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Psychedelic music in the Flower Power

Meagan Paese — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 12:41:12 +0000

Jefferson Airplane

Jefferson Airplane was a rock band based in San Francisco, California, who pioneered psychedelic rock. Formed in 1965, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the Bay Area to achieve international commercial success. They were headliners at the three most famous American rock festivals of the 1960s—Monterey (1967), Woodstock (1969) and Altamont (1969)—and the first Isle of Wight Festival (1968) in England. Their 1967 break-out album Surrealistic Pillow ranks on the short list of the most significant recordings of the “Summer of Love”. Two songs from that album, “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit”, are among Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.”

The “classic” lineup of Jefferson Airplane, from October 1966 to February 1970, was Marty Balin (vocals), Paul Kantner (guitar, vocals), Grace Slick (vocals), Jorma Kaukonen (lead guitar, vocals), Jack Casady (bass), and Spencer Dryden (drums). Marty Balin left the band in 1971. After 1972, Jefferson Airplane effectively split into two groups. Kaukonen and Casady moved on full time to their own band, Hot Tuna. Slick, Kantner, and the remaining members of Jefferson Airplane recruited new members and regrouped as Jefferson Starship in 1974, with Marty Balin eventually joining them. Jefferson Airplane was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

Grateful Dead

Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. Ranging from quintet to septet, the band is known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, psychedelia, experimental music, modal jazz, country, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, and space rock, for live performances of lengthy instrumental jams, and for their devoted fan base, known as “Deadheads”. “Their music,” writes Lenny Kaye, “touches on ground that most other groups don’t even know exists.” These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead “the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world”. The band was ranked 57th by Rolling Stone magazine in its The Greatest Artists of All Time issue. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 and a recording of their May 8, 1977 performance at Cornell University’s Barton Hall was added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2012. The Grateful Dead have sold more than 35 million albums worldwide.

The Grateful Dead was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area amid the rise of the counterculture of the 1960s. The founding members were Jerry Garcia (lead guitar, vocals), Bob Weir (rhythm guitar, vocals), Ron “Pigpen” McKernan (keyboards, harmonica, vocals), Phil Lesh (bass, vocals), and Bill Kreutzmann (drums). Members of the Grateful Dead had played together in various San Francisco bands, including Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions and the Warlocks. Lesh was the last member to join the Warlocks before they became the Grateful Dead; he replaced Dana Morgan Jr., who had played bass for a few gigs. Drummer Mickey Hart and nonperforming lyricist Robert Hunter joined in 1967. With the exception of McKernan, who died in 1973, and Hart, who took time off from 1971 to 1974, the core of the band stayed together for its entire 30-year history. The other official members of the band are Tom Constanten (keyboards; 1968–1970), John Perry Barlow (nonperforming lyricist; 1971–1995), Keith Godchaux (keyboards; 1971–1979), Donna Godchaux (vocals; 1972–1979), Brent Mydland (keyboards, vocals; 1979–1990), and Vince Welnick (keyboards, vocals; 1990–1995). Pianist Bruce Hornsby was a touring member from 1990 to 1992, as well as a guest with the band on occasion before and after the tours.

After the death of Garcia in 1995, former members of the band, along with other musicians, toured as the Other Ones in 1998, 2000, and 2002, and the Dead in 2003, 2004, and 2009. In 2015, the four surviving core members marked the band’s 50th anniversary in a series of concerts that were billed as their last performances together. There have also been several spin-offs featuring one or more core members, such as Dead & Company, Furthur, the Rhythm Devils, Phil Lesh & Friends, RatDog, and Billy & the Kids.

Big Brother and the Holding Company (featuring Janis Joplin)

Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Jefferson Airplane. They are best known as the band that featured Janis Joplin as their lead singer. Their 1968 album Cheap Thrills is considered one of the masterpieces of the psychedelic sound of San Francisco; it reached number one on the Billboard charts.

Janis Joplin, was an American rock singer and songwriter. She was one of the biggest female rock stars of her era. After releasing three albums, she died of a heroin overdose at age 27. A fourth album, Pearl, was released in January 1971, just over three months after her death. It reached number one on the Billboard charts.

In 1967, Joplin rose to fame during an appearance at Monterey Pop Festival, where she was the lead singer of the then little-known San Francisco psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. After releasing two albums with the band, she left Big Brother to continue as a solo artist with her own backing groups, first the Kozmic Blues Band and then the Full Tilt Boogie Band. She appeared at the Woodstock festival and the Festival Express train tour. Five singles by Joplin went into the Billboard Hot 100, including a cover of the song “Me and Bobby McGee”, which reached number 1 in March 1971. Her most popular songs include her cover versions of “Piece of My Heart”, “Cry Baby”, “Down on Me”, “Ball ‘n’ Chain”, and “Summertime”; and her original song “Mercedes Benz”, her final recording.

Joplin, highly respected for her charismatic performing ability, was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.

Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix was an American rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as “arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music”.

Born in Seattle, Washington, Hendrix began playing guitar at the age of 15. In 1961, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and trained as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division; he was granted an honorable discharge the following year. Soon afterward, he moved to Clarksville, Tennessee, and began playing gigs on the Chitlin’ Circuit, earning a place in the Isley Brothers’ backing band and later with Little Richard, with whom he continued to work through mid-1965. He then played with Curtis Knight and the Squires before moving to England in late 1966 after being discovered by Linda Keith, who in turn interested bassist Chas Chandler of the Animals in becoming his first manager. Within months, Hendrix had earned three UK top ten hits with the Jimi Hendrix Experience: “Hey Joe”, “Purple Haze”, and “The Wind Cries Mary”. He achieved fame in the U.S. after his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and in 1968 his third and final studio album, Electric Ladyland, reached number one in the U.S.; it was Hendrix’s most commercially successful release and his first and only number one album. The world’s highest-paid performer, he headlined the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 before his accidental death from barbiturate-related asphyxia on September 18, 1970, at the age of 27.

Hendrix was inspired musically by American rock and roll and electric blues. He favored overdriven amplifiers with high volume and gain, and was instrumental in utilizing the previously undesirable sounds caused by guitar amplifier feedback. He helped to popularize the use of a wah-wah pedal in mainstream rock, and was the first artist to use stereophonic phasing effects in music recordings. Holly George-Warren of Rolling Stone commented: “Hendrix pioneered the use of the instrument as an electronic sound source. Players before him had experimented with feedback and distortion, but Hendrix turned those effects and others into a controlled, fluid vocabulary every bit as personal as the blues with which he began.”

Buffalo Springfield

Buffalo Springfield was an American rock band active from 1966 to 1968 containing Stephen Stills, Neil Young, and Richie Furay, which released three albums, and several singles including “For What It’s Worth”. The band combined elements of folk and country music with British invasion and psychedelia influences, and, along with the Byrds, were part of the early development of the folk rock genre.

With a name taken from a brand of steamroller, Buffalo Springfield formed in Los Angeles in 1966 with Stills (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Dewey Martin (drums, vocals), Bruce Palmer (electric bass), Furay (guitar, vocals), and Young (guitar, harmonica, piano, vocals). The band signed to Atlantic Records in 1966 and released their debut single “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing” – a regional hit in Los Angeles. The following January, the group released the protest song they were most known for, “For What It’s Worth”. Their second album, Buffalo Springfield Again, marked their progression to psychedelia and hard rock.

