Here is an aircheck of Big Jim Edwards on CKLW-AM from.December 1969. The recording lasts nearly an hour and includes songs, commercials and a newscast.
CKLW was a powerhouse top forty station in the late sixties and early seventies. It was located in Windsor, Ontario but reached Detroit, Toledo and Cleveland. I remember listening to CKLW as a very small boy in northeast, Ohio.
The aircheck includes a wide variety of music including soul, folk, bubble gum, rock n roll and even a reggae cover of an old Sam Cooke classic that I had never heard before. The commercials include advertisements for cigarettes and long forgotten beers. (Anybody, remember Black Label?) The newscast is with reports on Vietnam, peace protests and the death and injury report from the year's deer hunting season. (Talk about a bloodbath!)
Take fifty minutes and go back in time with Big Jim Edwards and CKLW.
Back in the sixties, Bob Dylan was considered a poet. People listened to his songs over and over trying to decipher the secret meanings to his lyrics. Personally, I have always felt that Dylan could have used a good editor. Sure, "A Hard Rains A-Gonna-Fall" is a good tune, but do we really need 321 verses?
It was most likely the "poet angle" that gave some record company guy the bright idea to do an album of someone reciting Dylan lyrics over easy listening musical arrangements. The kind of record that would make your Aunt feel hip. And what better "someone" than that English butler guy on the hit television show "Family Affair".
So Mr. French, the upstanding classy sophisticated man- servant, decides to record an album's worth of song lyrics by some radical hippie commie smart alek Minnesotan. What would Uncle Bill say?
Probably nothing. As long, as the butler kept his trousers pressed, his Argyle socks matched and those two little twins quiet, what did he care what the "help" did on their days off?
What would Sissy say? Also probably not much as I always took her for a Herman's Hermits fan anyway. She probably thought Peter Noone was "dreamy" while Dylan was a "total ick". Which, let's be honest here, he most certainly was.
Don't get me wrong here, I like Uncle Bobby. I used to be one of those people who sat around studying his lyrics to see what hidden meanings they contained. I even wrote a term paper in college examining the lyrics to "Subteranean Homesick Blues".
I still like Dylan but in a pinch I'll take "Monster Mash" over "Desolation Row" any day. As the man himself once sang, "I was so much older than, I'm younger than that now."
Initially, I bought this record for the yuk-yuk factor but over time, the album has grown on me. There is something quite soothing about the combination of Sebastian Cabot's voice, the middle of the road schmaltz musical arrangements and Dylan's over the top lyricism that causes me to fall into a pleasant catatonic stupor. Like a litre NyQuil on an empty stomach, only more lethal.
Listen for yourself.
--Rock N Roll Casey
September 30, 2016
Shangri-La, Ohio Casey's Website
Carry-All Action Playsets
I had forgotten all about these toys until a friend of mine recently purchased one off of e-Bay. (I won't say how much he spent, I am embarrassed for him.)
Marx sold three different Carry-All Action Sets; Fort
Apache, Cape Kennedy and Fighting Knights. These were
popular in my neighborhood for a short time in the very early seventies. Surprisingly, I don't remember if I owned any of these. I remember playing with them but the set could have been owned by one of the kids on my street.
Cape Kennedy was by far the best set as it was loaded with trucks, helicopters, planes, and best of all, rockets. (Or were they warheads and missiles? I guess it depended on how violent your imagination was.) Fort Apache was also great as killing technologically over matched Native Americans (we still called them Indians or "Injuns" back then) was still considered an acceptable game for children to play. I don't remember ever playing Fighting Knights. Perhaps, it was acceptable to my five year old brain to shoot off bombs and missiles and kill "Injuns", I guess I drew a line at the crusades.
One of the best features of each set was the "carry-all" aspect. Each set folded neatly into a suitcase, complete with handle, so you could carry the violence down to your friends house and share the fun.
Check out the commercial below. The kid in the rust colored shirt is Christopher Knight, aka. Peter Brady
I recently spent a couple of weeks barricaded in my family compound/bunker reading two books about the sixties tv show/rock n roll band, The Monkees. Both books, "Monkee Business" by Eric Lefcowitz and "Total Control" by Randi L. Massingill, were fascinating reading. Now I realize that 99% of the world has no desire to read even ONE book about The Monkees and yet, I have read two. I am not sure what exactly this may say about me, but perhaps the words "pathetic" and "sad" come to mind.
