We set a personal goal to get SOMETHING up here by the 1st of August no matter what ... I wanted to kick off the new month with a new posting. Hopefully you'll find some of this interesting and entertaining!
Here goes ...
re: SATURDAY NIGHT:
WRCO Dee Jay Phil Nee will be rebroadcasting the Forgotten Hits "Walk Don't Run" Radio Special this Saturday Night (August 4th) ... six straight hours of songs that contain the word '"walk" or "run" in the title! (Yeah, we worked our butt off on this one!)
Unfortunately, WRCO still isn't streaming yet ... but if you happen to be in the Richland Center area of Wisconsin, I think you'll get a real kick out of this very special program. (Phil's done a few of our Forgotten Hits countdowns over the years ... and is first in line to broadcast the final results of our recent "Top 20 All-Time Favorite Garage Bands" poll ... hopefully coming soon to a Forgotten Hits Website near you!)
re: CLIP(S) OF THE WEEK:
re: CLIP(S) OF THE WEEK:
I just had to share these with you!
Here's an amazing clip of my favorite song of Summer, 2012 ... "Somebody That I Used To Know".
The Gotye / Kimbra version has already topped the charts for an incredible eight straight weeks ... and I believe it will remain one of the signatures tunes defining the year in music, 2012 ...
But last week FH Reader Clark Besch sent us a YouTube link to a NEW version of the song performed by a band called Walk Off The Earth. (They're actually playing here this weekend as part of Lollapalooza!)
What's most amazing about this is not only how well they do it ... but HOW they do it!!!
(Jeez ... I wonder how long it took them to get this timing down!!!)
5 Peeps ... 1 Guitar indeed!
Truth be told, we're a little bit late to the party on this one ... over 130 MILLION music fans out there have already viewed this clip so far ... not bad for a "non-hit" rendition ... but incredibly that's still less than HALF the number of folks who have treated themselves to the Gotye original!
Watching the Walk Off The Earth clip will also cause an excellent parody version to pop up ...
More "must see" viewing ...
The Key of Awesome do a GREAT knock-off with some very funny and clever lyrics ...
And, if you're not tired of the original yet, you'll find a link to THAT version here, too:
Click here: Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know (feat. Kimbra) - official video - YouTube
re: THE ARCHIVES:
re: THE ARCHIVES:
We're trying to rebuild The Forgotten Hits Archives ... and readers have responded in kind. Special thanks to J.D. Stone (Doc Rock), a Forgotten Hits Reader since 2001, who sent in over 1100 vintage articles from those early years, 2001 - 2005 ... amazing stuff we haven't seen in ages and figured was both long forgotten and lost forever.
I think as I start to sort thru and organize some of this stuff, we'll feature tidbits here and there from the past ... all of these date back to when Forgotten Hits was only available as an emailed newsletter (coming from The60sShop) ... the pre-website days ... which means the majority of this stuff has never been posted to the site for mass viewing.
Speaking of which ... if it WAS on the site, it's still there ... there is no reason to send me links to the website postings ... everything is still up for viewing. What we're looking for is the vintage stuff ... 1999 - 2001 (nearly impossible to find) and 2001 - 2008.
If you happen to have ANY of these old emails saved in YOUR archives, we'd love to hear from you. Just drop me a line at forgottenhits@aol.com. Thanks!
Vintage archived articles will run as part of our on-going '60's FLASHBACK Series.
Here's one from July 24, 2005:
We had just run a week-long series on The Rip Chords (yes, we'll rerun that one, too, at some point ... but it needs some serious updating!), tying into the Bruce Johnston / Terry Melcher connection ... and wrapped things up with a special salute to Terry's Mother, Doris Day.
You're probably not going to see or hear much from Doris in any OTHER oldies music forum ... but in addition to being America's Sweetheart, she also had a pretty successful recording career. (Oh yeah ... and she made a few movies, too!)
So today ... from The Forgotten Hits Archives ... DORIS DAY!
'60's FLASHBACK:
I think as I start to sort thru and organize some of this stuff, we'll feature tidbits here and there from the past ... all of these date back to when Forgotten Hits was only available as an emailed newsletter (coming from The60sShop) ... the pre-website days ... which means the majority of this stuff has never been posted to the site for mass viewing.
