Johnny Rivers: "Seventh Son"

July 19, 1965 (1 week)

According to setlist.fm, Johnny Rivers has played a grand total of three gigs in Canada. The first was back on September 20, 1977 at the Stork Club in Port Stanley, Ontario, a town of around two thousand people. The second was a spot at Expo '86 in Vancouver. Finally, he performed at Telus Field in Edmonton in 2000 where he may or may not have been there just to sing the national anthems at a Trappers game.

This can't possibly be it. The guy who was a workhorse on the road and who recorded dozens of totally legit, in no way studio concocted live albums. He must have played Toronto a handful of times and what about Montreal? Winnipeg? Calgary? And what of that lucrative Maritimes market? Again, he couldn't possibly have only ever played three Canadian shows during his lengthy career, right? Right???

Canada being a neglected country for concerts is nothing new. If anything, it's probably worse in more recent times. One of my longtime favourites is Billy Bragg who I saw play at the MacEwan Hall Ballroom in Calgary back in 1998 on his Mermaid Avenue tour. (A show that is not included on on setlist.fm) He has played my hometown on several occasions since at least the late eighties but his supposed North American tour late last year only took him to Toronto and Vancouver along with such thriving American markets as Madison, Wisconsin and Rochester, New York.

It's quite likely that America's neighbour to the north wasn't a priority for Johnny Rivers, even though his singles typically fared better in Canada than they did in the US. A 45 like "Seventh Son" may have only reached number seven in his homeland but it doubtless sold far more copies down south. Doing well in Canada was certainly a good thing for him but there's no question it was a footnote at best.

So, while Canadian listeners apparently weren't being treated to regular live performances from Rivers, at least they could enjoy his rowdy southern rock to the tune of three number one hits and twenty Top 40 entries. With Ronnie Hawkins having relocated to Ontario, there was clearly an interest in swampy blues rock, something that carried on with the rise of Creedence Clearwater Revival at the end of the sixties. (CCR were notoriously snake bitten when it came to reaching the top of the Hot 100 but they had no similar problems in Canada where they hit number one on four occasions; we'll be getting to them before long)

"Seventh Son" is a stronger effort than previous RPM chart topper "Memphis" but I'm largely not that fussed. Being yet another cover version, I can't quite escape the feeling that he's a glorified jobbing barroom singer. A respectable profession no doubt and I'm sure he had been something else live (assuming anyone got to see him play venues that weren't the Whisky a Go Go) but I don't know if I can take him all that seriously as a recording artist. "Ah, but what about Elvis? He couldn't write a song if it could help him escape from a giant wet paper bag and you like some of his music!" Too true. Writing your own songs isn't a prerequisite to having musical integrity or any of that drivel but interpreting the works of others needs to be presented in a certain way if I'm to take it seriously. Like Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald before him, Elvis was a star who did covers as if to prove that no one could do it quite like him. With a guy like Johnny Rivers, it was more like if he can do it, anyone can. Which begs the question: why not just listen to anyone else if he's just like the rest of 'em?

Score: 6

Jay and the Americans: "Cara Mia"

July 12, 1965 (1 week)

A point I seem to be hammering home of late is that the groups who wrote their own songs tended to have the upper hand in terms of longevity. A part of why we remember The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan is that they had the advantage of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson (and, I suppose, Mike Love), Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and, well, Bob Dylan respectively. All of them started off performing and recording covers but they all gradually developed songwriting chops to help see them through the mid-sixties' pop boom.

Like Herman's Hermits over in Britain, Jay and the Americans didn't have the same facility for songwriting and had to rely on other sources for material. (Three quarters of The Four Seasons were similarly disinclined towards penning their own music and lyrics but they had the team of singer Bob Gauido along with Bob Crewe to keep them in hits) For whatever reason, they had little use for songwriting teams of the day — either that or the songwriting teams has little use for them — and were thus forced to plunder the cover version market. And boy did they come up with an inspired choice for their latest hit.

Co-composed by light pop master Mantovani and producer Bunny Lewis — credited to the pseudonyms Tulio Trapani and Lee Lange respectively — "Cara Mia" was originally a major hit for British singer David Whitfield in 1954. Not only did it reach number one in the UK but it even made the Top 10 on the American charts, a rarity for an English single a full decade prior to Beatlemania. Though hardly a favourite of the critics (they were still firmly in 'Charlie Parker is God' mode), Whitfield was hugely popular in his day. If not quite as technically accomplished a vocalist as Mario Lanza, his powerful operatic tenor was a thing to behold. True, his recordings are a little hard to appreciate more than seventy years on but give them a few plays and you may well get used to him.

To say that Jay and the Americans were brave to tackle a song that appealed more to Greatest Generation parents than to their Baby Boom kids is probably an understatement. The fact that they were toying with bridging the ever-widening generation gap suggests that they had ambitions beyond the pop charts though it must be said that groups back then were looking to some unlikely sources for their material. The Beach Boys were soon to begin recording their rendition of "Sloop John B", an old folk song written by that very prolific individual Trad. Arr. The Byrds had recently released their debut album Mr. Tambourine Man which closed out with an eccentric version of the Vera Lynne World War II standard "We'll Meet Again" while its soon-to-be follow-up Turn! Turn! Turn! would include the Biblical title track, a re-writing of traditional ballad "He Was a Friend of Mine" and an oddball remake of the Stephen Foster classic "Oh! Susannah". 

