Our Salute To "Rubber Soul" ... Part 2

50 Years Ago This Month the landmark album "Rubber Soul" was released.

"Rubber Soul" was released in the U.K. on December 3rd, 1965 ... incredibly it was The Beatles' THIRD new album to chart that year!  In the UK, "Beatles For Sale" kicked off the year at #1, followed by the soundtrack to "Help" and then "Rubber Soul".  Here in The States, we got "Beatles '65", followed by "The Early Beatles" ... (a bunch of tracks first released in America on the Vee Jay and Tollie labels prior to Capitol Records pushing the band) ... followed by "Beatles VI", "Help!" and "Rubber Soul" ... FIVE albums in one year.  It's an absolute wonder that The Fab Four hadn't burnt out by then.  Instead, they soared to even greater heights on their next two releases, "Revolver" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".  Incredible in hindsight ... at the time ... and with the benefit of 50 years of subsequent releases that have never measured up to what The Beatles accomplished in just six short years.

For the first time ever in America, there was no single taken from the album.  (The Beatles name did not appear anywhere on the front cover either ... also a first.  I guess by this point in time there wasn't a person left in the universe who didn't already know who these four guys were!!!)  In fact, it was the closest a US album release resembled its British counterpart since "Meet The Beatles" first hit the streets in January of 1964.

Additional, non-British singles continued to be released here in The States by Capitol records throughout 1965 and 1966 ... but nothing was culled from "Rubber Soul" specifically ... although I feel quite certain that tracks like "Michelle", "You Won't See Me", "If I Needed Someone","In My Life" and "Drive My Car" would have all proven to be successful chart singles if only given the chance.

The US version of the LP (released three days later) rode the chart for a year ... peaking at #1 on January 8th and staying there for six straight weeks.  

The album had a decidedly "John feel" to it.  (This was especially true of the US pressing, which featured seven Lennon tracks compared to four by McCartney and one by Harrison.)  Most would agree that some of John's all-time stand-out compositions grace this album:  "Norwegian Wood", "Girl" and "In My Life" among them.  Never again would he be such a dominating force on a Beatles album.  John got deeper into drugs (and Yoko!) and Paul assumed the reigns on their subsequent releases ... a point of contention later down the road.

Today, The Beatles ... in their own words ... recall the "Rubber Soul" recording sessions and this new era of recording ... (from the "Anthology" book)   kk

JOHN LENNON:  We were getting better, technically and musically.  We finally took over the studio.  I think "Rubber Soul" was about when it started happening.  It was Paul's title.  It was like "Yer Blues", I suppose, meaning English soul.  "Rubber Soul" ... just a pun.    

PAUL McCARTNEY:  I think the title "Rubber Soul" came from a comment an old blues guy had said of Jagger.  I've heard some outtakes of us doing "I'm Down" and at the front of it I'm chatting on about Mick.  I'm saying how I'd just read about an old bloke in the States who said "Mick Jagger, man ... well, you know, they're good ... but it's plastic soul."  So "plastic soul" was the germ of the "Rubber Soul" idea.  
Later, when we made "Sgt. Pepper", I remember taking it 'round to Dylan at the Mayfair Hotel in London.  I went 'round as if I were going on a pilgrimage.  Keith Richards was in the outer room and we had to hang around and then went in to meet Dylan.  It was a little bit like an audience with The Pope.  I remember playing him some of "Sgt. Pepper" and he said "Oh, I get it ... you don't want to be cute anymore."  That was the feeling about "Rubber Soul", too ... we'd had our cute period and now it was time to expand.

RINGO STARR:  There was a lot of experimentation on "Rubber Soul", influenced, I think by the substances.  George Martin knew about it and used to get annoyed ... well, not really annoyed, he would just go "Oh God" because things would take a little longer.  When we did take too many substances, the music was shit, absolute shit.  At the time we'd think it was great, but when we came to record the next day, we'd all look at each other and say "We'll have to do that again."

Grass was really influential in a lot of our changes, especially with the writers.  And because they were writing different material, we were playing differently.  We were expanding in all areas of or lives, opening up to a lot of different attitudes.  I feel that we made it on love songs ... all the initial songs were love songs.  Now we get to "Rubber Soul" and begin stretching the writing and the playing a lot more.  This was the departure record.  A lot of other influences were coming down and going on the record.

"Nowhere Man" was good.  "Girl" was great ... weird breathy sounds on it.  "The Word", another great track ... George Martin on harmonium, Mal "Organ" Evans on Hammond.  We were really getting into a lot of different sounds and I think the lyrics were changing, too, with songs like "Drive My Car", "Norwegian Wood", "You Won't See Me", "Nowhere Man" and, of course, "Michelle".   

GEORGE HARRISON:  "Rubber Soul" was my favorite album, even at that time.  I think it was the best one we made ... we certainly knew we were making a good album.  We did spend a bit more time on it and tried new things.

Songwriting for me, at the time of "Rubber Soul" was a bit frightening because John and Paul had been writing since they were three years old.  It was hard to come in suddenly and write songs.  They'd had a lot of practice.  They'd written most of their bad songs before we'd even got into the recording studio.  I had to come from nowhere and start writing and have something with at least enough quality to put on the record alongside all the wondrous hits.  It was very hard.

JOHN:  "Rubber Soul" was the pot album and "Revolver" was the acid.

Like anything, people go in trends, and the trend now is to think that "Revolver" was the change.  And the trend before was to think "Rubber Soul" was the change ... and then the other trend was "Sgt. Pepper".  But the whole thing was a gradual change.  We were conscious that there was some formula or something ... it was moving ahead.

THE COVER:

PAUL McCARTNEY:  The album cover is another example of our branching out ... the stretched photo.  That was actually one of those little exciting random things that happen.  The photogapher, Robert Freeman, had taken some pictures round at John's house in Weybridge.  We had our new gear on ... the polo necks ... and we were doing straight mug shots; the four of us all posing.  Back in London, Robert was showing us the slides.  He had a piece of cardboard that was the album cover size and he was projecting the photographs exactly onto it so we could see how it would look as an album cover.  We had just chosen the photograph when the card that the picture was projected onto fell backwards a little, elongating the photograph.  It was stretched and we went, "That's it ... "Rubber So-o-ul, hey, hey!"  Can you do it like that?"  And he said, "Well, yeah, I can print it that way."  And that was it.

GEORGE HARRISON:  I liked the way we got our faces to be longer on the album cover.  We lost the "little innocents" tag, the naivety, and "Rubber Soul" was the first one where we were fully-fleged potheads.    