Speaking of which ... if it WAS on the site, it's still there ... there is no reason to send me links to the website postings ... everything is still up for viewing. What we're looking for is the vintage stuff ... 1999 - 2001 (nearly impossible to find) and 2001 - 2008.
If you happen to have ANY of these old emails saved in YOUR archives, we'd love to hear from you. Just drop me a line at forgottenhits@aol.com. Thanks!
Vintage archived articles will run as part of our on-going '60's FLASHBACK Series.
Here's one from July 24, 2005:
We had just run a week-long series on The Rip Chords (yes, we'll rerun that one, too, at some point ... but it needs some serious updating!), tying into the Bruce Johnston / Terry Melcher connection ... and wrapped things up with a special salute to Terry's Mother, Doris Day.
You're probably not going to see or hear much from Doris in any OTHER oldies music forum ... but in addition to being America's Sweetheart, she also had a pretty successful recording career. (Oh yeah ... and she made a few movies, too!)
So today ... from The Forgotten Hits Archives ... DORIS DAY!
'60's FLASHBACK:
Before the music charts were driven by the latest sounds in rock-and-roll, Doris Day was hitting Billboard's Pop Vocal Charts, in a recording career that dates back to the early 1940's. (Incredibly, some of her mid-1950's recordings also competed side-by-side with those rock-and-roll hits of the day!)
Doris was born on April 3, 1922, in a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, as Doris Mary Ann Von Kappelhoff.
As a big band singer (first with Bob Crosby ... Der Bingle's kid brother ... and then, more famously, with Les Brown), she was already hitting the pop charts as a "featured vocalist" prior to pursuing a solo career. (Day's vocals graced the chart-toppers SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY and MY DREAMS ARE GETTING BETTER ALL THE TIME in 1945. Incredibly, she was only 17 years old when she first started singing with Les Brown's band!!!)
In 1948, she had her first official "solo" hit. ("Love Somebody" reached #6 on Billboard's Best Sellers Chart and went all the way to #1 according to their Disc Jockey Chart tabulation.) In all, she would hit Billboard's Pop Charts nearly 50 more times, scoring Top Ten Hits like IT'S MAGIC (#2, 1948); MY DARLING, MY DARLING (#7, 1949); BEWITCHED (#10, 1950); SHANGHAI (#9, 1951); A GUY IS A GUY (#4, 1952); SUGARBUSH (recorded with FRANKIE LAINE, #10 in 1952); IF I GIVE MY HEART TO YOU (#4, 1954); and her two most famous hits, SECRET LOVE (#1 in 1954) and QUE SERA, SERA - WHATEVER WILL BE, WILL BE (#2, 1956). But my PERSONAL favorite (and today's featured FORGOTTEN HIT) is EVERYBODY LOVES A LOVER, a #14 Billboard Hit (#6 in Cash Box) from 1958.
In 1948, she had her first official "solo" hit. ("Love Somebody" reached #6 on Billboard's Best Sellers Chart and went all the way to #1 according to their Disc Jockey Chart tabulation.) In all, she would hit Billboard's Pop Charts nearly 50 more times, scoring Top Ten Hits like IT'S MAGIC (#2, 1948); MY DARLING, MY DARLING (#7, 1949); BEWITCHED (#10, 1950); SHANGHAI (#9, 1951); A GUY IS A GUY (#4, 1952); SUGARBUSH (recorded with FRANKIE LAINE, #10 in 1952); IF I GIVE MY HEART TO YOU (#4, 1954); and her two most famous hits, SECRET LOVE (#1 in 1954) and QUE SERA, SERA - WHATEVER WILL BE, WILL BE (#2, 1956). But my PERSONAL favorite (and today's featured FORGOTTEN HIT) is EVERYBODY LOVES A LOVER, a #14 Billboard Hit (#6 in Cash Box) from 1958.
I love the whole counter-melody thing going on in this feel-good song ... I dunno, it makes me feel JUST like Pollyanna every time I listen to it!!! (And I'll tell you what ... this song would STILL sound good coming out of your radio every once in a while as one of those unexpected "Wow" factor songs!)
