Tag: 1960s

Sunrise, Sunset (from “Fiddler on the Roof”)

“Set in a shtetl in czarist Russia in 1905, the beloved musical Fiddler on the Roof has been staged hundreds of times around the world since its Tony Award-winning Broadway debut in 1964 … As for Fiddler’s enduring popularity, it’s perfectly written as a comedy and a tragedy and shows tradition in such a beautiful way, with the Sabbath candles and the family sitting around the table … tradition is also at the root of heartbreak: Tevye’s daughter Chava must choose between her family and her non-Jewish love,” (Jewish Journal).

“Lyricist Sheldon Harnick, who collaborated with composer Jerry Bock on Fiddler’s songs, spoke about the musical’s appeal in a telephone interview. ‘It’s a family show. It’s about a father and his children. So many people can identify with the problems of fatherhood and raising a family,’ he said, calling the musical’s success ‘astonishing. It’s the most popular and the most performed of everything that Jerry Bock and I did. I’m very surprised and very gratified.'”

Perhaps the most memorable of all of Fiddler‘s tunes is the waltz ballad “Sunrise, Sunset.” According to NPR, Harnick remembers “‘ … when we wrote ‘Sunrise Sunset,’ the first person we played it for was Jerry Bock’s wife… and when I finished, then I looked at Jerry’s wife Patti and I was startled to see that she was crying. And I thought, my goodness; this song must be more effective than we even know.'” Starting in Eb minor, the tune shifts up to E minor at 4:08.

Keely Smith | I Want to Hold Your Hand

Singer Keely Smith was an active recording artist during the 1950s and 60s, though she recorded occasionally in later years. Her stage partner in the 1950s was her perhaps more famous then-husband, bandleader Louis Prima. Together, they recorded a hit version of “That Old Black Magic,”  which earned them an award at the very first Grammy Awards in 1959

After her divorce from Prima, Keely Smith established a solo career, garnering a contract with Sinatra’s Reprise Records. In 1965, she released Keely Smith Sings the John Lennon-Paul McCartney Songbook on Reprise. Most of the songs had been recorded by The Beatles, though McCartney’s “A World Without Love” had been made famous by Peter and Gordon. The big band and string arrangements on the album were decidedly not rock, offering new interpretations of the songs.

The verses in Smith’s cover of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” are in waltz time, while the bridge reverts to the more familiar 4/4. There are some cringeworthy moments when she bends notes to the point of breaking on the tune’s highest melodic point and then rhymes “girl” with “hand.” But she manages to turn in one of the most distinctive Beatles covers ever! There’s a half-step upward modulation at 2:09.

Mickey Woods | They Rode Through the Valley

The 1961 release “They Rode Through the Valley,” performed by Mickey Woods, was “The first Motown writing credit for (Motown founder) Berry Gordy’s brother Robert, aka ‘Bob Kayli,’ this is – rather unbelievably – a second weak ‘historical comedy’ record about the Battle of the Little Bighorn, apparently a vein Gordy didn’t feel was tapped out yet following Popcorn Wylie’s baffling ‘Custer’s Last Man.’ Oh, except this isn’t just a comedy record – it’s a comedy country record. Sweet Jesus … Seriously, if you don’t want to jab knitting needles in your ears when we get to the (charitably-named) ‘chorus’ and he jauntily announces ‘Sittin’ Bull and his Injuns / At the little bitty bitty Bighorn!‘, you’re made of sturdier stuff than this listener,” (MotownJunkies.co.uk).

“Anyway, it’s a story about how Custer got all his men killed by telling them to wait until they saw the whites of the Native warriors’ eyes, only to be foiled because ‘all them big bad Injuns / have big red bloodshot eyes!‘ That’s it. That’s the punchline. A borderline racist joke at the end of a comedy song about a mass slaughter during a vicious war of racial extermination. Fantastic.

(It’s bleakly entertaining in one way, and just one: bitter irony. The company which the whole world would come to identify as synonymous with the smashing down of racial barriers, the shining, all-conquering jewel of racial integration in Sixties America, putting out a casually racist joke record. It’s now starting to dawn on me why, if Mickey Woods really was Motown’s first white solo vocalist, it’s not a landmark that’s been publicised more; it’s almost as if Motown worked hard to erase this jejune blip from their history) … This is utter, utter, utter crap, and best forgotten by all involved. Let’s move on.”

