Here are just a few that we received immediately after posting ours ...
Kent!
What a shameless stunt to boost Forgotten Hits traffic! Is there nothing you won't do to increase traffic?
Ha Ha!!
Another stroke of genius! This is exactly what FH is all about! Music and memories interwoven into the fabric of our lives!
I grew up listening to my Mom's radio playing popular hits, and my older sister and brother playing their favorites. I emerged when I first heard Ricky's "Poor Little Fool" and the Elegants "Little Star". I was hooked on music and Rock 'n Roll in particular.
Events in Jr High broadened my love with Bobby Vee's tunes and Johnny Tillotson offerings. I mostly just loved the sound not paying too much attention to the particular artists.
The Dovells' "The Bristol Stomp" brings great and sometimes frightening memories from High School. I consider it my favorite Summer Song ha ha!
Then the Folk Music came along ... "Lemon Tree", "Greenfields", the Kingston Trio, The 4 Preps, Peter, Paul and Mary ... then the Beatles and the harder, deeper songs as we explored life and set out on our own ... "White Rabbit", "Brand New Key", "Whole Lotta Love", "Different Drum" ... songs that made us think with hidden meanings. "Dirty Water" by The Standells, who coincidentally evolved from "The Routers", who authored my class of '63 song "Let's Go" ... what a kick I got out finding that tidbit of information.
I know you said to be brief its very hard ... we grew up in certainly ... "The Golden Age" guided by the "Greatest Generation" and what pleasure it is to return and research all these wonderful songs and artists and take further enjoyment from them. Hell, just writing about them I am grinning from ear to ear ... was there ever a more fortunate generation?
Have a great Summah !!
CharlieOFD
>>>A fellow classmate of mine (Dennis Gilbert, thank you very much!) turned me on to the fact that "On The Waters" was actually Bread's SECOND album ... their first LP had disappeared without a trace, with nary a radio hit hidden in the grooves. As fate would have it, I found myself grounded for a week ... came home later than I was supposed to one night ... and Dennis loaned me his LP. I completely devoured it ... I loved each and every song. (How could none of these tracks have been a hit?!?! And, even more surprisingly, where had the magic gone on their second album?) I served out my parental sentence, doing my time by hiding myself away in the basement, learning every single song on that first Bread LP ... I especially loved "Family Doctor", a James Griffin song, that months later I was shocked to hear ANOTHER classmate play on a bus trip out to a school singing engagement. (Ron Arturi, thank you very much!) I think he, Dennis and I may have been the only three students in the entire school who knew this song! Imagine my surprise when, after "Make It With You" had run its course on the charts, Elektra Records went back to the first LP and released "It Don't Matter To Me" as the follow-up single! For me, Bread just kept getting better and better. "Manna" and "Baby I'm-a Want You" remain two of my all-time favorite LPs to this very day ... but nothing will EVER compare to that first moment when I heard "Make It With You" for the very first time. (I was a "Bread-Head" all the way!) kk
>>>A fellow classmate of mine (Dennis Gilbert, thank you very much!) turned me on to the fact that "On The Waters" was actually Bread's SECOND album ... their first LP had disappeared without a trace, with nary a radio hit hidden in the grooves. As fate would have it, I found myself grounded for a week ... came home later than I was supposed to one night ... and Dennis loaned me his LP. I completely devoured it ... I loved each and every song. (How could none of these tracks have been a hit?!?! And, even more surprisingly, where had the magic gone on their second album?) I served out my parental sentence, doing my time by hiding myself away in the basement, learning every single song on that first Bread LP ... I especially loved "Family Doctor", a James Griffin song, that months later I was shocked to hear ANOTHER classmate play on a bus trip out to a school singing engagement. (Ron Arturi, thank you very much!) I think he, Dennis and I may have been the only three students in the entire school who knew this song! Imagine my surprise when, after "Make It With You" had run its course on the charts, Elektra Records went back to the first LP and released "It Don't Matter To Me" as the follow-up single! For me, Bread just kept getting better and better. "Manna" and "Baby I'm-a Want You" remain two of my all-time favorite LPs to this very day ... but nothing will EVER compare to that first moment when I heard "Make It With You" for the very first time. (I was a "Bread-Head" all the way!) kk
Kent, cool blog. Thanks for the mention.
I was walking through E.J. Korvettes with (the late) Dave Bukovsky one day to buy David Peele and the Lower East Side's Happy Mothers Day album when I heard Baby I'm A Want You. I asked the clerk what group it was and dropped another $3.65 for the Bread Album. The guy took a look at my purchases and said, "Well, no one can say you don't have eclectic taste." He must have been a college kid cause I'd never even heard that word before and looked it up when I got home. Still have All the Bread Albums ... David Peele got loaned out as collateral for a banjo which I never mastered, gave the banjo back and forgot about his having my album and last I heard he was a DJ in southern Illinois somewhere ... probably with my album in his rack.
Hope to make it to the next reunion in September.
Dennis
Your love of Bread's "Make It With You" reminded me of David Gates' story behind the song. Gates had earlier scored as a composer (he wrote The Murmaids' "Popsicles and Icicles" in 1964), but this was the track that put him on the map as both a songwriter and singer. As Gates told me, after "Make It With You" began to climb the charts, he went home to Oklahoma to visit his parents -- and his hometown paper celebrated the event by writing a feature story about the local boy who was making it big. In it, David's mother, while proud of her son's accomplishment, expressed some dismay that his breakthrough triumph was with a song called -- "Naked With You"!
