The Wallflowers

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Jakob Dylan was frustrated that the Lobero crowd was responding appreciatively but politely to his group, the Wallflowers. “We’re a rock’n’roll band!,” he pleaded. Finally, before launching into “One Headlight,” his biggest, if not only, hit, he pointedly commented, “It must be awfully tiring just sitting in those seats,” and on cue the crowd rose as one and started gyrating along with the music, and we stayed on our feet for one more song and two encores. Was it masks that kept the excitement level down, the mature age of the audience, the stately character of the theater, or the good-but-not-great quality of the music? When the Wallflowers’ appearance in Santa Barbara was first advertised, I bought a ticket and started listening to their new album, ” Exit Wounds,” which I thought surprisingly good. “Surprising,” because it had been 25 years since their breakthrough album, “Bringing Down the Horse,” and I hadn’t heard or thought much about them since then. One-third of their concert featured songs from “Exit Wounds,” including my favorites, of the album and of the night: “Roots and Wings,” “The Dive Bar in My Heart,” “I’ll Let You Down (But Will Not Give You Up),” “I Hear the Ocean (When I Wanna Hear Trains),” although the harmony of Shelby Lynne that lights up the record was missing from the performance. It was good rock’n’roll, but it didn’t bring back enough memories or cause enough chills. And Dylan himself seemed stuck in an off-base persona–not really Bob, but not really something different. I guess in the end, the audience was a reflection of his enthusiasm.
The opening act was a band called Ragged Glory, which, I learned from the program, reconvenes once a year to recreate Neil Young’s songs from 1969-79–”Hello Cowgirl in the Sand,” etc. I loved their songs, although they never matched the originals; but what I loved most was the fact that here in 2021, musicians were paying homage to music, my music, from a half-century ago. Two days later I was back at the Lobero for music from 55 years ago, and it was quite a contrast. Jan and Dean’s Beach Party featured 81-year-old Dean Torrence (Jan having died) and four replacement/studio musicians who, we were told, regularly play with the Beach Boys’ various touring groups. This was strictly an “oldies” show, with canned patter, rote performances and more repetition than conviction. The songs–more Beach Boys than Jan and Dean, as was appropriate, with a couple of strays–were of course memorable; but the quality of play and lack of inspiration or imagination left a lot to be desired. They made me appreciate Ragged Glory, who tried to make it their own, not just copy what someone else had done.

The “little phrase”

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There is a famous “little phrase” in a sonata by the composer/family friend Vinteuil that becomes the anthem of Swann’s love for Odette, and this musical reference pops up at various times in Proust’s chronicle. Reading, one can only imagine the shape of this phrase. Easier to recognize is the phenomenon of a snippet of song that takes on a larger-than-life role in one’s musical library. My library, of course, is made up of rock songs, not sonatas. For me, the equivalent of the little phrase is the passage – maybe six or seven notes – that comes near the end of a song that makes me hold my breath in anticipation. If I am with someone when the song plays on the radio, I will say, in effect, “Quiet, please. Let me just concentrate on this brief bit.” As I think of them, or happen to hear them, I will list the little phrases that continue to thrill me, recognizing that it will be impossible – just as it was for Proust – to convey the sound I am citing.

Five Discs, “I Remember” – a seven-note bass doo-wop following the line, “Tell me baby, where can I be found.” [1:26]
Marshall Tucker Band, “I Heard It In a Love Song” – the phrase, “I was born a wrangler and a rambler and I guess I always will.” [4:12]
Hall & Oates, “She’s Gone” – after fits and starts, fits and starts, a key-changing crescendo builds up to a keening “she’s go-o-o-o-o-o-o-ne, oh why?” [4:35]
Wilco – “Impossible Germany” – almost three minutes into a noodling instrumental coda, an exhilarating three-cord progression resolves the tension. Have I heard this phrase elsewhere, or just from its brief introduction two minutes earlier? [5:17]
Bruce Springsteen, “Born to Run” – you know where this is going, right: “1-2-3-4.” [3:03]
John Mellencamp, “The Authority Song” – “Kick it in” brings back the orchestra and energy after a pulsating drum hiatus. [2:44]
Sensations, “Let Me In” – only reason to listen to this oldie is for the five-note progression at the very end, after the last “do-wee-oop-we-ooo.” [2:50?]