After various drug-related arrests and line-up changes, the group broke up in 1968. Stephen Stills went on to form the folk rock supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash with David Crosby of the Byrds and Graham Nash of the Hollies. Neil Young had launched his successful solo career and reunited with Stills in Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in 1969. Furay, along with Jim Messina, went on to form the country-rock band Poco. Buffalo Springfield was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997

Moby Grape

Moby Grape is an American rock group from the 1960s, known for having all five members contribute to singing and songwriting and that collectively merged elements of folk music, blues, country, and jazz, together with rock and psychedelic music. They were one of the few groups of which all members were lead vocalists. The group continues to perform occasionally.

1966–1967

The group was formed in late 1966 in San Francisco, at the instigation of Skip Spence and Matthew Katz. Both had been previously associated with Jefferson Airplane, Spence as the band’s first drummer, playing on their first album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, and Katz as the band’s manager, but both had been dismissed by the group. Katz encouraged Spence to form a band similar to Jefferson Airplane, with varied songwriting and vocal work by several group members, and with Katz as the manager. According to band member Peter Lewis, “Matthew (Katz) brought the spirit of conflict into the band. He didn’t want it to be an equal partnership. He wanted it all.”

The band name, judicially determined to have been chosen by Bob Mosley and Spence, came from the punch line of the joke “What’s purple and swims?”. Lead guitarist Jerry Miller and drummer Don Stevenson (both formerly of The Frantics, originally based in Seattle) joined guitarist (and son of actress Loretta Young) Peter Lewis (of The Cornells), bassist Bob Mosley (of The Misfits, based in San Diego), and Spence, now on guitar instead of drums. Jerry Miller and Don Stevenson had moved The Frantics from Seattle to San Francisco after a 1965 meeting with Jerry Garcia, then playing with The Warlocks at a bar in Belmont, California. Garcia encouraged them to move to San Francisco. Once The Frantics were settled in San Francisco, Mosley joined the band.

While Jerry Miller was the principal lead guitarist, all three guitarists played lead at various points, often playing off against each other, in a guitar form associated with Moby Grape as “crosstalk”. The other major three-guitar band at the time was Buffalo Springfield. Moby Grape’s music has been described by Geoffrey Parr as follows: “No rock and roll group has been able to use a guitar trio as effectively as Moby Grape did on Moby Grape. Spence played a distinctive rhythm guitar that really sticks out throughout the album. Lewis, meanwhile, was a very good guitar player overall and was excellent at finger picking, as is evident in several songs. And then there is Miller, “The way they crafted their parts and played together on Moby Grape is like nothing else I’ve ever heard in my life. The guitars are like a collage of sound that makes perfect sense.”

All band members wrote songs and sang lead and backup vocals for their debut album Moby Grape (1967). Mosley, Lewis, and Spence generally wrote alone, while Miller and Stevenson generally wrote together. In a marketing stunt, Columbia Records immediately released five singles at once, and the band was perceived as being over-hyped. This was during a period in which mainstream record labels were giving previously unheard-of levels of promotion to what was then considered counter-cultural music genres. Nonetheless, the record was critically acclaimed and fairly successful commercially, with The Move covering the album’s “Hey Grandma” (a Miller-Stevenson composition) on their eponymous first album. More recently, “Hey Grandma” was included in the soundtrack to the 2005 Sean Penn-Nicole Kidman film, The Interpreter, as well as being covered in 2009 by the Black Crowes, on Warpaint Live. Spence’s “Omaha” was the only one of the five singles to chart, reaching number 88 in 1967. Miller-Stevenson’s “8:05” became a country rock standard (covered by Robert Plant, Guy Burlage, and others).

One of Moby Grape’s earliest major onstage performances was the Mantra-Rock Dance—a musical event held on January 29, 1967 at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. At the event Moby Grape performed along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, Allen Ginsberg, Grateful Dead, and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, donating proceeds to the temple. The group appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival on Saturday, June 17, 1967.

Iron Butterfly

Iron Butterfly is an American rock band best known for the 1968 hit “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”, providing a dramatic sound that led the way towards the development of hard rock and heavy metal music.

Formed in San Diego, California, among band members who used to be “arch enemies”, their heyday was the late 1960s, but the band has been reincarnated with various members with varying levels of success, with no new recordings since 1975.

The band’s seminal 1968 album In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is among the world’s 40 best-selling albums, selling more than 30 million copies. Iron Butterfly is also notable for being the first group to receive an RIAA platinum award.

Strawberry Alarm Clock

Strawberry Alarm Clock is a psychedelic rock band formed in 1967 in Los Angeles best known for their 1967 hit single “Incense and Peppermints”.

Strawberry Alarm Clock, who have been also categorized as acid rock, psychedelic pop and sunshine pop, charted five songs including two Top 40 hits

Country Joe and the Fish

Country Joe and the Fish was an American psychedelic rock band formed in Berkeley, California, in 1965. The band was among the influential groups in the San Francisco music scene during the mid- to late 1960s. Much of the band’s music was written by founding members Country Joe McDonald and Barry “The Fish” Melton, with lyrics pointedly addressing issues of importance to the counterculture, such as anti-war protests, free love, and recreational drug use. Through a combination of psychedelia and electronic music, the band’s sound was marked by innovative guitar melodies and distorted organ-driven instrumentals which were significant to the development of acid rock.

The band self-produced two EPs that drew attention on the underground circuit before signing to Vanguard Records in 1966. Their debut album, Electric Music for the Mind and Body, followed in 1967. It contained their only nationally charting single, “Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine”, and their most experimental arrangements. Their second album, I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die, was released in late 1967; its title track, with its dark humor and satire, became their signature tune and is among the era’s most recognizable protest songs. Further success followed, including McDonald’s appearance at Woodstock, but the group’s lineup underwent changes until its disbandment in 1970. Members of the band continue in the music industry as solo recording artists and sporadically reconvene.

Cream

Cream were a 1960s British rock power trio consisting of drummer Ginger Baker, guitarist/singer Eric Clapton and bassist/singer Jack Bruce. The group’s third album, Wheels of Fire (1968), was the world’s first platinum-selling double album. The band is widely regarded as the world’s first successful supergroup. In their career, they sold more than 15 million copies of their albums worldwide. Their music included songs based on traditional blues such as “Crossroads” and “Spoonful”, and modern blues such as “Born Under a Bad Sign”, as well as more current material such as “Strange Brew”, “Tales of Brave Ulysses” and “Toad”.

The band’s biggest hits were “I Feel Free” (UK number 11), “Sunshine of Your Love” (US number 5), “White Room” (US number 6), “Crossroads” (US number 28), and “Badge” (UK number 18).

The band made a significant impact on the popular music of the time, and, along with Jimi Hendrix and other notable guitarists and bands, popularised the use of the wah-wah pedal. They provided a heavy yet technically proficient musical theme that foreshadowed and influenced the emergence of British bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. They also had an impact on American southern rock groups the Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd. The band’s live performances influenced progressive rock acts such as Rush.

