TGIF Rock-n-Roll Oldies: Dave Edmunds 1970

Dave Edmunds is a Welsh singer, guitarist and record producer. Although he is primarily associated with Pub rock and New Wave, he had numerous hits in the 1970s and early 1980s, while displaying a consistent tendency towards 50s-style, guitar-driven rock n roll.

Rock-n-Roll Oldies: ? Mark & the Mysterians

Question Mark and the Mysterians were an American rock and roll band formed in Bay City, Michigan in 1962... best known for the monster-hit 96 Tears, a true garage-rock classic recorded in 1966 that went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold over 1M copies.

? and the Mysterians (as rendered on the label) was perhaps the first band to be described as "punk rock"- while also the first Latino rock group to have a general audience hit in the US. The name came from a 1957 Japanese science fiction film The Mysterians, in which aliens from the destroyed planet Mysteroid arrive to conquer Earth.

And the band's eccentricities don't end there: frontman and primary songwriter "Question Mark" -going simply as "?"- has long claimed to be a Martian who lived with dinosaurs in a past life... and like ZZ Top, never appears in public without sunglasses. 

? often speaks of traveling into the future and visiting other planets, asserting that he has done so. No witnesses are known to have corroborated Mr Mark's dubious claims...

But he did write the song that became the band's first and biggest hit -96 Tears- with essential riffs and styling being contributed by The Mysterians. It began as a poem that bore the working title Too Many Teardrops- written in 1958, four years before the band was even formed. 

With its plaintive chorus and catchy Vox organ riff, 96 Tears was originally recorded on March 13, 1966 in Bay City, Michigan as a single for local Pa-Go-Go Records, owned by the group's manager, Lillian Gonzales. The song was recorded on the porch of a private home, but it quickly became a regional hit in the Flint and Detroit areas.

It was originally intended that the song Midnight Hour would be the group's single... with 96 Tears just as the B-side. But at the insistence of ?, 96 Tears was made the A-side.  He then personally went to radio stations to promote the song and get his single played, and 96 Tears quickly became a local hit. Subsequently, with the Cameo-Parkway Records release the song became a national #1 hit... lifelong favorite of mine, too- 

? Mark and the Mysterians: 96 Tears- 1966

Wikipedia

Previous RR Rock n Roll Oldies features -here-

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TGIF Rock-n-Roll Oldies: Badfinger 1970

The best Welsh power pop rock band you ever heard? 

-could be!
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Badfinger was a rock band formed in Swansea, Wales in the early 1960s who became one of the earliest representatives of the post-60s power pop genre. During the early 70s Badfinger was tagged as the heir apparent to The Beatles, partly because of their close working relationship with them, and partly because of their similar sound. The band had four consecutive worldwide hit songs and contributed Without You, a #1 Billboard hit for Harry Nilsson which was subsequently covered by hundreds of artists. Badfinger's two principally-known singers and songwriters, Pete Ham and Tom Evans, sadly committed suicide in 1975/1983.
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After Badfinger's recording contract with Apple lapsed, band members entrusted their financial affairs to American businessman Stan Polley. Echoing much of The Beatles' story, internal squabbling, artistic differences and alleged financial mismanagement ensued and eventually led to the bands' demise. 
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Subsequent attempts to reform Badfinger at various times over the following decade floundered, due in large part to the suicides, which took the band's main creative force. Badfinger's story turned out to be what has been called "the classic rags-to-riches story with a tragic Shakespearean ending," and "a tragic drama set to music—beautiful music."
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Me?  I love 'em: star-crossed, but  with Top-10 hits like Come and Get It and No Matter What (below) just in 1970 alone, a truly great 70s power pop band.
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And what's up with that look from the bass player at 2:22...? 
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Badfinger : No Matter What- 1970

Wikipedia


Previous Rock-n-Roll Oldies features at RR -here-


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TGIF Rock n Roll Oldies: Los Bravos 1966

Los Bravos were a Spanish beat group, formed in 1965 and based in Madrid, Spain. Singing impressively well in English, they saw success overseas with the single Black is Black, which  reached #2 in the UK and #4 in the US -the first Spanish group to do so- and selling over a million records.
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The band were an amalgamation of two pop groups, Los Sonor and The Runaways. Los Bravos' lead singer Mike Kogel was from Germany, his vocal style sometimes likened to Gene Pitney's. Black is Black was written by Brits Tony Hayes and Steve Wadey. The song was later covered by Johnny Hallyday and the French-based outfit Belle Epoque, and in 1977 their disco version of the song coincidentally also reached #2 in the UK.
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Los Bravos' follow-up single, I Don't Care, reached #16 in the UK in 1966, but that was pretty much the end of it. The band were also the subjects of two Spanish comedic movies...

