to him” when I’d be moving on to the high school band and a different director in just a few months. My band friends were also flabbergasted (again – lack of a better term) when I propelled past about 30 other trumpeters from the back end of the section to third chair. I never looked – or went – back after that.

Beatles Horn Section

But would I have wanted to be in a rock band like Chicago? Honestly, not in the horn section. As Paul McCartney once pointed out, his first instrument had also been the trumpet – also a gift from his dad – but you can’t play and sing at the same time.

Since that’s what I had in mind when I auditioned for the high school musical – and aced it – my trumpet playin’ band days came to an end. When I took off for college and later New York City, a couple guitars were in the back of my station wagon and the brass horns were left behind.

But they didn’t go unused, since I’ve always been good at hanging on to important stuff. More than a century after my grandpa bought his cornet and half a century after my dad bought his trumpet, my son Paul was playing both in the high school band. But now that he’s a professional singer, they’re both on the shelf waiting for the next generation.

And as for Chicago, they’ve also lasted for a few generations. Sometimes there’s nothing like a solid horn section to punch up a great rock ‘n’ roll song. And since there are still plenty of rock ‘n’ rollers from first generation baby boomers on down, I don’t hear that sound fading out any time soon.

Have a comment?

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To watch the original Chicago lineup performing 25 or 6 to 4, check out this video…

 

 

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2018 – North Shore Publishing

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#170 – Purple Haze

#170 – Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix Experience

Jimi Hendrix Experience

– Like chewing aluminum foil. I’ll let that roll around in your mind for a moment…

This might be difficult for younger classic rockers to grasp, but Jimi Hendrix wasn’t an instant, overnight success. His earliest records released in England during 1967 were not exactly hits, even though other rock musicians were taking notice. On May 29th he opened a concert in London with the song Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Beatles were in attendance and more than impressed since the LP had been released only three days earlier. That moment has been written and talked about countless times since because Hendrix is such a legend.

But at that time in 1967 he wasn’t… yet.

On June 3rd Sgt. Pepper was released in the U.S. and organizers for the Monterey Pop Festival starting two weeks later were doing their best to coax The Beatles into performing. They turned it down, but Paul McCartney suggested Jimi Hendrix. They went for it and that’s when the legend started becoming real.

At least for the people that were there.

Let me stand next to your fire!

For many younger teenagers living near the northern Ohio metropolis of Cleveland, now home to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, we didn’t hear much (if anything at all) about this legendary rock ‘n’ roll event. This was before Rolling Stone Magazine started covering the hippie scene for those of us thousands of miles away and the film Monterey Pop with Jimi’s legend-making guitar burning performance didn’t even come out until December 1968. I’m pretty sure I didn’t see it until it made my university’s late night film lineup during the 1970’s.

Hendrix’s album Are You Experienced with Purple Haze was released in late August 1967. And since none of the songs were played on our reliable Top 40 AM “pop” radio stations, we pretty much had no idea who Jimi Hendrix was.

But during that same Summer Of Love, riots in Detroit forced my grandmother to get the heck out of Dodge. With army snipers on the roof of her apartment building near the Detroit River, she caught a Greyhound Bus and made it to our isolated niche on the shores of Lake Erie. When the fires simmered down we drove through the battle zone, packed up her stuff and moved her into an apartment near us.

It was around this time I started hearing rumors about underground music on FM radio stations.

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Since grandmothers are usually programmed never to say “No” to their favorite grandchildren, she allowed me to commandeer her FM stereo radio. Not long before this, FM was pretty much a wasteland for teenage pop music fans by featuring talk, easy listening music, weather and news. The older generations might have tuned in, but boomers were only within hearing range when we were stuck in a doctor’s or dentist’s waiting room playing FM stations that numbed us to near-death with background elevator muzak.

Through grandma’s radio I listened to songs by groups that were leading us from pop to rock. This included the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the songs Purple Haze, Fire and Foxy Lady. It was called psychedelic and sounded electric, heavy, soulful and very cool.

I was hooked.

In early winter 1968 mom and dad took my sister and me to New York City to visit our Radio City Rockette cousin. Thanks to a lake effect snowstorm that shut down the Cleveland airport, we boarded a passenger train for a twelve hour ride to Grand Central Station. Somewhere near Rockefeller Center between watching shows by the high kicking Rockettes, I wandered into a record store and saw Are You Experienced.

I bought it.

