(483) BOBBY DARIN : FROM MOTOWN TO FOLK SONGS

Back in July of this year, we posted on Bobby Darin on Motown Records, where he tried on the popular Motown Sound.  Well, Bobby was challenged to find his niche in music by the mid sixties. He was challenged by changing times and the influence of Bob Dylan to cover songs that were more folk or political.  It was particularly difficult to pick and choose because he was so diverse in his talent.

I first met an ambitious Bobby in New York City in the Brill Building, introduced by Neil Sendaka, where he was making his rent by singing on demo records for song writers.  He was also writing songs of his own.  He was in the perfect spot to discover or write a hit song, and he did soon after we me with his recording of  Splish Splash.

Bobby was able to change his singing style enough to be hired to make a good many of those demos and I suspect that somewhere there is a treasure trove of them that he made - and some of them maybe you wouldn't know right away you were listening to Bobby. 

This challenge of being true to yourself, or what you're really good at, and being out of sync with the changing times, it's happened to the best of us. It happens in the music business every few, maybe every several years that music changes enough that you might get left behind, and 1966 is right about when you found the British Invasion with the Rolling Stones making the Beatles look tame - and in San Francisco, a new sound, the beginning of a Psychedelic drug fueled sound, typified by the Grateful Dead - and Peter Paul and Mary who are sticking to their folk music - while Bob Dylan is identified as a protest singer but doesn't want to be identified that way - and Bobby Darin - out of a whole group of young men who had vibrant carriers beginning in the 1950's, trying to figure out which way to go. 

Give it enough time though, and you become known as a CLASSIC.
Linking to his official site:  BOBBY DARIN NET - OFFICIAL - INCLUDING LIFE TIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

Bobby gets the most airplay over time for Mac The Knife, with Splish Splash clearly thought of as the 1950's.

KEEP ME HANGING ON! DO YOU LIKE THE SUPREMES, VANILLA FUDGE, or KIM WILDE'S VERSION BETTER?

KIM WILDE HIT in 1987 with her version.

(472) MOTOWN HITS THE SUNSET STRIP : THE FOUR TOPS : JOHNNY RIVERS

Released by the Four Tops in 1964, and a Motown hit for them, Johnny recorded the song and brought it to the West Coast in 1966. It was one of a few Motown songs Johnny covered, making the songs his own. Motown had an in-house song writing team and BABY I NEED YOUR LOVIN was written by the team called Holland-Dozier-Holland. This single put Motown into the Top 20 for the first time, in '64, and was a million seller.  It's been recorded by several other artists, including a British group.



THE BBC RUNS A FOUR TOPS BIO PIC! BBC RADIO DOCUMENTARY SOUL SATISFACTION in OCTOBER!

(471) MOTOWN HITS THE SUNSET STRIP : STEVIE WONDER : JOHNNY RIVERS

This Motown hit was the first  song co-writing credit the now famous and legendary Stevie Wonder ever got.  The song was written by the team of Sylvia Moy and Henry Cosby and the lyrics were put into Braille for Stevie.  A hit for him in 1966, Johnny's version soon followed.

MOTOWN HITS THE SUNSET STRIP

Link here to STEVIE WONDER'S OFFICIAL SITE! STEVIE WONDER.NET

MOTOWN MUSEUM FOUNDED BY ESTHER GORDY EDWARDS

MOTOWN MUSEUM LINK  Learning more about Motown with our readers!

"Despite the passage of time since Motown Records’ establishment in 1959 by Berry Gordy, tens of thousands of visitors pass through Hitsville U.S.A., home to the Motown Museum, each year. Their presence is a testimony to Motown’s legacy and to the charisma, talent and staying power of the music and those who made it.


The Motown Museum, which was founded by Esther Gordy Edwards in 1985, is one of Southeast Michigan’s most popular tourist destinations. Visitors come from across America and throughout the world to stand in Studio A, where their favorite artists and groups recorded much-loved music, and to view the restored upper flat where Berry Gordy lived with his young family during the company’s earliest days.

Home to an extensive array of Motown artifacts, photographs and other memorabilia, the Museum’s mission, which is presented below, is to preserve the legacy of Motown Record Company and to educate and motivate people, especially youth..."

STANDING IN THE SHADOW OF MOTOWN TRAILER

Lot's of wonderful YouTube videos about Motown and Motown artists to choose from!