BTW: Along the way in her lengthy, successful career, Doris Day made a few movies, too ... probably most-famously with leading man Rock Hudson. Her film credits include motion pictures like LOVER COME BACK (1946); YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN (1950); THE WEST POINT STORY (1950); ON MOONLIGHT BAY (1951); APRIL IN PARIS (1952); CALAMITY JANE (1953); THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956); THE PAJAMA GAME (1957); TEACHER'S PET (1957); PILLOW TALK (1959); PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISIES (1960); THAT TOUCH OF MINK (1962) and THE GLASS BOTTOM BOAT (1966). She was the reining, top female box office draw for much of the 1960's. (In fact, Doris' two biggest hits BOTH came from the movies ... SECRET LOVE first appeared in CALAMITY JANE and she sang QUE SERA SERA - WHATEVER WILL BE WILL BE to JAMES STEWART in THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH.)
DIDJAKNOW?-1: Doris Day ultimately won a $22 Million judgment against Terry Melcher's adoptive father, Marty Melcher, who managed her career for 17 years. During that time, he either lost or embezzled most of her earnings and (after finding out that she was left completely broke after her husband's sudden death and then suffering a complete nervous breakdown), she won a court settlement filed against her former attorney in 1973, who was aware (and financially responsible) for all of Marty Melcher's dealings. Ironically, his last business deal committed Day to star in a television series, which she claimed she had no knowledge about and never would have agreed to. When the dust settled, she took the role, and ended up starring on her own (hit) television series for the next five years!
DIDJAKNOW?-2: Doris Day turned down the role of Mrs. Robinson in '60's classic film THE GRADUATE.
BONUS: I asked frequent Forgotten Hits contributor THEONEBUFF (who just may be the biggest movie buff I know) to share a few thoughts on the movie career of Doris Day.
Here's what he came back with:
Doris Day, a band singer, a recording star and a good-looking young woman, was ideal for the movies of the 1940s and her transition into movie star was inevitable. In addition to having a great singing voice and a cute, freckled face, Doris had an admirable figure though it was often kept under wraps as she portrayed everybody's favorite girl next door. The idea was not to appear sexy, but wholesome. She had to be the good girl that contrasted with the slinky types, common to mainstream movies, that turned men's heads but were always a little bit rotten. Doris played the selfless, helpful, all-enduring, ever-faithful girl that the hero wound up with.
Her first starring movie was Romance On The High Seas (1948) and her leading man was Jack Carson. Jack was a fine actor but no big star. Doris, however, was heading directly for stardom. Two years later she was starring with Kirk Douglas and Lauren Bacall in Young Man With a Horn and in West Point Story with James Cagney in the lead. Five short years later she would be billed ahead of Cagney in MGM's Love Me Or Leave Me. In between she made a bunch of lighthearted musicals, usually with Gordon MacRae. In 1953, after the success of MGM's 1950 Annie Get Your Gun (with Betty Hutton) about a tomboyish backwoods girl who blossoms into a beauty (while singing a bunch of Berlin tunes), Warner Bros. trotted out Calamity Jane, about a tomboyish gun-toting girl who blossoms into a beauty (while singing a bunch of Fain-Webster tunes) They even borrowed Howard Keel, the male star of Annie Get Your Gun to play opposite Doris, just in case you didn't get the point. In this one Doris got to sing many pleasant tunes, a couple of cute tunes, and one blockbuster tune that became a big hit and won an Oscar. This was, of course, Secret Love.
In 1954 she appeared opposite hot, fresh from an Oscar win, Frank Sinatra in Young at Heart, a remake of Four Daughters. No new songs of lasting value emerged from that, but Doris got to play the ultimate girl next door and selfless heroine who marries the hapless and seemingly hopeless Sinatra character. She is cuteness personified in this one, even getting to close the refrigerator door with her fanny while carrying an armful of goodies. But she was close to getting away from that image. She had deviated slightly in 1952's April In Paris playing a chorus girl ("what a built!") but the big change was in Love Me Or Leave Me as Ruth Etting where she did a heavy dramatic role along with the singing. Her co-star was Cagney and he stole much of the movie, but Doris held up her end of the deal, too. Hitchcock cast her in The Man Who Knew Too Much and her scenes as a distraught mother of a kidnapped child are well done. Later she found a new partner, Universal's Rock Hudson, and they made three fine comedies together, Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back and Send Me No Flowers. For the first of these, Doris got her only Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Doris got to pilot an airplane in "Julie," is menaced by husband Rex Harrison in Midnight Lace and went back to comedies opposite Cary Grant (That Touch of Mink) and James Garner (The Thrill of it All, Move Over Darling). There were more movies but the big days were behind her. She had done it all and once reigned as Hollywood's Box Office Queen. This is a personal memo, because I personally liked Doris Day and most of her movies. My only research was a list of films, which helped jar my memories. She remains a favorite. Doris Day had one of the purest singing voices of all time. Had she chosen to, she could have become one of those jazz chanteuses who reap high critical praise and damn near starve to death. Since she chose to make a profitable career she often gets snubbed. But I have heard her sing ever genre (her jazz recordings with Andre Previn are sublime) and do movies of every stripe (from Hitchcock to high comedy) and I think she is a treasure.