Jay Black's lead vocal is as impressive as Whitfield's but I'm not convinced he put the same level of care into his reading. It's as if we're just meant to be treated to Black's astonishing range — as well as some tremendous backing vocals from his fellow Americans — while the song itself is largely irrelevant. Add on a thumping beat and it's all bulldozer histrionic pop with no regard for subtly. It makes for a compelling if rather tiring listen. It's pretty much the audio equivalent to having a guest stay at your place: it's fun for a bit, starts to get a bit much after a while and then you're quite happy when it's all over and everything can get back to peace and quiet. By no means awful but they clearly had twice as much fun making it as I had listening to it.

Score: 6

~~~~~

Con Can

Entering this week's RPM Top 10 is Little Caesar and the Consuls with "(My Girl) Sloopy". Soon to be known as "Hang on Sloopy" by The McCoys, the Consuls could only take cold comfort in getting there first with what would prove to be a far less well-remembered version. But is it as good? I'd say so. The Toronto-based group did it a lot slower than you may be used to but that's no bad thing. Whatsmore, it's still just as catchy. A near number one in Canada, it could do no better than the midway point of Billboard's Hot 100. Proof that luck, timing, and place can be the difference between a number one smash and mere also ran. Still, we'll be seeing Little Caesar and his chums before long in this space so clearly things were looking up for them back home.

Herman's Hermits: "Wonderful World"

July 5, 1965 (1 week)

One of my all-time favourite songs is "The Mayor of Simpleton" by XTC. While not a major hit, it did manage to sneak into the Top 50 in both Canada and the UK. For a group who had always either been praised for their intelligence and wit or bashed for being too clever for their own damn good, it must have come as a surprise that one of their most popular numbers is one that's all about being a total dunce. Yet, in penning lines like "well I don't know how many ounces make up a ton of all the Nobel Prizes that I've never won" leader Andy Partridge only managed to make them seem even smarter than they already were.

Partridge has admitted that he has been criticized for copying Sam Cooke's classic "Wonderful World". While there's no denying the thematic lyrical similarity — 'I'm not exactly blessed in the brain department but my love is all that matters' — there's not much else connecting the two.  But I will say that Cooke and Partridge aren't the most convincing pair idiots. Neither of them happened to be lettered but (a) they both came out of eras in which going to university was a luxury for a privileged few and (b) everyone who has attended post-secondary institutions has encountered their fair share of morons inside those same halls of learning. (In researching this review, I learned that Cooke had, contrary to the lyrics, been an A student in high school)

Herman's Hermits seem to have been at a particular disadvantage when it came to recording "Wonderful World". Their cover of that great hymn to drunken stalkers "Silhouettes" had been ill-advised enough so what hope did they have with an even better song by the sadly now-deceased Cooke? Well, they had one advantage over both the King of Soul and Partridge and that was Peter Noone on vocals, a young man who could do simple with the best of them.

Don't get me wrong: Noone may be a perfectly intelligent individual. I am not qualified to say either way. But being an actor he was able to put his skills to good use by being a convincing dumbass. Those years spent studying drama at school with no doubt a few key roles starring as the Artful Dodger had paid off, and not just in terms of getting him a part on legendary English soap Coronation Street. His turn as a lovable dope is so sincere that he and the his fellow Hermits managed to transform Cooke's rather thoughtful composition into the sort of brainless pop that Gerry and the Pacemakers and Freddie and the Dreamers were having hits with.

A genius move this may have been but it still can't help Herman's Hermits in their quest to rise above mediocrity. The band — which may or may not feature then session ace Jimmy Page on guitar — gives a charmingly lightweight performance which also suits just how dopey it's meant to sound. I get what they were doing and I can get through its swift one minute and fifty-five second run time without too much desire to turn it the hell off but at the end of the day they patently weren't either Sam Cooke or XTC. Very few are, even the smart ones.

Score: 4

Bobby Vinton: "L-O-N-E-L-Y"

June 28, 1965 (1 week)

"Oh and what do you know, another Bobby Vinton song is on the horizon in 1965. Whatever am I going to find to say about it that I haven't already written? But, hey, if the Polish Prince was content to repeat himself then why should I be any different?"

~~~~~

In the fourth season of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, cousins Will and Carlton begin university and they start sharing an apartment. Rich kid Carlton manages to get a date and he asks her to dance. The music being played is "Mr Lonely" by Bobby Vinton, which bemuses the statuesque Jackie. Carlton had already expressed a fondness for the likes of Tom Jones and Barry Manilow which is supposed to make everyone laugh that an African American would be so fond of such painfully white music. But being into the 'Polish Prince' makes him seem like even more of a square with tastes that are even more old-fashioned. (Significantly, it was during this same season that Will and Carlton pledged to a frat house only for the latter to memorably be rejected for "not being enough of a brother to be a brother")

The last first time he came up, I knocked Vinton for being all teen-idol looks and smooth vocals with little else to show for it. This still holds true but did he need anything else if he had the right material to work with? "Roses Are Red" suffered from being not a great song that he couldn't not get to rise above being horribly blane.; for its part, "Blue Velvet" isn't terribly brilliant either but a definite step up. Due to its use in this film of the same name, "Blue Velvet" is intrinsically linked to the Lynch picture. This has prompted Tom Breihan to wonder if it always had a dark side. "Could a song", he asks, "be Lynchian before David Lynch got a hold of it?" I think that is something that we can only claim in retrospect. Sure, it's dreamy and there's a touch of teenage angst about it but nothing to suggest a psychological thriller or whatever it is Lynch did as a part of his "oeuvre". Lynchian? I prefer Dinnerian.