After an all night train ride home spending as much time looking at the LP cover as I did looking out the window, I finally had the chance to rip off the plastic wrapping and put it on the turntable of our family stereo. This might also be difficult for younger classic rockers to grasp, but a stereo in many boomer’s homes during the 1950’s and 60’s doubled as a piece of furniture. So I was a bit surprised when my parents allowed me to commandeer the stereo and move it into my bedroom for my own personal use. They didn’t mind rock ‘n’ roll (after all, they had taken me to see The Beatles), but this gave them a better chance to hear what was on their FM stations when I listened to Jimi’s guitar feedback behind my closed bedroom door.

But similar to discovering Jimi Hendrix at the age of fourteen, I realized my room wasn’t cool enough for this new music. Hendrix also had a look and my room had none.

Sometime that summer I found a psychedelic poster of Jimi Hendrix with the words, “Like chewing aluminum foil.” My first impression was that it was funny. But it was also different and seemed very cool.

I bought it.

But it needed a better display than just being hung up in my room, so I also bought a blue light bulb. Don’t misunderstand. This was not a blue light that could be paired up with a lava lamp to turn any kid’s bedroom into a hippie hang out. It was exactly what I said it was – a blue light bulb. I slid open my closet door, pushed the clothes on hangers as far to the side as possible, tacked up my Jimi Hendrix poster and replaced the regular light bulb (with a pull string to turn it on) with the blue bulb.

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I had a cool room.

When my pals came over I would open the closet door, push aside the clothes, pull on the blue light bulb string, and play Are You Experienced. Oh yeah… we thought we were very cool.

Purple Haze joined this Dream Song list on September 2nd. I still own my original vinyl album, but in the years since have added it to my digital playlist. And since I had just heard it, the song joins the recent memory list.

Like chewing aluminum foil? Yeah, since we weren’t really that cool you should know what’s coming…

During this phase of our high school careers, my best pal Kevin and I were pretty much inseparable. We were about fourteen or fifteen years old and if I wasn’t at his house he was at mine. We’d ride our bikes around town looking for great adventures and throw parties so we could talk-up the cute girls in our class. On weekends we’d sleep over at one of our houses so we could stay up all night watching the dumbest movies we could find on television.

Actually, we were pretty bright kids and really didn’t get into any trouble. But then again, even smart kids can be dumber than the dumbest…

One night with my Jimi Hendrix poster displayed in it’s (not that cool) blue light, we started debating what like chewing aluminum foil really meant. Was Hendrix trying to tell us something? Was it about the music or the experience?

There was only one way to find out.

We walked into the kitchen, took out two pieces of aluminum foil, popped them into our mouths and bit down. Maybe it had to do with having one or two metal tooth fillings that were popular with muzak-listening dentists in the 1960’s, but there is only one way to describe the sensation.

OUCH!!!!!

If you’ve ever made the claim that you’ll try anything once in your life – cross this one off your list. It was like having a jolt of Jimi Hendrix electric guitar feedback screaming through every nerve ending connecting our jaws to our brains. We couldn’t spit it out fast enough while trying to muffle our cries of agony so we wouldn’t wake up my mom and dad. It was bad enough to learn how dumb we could be without letting my parents in on the realization.

Decades later I can still dredge up the pain like a bad acid flashback – even though I’ve never taken acid. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to stick a live electric wire your mouth, it’s…

Like chewing aluminum foil.

To this day if Kevin and I see each other all we have to say is, “LCAF.” Believe me, the impression was lasting and we both know exactly what we’re referring to.

The legend-making part of Jimi Hendrix’s career was also a short explosion that only lasted only a few years. He died in September 1970 while I was still in high school and at a time when some rock stars were only just starting to figure out there might be a dark side to doing drugs – and teenagers learned not to chew aluminum foil.

But we didn’t stop playing his records. Like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and a certain few other legends of the rock world, Hendrix still seems to be relevant. He is still referred to as one of the best – if not THE best – rock guitar player and innovator. He changed the music forever.

He also changed the way I look at aluminum foil. LCAF.

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For a live performance video of Purple Haze by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, check this out…

To purchase Are You Experienced with Purple Haze visit Amazon.com

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

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#171 – A Summer Song

#171 – A Summer Song by Chad & Jeremy

 – Being a Classic Rocker is not always an exact science. Especially when the archeological dig through our minds lack video or photographic evidence from the world of pop and rock, which was once considered disposable.

