Rock Evolution – The History of Rock & Roll - 1985 - (page 203)

[GoatersLeftShin]

Just been looking at other songs from 1965...

James Brown - "Papas got a brand new bag" - we've not really spoke about him from what I can see. His time will come when he invents funk to some extent but it's still a great track. Another great who also helped to push the civil rights movement forward.

The Four Tops - "I can't help myself" - superb group who sang some of the great Motown songs. Of all the Motown bands, I think they are my favourite.

The Beatles - "You've got to hide your love away", "Help!", "You're going to lose that girl", "We can work it out". It is truly astonishing the quantity and quality of songs they wrote in the years they were together. You can argue these aren't close to the best they did, bit they were still better than everyone else in this period.

Sonny & Cher - "I got you babe". I hated this song when I was younger, but I absolutely love it now. For some reason I thought it was late 60s, but apparently not!

 

[RobMCFC]

Just been looking at other songs from 1965...

James Brown - "Papas got a brand new bag" - we've not really spoke about him from what I can see. His time will come when he invents funk to some extent but it's still a great track. Another great who also helped to push the civil rights movement forward.

The Four Tops - "I can't help myself" - superb group who sang some of the great Motown songs. Of all the Motown bands, I think they are my favourite.

The Beatles - "You've got to hide your love away", "Help!", "You're going to lose that girl", "We can work it out". It is truly astonishing the quantity and quality of songs they wrote in the years they were together. You can argue these aren't close to the best they did, bit they were still better than everyone else in this period.

Sonny & Cher - "I got you babe". I hated this song when I was younger, but I absolutely love it now. For some reason I thought it was late 60s, but apparently not!

I wont put the Beatles songs in as we probably have enough of theirs for this year, but I've added the others.

 

[Bill Walker]

The Beatles - "You've got to hide your love away", "Help!", "You're going to lose that girl", "We can work it out". It is truly astonishing the quantity and quality of songs they wrote in the years they were together. You can argue these aren't close to the best they did, bit they were still better than everyone else in this period.

I was just reading something I never realised before, The Beatles wrote and recorded 3 albums, Help, Rubber Soul & Revolver plus 3 No 1 singles in a 12 month period, as well as making a film and touring including an American tour.

Astonishing.

 

[mancity111]

I was just reading something I never realised before, The Beatles wrote and recorded 3 albums, Help, Rubber Soul & Revolver plus 3 No 1 singles in a 12 month period, as well as making a film and touring including an American tour.

Astonishing.

Busy boys in those years all right.

I think Paul never slept for years on end with what chasing and finding girls and many doing likewise to him and often finding musical inspiration when others were fast asleep.

Around 700 songs at last count apparently amazing to say the least.

I never was destined to be a song writer but it is strange how often I wake up in the morning with a tune of sorts in my end of the beginning of one at least that I swear I have never heard before so imagine how many tunes went through his head that never saw the light of day.

 

[Saddleworth2]

I must admit to being pleasantly pissed having spent the week suffering from cold/flu/covid type infection. This evenings news has perked up my spirits no end and i spent the evening in the early 70's watching rock music on You Tube. Bloody hell it was good. Doors, Zeppelin, Rory, Cream, Jethro, Faces, Kinks. All bloody brilliant. The 60's are good for sure but the 70's......

 

[Black&White&BlueMoon Town]

Wow, late in the week and low-hanging fruit still abounds...

In 1965 at age 15, Stevie Wonder's voice had begun to change, and Motown CEO Berry Gordy was worried that he would no longer be a commercially viable artist. As it turned out, however, producer Clarence Paul found it easier to work with Wonder's now-mature tenor voice, and Sylvia Moy and Henry Cosby set about writing a new song for the artist, based upon an instrumental riff that Wonder had devised.

Nelson George, in Where Did Our Love Go? The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound, recorded that Wonder had been inspired by the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" (on this year's playlist) after playing several tour dates with the Stones. As Wonder presented his ideas, finished or not, "he went through everything," remembered Moy. "I asked, 'Are you sure you don't have anything else?' He started singing and playing 'Everything is alright, uptight.' That was as much as he had. I said, 'That's it. Let's work with that.'"

The resulting song features lyrics depicting a poor young man's appreciation for a rich girl seeing beyond his poverty.