The results can be best described as "a song". Not revolting by any stretch of the imagination but just another Vinton turn about heartbreak and feeling sorry for himself. There are certainly worse things in the world — some of which happened to also go to number one in Canada — but the idea of listening to something like this for pleasure just doesn't compute. And not just for pleasure but for pop music therapy: Vinton wallows in misery but offers little by way of guiding young fans along in order to find hope or a way out. It's musical junk food masquerading as protein-rich chana masala.

"Blue Velvet" is decent and the other two were just about tolerable. "L-O-N-E-L-Y", however, isn't close to as good as its predecessors. While Jackie might have humoured Carl by dancing with him to "Roses are Red" or "Mr. Lonely", she would have drawn a line at this stinker. For his part, Carlton would have had enough self-awareness not to try romancing a pretty undergrad to something so shitty. Similarly, directors ranging from David Lynch to Michael Dinner wouldn't have been caught dead using it to soundtrack one of their motion pictures. Finally, I'd go so far as to say it isn't a song at all, just a self-indulgent and pathetic diary entry set to elevator muzak. Not haunting, not romantic, not helpful to teens in any way; just an increasingly irrelevant thirty-year-old trying to keep the party going — and it's the sort of party in which everyone had already left or never bothered turning up for. Oh, and just because that's just my sort of party doesn't mean I've got to like it.