 

J.D. Souther

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J.D. Souther’s songs are all pretty sad, and you almost felt sorry for his life, too, after hearing him in solo concert at the Lobero last night. He frequently name-checked artists more successful than he, while mentioning that he was a music teacher, could read music, could play a song in any key. When someone allegedly asked Glenn Frey why J.D. wasn’t more famous, Glenn said, “John David keeps giving away his best songs.” Whenever he played a song made famous by the Eagles, he would preface or postscript it by saying it was on “the best-selling album of all time.” He also bragged about “Faithless Love” – a song I’d never heard – as one that was covered by many artists but sung best by Linda Ronstadt, who was living with him when he wrote it.

Someone suggested maybe he was drunk. I didn’t think of that, and never having seen J.D. drunk or sober wouldn’t know. He did repeat one story and couldn’t remember whether he had played a song already. He started the set by playing four songs straight, without pause or comment, which would have been a good way to get into the swing of the show if he was impaired. And he didn’t take the stage until 8:15, which is unusual for the Lobero. Still, in all, I quite enjoyed the evening. I could hear his lyrics and the songs, with one exception, were mellow, even when not overtly sad. The lone rocker was from his Eagles catalogue: “(There’s Gonna Be a) Heartache Tonight” – not an especially good song. His other contributions were also relatively minor additions to the canon of Eagles’ greatest hits, although I do love “The Sad Cafe.” When I checked the writing credits for J.D.’s songs, I noted that not once was he given sole credit. Don Henley and Glenn Frey were also credited as co-writers, as was Bob Seger once and Joe Walsh. Perhaps they added arrangements or perhaps, like his career, J.D.’s contribution stayed in the background while others soared.        2/27/20

Session Musician All-Stars

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The Immediate Family was formed in 2018 by four of the best, and best-known, session musicians from the ’70s: guitarists and a drummer who played behind Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Carole King, various Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Phil Collins, on and on. I knew the names Waddy Wachtel, Danny Kortchmar and Russ Kunkel, although I couldn’t have recognized a one; and the liner notes said that bass player Leland Sklar, an unfamiliar name, had played on roughly 2,600 albums. Rounding out the group was a relative youngster, Tom Petty look-alike Steve Postell. Age, however, does not seem to have diminished their rock’n’roll chops, which were on full display in two  45-minute sets at the Lobero last night (4/2/19).

One unusual feature of the group was the absence of a keyboard or, for that matter, any instrument beyond one set of drums and four guitars. The guitar playing, especially by Wachtel, was masterful, and every song had a great rock’n’roll beat, you can’t lose it. Wachtel, Kortchmar and Postell were all quite competent singers; it always impresses me that a great instrumentalist can also sing so well. I’m also impressed when I find out that a beautiful woman is  a great actress – there’s no reason the two should go together – but here there was no trifecta of leading man looks. I even wondered if Wachtel’s strange looks had kept him from a solo career of his own.

The band kicked off the show with Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns and Money” – a song that Jackson Browne interestingly covered at his show last summer – which introduced their set of half originals, half covers, although they pointed out that they were actually “covering” songs they themselves had written. Unfortunately, although I longed to hear familiar tunes, the songs Kortchmar had penned for Don Henley were not my favorites: Dirty Laundry, All She Wants to Do Is Dance, New York Minute and something from the Perfect Beast. Ditto a James Taylor number, Machine Gun Kelly. My two favorite numbers were original compositions: High-Maintenance Girlfriend and Not That Kind of Guy.

Still, it was great to see old-timers doing what they love: rocking. I wonder and worry, once again, will this music die when our generation is gone?

Beach Boys 2018

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I risked my rock’n’roll cred by attending a concert by Mike Love’s Beach Boys at the Granada Theater last Friday (9/21/18). Although not actually billed as such, the tour seemed at least a commercial endeavor, at worst a vanity project, by the former lead singer, who was the only actual original Beach Boy in the nine-person ensemble. Not that a much larger contingent was possible after the deaths of Carl and Dennis Wilson, the peculiar private journey of Brian Wilson and a history of disputes/litigation involving rights and trademarks among the survivors. Still, it was a bit tacky to watch the intermission video endlessly looping ads for Mike Love’s latest album and recent memoir. His in-concert comments included nice tributes to the deceased, but the only acknowledgements of Brian came when Mike announced he had written songs – “Good Vibrations” and “Be True to Your School” – with Brian. And Al Jardine never factored.

