Tired of the Summer of Love?


Remember the Troggs and "Wild Thing"? If you do, read on.

It's the summer of 1967. The Beatles have become Sgt.Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band; America's feeling up, up and away at the same time that the wind is crying Mary and urging us to break on through to the other side.

The Troggs from Nowheresville in England release "Love Is All Around" in October 1967, a gigantically uncharacteristic number for them and a smash hit all over the world. The album released in the U.S. in 1968 gathered up hits and misses from 1966 and 1967 and was a slightly sinister antidote to those who believed that all you need is love.

The "Love Is All Around" album from Fontana in 1968 is unavailable from Spotify, but you can easily piece it together from YouTube and other sources. Well worth a listen if your sweet tooth has been bothering you lately.

Up the Junction

Hey psychedelic rangers, don't let this one pass you by.

Manfred Mann's soundtrack for the film, "Up the Junction" - http://www.allmusic.com/album/up-the-junction-mw0000057497

Released in February 1968 as the score to a very gritty UK melodrama, it's totally in the Traffic - Family - Pink Floyd mood of the times. Spacey melodic songs and universally excellent jazz/psych instrumentals. It's Herbie Hancock's "Blow-Up" soundtrack meets Syd Barrett's Floyd. Who knew? This was the band known best for "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy."

Prepare yourself for a most enjoyable listening experience.

Who blacklisted whom?

One of the political Left's favorite bedtime stories is about the Hollywood Blacklist. Kudos to Allan Ryskind in his new book, "Hollywood Traitors," for finally blowing that tired old myth out of the water.

For those who still doubt, the book includes the Communist Party card numbers of every one of the late, lamented Hollywood Ten and records in great detail their efforts to steer films Joe Stalin's way.

For further proof, try to find a copy of their greatest hit, the 1943 Warner Brothers film, "Mission to Moscow," which ends with an avuncular Comrade Stalin talking about all the Soviet Union's great accomplishments under his leadership. There's even a delightful scene at the Moscow show trials where the defendant calmly points the finger at himself and the hero of the film, U.S. Ambassador Joseph Davies, praises the trials for meeting the norms of international law. It would be almost comic if you were unaware of the millions of dead that lay strewn in Stalin's wake.

As you can well imagine, Warner Brothers celebrates that film about as much as the New York Times recalls Walter Duranty's Pulitzer for looking the other way when Stalin was busily at work.

Avoiding the rush to war

Kudos to former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates for this clear-eyed analysis of America's increasing rush to war in his new memoirs:

"... In recent decades, presidents confronted with tough problems abroad have too often been too quick to reach for a gun. Our foreign and national security policy has become too militarized, the use of force too easy for presidents.

"Today, too many ideologues call for U.S. force as the first option rather than a last resort. On the left, we hear about the 'responsibility to protect' civilians to justify military intervention in Libya, Syria, Sudan and elsewhere. On the right, the failure to strike Syria or Iran is deemed an abdication of U.S. leadership. And so the rest of the world sees the U.S. as a militaristic country quick to launch planes, cruise missiles and drones deep into sovereign countries or ungoverned spaces. There are limits to what even the strongest and greatest nation on Earth can do—and not every outrage, act of aggression, oppression or crisis should elicit a U.S. military response."

Amen.

Heavy Stones night

On the turntable this evening:

The Rolling Stones Now!

No Stone Unturned

Between the Buttons (UK)

Ruby Tuesday b/w Let's Spend the Night Together

We Love You b/w Dandelion

We Love You (John and Paul vocal backing track)

Steel Wheels

The Rolling Stones Songbook by the Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra (to come down to earth)

Dry martini, anyone?

With warm weather finally upon us, Paul Desmond's glorious "From the Hot Afternoon" album is the perfect soundtrack. Desmond who made his chops playing alto saxophone with Dave Brubeck dropped this bossa nova gem on an unsuspecting public in 1969.

Desmond explained his gorgeous sax tone to an interviewer this way: "I had the vague idea that I wanted to sound like a dry martini."

Keep The Summer Alive

I feel good about being an American this summer, and my summer soundtrack is going to be the new Beach Boys' album, "That's Why God Made the Radio." Yeah, it's been decades since Brian and Mike made a record together, and they're all pushing 70. But as someone wiser than me said 30-plus years ago, keep the summer alive. And keep on dancin'.

