1960s

The Chuck-a-Lucks | Dingbat Diller

“The Chuck-A-Lucks … first started singing together at Amarillo College immediately after World War II, and then moved to Denton, TX, where the three of them enrolled in North Texas State College,” (AllMusic). “They were known as the Dipsy Doodlers for a time, and turned semi-professional after becoming popular on the North Texas State campus.

… By 1953, the trio were forced to give up the name Dipsy Doodlers, owing to the large number of other acts using it by then. They chose the Chuck-A-Lucks, and they began working around Texas and building a following for their mix of vocalizing and comedy, which made them very popular. The trio was working the area around Ft. Worth when they were discovered by Joe Leonard and signed to his Lin Records label out of Gainesville, TX. The Chuck-A-Lucks eventually evolved into a duo … and kept working a very lucrative string of gigs in clubs throughout the United States right up through 1972. Their act was much more oriented toward comedy than music, especially as time went by, being a kind of a country/right-wing version of the Smothers Brothers as satirists — their 1967 live album, cut for Shannon Records, the label owned by Mary Reeves, the widow of Jim Reeves, is notable today for its jokes at the expense of hippies, homosexuals, and others considered ‘alien’ to the southern/western audience they appealed to. The group reunited in 1996 for a 50th anniversary show in Texas.”

Their 1963 track, “Dingbat Diller,” was released on Motown Records. The tune shifts up a half step at 1:19 and 1:33, but the fast swing feel and the tight vocal harmonies are the main features.

The Bee Gees | Coca Cola ads

Well before Coca-Cola switched to using high-fructose corn syrup, the company enlisted the talents of the sweet-voiced Bee Gees to spruik
(that’s Australian for “tout”) their product in a couple of ad spots
that ran during 1967. Both ads had 60- and 90-second versions that were followed by an announcer acknowledging the Bee Gees and, of course, mentioning Coke.

The songs were recorded by the Bee Gees’ band, including guitarist
Vince Melouney and drummer Colin Petersen, along with an orchestra conducted by Bill Shepherd .

The first song, “Sitting in the Meadow”, features a lively
shuffle-beat, and invites the listener to “have a bottle of Coke or
two”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x30M7Ki_wT4

At 0:30, we hear the familiar “Things Go Better With Coke” theme.

The second song, “Another Cold And Windy” day starts as a gloomy
ballad, but inevitably segues to the Coke theme at 0:40. Just before announcer’s bit, there’s a modulation up a third at 0:50.

Johnny Mathis | Do You Hear What I Hear?

Johnny Mathis recorded “Do You Hear What I Hear” for his third holiday record, Give Me Your Love for Christmas, released in 1969. The track starts in C and bumps up a half step at 1:28.

Bing Crosby | Do You Hear What I Hear?

Few voices are more associated with Christmas in the American psyche than Bing Crosby’s. He recorded “Do You Hear What I Hear?” in 1963. The tune starts in B and modulates up to C at 1:52.

Big Brother + The Holding Company (feat. Janis Joplin) | Combination of the Two

“Cheap Thrills (1968) was the breakthrough album for Janis Joplin and Big Brother & The Holding Company,” (Daily Vault). “Topping the charts for eight weeks and spawning a top 20 single, this was the album that solidified the reputation that the band had spawned with their set at the Monterey Pop festival. It also marked the end of the band; not terribly long after the album’s release, Joplin left the band to pursue a solo career.

… Musically, (Big Brother co-founder, songwriter, and guitarist) Sam Andrew and crew had worked themselves into a tight musical unit by the time these tracks (some of which were recorded live at the Fillmore Auditorium) were cut. But on the other end of the spectrum, you can hear the strain on Joplin’s vocals … She had vocal power beyond many female blues singers; pity that she overused that power. ‘Piece of My Heart,’ the hit single from Cheap Thrills, remains a classic song that has lost little of its power over the course of three decades. Likewise, ‘Combination of the Two’ is an underrated classic that allows Joplin the fiery freedom to cut loose with her vocal abilities.”

After starting with an instrumental intro in A minor, “Combination of the Two” shifts up to B major for its first verse at 0:54. At 1:16, another verse falls into place, this time in G# major. 1:29 brings a whoa-only vocals section in E major which leads into a short chorus. At 2:00, we’ve returned to the B major verse; the sections repeat from there.

The Supremes | Who’s Lovin’ You

“The legacy of The Supremes is so firmly established today — from the group’s influence on fashion, to music, to Broadway musicals and films — that is seems impossible to imagine a time when it didn’t exist,” (Diana Ross Project). “From 1964 until the end of the decade, The Supremes would become the savior of American music, almost single-handedly defending a corner of the industry from the British Invasion while conquering the rest of the world through sell-out tours and hit singles. The group’s astounding string of a dozen number one singles (racked up in just five years) is something modern pop acts still struggle to match, and those hits continue to win over audiences though appearances in movies, commercials, and through radio airplay and album reissues.

But success wasn’t overnight for Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, and Florence Ballard (and, in the beginning, Barbara Martin) … after signing with Motown Records, the group suffered through eight lackluster singles before finally striking gold with ‘Where Did Our Love Go’ in 1964. The earliest of those singles were collected and released as Meet The Supremes in late 1962, an album that’s basically a patchwork of songs recorded during various sessions at the beginning of the decade … Perhaps the most recognizable song on Meet The Supremes, ‘Who’s Lovin’ You’ is a widely covered Smokey Robinson tune first recorded by The Miracles in 1960. This was one of the earliest songs recorded by The Supremes at Motown; it had been placed on the b-side of the group’s second single, “Buttered Popcorn,” released in 1961 on Tamla (the single failed to chart) … it’s raw and imperfect, dominated by a high, ‘go-for-broke’ lead vocal by Diana Ross over a bluesy, oil-smudged track … Diana was still a high school student when the song was recorded.”