Love’s performing style was singularly inauthentic, incessantly pointing with bogus bonhomie at different members of the audience – the kind of thing you’d never see at the Bowl or the Lobero but seemed consistent, somehow, with the Granada. Not surprisingly, Love doesn’t have much of a voice at 77, but what was surprising was the total lack of charisma among the seven younger backup musicians, including Love’s son, Christian. It was as if Love was careful to pick plain-vanilla performers who wouldn’t upstage him. All the energy had to come from Love in front, which meant there wasn’t that much.

Montecito’s own Bruce Johnston, an almost-original Beach Boy, was stationed up front with Love, but I couldn’t hear his voice until late in the proceedings. He stood behind what looked like a toy keyboard, which he may have been playing, although someone was at a much larger keyboard behind him. He, too, was careful not to get in Love’s way, although a couple times he waved the crowd off their seats, which was welcome, if not spontaneous. All the while video of earlier Beach Boy performances played on a screen stage rear, along with shots of California surfers and some flashes of the Beatles. This was suitably nostalgic, although a bit amateurish, as the same scenes kept reappearing.

What saved the night was the Beach Boys’ incredible catalogue. No matter how sketchy Love’s lead vocals were, the backup harmonies were competent and on the more difficult numbers the other musicians did the singing.  Not counting the token song from Love’s solo album and the encore as we left of Barbara Ann, there was nary a clunker. Surf songs – Surfin’ USA, Surfin’ Safari; hot rod songs – Little Deuce Coupe, 409, Don’t Worry, Baby; ballads – Surfer Girl, God Only Knows; girl’s name songs – Help Me, Rhonda, Wendy; wistful adolescent songs – When I Grow Up to Be A Man, Wouldn’t It Be Nice – they were all there, one after another, almost nonstop.  You can hate the man, but still love the music.

 

Leon Bridges

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In order to understand why he is given so much airplay on Sirius-XM’s Spectrum as well as to keep my mind open to new sounds, I went to see Leon Bridges at the Santa Barbara Bowl September 13. He is a good dancer, although no Michael Jackson or Prince (or maybe Bruno Mars), he has an appealingly gruff voice and more than adequate stage presence. His 7-piece backup band and vocalists kept the energy high and beat throbbing. The Bowl was full, appreciative and knew the songs; so it’s clear he has a following. I recognized a few numbers from the radio play, but it’s not like their melodies were any catchier in person. In short, Leon Bridges seemed to me a competent r&b performer, with nothing new or terribly exciting. I’ve seen him, but two days later can’t remember a thing.

Ain’t Too Proud to Beg

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If history, as they say, is written by the victors, it may also be written the survivors, and in this musical at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles the Temptations’ story is told by the sole surviving original Temp, one Otis Williams. They are all equal contributors, of course, but David Ruffin is a diva, Eddie Kendrick a hothead, Paul Williams an alcoholic – it is only Otis that, after founding the group, keeps it together, handles the business and ensures the legacy. It so happens I’d never heard of Otis Williams and wouldn’t mind his hogging the spotlight because I’d come for the Temptations’ music, not their personalities. That was the first problem, starting with the opening number: the singing just wasn’t as good as the original, and while the songs brought back wonderful memories, they left me wishing I could hear the actual Temptations. There was no need for the actor playing David Ruffin to jazz up the lead on “My Girl”: he wasn’t going to improve on perfection. Most of the numbers, furthermore, were truncated, giving us their flavor, not their power.

The book was a cliche: boys picked up off the street, become a huge hit, success goes to their heads, make a comeback, fall apart in individual tragedies. No issue was much more than one or two lines of dialogue deep, whether it was a heroin habit, a fiery romance, competition with The Supremes or a neglected son at home. As a result, there was no emotional pull, just waiting for the next number. All the good songs -my opinion – came before 1967 and fell in Act I, which left me doubtful about Act II. That dealt with the more serious side of life, and their music. I didn’t think much of late Temptations – “Ball of Confusion,” “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” – but mercifully the second act was shorter and you could always feel we were heading toward the end. Amazingly, with all the great classics by the Temptations, the show never has a knockout musical moment, and when we do get to the end we are serenaded not with a Temptations hit but a song made famous by David Ruffin’s brother Jimmy, “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted.” A later version of the Temptations apparently sang a poorer version of this song 40 years after the original hit, but few, if any, in the audience will know that, and it is a strange note to close the night with.

