9/18/66 – Herman’s Hermits perform three songs on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” It would be their final appearance on the program.
From The Ed Sullivan YouTube Channel:
Herman’s Hermits returned to The Ed Sullivan Show one last time on
September 18, 1966. They took the stage with each member dressed in
different colored pinstripe suits. The suits worked perfectly with the
bright and colorful set, which looked like something straight out of
Swinging London. The band opened with their newest hit, “Dandy,” with an
upbeat Peter walking around the stage singing a few lines with each band
mate. Then the lights faded out for “L’Autre Jour,” which Noone sang in
French and English. Herman’s Hermits closed out their final Sullivan
show with “My Reservation’s Been Confirmed” before taking a bow to the
screams of their adoring fans.
Also on 9/18, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass perform for
Prince Rainier and Princess Grace in Monaco
Also on 9/18, Baltimore quarterback Johnny Unitas throws
four touchdown passes in 38-23 win at Minnesota
We found a couple
of odd (weird?) stories going around this weekend …
Rick Springfield
shooting some Vietnamese soldiers when he was performing there as a teenager
(???) …
And Frank Sinatra
hiring a hit man to kill Darlene Love’s husband after her affair with Righeous
Brother Bill Medley was discovered (?!?!) and her ex took off with their three
month old baby daughter.(Not sure that
the timing is right here as it’s hard to imagine Medley carrying on a long-term
relationship while Darlene was pregnant and married to another man!)
I have no idea why
ANY of this is just first coming to light as “news” NOW after all this time …
But I have to admit
I’m curious! So I did a little bit of digging ... (kk)
RICK SPRINGFIELD
I’m not sure why
this is considered “news” in 2026 … or why Rick suddenly felt the need to share
this information (unless it truly has been eating him up inside for the past 58
years) …
But last week
Springfield told the media that he was responsible for the death of a Viet Cong
soldier in 1968.
Rick was only 18 at
the time … and was sent overseas to entertain troops in Vietnam.(Based on this timeline, this event predates
his first national hit, “Speak To The Sky,” which went to #14 in 1972.)
Springfield says
that he befriended some US soldiers while performing there and was invited back to their
hut to get stoned and listen to Jimi Hendrix music.It was there that they became under attack by
some Viet Cong soldiers.
Rick: "It was John
Wayne time, you know?I mean, as a young
kid, I didn't really understand what I was doing. I said, 'Oh, yeah! Let's fire
a gun!'”In hindsight Rick admits that "It's
hard for me to face that I was responsible for the end of a life."
What is especially
odd about this story going around NOW is that it’s not a new revelation at all!
Springfield already made this revelation (in vivid detail) in his 2010 autobiography “Late, Late At
Night: A Memoir.”Why it’s all being
drudged up again some 16 years later is anybody’s guess.
Rick wrote at the
time: "There's a loud whump as each mortar takes flight, then a shower of
lethal red-hot sparks and blistering metal as it lands and erupts in the brush.A radio call comes in requesting a change of
trajectory, so I drop more mortars down the tube and watch them detonate,
alarmingly close to us. We stay up all night. How could we sleep?"
The following
morning, Springfield was informed that one of his mortars had hit a Viet Cong
soldier.
"Everyone is
jumping around and slapping me on the back," Springfield wrote in his
memoir. "I feel sick. Thinking of it now, I still do. All in all, not a
real good day for anyone.
"It's hard for
me to face that I was responsible for the end of a life, even though it's
distant and it's war and I didn't really have anything to do with it and didn't
really know what I was doing.But it's
pretty heavy when I think about the reality of it."
I guess so.
Well, now it’s out
in the open (again) for anyone who wants to dwell on it.Hopefully there is some healing process
connected with Rick saying the words out loud again after all this time … but I
do believe that this incident disturbed him and will likely stick with him for
the rest of his life.(kk
Meanwhile …
DARLENE LOVE /
BLL MEDLEY / FRANK SINATRA
In a new
documentary that just premiered at The Toronto International Film Festival this past weekend, Darlene Love recalls the time when, after a lengthy affair with
Bill Medley of The Righteous Brothers, her ex-husband (Wesley Mitchell) took
off with the couple’s three month old son, her only child with Mitchell.