The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Creedence Clearwater Revival: An American rock band active in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The band consisted of lead vocalist, lead guitarist, and primary songwriter John Fogerty, his brother rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty, bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug Clifford. Their musical style encompassed the roots rock, swamp rock, and blues rock genres. Despite their San Francisco Bay Area origins, they played in a Southern rock style, with lyrics about bayous, catfish, the Mississippi River, and other popular elements of Southern United States iconography, as well as political and socially-conscious lyrics about topics including the Vietnam War. The band performed at 1969’s famed Woodstock Festival.

After four years of chart-topping success, the group disbanded acrimoniously in late 1972. Tom Fogerty had officially left the previous year, and his brother John was at odds with the remaining members over matters of business and artistic control, all of which resulted in subsequent lawsuits between the former bandmates. Fogerty’s ongoing disagreements with Saul Zaentz, owner of their label Fantasy Records, created further protracted court battles. As a result, John Fogerty refused to perform with the two-other surviving former members at CCR’s 1993 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Donovan

Donovan is a Scottish singer, songwriter and guitarist. He developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music (notably calypso). He has lived in Scotland, Hertfordshire (England), London and California, and, since at least 2008, in County Cork, Ireland, with his family. Emerging from the British folk scene, Donovan reached fame in the United Kingdom in early 1965 with live performances on the pop TV series Ready Steady Go!.
Having signed with Pye Records in 1965, he recorded singles and two albums in the folk vein, after which he signed to CBS/Epic Records in the US – the first signing by the company’s new vice-president Clive Davis – and became more successful internationally. He began a long and successful collaboration with leading British independent record producer Mickie Most, scoring multiple hit singles and albums in the UK, US, and other countries.

His most successful singles were the early UK hits “Catch the Wind”, “Colours” and “Universal Soldier” in 1965. In September 1966 “Sunshine Superman” topped America’s Billboard Hot 100 chart for one week and went to number two in Britain, followed by “Mellow Yellow” at US No.2 in December 1966, then 1968’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man” in the Top 5 in both countries, then “Atlantis”, which reached US No.7 in May 1969.

He became a friend of pop musicians including Joan Baez, Brian Jones and The Beatles. He taught John Lennon a finger-picking guitar style in 1968 that Lennon employed in “Dear Prudence,” “Julia,” “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” and other songs. Donovan’s commercial fortunes waned after parting with Most in 1969, and he left the industry for a time.

Donovan continued to perform and record sporadically in the 1970s and 1980s. His musical style and hippie image were scorned by critics, especially after punk rock. His performing and recording became sporadic until a revival in the 1990s with the emergence of Britain’s rave scene. He recorded the 1996 album Sutras with producer Rick Rubin and in 2004 made a new album, Beat Cafe. Donovan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2014.

The Doors

The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. The band got its name, at Morrison’s suggestion from the title of Aldous Huxley’s book The Doors of Perception, which itself was a reference to a quote made by William Blake, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” They were unique and among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, mostly because of Morrison’s lyrics and charismatic but unpredictable stage persona. After Morrison’s death in 1971 at age 27, the remaining members continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973.

Signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors released eight albums between 1967 and 1971. All but one hit the Top 10 on the Billboard 200 and went platinum or better. Their self-titled debut album (1967) was their first in a series of Top 10 albums in the United States, followed by Strange Days (also 1967), Waiting for the Sun (1968), The Soft Parade (1969), Morrison Hotel (1970), Absolutely Live (1970) and L.A. Woman (1971), with 20 Gold, 14 Platinum, 5 Multi-Platinum and 1 Diamond album awards in the United States alone. By the end of 1971, it was reported that the Doors had sold 4,190,457 albums domestically and 7,750,642 singles. The band had three million-selling singles in the U.S. with “Light My Fire”, “Hello, I Love You” and “Touch Me”. After Morrison’s death in 1971, the surviving trio released two albums Other Voices and Full Circle with Manzarek and Krieger sharing lead vocals. The three members also collaborated on the spoken word recording of Morrison’s An American Prayer in 1978 and on the “Orange County Suite” for a 1997 boxed set. Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore reunited in 2000 for an episode of VH1’s “Storytellers” and subsequently recorded Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors with a variety of vocalists.

Although the Doors’ active career ended in 1973, their popularity has persisted. According to the RIAA, they have sold 33 million certified units in the US and over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by many magazines, including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the “100 Greatest Artists of All Time”. The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold and platinum LP’s.

Crosby, Stills, and Nash (Young)

Crosby, Stills, and Nash was a folk rock supergroup made up of American singer-songwriters David Crosby and Stephen Stills and English singer-songwriter Graham Nash. They were known as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY) when joined by Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young, who was an occasional fourth member.

They were noted for their intricate vocal harmonies, often tumultuous interpersonal relationships, political activism, and lasting influence on US music and culture. Crosby, Stills & Nash were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and all three members were also inducted for their work in other groups (Crosby for the Byrds, Stills for Buffalo Springfield and Nash for the Hollies). Neil Young has also been inducted as a solo artist and as a member of Buffalo Springfield.

Phil Ochs

Phil Ochs was an American protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer) and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and distinctive voice. He wrote hundreds of songs in the 1960s and 1970s and released eight albums.

Ochs performed at many political events during the 1960s counterculture era, including anti-Vietnam War and civil rights rallies, student events, and organized labor events over the course of his career, in addition to many concert appearances at such venues as New York City’s Town Hall and Carnegie Hall. Politically, Ochs described himself as a “left social democrat” who became an “early revolutionary” after the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago led to a police riot, which had a profound effect on his state of mind.

After years of prolific writing in the 1960s, Ochs’s mental stability declined in the 1970s. He eventually succumbed to a number of problems including bipolar disorder and alcoholism, and committed suicide in 1976.

Some of Ochs’s major musical influences were Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Bob Gibson, Faron Young, and Merle Haggard. His best-known songs include “I Ain’t Marching Anymore”, “Changes”, “Crucifixion”, “Draft Dodger Rag”, “Love Me, I’m a Liberal”, “Outside of a Small Circle of Friends”, “Power and the Glory”, “There but for Fortune”, and “The War Is Over

Procol Harum

Procol Harum: An English rock band formed in 1967. They contributed to the development of symphonic rock, and by extension, progressive rock.

Their best-known recording is their 1967 hit single “A Whiter Shade of Pale”, considered a classic in popular music and one of the few singles to have sold over 10 million copies.Although noted for their baroque and classical influence, Procol Harum’s music also embraces the blues, R&B, and soul.

The post Psychedelic music in the Flower Power appeared first on The History of Rock and Roll Radio Show.

The Ed Sullivan Show Pt 1

Meagan Paese — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 21:23:40 +0000

Ed Sullivan Pt 1

Discover the stories that shaped rock & roll

The Ed Sullivan Show (Pt 1) | The Ed Sullivan Show Pt 2

Rock n Roll Classics

The Ed Sullivan Show aired from 1948 until 1971 and changed the landscape of American television. Sullivan’s stage was home to iconic performances by groundbreaking artists from rock ‘n’ roll, comedy, novelty, pop music, politics, sports, opera and more.