The Soft Sound

I think of it as the World Soft Championships, to steal a phrase from Warner Brothers ' legendary liner notes writer Stan Cornyn. That's how he described the brand new album "Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim" in 1967. The same phrase comes to mind with the release of Paul McCartney's new album "Kisses on the Bottom."

Both Sinatra and McCartney are singing without a safety net, unless you count the airtight backing ensembles they have setting the mood. Neither man was ever more vulnerable in the recording studio. This is the real Let It Be Naked.

The albums are impeccably performed and recorded, with Jobim and, in McCartney's case, Diana Krall as co-conspirators throughout. The singers are nuanced and right on the note. Even the packaging works.

Highlights? Sinatra's bossa take on Cole Porter's "I Concentrate On You" is inspired, and he's positively poetic on Jobim's "Quiet Night of Quiet Stars." McCartney delivers a heartbreaking take on Irving Berlin's "Always," then turns around to lightly groove on Fats Waller's "My Very Good Friend The Milkman." But both albums are seamless.

Let the Soft Championships begin.

Battle of the bands

The '60s reunion shootout of all time -- The (Young) Rascals vs. Buffalo Springfield.

42 Years Ago Today

Last year, actually. On October 23, 2010, the three front men of Buffalo Springfield - Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and Neil Young - reunited for the first time since 1968. I can think of few 1960s reunions more historic unless John and Paul could magically walk on stage one more time.

OK, we're talking three men in their late 60s singing songs loaded with harmonies. But how sweet it is. Go listen for yourself. It'll take a few years off your soul.

Wanted: New Drummer for the Beatles

It's not often these days that a new piece of Beatles history emerges. But according to a BBC news report, an August 12, 1960 letter handwritten by Paul McCartney offering an audition to an unknown drummer has now turned up. The letter was "discovered inside a book by an anonymous collector at a car boot sale in Bootle, Liverpool."

Pete Best was the band's drummer at the time, and he wasn't officially sacked and replaced by Ringo Starr until two years later. History records that Best was fired at the demand of George Martin, the Parlophone producer who proved to be the Beatles' entry into the

bigtime. This is the first indication that the band was looking to replace Best much earlier. The drummer in question has not been identified. The letter has been authenticated, and Christie's expects it to sell for as much as $14,000 in an auction next month.

The Kinks' Missing Chapter

Most Kinks fans consider the period from "Face to Face" through "Something Else," "The Village Green Preservation Society" and "Arthur, or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire" (1966-'69) as the band's peak creative moment. Yet, coincidentally, because of a spat with the American Federation of Musicians, the Kinks were effectively banned from playing live in the United States during that same period. So unlike the Beatles - and XTC further down the road - who pulled themselves off the road at their creative peak, the Kinks were forced off the road by a union dispute in the United States.

In October/November 1969, they returned to these shores with a vengeance, playing a four-city tour of the Fillmore East in New York City, the Kinetic Playground in Chicago, the Whiskey-a-Go-Go in LA and the Fillmore West in San Francisco. Thanks to the first-rate music blogsite BB Chronicles, I was recently able to

download a recording of the Kinks' November 27, 1969 performance at the Fillmore West. What a revelation.

These guys were ready to challenge the Rolling Stones and the Who on their own turf. I have never heard Dave Davies play such incendiary guitar. "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains" and "Love Me Till The Sun Shines" are guitar tours-de-force. How about quick dirty versions of "Mr. Churchill Says" and "Big Sky"? Or the medleys - "Milk Cow Blues/See My Friends/Tired of Waiting for You/Brainwashed" and "A Well-Respected Man/Death of a Clown/Dandy"? The hits, too, of course. But "Louie, Louie"?

Ray is totally in control and sounds so young. Most importantly, this recording illustrates that the Kinks in 1969 really weren't just Ray's band; they were the Davies brothers' band.

The group that was toning it down and turning up the IQ level in the studio was still a down-and-dirty Muswell Hill pub band at heart. Hearing this performance brought me a lot closer to the point where "You Really Got Me" became "Sunny Afternoon." God save the Kinks.

The Party of No

Remember, in the last Congress, when Republicans were demonized by the White House, congressional Democrats and friendly media as the Party of No for rejecting the stimulus, the bailouts and nationalized health care. Now, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama warn that the House Republicans' debt ceiling plan - heavy on spending cuts and driven by the dreaded Tea Party - is dead on arrival. Who's saying "no" now?

When Are the Beach Boys Not the Beach Boys?

I've started reading Domenic Priore's book, "Smile, The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece," and have already come across two surprising (to me) claims that really downplay the contributions of the other guys in the band.