Scared, Love called
her friend Nancy Sinatra, asking for help and/or advice.In Darlene’s own words, “So, without naming
any names, she made a phone call, and they found where he was staying. And he
was so frightened when that happened because nobody knew where he was. He
called my mother and said, ‘I think your daughter’s trying to kill me. So I
think I better take the baby back home.’ And then within a few hours, I had
Jason back, and it’s over. The marriage is over.”
(Did Nancy call her
daddy to lean on Darlene’s ex-husband?And did Ol’ Blue Eyes get involved???)The idea is certainly implied … and definitely worth considering … but
the most important thing is that he son was returned to her a few hours later,
safe and unharmed.
Prior to all of
this ... and unrelated in ANY way ... it sounds like Love was involved in a lengthy relationship with Bill
Medley, something else that was kept under wraps for quite some time.
It sounds like the two were romantically involved for about
three years, at a time where a public relationship likely would have ruined both of their careers. When Love got pregnant, she
elected to have an abortion, which ended the affair. (Bill reportedly wanted to keep the baby.) All of this was several years PRIOR to her daughter being
taken by her now ex-husband Wesley Mitchell. (But somehow the media got all of these events scrambled up into one rather bogus headline.)
The new Darlene
Love documentary “I Know Where I’ve Been” premiered at The Toronto International
Film Festival on Sunday, September 13th.Statements made during the course of the film
are what inspired both of the Darlene Love stories now making their way through
the gossip channels. We have requested an opportunity to view the film in its entirety so that we can report our own review and conclusions. We'll let you know if and when that happens. (kk)
If you’re not
already Monkeed’d out by this point, Harvey Kubernk’s recent interview with Donna
Walker is now available to listen to as a podcast:
Popular 1960’s
singer Ronnie Dove has passed away.He
was 91 years old.
Between 1964 and 1967,
Dove placed a dozen songs in the National Top 40, including hits like “Say You”
(#29, 1964), “Right Or Wrong” (#12, 1964), “One Kiss For Old Times’ Sake” (#6,
1965), “A Little Bit Of Heaven” (#9, 1965), “I’ll Make All our Dreams Come True”
(#19, 1965), “Kiss Away” (#21, 1965), “When Liking Turns To Loving” (#15,
1966), “Let’s Start All Over Again” (#10, 1966), “Happy Summer Days” (#24,
1966), “I Really Don’t Want To Know” (#22, 1966), “Cry” (#13, 166) and “My Babe”
(#40, 1967).
Dove passed away on
Tuesday, September 15th, at home in hospice care.All of his hits came on the small Diamond Records
label. (kk)
Tom Diehl, who has been with Forgotten Hits since damn near the beginning of time ... and has helped us in more ways that we could ever count or repay ... has been a close friend of Ronnie Dove for over two decades.
I asked him to please say a few words about Ronnie for our readers ...
The passing of Ronnie Dove hit me hard, but honestly, not nearly as bad as I was expecting it to. Why? Because I kept preparing myself for this day. I knew that once Ronnie retired, this day would eventually come, and I had to be prepared for it. I knew I would
never be ready for it, and I wasn't, of course. How can you be, when you have someone you love so much, who means so much to you, and is like family to you, suddenly be gone from your world forever? Ronnie was not just my favorite singer, he truly was like
family to me, and always treated me like such, from the very moment he first spoke to me on my 16th birthday.
I skipped my senior prom in high school to go to my first Ronnie Dove concert, and he made sure to make me feel like a king while I was
there, spending literally a few hours after the show talking to me and making me feel like I was the most important person in the room. He made every fan he interacted with feel that way, every time. He just had that way about him. And he never lost that charm
up until the very end.
