Tag: 1960s

Frank Sinatra | Strangers In the Night

In the midst of rock’s mid-60s domination of the pop music charts, Frank Sinatra’s treacly 1966 rendition of “Strangers in the Night” was a major hit. The music was written by Bert Kaempfert, with English lyrics by Charles Singleton and Eddie Snyder. In the US, the song reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and on the Easy Listening chart. The same-named album containing the single, with arrangements by long-time collaborator Nelson Riddle, was also a US #1 release. That album also contained “Summer Wind,” another Sinatra staple, though that song fared less well as a single.

Sinatra disliked the song, and wasn’t shy about mentioning it. See this dedicated Sinatra fan page for some of his very colorful commentary about the tune!

The scat-singing that starts at 2:20 gave rise to innumerable sophomoric bathroom graffiti quoting Sinatra’s do-be-do-be-do and the pithy wisdom of various philosophers.

There’s a whole-step modulation, from F major to G major, for the final verse at 2:01. According to the Wikipedia page for the song, referencing The Billboard Book of Number One Adult Contemporary Hits, Sinatra had trouble nailing the modulation, so the two sections were recorded separately and spliced together.

The Impressions | People Get Ready

“Seldom does a song go down in history as not only one of the best popular songs ever written, but as a song that is so universal in composition and message that it can be effectively covered by almost anyone,” (American Songwriter). “But that’s the case with ‘People Get Ready,’ recorded in 1965 by The Impressions and written by the group’s lead singer, Curtis Mayfield. Nearly half a century later the song continues to be recorded and performed by a variety of acts in several genres.

From the album of the same name, (it) was released during a time of civil unrest in America, when the country was in turmoil over race relations and the Vietnam War just as Mayfield was beginning to infuse his work with social commentary. Influenced by the music of the church and his preacher grandmother, Mayfield began singing professionally as a teenager, and his work would go on to define what was the Chicago soul sound as opposed to what was coming out of Berry Gordy’s shop in Detroit at the time. In a 1993 interview with National Public Radio’s Terry Gross … Mayfield said. ‘This is a perfect example of what I believe has laid in my subconscious as to the preaching of my grandmother, and most ministers when they reflect from the Bible.'”

“People Get Ready” was awarded a Grammy Hall of Fame award in 1998, its first year of eligibility. The song has been covered by literally dozens of other artists, including Bob Dylan, Alicia Keys, Exile and Matisyahu, and guitarist Jeff Beck obviously is a fan of the song, having recorded or performed it with Rod Stewart, Joss Stone, Sting and Queen’s Roger Taylor.

A half-step modulation drops during a short, understated guitar feature at the track’s midpoint (1:21).

Frankie Valli + The Four Seasons | Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You

“Once the Four Seasons became a consistent success, Frankie Valli established a side career doing solo recordings whose style hearkened back to pre-rock pop,” (AllMusic). “The best and most successful example of his solo work is ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ (1967), (which) would be perfectly at home on one of Frank Sinatra’s mid-1950s albums … The music skillfully blends ballad and pre-rock pop feels by wedding gentle, yearning verses that ebb and flow in a cocktail jazz style to a swinging chorus that bounds along on a series of surging, soaring melodic motifs.

(The track) starts in a ballad style with stately horns drifting a smooth, jazzy beat, undergoes a change midway through where the horns and the beat both start to swing in an uptempo, lounge music style and then shifts back and forth between these two feels for the rest of the song. Valli navigates this tricky set of tempo shifts with graceful style, using a silky tenor croon for the lighter moments and a swaggering baritone in the uptempo moments … (it) became a #2 smash hit and an instant standard that was extensively covered by … Andy Williams, Paul Anka and Englebert Humperdinck … (and has) become an oldies radio favorite and popped up in films as diverse as The Deer Hunter and Conspiracy Theory.“

After starting in E major, the verse features with plenty of harmonic motion over a tonic pedal-point bass. At 2:08, there’s a shift upward to G major for verse 2 — impressive enough that you won’t even mind when you hear verse 1’s lyrics are re-used wholesale. At 2:38, the boisterous instrumental hook returns, but drops back into the original key E major for the chorus, which repeats as the track fades.

