September songs, part three 

The look at the hits of September from 1964 to 1968 continues. 

SEPTEMBER 1966

1. YOU CAN’T HURRY LOVE – Supremes
2. SUNSHINE SUPERMAN – Donovan
3. YELLOW SUBMARINE – Beatles
4. SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBER – Happenings
5. CHERISH – Association
6. SUMMER IN THE CITY – Lovin’ Spoonful
7. BUS STOP – Hollies
8. LAND OF A 1,000 DANCES – Wilson Pickett
9. SUNNY – Bobby Hebb
10. WORKIN’ IN A COAL MINE – Lee Dorsey 

Of the September songs from 1964 to 1968, this year feels like the weakest. The number one record, “You Can’t Hurry Love,” doesn’t seem all that special today, it’s best feature being its trademark Motown bass line. Otherwise, it’s not unlike the faceless and formulaic “I Hear A Symphony” and “My World Is Empty,” two other Supremes’ songs from around the same time. 

“Summer in the City” is the gem of this top ten, on its way down after sitting at #1 for three weeks in August. Wikipedia says it was released on July 4, 1966, but that seems doubtful. Fittingly, the summer of 1966 was brutal on the East Coast, as New York City recorded a mean daily temperature of 90.3 degrees for July, with a high of 101. The temperature hit 100 four times that summer, still the second-hottest on record. In those golden years before air conditioning became ubiquitous, 2,250 deaths were attributed to the heatwave. 

There’s much to like about “Summer in the City”: The crashing immediacy of John Sebastian’s voice coming out of the blocks as soon as the needle hits the groove. The key line “But at night it’s a different world.” The reference to the Drifters’ “Up on the Roof” in the lyrics. The jazzy piano riff that forms the bridge and plays over the sound of car horns and jackhammers. The racket of guitars and drums – like a summer thunderstorm – before the fadeout. 

“Summer in the City” was the Spoonful’s only number one record, and pretty much their swan song. That May, two members of the band were arrested in California for marijuana possession. Faced with jail and, in the case of Canadian guitarist Zal Yanovsky, deportation, they were coerced into giving the police the name of their source, something nobody did back then. Underground newspapers vilified them, theatres wouldn’t book them and their career was essentially over. 

“Workin’ in a Coal Mine” was mostly a complaint about having to wake up early each morning., leaving the singer exhausted by the time the weekend rolled around. One year later, the Bee Gees would score a Top 20 hit with “New York Mining Disaster, 1941,” about the last moments of a group of miners after the mineshaft they’re working has fallen down around them. Getting up before 5 a.m. didn't seem so bad compared to that.

 

September songs, part two 

Moving forward with the Top 40 music of September 1964 through 1968: 

SEPTEMBER 1965

1.  HELP – Beatles
2.  LIKE A ROLLING STONE – Bob Dylan
3. EVE OF DESTRUCTION – Barry McGuire
4.  YOU WERE ON MY MIND – We Five
5.  CALIFORNIA GIRLS – Beach Boys
6.  HANG ON SLOOPY – McCoys
7.  CATCH US IF YOU CAN – Dave Clark Five
8.  UNCHAINED MELODY – Righteous Brothers
9.  THE IN CROWD – Ramsey Lewis Trio
10.  I GOT YOU BABE – Sonny & Cher 

This was a burst of unprecedented creativity. The evolution of lyrics and abstract concepts, compared to one year ago, is mind-boggling. 

In twelve months, we’ve moved from “I like bread and butter/I like toast and jam” to the line often trotted out to represent the Beatles’ growth as artists, “My independence seems to vanish in the haze.”

The words to “Hang On Sloopy” weren’t exactly Cole Porter, and there always has to be some silliness on the charts, but “Like A Rolling Stone” was, to an 11-year old listening to the radio, impenetrable, a rhyming alphabet soup that you couldn’t stick a spoon in. But it sure sounded cool. 