Score: 1 

~~~~~

Can Con

Yet he managed to have a respectable career; I'll have to see if he managed to live up to the early promise.

"Unless You Care" had been a promising start for Terry Black but "Little Liar" did a great job of killing off his momentum. It's fine musically but Black's voice had suddenly decided to immature with age. Somehow it still made the Top 10 on the RPM chart which probably owes more to his status as a teen idol than anything else. Plus, at least he still was a teenager in 1965 unlike the Polish Prince.

The Yardbirds: "For Your Love"

June 21, 1965 (1 week)

When I was in my early teens I was in a band with some friends from school. While glorified adolescent poetry songwriting was something we all enjoyed, we didn't take to dues paying rock 'n' roll graft. We didn't practice much and we didn't know what the hell we were doing but we certainly talked the talk. We wrote band histories with complete album and singles discographies, including both US and UK chart placements. We also revered the greats who came before us: The Beatles, The Stones, The Who plus many, many more! Just listen!

A group I remember us discussing was The Yardbirds and how they had three guitar greats. It hardly mattered at all that (a) I couldn't stand Eric Clapton's music, (b) Jimmy Page had also been a member of Led Zeppelin, a band who in my mind represented the epitome of macho rock bullshit that I've always despised, or (c) that I didn't have the faintest idea who Jeff Beck was. Three guitar gods toiled for the same English group from the sixties and this was a fact that impressed us all very much. Little did any of us know that only one of them appears on their signature hit and only for a fleeting bit of rudimentary playing. Session musicians stepped in to play harpsichord and bongos, instruments that were evidently beyond the talents of a trio of celebrate axmen.

Eric Clapton had previously played guitar with famed blues rock finishing school John Mayall's Bluesbreakers before joining The Yardbirds at the end of 1963. The group had come out of the same south London scene as The Rolling Stones so it would have been logical to have them follow a similar path to the charts. This evidently didn't sit well with Clapton, who disapproved of their shift from blues to pop-rock. That's right, the man who would go on to put out such intense 4-bar workouts as "Anyone for Tennis?" and "Wonderful Tonight" didn't want to have anything to do with such crass commercialism.

For all that is made of the presence (largely at separate times) of Beck, Clapton and Page, The Yardbirds had two big knocks against them that put them at a disadvantage next to the stiff competition of The Beatles, Stones, Who and Kinks. First, they lacked songwriters. Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham famously locked Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in a room until they had finished writing a song but nothing similar seems to have been undertaken between lead singer Keith Relf and, say, guitarist/bassist Chris Dreja. (In fairness, during the Beck-era the quintet began composing together)  A young Graham Gouldman, still a good half-decade away from establishing himself as a pop star in his own right with 10cc, began giving them material to commence their run of UK Top 10 hits., the first of which was "For Your Love".

The group also seemed to lack musical curiosity. Perhaps Clapton had been correct all along since they appeared unwilling or unable to search beyond their blues rock roots. Brian Jones had been a staunch blues purist but his facility with any old random instrument he would find made him an invaluable piece of the Stones' early creative peak on albums such as Aftermath and Between the Buttons. Of course, finding a talent like Jones is easier said than done which is all too apparent with "For Your Love" being mainly the product of a London-based studio session crew. Along with Relf's howling of the chorus, it is the harpsichord played by a young Brian Auger that is the most memorable thing about it.

"For Your Love" has long been considered a classic of mid-sixties' pop-rock, one of many key singles from this time which hints at a newfound maturity and desire to push boundaries. Yet, it also has a foot in the old ways of music industry practices like relying on staff songwriters and studio session cats. The fact that it works as well as it does is something of a miracle, all things considered. The polished and almost graceful verses are complemented by the raw energy of the chorus, a trait which The Rolling Stones wouldn't fully master until the following year.

The mythos of The Yardbirds and their three deeply influential guitar players is such that most wouldn't even be aware that they were as close to Herman's Hermits as they were to Cream. Uppity rock fans might object to this claim but I think it makes them more interesting: they would eventually evolve into Led Zeppelin but they could just as easily have been doing the cabaret circuit with the likes of Cilla Black had things been just a little different. Maybe it ended up happening in a rock 'n' roll parallel universe out there.

Score: 8

The Supremes: "Back in My Arms Again"

June 14, 1965 (1 week)

Formed in Detroit in 1959 as The Primettes, the trio of Diana Ross, Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson struggled for the better part of half a decade. While other acts in the Motown stable seemed to catch on fairly quickly, they seemed snake bit, their early singles barely able to get as high as number seventy-five on Billboard's Hot 100. At long last, "Where Did Our Love Go?" gave them a global smash and, suddenly, they could do no wrong. The Supremes would go on to have a streak of five straight chart toppers in the United States, all but one of which is remembered fondly to this day.

Somehow or other, the reliably brilliant singles "Baby Love" and "Stop! In the Name of Love" failed to reach the top Canadian charts. The former didn't even come all that close, only just making the Top 10 at the end of 1964. As I have previously discussed, Motown acts had trouble reaching the summit up north. (It may seem like even The Supremes were unlucky up in Canada but they fared better than anyone else on their label) Still, a pair of chart toppers is impressive enough and the momentum was such that they managed a third just as the summer was upon us. Plus, this was The Supremes who were clearly given favourable treatment at Motown and, as such, had an inexhaustible supply of first rate material to choose from. 

Wait, "Back in My Arms Again"? There's a good chance the average person has never heard it. Those that have could have easily forgotten all about it. I am in one of those camps: it feels like I really ought to have heard it over the years but I have no recollection of doing so. "Where Did Our Love Go?", "Baby Love", "Come See About Me" and "Stop! In the Name of Love" all have unforgettable choruses that can be imprinted on listeners after just one listen. The famed Holland/Dozier/Holland writing team had been working on a formula but it's hard to argue with success. This, their fifth hit on the bounce, went to number one on both the Hot 100 and Canada' RPM charts but something wasn't quite right. Someone seemed to be messing with said formula.

While there are many of the usual Surpreme trademarks — those recognizable Motown hooks, a chorus that's been telegraphed a mile away, Diana Ross' nasally tone — something's missing. The fact that it isn't about heartbreak but rather a reconciliation is the first giveaway that things are different this time round. More significantly, everything beyond the vocals feel phoned in. Holland/Dozier/Holland weren't immune to being formulaic with other artists — The Four Tops' followed their US number one smash "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)" with "It's the Same Old Song" with a title acknowledging how much they'd been slacking (and I say this as someone who absolutely adores it) — but this feel like the first instance in which they just stopped caring.

Easily the most fascinating aspect of "Back in My Arms Again" is the sheer cattiness of the lyrics near the end of the song. "How can Mary tell me what to do", coos Ross, "when she lost her love so true". Uh, maybe because Mary Wilson was your friend and bandmate and she gave a shit about you, Di. "And Flo, she don't know," she continues, "'Cause the boy she loves is a Romeo". Well, frankly, Florence Ballard was the really pretty one in The Supremes so what the hell did you expect? They gave you bad advice, huh? Somehow I doubt it. This cad you're with is going to reveal himself before long: will you be crawling back to the friends you've spurned at that point?

It isn't so much that the three members of The Supremes operated behind the scenes in this fashion but the fact that the Motown brass would've allowed such a thing to get out. (Not to mention Holland-Dozier-Holland composing such lines to begin with) They must really have thought highly of Diana Ross at even this early stage that they could already be fomenting dissent within her group. Pop music svengalis are supposed to mold their charges into appearing like close friends, not bitter rivals sniping at one another in plain sight. And yet, worst of all, they couldn't even make a convincingly excellent single out of all this (real or staged) in-fighting. Somehow they were being too formulaic and not formulaic enough all at once.

Score: 5

The Beach Boys: "Help Me, Rhonda"

June 7, 1965 (1 week)

So, I woke up the other day to the sad news that Brian Wilson had passed away. Coming just two days after the death of Sly Stone, this week has been a stark reminder that the pop-rock royalty of the sixties are gradually leaving us. I will confess that instead of feeling gutted by the news, I was excited to be able to blog about one of his band's biggest hits, even if it's not one of my favourites. I was determined to finish it off that day in tribute, only to work on it for a while and then leave it behind. Still, here it is. It's too bad that The Beach Boys' story has to conclude here. They came tantalizingly close to having several more number ones — "California Girls", "Barbara Ann", "Sloop John B" and "Good Vibrations" all peaked at number two on the RPM charts over the next year or so — but it wasn't to be. On the bright side, at least this means I won't have to write about bloody "Kokomo" either. Though he would compose many hits for his group, some of Brian Wilson's best loved numbers weren't especially successful. "Sail on, Sailor", my own personal favourite, barely registered at the time. I Just Wasn't Made for These Times. Indeed.

As I have previously discussed, I am fond of The Beach Boys' ninth studio album Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!). Some consider it to be a bit of a creative step backwards after the moody The Beach Boys Today! but I beg to differ. The sound is fuller with the Wrecking Crew being used on every cut. Yeah, a lot of the material is silly but around half of it suggests a kind of roadtrip, a juvenile travelogue that they would explore much more successfully on their marvelous 1973 album Holland.

Summer Days also includes two major hits. One of them is an absolute classic, one of the three or four best songs the group ever recorded. The other is a re-recording of a track that had already appeared on the Today album earlier in the year. It had once been a quirky little oddity but now it was a standard shiny pop hit. Guess which of the two sent The Beach Boys back to the top of the charts for a third and, ultimately, final time?

There's honestly nothing wrong with "Help Me, Rhonda" aside from the fact that I wish it had been a stronger single of theirs instead. In its early form — then titled "Help Me, Ronda" — it had been fodder for one of Brian Wilson's eccentric, uncommercial production ideas (the sound bouncing back-and-forth between the left and right channels) while employing some unusual instrumentation (the ukulele does not need to be so prominent). It's a little hokey but I admire the effort. No one foresaw it being released as a single in its own right - the Today! album had "Dance! Dance! Dance!", "When I Grow Up (to Be a Man)" and "Do You Wanna Dace?" so it was easy to see why slipped through the cracks - and even if it had been, it almost certainly would've underperformed; the similarly un-commercial "The Little Girl I Once Knew" with its dramatic use of sound drop outs ended up coming out near the end of '65 and it wasn't a major hit.

Re-tooled drastically for single release, the renamed "Help Me, Rhonda" certainly sounds like it has chart potential but this came at the expense of ironing out its unique characteristics. They got a better vocal this time out of Al Jardine — his frat boy drawl suits the role of the song's narrator who is a big time loser — but I can't really say anything else was improved upon. Included on Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) the following month, it was cagily placed at the end of side 1 right after "Girl Don't Tell Me", a song that had been the first real sign that The Beatles had been getting to Brian. A brazen copy of "Ticket to Ride", it practically screams "Remember how we knocked the Fab Four from the number one spot? Well, here's the single that did it!" (Another way of looking at it is that they copied The Beatles and then went ahead and copied themselves)

Flip over the Summer Days record (or, if you're a CD enthusiast like I am, wait for the next track) and side 2 begins with Wilson's finest Spector-influenced work. "California Girls" is perfect, a so-called "pocket symphony" that only he could have created. While still a big hit, it failed to reach number one in any territory with the exception of South Africa's Springbok Radio chart. Considering that Summer Days had already been released by this point, it's understandable that some weren't about to go out and buy a single that they already owned. Nevertheless, it's a little disappointing that a passable effort like "Help Me, Rhonda" made it all the way to the top while its vastly superior follow-up came up short. That said, that's the charts for you. They seldom work out the way that they're meant to.

Score: 6 (Unofficial score for "California Girls": 10)

