Saturday, September 10, 2022

PHIL NEE - September 10th

Today from the radio archives, I going back to 2014 for portions of an interview I did with the legendary Trini Lopez.  
He was born May 15th, 1937, and he left us August 11th, 2020.  
He was a dynamic entertainer and many of his early records were live performances. 
During our airtime together, Trini talked about the start of his career.

 

A documentary on the career of Trini Lopez was released in April of this year.  It is called "My Name Is Lopez."  
Signing with Reprise Records changed his life.  In 1963, he had his biggest Top 40 Hit when 'If I Had A Hammer' made it to number 3 in Billboard.

 

Trini Lopez recorded a "comeback" album of sorts, probably right around the time you talked to him, Phil.

It was produced by Ron Dante, the voice of The Archies and a long-time Friend of Forgotten Hits. (In fact, they even recut The Archies' #1 Hit "Sugar, Sugar" ... IN SPANISH!!!)

Trini seems like a genuinely nice guy.  (I never had the opportunity to talk to him ... but he always seemed very appreciative of his success ... and loved his fans as much as they loved him.)  kk

Be sure to listen to Phil Nee's THOSE WERE THE DAYS radio program tonight … and EVERY Satuarday Night on WRCO ... 6 pm – Midnight (Central):

WRCO AM FM Radio Richland Center Wisconsin

Just click on the 100.9 headphones and start streaming!

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

REVOLVER WEDNESDAY

In just about the worst-kept secret ever, Apple Records is expected to OFFICIALLY announce the release of The Beatles’ “Revolver” box set a couple of hours from now.

Track lists were already circulating yesterday (and once again fans seemed disappointed by the lack of “new” material the box will contain.)  The Beatles Anthology series featured seven tracks from their landmark LP (and the CD single of “Real Love” offered up a couple more.)  What else might this new release reveal from the vaults that hasn't already been circulating on bootlegs for decades now?

Rumors of an October 28th release date and a price point of $139 (pretty steep for a 4-CD box set ... especially when TWO of those discs are simply the new Giles Martin mono and stereo remixes of the original LP!) were also making the rounds.

And since I won’t be here two hours from now to be able to post the official release notice when it arrives, I’ll offer up this link instead, provided early yesterday morning by Clark Besch.

http://webgrafikk.com/blog/news/revolver-lewisohns-notes/

(It also gives some detailed recording sessions background from Mark Lewisohn … as well as a cropped off picture of Ringo holding the brand new box.)


From Clark …

I have to admit it's getting better all the time!

Here’s a listing of the bonus tracks on the new Revolver CD set coming out October 28th, and if you scroll down Ringo is holding a copy of the new release confirming this tracklist:

http://webgrafikk.com/blog/news/revolver-lewisohns-notes/

Judging by comments below the story, Beatles fans are not happy with the lack of "Something New" (???)

Clark

By the time I get home tonight, the story will have been circulated everywhere ... and depending on just what time that is, I may post additional news and commentary in this regard ...

But for now, just know that it's coming ... and start saving your pennies and dimes!!!  (kk) 

[Purely by coincidence, I received my signed copy of Bruce Spizer's new "From Rubber Soul to Revolver" book in the mail yesterday ... so this will make for the perfect companion piece to enjoy as I await the official release of the new box set!]

UPDATE:  9/8 - They're actually calling the "Deluxe Edition" a 5-CD set as a fifth disc (being billed as an "EP") will also be included, featuring new or "cleaned-up mixes of the single The Beatles released during this era ... "Paperback Writer" and "Rain," in both mono and stereo mixes.  (Both of these tracks are shown in "working stages" on the two "Sessions" discs included in the box.)

As has become the norm for releases like these, several different configurations will be available come October 28th.  (The deluxe box set also comes with a 100-page hard-cover book.)

The best coverage I saw yesterday came from Second Hand Disc, so that's the link we'll provide today for you to investigate.

I'll try to have more on this topic, too, as time permits.

Tuesday, September 6, 2022

Tuesday This And That

WINNERS AND LOSERS:

The Peter Jackson / Beatles “Get Back” documentary won FIVE Emmys this past weekend!

Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series award (an award shared by Peter Jackson, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, Harrison, Clare Olssen and Jonathan Clyde.) Jackson also won the Outstanding Directing for a Documentary or Nonfiction Program Award, while the production won for picture editing, sound editing and sound mixing.  (Pretty impressive indeed!  Maybe now Disney+ and/or Apple will consider releasing an additional 5-6 hours of unused footage???)   