From 1948 until its cancellation in 1971, the show ran on CBS every Sunday night from 8–9 p.m. E.T., and is one of the few entertainment shows to have run in the same weekly time slot on the same network for more than two decades. (During its first season, it ran from 9 to 10 p.m. E.T.) Virtually every type of entertainment appeared on the show; opera singers, popular artists, songwriters, comedians, ballet dancers, dramatic actors performing monologs from plays, and circus acts were regularly featured. The format was essentially the same as vaudeville, and although vaudeville had died a generation earlier, Sullivan presented many ex-vaudevillians on his show.

Originally co-created and produced by Marlo Lewis, the show was first titled Toast of the Town, but was widely referred to as The Ed Sullivan Show for years before September 25, 1955, when that became its official name. In the show’s June 20, 1948 debut, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis performed along with singer Monica Lewis and Broadway composers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II previewing the score to their then-new show South Pacific, which opened on Broadway in 1949.

From 1948 through 1962, the program’s primary sponsor was the Lincoln-Mercury Division of the Ford Motor Company; Sullivan read many commercials for Mercury vehicles live on the air during this period.

The Ed Sullivan Show was originally broadcast via live television from CBS-TV studio 51, the Maxine Elliott Theatre, at Broadway and 39th St. before moving to its permanent home at CBS-TV Studio 50 in New York City (1697 Broadway, at 53rd Street), which was renamed The Ed Sullivan Theater on the occasion of the program’s 20th anniversary in June 1968. The last original Sullivan show telecast (#1068) was on March 28, 1971, with guests Melanie, Joanna Simon, Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass, and Sandler and Young. Repeats were scheduled through June 6, 1971

The Ed Sullivan Show is especially known to the World War II and baby boomer generations for introducing acts and airing breakthrough performances by popular 1950s and 1960s musicians such as Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Supremes, The Dave Clark Five, The Beach Boys, The Jackson 5, Janis Joplin, The Rolling Stones, The Mamas & the Papas, The Lovin’ Spoonful, Herman’s Hermits, The Doors, and The Band. The Canadian comedy duo Wayne and Shuster appeared on the program 58 times, a record for any performer.

Elvis Presley

On September 9, 1956, Presley made his first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show (after earlier appearances on shows hosted by the Dorsey Brothers, Milton Berle, and Steve Allen), even though Sullivan had previously vowed never to allow Presley on the show. According to biographer Michael David Harris, “Sullivan signed Presley when the host was having an intense Sunday-night rivalry with Steve Allen. Allen had the singer on July 1 and trounced Sullivan in the ratings. When asked to comment, the CBS star said that he wouldn’t consider presenting Presley before a family audience. Less than two weeks later he changed his mind and signed a contract. The newspapers asked him to explain his reversal. ‘What I said then was off the reports I’d heard. I hadn’t even seen the guy. Seeing the kinescopes, I don’t know what the fuss was all about. For instance, the business about rubbing the thighs. He rubbed one hand on his hip to dry off the perspiration from playing his guitar.’ ”
Sullivan’s reaction to Presley’s performance on The Milton Berle Show was, “I don’t know why everybody picked on Presley, I thought the whole show was dirty and vulgar.”

Elvis mythology states that Sullivan censored Presley by only shooting him from the waist up. Sullivan may have helped create the myth when he told TV Guide, “as for his gyrations, the whole thing can be controlled with camera shots.” In truth, Presley’s whole body was shown in the first and second shows.

At the time, Presley was filming Love Me Tender, so Sullivan’s producer, Marlo Lewis, flew to Los Angeles to supervise the two segments telecast that night from CBS Television City in Hollywood. Sullivan, however, was not able to host his show in New York City because he was recovering from a near fatal automobile accident. Charles Laughton guest-hosted in Sullivan’s place. Laughton appeared in front of plaques with gold records and stated, “These gold records, four of them… are a tribute to the fact that four of his recordings have sold, each sold, more than a million copies. And this, by the way, is the first time in record-making history that a singer has hit such a mark in such a short time. … And now, away to Hollywood to meet Elvis Presley.”

However, according to Greil Marcus, Laughton was the main act of Sullivan’s show. “Presley was the headliner, and a Sullivan headliner normally opened the show, but Sullivan was burying him. Laughton had to make the moment invisible: to act as if nobody was actually waiting for anything. He did it instantly, with complete command, with the sort of television presence that some have and some—Steve Allen, or Ed Sullivan himself—don’t.”

Host Laughton introduced the singer from New York. Once on camera, Elvis cleared his throat and said, “Thank you, Mr. Laughton, ladies and gentlemen. Wow”, and wiped his brow. “This is probably the greatest honor I’ve ever had in my life. Ah. There’s not much I can say except, it really makes you feel good. We want to thank you from the bottom of our heart. And now …” “Don’t Be Cruel”, which was, after a short introduction by Elvis, followed by “Love Me Tender”. According to Elaine Dundy, Presley sang “Love Me Tender” “straight, subdued and tender … —a very different Elvis from the one on The Steve Allen Show three months before”.

When the camera returned to Laughton, he stated, “Well, well, well well well. Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis Presley. And Mr. Presley, if you are watching this in Hollywood, and I may address myself to you. It has been many a year since any young performer has captured such a wide, and, as we heard tonight, devoted audience.”

Elvis’s second set in the show consisted of “Ready Teddy” and a short on-air comment to Sullivan, “Ah, Mr. Sullivan. We know that somewhere out there you are looking in, and, ah, all the boys and myself, and everybody out here, are looking forward to seeing you back on television.” Next, Elvis declared, “Friends, as a great philosopher once said, ‘You ain’t nothin’ but a Hound Dog …,’ ” as he launched into a short (1:07) version of the song.

According to Marcus, “For the first of his two appearances that night, as a performer, Elvis had come on dressed in grandma’s nightgown and nightcap.” Concerning the singer’s second set in the show, the author adds that there were “Elvis, Scotty Moore on guitar, Bill Black on stand-up bass, D. J. Fontana on drums, three Jordanaires on their feet, one at a piano. They were shown from behind; the camera pulled all the way back. They went into ‘Ready Teddy.’ It was Little Richard’s most thrilling record”, however, “there was no way Elvis was going to catch him, but he didn’t have to—the song is a wave and he rode it. Compared to moments on the Dorsey shows, on the Berle show, it was ice cream—Elvis’s face unthreatening, his legs as if in casts …” When “he sang Little Richard’s ‘Reddy Teddy’ and began to move and dance, the camera pulled in, so that the television audience saw him from the waist up only.”

Although Laughton was the main star and there were seven other acts on the show, Elvis was on camera for more than a quarter of the time allotted to all acts. The show was viewed by a record 60 million people which at the time was 82.6 percent of the television audience, and the largest single audience in television history. “In the New York Times”, however, “Jack Gould began his review indignantly: Elvis Presley had ‘injected movements of his tongue and indulged in wordless singing that were singularly distasteful.’ Overstimulating the physical impulses of the teenagers was ‘a gross national disservice.’”