~~~~~

Can Con

Gordon "No-Longer-Gord" Lightfoot and Guess Who? both return to the Canadian charts and they're joined by newcomer Dianne James. I had assumed that her hit "My Guy" was a cover of the Mary Wells classic from a year earlier but it is in fact an original, one that the Saskatoon native had written herself. It sounds a little like one of those themes from a sixties spy thriller, especially with those horns blaring all over the place. There's not much to say otherwise but I'll be keen to see if she managed to sneak on to the Top 40 with any future singles. Like Brian Wilson, she might well have deserved better.

The Beatles: "Ticket to Ride"

May 24, 1965 (2 weeks)

1965 isn't quite at its halfway mark and we're already up to seventeen number ones on Canada's RPM chart. The turnover is astounding. Whatsmore, it has  been dominated by the Brits. Nearly sixty percent of the year's chart toppers at this point have been by British Invasion acts. (Factoring in that Chad Allan and the Expressions — aka Guess Who? — hailed from Winnipeg and that leaves only thirty-five percent to the Americans) Quite whether they've been any good is a whole other matter.

The only side who could be relied upon to consistently come through was The Beatles. Yet, there had been the nagging worry that they were beginning to coast a little bit. While "I Feel Fine" and "Eight Days a Week" are far stronger than your average number one hit, they plainly weren't close to the high standards of "She Loves You", "All My Loving" / "This Boy" and "A Hard Day's Night" from 1964. Fans may have been expecting them to maintain their selection of good-not-great singles. While previous number ones would go on to enjoy at least a couple weeks on top of the American Hot 100, their latest single only managed one measly seven day period before being deposed by a relative throwaway by The Beach Boys.

When listened to nowadays on key compilations 1962-1966 (aka The Red Album) and 1, "Ticket to Ride" is now viewed rightly as one of the highlights of their career as well as the first real indication that The Beatles were striving for something deeper. They had used feedback and a fade-in respectively on their two previous North American singles but these were tantamount to novelty effects; beyond their startling opening seconds they were standard issue tunes. But now they had completed a full on departure — and fans didn't seem to know what to make of it.

