Showing posts with label Underrated 60s pop groups. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Underrated 60s pop groups. Show all posts

Underrated pop groups of the 60s: Buffalo Springfield

The Buffalo Springfield is one of those groups that's best known for what its members did after the band broke up.

Sure, this is the unit that gave us Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Jim Messina and Rickie Furay but its own music shouldn't be overlooked.



Outside of one big single--Stills' "For What it's Worth," a #7 hit in 1967--the group recorded two must-have albums, and a third less noteworthy release, before reported testiness between Stills and Young caused its split in 1968.

There's lots of good stuff on these LPs--early country rock, Beatles- and Byrds-influenced pop and listener's first exposure the songwriting talents of Stills and Young.

Buffalo Springfield CDs


Buffalo Springfield


Buffalo Springfield Again


The Last Time Around


Buffalo Springfield Box Set

Buffalo Springfield Books

There's Something Happening Here: The Story of Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth by John Einarson and Richie Furay

Buffalo Springfield on YouTube:

Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth -Smother Bros show

Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth (Monterey 1967)

Rock 'n' Roll Woman - Buffalo Springfield

Underrated pop groups of the 60s: Badfinger

Any serious Beatles fan knows, and likely loves, Badfinger. After all, the band was the first group signed to the Fabs' fledgling Apple Records label.

Those who know rock history also know the sad trajectory of the band: After huge success early on, the band collapsed in poor sales, bankruptcy and the suicides of its two leading members.

Originally named The Iveys the group was rechristened after Paul McCartney's "Bad Finger Boogie," the pre-lyrics working title for the Beatles' "With A Little Help from My Friends."

McCartney also wrote and produced the group's first big single, "Come and Get It," a #7 hit in 1969. If you have the Beatles' third Anthology set, you've heard Paul's own demo of this song. It sounds just like the Badfinger version, but with his own lead vocal.



Badfinger's own music sounded quite Beatley in its own right. After "Come and Get It," the big singles included "No Matter What" (1970, produced by Beatles' roadie Mal Evans), "Day After Day" (1972, produced by George Harrison) and "Baby Blue" (1972).

"Without You," by the band's songwriters Pete Ham and Tom Evans was later covered by Harry Nilsson, becoming a huge hit, also in 1972.

The band signed a big deal with Warner Bros. when Apple imploded in the midst of the Beatles' breakup, but met with little chart success and never recovered. Ham hanged himslef in 1973 and Evans did the same in 10 years later.

Badfinger Book

Without You : The Tragic Story of Badfinger

Badfinger CDs


Magic Christian Music


No Dice


Straight Up


Ass


Badfinger


Wish You Were Here


Airwaves


BBC in Concert 1972-1973


Day After Day (live recording)

Badfinger on YouTube

Badfinger Come And Get It

BADFINGER - NO MATTER WHAT - LIVE

Badfinger - Baby Blue

Badfinger - "Day After Day"

Badfinger - Airwaves / Look Out California (1979)

Underrated pop groups of the 60s: Chad and Jeremy

Often dismissed as a Peter and Gordon knock-off (which they were), the duo of Chad Stuart and Jermy Clyde recorded a number of nice singles and a few very worth-having albums.

Plus, they appeared on "Batman" and "The Dick Van Dyke Show" as, essentially, near-Beatles-type figures.



You've probably heard the big songs from 1964 : "A Summer Song" which hit #7 and Yesterday's Gone," which hit #21. "Willow Weep for Me," which hit #15 in 1965 also gets some oldies airplay.

Anyone who enjoys those--and gentler, folkish British Invasion sounds--will likely enjoy the duo's Before and After album. And you can even hear them getting a little psychedelic and far out--complete with sitar solos--on their 1967 LP Of Cabbages and Kings. The follow up to that was the pair's "concept album" The Ark.

The great Sundazed label has released those LPS and a few others in nicely remastered and expanded editions.

Chad and Jeremy CDs


Before & After


I Don't Want to Lose You Baby


Distant Shores


Of Cabbages & Kings


The Ark

Chad and Jeremy on YouTube:

Chad & Jeremy - Willow Weep For Me

Chad and Jeremy "Distant Shores"

Chad and Jeremy "The Truth Often Hurts The Heart"

Chad and Jeremy "Willow Weep For Me"

Underrated pop groups of the 60s: The Bonzo Dog Band

They had a single produced by Paul McCartney and had a cameo in "Magical Mystery Tour." But do you ever hear any of their tunes on the oldies station? Nope.