Second and third appearances

“Hound Dog”, October 28, 1956

Sullivan hosted a second appearance by Presley on October 28, 1956. Elvis performed “Don’t Be Cruel”, then “Love Me Tender”. Sullivan then addressed the audience as he stood beside Elvis, who began shaking his legs, eliciting screams from the audience. By the time Sullivan turned his head, Elvis was standing motionless. After Presley left the stage, Sullivan stated, “I can’t figure this darn thing out. You know. He just does this and everybody yells.” Elvis appeared a second time in the show and sang “Love Me”. Later on, he sang a nearly four-minute-long version of “Hound Dog” and was shown in full the entire song.

For the third and final appearance on January 6, 1957, Presley performed a medley of “Hound Dog”, “Love Me Tender”, and “Heartbreak Hotel”, followed by a full version of “Don’t Be Cruel”. For a second set later in the show he did “Too Much” and “When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again”. For his last set he sang “Peace in the Valley”. According to Sullivan’s co-producer Marlo Lewis, the rumor had it that “Elvis has been hanging a small soft-drink bottle from his groin underneath his pants, and when he wiggles his leg it looks as though his pecker reaches down to his knee!”

It was decided to shoot the singer only from the waist while he performed. Although much has been made of the fact that Elvis was shown only from the waist up, except for the short section of “Hound Dog”, all of the songs on this show were ballads. “Leaving behind the bland clothes he had worn on the first two shows”, Greil Marcus says, Elvis “stepped out in the outlandish costume of a pasha, if not a harem girl. From the make-up over his eyes, the hair falling in his face, the overwhelmingly sexual cast of his mouth, he was playing Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik, with all stops out. That he did so in front of the Jordanaires, who this night appeared as the four squarest-looking men on the planet, made the performance even more potent.”

Sullivan praised Elvis at the end of the show, saying “This is a real decent, fine boy. We’ve never had a pleasanter experience on our show with a big name than we’ve had with you…. You’re thoroughly all right” —a remark that could either be interpreted as a “ringing endorsement” that “legitimized the singer with an adult audience” or as “a somewhat hypocritical statement considering what the CBS censors had just done to his performance on that show.” Eyewitness Jerry Schilling writes, “The way Elvis looked out at us at that moment, I thought I could see a mix of hurt over the attacks he’d been subjected to in the press, and a deep pride in who he was and what he was doing.” (According to historian Tim Parrish, Presley’s manager, Colonel Parker, “had threatened to remove Elvis from the show if Sullivan did not apologize for telling the press that Elvis’s ‘gyrations’ were immoral.”)

Reflecting on the event in 1969, Presley claimed that Sullivan had expressed a very different opinion off-camera: “So they arranged to put me on television. At that particular time there was a lot of controversy—you didn’t see people moving—out in public. They were gettin’ it on in the back rooms, but you didn’t see it out in public too much.

So there was a lot of controversy … and I went to the Ed Sullivan Show. They photographed me from the waist up. And Sullivan’s standing over there saying, ‘Sumbitch.’ I said, ‘Thank you, Ed, thank you.’ I didn’t know what he was calling me, at the time.”

Years later, Sullivan “tried to sign the singer up again… He phoned Presley’s manager, Col. Tom Parker, and asked about a price.

Parker came up with a list of instructions and conditions and after hearing the demands Sullivan said, ‘Give Elvis my best—and my sympathy,’ and he hung up.”

The singer never again appeared in Sullivan’s show, although in February 1964 at the start of the first of three broadcasts featuring the Beatles (see below), Sullivan announced that a telegram had been received from Presley and Parker wishing the British group luck.

The Beatles

The Beatles appeared on three consecutive Sundays in February 1964 to great anticipation and fanfare as “I Want to Hold Your Hand” had swiftly risen to No. 1 in the charts. Their first appearance on February 9 is considered a milestone in American pop culture and the beginning of the British Invasion in music. The broadcast drew an estimated 73 million viewers, at the time a record for US television. The Beatles followed Ed’s show opening intro, performing “All My Loving”; “Till There Was You”, which featured the names of the group members superimposed on closeup shots, including the famous “SORRY GIRLS, HE’S MARRIED” caption on John Lennon; and “She Loves You”. The act that followed Beatles in the broadcast was pre-recorded, rather than having someone perform live on stage amidst the pandemonium that occurred in the studio after the Beatles performed their first songs. The group returned later in the program to perform “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand”.

The following week’s show was broadcast from Miami Beach where Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) was in training for his first title bout with Sonny Liston. The occasion was used by both camps for publicity. On the evening of the television show (February 16) a crush of people nearly prevented the band from making it onstage. A wedge of policemen were needed and the band began playing “She Loves You” only seconds after reaching their instruments. They continued with “This Boy”, and “All My Loving” and returned later to close the show with “I Saw Her Standing There”, “From Me to You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand”.

They were shown on tape February 23 (this appearance had been taped earlier in the day on February 9 before their first live appearance). They followed Ed’s intro with “Twist and Shout” and “Please Please Me” and closed the show once again with “I Want to Hold Your Hand”.

The Beatles appeared live for the final time on August 14, 1965. The show was broadcast September 12, 1965, and earned Sullivan a 60-percent share of the nighttime audience for one of the appearances. This time they followed three acts before coming out to perform “I Feel Fine”, “I’m Down”, and “Act Naturally” and then closed the show with “Ticket to Ride”, “Yesterday”, and “Help!” Although this was their final live appearance on the show, the group would, for several years, provide filmed promotional clips of songs to air exclusively on Sullivan’s program such as the 1966 and 1967 clips of “Paperback Writer”, “Rain”, “Penny Lane”, and “Strawberry Fields Forever”.

The Supremes

The Supremes were a special act for The Ed Sullivan Show.

In addition to 14 appearances, they were a personal favorite of Sullivan, whom he affectionately called “The Girls”. Over the five years they performed on the program, the Supremes performed 15 of their hit singles, and numerous Broadway showtunes and other non-Motown songs. The group featuring the most popular lineup of Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, and Florence Ballard appeared 15 times from December 1964 through May 1967.

The group reappeared on the series in October 1967 as the newly rebilled “Diana Ross & the Supremes”, with Ballard replacement Cindy Birdsong and Ross more prominently featured. The Supremes’ final appearance on the show, shortly before it ended, served as the platform to introduce America to Ross’s replacement, Jean Terrell, in March 1970.

The Rolling Stones

On October 25, 1964, just over eight months after The Beatles historic performance, The Rolling Stones made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The bad boys of rock n roll were fresh of the release of their third album “12 X 5” and they knew there was no better way to promote it to an American audience.

As Ed introduced the band to screaming fans the curtain rose to reveal The Rolling Stones taking their place on stage. The band kicked the night off with the Chuck Berry classic, “Around & Around,” and a young, shaggy-haired Mick Jagger danced across the stage to the girls’ delight.

The screams lasted throughout the entire song, continuing even after it finished and the curtain had dropped. Ed attempted to introduce the next act, but the sustained shrieks muffled his attempts. He slowly grew impatient and had to tell the audience to be “Quiet!” multiple times.

The Rolling Stones came back to close that evening’s show with their hit, “Time Is on My Side.” Once again, Mick Jagger had to sing over the shrieks of the raucous and unruly crowd. The performance put Jagger’s charisma on full display.