Jackson used the opportunity to again let it be known that he is hoping to work with The Beatles on another project “NOTHING like ‘Get Back’ … and not a documentary” … so time will tell how that all works out.)  kk

Spencer Elden lost his lawsuit (again!) in the Nirvana album “child pornography” case on the “Nevermind” cover dispute (where a four month old Elden was pictured naked), ultimately because the statutes of limitations had already expired on this.  (As covered here previously, Elden “cashed in” on this publicity other times in his career, even posing naked for a “tribute” cover in his 20’s … so the whole concept has been ludicrous from the beginning … but hopefully this puts an end to this ridiculous waste of time once and for all.  (kk)

THIS AND THAT:

McCartney also made headlines this weekend when he showed up to perform at the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert … performing a duet with Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders on “Oh! Darling” and then soloing (along with a little bit of help from Dave Grohl) on “Helter Skelter.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxtP2ycGvyQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3Z30HZM-Hg

If nothing else, it offers proof once again that McCartney should have hung it up years ago as a vocalist!  (kk)

Yesterday we shared a 1972 chart from Louisville, Kentucky …

And over the weekend Best Classic Bands ran a recap of KHJ’s biggest hits in LA for this same week

https://bestclassicbands.com/radio-hits-september-1972-9-4-15/

A quick comparison shows only THREE songs common to both Top Tens:  “Honky Cat” (#4 KY / #5 LA), “Alone Again (Naturally)” #5 KY / #4 LA and “Black And White” (#7 KY / #1 LA)

Two of LA’s Top Ten Hits are still on WAKY’s “Hitbound” list (“You’re Still A Young Man” and “Nights In White Satin”) while LA’s #3 Hit, “Play Me” by Neil Diamond only registers at #19 (and climbing) in Louisville … and Daniel Boone’s “Beautiful Sunday,” a #6 hit in LA, has fallen from #18 to #25 this week on WAKY.  (Just shows you again how “consistency” can great impact the overall success of any given record on the national charts.  (kk)

Kent-

As always, Forgotten Hits has jogged up some memories and filled in quite a few gaps in my music library. In regard to the Jerry Wallace song that charted 50 years ago, it gained traction by being prominently featured in a Night Gallery segment called "The Tune in Dan's Cafe".  It turned out to be his first (and only) Number One song on the Country charts (his biggest Pop hit, "Primrose Lane", made it up to #8 on Billboard).  I thought I'd share this bit to trivia with you.

Sincerely,

Todd W. Zimmerman

P.S.  I haven't seen anything about this on FH, but I received word that David Muse of Firefall passed away last month. 

Here is the link: https://ultimateclassicrock.com/david-muse-firefall-dead/

I think we may have overlooked the David Muse story because he wasn’t an original member of the band … but he did, in fact, play on the majority of Firefall’s hits, so I apologize for the oversight.

We have seen Firefall three times now and each and every time they have stolen the show from that night’s headliner.  GREAT band in concert.  (kk)

WOW!

We heard a nice selection of Wow! songs this weekend …

“Don’t Let Go” by Roy Hamilton on Sirius XM’s ‘50’s Gold Channel

“I Know A Heartache When I See One” by Jennifer Warnes on Sam Tallerico’s “Lost And Found Oldies Show”

“Who Do You Think You Are” by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods on Me-TV-FM

“She” by Tommy James and the Shondells … “Another Instant Request” on Rewound Radio

And, as part of Rewound Radio’s WLS / WCFL Weekend:

“Mississippi”* by John Phillips (heard that one three times!); “The Lord’s Prayer”* by Sister Janet Mead; “Wake Up, Wake Up” by The Grass Roots (not sure I’ve ever heard that one before … but Dick Biondi played it as “brand new” in 1967 … and then I heard it again on Dick Williamson’s program), “You Know What I Mean”* by The Turtles (one of my favorites by them … and one of Howard Kaylan’s LEAST favorites … also played twice on ‘CFL); "Westbound #9"* by Flaming Ember,“I Love” by Tom T. Hall (when’s the last time you heard THIS one?!?!); "Somebody's Been Sleeping"* by 100 Proof Aged In Soul, "I've Got The Music In Me"* by Kiki Dee, “The Americans” by Byron MacGregor; “In The Mood” by Bette Midler; “Play Me” by Neil Diamond (not sure I really needed to hear this one FIVE TIMES!!!), "A Song Of Joy"* by Miguel Rios, "Amazing Grace"* by The Royal Scot Dragoon Guards, "Tubular Bells" by Mike Oldfield, "Teenage Lament '74" by Alice Cooper (when's the last time you heard THAT one?!?!), "American City Suite"* by Cashman and West, “Thunder And Lightning”* by Chi Coltrane, “Simone”* by Henry Gross (Man, I LOVE this song … a hit on ‘CFL only), “Virginia”* by Bill Amesbury (another ‘CFL-only hit), "Stay Awhile"* by The Bells, “Jambalaya”* by The Blue Ridge Rangers (John Fogerty), “This Song”* by George Harrison (SO good to hear the single version again – which is virtually impossible to get these days!), "That's Where I Went Wrong"* by The Poppy Family, "Why" by Donny Osmond, "Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues""* by Danny O'Keefe, “Baby Let Me Take You”* by The Detroit Emeralds (one of my “go to” songs … and recently used in a television commercial, too!!!), "Suavecito" by Malo (which just happened to be my pick for #1 Favorite Song from 1972 on Phil Nee's "Those Were The Days" radio program) as well as "Crazy Mama"* by J.J. Cale, my #2 pick!, “Love Me For A Reason”* by The Osmonds, "I Can Feel You"* by The Addrisi Brothers, Frijid Pink's version of "House Of The Rising Sun"*,  ... and about 20-30 others that I wasn't able to write down and have already forgotten!!!

NOTE:  * - songs previously featured in Forgotten Hits AS forgotten hits

So how was the Rewound WLS/WCFL salute?

It was a whole lotta fun to hear the pacing of Top 40 Radio again … some of these jocks were just so talented with their off-the-cuff commentary (the obvious ones shone head and shoulders above the others.  A special tip of the hat to jocks like Larry Lujack, Fred Winston, Bob Sirott, Kris Erik Stevens and a few others for entertaining us then and proving to be just as entertaining NOW, all these years later.) 

For me, WLS won this “competition” hands down … but I attribute part of this to the fact that the program was so 1970’s-heavy.  When WCFL first showed up on the dial with the sole intent of giving WLS a run for the Top 40 money late in 1965, the competition was fierce.  Contests and prize giveaways ruled the airwaves … but the entertainment level provided by the on-air talent made us tune in to hear the jocks just as much as we did to hear the music.  (I can only guess that finding pristine air checks from the ‘60’s proved to be far more difficult than finding their 1970’s counterparts, as they were few and far between.  Unfortunately, the essence of the REAL difference between the two stations was reflected in those earlier years.  By the 1970's, they were essentially the same, especially once they started flip-flopping jocks from one station to the other ... and some more than once.)  The other downside to airing so many of these clips from the '70's was that was that several of those clips were from the exact same era, meaning quite a bit of song repetition spread throughout the weekend (not like song repetition wasn’t the very essence of Top 40 radio back then!!!)

Still, it would have been nice to hear guys like Ron Riley in ’64-’65 when he was Chicago’s biggest connection to The Beatles and The British Invasion and truly in his prime.  (Ron used to always play cuts by The Fab Four not yet available in the US yet … and his “British Billboard” countdown was always a favorite.  His Batman skits were fun to listen to, too … as were all the Chickenman episodes from WCFL ... and I don't think I ever heard a single one of those.)  A little more Art Roberts … at least SOMETHING by Jerry G. Bishop, always one of my favorites … here’s hoping that if they do attempt to put something together like this again, the focus can be on scouring the nation for more clips from the ‘60’s to help balance things out a little bit.

If WLS oozed personality (and they did), WCFL was a bit more avant garde in their approach to broadcasting with jocks like Ron Britain and Barney Pip, proving more of a “theater of the mind” concept to their shifts.  Jim Stagg had his fingers on the pulse of the music biz at the time and regularly had some of our favorite and most popular acts on the air.  And I found Dick and Doug (who I didn’t listen to at the time) to be extremely entertaining on these clips, especially when they teamed with Fred Winston after being escorted off the air for calling Fred (from WLS) the day before during their WCFL morning show!

