We got a couple of responses to yesterday's post that we can share real quickly this morning ...
>>>HELPING OUT OUR READERS: Back in the early 60's there was a song which had the line of "I LOVE WAY UP HIGH" or "OUR LOVE'S WAY UP HIGH" ... I don't think it was a religious tune and that's all I can remember about the song. Ring any bells? It's not much to go on I know ... (Steve Burkett)
>>>Boy, it sure isn't! (lol) But sometimes these things just "click" ... so I'll float it out there and see if anything comes back. (kk)
And would you believe that within two hours of posting this, we already received our first suggestion …
Per Steve Burkett’s inquiry in today’s Forgotten Hits, could the song he’s thinking of be?: The Whats New - Up So High
The lyrics don’t exactly match but we all know how our memories play tricks. This is truly a fantastic song by an American group who ended up performing in France.
Mike Dugo
I'm running your suggestion past Steve ... but I kinda doubt it since the song never even charted ... but again, you just never know!
(He didn't give us much to go on ... tempo / style / vocalist / etc. ... but I have asked him for this information to see if we can help narrow things down for him and find his missing tune. I literally got that email about 25 minutes before this morning's posting ... so I didn't have time to ask any of these questions then ... but included them with your YouTube link a few minutes ago ... keep you posted!) kk
Thanks to your reader, but the song they sent is too new.
This was probably around 1961 – 1963, with a female lead vocal.
It was a lively pop …maybe soul.
Sorry to be so obtuse.
Thanks, Kent
Steve
Well, truthfully, that’s already a whole lot more to go on …
So let’s run it up the flagpole again and see if this sparks anything with our readers.
Stay tuned! (kk)
Kent,
Many times during the 70s and 80s, when I would be buying oldies to fill in my collection, I'd find that if you bought a 33.33 rpm, you’d have a high probability of the song being re-recorded to get it to sound like the artist would have done it originally, if they had had the benefit of hindsight. But, buying the same song, on the same label, with the same oldies copyright date ... you would get the original radio/hit version if it was on a 45 rpm.
One promoter told me back then that the record companies assumed that if you bought the 33 rpm, you were interested in the artist. If you bought the 45 rpm you were more interested in the sound of the single. To a lesser extent, if you were hoping for a long version of a song, you'd be out of luck if the oldie release was on a 45 rpm.
Jon M
Former DJ
Radio ... It's a sound idea!
There were a number of labels that recorded these rip-off sound-alike tunes and put them out on budget labels (usually with a very similar sounding name) to try and dupe less-knowledgeable record buyers into buying THEIR record instead of the hit single version. (These “re-dos” were typically about 25-cents cheaper than the legit 45 and were stocked in the budget retail outlets that we used to call “dime stores” back in the day.)
Over the years, we’ve done profiles of some of the most popular recordings … and one of the DJ’s on the list, Mr. C., has devoted entire programs to playing these “alternate” versions on his radio show. These were typically crank-’em-out recordings and, as we’ve shown our readers in the past, even Elton John recorded a few of these before his own career took off, just to pay the bills. (Of course, you could always find “shortened versions” of many of the popular hit tunes of the day on all of those K-Tel and Ronco Records that came out regularly back in the ‘70’s, too!) kk
UPDATE:
I found this posting from 2013 (that’s right … TEN YEARS AGO!!!) where we profiled Hit Records, the primary label that was pressing these sound-alike hits down south (and selling them quite successfully) If I’m not mistaken, after people started commenting on this topic, we even ran a few examples on the website. (I’ll have to do a bit more digging to see if I can still find any of those!) kk
https://forgottenhits60s.blogspot.com/2013/04/helping-out-our-readers.html
For Mike Fielder, I offer up some edit proofs:
I listened to WLS and ‘CFL a lot and have taped some off the air from then.
Here's the Mary Hopkin song off Chuck Buell on WLS and indeed every time it comes to the chorus, WLS chopped it mercilessly (and not very well done either.)
Also, this was a weird one to me, but Chicago
being the home of the 30's gangstas, WCFL actually cut the gunfire in
"Ballad of Bonnie & Clyde" down as much as they could (a very
nice edit tho.) I have those two taped
off the air in 1968 here, as well as Hey Jude off WLS, which may have an edit,
as this runs about 6+ minutes. (A lot of
stations just did a quicker fade on Hey Jude, since it ran for nearly four
minutes all by itself.)
Of course, both stations also had "Life is a Rock" with their call
letters inserted by Reunion, not by the stations. They did some edits on
Frampton's "Do You Feel," too, even tho it was already edited in half
on the 45 to 6 minutes.
They had versions of Eddie Money and Huey Lewis songs done where they added the ID or city done by the artists I think.
As to Hey Jude or MacArthur Park, I doubt that I recorded them as had the 45 of Jude and Mac was in the dead of summer, so couldn't hear WLS well then.
Those edits were maybe creative, but basically a way for WLS to get more music in when ‘CFL was doing twin and mini spins with REALLY short 1 minute edited songs. I have attached a mini spin off ‘CFL showing how they edited three songs into a 1 ½ minute set.
They played these mini spins often, maybe once
an hour with three different hits and sometimes used DIFFERENT 1 minute
segments (or less) of the same hit with different songs for mini spins.
Sometimes, these were just segments of songs as they appeared and sometimes
they edited these into very short vignettes. It was clever, but
sometimes, they would actually play a song in a mini spin and then, within a
half hour, play the whole song again. Odd. Anyway, hope these help
you.
If you have any of the Beatles cartoon shows, you'll find really crude edited
songs to their first cartoons. Yet, one I have (maybe Don’t Bother Me?)
was actually kinda cool.
Clark Besch
Warning: Some of these are pretty rough to listen to! (kk)