Although The Rolling Stone’s first performance on The Ed Sullivan Show was great for the band’s popularity as well as for CBS’s ratings, Sullivan was reticent to book them again. Following The Stones’ first performance, Ed supposedly declared, “I promise you they’ll never be back on our show. It took me 17 years to build this show and I’m not going to have it destroyed in a matter of weeks.” He had had enough of how worked up the crowds had become, and he thought the band was unkempt. When the Stones’ manager tried to change Sullivan’s mind he was sent a response from Ed reading, “We were deluged with mail protesting the untidy appearance—clothes and hair of your Rolling Stones. Before even discussing the possibility of a contract, I would like to learn from you, whether your young men have reformed in the matter of dress and shampoo.” Whatever was said in response to that note worked as The Rolling Stones were back on The Ed Sullivan Show stage several months later. All in all, The Rolling Stones went on to make 6 appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Buddy Holly

Buddy Holly and The Crickets first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show on December 1st, 1957, fresh off the release of their debut album. The band consisted of Niki Sullivan (rhythm guitar), Joe Mauldin (stand-up bass), Jerry Allison (drums), and Buddy (lead guitar and vocals). They all wore bow-ties and sport coats, and Buddy wore his trademark horn-rimmed glasses. The foursome played “That’ll be the Day,” the first single off their album. Buddy was hard not to like, with his goofy charisma, innovative vocal style, and a very catchy tune. The result was pure gold: the track would reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 soon after their performance on the show.

That night they also played “Peggy Sue”, a song named for Jerry Allison’s girlfriend and future wife. That song shot up the charts to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Holly’s tireless dedication in the studio led to the Crickets returning to Sullivan less than two months later, on January 26, 1958. A relaxed Holly let fly with “Oh, Boy!”, another single off The Chirpin’ Crickets, a catchy tune that subsequently reached #10 on the Billboard Hot 100.

On February 3, 1959, almost exactly a year after his last appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, Buddy Holly’s plane crashed over Iowa. Only 22 years old, he was killed along with Ritchie Valens and “The Big Bopper.” Don McLean called it “The Day the Music Died” in his song “American Pie,” showing just how much Buddy meant to music.

Herman’s Hermits

The quintet from Manchester, England was made up of Peter Noone, Derek Leckenby, Keith Hopwood, Karl Green and Barry Whitwam. The group’s sound was styled similarly to the America surf rock they enjoyed listening to. Lead vocalist Peter Noone, who was only 15 years old when the group got together, took the nickname “Herman” after the character Sherman in the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons. Following their first hugely successful 1964 release in the UK “I’m Into Something Good,” the young, clean-cut group went on to play a pivotal role in British Invasion.

After their song “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” reached number one on the U.S. Billboard charts in the summer of 1965, Herman’s Hermits was set to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show. Noone recalls “They played us because we were British. But Ed Sullivan liked Herman’s Hermits which was very good for us. And he gave us great introductions, but he always got everybody’s name in the band wrong.”

On June 6th 1965, Hermania, a younger rival to Beatlemania, infected The Ed Sullivan Show. It was evident in the screams of the studio audience as Ed Sullivan introduced the group. Herman’s Hermits opened with their hit, “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” on a set that resembled an English street. Throughout the song a young, innocent looking Peter Noone made coy facial expressions and shot playful glances to the crowd. It was clear he knew what he was doing as he later stated, “On stage I make myself look as young as possible and then all the girls in the audience go ‘aahh, isn’t he nice’.” Noone got the desired effect as teenage girls screamed throughout the whole performance.

The band followed with the British music hall song “I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am,” and Sam Cooke’s “Wonderful World.” During the performance of “I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am,” Peter really exaggerated his Manchester accent for the American audience. Following that evening’s performance, the song really took off and by August it was number one.

Herman’s Hermits returned to The Ed Sullivan Show on June 19, 1966. During the commercial break before they took the stage, the teenage girls in the audience were screaming and getting all worked up. Ed jokingly remarked, “Oh to be young.” After the break, the boys, with matching suits and shaggy hairdos, performed “Isn’t That Just a Little Bit Better” and “Jezebel.” Peter Noone picked up right where he left off with his charming smirks and waves to the crowd. At the end of the second song, the lights cut out and there was a collective groan from the audience who had hoped the band would do one more song.

Herman’s Hermits returned to The Ed Sullivan Show one last time on September 18, 1966. They took the stage with each member dressed in different colored pinstripe suit. The suits worked perfectly with the bright and colorful set, which looked like something straight out of Swinging London. The band opened with their newest hit “Dandy,” with an upbeat Peter walking around the stage singing a few lines with each band mate. Then the lights faded out for “L’Autre Jour”, which Noone sang in French and English. Herman’s Hermits closed out their final Sullivan show with “My Reservation’s Been Confirmed” before taking a bow to the screams of their adoring fans.

The Doors

The Doors were notorious for their appearance on the show. CBS network censors demanded that lead singer Jim Morrison change the lyrics to their hit single “Light My Fire” by altering the line, “Girl, we couldn’t get much higher”, before the band performed the song live on September 17, 1967. However, Morrison sang the original line, and on live television with no delay, CBS was powerless to stop it.

They were never invited back to the show. According to Ray Manzarek, the band was told, “Mr. Sullivan liked you boys. He wanted you on six more times. … You’ll never do the Sullivan show again.” Morrison replied with glee, “Hey man, we just did the Sullivan show.” —at the time, an appearance was a hallmark of success. Manzarek has given differing accounts of what happened. He has said that the band only pretended to agree to change the line but also that Morrison was nervous and simply forgot to change the line. The performance and incident was re-enacted in the 1991 biographical film, The Doors.

The Four Seasons

The group, made up of Frankie Valli (vocals), Bob Gaudio (keyboard/vocals), Tommy DeVito (lead guitar/vocals), and Nick Massi (bass guitar/vocals), is the most successful white doo-wop group of all time. Selling over 175 million records worldwide, they recorded 5 Number Ones, 10 Top Ten and 15 Top 40 pop hits.

Originally known as The Four Lovers, the group landed their first major record deal with Vee Jay Records, a predominantly black record label. They had a minor hit with Otis Blackwell’s “Apple of my Eye”, which they performed on one of their two appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956.

In 1959, the group changed their name to The 4 Seasons, after a New Jersey bowling alley where they had failed an audition. Their luck began to change when they met lyricist and producer Bob Crewe. He and Gaudio started writing songs together, and they never looked back. In 1962, The 4 Seasons released their first album “Sherry & 11 Others”.

With their first number one “Sherry,” The 4 Seasons proved they were not just a one-hit wonder by turning out “Big Girls Don’t Cry”— the song they performed on The Ed Sullivan Show on December 9th, 1962.

America instantly fell for Frankie Valli’s falsetto voice and the loveable boys from New Jersey.

“Big Girls Don’t Cry” skyrocketed to Number One and remained there for fourteen weeks. Following that success, they released “Walk Like a Man” just three months later.

This song was Number One for twelve weeks. The 4 Seasons, along with The Beach Boys, were one of the few American acts to withstand the British invasion that occurred in the 1960s when The Beatles crossed the pond.

