1960s

Neal Hefti + His Orchestra | Gotham City Municipal Swing Band

Let’s face it, most people know Neal Hefti’s music through his television theme songs. He wrote the theme for The Odd Couple and of course, the Batman theme song. Holy (if stately) Wayne Manor!

But before this television work, Hefti was a respected trumpeter and arranger for big bands dating back to the 1930s. He was a member of Woody Herman’s band, and wrote for Buddy Rich, Charlie Barnet, and Harry James. After moving to California in 1960, he wrote several film scores, including for the movie version of The Odd Couple. His film, television, and recordings earned him ten Grammy nominations, with two of those becoming awards. Besides the theme, he wrote a number of other songs for the Batman TV show, collected on a 1966 RCA release, Batman Theme & Other Bat Songs. The tune here comes from that album.

Admittedly, the tune is lightweight, if excellently played and recorded, as befits the associated subject matter — no complaints brooked. Upward modulations at 1:17 and 1:52.

Clara Ward | Smile

“Widely acclaimed among the greatest soloists in gospel history, Clara Ward was also the subject of much criticism from purists — with her backing group, the Ward Singers, she pushed gospel out of the church and into the nightclubs, infusing the music with a shot of glitz and glamour the likes of which had never before been seen,” (AllMusic). “Decked out in colorful gowns, towering wigs, and dazzling jewelry, the Wards sang only the biggest pop-gospel hits, flamboyantly delivered for maximum commercial appeal … At their creative peak, the group was a true phenomenon, combining superb soloists, exceptional material, and innovative arrangements to leave an indelible mark on the generations of spiritual performers who followed.

While her gorgeous alto was the centerpiece of hits like ‘How I Got Over,’ arguably Ward’s greatest strength was as an arranger; ‘Surely God is Able,’ the group’s biggest hit, even introduced a new waltz rhythm into the gospel lexicon … The consensus pick as the best hymn singers in the business, the Wards also rejected the homespun choir robes of the past in favor of elaborate costumes — according to legend, on one occasion their infamous wigs grew so tall that they actually touched the ceiling. Throughout the ’50s, they were among gospel’s elite, scoring more hits and making more money than any group before them.”

To give the full picture of just how much of a departure into secular music 1966’s “Smile” was for Clara Ward, check out The Wards’ recording of “Surely God Is Able,” perhaps their most well-known release (below). Built in Eb major, the brief interlude of “Smile” (1:23 – 1:35 ) shifts into F major before returning to the original key. Originally co-written for the 1936 film Modern Times by its star, Charlie Chaplin, the track is more frequently performed as a ballad — but Ward’s decision to deliver the tune as a more up-tempo pop tune gave it new dimension.

Tradition (from “Fiddler on the Roof”)

“Winner of nine Tony Awards when it debuted in 1964, Fiddler on the Roof is the brainchild of Broadway legends Jerome Robbins and Harold Prince; songwriters Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick; and bookwriter Joseph Stein,” (Music Theatre International). “Touching audiences worldwide with its humor, warmth and honesty, this universal show is a staple of the musical theatre canon.

Set in the little village of Anatevka, the story centers on Tevye, a poor milkman, and his five daughters. With the help of a colorful and tight-knit Jewish community, Tevye tries to protect his daughters and instill them with traditional values in the face of changing social mores and the growing anti-Semitism of Czarist Russia. Rich in historical and ethnic detail, Fiddler on the Roof‘s universal theme of tradition cuts across barriers of race, class, nationality and religion.” The original Broadway production of the show, opening in 1964, was the first musical to surpass 3,000 performances and held the record for the longest-running Broadway musical for almost 10 years until it lost that record to Grease.

This recording features the 2004 revival of the show, which starred Alfred Molina as Tevye. After opening in C mixolydian (flat 6), at 2:04, there’s a shift to D mixolydian (flat 6); more shifts follow as each group within the village is introduced.

The Supremes | You Keep Me Hangin’ On

The Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” (1966) is “a brisk, urgent, desperate song, and it absolutely snaps into gear the second we hear that itchy morse-code guitar riff panning between speaker channels … (Stereogum). “‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’ sounds easily 10 years ahead of its time, and listening to it, you can immediately hear why Diana Ross thrived in the disco era while so many of her ’60s peers flailed.

‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’ was Holland-Dozier-Holland’s attempt to write a rock song … The guitar, from Funk Brothers ace Robert White, is foregrounded, going back and forth between that ticcing intro and deep, resonant strums. The drums and percussion work together in lockstep, pushing forward the song’s urgency. The bassline is another James Jamerson wonder, busy and complicated but never so showy that it detracts attention from the rest of the song … Holland-Dozier-Holland parted ways with Motown soon afterward, only giving the Supremes one more #1 after ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On.’ As it turns out, the Supremes were fine without them. But listening to this, it’s still hard not to wonder what might’ve happened if they’d stuck around, if their genius had even more time to develop within that peerless Motown thrill-delivery system.”

The form starts with the chorus in Ab minor. As the tune shifts into the first verse at 0:36, B major (with a big emphasis on a compound A/B chord) goes into effect; the major key feels restful by comparison, not least due to the lack of the percolating “news bulletin theme” guitar part that skitters over the top of the rest of the tune.

Tommy Roe | Hooray for Hazel

“When recollecting those perpetual hit makers of the ‘60s, singer/songwriter Tommy Roe’s accomplishments are among the elite of the music industry,” (Classic Rock Music Writer). “Tommy Roe wrote and recorded six Top 10 hits between 1962 -1969, more than any other solo American artist, including eleven Top 40 hits, four certified gold singles, and two #1 Hits.

(Atlanta native) Tommy Roe is a member of the Hit Parade Hall of Fame, The Georgia Music Hall of Fame, and The Rockabilly Hall of Fame (and the) Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Music Association Hall of Fame. In 1966, Roe’s #8 Top 40 bubblegum hit ‘Sweet Pea’ swept the nation, followed by a British Invasion influence release ‘Hooray for Hazel,’ which reached #6 on Billboard’s Top 100.”

“Hooray for Hazel” begins in G major, but after a short drum break, a new verse begins in Ab major at 1:02. At 1:39, following another drum break, we’re back to the original key.

The Bee Gees | I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You

“(2023 marked) a half-century since the Bee Gees infiltrated the American charts with a run of singles,” (American Songwriter). “While the band rose to rarefied heights in the disco era (and plummeted just as precipitously once the genre fell out of fashion), those ’60s singles still exemplify their rare combination of pop songwriting smarts and gilded harmonies better than any of the other music they released in their storied career. And ‘I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You’ just might be the high-water mark of that period.

As Barry Gibb remembered in the liner notes to the 2006 reissue of Idea, the 1968 album that contained the song, that vocal approach was the last-minute brainchild of producer Robert Stigwood. ‘Now that was a memorable night. The song we wrote together, all three of us. I think that night, I know for a fact, we didn’t sing the choruses in harmony. Robert called us back to the studio at 11 o’clock at night and said, I want the choruses in harmony, I don’t want them in just melody. I want three-part harmony choruses. So we went in and attempted that ’round about midnight. Everyone drove back to the studio, and that’s what we did.'”

The verse of the somewhat de-tuned track begins in B major, but the chorus brings a shift to C# major at 0:33. The pattern repeats at 0:57 and 1:42 for the second and third verses and choruses, respectively. At 2:27, the chorus climbs another rung up to D# major. As was common practice at the time, the Australian trio were lip-synching to the 1968 studio track, so as was the case with most “live” (canned!) performances of the era, the visuals of the ending are a bit ragged.

The Meters | Look-Ka Py-Py

” … music, most often, didn’t just materialize from nowhere. Most urgent, especially, when confronted with an album or a band that sounds as if they arrived on the wings of some unseen miracle, like someone holy opened their palm somewhere, and out came the Meters, fully formed and already spiraling through a series of immersive grooves, each of them sounding like the birth of a new universe,” (Pitchfork). “But the reality is that someone beat a drum somewhere once. Someone sounded an alarm with a voice that summoned another voice and then another. The reality is that the drums and the voices and the dancing might have taken place in American streets or in American fields, but these traditions were carried over by a people who were forced to be here, forced to work and build and care for land that wasn’t their land, families that were not their families. Their music and celebration was a reaction to that series of ongoing thefts.

… The self-titled Meters debut was released in May of 1969 and was steered by its opening track, “Cissy Strut,” which was honed for a couple of years as the band’s opening song … Their second shot, Look-Ka Py Py, was released just seven months later, before the year kicked its last bit of sand down the hourglass. And it is here that the miracle of the Meters flourishes: the band that was on stage tearing the Ivanhoe apart night after night found a way to become that same band on record. It is sort of a reverse effect, their debut album free of pressure, imagined or real.”