If you’re not familiar with what I’m alluding to, the eras of what we consider now as pop culture during the 1950s and ’60s were thought to be nothing more than a passing fad. Many live television shows were just that – live for that moment and then gone forever. Television studios could save money by taping shows in advance of airing and then reuse that same film for the next broadcast. So a lot of what we might remember exists only in our memories.

We’re lucky when a program like The Ed Sullivan Show was a national hit, filmed for airing in all time zones and saved for later repeats. Otherwise, we might not even have these performances by Elvis, Buddy Holly, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and many others from the ’50s and ’60s to watch again and again.

This is the dilemma I faced when trying to find exact information, including video and photographic evidence, of my personal television debut. And that’s frustrating because I think of it as a worthy (personal) pop culture moment since it happened in a Dick Clark Production with Chad & Jeremy.

So to begin this archaeological dig through my mind…

Chad & Jeremy were always one of my favorite British Invasion acts on the (Cuban) heels of the Beatles kicking things off in early 1964. I’ve mentioned in earlier Classic Rockers that as a preteen I didn’t have the funds to splurge on every great record that hit the charts, so after spending on the Beatles’ latest I had to be selective. One I couldn’t resist was the duo’s Yesterday’s Gone. I loved it then and still do.

Jeremy & Chad with Laura Petrie

Though the Beatles and other groups might have been more selective on what television shows they appeared on, Chad & Jeremy seemed more accessible. Along with the usual must watch television variety shows like Ed Sullivan, Hullabaloo and Shindig, they guest-starred (with speaking roles) on The Patty Duke Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show.

So yeah, I knew who these guys were. I didn’t confuse them with Peter and Gordon, like some of the other kids had an annoying habit of doing.

The summer of 1966 was huge for me. I turned thirteen in June – finally a teenager – the music was great and I earned enough money in my parents’ bakery to have a decent record collection. I also went to my first concert, which was The Beatles at Cleveland Stadium.

Like I said… huge.

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But also being a teenager meant having more freedom than when I was just a “kid.” Now, this is where it morphs into not being an exact science, but sometime in either July or August I was allowed to spend a week living on my cousin’s boat at the popular amusement park, Cedar Point, in Sandusky, Ohio. You might know it now as America’s Roller Coast for it’s outlandish collection of HUGE roller coasters and other thrill rides, and to us in the 1960’s it had that same reputation. It was one of the coolest places on earth to a thirteen year old and I would be staying there with my fifteen year old cousin John with nothing more to do than ride rides, swim on the beach (where we learned to surf on wooden “pizza boards”) and roam around with no parental supervision.

Like I said… cool.

The place to be!

One of our favorite rides at that time was the go-cart track. This was very different than you might be picturing during an immediate archaeological dig through your mind. There were no loud gas-powered motors. The track was a large oval with raised curves and electrical strips imbedded into the track. The go-carts had connectors (brushes) underneath and were powered by electricity. When the guy running the ride switched on the power, we’d race around the track using the cart’s accelerator and (sometimes) the brake. When the power was turned off, that’s where we stopped.

It was a popular ride and always had a line of wannabe racers. Since John and I were living on the boat docked in the park’s marina, we’d run in as soon as the gates opened so we could race around at least a few times before it became too crowded. We followed our plan that morning and though we weren’t first in line, we were pretty close.

It was a nice day, sun was out and the sky was blue. The ride was right next to the beach, which I’ve always considered to be one of the nicest beaches on Lake Erie and we could watch boats and people swimming while we waited.

I mentioned the sun and blue sky because if you were going to film anything there really wouldn’t be a need for “studio lighting.” I’m not sure when I noticed there were television cameras set up alongside the track but being a typical thirteen year old I was more concerned about when we would get on the ride. I also remember we waiting a bit longer than what should have been “opening” time. But since we had a good place in line we weren’t about to leave.

Sort of like this – but not really.

Then a guy who seemed to be in charge of the ride asked, “Who wants to ride go-carts?” Before I knew it, John had grabbed my arm and raised it up in the air with his. Obviously he had been paying better attention than me. We were both selected along with about six or eight others and were let in to choose our go-carts.

We drove around for awhile, stopping when the power was shut off and then starting again. After a bit we were told this would be filmed for a television special and before it had a chance to sink in, Chad & Jeremy walked in through the exit gate and sat in two empty go-carts.

Yeah… very cool.

The kids left watching from the sides of the track looked pretty excited as we drove go-carts with Chad & Jeremy for about an hour (if I remember correctly) while the cameras filmed us. At one point we were stopped and I was next to Chad (if I remember correctly). With all my thirteen year old British Invasion inspiration and some unfounded need to sound English, I looked at him and said, “Hullo.”