THE MUSIC:  

There was no single released from "Rubber Soul" ... the Double A-Side hit "We Can Work It Out" / "Day Tripper", released the same day (but not included on the album) was climbing the charts while the album was making its mark. 

Most of the history books will tell you that The Beatles started recording their new album in October of 1965 ... but Mark Lewisohn's book documenting ALL of the sessions The Beatles held at Abbey Road Studios shows that the track "Wait" was started as early as June of that year.  Incredibly The Beatles were still putting the finishing touches on their previous LP, the soundtrack to "Help!" ... and on the 17th of June they recorded Ringo's contribution to that album, "Act Naturally", as well as takes 1-4 of "Wait".  (They also did the mono mix of "Yesterday" at this same session.)  It is believed "Wait" was originally recorded for consideration for the soundtrack album but, at the final mixing session the very next day, it was left behind.

The Beatles then went off on another tour while their latest film opened in theaters around the world.  (In fact, on August 29th, they stopped at The Hollywood Bowl ... and this performance was recorded and eventually released some twelve years later as a compilation of BOTH Hollywood Bowl appearances, 1964 and 1965.)

Recording in earnest for the new LP began on October 12th when The Fab Four laid down tracks for "Run For Your Life" (takes 1-5) as well as Take One of a new title which was then known as "This Bird Has Flown".  ("Norwegian Wood")  When one considers that the new album was expected to be out in stores in time for Christmas, it is really quite remarkable that The Beatles could knock out something of the caliber of "Rubber Soul" in just six weeks!  (And, in the midst of it all, they also cranked out the "Day Tripper" / "We Can Work It Out" single as well as this year's Fan Club Christmas Flexi-Disc!)  

Over the next three weeks, The Beatles recorded eleven more tracks, including "Drive My Car", "If I Needed Someone", "In My Life", "Nowhere Man", a couple of rejected versions of "I'm Looking Through You", "Michelle", "What Goes On", "Think For Yourself", "The Word" and both sides of their brand new single, "Day Tripper" and "We Can Work It Out".

A deadline of November 11th was imposed ... by this date ALL of the album's material had to have been recorded so that proper mixing could take place in time to press the album to meet its December 3rd release date.

As such, The Beatles held a mammoth, marathon recording session on the 11th of November ... it was of epic, "Please Please Me" proportions ... thirteen straight hours in the studio ... during which time they completed "You Won't See Me", "Girl", the final revamped version of "I'm Looking Through You" and the resurrected "Wait". (The album needed fourteen tracks, after all!)

On November 15th ... just 44 days after the first official session ... the new LP was mixed.  It was released 18 days later on December 3rd, along with their new single "We Can Work It Out" / "Day Tripper".  Incredible!  

All of The Beatles acknowledge the "Rubber Soul" sessions as the first time they truly took control in the studio ... taking as long as they wanted and needed to in order to capture the sound they were going for.  The American version (with its two "Help!" soundtrack hold-over tracks, "I've Just Seen A Face" and "It's Only Love") tended to have a more "folksy" vibe ... there seemed to be a lot more acoustic material than what you'd heard on their previous LPs, much of which was taken from their live stage shows fill out the 12 or 14 required tracks.  (kk)

DRIVE MY CAR - I probably hear this Beatles song more than any other today ... if only because every radio station in town seems to use it as the background music for their traffic reports, which run several times a day.  A great track with a somewhat oblique lyric ... of all people, we saw The Jonas Brothers put on a killer performance of this song at The White House recently when Paul McCartney was awarded The Gershwin Prize of Popular Songwriting ... (kk)

One of the stickiest was "Drive My Car" ... because we couldn't get past one phrase that we had:  'You can buy me golden rings'.  We struggled for hours.  I think we struggled too long.  Then we had a break and suddenly it came ... "Wait a minute, 'Drive My Car!"  Then we got into the fun of that scenario.  "Oh, you can drive my car."  What is it?  What's he doing?  Is he offering a job as a chauffeur or what?  And then it became much more ambiguous, which we liked instead of golden rings, which was a bit poofy.  "Golden rings" became "beep beep yeah".  We both came up with that.  Suddenly we were in LA ... cars, chauffeurs, open-top Cadillacs and it was a whole other thing.  (Paul)

I played the bassline on "Drive My Car".  It was like the line from "Respect by Otis Redding.  (George)

NORWEGIAN WOOD - I remember this one being played like a single at the time ... John Lennon fessing up (in a somewhat obscure way) about an affair he had been having at the time, sugar-coated just a bit so as not to offend his wife Cynthia at the time.  It also represented the first use of the sitar on a pop record.  (This was the most basic use of the instrument ... George would get much deeper into the instrument ... and the whole mysticism of Indian culture ... in the months to come.)  The Stones would then steal this sound and use it on their next record, "Paint It Black".  (kk)

"Norwegian Wood" was the first use of sitar on one of our records, though during the filming of "Help!" there were some Indian musicians in a restaurant scene and I first messed around with one then.

Towards the end of the year, I'd kept hearing the name of Ravi Shankar.  I heard it several times and about the third time it was a friend of mine who said "Have you heard this person Ravi Shankar?  You may like the music."  So I went out and bought a record and that was it ... I thought it was incredible.

So I went and bought a sitar from a little shop at the top of Oxford Street called Indiacraft.  It was a real crummy quality one, actually, but I bought it and mucked about with it a bit.  Anyway, we were at the point where we'd recorded the "Norwegian Wood" backing track ... twelve string and six string acoustic, bass and drums ... and it needed something.  We would usually start looking through the cupboard to see if we could come up with something ... a new sound ... and I picked the sitar up ... it was just lying around ... I hadn't really figured out what to do with it.  It was quite spontaneous.  I found the notes that played the lick.  It fitted and it worked.  (George)

"Norwegian Wood" was about an affair I was having.  I was very careful and paranoid because I didn't want my wife, Cyn, to know that there really was something going on outside the household.  I'd always had some kind of affairs going on, so I was trying to be sophisticated in writing about the affair, but in such a smokescreen way that you couldn't tell.  I can't remember any specific woman it had to do with ... I was writing from my experiences ... girls' flats ... things like that.