“Eve of Destruction” was too specific to 1965 to age well, but its lyrics beamed a light of global awareness to kids who weren’t exposed to the news much, save the hourly three-minute headline broadcasts on Top 40 radio. (And taking the song’s title literally, the Doomsday Clock read 11:48 in 1965. Today it’s at 11:58).

Taking in this sudden literary curriculum was like discovering the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man on the newsstands after reading Superman and Jimmy Olsen through much of your childhood. 

The Ramsey Lewis Trio’s version of the “The In Crowd” was the epitome of cool and the second popular jazz number to make the Billboard Top Ten, preceded the year before by “The Girl From Ipanema” at #5. Before that, Vince Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” – two years before he scored A Charlie Brown Christmas – went to #22 in 1963, and “Take Five” by Dave Brubeck hit #25 in 1961. “The In Crowd” album won Lewis, who died earlier this month, the 1965 Grammy for Best Jazz Performance. 

Finally, there’s the troubled “California Girls,” the first 45 I ever bought. Brian Wilson wrote the music at his piano, coming down off his first acid trip and playing over-and-over the same four notes that would eventually form the foundation for “California Girls.” 

It is a record that has had to overcome 1) Mike Love’s ogling lyrics; 2) an embarrassing 1985 cover and accompanying video by the clownish David Lee Roth; and 3) deejays talking over the song’s unrelated-yet-connected 22-second instrumental introduction -- almost an overture -- that set the stage for Pet Sounds, which would come out the following year. 

The brief introduction was unlike anything heard before in a pop song and Wilson later said, “I'm still really proud of that. It has a classical feel.” It also served notice that things were changing and that many of the old rules about making records were quickly falling away.  

 

September songs, part one 

Maybe because it was viewed through the carefree lens of those lazy, hazy, crazy days of soda and pretzels and beer, I always had it in my head that the Top 40s of June, July and August, 1964 to 1968 – the five greatest years of pop music – were somehow better, more magical, than any other time of the year. (And I should add that while soda or pretzels were always welcome, I never touched a beer during those five years). 

There are plenty of fantastic summer songs during that time: “Light My Fire,” “I Get Around,” “Satisfaction,” “Respect.” But as summer began its inevitable creep toward autumn, there’s a lot to be said about the music that charted during September. Based on a cumulative ranking of each song that hit the top ten in September 1964 (10 points for a #1 ranking, 9 points for #2, etc.) is this list: 

1. HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN – Animals
2. WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO – Supremes
3. BREAD AND BUTTER – Newbeats
4. EVERYBODY LOVES SOMEBODY – Dean Martin
5. LITTLE GTO – Ronnie and the Daytonas
6. OH PRETTY WOMAN – Roy Orbison
7. BECAUSE – Dave Clark Five
8. REMEMBER (Walkin’ in the Sand) – Shangri-Las
9. C’MON AND SWIM – Bobby Freeman
10. DO WAH DIDDY – Manfred Mann 

Any exercise like this unearths some bummers, but with one or two exceptions, overall this ain’t all that bad.

The Animals were #1 for three weeks that month, before giving way to Roy Orbison. A rearranged traditional folk song about a New Orleans brothel, “House of the Rising Sun” was recorded by Lead Belly, Bob Dylan and Andy Griffith (!), among many others, before the Animals. 

The Animals' version defied Top 40 conventions because it didn't have a chorus, only an extended organ break by keyboardist Alan Price. Keep that name in mind. On a traditional song, whoever arranges it takes the songwriting credit. In a Spinal Tap moment, the arranging credit went only to Price. There wasn’t enough room to list all five band members on the record label, and since Alan Price was first alphabetically – well yeah, if you’re one of the few who list alphabetically by first name – he received all the royalties. Needless to say, it was an oversight that caused a lot of tension within the band. 

Throughout the 60s, there were records whose rise to the top seemed completely propelled by adults buying 45s. Like “Strangers in the Night,” “Cab Driver” and “Everybody Loves Somebody,” which went to #1 for a week in early August, knocking “A Hard Day’s Night” off the throne. It was still in the top ten in September. Dino took this one literally to the grave: “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime” is inscribed on his burial vault. 