They even managed to make the UK Top 40 charts nine times. As an established group, The 4 Seasons returned to The Ed Sullivan Show two additional times in 1966, performing “Let’s Hang On”, “Don’t Think Twice” and “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”.

Creedence Clearwater Revival

John Fogerty (guitar), Doug Clifford (drums) and Stu Cook (bass) all grew up together in El Cerrito, California and began playing music together while in junior high school. The three boys started out as an instrumental cover band and later, in the early 1960’s, joined up with John’s brother Tom (rhythm guitar, vocals) to play live shows around town. Signed to Fantasy Records, they released seven unsuccessful singles under the name of The Golliwogs. In 1967, they released their first single as Creedence Clearwater Revival, and things began to happen.

According to the band, the name Creedence Clearwater Revival was derived from Tom’s friend Creedence, a commercial for Olympia beer evoking the word “clear water” and the group’s revival after a two year layoff when John and Doug were called to military duty by the draft board in 1966. With this renewed commitment to making music, Creedence Clearwater Revival released their self-titled debut album in 1968. By this time, John was guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer. Inspired by artists such as Muddy Waters, Hank Williams, Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley, the album’s sound spoke to the group’s working class origins. The LP with was well received and the single, a remake of Dale Hawkins 1956 song, “Suzie Q” reached #11 on the Top 40 charts nationally.

With the group’s early success, Creedence Clearwater Revival hit the road to perform live shows throughout the country while also working on a follow-up album. These shows included music festivals, most famously Woodstock where they appeared with artists Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Santana Santana and The Who. Along with all these shows and as with any artist looking for national exposure, the band made sure to book themselves on The Ed Sullivan Show.

The group‘s first appearance was on March 9, 1969. While introducing Creedence Clearwater Revival, Ed Sullivan spoke to the group’s early success stating, “All the youngsters…have been asking for this group.” Having released their second album, Bayou Country, earlier that year the group opened with their hit single “Proud Mary,” a song about a Mississippi steamboat. John Fogerty actually started writing the song the morning he was discharged from the U.S Army. The hit was #2 on the Billboard charts and would later be covered by Ike and Tina Turner, as well as Elvis Presley.

The band followed that song up with a rousing version of Little Richard’s “Good Golly Miss Molly” full of blistering guitar solos and Fogerty’s howling of the title line. With Fogerty’s twang, drummer Doug Clifford’s pink cowboy shirt and the band’s swamp rock sound, it felt like the group was straight out of Louisiana as opposed to Northern California. Following the two songs the group went up to shake Ed Sullivan’s hand and wave to the crowd. Always known for mispronouncing or forgetting names, Sullivan stuttered on John Fogerty’s name as the band walked offstage.

Sullivan wouldn’t have any problems pronouncing the band’s name when Creedence Clearwater Revival returned to The Ed Sullivan Show on November 16, 1969. That evening, the band performed two songs, “Fortunate Son” and “Down on the Corner,” off their newest album Willy and the Poor Boys. The performance of “Fortunate Son,” a song inspired by the draft for the Vietnam War and the providential lives of privileged children like David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon, was a sharp and poignant statement about the social and political climate of the past decade. The set, a rickety red wooden stage that looked like it had been pulled out of the Louisiana Bayou, was perfectly fitting for the band from working class origins. Following “Fortunate Son,” there was a paradoxical shift in mood as the band transitioned right into the rollicking good-time song “Down on the Corner.” While evoking strikingly different feelings, both songs had a great look and sound that night.

Ed Sullivan

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Best Songs of the 60s Pt-3

Meagan Paese — Sat, 21 Jan 2017 15:21:49 +0000

Best Songs of the 60s (Pt 1) | Best Songs of the 60s (Pt 2) | Best Songs of the 60s (Pt 3)

The Righteous Brothers: You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’

The Righteous Brothers: You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ is a song written by Phil Spector, Barry Mann, and Cynthia Weil. It was first recorded by the Righteous Brothers in 1964, and was produced by Phil Spector. Their recording is considered by some music critics to be the ultimate expression and illustration of Spector’s “Wall of Sound” recording technique.[3] It has also been described by various music writers as “one of the best records ever made” and “the ultimate pop record”.

The original Righteous Brothers version was a critical and commercial success on its release, becoming a number-one hit single in both the United States and the United Kingdom in February 1965. It was the fifth best selling song of 1965 in the US. It also entered the Top 10 in the UK chart on an unprecedented three separate occasions

The Lefte Banke: Walk Away Renee

The Lefte Banke: Walk Away Renee is a song written by Michael Brown, Bob Calilli, and Tony Sansone for the band the Left Banke, released as a single in July 1966. Steve Martin Caro is featured on lead vocals. After its initial release, it spent 13 weeks on the US charts, with a top spot of number 5.

The song features an oboe solo played during the instrumental bridge of the middle portion of the song. Brown got the idea from the flute solo from the Mamas & the Papas song “California Dreamin'” which had been recorded in November 1965 but wasn’t a hit and in heavy rotation until early 1966.

The arrangement also includes a lush string orchestration, a jangling harpsichord part, and a descending chromatic bass melody. Its production was credited to World United Productions, Inc., but the session was produced by Brown’s father, jazz and classical violinist Harry Lookofsky, who also led the string players

Cream: Sunshine of Your Love

Cream: Sunshine of Your Love is a 1967 song by the British rock band Cream. With elements of hard rock, psychedelia, and pop, it is one of Cream’s best-known and most popular songs. Cream bassist and vocalist Jack Bruce based it on a distinctive bass riff or repeated musical phrase he developed after attending a Jimi Hendrix concert. Guitarist Eric Clapton and lyricist Pete Brown later contributed to the song. Recording engineer Tom Dowd suggested the rhythm arrangement in which drummer Ginger Baker plays a distinctive tom-tom drum rhythm, although Baker has claimed it was his idea.

The song was included on Cream’s second album Disraeli Gears in November 1967, which was a best seller. Atco Records, the group’s American label, was initially unsure of the song’s potential. After recommendations by other label-affiliated artists, it released an edited single version in January 1968.[a] The song became Cream’s first and highest-charting American single and one of the most popular singles of 1968. In September 1968, it became a modest chart hit after being released in the UK.

Cream performed “Sunshine of Your Love” regularly in concert and several live recordings have been issued, including on the Royal Albert Hall London May 2-3-5-6, 2005 reunion album and video. Hendrix performed faster instrumental versions of the song, which he often dedicated to Cream. Several rock journals have placed the song on their greatest song lists, such as Rolling Stone, Q magazine, and VH1. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included it on its list of the “500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll”.

Janis Joplin/Big Brother and the Holding Company

Janis Joplin/Big Brother and the Holding Company The song became a bigger pop hit when recorded by Big Brother and the Holding Company in 1968, with lead singer Janis Joplin. The song was taken from the group’s album Cheap Thrills, recorded in 1968 and released on Columbia Records.

This rendition made it to number twelve on the U.S. pop chart. The song’s instrumentation was arranged by Sam Andrew, who also performed three distorted, loud guitar solos giving the song a psychedelic touch.
Franklin said in an interview that when she first heard Joplin’s version on the radio, she didn’t recognize it because of the vocal arrangement.