It would be easy to dismiss youthful Beatlemaniacs of the age but I kind of get it. As a boy who would go through periodic bursts of interest in the Fab Four, I would never have listed "Ticket to Ride" as being among my favourites. I'm not sure it was one that even crossed my ten year-old mind all that much. While I was crazy about early efforts like "Please Please Me" and "Rock and Roll Music", it wasn't as though I found their more mature material to be off putting. Songs like "Eleanor Rigby" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" appealed to me just as much as their early stuff. (I remained largely ignorant of their work from 1968 and '69 until I was well into my teens which was probably for the best all things considered)

Though far more bleak, "Eleanor Rigby" has some vivid imagery that can illuminate the mind of listeners of all ages whereas "Ticket to Ride" is an account of a seriously depressed individual. Though other John Lennon compositions — "I'm a Loser", "Help!", "Nowhere Man" — are cited as examples of his worsening mental condition, this track holds its own in what is a vast catalog of melancholy. As Ian MacDonald notes, Lennon's use of the word 'sad' in the song's opening line is especially resonant. (As if to hammer the point home, the maudlin "Yes It Is" was placed on the flip side. Ever his own worst critic, Lennon dismissed it as a failed re-write of "This Boy" but the old grump couldn't have been more wrong about such a poignant number) If its message didn't turn youngsters off then its weightier sound might also have done the trick. Incidentally, Lennon's claim that it was "one of the first heavy metal records" is patently ludicrous but there's no denying its tough edge.

Perhaps "Ticket to Ride" is a song that many of us have to age into. (Once again providing proof that it isn't the music that ages, it's us) Lennon's spitefulness isn't particularly pleasant but it is something that many can identify with, especially young men who go through their share of breakups. But if the Lennon of "Sexy Sadie", "How Do You Sleep?" and "Steel and Glass" is too nasty for your taste, this is also the start of the drugged out Lennon which resulted in "Tomorrow Never Knows", "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "I Am the Walrus" and even — my personal favourite — the lethargic Lennon of "I'm Only Sleeping", "I'm So Tired" and "Watching the Wheels". While he doesn't go out and say it specifically, the singer is narrating a tale in which he is seemingly unwilling to do anything about his predicament: he thinks he's gonna be sad but not do a damn thing about it.

Musically, it points the way forward in a number of respects as well. Ringo's drumming is masterful and his playing began to take on a much more prominent role from this point forward. (His playing on "Ticket to Ride" is every bit as accomplished as on "Rain", the track he typically is praised the most for) The faint use of drone looks ahead to George Harrison's obsession with Indian music as well as their interest acid rock the following year. The irresistible chiming guitar work would go on to be used more in upcoming landmark albums Rubber Soul and Revolver. And then there's the matter of how this is arguably the song that convinced generations of bands to try to sound like The Beatles. I often take issue with idea of boring old power pop groups being compared to the Fab Four but it had to come from somewhere. Along with "Day Tripper" (a sort of poor cousin "Ticket to Ride"), it is the blueprint for acclaimed indie guitar bands who never seem to become all that popular. If aping The Beatles' sound is tricky enough then being similarly popular to them is an even greater impossibility.

It would be nice to think that "Ticket to Ride" managed to effect similar change in its own day by sweeping aside the mediocrities of the British Invasion. Think again. Yet, it ushered in their mid-sixties' creative peak while pushing some of their competitors into a higher realm. Herman's Hermits weren't going anywhere — for the time being at any rate — but at least the group that was in the imperial period to end all imperial periods were there to rise above the detritus. The kids may not have got it but for seemingly everyone else "Ticket to Ride" is pop-rock perfection. Amazingly, there would plenty more to come.

Score: 10

Unit 4 + 2: "Concrete and Clay" / Eddie Rambeau: "Concrete and Clay"

May 17, 1965 (1 week)

Down near the bottom of the Billboard Hot 100 during the week of May 8, 1965, a pair of singles made their debut. One was by an English band with the curious and rather awkward name of Unit 4 + 2, the other by an American who until recently had been eking out a living as a staff songwriter in New York called Eddie Rambeau. The former came in at number ninety-six while the latter was just two spots below. The American charts had two competing versions of "Concrete and Clay" to deal with.

On Canada's RPM chart, however, things were handled differently. The two charted together rather than separately — or that's how it ended up. In fact, Unit 4 + 2's original had been doing fairly well for itself on its own at first. It entered the Top 40 at an impressive number twenty-four and then moved up nine places the following week. It was only when it climbed into the Top 10 at the beginning of May that Rambeau's name was given a co-credit. Thus, for the first and only time, Canada's number one single happened to be occupied by the same song done by two different acts. It was almost as if they were handing out participation trophies or something.

In the classic 1998 film Rushmore main character Max becomes besotted by Ms. Cross, a teacher at his exclusive private school. It turns out that the following year they'll be offering Japanese while at long last getting rid of Latin from the curriculum, something Max claims to have been campaigning for for years ("'It's a dead language, I'd always say'," he tells a colleague). However, he then meets Ms. Cross who expresses regret that this will be happening. Max promptly begins a counter-campaign to have Latin restored. As he gathers signatures from fellow students — with "sic transit gloria" his catchphrase — the sound of "Concrete and Clay" accompanies him.

Rushmore director Wes Anderson is as well-known for his immaculately curated soundtracks as he is for his highly stylized form of cinematography. The dreamy "A Summer's Song" by Chad and Jeremy plays as Max begins planning to build an aquarium at Rushmore in order to further impress Ms. Cross. "Here Comes My Baby" by Cat Stevens documents some positive experiences for the two characters, along with friend Herman Blume, who also begins to have feelings for Ms. Cross. The last couple minutes of The Who's outstanding suite "A Quick One, While He's Away" soundtracks the escalating blood feud between Max and Blume with a hint that a reconciliation may still be possible ("you are forgiven..."). The upbeat "Oh Yoko" by John Lennon sees the two former rivals back in cahoots as they work on getting their lives back on track.