George had jut got the sitar and I said "Could you play this piece?"  We went through many different versions of the song.  It was never right and I was getting very angry about it ... it just wasn't coming out like I said.  They said "Just do it how you want" and I did the guitar very loudly into the mike and sang it at the same time.  And then George had the sitar and I asked him could he play the piece that I'd written.  He was not sure whether he could play it yet because he hadn't done much on the sitar, but he was willing to have a go, as is his wont ... and he learnt the bit and dubbed it on after.  (John)

It was such a mind-blower that we had this strange instrument on a record.  We were all open to anything when George introduced the sitar, you could walk in with an elephant, as long as it was going to make a musical note.  Anything was viable.  Our whole attitude was changing.  We'd grown up a little, I think.  (Ringo)

YOU WON'T SEE ME - One of my favorite Paul LP tunes of all time ... and years later a hit for Anne Murray.  Catchy as can be ... and probably the track I've played the most from this LP. (It was reportedly written about his then-girlfriend Jane Asher giving him the cold shoulder and not returning his phone calls.)  This was one of the last tracks recorded for the LP, knocked out in just two takes as part of the final marathon recording session.  (kk)

NOWHERE MAN - And one of my LEAST favorite Beatles tracks of all time.  Still, I seemed to be in the minority on this one ... it became a Top Three Single here in The States ... and was probably most effectively used as Jeremy's theme in the animated film "Yellow Submarine".  (kk)
 

"Nowhere Man" was one of John's, coming from a big night the night before and getting to bed about five in the morning.  That was a great one.  He said, "I started one last night".  It turned out later that it was about me ... "He's a real nowhere man ..."  I maybe helped him with a word here or there, but he'd already got most of it.

Nobody ever had any notes written down ... we just used to sing a tune and it would come out good.  Part of the secret collaboration was that we like each other.  We liked singing at each other.  He'd sing something and I'd say, "Yeah" and trade off on that.  He'd say "Nowhere-land" and I'd say "For nobody".  It was a two-way thing.  (Paul)

I'd spent five hours that morning trying to write a song that was meaningful and good.  I was just sitting trying to think and I thought of myself sitting there, doing nothing and going nowhere.  Once I'd thought of that, it was easy and it all came out.  No ... I remember now ... I'd actually stopped trying to think of something.  Nothing would come.  I was cheesed off and went for a lie down, having given up.  Then I thought of myself as a Nowhere Man ... sitting in this Nowhere Land.

"Nowhere Man" came words and music, the whole damn thing.  The same with "In My Life".  I'd struggled for days and hours, trying to write clever lyrics.  Then I gave up and "In My Life" came to me ... letting it go is the whole game.  (John)

THINK FOR YOURSELF - George Harrison's first contribution to the album ... with an interesting fuzz bass line by Paul.  (kk)

Paul used a fuzz box on the bass on "Think For Yourself".  When Phil Spector was making "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah", the engineer who'd set up the track overloaded the microphone on the guitar player and it became very distorted.  Phil Spector said "Leave it like that ... it's great."  Some years later everyone started to try to copy that sound and so they invented the fuzz box.  We had one and tried the bass through it and it sounded really good.  (George)

THE WORD - Another one I've never been particularly fond of.  In hindsight, the precursor to "All You Need Is Love", I guess, which wouldn't come until two years later.  (kk)

It sort of dawned on me that love was the answer, when I was younger, on the "Rubber Soul" album.  My first expression of it was a song called "The Word".  The word is "love"  "In the good and the bad books I have read; whatever, whatever, the word is "love".  It seems like the underlying theme to the universe.  Everything that was worthwhile got down to this love, love, love thing.  And it is the struggle to love, be loved and express that just "something" above love that's fantastic.  I think that whatever else love is ... and it's many, many things ... it is constant.  It's been the same forever.  I don't think it will ever change.  Even though I'm not always a loving person, I want to be that ... I want to be as loving as possible.  (John)

"The Word" could be a Salvation Army song.  The word is 'Love' ... but it could be 'Jesus'.  It ISN'T, mind you ... but it could be.  (Paul)

MICHELLE - A sure-fire #1 Hit single had Capitol or Parlophone decided to go that route.  Instead, the duo of David and Jonathan (songwriters and producers Roger Greenaway and Roger Cook) recorded it ... and saw it peak at #12.  (kk)

I wrote the middle eight of "Michelle", one of Paul's songs.  He and I were staying somewhere and he walked in and hummed the first few bars, with the words and he says "Where do I go from here?"  I had been listening to Nina Simone ... I think it was "I Put A Spell On You" ... there's a line in it that went "I love you, I love you, I love you."  That's what made me think of the middle eight.  "I love you, I love you, I l-o-ove you." 

My contribution to Paul's songs was always to add a little bluesy edge to them.  Otherwise "Michelle" is a straight ballad.  He provided a lightness, an optimism, while I would always go for the sadness, the discords, the bluesy notes.  There was a period when I thought I didn't write melodies; that Paul wrote those and I just wrote straight, shouting rock and roll.  But of course when I think of some of my own songs ... "In My Life" or some of the early stuff, "This Boy" ... I was writing melody with the best of them.  (John)

EDITOR'S NOTE:  The melody to "In My Life" has always been a point of contention between Lennon and McCartney.  In 1980, John did an interview with "Playboy Magazine", detailing who wrote what for The Beatles.  When Paul was shown the list, he made a few amendments, most notably the music to "In My Life", which he says he composed completely on his own on a mellotron at Lennon's house. (See "In My Life" comments for more on this.)  kk

We'd just put out "Michelle" and I remember one night at The Ad Lib Club David Bailey hearing it and saying "You've GOT to be joking ... it IS tongue in cheek, isn't it?"  My reaction was "Piss off!  That's a real tune", and was quite surprised that he'd think that.  Looking at the sixties now, I can see why he did, because everything was very "Needles And Pins", "Please Please Me" and suddenly ... "Michelle".  It came a bit out of left field, but those are often my favorites.  (Paul)

WHAT GOES ON - A complete throw-away ... but finally a chance for Ringo to join his bandmates in the songwriting arena.  Reportedly, this was an old, resurrected Lennon - McCartney track discarded ages ago ... and nobody really seems to know for sure what Ringo contributed to the collaboration ... but it became his first songwriting credit.  (kk)

GIRL - One of the prettiest (and lushly produced) John Lennon ballads ... and of course we ALL know about the "tit-tit-tit-tit" tongue-in-cheek background vocals!  (kk)

"Girl" is real.  There is no such thing as THE girl ... she was a dream ... but the words are all right. It wasn't just a song and it was about THAT girl ... that turned out to be Yoko in the end ... the one we were all looking for.