(468) JOHNNY RIVERS AT THE WHISKY COVERING CHUCK BERRY'S HIT WITH 1960'S STYLE

I remember going to hear Johnny play at the Whisky, where he became a headliner after playing in other clubs in the area.  To this day his name is associated with the club. 

Johnny Rivers covered so many songs successfully (including songs recorded at Motown) that other people recorded, he became so known for his versions that many people didn't realize that they weren't written by him or that he wasn't the first to record them.  He attracted a new generation.  (Johnny had moved to New York City at the age of 16 and was a little younger than me, Buddy Knox, and some of the other guys we hung out with.)  Here's a YouTube fan video - very well put together - where Johnny covers two 1950's classics written and recorded first by Chuck Berry, with that mid 1960's rock and roll style of his on Liberty Records.



JOHNNY RIVERS OFFICIAL - UPDATED - NEW CD  Called Live at Cache Creek it's blues, bluegrass, and JR. 

(458) THE TURTLES : CROSSING THE BIG POND and LANDING IN LOS ANGELES!

THE TURTLES FEATURING FLO AND EDDIE official site! link here!  (Lot's of laughs!)

The TURTLES crossed "the Big Pond" and were a great success in Britain as they were in New York and then Southern California. 

Like so many others we've covered here at Wes Bryan - My Life in Music, the Turtles spent years becoming an "overnight success."  I remember when one of my associates who ran a club on the Sunset Strip were sure they were the competition for the Beatles.  This was the time of my life when, after working at American Music all day and sometimes spending all night in recording studios doing unpaid "overtime," recording demos and pitching songs, that I also spent a lot of time on the Sunset Strip (and surrounds) going to clubs like The Whiskey.

From their site: "When the Turtles played at the Phone Booth in New York, they were pleased to see Bob Dylan sitting a mere eight feet away. He had his shades on and was slumped over. Afterwards the boys eagerly introduced themselves. Dylan responded, deadpan, to the Turtles live performance of their hit, Dylan's very own "It Ain't Me Babe,": "That's a great last song, it should be a record."

Yes friends, we're going to be covering Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Johnny Rivers on this blog as we head towards a Motown summer!

Introduced by Pat Boone!

(209) DRUMMER EARL PALMER - A "SECRET" HIT MAKER

Another great musician that I met at the Musician's Union and became friends with was Earl Palmer.
Earl just went into Eternal Life September 18, 2008 - several weeks ago - at the age of 84.

He worked with Elvis. He worked for Motown and Phil Spector. The Righteous Brothers. Frank Sinatra.

I used to go into the Union looking for Earl and get on him about being from Louisiana in the way that only one Southerner can get on another Southerner. Out in LA it seemed like no matter what your race or background, being from the South was like being from the hood.

And he earned it; Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, here's Earl's link there.

ROCKHALL : EARL PALMER BIO
updated March 2014

(188) DIVERSITY ON THE CHARTS and COVER TUNES YESTERDAY AND TODAY

So far you've seen the diversity of hit records on the charts in the early 1960's, 1960-1961 (and we'll be heading for 1962 in the near future).

Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Novelty Tunes, an emerging surf music sound, harmonies that the Everly Brothers performed as well as opera-inspired songs like Elvis' "It's Now or Never," and so many other sounds, including the "Girl Groups" of Motown are represented on those charts as big sellers.

Because we live in 2008 and know about the history of Rock and Roll from the long view, we know that it's a matter of a couple years before what's been termed "The British Invasion" though in our opinion there was an American Invasion of Britian first. American artists like Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran toured England, Buddy Knox and I almost got there, and it's well known that the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and so many other British originated bands that come along into fame mid to late 1960's are inspired by those early Rock and Rollers. Many of the hits of the late 1950's to early 1960's have become classics that have been recorded "Covered" time and time again.

Christine and I are really fascinated by what's been happening as some of the most famous Rock and Rollers are aging, and beginning to look to "standards" from the 1930's, 1940's, and 1950's. Linda Ronstadt's been doing it, Rod Stewart's been doing it... mining the classics from the Big Band Sound.

So before we go on with our Wes Bryan narrative, we're going to take a bit of a departure here on Wes Bryan -My Life in Music and we're going to post some of those "Oldies" and their "Covers."

We'll be depending on YouTube of course, and we want to thank again all those contributors that make a history of music oriented blog like ours more interesting.