First, Priore, a recognized authority on the group, notes that the

"Surfer Girl" album was the first one where Brian resorted to the services of studio musicians, but then he adds this gem: "One of the hidden tricks of this hit-laden disc is the presence of The Survivors on many of the vocal parts that would have been sung by the Beach Boys, had they not been on the road." That was news to me: The Beach Boys didn't actually sing "many of the vocal parts" on the "Surfer Girl" album? They were sung instead by the Survivors, a Brian side group that included himself, his buddy Bob Norberg and two other guys named Rich Arlarian and Dave Nowlen.

Second, and more compelling, was his explanation of why "Pet Sounds" really is a Brian Wilson solo album. Other than the group performance on "Sloop John B," which was actually recorded during the "Summer Days (and Summer Nights)" sessions and is viewed by many as the odd song out on "Pet Sounds," Priore says only eight individual vocal parts by Carl, Mike, Al and Bruce appear on the Beach Boys' most famous release. Dennis, he adds, "is inaudible, if there at all."

Those individual contributions? "Carl sings lead on "God Only Knows" while Bruce sings a backing part; Al and Mike each take a line on "I Know There's An Answer," and although Brian lays down the strong guide vocal that carries each tune, he overdubbed a lead part by Mike over his own voice on both "Here Today" and "That's Not Me." ... Love also contributes the middle-eight bars of "Wouldn't It Be Nice," with Carl a backing voice, and that adds up to eight vocal bits that weren't sung by Brian."

Admittedly, that's three lead vocals not done by Brian, but still one has to wonder: When is a Beach Boys album not really a Beach Boys album? When it's "Pet Sounds" apparently.

In Praise of an Older Technology

Shaving Patsy Cline's 45 single "Cry" down to a thread to put on a spool. A turntable activated to start as you approach it with a full-sized bird putting its beak down to play the spinning vinyl. A series of album covers done over a 25-year period by an African-American amateur artist who never recorded a second of actual music.

If any or all of this sounds totally off-the-wall - and bizarrely intriguing, welcome to a new exhibit called "The Record - Contemporary Art and Vinyl" at Boston's waterside Institute of Contemporary Arts. A dazzling exhibit and a beautiful exhibit space, don't miss either of them.

As a sideshow, the museum had five turntables set up, with headphones. Next to each was a collection of 20 or so albums chosen by the artists on display in the exhibit. A very nice mix of sounds. I listened to the first couple songs on the Beach Boys' original mono Little Deuce Couple album, looking out on a gray sea. When I asked the young museum guide in the room if the turntables were playable, he said, "Absolutely. We have them here because a lot of the young people who come here have never seen an actual record, much less played one."

This exhibit is traveling nationally, so catch it if you can.

The Name's Barry ... John Barry

They're laying a giant to rest. British composer John Barry died on January 30. He was 77. Known primarily for creating the James Bond musical sound ("Goldfinger," anyone?), he went on to write the steamy soundtrack for "Body Heat" and beautiful, elegiac (and Oscar-winning) scores for "Out of Africa" and "Dances With Wolves." Along the way, he wrote three musicals, including one with the immortal Alan Jay Lerner based on Nabokov's "Lolita."

A U.K. contemporary of Burt Bacharach's, Barry exploited the possibilties of the studio from the day he walked in one. The trumpet-playing leader of his own jazz-pop-rock combo The John Barry Seven from 1957 on, he was writing and recording regularly, and the cinematic bent of his work was evident early on. His 1961 LP, "Stringbeat," is highly recommended. Barry also teamed up with teen idol Adam Faith and others like him for a series of British Top 40 hits in the years just before the Beatles changed the landscape. Barry's trademark sound was pizzicato strings (that's what they sound like) and the twangy guitar of Vic Flick, Britain's answer to Duane Eddy. It was Flick who drove Barry's arrangement of the James Bond Theme into music history.

Barry had suffered health problems in recent years and hadn't written a film score since "Enigma" in 2001. He worked sporadically on a musical version of Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock." There's no doubt that his work evolved from the electic fare of the '60s - the Bond films, "The Knack," "The Ipcress File" and "The Wrong Box" - to majestic and much simpler scores from the '80s on. But then this is the man who won Oscars in a three-year period for scores as different as "Born Free" and "The Lion in Winter." And then did "Midnight Cowboy" next.

