FH Reader Geoff Lambert sent us this historic clip …
An Elvis Presley color concert video from August of 1955, performing at The Magnolia Gardens in Houston, Texas.
Incredibly, this only had 2100 YouTube views when I first saw it …
So let’s get the word out there about this one …
This is MUST SEE viewing if you’re an Elvis fan.
Geoff explains it this way:
In the afternoon of August 7, 1955, Elvis, Scotty and Bill performed in Houston at the Magnolia Gardens (afternoon show), 12044 Beach Street, Houston, Texas. There was actually an ad for this appearance at the time. In the audience that day were Jim and Lois Robertson, trying out a new 8mm colour home movie camera with sound. They didn't really know of Elvis at the time and Lois Robertson only seemed to recall about twenty to twenty five people in attendance. She filmed parts of the performance and, after the colour film was developed, the Robertsons only watched it once or twice, and then put it away.
Geoff also shared this fun story about Dolly Parton …
Dolly Parton received her first dose of COVID-19 vaccination -- the Moderna vaccine -- for which she donated $1 million to Vanderbilt researchers. She also sent an Instagram post that read, "Dolly gets a dose of her own medicine." She received her shot on-camera from Dr. Naji Abumrad, a Vanderbilt physician she met after a car wreck in 2013. Their seven-year friendship led to her donating to vaccination research. She says in the video, "I just wanna say to all of you cowards out there: Don't be such a chicken squat, get out there and get your shot." She also sings, to the tune of "Jolene": "Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, I'm beggin' of you, please don't hesitate ... ’cause once you're dead, then that's a bit too late."
I love it! And we love you, Dolly, for being such a compassionate and thoughtful person. I got MY first shot of the Moderna vaccine a couple of weeks ago (and go back on the 31st for my second.) From the bottom of my heart, thank you for caring. Let’s get this thing under control and start living semi-normal lives again! (kk)
In speaking of the new Peter Jackson version of The Beatles’ “Let It Be” / “Get Back” documentary, Ringo Starr is happy to report that while the much-celebrated, unannounced rooftop concert “was also only about seven to eight minutes long [in Let It Be], with Peter’s [movie] it’s 43 minutes long! It’s about the music and a lot of joy.”
In that this was the last time all four Beatles performed live ANYWHERE (albeit for a select few passersby on the pavement below the rooftop of their Abbey Road Studio), we may finally have the full documentation of the momentous event.
(Much of it was false starts and rehearsals of songs that really weren’t ready to be heard “live” yet … but still, this was a ONCE in a lifetime event, never to be repeated … so for history’s sake alone it will be interesting to see and hear it be fully documented.) kk
I’m still listening to The Evolution Of Rock radio special from the late ‘70’s that FH Reader David Lewis sent me a copy of several weeks ago. (I think I just hit Chapter 59, which takes us to 1974!!! Incredible!)
Anyway, on our trip down to Indiana this weekend (we actually caught a March Madness game LIVE on Friday between Baylor and Hartford!), we heard the 1972 chapter on the start of the Rock And Roll Revival shows being put on by Richard Nader. ‘50’s artists like Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson and Chuck Berry were all enjoying Top Five chart smashes … and remakes of ‘50’s and early ‘60’s music were all over the charts as well, thanks to artists like Donny Osmond, Michael Jackson, Johnny Rivers and others.
So it was kinda cool to receive this link from FH Reader Frank B this past week pertaining to a Rock And Roll Revival show held in London in 1972.
On the bill were Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Haley, Little Richard and Chuck Berry!
You can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC4Z62aqG60
(Thanks, Frank!) kk
And late ‘50’s / early ‘60’s recording artist Paul Evans tells us that a book on his life story is in the works, scheduled for publication in July! (We’ll have more ordering information as it becomes available)
Hi Oldies guys and gals –
I can now look back at a very satisfying lifetime in music and I am about to top it off with a book about my career.
I’m so very pleased and proud to let you know that my book, Happy Go Lucky Me, will be released in July of this year by McNidder and Grace, a very well regarded and respected publishing house. (Mcnidderandgrace.com)
I was asked by the publisher - at the urging of Spencer Leigh, himself a writer of many books about music - to write a book that traced my life in the music business from my Brill Building days through my hit songs, my various careers as a studio singer and jingle writer/producer, my experiences as an off-Broadway music writer, member of a world-traveling jazz group, and other areas that I explored during my years of following new opportunities in music. I write about how each of these various areas brought me successes and disappointments and how they led me from one career to another. In Happy Go Lucky Me I also share my memories of some of my musical heroes and villains that I crossed paths with during my long and exciting tour of the possibilities that the music world offered.
More information to come.
In the meantime, be safe and stay safe,
Paul Evans
And, if you want to read about ANOTHER great '50's and '60's pop star, be sure to check out tomorrow's column on Sam Cooke! (kk)
(Tympani Hit and Roll! Chuck Buell’s Voice):
“Fifty-five Years This Week!”
When we were ALL
Number One Teens and groovin' to the Future Forgotten Hits of the Day!