I found "Make It With You" captivating as well, but Bread's goosebump record for me was "If" -- which was clearly not the same "If" that Perry Como had taken to the top of the charts in 1951. David told me he felt as if something just took control of his psyche when he wrote "If" in about a half hour at the dining room table after his wife and childen had gone to bed. He felt it was the best song he had ever written and arguably that's still true. An Echoplex -- the tape delay system which creates a warm, round, thick echo effect -- was employed to create the single's haunting, shimmering lead guitar sound which riveted my attention (and that of millions more) from the first note to the last.
I found "Make It With You" captivating as well, but Bread's goosebump record for me was "If" -- which was clearly not the same "If" that Perry Como had taken to the top of the charts in 1951. David told me he felt as if something just took control of his psyche when he wrote "If" in about a half hour at the dining room table after his wife and childen had gone to bed. He felt it was the best song he had ever written and arguably that's still true. An Echoplex -- the tape delay system which creates a warm, round, thick echo effect -- was employed to create the single's haunting, shimmering lead guitar sound which riveted my attention (and that of millions more) from the first note to the last.
A re-recording of "It Don't Matter to Me" -- a song first featured on the first Bread album -- preceded "If." After that, of course, came "Baby I'm-A Want You," which included that phrase written that way simply because David could not come up with anything else that sounded right and still fit that beat structure! "Everything I Own" was written as a tribute to David's dad, who had just passed away (bet you hadn't known it's actually a Father's Day song). More great singles followed: "Guitar Man," "Sweet Surrrender, "Aubrey" (a name given to a lot of babies born over the next few years) and finally "Lost Without Your Love." Every one of them was and remains a gem
Bread's demise came largely over the fact that David Gates wrote and sang all of the group's hits -- which annoyed his bandmates, who felt that their creative skills were being overlooked. After multiple break-ups and reunions, Bread played together for the very last time in 1997. Since then all the group members, except David Gates (who's retired) and Robb Royer (who runs a studio in Tennessee), have "simply flown away" (Mike Botts and Jimmy Griffin both died in 2005, Larry Knechtel in 2009).
Gary Theroux
You're talking to a MAJOR Bread fan here ... was fortunate enough to see them several times back in the day and then the '90's reunion show, too. Most of their songs affected me ... I think part of their downfall was that James Griffin's music was largely overlooked by the public because all of the focus was on David Gates' tunes. Granted, I get the logic of the record company ... why mess up a good thing? The formula was working so why mess with it ... and David's sound absolutely became the sound of the group. But I personally believe that Jimmy Griffin was writing equally strong music that went largely unnoticed.
I learned the true meaning behind "Everything I Own" at one of their concerts when David told the story regarding his father. The song takes on a whole new meaning when listened to in this context. Yet it works perfectly well in a mass-appeal sort of way as a beautiful love song, too. LOVE their stuff ... gonna have to dig out their greatest hits CD right now and stick it in the car! (kk)
"Family Doctor" is at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g88vtZEsy0 .
"Family Doctor" is at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g88vtZEsy0 .
Nice.
-- BOB FRABLE
Kent:
Kent:
The thing I remember about Bread's "Make It With You" was that it was a back-to-back Elektra release #45686 with the group Crabby Appleton's "Go Back" #45687 (purchased both in 1970) and I recall early on, it was "Go Back" that looked like it was going to be the bigger hit! Turns out it wasn't even close! That short-lived style Elektra label was one of my favorites! I remember the change to the caterpillar label was during Bread's "It Don't Matter To Me", as I remember in the bin where the 45 was, there were a few of the old labels in the front and the new Elektra style ones in the back. I made sure I got the old style!!
John
"Go Back" is a GREAT track ... my brother played it virtually non-stop when that one came out. While nowhere near as big as "Make It With You", it didn't do TOO badly ... in another one of those unexplainable mysteries, Crabby Appleton went to #21 in Record World while only reaching #36 in Billboard. The record made the Top Ten in Canada and peaked at #12 here in Chicago, where only WCFL played it. Some 40+ years later, you'll find Bob Stroud still playing this one every now and again on his "Rock And Roll Roots" radio program ... a GREAT forgotten hit! (kk)
I love this latest idea of yours. I totally agree with your choice of "Make It With You" ... it is so beautiful and just fills your heart.
The two songs that came to mind for me are "Groovin'" by The Young Rascals and "When I Die" by Motherlode. They each move me in different ways but move me they do and I know they always will.
Stacee
kk,
You named one of my "Goosebump Tracks," "California Dreamin'. And just a couple of months later, I was struck by "A Groovy Kind of Love" by the Mindbenders. My first Goosebump Moment came the year before (1965) when I heard "Go Now!" by the Moody Blues for the first time. And I simply can't leave it at that without mentioning my biggest: "Incense and Peppermints" by the Strawberry Alarm Clock. I tested it just now and it still gives me the chills.
Dann
More Goosebump Memories will be sprinkled throughout the week ... so stay tuned.
Meanwhile, you can send YOUR goosebump moments to forgottenhits@aol.com. Hope to hear from you soon!
kk
kk