"Uptight (Everything's Alright)" - Stevie Wonder

 

[Black&White&BlueMoon Town]

THE BRILL BUILDING

The Brill Building at 1619 Broadway housed a music hub in which composers, lyricists, music publishers, musicians, arrangers, record companies and others, co-operated and competed with each other to produce hit records.

50 Songwriters participated in the enterprise including Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, ...

From the late fifties to the mid sixties the hit factory had hundreds of entries into the Billboard Hot 100.
As pop became more adult and sophisticated in the sixties, the Brill’s influence declined.
Overall, the Brill enterprise was a triumph for a professional, targeted approach to pop music but, like all winning formulas, its time was limited.

I like coming back to a well done historical post, this one from @KS55, especially as it bears fruit later on in the decade.

I'm highlighting the 2 songwriters of this classic 1965 hit here, as this song must be included for both its significance this year and well beyond.

Mann and Weil were husband and wife and wrote and recorded this song as a demo, with Mann singing and playing piano.

It was originally intended for the Righteous Brothers, for whom they had written the number one hit "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'", but then Mann gained a recording contract for himself, and his label wanted him to release it instead. Meanwhile, record executive Allen Klein had heard it and gave the demo to Mickie Most, the Animals' producer. Most already had a call out to Brill Building songwriters for material for the group's next recording session, and the Animals recorded it before Mann could.

In the Animals' rendition, the lyrics were slightly reordered and reworded from the demo and opened with a locational allusion – although different from that in the songwriters' minds – that was often taken as fitting the group's industrial, working class Newcastle-upon-Tyne origins:

In this dirty old part of the city
Where the sun refused to shine
People tell me, there ain't no use in tryin'

The arrangement featured a distinctive bass lead by Chas Chandler, and the rest is history. Although this song only made it up to lucky 13 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, it became an anthem of a generation as social consciousness was on the rise.

Studies from Vietnam veterans indicate this song had resonated the strongest among all the music popular then. "We had absolute unanimity is this song being the touchstone. This was the Vietnam anthem. Every bad band that ever played in an armed forces club had to play this song."

In a 2012 keynote speech to an audience at the SXSW music festival, Bruce Springsteen performed an abbreviated version of this on acoustic guitar and then said, "That's every song I've ever written. That's all of them. I'm not kidding, either. That's 'Born to Run', 'Born in the U.S.A.'".

"We Gotta Get Out of This Place" - The Animals

 

[RobMCFC]

I like coming back to a well done historical post, this one from @KS55, especially as it bears fruit later on in the decade.

I'm highlighting the 2 songwriters of this classic 1965 hit here, as this song must be included for both its significance this year and well beyond.

Mann and Weil were husband and wife and wrote and recorded this song as a demo, with Mann singing and playing piano.

It was originally intended for the Righteous Brothers, for whom they had written the number one hit "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'", but then Mann gained a recording contract for himself, and his label wanted him to release it instead. Meanwhile, record executive Allen Klein had heard it and gave the demo to Mickie Most, the Animals' producer. Most already had a call out to Brill Building songwriters for material for the group's next recording session, and the Animals recorded it before Mann could.

In the Animals' rendition, the lyrics were slightly reordered and reworded from the demo and opened with a locational allusion – although different from that in the songwriters' minds – that was often taken as fitting the group's industrial, working class Newcastle-upon-Tyne origins:

In this dirty old part of the city
Where the sun refused to shine
People tell me, there ain't no use in tryin'

The arrangement featured a distinctive bass lead by Chas Chandler, and the rest is history. Although this song only made it up to lucky 13 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, it became an anthem of a generation as social consciousness was on the rise.

Studies from Vietnam veterans indicate this song had resonated the strongest among all the music popular then. "We had absolute unanimity is this song being the touchstone. This was the Vietnam anthem. Every bad band that ever played in an armed forces club had to play this song."

In a 2012 keynote speech to an audience at the SXSW music festival, Bruce Springsteen performed an abbreviated version of this on acoustic guitar and then said, "That's every song I've ever written. That's all of them. I'm not kidding, either. That's 'Born to Run', 'Born in the U.S.A.'".

"We Gotta Get Out of This Place" - The Animals

Kudos for referring back to KS55’s original post but that’s also a nicely written piece of your own. I never knew that it was a popular song with Vietnam vets, but with that title, you can’t blame them.

 

[threespires]

Though Satisfaction was a big hit for the Stones in '65 it was in fact really only a "demo" for the "right" version that would come later in the year on the classic album Otis Blue by Otis Redding.