CB ( which stands for "Calendar Boy!" )
Well, holding down the #1 spot for it’s fourth (out of five) weeks on top of Billboard’s Hot 100 Pop Singles Chart was S/Sgt. Barry Sadler’s “The Ballad Of The Green Beret.” So big was this record that it held off The Rolling Stones (“19th Nervous Breakdown,” #2), The Beatles (“Nowhere Man,” #3), Simon and Garfunkel (“Homeward Bound,” #5), The Lovin’ Spoonful (“Daydream,” #6), The Mamas and the Papas (“California Dreamin’,” #7), The Righteous Brothers (“Soul And Inspiration,” #8) and Herman’s Hermits (“Listen People,” #10), some of the biggest artists of the decade … and of all time. (For those of you curious of heart, the other two Top Ten singles that week belonged to Nancy Sinatra (“These Boots Are Made For Walkin’,” #4) and Bob Lind (“Elusive Butterfly,” #9.) There aren’t many titles on THAT list that would qualify for “forgotten hits” today … except maybe the biggest hit of all!
Moving up The Top 20 that week were B.J. Thomas (“I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”), Gary Lewis and the Playboys (“Sure Gonna Miss Her”), “Woman” by Peter and Gordon and Cher’s big hit, “Bang Bang.”
Other notable tunes in The Top 40 include “Time Won’t Let Me” by The Outsiders, “Secret Agent Man” by Johnny Rivers, “It’s Too Late” by Bobby Goldsboro (GREAT song … and sort of a Forgotten Hit), “Kicks” by Paul Revere and the Raiders and “Good Lovin’” by The Young Rascals. (Of course, they weren’t ALL gems … The Top 40 ALSO included “Walking My Cat Named Dog” by Norma Tanega!!!)
Still getting airplay on their way down the chart were “You Baby” by The Turtles, “I Fought The Law” by The Bobby Fuller Four, “Batman’s Theme” by The Marketts, “Husbands And Wives” by Roger Miller, a hot topic here in FH of late and “Lightning Strikes” by Lou Christie, already being replaced on the chart this week by his NEXT big hit, “Rhapsody In The Rain.”
The top debut this week belongs to Petula Clark (“A Sign Of The Times”) … and we’re also paying attention to “Caroline, No” (shown as Brian Wilson on the record label) and a seldom-heard Kinks hit, “Till The End Of The Day.”
Not a bad week for teenagers in 1966!!! (kk)
AND I’VE JUST GOTTA SAY: Back when I was just 12 years old in March of 1966, I was already consumed by this incredible music …
There was virtually never a moment when this music wasn’t playing in my ear (or in my head!) … much as it is today, some 55 years later.
What HAS changed, however … and, even after doing Forgotten His for 22 years now, I am STILL in awe of and COMPLETELY blown away by … is the fact that SO many of the artists on this list … Peter Asher and Gordon Waller (of Peter and Gordon fame), Felix Cavaliere and Gene Cornish of The Rascals, Lou Christie, Petula Clark, Sonny Geraci (of The Outsiders), Bobby Goldsboro, Tommy James, Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman of The Turtles, Gary Lewis, Bob Lind, Mark Lindsay and Paul Revere of Paul Revere and the Raiders (not to mention several of the other guys who went on to play in Paul’s band for 30-40 years after that first big string of hits), Bill Medley of The Righteous Brothers, Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits, Johnny Rivers, John Sebastian of The Lovin’ Spoonful, B.J. Thomas and Brian Wilson (and Al Jardine) of The Beach Boys have all, at one time or another, taken part in Forgotten Hits, whether it be a one time contribution or an on-going, long term relationship with our readers … now THAT’s the part that has made this so VERY special to me … and the fact that we can all interact together … artists, deejays, fans and everyone who enjoys reading Forgotten Hits everyday … is what has made it all so very worthwhile for me. A HUGE Forgotten Hits Thank You goes out to EVERYONE who has ever taken the time to stop whatever else it was they were doing to share a memory with the rest of us. (kk)
My (departed) dad's album collection includes a Roger Miller best-of platter ...
"Atta Boy Girl" is definitely on it.
--Bob Frable
Yep, my mom had the same album and we used to play the heck out of it! (kk)
More on the Trini Lopez documentary we told you about …
Folk Legend JUDY COLLINS Releases New Single,
Announces An Album Collection Of Hand-Picked Favorites!
Includes guests Willie Nelson, Stephen Stills & Joan Baez!
When you’ve been making music for as long as folk music icon Judy Collins, songs become more than just familiar melodies, they’re treasured memories connecting you to people and places of your past.
For her newest collection of recent recordings, White Bird - Anthology Of Favorites, Collins has hand-selected a number of songs that remain dear to her heart so much so that she can still remember exactly where she was the first time she heard them. Take for instance, this story Collins shares about one of her best-known, most beloved songs …
“It was 1967 when I received a phone call at three in the morning from Al Kooper, the founder of Blood Sweat & Tears. He said he followed this girl home from a bar where she had told him she was a songwriter. She played him some of her songs and after she played him one particular song, he picked up the phone and called me. He put the girl on the phone and Joni Mitchell sang me her great song, ‘Both Sides Now.’”