No doubt Anderson pores over every minute detail in his films. Every song used is there to serve a purpose. (And shouldn't that be the case with every film director and not just the notoriously persnickety Wes Anderson?) Unit 4 + 2's only major hit (with apologies to the moody "(You've) Never Been in Love Like This Before", a number six hit in Canada following the success of "Concrete and Clay") is included in order to examine Max's state as he falls in love for presumably the first time which makes him forget all about his impending expulsion from his beloved school. The promise of a newfound love can be a wonderful thing even if it leads us to stumbling along the way.

I have no way to prove this but I can say with one hundred percent certainty that Eddie Rambeau's cover of "Concrete and Clay" wasn't even on Anderson's radar. While similarly-sized hits on the Hot 100 — a number twenty-eight peak for Unit 4 + 2,  number thirty-five for Rambeau; one can only wonder how the original would've done without its inferior facsimile placed up against it — only one of them remained with people in the years ahead — and with good reason. While the former has sunny tinges of flamenco exoticism, the latter copies the basis of the original while adding little beyond a superfluous string arrangement. "The rhythm," Tom Ewing helpfully points out, "bump[s] away in the background like a cyclist down a cobbled road." Though the details are expertly copied by producer Bob Crewe (who had recently been piecing together those wonderful Four Seasons hits) in the Rambeau rendition, there's less ragged activity going on. It's all a little too glossed over in the studio. Plus, Rambeau himself doesn't do much with it either: while Unit 4 + 2 vocalists Tommy Moeller and Brian Parker balance optimism with a hint of melancholy, the American gives a mostly bland reading with just the chorus being a little bit on the zesty side.

So, Rambeau's version isn't particularly good but that doesn't mean we should go nuts in praising the original either. Having such a weak cover to hold up against it probably makes it seem better than it is. While certainly a "gas" (as they used to say), it's bogged down by lyrics that are so banal I can hardly blame Rambeau for sounding so like he was just going through the motions. In a way, its presence in Rushmore doesn't do it any favours: while a thirty second clip of "Concrete and Clay" playing while Max saves Latin makes for a perfect mix of cinema and song, the full two minutes plus all on its own isn't quite as captivating. Ultimately, it's a case of good, not great — not unlike many of Wes Anderson's films that aren't named Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums.

Unit 4 + 2 Score: 7

Eddie Rambeau Score: 4

Herman's Hermits: "Silhouettes"

May 10, 1965 (1 week)

"Till we meet again, "Silhouettes". I just hope that the next group to take you to number one is as tasteful as The Rays."

Such were my closing words in my review from July of 2024. Of course, I knew that a cover version was coming and I was confident that it was going to be an absolute trainwreck. Call it an educated guess.

Last time, I was keen to point out that despite the problematic nature of "Silhouettes", it was a good song with a cute little payoff at the end. ("Oh, the drunken jealous stalker dude got the wrong house: that makes it okay!") I have no such similar goodwill with this Herman's Hermits cover. The group — which may or may not have included a young session ace named Jimmy Page — chose to take all the unease of out the original in order to make it into a jaunty little romp instead, as if we should all be in on the joke right from the get go.

Nah, that's giving lead singer Peter Noone, the other Hermits and producer Mickie Most way too much credit. I'm not even convinced that they were aware that "Silhouettes" even has a punchline. Rather, as a band whose mandate was to be as family friendly as possible, they were just going to be zippy and charming and moronic no matter the material they had. Let's examine some of the qualities of "Silhouettes" that Herman's Hermits missed out on.

✓ Jealousy — Dude is taking a walk one night and just happens to cruise past his best girl's place when he discovers her silhouette getting might cozy with another guy. His sadness turns into rage as he pounds on her door.

✓ Paranoia — His nibs' imagination runs away with him without much prompting. Ever hear about giving someone you supposedly love and trust the benefit of the doubt? No, neither have I.

✓ Stalking — Of course we all believe him when he says that he just happened to be in the area. Totally an isolated incident that has never occurred before or since.

✓ Being a Drunken Arse — It's an unspoken element of "Silhouettes" but everyone who has reached adulthood (and perhaps even those who are a bit younger) ought to have realized that that the "hero" of this story is totally wasted. Not being able to recognize the right house while being on the wrong street is the first giveaway. Overall lack of self-awareness is another.

✓ Idiocy — Wasted or sober, this dude is a massive idiot. In this respect, the Hermits might have been the band best suited to a cover of "Silhouettes" since no one in British pop could do 'winning simpleton' quite like Noone.

For a song that has been covered on several occasions throughout the last seventy years, you'd think that someone would have been able to get something out of "Silhouettes" to at least match the quality of The Rays' original. Assuming Noone even knew what the song was about, he may have simply been trying to imprint his usual cheeky self on to a record with a problematic narrative. Somehow or other this very pedestrian cover gave them another big hit around the world. Proof that the public was inevitably going to lap up any old shit just so long as it happened to be British. Herman's Hermits were only just getting started.

