Listen: Tragedy / Thomas Wayne
Tragedy / Thomas Wayne

Both sides are a childhood memory record. And I had all but forgotten this one until there it was in the collection I’d bought from Tony King. Certainly not representative of the general sound I ultimately went for until years later, unsure if it was the very first record I had someone buy me, but it was certainly one of the first.

Possibly ‘Tragedy’ is what planted that seed toward favoring violent death and horror records like those by Jimmy Cross, Twinkle, The Shangri-Las, Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages even The Gun Club. Thomas himself died in a car crash.

Listen: Saturday Date / Thomas Wayne
Saturday Date / Thomas Wayne

Like Side A, the flip, ‘Saturday Date’ was produced by Scotty Moore, one time Elvis Presley guitarist. Why it wasn’t included in the AMERICAN GRAFFITI soundtrack is beyond me. Lyrically, you can’t capture the era better. Speaking of guitarists, Thomas Wayne was indeed the brother of Luther Perkins, who played lead for Johnny Cash.

A side scan from Tony King’s collection, B side scan is my original copy from the day.

Listen: Sugartime / The McGuire Sisters
Sugartime

My Dad’s cousin, Dominic Bruno, owned a nightclub in the 50′s/60′s called the Three Rivers Inn, somewhere near Syracuse. I suppose it was that period’s version of today’s Casinos, but on a way smaller scale. The acts would do a week or so. The many headliners included Jayne Mansfield, Sammy Davis Jr, Mae West, Paul Anka, Tony Bennett, very lounge and nowadays known as Bachelor Pad stuff.

The first act I ever saw live, at the Three River Inn, were The McGuire Sisters. They scored big (#1 in ’57) with ‘Sugartime’, and it appealed to all little kids for years to follow. My Mom and Dad had a copy. It was probably my first discovery of music. How was I to know then that the “sugar in the morning, honey in the evening” being referred to was about sex. Other than their ballads, most of the uptempo ones, like this, were completely rock and roll, especially those clean Chet Atkin’s hollow body solos.

They were the first victims of my record collecting as well. I pestered my parents, even aunts and uncles, to buy me every last record they had out. Anytime a present was due, I wanted a McGuire Sisters record. Whether it be Easter, Halloween, birthday, Christmas, getting a passing report card, you name it, The McGuire Sisters were the gift that kept giving in my world.

Then Mom and Dad faithfully took me along to see them, all arranged through Uncle Dominic, as we knew him. His house was mad, never will I forget the all pink kitchen, including appliances, that he and Aunt Elia had. Whew.

I don’t really know the year of that show, I may have been five, it was the mid 60′s. They were most likely running out of steam career-wise by then. Clearly out of obligation, The McGuire Sisters invited me up on stage. I froze but couldn’t let my folks down, so trembled onwards. I sang along to ‘Sugartime’, probably spoiling everyone’s reason for attending. And the cherry on top was a visit to their dressing room afterwards, a motel room actually, part of the club’s complex, where the three of them were playing cards and eating sandwiches between shows.

Pretty good start, right? My first taste.

Listen: Don’t Ever Leave Me / Connie Francis
ConnieFrancis.mp3

Shortly thereafter, I got into Connie Francis. This all preceded The Ronettes and Shangri-Las fixations which were just around the corner. Suggestive women in tight skirts was the common thread I guess.

I’m not quite sure what my infatuation with Connie Francis was all about but I went off her pretty quickly, probably due to a chilly and quick dressing room visit right after the show. Hey I was a little kid, lighten up lady. Still, to be fair, it was probably cramping her style. She absolutely made many, many great records.

‘Don’t Ever Leave Me’, her one and only attempt at the girl group sound, written and produced by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, the team you went to for just this type of material then, is a keeper. A classic single in fact. (#42, 10/64).

She wore a very nice blue chiffon ensemble that night, that I do remember, and she smelled great.

Listen: Jamaica Joe / The Angels
Jamaica Joe / The Angels

The girl groups from the sixties were the first to catch my attention. It all started really early with The McGuire Sisters’ and their hit, ‘Sugartime’, which had pretty high kid appeal. Then I noticed The Ronettes, The Shangri-Las…….and The Angels.

Their #1, ‘My Boyfriend’s Back’ seems to have survived decades of airplay, still spun a lot on the oldies formats. I know because it’s one of the few I can bare if forced to listen on a long trip or something.

The local Syracuse stations played a lot of Angels singles including the national non-hit ‘Jamaica Joe’. Seems they chose this one despite it being relegated to the B side as the sleeve suggests.

The actual promo copy doesn’t indicate an A side which could explain. Well I’m glad they did, I loved it for months at the time and still do. It was my first taste of ska on re-examination. And it went down a storm when I’d spin it out.

Listen: Nobody Knows What’s Goin’ On (In My Mind But Me) / The Chiffons
Listen: Nobody Knows What's Goin' On (In My Mind But Me) / The Chiffons

’67 is generally credited as the year of psychedelia, but easily ’66 was when the arrangements that became quite specific to the sound started, as with ‘Nobody Knows What’s Goin’ On (In My Mind But Me)’. Often, this record gets included on psychedelic/girl group lists.

