Category: Steck

The Cyrkle | Red Rubber Ball

The Cyrkle was a pop band that met as college students at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania in the mid-1960s. Their business manager was Brian Epstein who, of course, also managed the Beatles; the affected spelling of their name was suggested by John Lennon. The group had the opportunity to open for the Beatles for some of their 1966 US tour dates.

“Red Rubber Ball” was their first and biggest hit (Billboard #2 in 1966). The song was written by Paul Simon and Bruce Woodley of the Australian group The Seekers. Simon offered the song to the group during the time they opened for Simon and Garfunkel on tour.

There are several other notable recordings of the song. The Seekers recorded their own version of the song in 1966. Simon and Garfunkel performed the song at Lincoln Center in 1967, the recording of which was released in 1997. The most notorious cover of the song comes from the Canadian punk group The Diodes. In an interview, Paul Simon had made disparaging comments about punk rock, so The Diodes took that as an invitation to record their punk cover.

While none of these covers features a key change, The Cyrkle’s version offers a half-step modulation at 1:21.

Michael Bublé | Save the Last Dance For Me

The Ben E. King-era Drifters scored a Billboard #1 in 1960 with their version of “Save The Last Dance For Me,” written by Doc Pomus and Mort Schuman. In that recording, the most prominent instruments are the steady guitar, bass, and light percussion, with a brief string interlude. There’s no modulation on offer.

In 2005, singer Michael Bublé released his version of the song in his album It’s Time. Later that year, he offered several remixes by different producers, for a single release, including the music video below. The tempo is slower than in the Drifters’ version, but with a spicier, syncopated arrangement of prominent Latin-style percussion (claves and timbales!), piano, and horns.

For dramatic purposes in the video, the music comes to a halt at 1:41. The music resumes at 1:44 a half-step up.

Trijntje Oosterhuis | What the World Needs Now

Vocalist Trijntje Oosterhuis has been part of the Dutch pop scene since the 1990s. After touring with saxophonist Candy Dulfer, she formed the band “Total Touch” with her brother Tjeerd, releasing two successful albums in the late 90s. She went on to embark on a solo career.

She has released two albums of Burt Bacharach songs, The Look of Love (2006) and Who’ll Speak for Love (2007), with Bacharach performing on some of the tracks.

The selection here, “What the World Needs Now,” another Bacharach/David song, was a hit for Jackie DeShannon in 1965 (Billboard #7). The video is taken from a 2008 DVD release, Ken Je Mij (Do You Know Me), a series of duets with Uruguayan guitarist Leonardo Amuedo.

There’s a dramatic whole-step modulation at 2:40.

The Dukes of September | Who’s That Lady (live)


The Isley Brothers recorded “That Lady” twice. Songwriters Ronald, O’Kelly, and Rudolph Isley, the original family trio, released the first version in 1964.

Besides the sweet vocals, the prominent features of the song are the insistent cowbell (!), and the supporting horn riff towards the end.

But it was the Isleys’ 1973 version that made the song famous (Billboard #6 that year). By then, younger brother Ernie Isley had joined the group, and it’s his fuzzed-out guitar that’s the hook in that version. For that release, the lyrics were embellished, and the superior recording quality reflects the improved technology of the day. Neither of the Isleys’ versions featured a key change, however!

Donald Fagen (of Steely Dan), Michael McDonald (of the Doobie Brothers), and Boz Scaggs toured as The Dukes of September from 2010 to 2012, playing hits from their own bands and some of their own favorites, like the song here. Guitarist Jon Herington, who had recorded and toured with Steely Dan, manages to capture the flavor of Ernie Isley’s solo in this performance at Lincoln Center in 2012.

In the Dukes’ version, there’s a half-step modulation at 2:36 — although this shift seems bigger due to an interruption of the groove, some unexpected kicks, and flourishes from the horn section.

Ashes | Is There Anything I Can Do

The Ashes were a southern California pop group that formed in the mid-1960s. The group had two principal songwriters, guitarist John Merrill and bassist Alan Brackett (album liner notes). The star of the group was singer Barbara Robison, who had a clear and powerful voice, featured on “Is There Anything I Can Do?” The group’s drummer, Spencer Dryden, would later join the Jefferson Airplane.

The Ashes released only two singles before breaking up. But the core of the group, Merrill, Bracket, and Robison, would go on to form The Peanut Butter Conspiracy (which is either the worst or the best band name ever); they recorded two albums for Columbia and a final album for the independent Challenge label.

Barbara Robison continued her singing career after PBC broke up. Sadly, she didn’t recover from a collapse she suffered during a performance in 1988.

“Is There Anything I Can Do” (1966) was written by singer Jackie DeShannon and Nick DeCaro. The version in this video is from an unreleased demo acetate. The final released version features additional instrumentation by those studio stalwarts, The Wrecking Crew.

The tune is in a noticeably up-tuned E major. At 1:35, there’s a half-step shift up to F that sounds like the start of a sustained modulation, but actually serves as a very prominent sub-V (a relatively rare feature in pop). The song soon drops back to the starting key. The same jarring rise/fall pattern is repeated later.

Josh Turner and Martina DaSilva | Águas de Março

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful, Mae West is reputed to have said. Accordingly, this post marks the third appearance of “Águas de Março” on Modulation of the Day. The earlier versions were by Susannah McCorkle and the version by the song’s composer Antonio Carlos Jobim with singer Elis Regina This version is indeed wonderful.