It's about "Was she taught when she was young that pain would lead to pleasure ... did she understand it?  Sort of philosophy quotes I was thinking about when I wrote it.  I was trying to say something or other about Christianity, which I was opposed to at the time because I was brought up in the church.

I was pretty heavy on the church in both books, but it was never picked up, although it was obviously there.  I was talking about Christianity in that you have to be tortured to attain heave.  That was the Catholic Christian concept ... be tortured and then it'll be all right ... which seems to be true, but not in their concept of it.  I didn't believe in that ... that you HAVE to be tortured to attain anything.  It just so happens that you are.

We've always done dirty little things on records.  In "Girl" The Beatles were singing "Tit-Tit-Tit-Tit" in the background and nobody noticed.  (John)

I'M LOOKING THROUGH YOU - My album had the false start intro ... which is the only way I knew this song until the '70's when it came to light that this was an anomaly.  To this day, it's the ONLY way this song sounds right to me.

The Beatles remade this track a total of three times before hitting on the version that finally made the LP.  The others are quite radically different ... proving that the lads weren't going to give up on a good song idea ... they'd just keep working it until they found something that fit!   (kk)

IN MY LIFE - Perhaps John Lennon's greatest achievement with The Beatles as a songwriter ... although it is said that Paul composed the music for this one and Lennon handled the lyrics.  If this is the case, one of the best TRUE Lennon and McCartney collaborations of all time.  (kk)

Most of the time we wrote together.  We'd go and lock ourselves away and say, "OK, what have we got?"  John might have half an idea, something like for "In My Life":  'There are places I remember ...' I think he had that first as a lyric, like a poem, 'Places I Remember'... and we'd work out the extra melody needed and the main theme and by the end of three or four hours we nearly always had it cracked!  I can't remember coming away from one of those session not having finished a song.  (Paul)

George Martin had a very great musical knowledge and background and he could translate for us and suggest a lot of things.  He'd come up with amazing technical things, slowing down the piano and things like that.

In "In My Life" there's an Elizabethan piano solo ... we'd do things like that.  We'd say "Play like Bach" or "Could you put twelve bars in there?"  (John)

PRODUCER GEORGE MARTIN:  "In My Life" is one of my favorite songs because it is so much John.  A super track and such a simple song.  There's a bit where John couldn't decide what to do in the middle and while they were having their teabreak, I put down a baroque piano solo which John didn't hear until he came back.  What I wanted was too intricate for me to do live, so I did it with a half-speed piano, then sped it up, and he liked it.

"In My Life" was, I think, my first real, major piece of work.  Up until then it had all been glib and throw-away.  I had one mind that wrote books and another mind that churned out things about "I love you" and "you love me" because that's how Paul and I did it.  I'd always tried to make some sense of the words but I never really cared.

It was the first song that I wrote that was really, consciously, about my life.  It was sparked by a remark a journalist and writer in England made after "In His Own Write" came out.  He said to me, "Why don't you put some of the way you write in the book in the songs?  Or why don't you put something about your childhood into the songs?"

I wrote the lyrics first and then sang it.  That was usually the case with things like "In My Life" and "Across The Universe" and some of the ones that stand out a bit.

It started out as a bus journey from my house on 251 Menlove Avenue to town.  I had a complete set of lyrics, naming every sight.  It became "In My Life", a remembrance of friends and lovers of the past.  Paul helped me with the middle eight musically."  (John)

Funnily enough, this is one of the only songs John and I disagree on.  I remember writing the melody on a mellotron that was parked on his hall landing.  (Paul)

Most of my good songs are in the first person ... "In My Life", "I'm A Loser", "Help!", "Strawberry Fields" ... they're all personal records.  I always wrote about me when I could.  I didn't really enjoy writing third-person songs about people who lived in concrete flats and things like that.  I like first-person music.  But because of my hang-ups and many other things, I would only now and then write specifically about me.  (John)

WAIT - I've always lumped "Wait" and "The Word" together ... as the weakest tracks on this LP.  This track was originally recorded for the "Help!" soundtrack ... but then shelved and not used.  (kk)

IF I NEEDED SOMEONE - One of my all-time George favorites ... I feel this one measures up to just about anything Lennon and McCartney had created up to this point.  Great melody ... great guitar (reminiscent of what The Byrds were doing here in America at the time) ... and great vocals.  What's not to like???  (Later covered by The Hollies in Great Britain ... and Chicago's own Cryan' Shames here in America.)  kk

RUN FOR YOUR LIFE - Although John HATED this song, it was one of my favorites ... next to "You Won't See Me", the track I played the most.  (Even did it with my high school band)  I remember hearing this one on the radio quite a bit at the time, too.  (kk) 

I never liked "Run For Your Life" because it was a song I just knocked off.  It was inspired from - this is a very vague connection - "Baby, Let's Play House".  There was a line on it:  "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man", so I wrote it around that.  I didn't think it was all that important, but it was always a favorite of George's.  (John)

(Note:  The US album also included "I've Just Seen A Face" and "It's Only Love", two holdovers from the British "Help!" album ... but omitted "Drive My Car", "Nowhere Man", "What Goes On" and "If I Needed Someone".  "Nowhere Man" and "What Goes On" were paired as a single in March of 1966 while "Drive My Car" and "If I Needed Someone" were saved for the "Yesterday ... And Today" album, which also included several of The Beatles' recent US singles ... and a couple of advance tracks from "Revolver", which wouldn't be released until August of '66.)  kk

The Beatles Story ... in their own words ...

ANTHOLOGY

Read it:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0811826848?keywords=beatles%20anthology&qid=1450324151&ref_=sr_1_3&sr=8-3

Watch it:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00008GKEG?keywords=beatles%20anthology&qid=1450324151&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1  

From our readers ...

What a cool way to enjoy the Forgotten Hits salute to "Rubber Soul" ...

Hi Kent -  
Enjoying your Rubber Soul article with my favorite coffee cup ;-)  

Thanks for your continued efforts to keep this music alive and well.

Best,

Mike Stineman

Much has been made over the past fifty years about the distorted photograph used on the album cover ... but have you ever wondered what the ORIGINAL, uncropped photo looked like?

Hi Kent- 

Re: Rubber Soul at 50 ...

This photo appeared just a few years ago.

  

Love your blog!

- Mike Lane

Minneapolis

Rubber Soul: Happy 50th Anniversary!

As we're in the midst of the 50th Anniversary of The Beatles' landmark album "Rubber Soul", we thought we'd run this excerpt from Harvey Kubernik's book "It Was Fifty Years Ago Today:  The Beatles Invade America and Hollywood".  