The key changes for this “least Motown-sounding” of all possible Motown tunes hit at 0:52 and 1:40. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Laura Mvula | Ready or Not

“Birmingham (UK)-born Laura Mvula is a soul singer-songwriter who graduated from the Birmingham Conservatoire with a degree in composition,” (National Portrait Gallery). “In 2013, she signed a multi-album record deal with Sony, and her debut album Sing To The Moon was released in 2013, reaching number nine in the UK albums chart. Guardian critic Paul Lester coined her music as ‘gospeldelia’. She won awards for Best Female Act and Best R&B or Soul Artist at the 2013 MOBO Awards. She received the 2017 Ivor Novello Award for her second album, The Dreaming Room (2016). She lists her influences as Nina Simone, Lauryn Hill and Jill Scott. In 2017, the Royal Shakespeare Company invited her to compose the music for their new production of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.”

“It’s a bold move to cover The Delfonics’ ‘Ready or Not Here I Come (Can’t Hide from Love)’ — especially when considering The Fugees did so years ago with huge success — but British singer Laura Mvula has created a version that does it justice,” (Cool Hunting). “Mvula’s iteration modernizes the song, while remaining faithful to the original: it’s vibrant and danceable, while keeping a bit of the creepy, stalker darkness. With layer upon layer of background vocals, Mvula’s honeyed voice and delightful accent, this version takes on several different lives before its over.

Mvula’s 2016 version lacks the earthy hiphop factor of The Fugees’ 1996 smash hit cover, but keeps us on the edge of our seat from the opening seconds via some odd meters. A larger difference yet is the shifting tonality of Mvula’s version (absent from the Fugees’ version, but present in the Delfonics’ gentle, diminutive 1968 original, which features a run time of only two minutes). Mvula’s cover starts in B minor, shifts improbably to F minor at 0:30, then visits D minor at 0:52. At 1:12, we’ve returned to the opening key of B minor; the pattern continues from there, running at top intensity until the groove drops out for the unresolved ending.

The Mindbenders | A Groovy Kind of Love

By the time “A Groovy Kind of Love” became a Billboard #2 hit for Manchester UK’s Mindbenders in 1966, original lead singer Wayne Fontana had moved on to a solo career. The vocal for the song was provided by Eric Stewart, later a member of 10cc.

Carol Bayer Sager and Toni Wine wrote the song, which was originally recorded by the duo Diane and Annita. Their record used the title “A Groovey Kind of Love”, suggesting that popular culture had not yet settled on an orthography for the word. It was a very short historical period during which one could use the word “groovy” without a hint of irony, sarcasm, or condescension. Nonetheless, Phil Collins managed to rack up a #1 with his languorous recording of the song in 1988. Let’s suppose that everyone had forgotten about the word by that time, or its overtones had simply faded.

In the Mindbenders’ version, there’s a half-step modulation at 1:14, just before an instrumental verse.

Barry Mann | Who Put the Bomp?

“Exactly who put the bomp in the bomp-bomp-bomp, the ram in the rama-dama-ding-dong and the oop in the oop-shoop, and the wop in doo-wop, remains a mystery mired in the greasy annals of teenage pre-history, back around the late 1940s and early 1950s,” (The Guardian). “Maybe it’s better that way, that the glories of the bomp belong not to an individual or two, but to a cavalcade of creators. You didn’t need instruments, just a few guys who could sing, a stairwell for an amplifier and a dream of following heroes like The Inkspots or the Mills Brothers, or just of impressing the girls from the next block.

… It was flashy, ridiculous, and dated, but extravagant and beautiful (doo-wop groups often named themselves after cars – The Cadillacs, The Impalas, The Bel-Airs). And just as the motor industry has never indulged in chrome and fins in the same way, so pop has never equalled doo-wop’s surreal Esperanto.”

Barry Mann went on to marry his songwriting partner Cynthia Weil, set up camp in NYC’s famed Brill Building, and crank out hits for a variety of artists (Songwriters Hall of Fame). Among their more recognizable tunes are “On Broadway,” “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” “Here You Come Again,” “Just Once,” and “Sometimes When We Touch.” But “Bomp” got Mann’s career started with chart success in 1961, peaking at #7. The doo-wop flavored pop tune shifts up a half-step at 1:22 — very close to the half-way mark for the single. The track easily hit the standard of the day for radio play: a run time of under three minutes.

Skeeter Davis | The End of the World

“Although she was a mainstay on the country charts for decades, Skeeter Davis’ crossover success on the pop charts was mostly limited to a pair of Top-10 singles,” (American Songwriter). “But one of those songs, her 1962 hit ‘The End of the World,’ stands as one of the greatest songs ever about the aftermath of a devastating loss.

… ‘The End of the World’ was written by the songwriting pair of Arthur Kent and Sylvia Dee. Dee, the lyricist, was inspired to write the song by the death of her father, although the lyrics keep the loss general enough to make it seem like it could be a breakup. In any case, Davis’ performance, understated and vulnerable, took it to another level. Instead of remaining within country music circles, ‘The End of the World’ took off when New York DJs started spinning it on the regular. Not only did it work its way into the pop charts, hitting #2 in 1962, but it also hit the Top 5 on the Hot R&B, Easy Listening, and Country charts, an unprecedented feat.”