Noted cultural writer Ellen Willis wrote of the difference: “When Franklin sings it, it is a challenge: no matter what you do to me, I will not let you destroy my ability to be human, to love. Joplin seems rather to be saying, surely if I keep taking this, if I keep setting an example of love and forgiveness, surely he has to understand, change, give me back what I have given”. In such a way, Joplin used blues conventions not to transcend pain, but “to scream it out of existence

The Association: Never My Love

The Association: Never My Love is a pop standard written by American siblings Donald and Richard Addrisi and best known from a hit 1967 recording by The Association. The Addrisi Brothers had two Top 40 hits as recording artists, but their biggest success was as the songwriters of “Never My Love”. Recorded by dozens of notable artists in the decades since, in late 1999 the Publishing Rights Organization Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) announced it was the second most-played song on radio and television of the 20th century.

The first recording of “Never My Love” to achieve success was by The Association, an American pop rock band from California. Their version of the song, recorded with members of The Wrecking Crew peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and hit number one on the Cashbox charts in October 1967, one of the band’s five top-ten hits in the late 1960s. Their third #1 on the Cashbox Top 100 Singles Chart, following “Cherish” (1966) and “Windy” (1967), it was featured on the band’s album Insight Out (1967). The song also reached number one in Canada’s RPM charts.

By the time The Association’s record was certified Gold by the RIAA for one million copies sold as of December 1967, Billboard noted that sixteen artists had recorded the song. Their third number one single had made them a top concert act and highly in demand by the TV variety series, specials, and talk shows that were a predominant format at the time, and they performed the hit on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Andy Williams Show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, The Hollywood Palace, The Dean Martin Show, Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, Hullabaloo, Shindig!, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Dick Cavett Show, The Joey Bishop Show, The Steve Allen Show, and a Carol Channing special.

Neil Diamond: Sweet Caroline

Neil Diamond: Sweet Caroline is a song written and performed by American recording artist Neil Diamond and officially released on September 16, 1969, as a single with the title “Sweet Caroline (Good Times Never Seemed So Good)”. It was arranged by Charles Calello,[3] and recorded at American Sound Studio in Memphis, Tennessee.

The song reached #4 on the Billboard chart and eventually went platinum for sales of one million singles. In the autumn of 1969, Diamond performed “Sweet Caroline” on several television shows. It later reached #8 on the UK singles chart in 1971.

In a 2007 interview, Diamond stated the inspiration for his song was John F. Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline, who was eleven years old at the time it was released. Diamond sang the song to her at her 50th birthday celebration in 2007. On December 21, 2011, in an interview on CBS’s The Early Show, Diamond said that a magazine cover photo of Caroline Kennedy as a young child on a horse with her parents in the background created an image in his mind, and the rest of the song came together about five years after seeing the picture. However, in 2014 Diamond said the song was about his then-wife Marsha, but he needed a three-syllable name to fit the melody

Creedence Clearwater Revival: Proud Mary

Creedence Clearwater Revival: Proud Mary is a rock song written by John Fogerty and first recorded by his band Creedence Clearwater Revival. The song was released by Fantasy Records as a single from the band’s second studio album, Bayou Country, which was released by the same record company in January 1969.

The single is generally considered to have been released in early January 1969 although at least one source states that it came out just before Christmas 1968. The song became a major hit in the United States, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1969, the first of five non-consecutive singles to peak at #2 for the group

The Animals: The House of the Rising

The Animals: The House of the Rising is a traditional folk song, sometimes called “Rising Sun Blues”. It tells of a life gone wrong in New Orleans; many versions also urge a sibling to avoid the same fate. The most successful commercial version, recorded in 1964 by the British rock group the Animals, was a number one hit on the UK Singles Chart and also in the United States and France. As a traditional folk song recorded by an electric rock band, it has been described as the “first folk-rock hit”.[ An interview with Eric Burdon revealed that he first heard the song in a club in Newcastle, England, where it was sung by the Northumbrian folk singer Johnny Handle. The Animals were on tour with Chuck Berry and chose it because they wanted something distinctive to sing. The band enjoyed a huge hit with the song, much to Dylan’s chagrin when his version was referred to as a cover. The irony of this was not lost on Dave Van Ronk, who said the whole issue was a “tempest in a teapot.” He also claimed that this version was based on his arrangement of the song. Dylan stopped playing the song after the Animals’ recording became a hit, because fans accused him of plagiarism. Dylan has said he first heard the Animals’ version on his car radio and “jumped out of his car seat” because he liked it so much.

The Animals’ version transposes the narrative of the song from the point of view of a woman led into a life of degradation to that of a man whose father was now a gambler and drunkard, rather than the sweetheart in earlier versions.

The Animals had begun featuring their arrangement of “House of the Rising Sun” during a joint concert tour with Chuck Berry, using it as their closing number to differentiate themselves from acts that always closed with straight rockers. It got a tremendous reaction from the audience, convincing initially reluctant producer Mickie Most that it had hit potential, and between tour stops the group went to a small recording studio on Kingsway in London to capture it.

Recording and release

The song was recorded in just one take on 18 May 1964, and it starts with a now-famous electric guitar A minor chord arpeggio by Hilton Valentine. According to Valentine, he simply took Dylan’s chord sequence and played it as an arpeggio. The performance takes off with Burdon’s lead vocal, which has been variously described as “howling,” “soulful,” and as “…deep and gravelly as the north-east English coal town of Newcastle that spawned him.” Finally, Alan Price’s pulsating organ part (played on a Vox Continental) completes the sound. Burdon later said, “We were looking for a song that would grab people’s attention.”

As recorded, “House of the Rising Sun” ran four and a half minutes, regarded as far too long for a pop single at the time.[16] Producer Most, who initially did not really want to record the song at all, said that on this occasion – “Everything was in the right place … It only took 15 minutes to make so I can’t take much credit for the production” – nonetheless was now a believer and declared it a single at its full length, saying “We’re in a microgroove world now, we will release it.”

In the United States however, the original single (MGM 13264) was a 2:58 version. The MGM Golden Circle reissue (KGC 179) featured the unedited 4:29 version, although the record label gives the edited playing time of 2:58. The edited version was included on the group’s 1964 U.S. debut album The Animals, while the full version was later included on their best-selling 1966 U.S. greatest hits album, The Best of the Animals. However, the very first American release of the full-length version was on a 1965 album of various groups entitled Mickie Most Presents British Go-Go (MGM SE-4306), the cover of which, under the listing of “House of the Rising Sun”, described it as the “Original uncut version.” Americans could also hear the complete version in the movie Go Go Mania in the spring of 1965.

“House of the Rising Sun” was not included on any of the group’s British albums, but it was reissued as a single twice in subsequent decades, charting both times, reaching number 25 in 1972 and number 11 in 1982.

The Animals version was played in 6/8 meter, unlike the 4/4 of most earlier versions. Arranging credit went only to Alan Price. According to Burdon, this was simply because there was insufficient room to name all five band members on the record label, and Alan Price’s first name was first alphabetically. However, this meant that only Price received songwriter’s royalties for the hit, a fact that has caused bitterness ever since, especially with Valentine.

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