THEONEBUFF
Doris Day, a band singer, a recording star and a good-looking young woman, was ideal for the movies of the 1940s and her transition into movie star was inevitable. In addition to having a great singing voice and a cute, freckled face, Doris had an admirable figure though it was often kept under wraps as she portrayed everybody's favorite girl next door. The idea was not to appear sexy, but wholesome. She had to be the good girl that contrasted with the slinky types, common to mainstream movies, that turned men's heads but were always a little bit rotten. Doris played the selfless, helpful, all-enduring, ever-faithful girl that the hero wound up with.
Her first starring movie was Romance On The High Seas (1948) and her leading man was Jack Carson. Jack was a fine actor but no big star. Doris, however, was heading directly for stardom. Two years later she was starring with Kirk Douglas and Lauren Bacall in Young Man With a Horn and in West Point Story with James Cagney in the lead. Five short years later she would be billed ahead of Cagney in MGM's Love Me Or Leave Me. In between she made a bunch of lighthearted musicals, usually with Gordon MacRae. In 1953, after the success of MGM's 1950 Annie Get Your Gun (with Betty Hutton) about a tomboyish backwoods girl who blossoms into a beauty (while singing a bunch of Berlin tunes), Warner Bros. trotted out Calamity Jane, about a tomboyish gun-toting girl who blossoms into a beauty (while singing a bunch of Fain-Webster tunes) They even borrowed Howard Keel, the male star of Annie Get Your Gun to play opposite Doris, just in case you didn't get the point. In this one Doris got to sing many pleasant tunes, a couple of cute tunes, and one blockbuster tune that became a big hit and won an Oscar. This was, of course, Secret Love.
In 1954 she appeared opposite hot, fresh from an Oscar win, Frank Sinatra in Young at Heart, a remake of Four Daughters. No new songs of lasting value emerged from that, but Doris got to play the ultimate girl next door and selfless heroine who marries the hapless and seemingly hopeless Sinatra character. She is cuteness personified in this one, even getting to close the refrigerator door with her fanny while carrying an armful of goodies. But she was close to getting away from that image. She had deviated slightly in 1952's April In Paris playing a chorus girl ("what a built!") but the big change was in Love Me Or Leave Me as Ruth Etting where she did a heavy dramatic role along with the singing. Her co-star was Cagney and he stole much of the movie, but Doris held up her end of the deal, too. Hitchcock cast her in The Man Who Knew Too Much and her scenes as a distraught mother of a kidnapped child are well done. Later she found a new partner, Universal's Rock Hudson, and they made three fine comedies together, Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back and Send Me No Flowers. For the first of these, Doris got her only Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Doris got to pilot an airplane in "Julie," is menaced by husband Rex Harrison in Midnight Lace and went back to comedies opposite Cary Grant (That Touch of Mink) and James Garner (The Thrill of it All, Move Over Darling). There were more movies but the big days were behind her. She had done it all and once reigned as Hollywood's Box Office Queen. This is a personal memo, because I personally liked Doris Day and most of her movies. My only research was a list of films, which helped jar my memories. She remains a favorite. Doris Day had one of the purest singing voices of all time. Had she chosen to, she could have become one of those jazz chanteuses who reap high critical praise and damn near starve to death. Since she chose to make a profitable career she often gets snubbed. But I have heard her sing ever genre (her jazz recordings with Andre Previn are sublime) and do movies of every stripe (from Hitchcock to high comedy) and I think she is a treasure.
THEONEBUFF