I didn't buy "Rubber Soul" when it first came out ... at the age of 12, it was a little over my head.  (In fact, I passed on the "Help" soundtrack, too, as the American version only had seven actual Beatles tracks on it ... the rest was packed with instrumental filler from the motion picture soundtrack, lost on a young kid like me.) 

But 1965 started off on a very strong note for me ... I literally played the grooves off "Beatles '65" ... I had to pick out pieces of vinyl from my needle at one point as I had worn the grooves right off the record.  I remember my mom coming in one night pleading with me to stop playing it! (I think it was the high-pitched screeching sound of the needle hitting bare metal that did her in!)  I finally had to go out and buy another copy ... but by then Beatles VI was in the stores so I bought that one, too.  Between the two of them you pretty much recreated the British pressing of "Beatles For Sale" ... back then I knew NOTHING about imports ... nor did I have the resources to go out and find them.  (I remember Ron Riley on WLS playing tracks off the British pressings of the early Beatles albums but never put two and two together to realize that I was missing out on some as yet unreleased Beatles music here in The States.)

This was also the case with "Rubber Soul" ... our US pressing had just twelve tracks ... and a couple of those turned out to be hold-overs from the British "Help" soundtrack LP.  The British version of "Rubber Soul" had great tracks on it like "Drive My Car"and "If I Needed Someone" that we wouldn't hear in America until the "Yesterday ... And Today" album was released several months later ... at that point kind of a hodge podge of thus far non-LP singles, a couple of leftover tracks from "Rubber Soul" and, incredibly some ADVANCE tracks from the yet-to-be-released "Revolver" album (like "I'm Only Sleeping" and "Dr. Robert"!)

When I did finally buy the "Rubber Soul"album, it had the "false start" intro to "I'm Looking Through You" version ... it was the only way I ever knew the song to exist as it was the only way I had ever heard it.  The false starts were precisely timed to the tempo of the song so once again I never gave it a second thought.  Many years later I bought a new Capitol Records pressing to keep unplayed in my collection ... of course that logic didn't last long ... and when I did finally play it, it had the false start beginning on it, too.  For that matter, so did the original US Capitol pressing of the "Rubber Soul" CD!!!  (In hindsight, I'm not so sure any of this was by accident!)

I remember being fascinated years later when I heard how the stretched out, elongated album cover photo came to be.  The very trippy Beatles were looking at various photographs for consideration for the cover of their brand new LP and as these photos were being projected on to a 12 x 12 white board (to simulate what it would like like as an album cover) the white display board slowly started to slip out of the chair as this particular shot was being displayed.  As soon as they saw it in its distorted view, they shouted "That's the one!  Can we have that?"  ... so they had to "stretch" the photograph (like rubber???) to simulate what had so innocently happened in that one split second of "slippage"!!!  (kk)

*****

Rubber Soul 50 Years On   
Harvey Kubernik, Rock's Backpages, December 2015   

"Rubber Soul was the album that changed the musical world we lived in then to the one we still live in today." (Andrew Loog Oldham)   

IN DECEMBER 1965 I bought a British import copy of Rubber Soul on Hollywood Boulevard, just around the corner from the Capitol Records tower at the fabled Lewin Record Paradise.  I then purchased a stereo one at Thrifty's Drugs on Wilshire Boulevard, took it to a party in downtown L.A., and watched my brand new LP get tossed into traffic on La Brea Ave. by a couple of soul-brother party-goers irate about "Beatles stealin' and took from us again". 

This was a few months after the summer 1965 Watts riots. I stated my case to some angry Bubble Up drinkers that in a newspaper, at a U.S. press conference, Paul McCartney, a devoted music fan, lauded "colored music" and the sounds of the Motown label. Our record hop got racial and facial. Someone hurled a pack of Kool Menthol cigarettes at me. So I hitchhiked home from the corner of Vermont and Jefferson at 11:30 at night.  

Paul McCartney suggested the title Rubber Soul. It was a parody of the relationship that white musicians constantly developed with influential black music. "Rubber Soul" was a term a black musician used to describe the 1964 and '65 sound of the Stones' Mick Jagger.  

During a Beatles' recording session for a take on 1964's 'I'm Down' – later featured on Anthology 2 – McCartney utters the phrase, "plastic soul, man, plastic soul".

"TODAY WE think of the Beatles epic as one incredible breathless run, and it did all happen very fast, their 8 or 9 dizzying years," says writer and author Daniel Weizmann. "But on close inspection, before Rubber Soul there was a subtle sense that the Beatles were ... almost starting to run of steam, exhausted from all that mop-shaking. And who can blame them? Beatlemania would have driven four less durable souls into an insane asylum. Beatles for Sale, Beatles VI, Help! – the songs are great but some near-invisible identity crisis is at work in them, a groping for more. In an alternate, less beautiful universe, the band might have even thrown in the towel right then and there. Which is partially why Rubber Soul is such a miracle – it's not just an album, it's an announcement that they would not back down. They had stripped down to essentials, learned to stifle their own cuteness, and were ready to push past youth, guided by introspection. They aren't there yet, but the plot had thickened – and Rubber Soul is the first chapter of Act II, the very best part of the story."  

"What a fabulous elasticisable title!" says Australian-based music historian and author Ritchie Yorke. "It puts it all in the perfect perspective. Creativity grows and it shows. On Rubber Soul, we are seeing the beast that became John Lennon's composing heart gaining traction and he's beginning to let it flow on through. How blessed we were that it flowed upon our watch.  And in our presence. A wonderful album made most of us realise that there was a lot more to these dudes than just pulling off limp versions of great R & B tunes.'' 

Author John Kruth has just published This Bird Has Flown The Enduring Beauty of Rubber Soul, Fifty Years On. His book reminds us how quick the LP was done: "Written and recorded at breakneck speed, between October 12 and November 11th, Rubber Soul was clearly a game-changer, not just for the Beatles themselves, but as a work whose sound and ideas has lasted for decades, impacting nearly everything that transpired in popular music in its wake." 

Richard Bosworth is a longtime music producer / engineer who's worked at Abbey Road. "One of the other reasons the Beatles' recordings sound so good still to this day," he maintains, "is that the tape machine format was one-inch 4-track – a much wider tape width per track than any other analog tape format that has ever been conceived. The equivalent of 24-track would require that the tape format be six inches wide to get the same fidelity that the one-inch 4-track provided. Norman Smith engineered virtually every studio performance of the band from 1962 through 1965. On Rubber Soul he captured innovative new sounds such as fuzz bass guitar, sitar and distinctly dry vocals. 

