The Mamas & The Papas - Dedicated To The One I Love

Youtube ^ | 10/4/2012 | keef1212

[Steely Tom]

Yes, I've seen that article. It's hard for me to read it because as I read it I feel so bad that I missed it. What a time, what a place, to be among the super-talented.

Of course I'm nowhere near that level, but one can still dream.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

“All the music I loved was actually played by the same people!”

That was a real shocker to me. I didn’t fully appreciate how much of my favorite music was made by them until a few years ago! Kind of a drag to learn that.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I just read half of Part 1. Wow...really weird stuff and amazing coincidences.

[Fiji Hill]

On weekdays in the 1950's, when we ate breakfast on our gray formica table beneath the General Electric clock on the wall--a typical 1950's kitchen--our portable Zenith radio would be tuned to "Hit the Road," a program on KFI that featured talk as well as music. In early 1957, Perry Como's "Round and Round" was played a lot on that program as it began its run up the charts.

Radio could be very regional in the 1950's and 1960's. In the late winter of 1965, Good Loving by the Olympics was a hit in the Southland, but apparently nowhere else in the country, and most Americans wouldn't hear the song until the Rascals' version came out in '67.

In December of '66, Wedding Bell Blues by Laura Nyro was a big hit locally, but the song wouldn't become well-known in the rest of the country until the Fifth Dimension's version came out in 1969. And Smashed! Blocked! by John's Children, a group from England, scored only in LA and apparently nowhere else, not even in the group's home country (the song was said to describe the effects of LSD).

Every region of the country probably had its local hits as well.

[HandyDandy]

I will be very interested to hear your reaction if you read all 17 parts. I feel now as though we have had the wool pulled over eyes our entire lifetime. It shattered my illusions.

[Steely Tom]

I knew Wedding Bell Blues was composed by Laura Nyro, but I never knew she sang the original version. Sorry, but I've always loved the Fifth Dimension version; Marilyn McCoo's sincere performance, coupled with her jazzy, beat-conscious power, always thrilled me.

Also, the drummer in the Fifth Dimension version makes it so much fun; I now discover that that drummer was none other than the ubiquitous Hal Blaine, which I should have guessed.

[Steely Tom]

Oh, and I was going to say that in the '80s I lived in Philadelphia, and I thought that Bruce Springsteen just happened to rise to superstardom at the same time I moved to his home turf.

Turns out that he didn't get nearly as much airplay around the country as he did in the SE Pennsylvania-South Jersey market. Ditto for some of the other local acts (Hall and Oates, the Hooters, Patti LaBelle), which were constantly in rotation on the FM stations of 1980s Philadelphia, but not so much elsewhere.

[Fiji Hill]

I like Laura Nyro’s version of “Wedding Bell Blues” because it reminds me of December, 1966, when things, for the most part were going well—even though USC was to lose the Rose Bowl Game despite a valiant comeback effort.

[dfwgator]

Marilyn McCoo was my schoolboy crush.

[Steely Tom]

Marilyn McCoo was my schoolboy crush.

Yeah she's pretty much a living doll. Beautiful, talented, smart, sense of humor. Billy Davis is a mighty lucky individual. Seeing as how they stayed together so many years, I guess he knows it too.

[Steely Tom]

I like Laura Nyro’s version of “Wedding Bell Blues” because it reminds me of December, 1966, when things, for the most part were going well—even though USC was to lose the Rose Bowl Game despite a valiant comeback effort.

Amazing how music can bring that back, isn't it? Those memories are in your mind, in patterns of neurons and synapses and neurotransmitters, and they can be dormant for years, and then come back to life in response to a sequence of sounds, or a smell, or a particular shade of some color, or they way the sun looks when it hits the grass at a certain angle.

But jeeze man, 1966 was 52 years ago. I hope things have gone well at least a few times since then. You got to grow up in southern California when it was pretty much the nicest place on earth. I only got to experience it for less than a year, and I wish it could have been longer. Now its gone forever, and I bet those memories are sweet.

When things are "getting better," it's better than when things are "good." When you're young, things are always "getting better," because you don't see the big picture, and your in your imagination you think it's going to just keep on getting better forever.

But that's not life man, it's an illusion.

[Steely Tom]

When he recorded his masterpiece, “Wichita Lineman” with the WC, he borrowed Carol Kaye’s 6-string bass to play the solo.

Wichita Lineman truly is a masterpiece, literally a perfect song, although I think Glen Campbell thought Gentle On My Mind was better; at least, he chose that as the theme for his TV show.

But Wichita Lineman is so good, it has the power to make me feel goosebumps today, just remembering it, without actually hearing it as audio.

I think there are several other "perfect songs" from the Baby Boom era; off hand, I'm thinking of Yesterday, Just The Way You Are, One Hundred Ways, The Gambler, and Guilty, sung by Barbra Streisand and The BeeGees.

Also, of course, quite a few Steely Dan songs, including most of the tracks on Aja.