Also lacking due to the limited ‘60’s air checks was the sheer volume of local talent being presented on the radio at the time on a regular basis.  While we did hear a song sprinkled in here and there from time to time over the weekend by The Buckinghams (“Susan”) and The Ides Of March (“Vehicle”), other big names like The New Colony Six and The Cryan’ Shames were noticeably missing.  (We even heard them play the Them version of “Gloria” instead of The Shadow Of Knight’s #1 Hit version from Chicago’s very own!  That was rectified later on when Jim Stagg featured it on Monday from a show where "Gloria" just happened to be the #1 Record in Chicago!)

The idea of rotating clips between the two stations meant that some of the ‘CFL jocks got more airplay than several of the more deserving WLS jocks, just to keep a balance in check.  With 150 hours to choose from, I think I would have gone for the strongest tracks rather than concentrating on “playing things fair” to the extent that they did.  At times, it made the program weaker in context, as many of the WCFL clips just didn't measure up to the standards being set across the river.

The biggest complaint that I heard from readers was the fact that there was no advance notice as to who might be on when … and that efforts to record portions of the program were often not successful, almost as if some type of “block” was in place to prevent this from happening.  I can only say that the “secrecy” of what would air when was intentional … the idea being for the listener to never know what might be happening next and keep tuned in with the anticipation of some element of surprise.  (I had a schedule and I STILL missed several programs that I wanted to hear because they aired in the middle of the night or while I was committed to doing something else.)  Let’s face it … NOBODY was going to be able to listen to all 66 hours … but the fact that I heard from many who DID devote 20-30 hours of their weekend to tuning in speaks volumes as to just how popular these jocks really were.  (I think I logged in about 36 hours myself!!!  lol)

It was an incredible feeling to get so many of the original jocks to participate by way of recording new promos and drop-ins for the big event.  I thank each and every one of you again for taking part and making this whole thing all that much more special.

I quite enjoyed the whole thing … it was GREAT to hear some of this stuff again … not just the “Wow!” songs … but the whole way radio was presented back then … all the jingles, the newscasts that always seemed to end with a humorous story (and there were some KEY news events covered during the course of the weekend), the original commercials and the way the jocks interacted with some of them … it was a fun listen.  (I would LOVE to see a radio station devoted to preserving and broadcasting these clips.I have said for years that WLS-AM, one of the most recognized “brands” in radio, should throw in the towel on their dismal talk radio ratings, dig into their own archives, and start rebroadcasting the wealth of quality, vintage programs that kept generations entertained for decades.  I’d be willing to bet you they could double their audience in 90 days once the word got out.  Lujack – Biondi – Landecker – Fred Winston – Tommy Edwards - Art Roberts – Ron Riley – Sirott – Chuck Buell – Kris Erik Stevens – Clark Weber – Jeff Davis – Yvonne Daniels – Brant Miller – Steve King – Dex Card – Joel Sebastian – all back on the air again, playing the music of our lives.  (kk)

Monday, September 5, 2022

1972 Coast-To-Coast Surveys ... September 6th ... KENTUCKY

 

Quite a few Soul Hits represented in this week's survey from The Blue Grass State ... 

Mel and Tim, The O'Jays, Joe Simon, Luther Ingram, Al Green, Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose, The Main Ingredient and The Isley Brothers all have hits in The Top 30.

But you'll also find a nice mix of British Artists (The Hollies and Elton John), vintage artists (Elvis Presley and Rick Nelson), some of the biggest pop acts of the '70's (Chicago, The Carpenters, Three Dog Night, Bread and The Raspberries) and a couple of very notable newcomers (Gilbert O'Sullivan, Looking Glass, Mac Davis, Uriah Heep and Argent)

So what the heck is Jerry Wallace doing right in the middle of all of this?!?!

He's got the #6 record this week (up from #10 the week before) with a tune called "If You Leave Me Tonight I'll Cry." 

I wasn't familiar with this one at all ... but see that it DID make The Top 40 in all three national trade publications ... #38 in Billboard, #39 in Cash Box and #40 in Record World ... (the record never charted here in Chicago) ... so I thought this might be a good place to start.  (I just listened to this song for the first time in my life ... and boy, it sure doesn't sound like a 1972 hit to me!!!)

Elvis' chart hit is the not-so-common "It's A Matter Of Time" ...  

This one didn't chart at all nationally (and was, in fact, the flipside of his big hit "Burning Love" ... so I'm not quite sure how this ended up being the side of the record that WAKY ended up playing ... my guess is they flipped the record over shortly afterwards!)

And you don't get to hear the Hit Bound tune "You're Still A Young Man" by Tower Of Power very often these days either ... so let's give that one a shot as well.  (kk)

Sunday, September 4, 2022