Just a couple of songs from my early musical awareness which, when they first came on the radio, caused the world to stop for a moment to let the magic register in my brain (in no particular order):
Johnny Cash, "I Walk the Line" (waiting for my parents, listening on a car radio in Wildwood, NJ)
The Flamingos, "Lovers Never Say Goodbye" (doowop on velvet)
Pat Boone, "Gee, But It's Lonely" (a man and a guitar; only the bridge is orchestrated. The Everlys never recorded it! Say what some might about Pat, but this was two minutes of magic)
Rivieras, "Count Every Star" (starts great, builds to a transcendent coda)
Dore Alpert, "Dina" (bought for a penny from a reject pile, I put it on the phonograph and two notes in I said to my mother, who was in the room, "I'm going to love this." "How do you know?" "I just do." And I still do)
Clusters, "Darling Can't You Tell" (love at first hearing; everything that's good about up tempo doowop - great song, great arranging, superb singing including The Chantels' Arlene Smith overdubbed on the high harmony, and maybe the best bass- singer intro ever in a delightfully crowded field)
Spector's Three, "I Really Do' (the real voices of teen angels, the perfection of the first - velvet - wall of sound, a "presence" if you will. I named my record =company after this gem. How could Phil have gone so radically off the rails???)
I still crank all of these up whenever I hear them or play them at home, and I can still get shivers from all of them. OK. That ought to keep y'all entertained for a while!
Country Paul Payton
Www.presence productions.com
Does getting good vibrations from hearing the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations blast out of my transistor radio count as "goosebumps"?
Johnny Cash, "I Walk the Line" (waiting for my parents, listening on a car radio in Wildwood, NJ)
The Flamingos, "Lovers Never Say Goodbye" (doowop on velvet)
Pat Boone, "Gee, But It's Lonely" (a man and a guitar; only the bridge is orchestrated. The Everlys never recorded it! Say what some might about Pat, but this was two minutes of magic)
Rivieras, "Count Every Star" (starts great, builds to a transcendent coda)
Dore Alpert, "Dina" (bought for a penny from a reject pile, I put it on the phonograph and two notes in I said to my mother, who was in the room, "I'm going to love this." "How do you know?" "I just do." And I still do)
Clusters, "Darling Can't You Tell" (love at first hearing; everything that's good about up tempo doowop - great song, great arranging, superb singing including The Chantels' Arlene Smith overdubbed on the high harmony, and maybe the best bass- singer intro ever in a delightfully crowded field)
Spector's Three, "I Really Do' (the real voices of teen angels, the perfection of the first - velvet - wall of sound, a "presence" if you will. I named my record =company after this gem. How could Phil have gone so radically off the rails???)
I still crank all of these up whenever I hear them or play them at home, and I can still get shivers from all of them. OK. That ought to keep y'all entertained for a while!
Country Paul Payton
Www.presence productions.com
Does getting good vibrations from hearing the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations blast out of my transistor radio count as "goosebumps"?
Phil
Sure, why not! (kk)
Another of my Goosebump tracks is Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind." That 45 was my introduction to Gord - and all Canadian folk music for that matter - and it made me a lifelong fan. We were ironically in Nova Scotia week before last when Gord played here, so we didn't see him this time - and although he still draws a crowd, reports were that his vocal strength continues to drop. Fans come for the music and the memories.
Another of my Goosebump tracks is Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind." That 45 was my introduction to Gord - and all Canadian folk music for that matter - and it made me a lifelong fan. We were ironically in Nova Scotia week before last when Gord played here, so we didn't see him this time - and although he still draws a crowd, reports were that his vocal strength continues to drop. Fans come for the music and the memories.
David Lewis
I forgot a real goosebump song and an unlikely one at that, for me at least. Here I was in my last year in college in NYC in 1963, singing doo wop with my buddies and enjoying group harmony and R&B as well, going to the Apollo Theater to see our favorite artists whenever we could. I loved any form of R&R and R&B at that time so this goosebump song was different because it was a beautiful instrumental. "Our Winter Love" by Bill Pursell still brings back wonderful memories today.
I guess a Goosebump / Wow! kind of moment
was June of ’67 hearing “A Day In The Life”. That was a bit of a change of pace
from the norm of the time.
Ken
It's funny because by 1967 we really didn't know WHAT The Beatles were "supposed" to sound like anymore. They had grown so quickly in the studio with their albums "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver", nobody really knew what to expect by the time "Sgt. Pepper" came out. But that cute, adorable little pop band from Liverpool was gone ... and quite a few of us listeners hadn't "matured" at the rate they had. As such, we flocked to more of the "Feel Good" sounds of The Monkees, The Turtles, Tommy James and the Shondells and many of the other artists that were making great pop records in the mid-'60's. "A Day In The Life" was pretty heavy stuff for its time. Little did we know it would forever change the way albums were made and thought of. (kk)
I forgot a real goosebump song and an unlikely one at that, for me at least. Here I was in my last year in college in NYC in 1963, singing doo wop with my buddies and enjoying group harmony and R&B as well, going to the Apollo Theater to see our favorite artists whenever we could. I loved any form of R&R and R&B at that time so this goosebump song was different because it was a beautiful instrumental. "Our Winter Love" by Bill Pursell still brings back wonderful memories today.
A couple more somewhat obscure songs that give me goosebumps are "Snow" by Johnny Maestro and "An Old Fashioned Christmas" by Kenny Williams.
Thanks for letting me double-dip,
Danny Guilfoyle
A couple of people have mentioned "Our Winter Love" now ... kind of surprise for me as it seems other instrumentals are more often cited in examples like this. Good to hear that Bill Pursell had this effect on so many of you. (kk)
