Anyone remember this instrumental hit from the late ’60s? I heard it today on the DirecTV “Escape” music channel, and it immediately perked my ears up. Talk about the transcendent quality of music! It’s a song from my early teen years, and I love it now as much as I loved it then.
What I remember liking about this particular recording then are the same qualities I find both intriguing and endearing now. Not only is it a very clean recording, but it has an interesting arrangement. The tack piano (of course, I didn’t know it was a tack piano then, that took me years of listening to Brian Wilson / Beach Boys recordings to hear the difference between a tack and that quaint piano sitting in the corner of the school auditorium or church hall) pounding out the rhythm, the soaring strings with killer cello flourishes (sounding that way because of the echo applied), those cool trombones and trumpets playing triplets (listen for the bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup linking the verses, you can’t miss them), that funky vocal arrangement – it all sounded so cool and so sophisticated to me back then. It’s still a beautiful recording that nearly brings me to tears whenever I hear it.
Putting it all together, 1968 (I was 12 going on 13) was the year I guess I first realized I had an interest in not just listening to music, but an interest in hearing how songs were arranged. For it was in ’68 that I was exposed to several songs I consider significant in the development of my musical “ear”. “Soul Coaxing”, “Hey Jude”, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass’ “Flamingo” (his salute to Phil Spector and his “Wall of Sound”, BTW), and The Ronettes’ “Do I Love You” (a song already four years old by that time, but heard for the first time that year courtesy of an old box of 45 RPM records bought at a church fair) – all of these songs played an instrumental (no pun intended) role in cultivating a gift for which I thank God for every day.
And not just God. I will forever love and thank my parents for their contribution as well – after all, it was because of them that my brothers and I grew up in a house filled with all kinds of music off the AM dial or the records they would play on our Hi-Fi console!
Great music defintely NOT spelled N-O-I-S-E, and fond memories.
Let’s face it; how many kids growing up in the 60’s and 70’s got to have an appreciation for show tunes?
Comment by Dave Richard — October 24, 2009 @ 3:45 am
Or folkies like The New Christy Minstrels and the Chad Mitchell Trio? Heh. One could almost accuse our folks of trying to indoctrinate us into communism. 🙂
Comment by The Great White Shank — October 24, 2009 @ 10:31 am
Doug, I credit you and Mark for opening up my mind to new channels of music when we used to drive around in that purple Pontiac ordering gobs of Jack-in-the-Box food at midnight after band practice. We were so innocent back then…
Comment by Jerry — October 29, 2009 @ 5:01 pm
Thanks Jerry – those were great days. I was driving by a Jack-In-The-Box the other day and saw they still sell a Bonus Jack. Wow – 35 years after the fact! I wouldn’t be eating Mexican food today if it weren’t for Jack-In-The-Box tacos.
Comment by The Great White Shank — November 1, 2009 @ 9:50 pm
[…] is a post about Mexican food, prompted by a comment the other day by my old Top Priority bandmate and keyboard player Jerry “Keys” Palma. He remembers me […]
Pingback by GoodBoys Nation - Archives » Mexican Food — November 1, 2009 @ 10:44 pm
[…] the times, the raging hormones (I was thirteen), or both, it was songs like “Hey Jude”, “Soul Coaxing”, Herb Alpert’s “Flamingo”, and The Ronettes’ “Do I Love You”) […]
Pingback by GoodBoys Nation - Archives » 3:22 — November 16, 2009 @ 1:27 am