“Remember” was the first in a modest string of moody, psychodramas for the street-tough yet vulnerable Shangri-Las, four teenagers from Queens. A good part of their look and overall vibe was attitude, and the pre-teen me would watch them on Clay Cole and be reminded of the high school girls you’d see shopping for make-up at Woolworth’s on Saturday, chewing gum and wearing their boyfriend’s blue and gold letter jackets. 

September ’65 next.

 

The Perfect Day: August 28, 1964

It’s cool for August on Friday, August 28, 1964, with a high of 79 degrees, and in the low sixties overnight. Earlier in the week, Lyndon Johnson was named the Democrat’s nominee for the November election during the convention held in Atlantic City, as the long shadow of John Kennedy, murdered only ten months earlier, hangs over the week’s proceedings.

We’re living in what could best be called interim housing, a massive brick fortress of an apartment building while my parents saved enough to buy a house – which would happen it just another year’s time.

But right now, it’s time for 24 hours of television.

The morning is the usual mix of cartoons, game shows and Gale Storm and Topper reruns. We make time for Birthday House at 9 a.m. on NBC, hosted by Paul Tripp, a longtime children’s TV host (a job title nobody can claim anymore). One of his IMDB credits is for the movie, "The Christmas That Almost Wasn't," an abysmal affair that Mystery Science Theatre 3000 once featured. Birthday House was on five days a week for an hour, live, leaving its cast to scratch around for material, like time spent each show saying good morning to a caged parakeet and making a boom microphone (Mike) a character (greeted with the song, “Hi Mike, Hi Mike, I like to say, Hi Mike”).

More live TV at 12:30 with Joe Franklin’s Memory Lane. At 2:00, it’s Loretta Young, always worth watching for the show’s opening as Loretta sweeps into the room, a different gown everyday trailing her entrance.

At 4:00 p.m., it’s time for Hall of Fun on Channel 5. Uncle Fred Hall’s most memorable bit was having the viewers mail in drawings of five random lines, which Uncle Fred would turn into whatever the kid requested: a lion, a car, a lollipop. It was endlessly fascinating to watch and hear the squeak of Uncle Fred’s marker on the easel.

On Channel 11 at 6:30, we’re treated to two episodes of a 1953 serial, “Canadian Mounties vs. Atomic Invaders,” billed at the time as “Thrill a minute action in the frozen north.” The female lead was a mostly unknown actress named Susan Morrow, the older sister of Judith Exner, who claimed to be the mistress of both Mob boss Sam Giancana and John Kennedy.

We’re into prime time now. I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster is on Channel 7 at 7 p.m., with John Astin and Marty Ingels. At 7:30 on Channel 2, it’s time for The Great Adventure, an ambitious dramatic anthology series based on events in U.S. history. Tonight, Leif Erickson stars as President Grover Cleveland in an episode about his mysterious public disappearance for six days in 1893. (He had a malignant tumor on the roof of his month, which was removed in secrecy by a team of doctors aboard a yacht anchored off Manhattan). And we recall that Grover Cleveland was a character in Robert Altman’s “Buffalo Bill and Indians,” played by Pat McCormick.

At 8:30, we go to Channel 7 and Burke’s Law, with the usual line-up of Hollywood guest stars whose fame was on the fade: Joan Blondell, Betty Hutton, Buster Keaton and Giselle McKenzie. The TV Guide tells us that the script is by Harlan Ellison, a writing machine and professional maverick who seemed to have written thousands of scripts, novellas, short stories and critical columns. (He wrote the only Star Trek episode that matters, “The City On the Edge of Forever,” as the future fate of the world hinges on Captain Kirk being held back to helplessly watch as Joan Collins is struck by a car and killed while crossing the street; Shatner’s restrained “Let’s get the hell out of here” was powerful and shocking for its use of a word that you just didn't hear on television back then).

At 10, there’s a boxing match between Willie Pastrano, 28, and Bobo Olson, 36, on Channel 7. The much younger Pastrano knocks out Bobo two minutes into the first round. How will ABC fill out the rest of the hour?