The Chiffions had bigger hits, but I do remember this, along with The Dixie Cups ‘Iko Iko’ and The Shangri-Las ‘Past, Present And Future’ initially grabbing my ear as being very different and dark, not only for the time but for each of their respective outputs.

Considered by some to be their best single. Agreed.

Listen: Walk Tall / 2 Of Clubs 01 Walk Tall.mp3

Another favorite from Cincinnati’s Fraternity label, 2 Of Clubs fall right in line with previous Marc Bolan/Gloria Jones and Jackie DeShannon posts by mimicking the Brill Building songs. Or maybe they were just a normal reflection of the period’s Girl Group sound. Either way, they were great.

All their singles are worth owning, ‘Walk Tall’ being particularly memorable as it got a lot of play in my hometown. Oddly it never became more than a regional hit, peaking at #93 on the Billboard chart in March ’67. By then, this sound was becoming passe, even The Shangri-Las were struggling for hits.

‘Walk Tall’ really hung in there though, first appearing on Billboard’s Bubbling Under The Hot 100 (click to enlarge) in the last week of ’66. Most of the time, that Bubbling Under chart was more interesting to me than the actual Top 100, with barely a single listed that I didn’t end up adding to my collection.

Listen: Dead Man’s Curve / Jan & Dean JanDeanDead.mp3

Right after my little kid fascination with The McGuire Sisters, I moved on to The Ronettes and The Shangri-Las. This process seemed an eternity, but was actually only a year or two span. No sooner had the girl groups caught my ear, than surf took hold. Even though we lived in upstate New York, our favorite sport was surfing. At least that’s what we all agreed. I’m not a deeply knowledgeable collector of surf, but I do love a lot of the big hits. Summertime poured out of our transistor radios when any of the many surf singles were played, regardless of the season. Most friends were drawn to The Beach Boys, and indeed ‘Surfin USA’ and ‘Don’t Worry Baby’ still tingle like a first listen every play. But Jan & Dean for me were most consistent. These two singles, over time, have risen to the top. No secret that Brian Wilson co-wrote many of their hits, and that Jan was very involved in Beach Boys recordings too. It must have been an incredible time in LA.

‘Dead Man’s Curve’ is particularly eerie, given the near fatal crash two years after it’s release suffered by Jan Berry very close to the actual dead man’s curve, on Whittier Drive and Sunset Blvd. I have often driven past there, late at night, on my way back from John’s place just the other side of Bel Air, and would creep myself out by blasting this on the ipod. I know the route that the lyrics describe by heart. The fantasy of drag racing along Sunset, past Doheny and onward to the curve in a bright red Corvette is irresistible. Cheap thrills for a non resident basically.

Still all the history of LA and Hollywood never ceases to attract my morbid side. Years ago, Denise Zoom drove Joey and I to where the Tate murders happened. We were pretty buzzed, it was late and feeling adventurous. Halfway up the drive we both started shouting and screaming for her to stop – and back up. Never did make it all the way to the top. We were brave enough to drive past the garage where Sal Mineo was stabbed later that night though.

Listen: Ride The Wild Surf / Jan & Dean JanDeanRideWild.mp3

Even ‘Ride The Wild Surf’ has a spine chiller element to it. Never could place what. The melody? The strings? The power of the ocean? They all make for an anthemic song not often given it’s dues anymore.

Listen: He Cried / The Shangri-Las ShangriLasHeCried.mp3

I remember when The Shangri-Las did a record hop at the Oneida Town Armory. I wasn’t old enough to get in. I’m still steaming. Not about the age thing, but that I allowed that to stop me. Dumb.

The lower their singles reached on the US charts, the more I liked them. I’m happy to say public taste for records in the US charts vs. Kevin’s taste are inversely proportionate.

‘He Cried’ peaked at #65, but to be fair, was a pretty big hit around the Northeast where I grew up.

Listen: The Sweet Sounds Of Summer / The Shangri-Las ShangriLasSummer.mp3

In ’67, when their original label Red Bird folded, the girls stuck with producer Shadow Morton (what a name, has there ever been a better one?) and moved to Mercury, and their back catalog, as with Shadow, went along. Mercury issued a GOLDEN HITS album including most, but not all the singles (an annoying and prevalent habit of the majors back then).

‘The Sweet Sounds Of Summer’, illogically released in November of ’66, oddly predated psychedelia by a good six months despite indeed capturing very much that sound. It wilted at a pathetic #123 in January of ’67 – again not an opportune time for a top-down-with-bad-girl Shangri-la in-back-seat single and hence not a surprise. But do check it out. Dark and eerie as usual, there were some great production and arrangement ideas lurking – way ahead of their time.

The Shangri-Las may have stuck with Shadow Morton, but his loyalty was not returned. Moving onto The Vanilla Fudge and The New York Dolls, seems the sound of ‘today’ beat out those hoodlum biker girls in the marketing department I’m guessing.