The Duprees | You Belong to Me

In 1952, “You Belong to Me” was a #1 hit for singer Jo Stafford backed by the orchestra led by her husband, pianist Paul Weston. That arrangement features distinctive marimba rolls and ensemble saxophone phrases. The song was written by Chilton Price, Pee Wee King, and Redd Stewart, and first recorded by Joni James earlier in 1952. King and Stewart are best known as the writers of the country standard “Tennessee Waltz.” Stafford was known for her perfect pitch and vocal accuracy, perhaps adding to the comedic value of the talentless musicians act she and Weston later created, “Jonathan and Darlene Edwards.” The song has since been widely recorded; there are versions by Patti Page, Ella Fitzgerald, Dean Martin, Ringo Starr, and Bob Dylan, among others.

The Duprees were a doo-wop group from New Jersey, who recorded for the independent Coed label beginning starting in the early 1960s, and later for Columbia. The tune here was from their 1962 debut album of the same name. The single peaked at #7 on Billboard. In 1970, the group changed their name to The Italian Asphalt & Pavement Co. (ed. note: shudder), with a change in sound to match; they recorded one album under that moniker. As with many groups from the doo-wop period, there is an extant group carrying on with the name, though none of the original Duprees is in it.

The song starts out in C♯ major. Coming out of the bridge, there’s a modulation to D at 1:41 for the final verse. There’s an unmistakable doo-wop cliché vocal cadenza at 2:12 to settle into the outro.

Paul Revere + The Raiders | Kicks

“The songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil were two of the most successful in pop music in the early ’60s, having written such hits as ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin Feelin,’ ‘Uptown,’ and ‘On Broadway’ to name a few,” (AllMusic). “Likewise, Paul Revere and the Raiders were also at the pinnacle of their existence with a hit AM radio rocker and a featured spot on the TV show Where the Action Is.

In March of 1966, the Mann/Weil-penned anti-drug song ‘Kicks’ peaked at number four, the highest position to date on the Billboard charts for Paul Revere and the Raiders.” The US band’s clearly anti-drug single was not exactly in tune with the zeitgeist of its era: “For better or worse, mind expansion was in the air, and it was about to be embraced by an audience ready to turn in its Beatlemania wigs for a future paved by the creative revelations of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper. It would only be a matter of months before weirdo bands from places like experimental San Francisco would preach the exact opposite message delivered in ‘Kicks.’ … (It) is one of the handful of overtly anti-’60s pop songs recorded in its own time.”

A brief bridge (1:43 – 1:59) shifts the tonality from F minor to the parallel major key of F major. That would normally qualify for quite an early bridge, but in this case, the entire the track is only 2:32!

Serendipity Singers | Don’t Let the Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man)

“The folk boom of the early 1960s spawned numerous purveyors of well-scrubbed folk pop, and one of the most popular ensembles to emerge was The Serendipity Singers, founded at the University of Colorado … (they) signed with Philips Records in 1964 and released their debut single, ‘Don’t Let the Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man),’ which reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated at the 7th Grammy Awards in 1965 for Best Performance by a Chorus,” (Colorado Music Hall of Fame).

“… The group had numerous appearances on popular TV shows like The Ed Sullivan Show, The Dean Martin Show, The Tonight Show, Shindig! and Hullabaloo. One of the most notable performances was at the White House in front of President Lyndon B. Johnson during the 1964 Democratic National Convention … The Serendipity Singers came onto the nationwide music scene right before the longstanding reign of The Beatles and the British Invasion exploded onto U.S. soil.” The college newspaper The Missouri Miner wrote in a 1969 review: ‘They’re not hippies and they don’t wear flowers, but the sound of The Serendipity Singers is as contemporary as Pop Art … ‘”

The whimsical track “Don’t Let the Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man)” shifts up a whole-step at the 2:22 mark. Many thanks to our regular contributor Rob P. for sending in this tune!

Errol Garner | Misty

“In 1954, the Erroll Garner Trio introduced the instrumental ‘Misty.’ A year later Johnny Burke penned the lyrics, creating the song we know today,” (JazzStandards.com). “‘Misty’ remained relatively unknown until Johnny Mathis popularized the vocal version with his million-selling recording in 1959. Although it was never a number one hit, ‘Misty’ has been performed by hundreds of instrumentalists and vocalists … the melody soars over a range of nearly two octaves with many pitches falling on color tones or chord extensions (mainly the major seventh, the ninth and the eleventh).”

