Monday, June 3, 2013

Summer Favorites

re: SUMMER FAVORITES:
Another good posting ... wtg, Kent!
I almost lost it on the Billboard top 30 Summah! songs! Too much time has passed so there would need to be several lists depending on the generational group, and even then each section of the country would have parochial favorites ... like Freddy Boom Boom Cannon here in the Northeast for instance and then beyond that even personal favorites chosen because of a life event or a coming of age so to say.
Now I try to be unique but for the most part I go along with the crowd how could you not? What a tremendous period to experience for us baby boomers ... hell, 'our' music binds us all. Having said that, I would be curious to know if anyone else voted for this song ... for many reasons my all time favorite Summah! Song! is: The Bristol Stomp! Ha Ha! I am sure there are many of your readers who have their personal favorite that wouldn't even crack the top 50 in a voted list.
Thankfully your / our FH top Summer Songs is much more acceptable to a 1st year Baby Boomer.
June 1st ... wow, we had a double Memorial Day Weekend since it came so early the official one left us with another five days of May so now we hit June on the 2nd Memorial Day weekend! Believe me, it is important to all the entertainers on Cape Cod "No Place Like It On Earth"
Have a great SUMMAH! and keep the comments coming. Oh, one last thing, Kent ... GO BRUINS!!! Ha Ha!!!
Thank You,
Charlie OFD
While Memorial Day Weekend has always been the "benchmark" for the start of summer (school's out, villages are opening their pools, etc.) the OFFICIAL First Day Of Summer remains June 21st ... now less than three short weeks away!
While we presently have no plans of tabulating a new batch of votes this year for our readers' All-Time Favorite Songs Of Summer, Scott Shannon might do so ... it's become a bit of a True Oldies Channel tradition ... which means that he would be counting down The Top 20 Summer Favorites all day long on The True Oldies Channel on June 21st. (Heck, with the 21st falling on a Friday this year, he could do a full-blown "Summer Favorites Weekend"!!!)  We're still waiting to hear for the "official" word ... in which case we'll direct your votes for your summer favorites to him!!!  In the meantime, with just over 9200 votes cast in our most recent poll (2010), I'm prepared to stand by our list of All-Time Summer Favorites for a while yet. 
Over the years, several of our Internet DeeJay Readers have also counted down The Summer Favorites as determined by our poll. If any of you are planning to do so again this year, please let us know with enough advance notice that we can pass the word along through the website so that others may enjoy the countdown too.  (Be sure to send me your "Listen Live" link, too, so readers can tune in and listen!)
Billboard's list is probably just a little too "hip" and "current" for our audience ... our Summer Favorites seem to be more of the "tried and true" variety. So give a listen if you can! 
Click here: Top 30 Summer Songs | Billboard
By the way, if you explore around the website a bit longer, you'll find not only a Countdown Of Your Top 100 All-Time Summer Favorites but also mathematical rankings of the biggest hits of summer for each year, 1955 - 1980! (kk)  

>>>I’ve always been a huge “car song” fan ... Beach Boys, Jan & Dean, Ripcords etc., but “HOT ROD HIGH” (the B-Side) of the Hondells' “LITTLE HONDA” is my favorite car song of all time.”HOT ROD HIGH” was written by Terry Melcher, who had a pretty good track record. (Not to mention being the son of Doris Day). This song can be found on U-Tube. Hope your readers check them out. They won’t be disappointed. Thanks! (Gary)
>>>"Hot Rod High" is good ... but I've always been partial to "My Buddy Seat", their follow-up hit to "Little Honda", which pretty much flopped on the charts in 1965. (This one should have been a smash!) kk
Click here: Hondells - My Buddy Seat - YouTube
THE HONDELLS' "HOT ROD HIGH" WAS ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVES AS WELL (I STILL HAVE THE 45!), AND WOULD DEFINITELY BE ONE OF MY DESERT ISLAND PICKS (ALONG WITH THE TURTLES' "YOU BABY", JAN & DEAN'S "LIKE A SUMMER RAIN", THE VOGUES' "SEE THAT GIRL", THE BEACH BOYS' "KISS ME BABY" & THE BEATLES' "YOU'RE GONNA LOSE THAT GIRL"). I'VE HEARD OTHER VERSIONS OF "HOT ROD HIGH" THAT WERE SUBPAR, AND I ALWAYS WISHED THE RAMONES HAD RECORDED THIS ... TOO BAD I DIDN'T MENTION IT TO THEM WHEN I MET THEM THIRTY YEARS AGO.
KEEP UP THE FANTASTIC WORK ... AND HAVE A BITCHIN' SUMMER.
MICHAEL G. BUSH

Lead singer on the Hondells tunes (and also their cover of the Beach Boys' Little Honda) was Chuck Girard, the rock & roll preacher: Click here: chuck girard - YouTube
Phil