Yeah… not very cool. At least he answered, “Hello.”

That was cool.

After they had enough film, we ended our marathon go-cart ride. The cameras were moved to the beach and Chad and Jeremy lip-synced a song. This is where video would help. I’ve always thought they sang A Summer Song, but my memory might have been influenced by the time of year. After some online research I learned they were heavily promoting their latest song Distant Shores at that time in 1966 so it might be that one instead.

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But going through my waking mind on September 1st was A Summer Song, which is what stirred this archeological mind dig in the first place. Being a C&J fan of course I own a copy and had just heard it, so it goes into the recent memory category of Dream Songs.

After the excitement of riding go-carts for television cameras, John and I found out Dick Clark Productions was at Cedar Point filming a television special. A lot of different areas were blocked off, but we found out – and saw on television a couple months later – that Paul Revere and The Raiders performed Hungry at the Pirate Ride and The Vogues lip-synced Five O’Clock World while riding in a golf cart along the Cedar Point midway.

Again… very cool.

Dick Clark bringing the action!

I don’t remember the name of the special, but I’m sure it was connected to one of Clark’s programs either American Bandstand or Where The Action Is. It was airing during fall 1966 and we watched, knowing it would be pretty exciting to see ourselves on television. An all too brief go-cart sequence (in black and white) was shown at the very beginning of the special announcing that Chad & Jeremy were featured artists. During this opening segment I remember seeing my cousin John zip by and just as my go-cart came onto the screen…

You could see me only from the neck down.

It was my national television debut, so it was still pretty cool.

But it could have been cooler.

As I said at the beginning of this rambling adventure, a lot of video from the 1960s has been lost and apparently this is one of them. Over the years I’ve occasionally been inspired to search online for any written record, video footage or photos from this Dick Clark Special and have found almost nothing. At one point there was a glimpse of hope when I found a title and air date, but never made a note of it. In other words, this slight bit of information has been lost to memory and I wasn’t able to dig it up again for this version of The Classic Rocker.

Yesterday’s gone, but C&J still cool

About five or six years ago during one of these inspired searches, I somehow found an online contact for Chad & Jeremy. Don’t ask me how, but it might have had something to do with an upcoming appearance they were making at a Beatles fan conference. Since I have written a couple books on the Beatles and been a guest author at a few of these events, maybe that’s how this connection was made.

The contact answered my query and thought it was an interesting story. He said he would ask Chad & Jeremy if they remembered anything about this and get back with me.

Yeah… okay…

But a few days later I was surprised when I received an email from this contact. He said he’d had the chance to ask. One or both said they had a memory of driving go-carts for a television special and… Well, that’s it. They had no photos, video or anything more than I did – which is a memory that’s still pretty vivid even though it took a deep archeological dig into my mind to find it.

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Please use the form below – and keep rockin’!

At least I didn’t have to dig too far to find of video of Chad & Jeremy performing Summer Song.

And to make it very cool – the duo is introduced by Dick Cark.

 

To purchase The Very Best of Chad & Jeremy with A Summer Song visit Amazon.com

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2018 – North Shore Publishing

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#172 – I’m Not In Love

#172 – I’m Not In Love by 10cc

 – Okay, I know 10cc is a band from England. Since I just had to look up that last gem of knowledge online, I also know sometimes there were four guys in the band and sometimes there were only two. One of them (Eric Stewart) was an original member of Wayne Fontana and The Mindbenders and scored a number one hit in 1965 with Game Of Love. After Wayne split the scene, his backing group released their own hit Groovy Kind Of Love in 1966.

Now that this selected bit of trivia is out of the way…

I’m Not In Love doesn’t remind me of any of that. Maybe the 10cc two-person edition comes closest, except in my memory it’s not two English rock stars singing, but instead two college buddies trying to be funny without any talent or concept on how to carry a tune. There’s a big difference.

And believe me, I’m baffled by this.

Duo 10cc

Not my friends’ lack of talent, but the memory that has stayed with me for so long. It was just a brief clip – a slight moment in time – that should have faded away almost immediately. But for some reason an image of these two buddies pops into my head by just the thought of this song title.

I don’t even need to hear the song.

And speaking of hearing this song, I can’t remember the last time that happened. Strange, since the brief memory clip referred to above is also decades old but seems still fresh. Since I don’t own a copy of I’m Not In Love it fell immediately into the subliminal category of Dream Songs when I woke up with it stirring the other old memory in my mind on August 31st.