In the fourteen days I was holed up reading about the
prefab four, I imagine quite a few of you were doing such constructive activities as, rotating your tires, attending all-important committee meetings, changing the oil in your lawn mower, writing your Congressperson to enact social change and flossing. I would like to thank all of you who did the heavy lifting. Without you, I would never have been able to spend a fortnight lounging around and reading about a fifty year old pop band. For this, I will always be grateful.
To try and fool myself into believing that my recent activities were not a complete waste of time, I have decided to wow and fascinate you with a list of interesting facts I learned from my recent historical study of the made for tv rock n roll band.
"INTERESTING" FACTS:
--Peter Tork was invited to audition for the show after Stephen Stills (Yes, THAT Stephen Stills) was rejected by the producers because of his receding hairline. Before leaving the studio, he was asked if he could recommend anyone who resembled himself but had better hair. Stills advised them to contact his friend Peter Tork.
--Michael Nesmith's father abandoned the family when he was a very young boy. As a result, he lived in extreme poverty through most of his childhood. However, during his teenage years his mother, who was working as a secretary in Dallas, invented Liquid Paper (ie. Whiteout). She eventually became a multi-millionaire.
--Both Micky Dolenz and Michael Nesmith recorded a lead vocal track for "Pleasant Valley Sunday". Instead of picking one or the other to use on the final recording, the producer mixed both voices together. Although, on record it sounds like one voice, it is actually both voices overdubbed together.
--For many years, Micky Dolenz was the voice of Snuggles, that annoying fabric softener tv commercial bear.
Snuggles aka. Nicky Dolenz
--Before he became a Monkee, Davy Jones was set to star as a pair of identical cousins (one American and one English) on a prime time television show. At the last minute, however, the studio decided to change the main characters
from two male cousins to a couple of female cousins. "The Patty Duke Show" went on to be a hit tv series for a few years in the sixties.
There you have it. While you were doing your duty and contributing to society, I was shirking my responsibilities and picking up completely useless information on a pretend rock n roll band from the nineteen-sixties. Ain't life grand?
Don't forget, The Monkees are currently touring and just released a new album called, "Good Times". Although it seems impossible, they actually sound happier than they did in the sixties. "Our Own World", one of the standout tracks on the album, is so upbeat and jangely it makes "I'm A Believer" sound like a funeral dirge. Take a listen for yourself.
When this album came out back in 1966, I was six months old and I don't remember it making much of an impression on me. I must admit, I wasn't very open minded back then and I was a bit fixated on things like patty cake, keeping my pacifier in my mouth and playing with my father's car keys. But through the years, this album has grown on me and I am quite fond of it now.
The Challengers never broke out nationally, like The Ventures, but they were superstars in southern California. Their first album, Surfbeat, is still one of the best selling surf instrumental albums of all-time and they even hosted their own local television show.
"California Kicks" has some great instrumental rock n roll tunes including, "Balboa", "One Track Mind" and "North Shore" and includes some cool cover versions of "Louie, Louie", The Raiders' "Kicks" and "Shakin All Over".
The album also has one of the grooviest album covers of the mid-sixties. Every time I look at the smiling young people in their pre-hippie mod clothes standing in front of the painted sunset under the banner, "California Kicks", I am ready to hop the first plane to So-Cal and hang out in a malt shop near the beach. The only problem:
the young people are probably Grandparents now, the Challengers' television show was cancelled a long long time ago and nobody hangs out in malt shops anymore.
Take a listen below.
Today is International Louie, Louie Day in honor of the greatest song in rock n roll history. Richard Berry, the composer of the song, was born on this day in 1935. He recorded Louie, Louie in 1957 and it became a minor hit on the r&b charts selling 130,000 copies.
In the early sixties, it became a garage band standard (especially in the northwestern U.S) and became a #2 hit for The Kingsmen in 1963. Since then it has become one of the most covered tunes in rock n roll history with over 1600 recorded versions and climbing.