But the radio surely would be a lot more fun if you did.

Starting out as a trad-jazz novelty band specializing in music of the 20s and 30s, the Bonzos eventually transformed into sort of surrealist/comedy/novelty band taking their cues from British radio's The Goon Show (featuring skits by Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and others) and setting the stage for Monty Python.

In fact, leading Bonzo Neil Innes eventually became a Python associate, appearing on the troupe's TV show and in their movies and eventually teaming with Eric Idle in the Beatles parody project, The Rutles.

But the Bonzos true frontman was the eccentric and hilarious Viv Stanshall, whose mock upper-class speaking and singing voice adorns many of the group's best tunes.

Anything went on the Bonzos albums: remakes of 30s novelty tunes, send-ups of then-current pyschedelia and out-and-out surrealist nonsense. All great, funny stuff.

The group disbanded in 1970 but reunited a coupe of years later for the Let's Make Up album. They shouldn't have bothered, as it didn't come close to matching the imagination and humor of the band's 60s albums.

Stanshall went on to record comedy for the BBC and lent his voice to Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells. He died in a house fire in 1995.

The Bonzos, including Innes and fellow original members "Legs" Larry Smith, Roger Ruskin Spear, Rodney Slater, Bob Kerr, Sam Spoons and Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell reunited for a series of shows in 2006, augmented by celebrity performers including British actor/writer Stephen Fry.



The reunited band's recorded a new studio album, Pour l'Amour des Chiens (For the Love of Dogs) and their original albums were reissued in remastered/expanded form the same year.

Bonzo Dog Band CDs


Gorilla


Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse


Tadpoles


Keynsham


Let's Make Up and Be Friendly


Wrestle Poodles... And Win! (live 2007 recording)

Related


Songs the Bonzo Dog Band Taught Us (original versions of old jazz/novelty tunes that inspired the Bonzos)

Bonzo Dog Band DVD


The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band 40th Anniversary DVD (video of 2007 performances)

Bonzo Dog Band on YouTube

Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band - Death Cab For Cutie

Bonzo Dog band - Urban Spaceman (promo)

Bonzo Dog band - Hunting Tigers

Bonzo Dog band - New Faces 1966

By a Waterfall - Bonzo Dog Band

Canyons of Your Mind - Bonzo Dog Band

Mr Apollo - bonzo dog band

Beautiful Zelda - Bonzo Dog Band

Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band - Monster Mash / The Sound Of Music

Bonzo dog Band - Little Sir Echo

Bonzo Dog band - Equestrian statue

Underrated pop groups of the 60s: The Move

Born in Birmingham, UK, in the 1966, The Move started out mod, drifted into psychedelia and eventually became a forerunner to power pop. There was also some prog and chamber pop mixed in there as well.

Led by vocalist/songwriter Roy Wood, other members of the band included vocalist Carl Wayne, bassist Chris "Ace" Kefford, guitarist Trevor Burton and drummer Bev Bevan. Former Idle Race singer/guitarist Jeff Lynne joined the band in the early 1970s, following a personnel shakeup.



Notable tunes included the 1812 Overture-quoting "Night of Fear," a #2 UK hit in 1967; the mod/psych "I Can Hear the Grass Grow" (#5 UK hit 1967); the lovely "Flowers in the Rain," (#2 UK hit 1967) and the Beatlesque "Blackberry Way" (#1 UK hit, 1969).

Later on, the band charted with the rocking pop of "California Man" (#7 UK hit, 1972), which was eventually covered by Cheap Trick.

Right around the time that song was released, however, the band split up, with Wood, Lynne and Bevans leaving to form the Electric Light Orchestra.

ELO fans may be interested to know that band's hit "Do Ya," was originally recorded during the Move years and then remade in 1976 by Lynne and company, becoming a major hit.

The Move's original UK albums were recently remastered and expanded and are well worth checking out.

The Move CDs


The Move


Something Else...Plus


Shazam


Looking On


Message from the Country

The Move on YouTube

The Move - California Man

THE MOVE - Night Of Fear

THE MOVE - I Can Hear The Grass Grow

the move - blackberry way

Move - Flowers in the rain

The move - Tonight (German TV 1971)

The Move - Down On The Bay