Top 40 of the '60s

For the past several months I’ve become a bit infatuated with Top 40 stations from the mid-‘60s, particularly a local station that I parents listened to while growing up. I found a website with a ton of airchecks between 1963 and 1968 and while you don’t hear much music (it’s mostly just the DJs talking and old commercials), it has caused me to branch out and hunt down some of the songs from the time period. Some were very easy to find, but some were songs released by local bands, and those were particularly hard to get my hands on.

As you’re probably aware by now, I have a pretty large music collection and have an affinity for the ‘60s, but there were a ton of songs released during that decade and I only owned a small fraction of it. Of course, I had all The Beatles songs and quite a bit of The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Mamas & The Papas, The Beach Boys, The Doors, The Who, The Kinks and The Monkees, but there were a number of songs that were pretty good sized hits that I had either not heard before or never paid much attention to.

“Red Rubber Ball” by the Cyrkle is one of those songs that I’d heard but didn’t really know. Co-written by Paul Simon with a happy tune, it’s a song I really enjoy. And the lyrics – I like the sentiment of being okay with the end of a relationship, particularly the chorus: “I think it’s gonna be alright. Yeah, the worse is over now. The morning sun is shining like a red rubber ball.”

“Sunny” by Bobby Hebb is another song that I’d heard and never listened to the various nuances of the song that make it so great – and one of the most covered popular songs. I think because the song has been covered so many times, I didn’t immediately make the connection that it was originally from the ‘60s. There were a couple other songs that I also hadn’t realized were from the ‘60s. One was “But It’s Alright” by J. J. Jackson and the other was “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” by Jimmy Ruffin – which has a very popular song on my playlist in the last few months. It’s really an amazing song – I really enjoy the last 28 seconds of the song, but I always enjoy the bits of songs that the vocalist is adlibbing a bit off of the original melody.

The Association’s “Along Comes Mary” is another one I’ve become hooked on in the last year or so. It’s got kind of an unusual melody and some pretty cool harmonies (though, it is The Association, so that should be expected)… And there’s a jazzy flute solo, which is something you don’t hear much these days. It’s also pretty fun to sing because some of the lyrics aren’t words you hear a lot and the rhythm of the words is kind of unique.

“Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me” was originally recorded in the early ‘50s, but Mel Carter’s version released in ’65 may be the definitive version.  “Cara Mia” by Jay and the Americans tends to make me giggle a little. Not because it’s a bad song or not well performed, mostly because it’s so different from a lot of what you hear now and even back when it was released in 1965. It was a pretty big hit… I think it topped out around #4 – and Jay could really hold those high notes. I really should look up the lyrics because there are pieces of the song that I just end up singing gibberish.

“I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)” by the Four Tops and “Get Ready” by The Temptations are great Motown tracks that I had kind of disregarded until recently – and I’m not quite sure why. I probably had just heard them too much on the local oldies station or something so I never stopped to really listen to them. I had originally only known the song, “You’re the One” sung by Petula Clark, but I’ve found that I prefer The Vogues’ version. “Because” by The Dave Clark Five is a lovely ballad and I ended up hunting down Chad & Jeremy’s song, “My How The Time Goes By” after seeing them on The Dick Van Dyke Show (in an episode that satirized Beatlemania). “Catch the Wind” by Donovan is a gorgeous melody with some very lovely lyrics. I think it’s a tune that’s often mistaken for something written by Dylan… and it is definitely Dylan-esque with the acoustic guitar and harmonica. “Nowhere to Run” by Martha and the Vandellas is a great, driving song – and love the snow chain percussion. It gives the song a pretty distinctive style. “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” by The Supremes is another song I seemed to have disregarded in the past. I do have a tendency to get a little bored with The Supremes sometimes, because all of their songs have a very similar sound, but this is a really like this song. I really appreciate the sentiment behind it – though last year, I related it directly to my job – at least the chorus. And there are a couple Barbara Lewis songs I really like - "Baby I'm Yours" and "Make Me Belong To You". She really does a very good vocal performance on both tunes, though, I think I may be a little more partial to the latter (and it has a nice little keyboard interlude).

“The Game of Love” by Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders is a song I was really infatuated with when I downloaded it this past spring. There’s so much in this song that I feel is noteworthy, the drum beat, the twangy guitar, and use of tambourine. And I really like how the tempo picks up during the bridge then stops and goes back into the original tempo… Yeah, I dig that. “I Go To Pieces” is my favorite Peter & Gordon song … I really like the piano bit during the chorus.

Paul Revere & The Raiders are very new to my music collection and were added specifically because of the airchecks I had found from the old radio stations. Up until then, I’d really only known them for “Indian Reservation” and that is not one of my favorite songs. Their stuff from the mid-‘60s is pretty good though. The first song of theirs I added to my collection was “Kicks”… Great guitar riff in that song. A few other songs that are worth mentioning are “Hungry”, “Him or Me, What’s It Gonna Be”, and “Too Much Talk”.

There were 2 groups that I did discover solely because of my aircheck research: The Excels and The Aerovons. The Excels were a Michigan based blue-eyed soul group… My favorite of their songs (the few I was able to locate, that is) is “Little Innocent Girl”. The Aerovons were a psychedelic - Beatle-esque group from St. Louis. The song “Resurrection” is my favorite.

Dino, Desi & Billy are the latest of the mid-‘60s groups I’ve gotten into. I’m quite aware that they aren’t the most talented band of the ‘60s – not by a long shot, but some of their songs, like “If You’re Thinking What I’m Thinking” are just plain fun, and in my book, it’s okay to have songs just for fun. And the video for the song “Thru Spray Colored Glasses” is something I find very amusing. I’m all about the transistor radio hanging from the rearview mirror and the random ‘60s dancing!