The title track of Look-Ka Py Py is so much about groove that its two-chord harmonic vocabulary doesn’t seem minimal in any way. But its two chords also outline two separate keys: G mixolydian is in effect throughout most of the tune, but there’s also a shift to F mixolydian (first heard between 0:27 – 0:38).

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (from “Mary Poppins”)

“The tongue-twisting term ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,’ sung by magical nanny Mary Poppins, is like much of Robert B. Sherman’s work — both complex and instantly memorable, for child and adult alike,” (Today.com). “Once heard, it was never forgotten. Sherman, an American who died in London at age 86 (in 2012), was half of a sibling partnership that put songs into the mouths of nannies and Cockney chimney sweeps, jungle animals and Parisian felines.

Robert Sherman and his (lyricist) brother Richard composed scores for films including The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. They also wrote the most-played tune on Earth, ‘It’s a Small World (After All).’ … Son Jeffrey Sherman paid tribute to his father on Facebook, saying he ‘wanted to bring happiness to the world and, unquestionably, he succeeded.’ Jeffrey Sherman told The Associated Press that his father had learned the craft of songwriting from his own father, Tin Pan Alley composer Al Sherman. ‘His rule in writing songs was keep it singable, simple and sincere,’ Jeffrey Sherman said. ‘In the simplest things you find something universal.'”

The half step key changes in “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” (1964) certainly take a back seat to the wall-to-wall lyrics and exquisite dancing of Julie Andrews and Dick van Dyke, but nonetheless take place at 0:48 and 1:16. Many thanks to our contributor Scott R. for this submission — his third!

The Beau Brummels | Laugh Laugh

Hard to believe, but an American band at the heart of the Beatles sound-alike trend of the mid-60s received a substantial favor from Sly Stone (later the frontman of the Sly and the Family Stone band). “Sly Stone’s first taste of national notoriety began at the tender age of 19 when he produced the moody 1965 pop single, ‘Laugh, Laugh,’ for the San Mateo folk-rock band the Beau Brummels.” (Rolling Stone Australia). “As a teen guitarist, Stone’s various gigs around San Francisco lead him to cross paths with Autumn Records’ Tom Donahue, who gave the budding talent a shot at producing. ‘Laugh, Laugh’ was one of Sly’s first efforts; by early 1965, it had climbed into the Top 20.

As Ben Fong-Torres said of the single in 1970: ‘Sly had produced the very first rock & roll hits out of … a city then known for little more than Johnny Mathis and Vince Guaraldi.’ The ‘San Francisco Sound’ would soon be in full bloom, but here Sly was planting the seeds early on.”

“Laugh Laugh,” which Sly co-wrote with Ron Elliott, begins with a verse in G# minor. At 0:45, the pre-chorus works its way through a segment of the circle of fifths, landing in E major for the very short chorus (1:00). The pattern continues with another verse at 1:07. Many thanks to regular contributor Rob P. for submitting this music time capsule!

Ella Fitzgerald | Tea for Two

“’Tea for Two’ was introduced … in the Broadway musical, No, No, Nanette, which opened on September 16, 1925 … ” (JazzStandards.com). “The song was known to the public well before its official introduction, as the pre-Broadway run of No, No, Nanette was so successful in Chicago that its producer, Harry Frazee, let it play there for over a year. Although sentimental, operetta-like lyrics were fading in popularity in the early 1900s, they had not completely fallen from favor by 1924, especially in Broadway musicals. But by the middle 1900s, songs like ‘Tea for Two,’ thought to be corny and dated, were relegated to novelty tune status. A case in point: ‘Tea for Two’ was the number Doc Severinsen’s Band would play while Johnny Carson broke into a soft-shoe dance when a joke or skit failed.

Saving the song from extinction, and responsible for its popularity as a jazz standard, is the repetitive and energetic nature of Vincent Youmans’ composition. Its refrain is almost entirely dotted quarter and eighth notes; its narrow range is just over one octave; and the bridge is almost not a bridge, repeating the main theme in a different key.”

Ella Fitzgerald’s version with Count Basie’s band (1963) starts in F major; the AAAB tune travels up to A major for its second A section (heard for the first time between 0:27 – 0:41) before reverting to the original key.