"There's a definite delineation point in the record production and musical instrument sounds for the Beatles with the release of Rubber Soul. There were hints of what was to come on 'Help!' ('You've Got To Hide You're Love Away'). Many influential American musicians of the day believe the U.S. version of Rubber Soul is one of the greatest albums ever (including Brian Wilson). In fact the opening songs on both sides of the American Rubber Soul, 'I've Just Seen A Face' and 'It's Only Love' respectively, are two tracks from the English Help! LP and set an introspective acoustic tone for the American release."  

Big sonic changes are introduced on Rubber Soul with the actual electric guitars and the guitar amplifiers the band adopted at this point. Up until now they had stuck with the musical instruments they're famously known for. Gretsch and Rickenbacker guitars for Lennon and Harrison and Hofner 500/1 bass guitar for McCartney, via various Vox guitar amplifiers.  Rickenbacker had made a left-handed 4001S electric bass guitar for McCartney that he received on the Beatles 1964 U.S. Tour and except for one song, 'Drive My Car', he used his new Rick bass exclusively on Rubber Soul. As the Rick is solid body as opposed to the hollow body Hofner, It gave a more solid electric bass sound than the more acoustic qualities of the Hofner. 

"Whereas McCartney gravitated to Rickenbacker, Lennon and Harrison moved on to Fender, Gibson and Epiphone electric guitars," reminds Bosworth. "The Beatles were aware of the brand of American guitars and amplifiers used by their idols Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry.  However these were not available in England until 1965. Harrison and Lennon acquired twin sonic blue Fender Stratocasters which they used to great effect on 'Nowhere Man' (U.S. single / British album release.) Harrison added a Gibson SG Standard and a Gibson ES-345-TD  to his arsenal. Lennon, Harrison and McCartney all purchased Epiphone ES-230-TD Casino guitars and these became their "go-to" instruments for the next several albums and the 1966 tours. 

"The Epiphone Casino became Lennon's main guitar for the duration of the Beatles career and he used it exclusively on his first solo album and the 'Cold Turkey' Plastic Ono Band single. During the Beatles' 1965 U.S. tour, Harrison was given a second Rickenbacker 360-12  by a Minneapolis radio station and he utilized it on 'If I Needed Someone' (British album release) in a tribute to the sound of the Byrds. Aware that many American musicians used Fender Musical Instrument's guitar and bass amplifiers they began to buy a steady supply that continued right through Abbey Road. McCartney got a blond Fender Bassman amp and soon after Harrison and Lennon bought two Fender Showman rigs with 15" JBL D130 speakers. They still used Vox amps as well. They had an endorsement deal with Vox since 1963, and once that was in place the Beatles never appeared live without Vox amps. The company always supplied the band with their latest models and during this period both Lennon and Harrison received the ultra rare Vox 7120 electric guitar amplifier and McCartney was given the equally rare Vox 4120 bass amp." 

During the Rubber Soul sessions, the group cut the double-A side single 'We Can Work It Out / Day Tripper'. During these dates is when the band began questioning the production authority and sonic techniques of George Martin and the recording engineering staff of EMI Studios. They had garnered commercial success and wanted to expand the music beyond their initial Beatlemania sound, both vocally and instrumentally. 

"I think the Beatles vocally are influenced by Bob Dylan during this period," says Bosworth. "They had noticed there weren't effects like reverb and vocal delay on Dylan's vocals and it gave his performance an intimacy that really suited the lyrics. The Beatles' own lyrics were taking on a new depth and they felt this kind of vocal sound would accommodate the new songs.  They would say to George Martin and recording engineer Norman Smith, 'Why do our vocals have to have echo on every song? Why do we always have to do things the same way every time?'  With the release of Rubber Soul, the Beatles signaled they were not going to be artistically trapped by their success."   

"RUBBER SOUL seemed to be the first Beatles' album released in the U.S. that more or less to corresponded to its U.K. counterpart," suggests photographer Heather Harris, former Entertainment Editor of the UCLA Daily Bruin. "1965 was rather late in the game to issue the themed Beatle musical thinkpieces recorded at the same session rather than grab-bags of singles from one and meat-and-potatoes from another two or three. Therefore American fans could rejoice simultaneously with their British our new musical heroes waxed experimental while still remaining front runners in the pop game. Brian Wilson wasn't the only one who noticed. Harpsichord, Franglais, actual threatened violence, Dylantries et al. stewed and brewed through ... the world's best-selling pop band?! We teens reveled in the high calibre of largesse from these songwriters, only to find it successively topped in the two years to come with Revolver and Sgt. Pepper. Acute bliss. 

"Lastly, psychedelic font lettering on an anamorphic stretch photo by Robert Freeman, exponent of natural and directional lighting, and director of Performance-type precursor insofar as it deftly balanced fey pop culture and butch violence.  That cover: pure inspiration, in and of itself and to anyone interesting in the field of graphic art, photography and trailblazing visuals ... " 

"With their own, unique version of Rubber Soul, American Capitol finally got it right," claims Canadian Beatlemaniac Gary Pig Gold. "Up until then of course, all of Parlophone's precious Fab LP's had been thoroughly sliced, diced and, I quote, 'Prepared for release in the U.S.A. with the assistance of Dave Dexter, Jr.' With varying degrees of success, shall we say. But no sooner had John Lennon caught sight – not to mention sound – of Capitol's slapdash 'very special movie soundtrack souvenir album' for Help! than the (in)famous Dex was given the heave-ho by the powers-that-were at EMI's London HQ, leaving substitute Capitol international A&R exec Bill Miller's staff to assemble a Rubber Soul for 1965's all-important North American Christmas market. 

"And what a fine job they did! For the first time leaving the Beatles' U.K. cover photos and graphics of choice intact – one of the '60s most iconic long-playing images, absolutely – Miller's men cobbled together what some still profess to be a 'folk-rock' blend containing two left-over numbers from the British Help! LP while removing several of the rougher, as in fully plugged-in tracks from Rubber Soul U.K. In doing so however, the core of the band's intricate original running order was wisely left as-is and the ultra-refreshing result was a slightly more 'mellow' perhaps ('mature' was the word many startled reviewers used in '65) package from those hitherto poppy-go-lucky mop-tops. 