The rest of the night is mostly old movies (“Brain From Plant Arous” on Million Dollar Movie, starring Mr. Shirley Temple, John Agar) and Steve Allen’s syndicated variety show on Channel 11 with guests Jim Backus (and wife, Henny), Jayne Mansfield, Connie Stevens and Joe E. Lewis – no need for having a parakeet on camera to kill time. 

 

Marathon Man 

Working my way through a box of old VHS tapes from the 80s and 90s, many of them unlabeled, is a never-ending series of Christmas mornings opening wrapped gifts, each cassette holding another surprise. So far, they’ve mostly indicated what a sucker I was for those Boomer TV marathons the cable channels used to run. I’ve fast-forwarded my way already through hours and hours of The Outer Limits, The Wild, Wild West, The Adventures of Superman, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and the Three Stooges – all of which looks an awful lot like my current DVR viewing habits. 

But they’re also a reminder that there was time when cable seemed to care a lot more about programming than it does today with its endless recycling of ancient TV Westerns and half-day blocks of infomercials. TBS aired its Wild, Wild West and U.N.C.L.E. marathons with new commentary from Robert Conrad and Robert Vaughan. Even the not-so-super superstation WWOR had Jack Larsen host its Superman marathon. The Stooges episodes I taped more than 30 years ago off AMC are still shown on the channel, but often edited down to six minutes from their original twenty, plus more commercials to pad things out to a crisp 15 minutes. 

Because blank VHS tapes were somewhat costly, we did a lot of re-recording over programs we’d already watched. Something I’m hoping to uncover is what’s known in painting as pentimento – I had to look it up – the “presence or emergence of earlier images, forms or strokes that have been painted over.” Maybe a Superman episode will end abruptly and some exotic, rarely seen movie or a New York Giants football game will appear. So far, I’ve only uncovered a hidden last hour of the forgettable Schwarzenegger film “The Running Man” and a Scooby Doo cartoon. 

Recognizing the more ephemeral aspects of taped television, I find myself now fast-forwarding through the shows and watching the commercials. Hair Club for Men. Tote bags that come with a subscription to Time magazine. The Pathmark guy. All of which leads me to a videotape existential crisis. Am I the last person to have these fleeting moments of airtime in my possession and now have the responsibility for the preservation and stewardship of commercials for Carvel’s Fudgie the Whale and Slim Whitman’s “All My Best” album? I almost don’t want to check YouTube to see if they exist in perpetuity there. 

OK, I checked. They’re both on YouTube. I’m off the hook.

 

The Marie Kondo blues 

I began haunting newsstands when I was ten or eleven, spending my allowance on comic books, monster magazines or MAD before moving on in my teens to sports and music magazines, and National Lampoon. Oh, the fun of spending an afternoon or evening with a new mag. When I got comfortable with eBay, I began searching out more. My first dip into online bidding was a bundle of Hit Parader magazines from the 60s. It was easy and I was hooked; as my mania went unchecked, so did the clutter. 

Now, in anticipation of a downsizing that seems inevitable, I’ve gone on a Marie Kondo kick, looking to rid myself of the things that no longer bring joy – stuff in the attic that had become, literally and otherwise, a weight hanging over my head. 

For years I had a subscription to Goldmine, a thick biweekly publication for record collectors. What I thought were about twenty or so copies in the attic turned out to be closer to 75. I spent the better part of an afternoon going through them and discovered that what was entertaining and relevant 30 years ago today felt marginally interesting, but mostly obsolete and musty. 

Witness the countless letters to the editor revealing the paranoia and suspicion record collectors back then felt about those new-fangled CDs. Questions about their shelf-life (“Won’t the metal start to deteriorate with time?”) and production sources (“Why does my original Little Richard’s Greatest Hits album have noticeable differences when compared with the CD?”). These were questions that went on for years in Goldmine. That and a long running debate regarding the urban legend that if you drew a circle around the edge of a CD with a green marker it would sound better. 