I will say it was fun to see the actors in full Temptations suits performing the smooth dance routines that were so much a part of the Temps’ appeal. After a while, though, it got a bit monotonous. When the lead singer does a split for the first time, you go ‘wow.’ The third time he does it, though, you go ‘really?’ The songs by other performers were well done, less predictable and refreshing – “Gloria,” “Shout,” “Speedo,” “You Can’t Hurry Love” – and made me wonder, how was this show different from “Motown: The Musical”? That, at least, got to Broadway. I doubt this will.

Jackson Browne

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An Appreciation

Jackson Browne was my favorite singer/songwriter of the ‘70s – The Decade of the Singer/Songwriter – and both he and his songs have aged well, as his sold-out concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl on August 3, 2018 proved again and again. I can’t think of ever having a more comfortable and pleasurable concert experience.

Part of the evening’s special character was the artist’s identification with his audience and venue. Although he lives out of town, up the coast, he treated Santa Barbara as home, reminiscing about playing in the Bowl back in 1969 and suggesting that the audience was full of high-school friends. Wearing glasses and casual clothes, with long hair that hadn’t recently seen a brush, he was mellow and we were mellow, and oh so appreciative.

There was nothing casual about the set or the seven supporting instrumentalists and singers. Jackson switched effortlessly between guitar and piano, and his voice was strong and warm. He moved through his catalogue, almost half of the 23 numbers dating to the ‘70s, and only one new song, the topical The Dreamer. He went onstage right at 7:00 and warmed us up with good, not great, songs as the crowd settled in and the sun went down: That Girl Could Sing, You Love the Thunder, Sky Blue and Black. For his eighth number he went back to his eponymous first album, which we all mistakenly called Saturate Before Using, for Doctor My Eyes, which got everyone on their feet, dancing (as Paul Thorn had done last month at his Lobero concert). These Days, For A Dancer and For Everyman followed, powerfully, with the drum crescendo of the last sending us off to intermission on a high.

The break was 15 minutes, exactly as promised, and we started rocking again with Somebody’s Baby and it didn’t stop. Warren Zevon’s Lawyers, Guns and Money was an unexpected treat, but you knew what you were getting when he sat down to play The Pretender and then brought down the house with Running on Empty. For his encore he said, “I first heard this song just like you did, on my car radio. Let’s all sing it loud enough for Glenn to hear…’Well, I’m running down the road, trying to loosen my load’…”

What memories!

 

Death is always sad, but when you’re in your 20s it has an epic, even Romantic edge. James Dean, Kurt Cobain, Buddy Holly – lives cut short – and then there is your high school classmate who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. What is it all about?

When Jackson Browne lost a friend in his early 20s, the first death he’d felt personally, he expressed these emotions in one of his greatest songs, “For A Dancer.” Forty-five years later, he still regularly sings the song and, as he did at this concert, tells about his friend David, who was a wonderful dancer – and also a tailor who made his own clothes.

He so briefly makes his friend a real person in the first verse: “You were always dancing in and out of view…Always keeping things real by playing the clown.” He then comes right out with the honest declaration: “I don’t know what happens when people die/Can’t seem to grasp it as hard as I try.” He addresses the uncertainty of life: “You never know what will be coming down. Perhaps a better world is drawing near/And just as easily it could all disappear…Don’t let the uncertainty turn you around.” The final lines are, to me, among the most thoughtful in rock: “And somewhere between the time you arrive and the time you go/May lie a reason you were alive but you’ll never know.”

I still don’t know. But when I go I want the funeral home (?) to play a mix of songs that have meant something to me over my life. This will be one of them.

 

 

’60s Top Tens

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For my college 50th reunion, a four-person panel reviewed songs that had charted during our four years, September ’64 through May ’68, and came up with a list of 30 nominees to be voted on for a Class Top Ten. The songs selected had to 1)be personal favorites of at least two of us; 2)have been a popular hit – preferably charting at #5 or above, even better at #1; and 3)contribute to genre diversity – including no two songs by the same performer. What follows here are four lists: the list of 30, a consensus of our panel; the Class Top Ten, as voted by 100 or so classmates at the reunion; my personal top ten, from the list of 30; and a personal list of fifteen favorite songs that made our initial roster of 130 songs but not the final 30.