Guitarist Josh Turner’s YouTube channel features his collaborations with many other musicians, often singer Carson McKee, singer Allison Young, and singer Reina del Cid and her regular guitar accompanist, Toni Lindgren. Your correspondent was fortunate to see Reina del Cid’s show in San Francisco a few years ago, where Josh’s group with McKee, The Other Favorites, was the warmup act.

Here, Josh is paired with singer Martina DaSilva, who is American but speaks fluent Portuguese (her father is Brazilian). Their version tracks the Jobim/Regina version pretty closely, except the whistled middle section is replaced by a muted trombone solo, performed by DaSilva’s husband Josh Holcomb. The song is in B-flat. The trombone solo features fewer out-of-key notes than the whistled solo from Jobim and Elis, but enough to get the point across. Yes, that’s a quote of Walter Wanderley’s “Summer Samba”!

Bobby Vee | Be True to Yourself

“Be True to Yourself” is an early Burt Bacharach / Hal David composition that was a minor hit for singer Bobby Vee in 1963. Bacharach played on and conducted the orchestra for the recording. The trademark Bacharach touches are there: horn introduction, syncopated melody line, and harmonic complexity. Does the emphasis on beats 2, 3, and 4 at 0:35 foreshadow “Do You Know the Way to San Jose”?

This record reached a respectable #34 on the Billboard charts; Bobby Vee had bigger hits in the 1960s, notably “Devil or Angel” (#6 in 1960), “Take Good Care of My Baby” (#1 in 1961), and “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” (#3 in 1962).

There’s a half-step modulation up at 1:06 during the instrumental bridge.

Eydie Gormé | Blame It On the Bossa Nova

Eydie Gormé and her husband Steve Lawrence were fixtures on radio and television during the 1960s. Known mostly for their “easy-listening” renditions of songs, occasionally they reached out of their comfort zone, with varying results. Both Steve and Eydie released material individually, and also as a duo.

The tune here, “Blame It On The Bossa Nova”, which became her last Top 40 solo hit, was written by Brill Building denizens Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann (Songfacts). The song was well out of Eydie’s comfort zone. She disliked it so much, she tried to hamstring the recording with some intentionally fluffed notes (in particular, listen to the passage from 1:26 to 1:34), hoping the execs would decide against releasing the record. Despite her best (worst?) efforts, the record was a smash, reaching no. 7 on the Billboard charts. The public may have found the vocal flaws part of the charm of this “novelty number”.

The song begins in C#, and modulates to D at 1:18, following a slightly-out-of-tune instrumental passage.

The American Breed | Bend Me, Shape Me

“Bend Me, Shape Me,” was originally recorded in 1966 by The Outsiders, who were known for their hit “Time Won’t Let Me.” The tune was written by songwriters Scott English and Larry Weiss, who later wrote “Rhinestone Cowboy,” made famous by Glen Campbell. In 1968, a band called Amen Corner took the tune to #3 in the UK (Songfacts). But in 1967, The American Breed took the definitive version of the song to #5 on the US pop charts and #24 in the UK.

The American Breed’s big break was quite unusual: “On January 20, 1967, a freak snow storm that dumped twenty inches on Chicago changed the fate of Gary & The Knight Lites,” (the band’s initial name) … “when Kenny Myers, former Senior Vice President of Mercury Records, found himself stranded and met with producer Bill Traut in his studio at Universal Recording. After Traut played Meyers some of the band’s tapes, Meyers was impressed enough to sign them to his new record label … and suggested they change their name. ‘They told us Gary and the Knight Lites sounded a little dated, so we put a bunch of names in a hat and pulled out American Breed.’ The band’s first single was ‘I Don’t Think You Know Me,’ written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin.” (Billboard).

Two of the four members of American Breed that played on “Bend Me,
Shape Me” — bassist Chuck Colbert and drummer Lee Graziano — formed a new group, which included newer AB members not on that hit, keyboardist
Kevin Murphy and singer Paulette Williams. That new group became “Ask
Rufus”. Eventually, AB guitarist Al Ciner joined. Three of the original four AB members were in Rufus, though only guitarist Al Ciner stayed through that group’s fame with vocalist Chaka Khan.

Key changes are the main ingredients here. The tune starts in C minor; the pre-chorus (0:27) shifts to A minor; finally, the chorus (0:41) is in A mixolydian. After a percussion break, the cycle repeats.

Tommy James | I Think We’re Alone Now

Tommy James, along with his band, The Shondells, scored a Billboard #4 in 1967 with the just-over-2-minutes bubblegum rocker “I Think We’re Alone Now”. The song, written by Ritchie Cordell (who also co-wrote another Shondells hit, “Mony Mony”), stuck to one key throughout.

Over 50 years later, in 2019, James reprised the song on his album Alive, featuring only acoustic guitar and background vocals, and a much slower tempo. Missing in this version are the percussive “heartbeats” from the original, perhaps because at this tempo, they would be suggestive of brachycardia. James’ voice, perhaps sweetened by a touch of autotune, is really the highlight here.

The song starts in A; in addition to some subtle re-harmonization here and there, it features an elegant modulation to C at 2:18.