Built with a classic AABA form, the tune’s B section ” … begins with a fairly orthodox harmonic progression- v -I7 -iv, in which the I7 functions as a V7 of the new subdominant key (in the original key, Eb modulating to Ab). But then the IV chord (Ab) is followed by a minor 7th chord a half step higher. Aural experience tells our ears to expect this Am7, which is followed by a D7, to be a ii7 -V7 sequence to G major or G minor. Instead, Garner surprises us once again by a deceptive resolution to Cm, the vi of the original tonic of Eb. From there, it’s an easy modulation back to the tonic (but what a fascinating detour!)”

In this 1961 live performance on TV’s Ed Sullivan Show, Garner presents the tune in a single chorus, which ranges from a staid left-hand stride style to a gently shimmering right hand technique. There are no subsequent choruses to host a formal solo, but Garner’s interpretation of the melody is so whimsically ornamented that the single chorus gets the job done all on its own. The legendary B section’s first few notes begin at 0:47, with the section starting in earnest at 0:50. The closing A section begins at 1:14.

For a more straightforward treatment of the melody, it would be difficult to improve on Johnny Mathis’ 1959 rendition:

Roy Orbison | Dream

“Dream,” written by Johnny Mercer, was a hit for June Hutton and The Pied Pipers in 1945. That version, on Mercer’s label Capitol Records, featured lush multi-part harmonies atop a languid strings-and-celeste backdrop provided by Paul Weston and his orchestra.

Roy Orbison’s cover was recorded for his 1963 Monument album In Dreams. Besides the title song and the current track, the album featured dream-themed songs “All I Have to Do Is Dream” and “Beautiful Dreamer” and one of Orbison’s signature songs, “Blue Bayou.” This version later surfaced in the soundtrack for the 1998 dot-com-era movie You’ve Got Mail.

There’s a half-step upward modulation at 1:27.

Dionne Warwick | You’ll Never Get to Heaven (If You Break My Heart)

“Vocalist Dionne Warwick had already established something of a reputation as a chanteuse of unrequited love by the time ‘You’ll Never Get to Heaven (If You Break My Heart)’ was released in 1964,” (JazzIz). “The song evokes the wit and delight of Great American Songbook standards. It also benefits from the contrast created by the dream-pop orchestration, complete with tinkling chimes and bells, and the lyrics, where Warwick essentially threatens her loved one with eternal damnation should he wrong or hurt her.

(The tune) was another collaboration between Warwick and the legendary songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David. It also marked a departure from their previous, bossa nova-influenced hits, although subtle yet significant Latin influences are still heard throughout. In addition, the song is noted for solidifying her fame and status in Europe, where it was particularly successful. In fact, shortly after the single’s release, Warwick would embark on a four-month tour of the Old Continent.”

The track features a half-step key change at 1:56, which hits at an unexpected spot just before the start of a verse.

Special mention must also be made of the Stylistics’ 1972 cover of the tune, which is arguably the better known of the two versions (also posted below). While different from the original, its arrangement also managed to sound thoroughly Bacharach-ian. Its modulation hits at 2:10.

Scott McKenzie | San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)

“Rock history rightly celebrates the pioneers but sometimes the bandwagon jumpers get it right too,” (The Guardian). “Whether anybody liked it not – and many in San Francisco didn’t – the song ‘San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)’ by Scott McKenzie … became a huge hit. In the US it vied with the likes of ‘Respect,’ ‘Light My Fire,’ and ‘White Rabbit,’ whereas it became the Summer of Love song in the UK, holding the #1 spot during August 1967. It’s now an indelible part of the folk memory, often used on TV to dismiss hippie culture.

Actually, it’s a really good record. McKenzie might have resembled a hippie straight out of central casting, the lyrics might have verged on advertising copy, but it has a soaring melody and great production – with a light, shimmering atmosphere … ‘There’s a whole generation with a new explanation,’ is a pretty good pop summary of what was going in 1967, and the refrain of ‘people in motion’ has a real charge. If it didn’t reflect the exact feeling or the particular sound of San Francisco at that moment, it still captured what people wanted to think about Haight/Ashbury. And there lies the explanation for its longevity. Full of space and hope, it celebrates an idea.”

At 2:27, a whole-step modulation drops. It’s very late in the game — and so casual that it’s more of a loose restatement of a few lines than a substantial attempt at an additional verse. But it provides a lovely fade-out for the tune.