Built in F major overall, the tune shifts briefly to the relative D minor during its bridge (1:20 – 1:50) before returning to the original key.

Paul Mauriat | Love is Blue

“Love is Blue,” originally composed by Andre Popp and Pierre Cour, started off its life as Luxembourg’s entry in the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest,” (Stereogum). Several versions charted over the years, “but the version of the song that really hit … was the one that French easy listening composer Paul Mauriat released the following year.”

MotD regular contributor JB calls Paul Mauriat’s “Love is Blue” (1968) “… a perfect encapsulation of the zeitgeist of the mid-60s. At the same time that the Rolling Stones were recording truly transgressive stuff like ‘Under My Thumb,’ there were still large and enthusiastic audiences for weekly variety shows like Lawrence Welk and The Grand Ole Opry. Mauriat’s arrangement manages to simultaneously include both a beautiful harpsichord melody and cheesy strings and horns.”

Starting in A minor, the tune’s progresses through two verses before reaching the chorus, which shifts to A major at 0:54 after a dynamic huge buildup previewing the major key at 0:51. The pattern continues from there.

Herman Griffin | True Love

“Herman Griffin was a dynamic live performer who would wow audiences with his outrageous physical dances; his jumps, splits, somersaults and back-flips not only captivated the crowds in the predominantly white clubs he played, but also caught the attention of Berry Gordy, who wrote a song for him in 1958 (‘I Need You’).” (Motown Junkies). “Gordy also provided an ‘in’ for Griffin to cut another single with Berry’s big sister Gwen’s label Anna Records in 1959 (at the time, a bigger and more successful label than Tamla or Motown), and finally produced and released this single on Tamla in 1960.

… Griffin turns in a likeable enough slice of late-Fifties rock ‘n’ roll, with some excellent guitar work courtesy of composer Don Davis, later Johnny Taylor’s intuitive producer at Stax and Columbia … The song is poorly produced – as happened with Smokey Robinson on the first version of the Miracles’ Shop Around, his delivery is too forceful and too loud for the primitive recording technology available in Hitsville Studio A to cope, causing massive amounts of hiss and distortion. Either that, or he was just far too close to the microphone. … Griffin would go on to record one more Motown single, Sleep (Little One), in 1962, spending two more years as part of the label’s live show setup … “

Starting in Bb major, the 1962 track shifts to the relative G minor for the bridge between 1:10 – 1:33. Then just like that, this early Motown-era miniature is over, with a total run time of only 2:13!

The Winstons | Color Him Father

“In 1969 an interracial R&B group from Washington, DC posted their one and only Top 40 hit,” (45RuminationsPerMegabyte). “The song, ‘Color Him Father,’ is written from the point of view of a young man explaining the role his father has in their house. He sings of coming home from school, and how his father stresses the importance of education, and how the man he calls father helps his mother, and all of that. At first, it seems like just another cute song with simple lyrics (‘My mother loves him and I can tell/By the way she looks at him when he holds my little sister Nell’ isn’t the greatest rhyme ever written, but it works). After a quick bridge, the tone abruptly changes:

My real old man he got killed in the war
And she knows she and seven kids couldn’t have got very far
She said she thought that she could never love again
And then there he stood with that big wide grin
He married my mother and he took us in
And now we belong to the man with that big wide grin

Yep – this is a song about step-parenting, and it just got really, really dusty in here. The song went on to become a huge hit, making it to #7 on the pop chart, #2 on the R&B chart, and claiming the Grammy award for Best R&B song in 1969.”

After running in Ab major through several verses and choruses, a brief instrumental interlude (1:59) shifts us up to A major for another verse and chorus.

Lee + the Leopards | Trying to Make It

“Lee and the Leopards, like many Toledo groups, were swept up in the explosion of the Motown powered Detroit R&B/soul explosion of the early 1960s,” (DooWopBlogg). “The group started around 1961, and included Lee Moore as the namesake and lead singer, George Miller Ross, Prentiss Anderson, and James Porter … The group had brought some of their own songs, but (Motown’s founder) Berry Gordy wanted them to sing some of the in-house songs. The group went back to Toledo and they reworked one of the songs ‘Come Into My Palace.’ The group returned to Detroit a few days later and within a day, they had the song recorded at Motown.

… The record was a big hit on WOHO and WTOD in Toledo and also on Detroit stations. The group did some promotional shows with WTOD. The record was picked up by Laurie records because the Motown operation did not have a full scale national promotional system. The group recorded a second 45 at Fortune, and a final 45 for K-Lee label from Adrian, MI. For the last record, the group recorded their own song “The Gypsy Said” backed by a band called the Rivieres from Adrian. When the record came out, the label credited the Rivieres instead of Lee and the Leopards. Some of the copies had stickers for Lee and the Leopards. After the group ended, Prentiss Anderson spent many years backing up various Motown related groups.”

“Trying to Make It” (1962) is primarily a blues in G minor. But the tune’s midsection is a brief bridge (1:26 – 1:42) that’s mostly in G major.