Before anyone accuses me of hyperbole, these are not my words but of one Keith Richards, who would later reflect/lament that Redding had nailed what had originally been his vision for the song and that it eclipsed the Stones version in his view. I make this comment as an introduction to one of the great albums of 1965 and one of the greatest soul albums of all time because it speaks to the heart of the album and Redding himself.

The track is a cover and there are more covers than originals on the album so how does it become such a classic? Well it helps if the other songs are by the likes of Sam Cooke, Solomon Burke and the glitter twins. Looking at the Stones cover reveals another reason; one of the reasons Richards coveted Redding's version was the stabbing brass sound, which was provided by the legendary Memphis Horns, many people's picks for the greatest horn section in popular music. Thing is, they weren't even the most legendary backing musicians on the album. That honour goes to the core of the Stax 'house' band which by 1965 had assembled it's classic line up including Booker T, Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn and someone who doesn't necessarily get his dues in the Stax story or in general: Isaac Hayes. Legendary doesn't even do justice to them, only Jamerson's presence at Motown stops them being completely definitive. Their brilliance is illustrated by Steve Cropper who now in his mid-twenties was really hitting his stride and integral to the recording of Satisfaction not just his playing but for the brass arrangement and the brilliantly pointless attempt to transpose the lyrics of the song. The story goes that Cropper stuck the Stones single on a cheap record player in the studio so they could try and work out what Jagger was singing. He managed to get a best guess down on paper, handed it to Redding who looked at it for a short while then shrugged, screwed up to the paper and lobbed it in the bin. Listen to Redding's version and beyond the chorus it's clear his knowledge of the lyrics is cursory at best; in fact half of what he sings aren't even words but he doesn't need them because he's just feeling it.

Which brings us to Redding himself. I think I've said before that though you can put up an argument for various artists to be the greatest soul singer ever, the only one who really transcended soul was Redding. Though not the best voice at a technical level, he was unique in that he could have marshalled his voice to easily front a number of the great rock bands of the 60s and 70s. The depth of his soulfulness was for me unparalleled. In the discussions with the band for mine and Mrs Spires first dance at our wedding, one of the songs we discussed was 'I've been loving you too long" from this album; arguably the lyrics aren't that wedding friendly but we didn't have to worry about this (or the other shortlisted Redding song) as the band made it very clear that attempting to do that song justice would fail and it would be virtually sacrilegious to try. Couldn't blame them, even Etta James's version sounds anaemic in comparison to Redding's original.

Also, don't let the number of covers on the album kid you into thinking Redding was anything but a great songwriter himself. Ironically the best self-penned song on this album, and my choice for the playlist, is best known as a signature song for someone else.

Otis Redding - Respect

Gone at 26 - for me Redding is the single biggest 'what if' in popular music. He was so hardworking (Redding had never missed a professional engagement in his life and that was probably the reason the plane took off for Madison despite the weather warnings) and so talented that the mind boggles what he could have achieved into the 70s and probably well beyond.

 

[threespires]

I know we've had A Charlie Brown Christmas but you can't leave '65 without mentioning the jazz album that inspired people to set up a church and 'canonise' the musician in question, not sure if that's a unique outcome for an album but I can't think of any others. This video is 20 mins long but it's an interesting exploration of a fairly unique situation.



John Coltrane - A Love Supreme Pt 1 Acknowledgement

 

[Saddleworth2]

I like coming back to a well done historical post, this one from @KS55, especially as it bears fruit later on in the decade.

I'm highlighting the 2 songwriters of this classic 1965 hit here, as this song must be included for both its significance this year and well beyond.

Mann and Weil were husband and wife and wrote and recorded this song as a demo, with Mann singing and playing piano.

It was originally intended for the Righteous Brothers, for whom they had written the number one hit "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'", but then Mann gained a recording contract for himself, and his label wanted him to release it instead. Meanwhile, record executive Allen Klein had heard it and gave the demo to Mickie Most, the Animals' producer. Most already had a call out to Brill Building songwriters for material for the group's next recording session, and the Animals recorded it before Mann could.

In the Animals' rendition, the lyrics were slightly reordered and reworded from the demo and opened with a locational allusion – although different from that in the songwriters' minds – that was often taken as fitting the group's industrial, working class Newcastle-upon-Tyne origins:

In this dirty old part of the city
Where the sun refused to shine
People tell me, there ain't no use in tryin'

The arrangement featured a distinctive bass lead by Chas Chandler, and the rest is history. Although this song only made it up to lucky 13 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, it became an anthem of a generation as social consciousness was on the rise.