It reminds me of a particular episode in college and I have a general idea of when the song was released. But I saw the date when checking out the above trivia on 10cc and was able to pinpoint it to May 1975. And even though we’re more than four decades removed from that year when I was living only two doors down from my two pals in our college frat house, I still picture in my mind both these guys as young twenty-something’s.

Wow… that means I’m thinking of my college pals from decades ago as being younger looking than my kids. That should create a real shock next time I see them in person.

Anyway, here we go with a brief and lasting memory of a moment in time…

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I won’t in anyway talk myself up as some kind of Romeo. But college girls were just as important to me as my college major and to be honest, maybe even more important to a lot of other guys also. If there had been a college major in Hugh Hefner back in the 1970’s, I’m sure those classes would have maxed-out long before Accounting, Finance and even Basket Weaving.

Not like this…

College classes were written in stone. In other words, you knew where and when you had to be in the classroom if you wanted to pass and eventually graduate with anything other than a Hugh Hefner Major. My relationships with college girls never seemed to be written in stone and was mostly determined by being in the right place at the right time.

On one particular night that I semi-remember in spite of the many decades removed, I was sort of half-dating someone. Nothing serious, which is the reference to half-dating. She was coming by my room that evening so we could walk to the library together to study.

However…

An hour or two before she arrived, I met another girl that caught my attention. Where or how I again, don’t really remember. I’m not even sure if we actually dated later, but my two frat house buddies saw me hanging out with her. Later they also saw me hanging out with the girl I was half-dating and walking with to the library.

And then…

After walking my library half-date back to her dorm I met another girl who really grabbed my attention. We wound up actually dating for about a year after. And of course – on this same night – my two buddies saw us hanging out together.

So…

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It actually looked like (and I guess it could be said) I’d had three semi-dates with three different girls that same night. As I mentioned earlier, don’t consider me to be some kind of Romeo – and definitely not a Hugh. But for one night I happened to be at the right place at the right time – three separate times.

My pals had no idea what actually happened, but just to be perfectly clear I’ll fill you in briefly about each of my three dates:

1. Talking
2. Studying
3. Talking

…more like this!

Not exactly the G-rated activities a bragging Romeo would admit to or Hugh Hefner would write about. My three-date night could have been an episode on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriett, but I will admit it was fun and a bit confusing at times.

Since I had learned in my college career not to take courses with a start time written in stone before noon, I was still sleeping when my roommate left and obviously did not lock the door behind him. Sometime between snores and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, I was awoken by my two (goofball) buddies serenading me with a talentless, off-key a-capella version of I’m Not In Love.

Yeah, they thought they were funny by goofing on my assumed Romeo activities the night before while I just though they were annoying. Well… maybe a bit funny, but that didn’t come out until later. At the moment I might have had a few choice words for them and maybe emphasized it with a thrown pillow, but those details have been lost over the decades.

All that’s left is a brief moment in time when my buddies destroyed the 10cc version and left their own as a lasting memory. I won’t say that’s a bad thing. The original song still sounded pretty cool waking me up this time. It just wasn’t as funny… or annoying.

Here’s a video of 10cc (and not my goofball pals) performing I’m Not In Love.

 

To purchase The Best of 10cc with I’m Not In Love visit Amazon.com

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2018 – North Shore Publishing

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#173 – Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey

#173 – Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey by Paul and Linda McCartney

Paul & Linda

– There’s a short section of road along the south shore of Lake Erie that I drive almost every day. It’s about seven or eight miles from where I’m currently holed-up and for some reason, more often than not, I’m reminded of Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey.

This is a bit of a mind game for me because that doesn’t happen anywhere else. Yeah, certain places might remind me of certain songs, but this is a constant. I make a slight curve, glance up a short hill of mowed grass and regardless of whatever one of the thousands of songs on my playlist is coming through the car speakers, the title of this hit from the 1971 album Ram will flash through my brain.

I know… strange.

Smile Away 4 the camera!

In trying to put my memories together I know the album was released that May, less than a month before I graduated high school. I’ve never owned a vinyl copy, but had an 8-track that I played so often the cover photo of Paul holding the horns of a ram showed serious signs of wear and tear by the time I graduated college four years later. By that time, 8-tracks were relegated to either ancient history or collector’s items. It’s now on my digital playlist – which is a current technology that fools me into thinking I’m not that ancient – but I hadn’t heard it in awhile.