Top 30, 64-68, in chronological order:

  • Zombies, She’s Not There
  • Martha & Vandellas, Dancing in the Street
  • Roy Orbison, Oh Pretty Woman
  • Righteous Brothers, You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’
  • Petula Clark, Downtown
  • Temptations, My Girl
  • Supremes, Stop! In the Name of Love
  • Bob Dylan, Like A Rolling Stone
  • Wilson Pickett, Midnight Hour
    Rolling Stones, Satisfaction
    Lovin’ Spoonful, Do You Believe in Magic
  • Animals, We Gotta Get Out of This Place
  • Simon & Garfunkel, Sound of Silence 
    Rascals, Good Lovin’
    Percy Sledge, When A Man Loves A Woman 
  • Beach Boys, Wouldn’t It Be Nice
    Left Banke, Walk Away Renee
    Spencer Davis Group, Gimme Some Lovin’
  • Buffalo Springfield, For What It’s Worth
  • Aretha Franklin, Respect
  • Doors, Light My Fire
    Beatles, A Day in the Life
  • Procol Harum, Whiter Shade of Pale
    Van Morrison, Brown-eyed Girl
  • Sam & Dave, Soul Man
    Jimi Hendrix, Purple Haze
  • Stone Poneys, Different Drum
    Monkees, Daydream Believer
    Otis Redding, Dock of the Bay
  • Sly & Family Stone, Dance to the Music

Class of ’68 Top Ten

  1. Aretha Franklin, Respect
  2. Bob Dylan, Like A Rolling Stone
  3. Rolling Stones, Satisfaction
  4. Otis Redding, Dock of the Bay
  5. Simon & Garfunkel, Sound of Silence
  6. Temptations, My Girl
  7. Doors, Light My Fire
  8. Righteous Brothers, You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’
  9. Percy Sledge, When A Man Loves A Woman
  10. Wilson Pickett, Midnight Hour

Bob’s Top Ten

  1. Temptations, My Girl
  2. Bob Dylan, Like A Rolling Stone
  3. Buffalo Springfield, For What It’s Worth
  4. Procol Harum, Whiter Shade of Pale
  5. Supremes, Stop! In the Name of Love
  6. Left Banke, Walk Away Renee
  7. Lovin’ Spoonful, Do You Believe in Magic
  8. Righteous Brothers, You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’
  9. Petula Clark, Downtown
  10. Otis Redding, Dock of the Bay

Personal Favorites beyond the Top 30

  • Beau Brummels, Just A Little
  • We Five, You Were On My Mind
  • Turtles, You Baby
  • B.J. Thomas, I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
  • Tremeloes, Silence Is Golden
  • BeeGees, I Can’t See Nobody
  • Jimmy Ruffin, What Becomes of the Brokenhearted
  • Casinos, Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye
  • Buckinghams, Kind of a Drag
  • Miracles, Tracks of My Tears
  • Swinging Medallions, Double Shot
  • Shades of Blue, Oh How Happy
  • Bob Lind, Elusive Butterfly
  • Herman’s Hermits, There’s A Kind of Hush
  • Outsiders, Time Won’t Let Me

 

Eight ’60s Songs

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For one evening’s entertainment at my Harvard 50th Reunion, four of us presented 30 songs to be voted on by our classmates in order to arrive at a Class of ’68 Top Ten (see “’60s Top Tens,” above). Each of us took seven or eight songs to champion. Here are the ones I put into nomination:

Like A Rolling Stone  I’m humbled to be able to talk about the #1 all-time greatest song in rock history, according to Rolling Stone Magazine. (Maybe the name had something to do with it?) Bob Dylan is without question the greatest songwriter of the pre-Bruce Springsteen era, and Like A Rolling Stone is his unquestioned masterpiece. It marks the transition of Dylan from folk singer – at which he was pretty good – to rock star. Just as significant it broke the three-minute barrier for songs on the radio. I remember being in Elsie’s, picking up roast beef sandwiches for the Crimson editors, when this song came on the air. I couldn’t leave, for six minutes. This paved the path for long songs to come, from Light My Fire to MacArthur Park to Stairway to Heaven.

The lyrics also broke ground: far from the usual love song, it’s a vicious revenge song, telling the saga of a princess on a steeple who falls and is on her own, with no direction home, a complete unknown, like a rolling stone.  Books have been written about just this song, and tomorrow you can get a taste of a Harvard course on Bob Dylan. He turned rock’n’roll into an intellectual art form, and here’s where he did it.

My Girl  Whereas it took Beethoven four notes to write the most famous introduction in classical music – ba-ba-ba, bum – it took the Temptations only three notes to produce the sweetest, most tantalizing, most recognizable introduction in rock: ba, bum-bum. Then the song absolutely soars with a perfect opening line: “I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day. When it’s cold outside I’ve got the month of May.” How can you not be happy when you hear this song? The great Smokey Robinson wrote lyrics of unalloyed happiness: “I’ve got all the riches one man can claim.” The Temptations were smoothness personified in their dance steps while they sang – or lip-synched – and the horns played a trumpet fanfare that makes the nerves tingle. My Girl was a #1 hit in the spring of our freshman year, and it captures the innocence of that time.