After a start in Bb major, a shift up to B major at 1:56 is followed by a partially spoken verse, leading up to a sung rubato for the balance of the verse as the tune draws to its end. Although it feels far from rushed, the 12/8 ballad has a run time of under 2:45.

Lou Christie | Lightnin’ Strikes

“’Listen to me, baby, you gotta understand / You’re old enough to know the makings of a man.’ That’s how Lou Christie opens ‘Lightnin’ Strikes,’ his one #1 hit,” (Stereogum). “He sounds like an early-’60s teenybopper crooner, slick and composed. But as the song builds and unfurls, he comes more and more unhinged before jumping into a wild Frankie Valli falsetto on the chorus.

… Christie, born Lugee Sacco in Pittsburgh, was a gifted classical musician and singer when he was a teenager. When he was 15, he met the 37-year-old classical concert pianist Twyla Herbert, and the two of them started a long and presumably pretty unconventional songwriting partnership. Just out of high school, Christie recorded a few singles that he’d written with Herbert, and one of them, 1963’s ‘Two Faces Have I,’ made it to #6 in 1963. Soon afterward, he was drafted into the Army. After being discharged, he signed with MGM Records, but the label didn’t like ‘Lightnin’ Strikes,’ so Christie paid out of his pocket to get radio DJs to play it. The scheme worked out, and ‘Lightnin’ Strikes,’ another Christie/Herbert collaboration, made it to #1 a couple of months after it came out.

… The producer, Four Seasons member Charles Callelo, used New York session musicians to chase the Phil Spector sound. It’s full of pounding pianos and stabbing guitars and howling backing singers, and there’s a wild and borderline avant-garde bass solo in there, too.”

After the gentle verse starts in Eb major, the tune shifts to C major for the first pre-chorus section at 0:22, intensifies through another pre-chorus section at 0:36, and then opens into the huge chorus in F minor at 0:44. After all of that, the second cycle through the form starts at only 0:58! The pattern continues from there. The lyrics were bordering on NSFW for the era, but the novelty of the wildly contrasting sections seemed to carry the day.

Elis Regina | O Cantador

“To really appreciate Elis Regina, start with the lowly half-step,” (NPR). “It’s the penny of the music world — the smallest interval on the piano. Some vocalists treat half-steps as annoying afterthoughts. They smush them together into a blur. Regina’s art happens inside the half-steps, in the tiny increments that make up a melody. When Regina sings, half-steps seem to expand. Partly, that’s a reflection of her exacting technique: When she wants to, she can nail the most challenging intervals. At the same time, she’s not at all fussy. Her lazy, endlessly sloping phrases magnify the sometimes hidden shades of meaning in a lyric. She’s the rare singer who can conjure an ocean of love trouble in the space between C and C-sharp.

Like so many Brazilians, she learned her craft by interpreting the intricate, half-step-rich songs of Antonio Carlos Jobim. One of her career milestones, recorded in the early ’70s, is an intimate duo recording with the great composer — Jobim backs Regina on piano — titled Elis and Tom … Regina brought a mischievous streak and a jazz singer’s taste for adventure to everything she did. She reimagined samba and bossa nova classics. And in the late ’60s, she became a champion of the young Brazilian songwriters who were integrating elements of British and American rock. Her interpretations of songs such as ‘Nada Sera Como Antes,’ by Milton Nascimento, helped bring attention to this new generation of talents — the movement known as Tropicalia.”

Regina’s version of “O Cantador” by Nelson Motta and Dori Caymmi, was first released in 1967. At 2:59, the key is raised by a half-step with a syncopated kick, only to come back down again at 3:06. But as the tune fades, the higher key prevails (3:13). Many thanks to our regular Brazilian contributor Julianna A. for this tune — her seventh wonderful MotD submission!

Nick Allen | Hard Way to Go

“William ‘Nick’ Allen, Sr. was a Durham (NC) barber who often styled the hair of musical celebrities traveling through Durham,” (BullCitySoul.org). “Allen launched his own singing career with the gospel group the Interns. Later he recorded the soul song ‘Hard Way to Go’ as a soloist. He was also the father of Nick Allen, Jr., the lead vocalist of the Modulations.”

The scant information available on Allen is lacking in detail. But his heartfelt vocal definitely swung for the fences with “Hard Way to Go” (1968). There’s some flutter on the source tape (particularly around 1:44), making it a bit tough to tell whether the chord is major or minor! Starting in G major, the track shifts to A major at 1:03. After a grand pause, at 2:13, a long outro hits, complete with a completely different groove. The outro takes awhile to settle in, but once it does (2:27), it’s in C major.