Los Bravos- Black is Black

Previous RR Rock n Roll Oldies features -here-
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Saturday Night Rock-n-Roll Oldies... Small Faces- 1967

Small Faces were an English rock and roll band from East London, heavily influenced by American rhythm and blues. The group was founded in 1965 by members Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones (later of The Who), and Jimmy Winston, although by 1966 Winston was replaced by Ian McLagan as the band's keyboardist.

The band is remembered as one of the most acclaimed and influential mod groups of the 1960s, with such classic hit songs such as "Itchycoo Park", "Lazy Sunday", "All or Nothing", "Tin Soldier", and their concept album Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake, they later evolved into one of the UK's most successful psychedelic acts before disbanding in 1969.

They are also acknowledged as a major influence on the Britpop movement of the 1990s- Despite the fact they were together just four years in their original incarnation, the Small Faces' music output from the mid to late sixties remains among the most acclaimed British mod and psychedelic music of that era.

The break-up occurred when Marriott attempted to bring a young Peter Frampton on-board and instigate other changes... resistance to these ideas created tention in the band. Marriott later stormed off stage in the middle of a New Year's Eve gig and soon formed Humble Pie with Frampton and others, while the remaining Small Faces went on to become simply "Faces" with the addition of Rod Stewart and Ronny Wood.

Lazy Sunday was originally written by Marriott as a spoof, but impressed their record label, who insisted on releasing it. And it's modeled on the style of Cockney drinking songs... great fun:

Vezi mai multe video din Muzica

Small Faces: Lazy Sunday-1967

A wouldn't it be nice to get on with me neighbours?
But they make it very clear
They've got no room for ravers
They stop me from groovin', they bang on me wall
They doing me crust in, it's no good at all - ah

Lazy Sunday afternoon
I've got no mind to worry
I close my eyes and drift away-a

Here we all are sittin' in a rainbow
Gor blimey hello Mrs. Jones
How's old Bert's lumbago? He mustn't grumble
Tweedle dee bite
I'll sing you a song with no words and no tune
Tweedle dee bite
To sing in your party while you souse at the moon - oh yeah

Lazy Sunday afternoon-a - tweedle dee bite - tweedle dee bite - tweedle dee bite
I've got no mind to worry - yeah - I've got no mind to worry
Close my eyes and drift away-a

Root-de-doo-de-doo, a-root-de-doot-de doy di
A-root-de doot de dum, a-ree-de-dee-de-doo dee - doo doo ....
There's no one to hear me, there's nothing to say
And no one can stop me from feeling this way - yeah

Lazy Sunday afternoon
I've got no mind to worry
Close my eyes and drift away

Lazy Sunday afternoon
I've got no mind to worry
Close my eyes and drift a-
Close my mind and drift away
Close my eyes and drift away

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►Wikipedia

Previous Rock-n-Roll Oldies Features:

►The Creation- 1967

►The Beatles- 1966

►Humble Pie- 1969

►Rasberries- 1972

►The Rolling Stones- 1969

►Nazareth- 1975

►Status Quo- 1972

Small Faces, Lazy Sunday, Rock-n-Roll oldies, Steve Marriott,
Small Faces, Lazy Sunday, Rock-n-Roll oldies, Steve Marriott,
Small Faces, Lazy Sunday, Rock-n-Roll oldies,

Saturday Night Rock-in-Roll Oldies... Nazareth- 1975

Nazareth is a Scottish rock band that had several hard rock hits in the UK in the early 1970s, and established an international audience with their 1975 album Hair of the Dog. Primarily an albums band, they had one notable international hit single, in 1975, with a cover of the ballad "Love Hurts" The band continues to record and tour to the present day, and I myself got the chance to see them in their prime, opening for Van Halen in 1979, great show-

Nazareth was formed in December 1968 in Dunfermline, Scotland, out of the ashes of semi-professional local group The Shadettes. They took their name from the first line of The Band's classic song "The Weight" ("I pulled into Nazareth / Was feelin' about half past dead...")

The band moved to London, England in 1970, and released their self-titled debut album in 1971. Nazareth's success grew on a string of albums, and the 1974 LP Rampant only had single released from it, Shanghai'ed in Shanghai, which somehow narrowly missed the British Top 40. This one has endured surpisingly well though, and I often hear it on the oldies station still... 35 years later:

Nazareth: Shanghai'd in Shanghai-1975

Standing on a corner in downtown L.A.