So when I woke up with the song playing through my mind on August 25 it immediately went into the subliminal category of Dream Songs. And I guess that makes it a double-whammy when it comes to mind games (and yeah, I was thinking of the John Lennon album as I wrote that) because I also know I’ll drive past that mowed hill of grass within the next day or two and whammy! Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey will be subliminally traveling with me again.

Since the song wasn’t released as a single until later that summer I can only guess it was already receiving radio airplay in advance, or I had propped my state-of-the-art portable 8-track player on the passenger seat of my mother’s car (since I didn’t have my own), using the cigarette lighter as a power source. If Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey was playing all those decades ago while – by chance – I was cruising along this piece of road, it must have made quite the mental impression.

I have no other explanation why that happens. But there is another memory…

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There was bit of a red flag feeling that went up with this song. The Beatles had been the most consistent hit-making band since I was a preteen in 1964. The Rolling Stones had been around almost as long, but were only just moving into their Golden Era off the LP Let It Bleed and released the month before Ram, Sticky Fingers. Led Zeppelin had also become a favorite, but both groups were still in the rear view mirror when it came to The Beatles.

Two thirds of writers

With three major songwriters competing for spots on their albums, you knew there wouldn’t be a dud in the bunch. John Lennon and Paul McCartney regularly supplied number one hits and George Harrison had come into his own as a writer. The winter before he seemed to pass the other two as a solo artist with the classic LP All Things Must Pass.

John had become the Working Class Hero and Paul once again demonstrated his talent with his first self-titled album and the single Maybe I’m Amazed.

And though boomers continued to hold out hope for a Fab Four reunion after Abbey Road and Let It Be, Paul’s second LP Ram (with his new writing and performing partner, wife Linda) really made it clear there was a major separation between him and his former mates as songwriters.

But we should have seen it coming…

When you listen to Abbey Road, the actual final Beatles record (Let It Be was recorded earlier and released later) it was obvious then. Harrison’s Something and Here Comes The Sun, and Lennon’s Come Together are mainstays in Beatles Best Of collections, near the top in Beatles song rankings and highlights in the decades later LOVE show in Las Vegas and the CD.

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McCartney’s main contributions to the album (other than song snippets with Lennon’s on the side two Medley) were Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and Oh, Darling! Don’t get me wrong – I love both. But they’re more light-weight pop songs and when compared to the before-mentioned Lennon and Harrison classics they never seemed to rank as high on the Beatles Hit Parade.

There’s no doubt McCartney deserves every award and accolade he’s received. But when the hard rockers were taking over in the early 1970’s he seemed to be moving a few steps back into the pop category. Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey has always been a favorite, but releasing it as a single during Spring 1971 didn’t help raise his cool factor.

Rock and rollers

To put it into perspective, as mentioned I was graduating high school. At our graduation parties where dancing and 3.2% beer were legal and common for 18-year olds in Ohio at that time – do you think we were rocking out to Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey or Brown Sugar, Gimme Shelter and Whole Lotta Love?

No need to answer. If you’re a first generation Classic Rocker, I’ll rest my case.

Ram was a huge hit in 1971, along with just about everything involving any of the Beatles during this era. Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey may have been too pop for much of the Woodstock Generation and too close on the heels of the bubble gum music fad that drove many of us away from AM radio, but McCartney was still writing great tunes and rocking out. One of them, and undoubtedly my favorite from the album, is Too Many People, which came in at #261 on this Dream Song list. It’s rare when an artist has two songs on this list – let alone two songs from the same album (other than a Greatest Hits Collection). It’s just another example of McCartney’s ability to write catchy tunes.

Oh, there’s one other lasting memory…

My dad had a favorite uncle. He was much older and lived in Michigan, but they were always close. And of course his name was Uncle Albert. The first time my dad heard this song coming from my transistor radio at our family bakery, he stopped working (for a brief moment), looked at me, smiled and said, “Uncle Albert?” Yeah, I’ll always have that memory.

Have a comment? Please use the form below – and keep rockin’!

Since I don’t know if the McCartney’s ever performed the song live or made an official video, here’s something I’ve found online. The song is heard over family home movies, which will give you an idea of what Paul and Linda were doing following the breakup of The Beatles and before the mega-success of their group Wings.

 

 

To purchase Ram with Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey (along with Too Many People and other great tracks) visit Amazon.com

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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.

Copyright 2018 – North Shore Publishing

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