Do You Believe In Magic  This is simply the happiest, most hopeful song of our era. It hooks you from the opening note and races along without a letup. Perhaps best of all, it’s a paean to rock’n’roll. For some reason, every song that has the words “rock’n’roll” in its lyrics is a good one – the same is true for “rain” and “bells.” Not so much the word “groovy” – that dates this song; but the rest is magical: “the magic’s in the music and the music’s in me, yeah.” John Sebastian and the Spoonful grew out of the Greenwich Village folk scene and went on to have the record for most consecutive top ten hits in the ‘60s, but nothing would top this song that virtually exploded off the radio into your mind, in a feelgood way.

The Sound of Silence  Named the “quintessential folk-rock” song, Sound of Silence has a special connection to the coffee-house scene we discovered when we arrived at Harvard. Released as an acoustic number in 1964 it bombed. Then a late-night DJ at WBZ started playing it and listeners at Harvard and Tufts started calling for it. Sensing its potential, the record producer that helped Dylan go electric added electric guitars and drums – without Simon & Garfunkel’s knowledge – and the new version went to #1 in Boston before sweeping the country. It also helped establish Paul Simon as the second great Rock Poet, after Dylan. “People talking without speaking; People hearing without listening” – hello, t.s.eliot.

Wouldn’t It Be Nice  Everyone loves the Beach Boys, the soundtrack of growing up in the ‘60s. They glamorized surfing, cars, love and California. Wouldn’t It Be Nice, though, was something different from their macho teenage posturing; it was both more mature and more innocent. The trademark harmonies were there, but the composition and instrumentation were more sophisticated, more orchestral, more haunting. The lyrics perfectly captured the fantasies of my parietals-bound sophomore mind: “You know it’s gonna make it that much better/ When we can say goodnight and stay together.”  A year later, when the Rolling Stones sang “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” it sounded more like sexual assault. The Beach Boys instead offered a magical dream of mutual consent: “We could be married/ And then we’d be happy/ Wouldn’t it be nice?”

Walk Away Renee  Teenage heartbreak. What an empty feeling, a pit in the stomach, when you break up with a girlfriend – or worse, when she leaves you. And what comfort a good rock song, plaintive in a minor key, can provide, solace for the afflicted, balm for the broken heart. Walk Away Renee captured this feeling. The strings, the haunting flute, the images: “your name and mine, inside a heart upon a wall.” In My Fair Lady Freddie sings in rapture about The Street Where You Live. Here, the Left Banke sings, “The empty sidewalks on my block are not the same.” I cry inside when I hear this song. It captured my feelings perfectly – except I never dated a girl named Renee.

Whiter Shade of Pale  From those opening chords, we’re back in the Summer of Love, 1967, when we were self-important about-to-be seniors. The group’s name sounded Latin, the melody was lifted from Bach, the Miller’s Tale came from Chaucer, and the sonorous organ was more serious than guitar and sax. Here was the start of Progressive Rock – bands like Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, the Moody Blues that would soon play with symphony orchestras.  The lyrics were sheer poetry: meaningless but endlessly evocative. It was said you had to be stoned for them to make sense. But what images: “the ceiling flew away,” “sixteen vestal virgins,” and best of all: “her face, at first just ghostly, turned a whiter shade of pale.” Huh?

This April the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame inducted the first five singles from performers not in the Hall into its pantheon. There was Louie, Louie; Born to Be Wild; and Procol Harum’s Whiter Shade of Pale.

Daydream Believer

By the spring of ’68 the era of top-40 rock as we knew it was coming to an end. There was psychedelia, ProgRock, the advent of FM radio, revolution and Vietnam – teenage love songs just didn’t cut it. The Monkees’ final #1 hit, Daydream Believer, is a melancholy epitaph, a postgraduate look at life. Instead of excitement at getting the girl into bed, the singer is now being woken up by the 6 a.m. alarm and having to shave. The romance is still there – “you once thought of me as a white knight on a steed” – but now it’s relegated to a daydream belief.

Recruited to play a band like the Beatles on a TV show, the four Monkees turned out to have musical chops of their own, and they graced us with an upbeat catalog of pleasant hits our last two years at Harvard.