Goldmines aside, another box in the attic held something like 50 issues of The Coffin Corner, a newsletter of original research dedicated to the history of pro football. Seemed like a good buy at the time, but too many of the articles were about subjects I could care less about (“The 1927 Pottstown Maroons: A Closer Look.”) Today you can find similar material – better written and researched – online. 

No doubt, The Coffin Corners would have been of some interest to somebody, but I was resigned to let them go. The entire load, Goldmines included, ended up in recycling. But as I dumped them into the bin, I kept hoping someone would walk over and offer to take all this stuff off my hands and put it in the trunk of his car. 

Next up: VHS tapes, and lots of ‘em.

 Radio roulette 

When I got my first transistor radio for my 13^th birthday (red with a silver grille), I discovered a game called radio roulette. I’d spin the tuning dial back and forth, from WMCA at 570 to WWRL at 1600, and wherever I stopped, I had to listen to that station for ten minutes, (although I may have given myself a pass if it was a Spanish-language station). 

Later, I’d wind up having random brushes with what could be called real-life radio roulette. 

WJRZ was a country music station (the term back then was “country and western”) with business offices on Main Street in Hackensack and a studio somewhere in the hinterlands of town near Route 4, a couple of sprawling cemeteries and a patch of wetlands that is likely long gone. In 1970, the station changed its call letters to WWDJ and its format to Top 40 – an uphill climb given the popularity and listening range of WABC in New York City. 

To promote the new format, a couple of deejays came to our high school for an assembly program. I can’t remember much detail, except that it got real embarrassing when they chose to play “Don’t Pull Your Love,” a slice of white bread performed by Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds (comma placement is important here) at a deafening volume, while several black classmates laughed at the music and flashed mocking peace signs. White teen culture taking one on the chin. 

Pete Fornatale

By college I had a car with an FM radio, always tuned to WNEW-FM. My favorite deejay was Pete Fornatale, who had a likeable personality and delivery well-matched to his broadcast shift (10 a.m. to 3 p.m.), while championing uncool bands like the Beach Boys and Poco, and playing Buffalo Springfield well into the 70s. A true believer in the medium of radio, Fornatale put together what passed for a “multi-media” presentation back then (recordings from the radio matched up to a slide show) and took it around to college campuses. When he brought the show to my school, I made the time to be there. 

What I remember best from his presentation were his references to the power of a community of like-minded people tuned to the same radio station, his unmistakable voice not coming out of my car speakers, but from right there in the same room, and his opening line: “None of you look like what I pictured either.” 

I had a similar experience a few years later when I met Vin Scelsa, another WNEW deejay whose Sunday morning show was the definition of idiosyncratic and something I listened to every week. Speaking directly with someone whose voice you've heard for years through your stereo speakers can be a bit surreal. 

Then there were times when real-life radio roulette found me.  

When I was sports information director for Upsala College, our men’s basketball team went to the Division III Final Four, a big enough deal that some felt, understandably, that the game should be broadcast live over WFMU-FM, the former Upsala radio station whose studio was still on campus, although it was no longer officially affiliated with the school. The station agreed and several alumni traveled out to the game site in Grand Rapids, Michigan, lugging a heavy metal case holding the broadcasting equipment. 

The night of the game there were glitches – probably because the equipment looked like something Marconi would have experimented with in the 1890s – and a connection couldn’t be established. Unable to do a live broadcast, I became Plan B, calling into the station afterwards and being put live on the air to summarize the game. It worked out pretty well until some transcontinental telephone interference forced an end to the call.

One last spin of the dial occurred when I was working in corporate communications for the local electric utility and was on call after-hours when an outage blacked out Penn Station in Newark. At 5 a.m., WCBS-FM was looking for an update. So I wouldn’t wake anybody, I went down to the kid’s playroom and spoke with the reporter, then left early for work. During my drive in, the station played my soundbite during the news. I laughed, not just at hearing myself on the radio, but knowing that while some early morning listener might think this official spokesman was situated in some underground bunker, it was only me sitting on the floor in my underwear, surrounded by toys.