Or this story about another young songwriter, “In 1966, I was getting ready to make my sixth album, In My Life. Someone sent me a song called ‘I Think It’s Going To Rain Today’ by Randy Newman. I never heard of this guy but loved the song. Randy had not started thinking of himself as a singer-songwriter but after I recorded this song, he put out his own version and became the gold standard. He has told me I started his career but I'm sure he would've done it without me.”
Judy Collins has inspired countless artists, including Rock Hall of Famer Stephen Stills. Not only was she the muse that led Stills to write the Crosby, Stills & Nash classic “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” but the pair’s musical romance was so strong that it was rekindled decades later in 2015 for a recording of Tom Paxton’s “The Last Thing On My Mind.” Collins shares, “I would run into Tom on the street in Greenwich Village in the early ‘60s and he would say, “I just wrote this song … would you like to sing it?” It became a favorite song of mine and also of Stephen Stills. So, 40 years after our love affair, and a couple of years before our extraordinary reunion of concerts, Stephen and I recorded the song together. So, thanks to Tom Paxton and thanks to you, Stephen. It’s been a long and rewarding love affair and friendship.”
And Collins is still finding new loves and friendships along the way, including a little-known gem from 1969 San Francisco. Hippie rock group It’s A Beautiful Day first recorded the song that gives Collins’s collection its name, “White Bird,” but just as it is with all of the songs Collins touches, she makes it sound like she wrote it or maybe even inspired it.
Stream the single “White Bird”: https://orcd.co/judy_collins_white_bird
White Bird - Anthology Of Favorites will be released on digital, on CD in a deluxe digipak and on limited edition WHITE vinyl starting May 7 from Wildflower Records, exclusively distributed by Cleopatra Records.
To purchase the album: https://orcd.co/judy_collins_white_bird_anthology
Track List:
1. White Bird
2. Chelsea Morning
3. Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season)
4. Pack Up Your Sorrows
5. When I Go feat. Willie Nelson
6. I Think It’s Going To Rain Today
7. Last Thing On My Mind feat. Stephen Stills
8. Blackbird
9. Both Sides Now
10. Diamonds & Rust feat. Joan Baez
11. Send In The Clowns
“White Bird” is one of my all-time favorite songs … and Judy does an INCREDIBLE reading of it here … absolutely beautiful. (Click the streaming link about to hear it for yourself.) This one track alone is worth the price of admission for me!
Great to hear her in such fine voice … and telling the stories behind how she first came to know this music. I’ve never bought a Judy Collins album before …
But I think I’m going to order this one! (kk)
FH Reader Clark Besch sent us these links to songs that peaked at #2 in The UK in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s. (The charts looked quite a bit different there than they did here … where “Theme from ‘A Summer Place’,” for example, topped our charts for ten weeks!!! You’ll seem some obscure … in US terms anyway … artists that you’re likely not familiar with along the way, too … but a nice nutshell recap of what the British Charts looked like in the Swingin’ ‘60’s and ‘70’s! (kk)
This is a REALLY fun walk thru the ‘60's UK pop charts in search of the #2 hits. Now this may seem like not that great of a subject, but when you start listening, it shows how awesome it would have been growing up with that music, despite the radio outlets being limited.
Lots of odd remakes in here, as well as the DC5 mis-step in 1967, but amazing to hear all the UK artists reaching #2 as well as US artists that often were not the hits they had here. Some strange sound qualities in this, too, but overall fun to see. Just a Who's who of British pop bands that the US only got to hear half of then. Some of these are pretty shocking and the sequence of pop to rock to soul is fascinating.
Clark Besch
The remakes and fake versions are a bit annoying …
But here they are …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T12p_QkizW8&t=15s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5E2Dn8aNIk
And finally, I just heard THIS one in a TV commercial last night ... and ooo, it sounded SO good!
(I have always loved this song ... and have featured it a time or two before in Forgotten Hits ... most recently, I believe, when it was featured on the "Baby Driver" soundtrack, one of the BEST movie soundtracks I've ever heard.)
Plus, I know Sammy played this on his Lost And Found Oldies Show a few weeks back ... so that's ANOTHER excuse to feature it again here today.
This was a Top 20 National Hit (everywhere but Billboard that is) in 1972 ... and went all the way to #6 on the WCFL chart here in Chicago, too. (WLS kinda missed the boat on this one!)
Let's close out today's segment with "Baby Let Me Take You" by The Detroit Emeralds! (kk)
NOTE: We've been having connection issues for DAYS now ... and Comcast can't come out until next weekend ... so postings these next few days may be kinda spotty ...
But we DO have a prepost all set up and ready to go out tomorrow spotlighting the rerelease of the award winning "Sam Cooke: Legend" documentary ...
So you'll want to stop back for that one! (kk)