To commemorate International Louie Day, we will be bringing you our "Louie, Louie Marathon". I will cram as many versions of the song as I can in our sixty minute time frame. Plus, I will also bring you some sixties tunes that pretty much stole the Louie, Louie guitar riff and became hits of their own. Music on the way from The Zeniths, Motorhead, The Troggs, The University Of Washington Marching Band, Blondie, The Sonics and more...
Back in olden times, it was every aspiring musician's goal to be signed to record for a major record label. Not only would you, supposedly, become rich and famous, you would also be able to name drop the label you belonged to at Hollywood parties, thus, impressing beautiful young women. While most people dreamed of being signed to labels like Columbia, Capitol, Atlantic or even Capricorn, I dreamed of being signed to the greatest label of all; Kelloggs.
That's right, in the late sixties/early seventies, Kelloggs (the makers of Corn Flakes) had it's own record label. (If you think that is weird, I have a Paul Revere And The Raiders album on the Sears record label.) While Columbia had Bob Dylan and Atlantic had Ray Charles, Kelloggs had the top rock n roll act of the era; The Banana Splits.
The Banana Splits Aventure Hour was a Saturday Morning TV show that ran on NBC from 1968 to 1970. It was a collaboration between Hanna-Barbera and Syd & Marty Krofft. (The duo that would bring us H.R Puff n Stuff, Lidsville and Sigmund The Sea Monster.)
The Splits consisted of four non-animated characters (Basically, four guys dressed in furry mascot outfits.) who ran wildly around the studio running into each other and falling down to the accompaniment of groovy music and sound effects. They also rode around an amusement park, (Six Flags, I believe) on super cool four wheelers. (Yes, this is what passed for children's entertainment in the late 60's)
In addition to the Splits mania, the show also featured a couple of cartoons and a live action serial called Danger Island. (Does anyone remember the catch phrase, "Uh Oh, Chongo!")
Although the show sounds pretty moronic nowadays, (as it probably did back in those days) the show was meant to be kind of a kids version of Laugh-In, with the same style of quick editing and slapstick humor. I, at the time being a pre-schooler, loved the show. I even belonged to some sort of Banana Splits fan club. I remember getting a Splits sticker in the mail.
The best part of the show, for me, was the music. Back then every Saturday morning tv show had a band (The Archies, Lancelot Link, Fat Albert etc...) and The Banana Splits were no exception. Ten or so years before MTV, the Splits were doing videos to happy sunshine psychedelic pop music. And somewhere along the line, Hanna-Barbera and Kelloggs got together and started releasing Banana Splits records.
Listening to the music now, I am amazed at how well most of the tunes hold up. Some of the people who sang lead vocals on the songs include, Barry White, Joey Levine (who sang on dozens of bubble gum pop songs by The Ohio Express including, "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy". ) Al Kooper and Gene Pitney (!?!). Most of the songs were produced by David Mook, who is most famous (to me anyway) for co-writing, "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?". How is that for a Saturday morning cartoon super group?
The best and most famous song from the show is the theme tune, "The Tra-La-La Song" which is the happiest sounding music ever recorded to vinyl. (I am smiling just thinking about it.) The song was written by the mysterious N.B Winkless Jr. Winkless was a fairly successful jingle writer at the time having written "Good Morning, Good Morning" for Kelloggs Corn Flakes and "Snap Crackle And Pop" for Rice Krispies. He supposedly wrote the Tra La La Song on a rickety piano in a living room in a house in Kenilworth, Illinois. (According to Wikipedia, anyway) In addition, legend has it ( or Wikipedia does..anyway...again) that Winkless' sons played three of the Splits on the show.
Whatever happened to N.B Winkless Jr.? God only knows. The only other information I could find was a book for sale on Amazon authored by a N.B Winkless Jr. called, "The Gambling Times Guide To Craps" which was published in 1983. ( You can buy a used copy for $23.00 on Amazon, if you are interested.) Perhaps Winkless took his royalties from his cartoon and breakfast cereal songs to Vegas and won a bundle at the crap tables or maybe he sits alone at a rickety piano in Kenilworth, Illinois singing old commercial jingles to himself. Either way, if you should happen to run into him someday, tell him I really like his song.
--Rock N Roll Casey
February 19, 2016
Shangri-La, Ohio