Studies from Vietnam veterans indicate this song had resonated the strongest among all the music popular then. "We had absolute unanimity is this song being the touchstone. This was the Vietnam anthem. Every bad band that ever played in an armed forces club had to play this song."

In a 2012 keynote speech to an audience at the SXSW music festival, Bruce Springsteen performed an abbreviated version of this on acoustic guitar and then said, "That's every song I've ever written. That's all of them. I'm not kidding, either. That's 'Born to Run', 'Born in the U.S.A.'".

"We Gotta Get Out of This Place" - The Animals

Every day is a learning day. Great post mate.

 

[threespires]

I like coming back to a well done historical post, this one from @KS55, especially as it bears fruit later on in the decade.

I'm highlighting the 2 songwriters of this classic 1965 hit here, as this song must be included for both its significance this year and well beyond.

Mann and Weil were husband and wife and wrote and recorded this song as a demo, with Mann singing and playing piano.

It was originally intended for the Righteous Brothers, for whom they had written the number one hit "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'", but then Mann gained a recording contract for himself, and his label wanted him to release it instead. Meanwhile, record executive Allen Klein had heard it and gave the demo to Mickie Most, the Animals' producer. Most already had a call out to Brill Building songwriters for material for the group's next recording session, and the Animals recorded it before Mann could.

In the Animals' rendition, the lyrics were slightly reordered and reworded from the demo and opened with a locational allusion – although different from that in the songwriters' minds – that was often taken as fitting the group's industrial, working class Newcastle-upon-Tyne origins:

In this dirty old part of the city
Where the sun refused to shine
People tell me, there ain't no use in tryin'

The arrangement featured a distinctive bass lead by Chas Chandler, and the rest is history. Although this song only made it up to lucky 13 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, it became an anthem of a generation as social consciousness was on the rise.

Studies from Vietnam veterans indicate this song had resonated the strongest among all the music popular then. "We had absolute unanimity is this song being the touchstone. This was the Vietnam anthem. Every bad band that ever played in an armed forces club had to play this song."

In a 2012 keynote speech to an audience at the SXSW music festival, Bruce Springsteen performed an abbreviated version of this on acoustic guitar and then said, "That's every song I've ever written. That's all of them. I'm not kidding, either. That's 'Born to Run', 'Born in the U.S.A.'".

"We Gotta Get Out of This Place" - The Animals

On the subject of this playlist and Vietnam, for me the most poignant moment in the film Platoon doesn't involve Barbers Adagio. It's the scene where the young troops have a moment of respite and get high and sing along to Tracks of My Tears. Anthem for Doomed Youth indeed.

 

[Black&White&BlueMoon Town]

On the subject of this playlist and Vietnam, for me the most poignant moment in the film Platoon doesn't involve Barbers Adagio. It's the scene where the young troops have a moment of respite and get high and sing along to Tracks of My Tears. Anthem for Doomed Youth indeed.

Great soundtrack, that one from Platoon. I can still visualize that scene though I know it's been well over 30 years since I've seen that film.

Something tells me we'll be hearing plenty more of the tracks from that soundtrack in the coming years, a certain one from an artist you've highlighted a page back for sure, though I can only see what is directly in front of me. ;-)

 

[RobMCFC]

On the subject of this playlist and Vietnam, for me the most poignant moment in the film Platoon doesn't involve Barbers Adagio. It's the scene where the young troops have a moment of respite and get high and sing along to Tracks of My Tears. Anthem for Doomed Youth indeed.

Platoon is where I first heard "Tracks of My Tears".

 

[threespires]

Platoon is where I first heard "Tracks of My Tears".

As B&W says that soundtrack has some classic songs.

Tracks of My Tears is a very 'resilient' song in that it's been covered by so many people in so many ways and, bar a few dishonourable exceptions, manages to survive whatever treatment it's subjected to. Obviously nothing touches the original.

 

[Black&White&BlueMoon Town]

Platoon is where I first heard "Tracks of My Tears".

A bit surprised there that late, but then I remember that was still a while ago! ;-)

 

[RobMCFC]

A bit surprised there that late, but then I remember that was still a while ago! ;-)

As previously mentioned, I had no interest in music pre-1986, and Platoon came out in 1987 across here.

