Dave Schwensen's Blog, page 19

#268 – Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby

#268 – Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby by The Beatles

Sheet music release in South Africa 1965

The roots of rock’n roll purists might want to trash me over this, but the originator of Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby, the great Carl Perkins, didn’t even make it into my first three thoughts about this song. In fact, the event that stirred the third of these thoughts (and I’ll list in a moment) was an event that didn’t even include the song we’re talking about. At least not at first, and then no...

#269 – Lightening Strikes

#269 – Lightening Strikes by Lou Christie

Let���s talk about falsetto. It���s a common musical term to describe hitting high vocal notes in the upper musical octaves. But I don���t recall it being thrown around a lot when, as a member of the boomer generation, we were throwing ourselves into pop music. Some singers sang high while others sang low. It was part of doing harmony and if you wanted to do it well, you sounded like The Everly Brothers.

In junior high school choir you were either a sop...

#270 – For Once In My Life

#270 – For Once In My Life by Stevie Wonder

When this song was released in late 1968, Stevie Wonder was not “Little Stevie Wonder” anymore. He was 18 years old and on the verge of becoming the true “musical genius” Motown Records had deemed him six years earlier to promote his hit, Fingertips Part 2. He had been a dependable hit-maker for the Detroit record label since his debut, but not quite on the upper echelons of the popularity scale reached by The Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye o...

#271 – You Baby (Nobody But You)

#271 – You Baby (Nobody But You)by The Turtles

Pop stars

This is an underrated gem from 1966 that shows how the music scene was combining different styles that had once been easy to separate into specific categories. For instance, is thisstrictly a pop song? That would be my first choice since The Turtles became worldwide pop stars in ’67 and ’68 with Happy Together, She’d Rather Be With Me, You Showed Me and Elenore. But with the advantage of hindsight, which can have the benefits of 20/20 vis...

#272 – Free as a Bird

#272 – Free as a Bird by The Beatles

Drawing by John Lennon

This was a very big deal. Not just for die-hard Beatles fans, but also for what was considered a viewing audience worthy of primetime network television during the important November sweeps period.

If you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about, allow me to explain…

Television networks are big $$ businesses. In 1995 the Big 4 were ABC, CBS, NBC and after about 50 years of the threesome domination, FOX had joined in as the only real c...

The Top 3 Classic Rock Christmas Songs

Once my head hit the pillow Thanksgiving night, I never dreamed there was a chance I wouldn’t wake up from my turkey hangover this year. But the overindulgence of tryptophan had me stirring the next morning to what I assumed were angels singing in the background. It was a festive sound, but then I realized there were no harps or even Victoria’s Secret models with wings. And since I long ago passed the requirement for Billy Joel’s “only the good die young,” there was a better chance I had made...

Life by Keith Richards

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Life by Keith Richards

Rating: FIVE Classic Rock Stars

So much has been written over the past five decades about The Rolling Stones – and in particular Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Both are legendary figures in the world of rock’n roll. Mick claims not to remember much, which is why he returned a hefty advance to write his memoirs. Keith? The Stone with the reputation of being the most drug-induced rock star in history and the next pre...

#273 – Wishin’ and Hopin’

#273 – Wishin’ and Hopin’ by Dusty Springfield

The difference between the summers of 1963 and ’64 are mind-boggling when you stop and think about it. I don’t want to sound likea broken record because I’ve written about this in my books and as The Classic Rocker, but for the baby boomer generation it was like going from black and white to color. And for the newer generations that don’t understand the “broken record” reference, the term can be traced to the prehistoric days before online downloa...

#274 – (Just Like) Starting Over

#274 – (Just Like) Starting Over by John Lennon

Let’s cut right to the chase. We all know who John Lennon is. If you didn’t, I doubt you’d be reading this. He’s an icon that has surpassed pop culture and into history. Beatle and solo artist. Peace activist evolved from a reputation as a teenager you wouldn’t want to trade angry words with in a dark alley. Working class hero, though Beatle historians have noted his family’s class was a bit more privileged than the post World War II upbringing o...

#275 – Dance The Night Away

#275 – Dance The Night Away by Van Halen

Talkin’ about Dream Songs, I must have been sleeping in 1978. I have no other excuse for missing the Van Halen party van for almost a year after their self-titled debut LP came out. In early ’79 I still thought The Kinks had the only version of You Really Got Me worth listening to. And what really gets me is that I was walking around New York City thinking I was a rocker. I had the hair and the clothes, was playing acoustic music in The Village and bass...