"Nevertheless, discriminating ears from Los Angeles to the Canadian Laurentians immediately took notice … not the least of which to the very air of savvy sophistication – though some detected second-hand jazz-cigarette smoke as well – which permeated the entire proceedings, from Lennon's provocatively fishy-eyed 'I dare you to find anything wrong with this' gaze on the front cover to the Strat 'n' sitar-soaked sounds within. Why, for starters as we all know, no less than a certain Beach Boy, upon first removing Rubber Soul from his turntable, immediately vowed to 'answer' it asap by himself making 'the greatest album ever!' And if, because of that challenge alone, the American Rubber Soul should be hailed, even a half-century later, as a resounding, unqualified utterly game-changing success." 

"I want to give extra props to the U.S. Rubber Soul," hails musician Jim Wilson of Motor Sister, who previously worked with Sparks and Daniel Lanois. "Of course I love the 14-track U.K. version, but as a young record collector who grew up with a mid-'70s Apple pressing, I've always have a soft spot for the American track listing. Plus it has all the songs you played with your buddies when the acoustic guitars came out. 

"The U.S. Revolver suffers in comparison because you're just getting less tracks, but I really dig the Rubber Soul mix with the folky Help! songs. Besides, we got all the extras on Yesterday & Today with a great cover photo to stare at (two actually!). And no matter what John Lennon says, I absolutely worship 'It's Only Love'. Oh yeah, don't forget we got the cool false start on 'I'm Looking Through You.' You have to have them both!" 

"Rubber Soul is the Beatles album that illuminates the simple fact that when you strip away some of the early Beatles raw electric energy and manic song power," says music and radio business veteran Elliot Kendall. "You simply find that more endless talent awaits you, to positively blow your mind in this new semi-acoustic setting.

"Focusing on the American version for now, current personal favorites include the defiant Harrison track 'Think For Yourself' with its attitude-packed 6-string fuzz bass (furiously played by McCartney) and subversive funky rhythm section. Is it the ghost of Motown's Funk Brothers (specifically bassist James Jamerson and rhythm-section spirits) who pay a brief mystical visit to this musical space? Take a closer listen next time you spin. 

"'The Word' is positively pulpit-pounding evangelist action. This track bears repeated listening for a multitude of reasons, a few listed here: Lennon's vocal is nothing less than a man let loose with the truth, with the driven need to share his newfound revelations with the world. So ... how about a stack of those bad books for our research, Winston O' Boogie? 

"Lyrical intimacy rules the aura of this album. On 'Girl', Lennon is positively confessional. The Greek-inspired acoustic guitar work (evoking an old world bouzouki) only serves to underscore the emotion and reflective surrender of this piece. 

"Romantic disillusionment haunts both McCartney-led tracks 'You Won't See Me' and 'I'm Looking Through You,' both tracks said to be inspired by the state of his then-relationship with Jane Asher. Both are loaded with daring innovation and a new sophistication previously unheard in pop recordings, as with the entire album. 

"Rubber Soul had no single released in the U.S., which is bewildering in hindsight. 'Drive My Car" and 'Nowhere Man' (both included on the UK versions) were released as singles on both sides of the pond, but not included on the American LP pressings." 

Says writer Paul Body, "'Day Tripper' and 'We Can Work It Out' were already available as a two-sided singles. Help! had been out for the Summer of Yesterday. Now Rubber Soul to end the year on a quiet note. of course the import and domestic versions of Rubber Soul were different but that was cool. You either bought domestic version at Sears or bounced over to Lewin Record Paradise to get the import. 

"It seemed like a perfect winter album, all dark and moody. They had come a long from 'I Want To Hold Hand.' It was cool to hear 'Nowhere Man' on the album before it was a single; I never will forget that when I saw them LIVE. George Beatle played that cool lead break and I remember you could hear that bell sound at the end, even in Chavez Ravine. The harmonies were stunning on 'If I Needed Someone.' The Hollies covered it but the Beatles version was the ONE. 'Michelle' was great to listen to on a cold winter night, felt like Paris. 

"Yeah, the Mop Tops had come a long way. The country stomp of 'I'm Looking Through You' made you want to dance, the European grimness of 'Girl', sounded like something from a Truffaut movie, all black turtle neck and black beret chic. Francoise Hardy. 'In My Life' was sad then and it's sadder now. Yeah, Rubber Soul was pointing towards the future and what a future it turned out to be." 

Adds Mark Ellen, author and former editor of Word magazine, "Rubber Soul sows the seeds of psychedelia, a wonderfully loose and reflective record with an almost entirely John Lennon second side which gives it a particular character: five of those six songs are John's – 'It's Only Love,' 'Girl,' 'In My Life,' 'Wait' and 'Run For Your Life'." 

Michael Seth Starr is the the author of the just published comprehensive in-depth biographical study Ringo Starr With a Little Help. "In my opinion," he says, "Rubber Soul is not one of the better showcases for Ringo's drumming style, since the album is more folksy in tone and, for the most part, requires Ringo to keep it simple. That being said, his singular, slightly-behind-the-beat style is showcased right off the bat in 'Drive My Car,' the album's opening track. I love the way in which his opening drum roll underscores the first few notes of Paul McCartney's bass riff – and how Ringo's propulsive thwacking 'drives' the song and underscores its double entendre lyrics.

"Ringo also proves why he and McCartney were such a cohesive rhythm section on 'The Word,' which features McCartney's bouncy bass line and Ringo's straight-ahead drumming – complemented by his 'only Ringo could do that' fills (partly the result of his being a lefty, but playing a right-handed drum set). While 'What Goes On' is Ringo's first co-writing credit as a Beatle – he's given lyrical props alongside John Lennon and Paul McCartney – his drumming on this track is standard-issue and unremarkable. However, I like his sensitive touch on 'In My Life', Lennon's bittersweet autobiographical paean. Ringo's hi-hat / snare drum combination nicely underscores Lennon's vocals – and the song's overall tone." (Incidentally, a variation on Ringo's 'In My Life' drum beat can be heard on 'Get Together,' the hit single by the Youngbloods, which came out in July 1967, around a year-and-a-half after Rubber Soul.) 

IN 1998, I INTERVIEWED Elvis Costello in Hollywood during his Painted By Memory recording sessions with Burt Bacharach. We briefly discussed Rubber Soul. "I have a perspective on it that someone of my years probably shouldn't have.  I always heard Burt's tunes in cover form first.  And that was important. The stuff that my [musician] dad brought home were 'A' label singles. The Beatles' ones I had were the non-single tracks like 'Michelle', and songs from Rubber Soul that they (Northern Songs) thought were better suited for covers than, maybe, 'Drive My Car' was.  They were sent over on demonstration acetates.  Rather than having the Parlophone label, which never pressed 'Michelle' as a single, Dick James Music (Northern Songs), the publisher, pressed an acetate.  And that was how small they were thinking about that 'radio cover.'"  