 

[RobMCFC]

Thanks to everybody who contributed to the playlist.

The playlist is up to date and closed, so go and enjoy it.

 

[mancity111]

Though Satisfaction was a big hit for the Stones in '65 it was in fact really only a "demo" for the "right" version that would come later in the year on the classic album Otis Blue by Otis Redding.

Before anyone accuses me of hyperbole, these are not my words but of one Keith Richards, who would later reflect/lament that Redding had nailed what had originally been his vision for the song and that it eclipsed the Stones version in his view. I make this comment as an introduction to one of the great albums of 1965 and one of the greatest soul albums of all time because it speaks to the heart of the album and Redding himself.

The track is a cover and there are more covers than originals on the album so how does it become such a classic? Well it helps if the other songs are by the likes of Sam Cooke, Solomon Burke and the glitter twins. Looking at the Stones cover reveals another reason; one of the reasons Richards coveted Redding's version was the stabbing brass sound, which was provided by the legendary Memphis Horns, many people's picks for the greatest horn section in popular music. Thing is, they weren't even the most legendary backing musicians on the album. That honour goes to the core of the Stax 'house' band which by 1965 had assembled it's classic line up including Booker T, Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn and someone who doesn't necessarily get his dues in the Stax story or in general: Isaac Hayes. Legendary doesn't even do justice to them, only Jamerson's presence at Motown stops them being completely definitive. Their brilliance is illustrated by Steve Cropper who now in his mid-twenties was really hitting his stride and integral to the recording of Satisfaction not just his playing but for the brass arrangement and the brilliantly pointless attempt to transpose the lyrics of the song. The story goes that Cropper stuck the Stones single on a cheap record player in the studio so they could try and work out what Jagger was singing. He managed to get a best guess down on paper, handed it to Redding who looked at it for a short while then shrugged, screwed up to the paper and lobbed it in the bin. Listen to Redding's version and beyond the chorus it's clear his knowledge of the lyrics is cursory at best; in fact half of what he sings aren't even words but he doesn't need them because he's just feeling it.

Which brings us to Redding himself. I think I've said before that though you can put up an argument for various artists to be the greatest soul singer ever, the only one who really transcended soul was Redding. Though not the best voice at a technical level, he was unique in that he could have marshalled his voice to easily front a number of the great rock bands of the 60s and 70s. The depth of his soulfulness was for me unparalleled. In the discussions with the band for mine and Mrs Spires first dance at our wedding, one of the songs we discussed was 'I've been loving you too long" from this album; arguably the lyrics aren't that wedding friendly but we didn't have to worry about this (or the other shortlisted Redding song) as the band made it very clear that attempting to do that song justice would fail and it would be virtually sacrilegious to try. Couldn't blame them, even Etta James's version sounds anaemic in comparison to Redding's original.

Also, don't let the number of covers on the album kid you into thinking Redding was anything but a great songwriter himself. Ironically the best self-penned song on this album, and my choice for the playlist, is best known as a signature song for someone else.

Otis Redding - Respect

Gone at 26 - for me Redding is the single biggest 'what if' in popular music. He was so hardworking (Redding had never missed a professional engagement in his life and that was probably the reason the plane took off for Madison despite the weather warnings) and so talented that the mind boggles what he could have achieved into the 70s and probably well beyond.

I have to concur with your sentiments TS regarding Otis Redding and in fact while James Brown would be hard to toss when it comes to entertaining and belting out a soulful tune and when you look at The Dock of the Bay , In the Midnight Hour and Green Onions these three songs alone elevate Steve Cropper at the pinnacle in the Hall of Fame of his genre notwithstanding his unparalleled contribution to Stax, Redding is the standout for me.

The Dock of the Bay which he penned with Cropper is easily in my 20 favorite songs of all time and despite all the amazing music that was released in 1968 , this chilling , depressing yet hopeful ( outro) masterpiece all wrapped up in 2 minutes and 38 seconds is the best for me but that is for another day.

 

[mancity111]

Platoon is where I first heard "Tracks of My Tears".

Thanks to everybody who contributed to the playlist.

The playlist is up to date and closed, so go and enjoy it.

Cheers Rob and well done once again , masterful intro and a playlist that will be hard to toss in ' The best year for music Stakes ' at least for those that grew up on this music.