If you're interested, dip into this list: "Beat Girl" (1959), "From Russia With Love" (1963), "The Knack" (1965), "The Wrong Box" (1966), "You Only Live Twice" (1967), "Robin and Marian" (1976), "Body Heat" (1981), "Hammett" (1982), "Out of Africa" (1985) and "Playing by Heart" (1998).

Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

One of the great musical fantasies is to wonder what kind of music Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis would have produced if those legendary sessions had ever come to pass. But for many Davis fans (and probably a lot of Hendrix fans) those sessions did happen - when Pete Cosey played lead guitar with Miles.

Their greatest triumph, of course, is the released-only-in-Japan live set, "Agharta," in 1975. Miles is at his Bitches Brew-best, and Cosey is incendiary. The opening track, "Prelude," has the most out of control guitar solo I have ever heard in my life, and I mean that in the most positive way. It's the kind of playing that immortalizes you forever. Like Page's break on "Stairway to Heaven" or Hendrix on Side Three of "Electric Ladyland."

Then, for sheer elegance, check Cosey on "He Loved Him Madly," Miles' 30-minute-plus tribute to Duke Ellington from 1974. A real electric Satin Doll. Insistent, gorgeous, Cosey's got it under control - but just barely.

Some surely think that Miles' greatest electric work was with John McLaughlin, but for my money Pete Cosey is the man. He's one of the great unsung heroes of rock 'n' roll. Like one of those guys who really did it, but other guys got credit for it.

Celebrating Tin Pan Alley

With Brian Wilson prompting a Gershwin renaissance in my listening habits of late, I reread Wilfred Sheed's delightful book, "The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole and a Crew of About Fifty." Just like the first time, I found the introduction tedious and overwrought and (again) felt like putting the book down. Thank goodness I didn't, for the riches beyond are immeasurable.

Once the reader adjusts to Sheed's breezy, smart-alecky style, the book is chock-full of insights about Gershwin, Porter, Berlin, Kern, Rodgers and the other great pre-rock American songwriters of the last century. Especially delightful to this reader is the chapter on James Van Heusen, as critical an element as arranger Nelson Riddle to Frank Sinatra's '50s masterworks, and how the microphone and radio influenced their sound.

Sheed's done a lot of thinking while he's been listening over the years, and it shows. Also, as Keith Richards notes in his newly released autobiography, "Good records just get better with age."

Mike Love, Part 2

Lest you need more convincing, Mike Love was at Rishikesh with the Beatles, Donovan and Mia Farrow. Brian wasn't.

And how many other musicians of the time had the Beatles write and perform a song about them? "Happy Birthday, Michael Love."

All you need is Love, indeed. J'ai guru dev.

It's All Right, Jack

I've never considered myself a Jack Kerouac fan. I've read "On The Road" and "The Dharma Bums" (the latter while hitchhiking through Mexico, of course), but that's almost required reading for anyone who claims to be an American. A recent trip to Kerouac's hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts (and his final resting place) gave me a little greater appreciation of the man, however.

Kudos first of all to Lowell, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the National Park Service for preserving Kerouac's legacy and providing a helpful map of historic points connected with his life.

Despite the unusually hot weather, it was a fascinating experience chasing Jack's ghost around town in the shadows of the enormous mills that were Lowell's lifeblood for a hundred years. Of course, this was the time in Kerouac's life when he was the local high school hero who scored the winning touchdown on Thanksgiving Day against a local rival. He returned to Lowell in his later years when he was drinking his life away and was buried here after he died in Florida. In between, he ran with Ginsberg, Burroughs and company and wrote himself into history.

But Kerouac's first major book, "The Town and the City," published in 1950, was largely autobiographical and is generally derided by critics as not up to the standards of his later, better-known works. Caught up as I was in all things Lowell, I searched it out. What a tremendous read. The story of the Martin (AKA Kerouac) family from the mid-1930s to just after World War II, it's beautifully written and an absolutely haunting study of one family struggling, often unsuccessfully, to survive the pressures of the modern world. Sure, it's overwritten at times, but it's also wonderfully unselfconscious in the way only a first-time writer can be. He wasn't writing for the ages - yet. This is a powerful, heartfelt narrative, not stream-of-consciousness rambling up from the bottom of a bottle. The book's closing pages, with the family gathered for a funeral, is powerful stuff indeed.

Give it a read. You won't regret it, even if "On The Road" isn't your cup of tea. "The Town and the City" - by an author still known then as John Kerouac - is a literary classic from a time when America was still capable of producing one.