"Rubber Soul is beautiful," proclaims Greg Franco, Rough Church bandleader. "There is a switch for the Beatles. Well-groomed, fun-loving fashion plates, cute boys, mop tops (actually they were a scrappy bunch of hoodlums in the Hamburg days). Brian Epstein turned them into a boy band, but they were smoked out by Dylan. Not too many boy bands were smoked out by him after that.  

"Chaos became embedded in the later part of the decade, but the Beatles kept us from going crazy. I think we are at a similar place in the themes of change in the middle part of this decade, but will different and similar issues, We gotta get through this, but maybe we don't have yet the voices of the decade in focus. Maybe we will still have to listen then to a 50 year old record to be inspired. Beatles! Thanks for giving us a Rubber Soul." 

During November and December, Isn't It Good? The Beatles' Rubber Soul, a syndicated National Public Radio documentary, has been broadcast.  The program includes comments from Jim Fusilli, Paul Zollo, Scott Freiman, John Kruth, Shawn Colvin and myself. The radio special continues to air on different stations in 2015, as well as be archived for online listening at the Public Radio Exchange  (www.prx.org).   

"Rubber Soul really feels like the pivot point for the band," says Paul Ingles, the award-winning public radio producer.  "Rubber Soul is also when they were experimenting with new instruments and spending more time dialing in the sounds of the studio.  That started a trend that would continue and flourish through albums like Revolver and Pepper.


Harvey Kubernik's It Was Fifty Years Ago Today: The Beatles Invade America and Hollywood was published in 2014 by Otherworld Cottage Industries.

And be sure to check out Harvey's latest book "Heart Of Gold:  The Neil Young Story".
http://www.amazon.com/Neil-Young-Heart-Harvey-Kubernik/dp/1495003272/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449974953&sr=1-1&keywords=harvey+kubernik+heart+of+gold

FH Reader (and British Broadcaster) Geoff Dorsett just interviewed Harvey on his radio program and sent along this link to share with our readers ...
http://www.softrockshow.co.uk/interviews/item/109-havery-kubernik

New this year from The Fest For Beatles Fans ...

Check out this awesome looking "Rubber Soul" lava lamp!!!  Too much!  

Order yours here ... 
http://www.thefest.com/store/index.php?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Fest%20Newsletters&utm_content=20151109

The '60's!

While Billboard's Hot 100 Chart has always been considered The Music Bible when it comes to chart information ... (as the old adage goes, it ain't #1 'til it's #1 in Billboard) ... there were two other major music trade publications in the '50's, '60's, '70's and early '80's.

Joel Whitburn's latest Record Research Publication gives you EVERY Top 100 Chart that Cash Box Magazine published during the 1960's ... with exact reproductions of each list.

Between January 2nd, 1960 and December 27th, 1969, Cash Box Magazine awarded their #1 Position to fifty songs that never earned that distinction in Billboard Magazine.  This list includes GREAT classic hits like "Crying" by Roy Orbison, "Return To Sender" and "In The Ghetto" by Elvis, "Be My Baby" by The Ronettes, "Louie Louie" by The Kingsmen, "Last Kiss" by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers, "She's Not There" and "Time Of The Season" by The Zombies, "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat" by Herman's Hermits, "Hair" and "The Rain, The Park And Other Things" by The Cowsills, "Build Me Up Buttercup" by The Foundations, "A Groovy Kind Of Love" by The Mindbenders and "Never My Love" by The Association ... novelty hits like "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" by Allan Sherman and  ... and timeless records by '60's trendsetters like The Beatles (who topped The Cash Box Charts with both "Twist And Shout" and "Yellow Submarine", a feat they didn't accomplish in Billboard), The Beach Boys ("Barbara Ann"), "Like A Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder's "For Once In My Life", two #1 Hits for The Monkees ("A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You" and "Valleri"), "Let's Hang On" by The Four Seasons and "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" by Frankie Valli, a couple of tunes by The Rolling Stones ("19th Nervous Breakdown" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash"), "Touch Me" by The Doors, and many, many more.

Now, for the first time ever, you can watch the '60's evolve from the "Teen Idol" early '60's (when Elvis was away in the Army) to the heavy, much more politically aware late '60's when artists like Bob Dylan, Buffalo Springfield and Sly and the Family Stone" ruled the charts.

We have a copy of Joel's new book, "Cash Box Top 100 Charts of the Sixties", to give away to one lucky Forgotten Hits Reader.  (The book is also on sale right now at the Record Research Website ... http://recordresearch.com/)

Just shoot me an email (at forgottenhits@aol.com) and put "Cash Box '60's" in the subject line ... and we'll enter your name for this hot, new book.  (A $90 value on sale now for just $79.95)

Joel's "Cash Box Top 100 Charts of the Seventies" is also available ... be sure to visit his website for more details.

50 Year Flashback - December 14th, 1965

OMG, can you EVER remember a time when a radio station had THIS many disc jockeys on staff?!?!  (Today we're lucking to find ONE "live" deejay in the studio!)

KOMA in Oklahoma City, OK, seemed to be following their own drummer anyway ... look at Elvis at #1 with "Puppet On A String", a song that never climbed higher than #13 nationally.  And right behind it is "Fever" by The McCoys, a #6 national hit.  (Hard to believe it ever climbed THAT high ... today you hear "Hang On Sloopy" several times a week ... but The McCoys actually had FOUR Top 40 National Hits.)

A big jumper this week is Ray Charles' hit "Cryin' Time", up to #9 from #29 the week before.  KOMA is also charting "Day Tripper" as the A-Side of the new Beatles Top Ten Single.

And when's the last time you heard "I See The Light" by The Five Americans?  I don't think I've EVER heard The Juveniles' version of "Bo Diddley" ... but it's a Top Ten Hit this week in Oklahoma City!  (It "bubbled under" in Cash Box only for two weeks, peaking at #140!  Must have been a local band, I'm guessing.)

A long-time favorite of mine, "Time" by The Pozo-Seco Singers, is at #13, again besting their national showing of #44 by a good 30 points.  And finally "Sounds of Silence" makes a BIG leap from #40 to #21 this week ... after already topping our Grand Rapids Chart from a couple of weeks ago!