He was a thrill to work with closely when we did the CD of his pop hits for Real Gone Music, which has sadly gone out of print.
I got to surprise him with one final new release earlier this year with an album called From The Soul, which
encompassed several recordings he made in the 1980's during sessions for his From The Heart album, which I discovered on some acetate discs I bought on ebay a few years ago, as well as on a cassette tape I got from Ronnie himself that included two previously
unreleased recordings that not even Ronnie had known about previously.
Of course, with today's technology, you can't really tell what songs came from what sources, and I like that (but if you do enough sleuthing, you can figure out what the only two
previously unreleased songs on the album actually are - the rest had been issued on CD previously, in inferior sound quality.)
I always fancied myself to be Ronnie's youngest fan (although at 41 years old now, I may not hold that title anymore), and Ronnie always
considered me to be his main archivist. I have the largest collection of his records from around the world, and still don't even have all of the ones that I know to exist out there, so I'm always looking for more ... and then there are always other formats like
reel to reel tapes, 8 tracks, etc., particularly when it comes to things like unreleased recordings and live performances that people might have stashed away. I keep hearing about things being lost to time because tapes keep getting thrown away. I prefer to
keep peoples' memories alive by archiving them so people can return to them.
Now, where was I? Oh yeah ... right about the time we were working on the cd for Real Gone Music, Ronnie was also one of the Best Men at my wedding in March of 2014. That was a memory I will treasure forever. The first dance my beautiful bride and I shared was
Ronnie's song, I'll Make All Your Dreams Come True, and it would have been that song whether Ronnie was there or not. A side note about that song ... one of the background singers that you can hear in the stereo mix of that song during the intro is Ray Stevens, who
was the arranger of the song. He worked on several of Ronnie's songs over the course of several years in the 1960's.
It's still hard to gather all of my thoughts ... even though I said it wouldn't hit me as hard as I thought it would, it still hits me hard, as I miss my friend, and I always will, because I will always love him, and his music will always live on, because I will
always continue to play it, and promote it.
Tom Diehl
Another quick plug for our FH Buddy Rich Appel … check out
the listening guide …
Much like Chickenman, he’s everywhere, he’s everywhere!!!
(Well, I say the only proper thing to do is to visit BOTH sites … Dann’s for a quick reminder
of what these songs sounded like, should you have any doubts … and then Tom’s
to cast your vote, ranking his options from #1 to #34.(I still don’t understand how Don Ray’s “Got
To Have Loving” as one of the top hits of October, 1978 … it never even cracked
The Top 40 on ANY of the major trade charts!)
A quick check of Joel’s Whitburn’s rankings for October of
’78 show only TEN similarities, which just happen to make up the entire Top Ten.(Whitburn’s list is based on Billboard’s
chart information only and can be ordered thru recordresearch.com … it’s called
TOP POP PLAYLISTS, 1970 – 1984 … and there are other volumes available as well.
Those “common” ten are:“Hot Child In The City” (ranked #1), “Reminiscing,” “Don’t Look Back,”
“Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’,” “Love Is In The Air,” “Hollywood Nights,”
“Right Down The Line,” “Oh! Darling,” “Back In The U.S.A.” and “She’s Always A
Woman.”
Among the other fifteen tracks NOT making Tom’s list, you’ll
find favorites like “Josie” by Steely Dan, “Took The Last Train” by David
Gates, “London Town” by Paul McCartney and Wings, “Ease On Down The Road” by
Diana Ross and Michael Jackson and “Greased Lightning” by John Travolta (Tom’s
list has three OTHER songs from the hit movie “Grease” ... but not this one.)