Waiting for the man to come along

She comes up to me and says "too bad, too sad"

You know that he's been dead and gone.

L.A. lady, kinda shady

She picked him up and took him home

I woke up groggy my sight was smoggy

And I knew that it had been blown

Early in the morning sitting in a hotel

Moscow's looking fine through the wine

Spaced out I crashed out

When the K.G.B. came on the line.

It's a cold one, bein' sent down

It's gotta be fifty below

Mama here's a postcard to let you know

I'm in a saltmine and looking for coal

Shanghai'd in Shanghai

Stood on in Tuscon

Ripped off and kicked right out the bed

Flyin' across the desert from Texas to Tuscon

But we're headed for a southern star

The captain says it's fine in Havana

This dude behind me needs a cigar.

He's a big one, he's got a big gun

I guess we better go along

Mister we've got a gig in Arizona

Second billing to the Rolling Stones

Shanghai'd in Shanghai

Stood on in Tuscon

Ripped off and kicked right out the bed

Shanghai'd in Shanghai

Laid low in 'Frisco

Done in and left behind for dead

►Wikipedia

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TGIF Rock-n-Roll Oldies: Johnny Rivers 1966

Johnny Rivers (born John Henry Ramistella @ NYC 11.07.42) is an American rock and roll singer, songwriter, guitarist, and record producer.... styles include folk songs, blues, and revivals of old-time rock 'n' roll songs in addition to some of Rivers' original material. 

Johnny Rivers's greatest success came in the mid-to-late 1960s with sequence of top US and international  hits such as "Seventh Son", "Poor Side of Town", "Summer Rain", "Secret Agent Man" -theme to the TV show- then in the early 70's with a great cover of Jerry Lee Lewis' "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie-Woogie Flu" that went to #6 on the Billboard Hot 100, his third million-selling single.

Rivers continues to record and perform to the present in 2010... love that voice, and the guy can play a guitar:

Johnny Rivers: Secret Agent Man- 1966

 

Johnny Rivers.com   Wikipedia   

Previous Rock n Roll Oldies features -here-

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TGIF Rock-n-Roll Oldies: Pink Floyd 1987

Pink Floyd were an English rock band who first earned international recognition for their psychedelic rock music in the late 1960s, and for their progressive rock music from the 70s-on. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. 

The epitome of a critically-acclaimed and commercially successful rock act, the group have moved over 200 million albums worldwide... one of the best-selling music artists of all time. 

Pink Floyd was formed in 1965 by university students Roger Waters, Nick Mason, Richard Wright, and Syd Barrett. The group were a popular fixture on London's underground music scene. In 1968, guitarist and singer David Gilmour joined the line-up. Barrett was soon removed, due to his increasingly erratic behaviour. 

Following Barrett's departure, bass player and singer Roger Waters became the band's lyricist and conceptual leader, with Gilmour assuming lead guitar and much of the vocals. With this line-up, Floyd went on to achieve worldwide critical and commercial success with the concept albums The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall.

Wright left the band in 1979, and Waters in 1985, but David Gilmour and Mason (rejoined by Wright) continued recording and touring under the name Pink Floyd. Waters used legal means to try to keep them from using the name, declaring Pink Floyd a "spent force", but the parties reached an out-of-court settlement allowing Gilmour, Mason and Wright to continue under the name Pink Floyd. 

The new lineup enjoyed continued worldwide successes with A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987) and The Division Bell (1994)  And even though they were fat and wearing mullets by the late 80s, I always loved this tune Learning to Fly... for a late-career effort, I consider it exceptional. Plus the fact that I'm predisposed, since I did catch this 1987 tour in Detroit- a great show if ever there was one with elaborate lasers and other effects quite tastefully done. 

Although their earlier stuff was surely monumentally impressive, what many consider to be their most commercial (and overplayed) material The Wall was later followed by this new, David Gilmour-led style that was slick and refreshing, bringing a more nuanced sound on the LP A Momentary Lapse of Reason... even if it's not a fave of most hard-core Floyd fans due the the absence of Roger Waters from the lineup... and difficult comparisons to earlier epic hits like Money:

Pink Floyd: Learning to Fly 1987

 Pink Floyd Official Site   Wikipedia

Previous RR Rock n Roll Oldies features -here-

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