The failing of Joel’s list is that once a song makes The Top
25, it can’t repeat again (which just isn’t the way the charts work.)Far too many songs carry over for two or
three months (or nowadays, up to a year!)As such, selections like “Kiss You All Over,” “Boogie Oogie Oogie,”
“Hopelessly Devote To You,” “Hot Blooded,” “An Everlasting Love” and “Come
Together” all appear on Joel’s September, 1978 list, when they first peaked at
their highest point.This method allows
for a lot of songs that don’t really deserve to make the Top 25 making the
list.(Examples: City Boy – “5.7.0.5.”
peaked at #27, Michael Johnson – “Almost Like Being In Love” peaked at #32,
“Crazy Feeling” by Jefferson Starship peaked at #54! “Substitute” by Clout
peaked at #67.There is absolutely NO
way ANY of these songs belong on a list purporting to offer up the 25 biggest
songs of the month.)kk
New Music From Dolly Parton … "BORN
TO RIDE" –
According To Billboard, This
Will Be Part Of An All-Star Tribute Album …
"WHERE SOUL NEVER DIES: 80
YEARS OF THE STANLEY BROTHERS"
Comes Out October 16th
On Compass Records.
FRANK B.
I’ve got a feeling we’ll be hearing a lot more “new” Dolly
Parton music in the future … she probably has HUNDREDS of songs in the vault
that have never been released … and then, of course, RCA will do their usual
treatment of creating “fake” duets with other artists who want to pay
tribute.This will likely go on for
several more years.(kk)
More from Frank …
Connie Valens Accepts The Award
For Chris Montez’s Induction Into "IOWA ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME"
FRANK B.
Chris was honored over Labor Day Weekend as part of The
Class of 2026.His sister, Connie
Valens, accepted the award for him.
Here was his statement:
I am so honored to be inducted
into the Iowa Rock ’n Roll Hall of Fame. It means more to me than I can say.
And I’m especially grateful that
my hero and sister, Connie Valens, was there to accept the award on my behalf.
I couldn’t have asked for anyone more special to represent me.
Thank you to the Iowa Rock ’n
Roll Music Association for this incredible honor, and thank you, Connie, for
making the moment even more meaningful.
It
was my absolute honor to accept on you behalf. I’m sorry you couldn’t be there
to share in such a special moment. Thank you for allowing me to stand in for
you. So proud of you, you are like a brother to me.
Connie
Valens
2026 Iowa Rock 'n Roll Hall
of Fame Inductees & Award Winners
Bands: Standing Hampton, Artist, Cave Band, The South
Prairie Band, Lizard Creek Band, Murphy’s Law, Acoustic Groove
Border Band: The Floras
Promoter: David Bernstein, Adam Feiges, Steve White
Disc Jockey: Jim
“DJ Jimmy Jim” Bollard, Dan Crouse
Music Store: Ray’s
Midbell Music
Individual Artists: Dan Olsen, Damon Dotson, Dirk Newton, Candy
Givens, Dan Cassady • Richie Lee, Jerry Steinke, Ryan Sather, Steve Hugg,
Beverly Bowman, Chris Montez
Iowa Rock 'n Roll Music
Association Lifetime Achievement Award:
Bob Pace, Carlos Capdevila
Matousek Lifetime Achievement
Award: Walter Chancellor Jr.,
Clarence “Pops” Kenner
John Senn Legacy Award:
Doris Welle
Spirit Award: Valerie Kane, The Holy Rocka Rollaz
The Iowa Rock ‘n Roll Music
Association annually inducts musicians, bands, DJs, ballrooms, promoters,
inventors and others who have significantly contributed to rock and roll music
in the State of Iowa. Since incorporation in 1997, more than 550 entities
and over 2,000 individuals have had the honor of being inducted or awarded.
Inductees must have a minimum of 25 years of experience in the music industry.
The Iowa Rock ‘n Roll Music
Association welcomes nominations through the website: www.iowarocknroll.com/nominate. Nominations that have been brought forward on or before
September 30, 2026, will be considered for the Induction Class of 2027.
Timmy sent us a copy of an old cigarette ad … probably not
QUITE the image we’d want to portray in remembrance of 911, right???
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