Score: 3

Freddie and the Dreamers: "I'm Telling You Now"

May 3, 1965 (1 week)

The history of UK pop is awash in unlikely looking stars. The likes of David Bowie, Elton John, Noddy Holder of Slade, Ian Dury, Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, Robert Smith of The Cure, Morrissey, Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boys, Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays, Bret Anderson of Suede and Jarvis Cocker of Pulp did not look the part of your conventional frontman though they all thrived in that role, at least for a time. 

This was even the case during the sixties where Mick Jagger, John Lennon and Dusty Springfield could legitimately hold their own in the charisma stakes even if they weren't all as dazzlingly attractive as Paul McCartney and Marianne Faithfull. Good looking or not, lead singers in bands and solo artists tended to look like pop stars with one very notable exception: Freddie Garrity, the 'Freddie' in Freddie and the Dreamers.

With his trademark glasses (question: is eyewear a trademark of everyone famous who happens to sport frames?), Garrity had few who resembled him. Buddy Holly was the obvious predecessor, especially since the Mancuian singer looked like the late Texan's hyperactive kid brother. (Fun fact: Garrity was born only two months after Holly; being in his late twenties at the time, it was initially put round that he was born in 1940 so that he might seem younger; apparently having glasses was far less of a problem than — gasp! — being old!) John Lennon was said to have been so myopic that he couldn't see the audiences he was playing to yet vanity prevented him from donning specs until the end of 1966. Guitar hero Hank Marvin had the studious, nerdish look which worked well in an instrumental group like The Shadows but which would've been harder to pull off had he handled vocal duties.

(It may have helped that Garrity had an equally unlikely looking quartet of musicians playing with him. As Lester Bangs would one day point out "the Dreamers looked as thuggish as Freddie looked dippy")

There's lots to like about Freddie Garrity — at least up to a point; a little of his bouncy shtick would have no doubt gone a long way — but sadly his music isn't one of them. "I'm Telling You Now" sounds cheap and cheerful but there's nothing else to it. Garrity co-wrote it with Mitch Murray, a British composer who had also penned hits for Gerry and the Pacemakers. His biggest hit up to that point, "How Do You Do It?", had been resoundingly rejected by The Beatles, a group who had the good sense and talent to realize there was nothing to be gained by putting it out under their name. It was said that they wouldn't have been able to show their faces up in Liverpool again had they released it.

I bring this up because Garrity clearly had no similar qualms about "I'm Telling You Now". For this, he deserves our respect: only the truly shameless can get away with writing and recording something so embarrassing. I'm sure he was proud of it and good for him. I like fun fluff as much as the next person but the singer's enthusiasm couldn't disguise the fact that it's a surprisingly dreary song. Watching him perform the "Freddie" is one thing but having to listen to his nasal voice is decidedly less thrilling.

With The Beatles on the cusp of an unprecedented creative breakthrough, as well as the emergence of The Rolling Stones, Dusty Springfield, The Kinks, The Yardbirds and The Who, UK pop was at its zenith. Yet, fans weren't quite prepared to catch up. Or rather, they were at least equally content to play around in the shallow end of the British Invasion pool. The lightweights were doing arguably better in terms of chart positions though they wouldn't have the longevity. Still, for now it mattered little that Lennon and McCartney could've farted out something that would've easily topped "I'm Telling You Now". Just so long as they were British and could perform okay then that was good enough.

Score: 4

Herman's Hermits: "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter"

April 19, 1965 (2 weeks)

The first British Invasion began in the early part of 1964 as Beatlemania swept North America and everyone tried to grab a piece of it. The second gathered momentum in the early eighties with the rise of MTV as UK groups had a far easier time adapting to the era of the pop music video (since it had been commonplace to film promos on the other side of the Atlantic). A third attempted invasion never really happened as North American Generation Xers chose to embrace supposedly authentic genres like grunge and gangsta rap in favour of Madchester, shoegaze and Britpop.

What all three of these "invasions" share is that they were arguably bigger in Canada than down in the US. With the Canadian link to the Commonwealth, there was much more of an openness to British pop, even prior to '64. While only two UK singles managed to reach number one on the American Hot 100 prior to The Beatles, there had been six north of the border, a modest but still significant difference. The Beatles had even been on an upward trend and it's likely they would have made a sizable impact in Canada even without appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show. For much of '64, the appetite down south had been primarily for one band: it was only near the end of the year that non-Beatles or Lennon-McCartney-composed UK singles topped the American charts. Yet, in Canada the likes of the Dave Clark Five, Gerry and the Pacemakers and the Honeycombs all spent time on top.

If we go by the period spanning 1964 to 1966, fifty British Invasion singles went to the top of Canada's pop charts, nearly double the total in the US. And, sure, the RPM era ushered in the trend of single week number ones but it was UK groups who were taking a large chunk of the extra spots. Motown acts like The Four Tops and Temptations earned well-deserved chart toppers on the Hot 100 but came up short just over the border even though there had been theoretically more room for them. For Canadians, it was Brit acts all the way!

No group benefited more from this than Manchester's Herman's Hermits, whose brand of English music hall novelty pop saw them remain a relevant chart act in Canada well after fading in both the UK and US. (A curious feature of lower level British acts of the time is that many of them, including Herman's Hermits and Petula Clark, did far better in North America than back home) Not only did they have no less than six number ones on the RPM charts but they came up just short on several other occasions as well. Amazingly, the song they are probably best-remembered for today, the moronically catchy "I'm Henry VIII, I Am", isn't even one of their ten highest charting entries in Canada.

Obviously I'll be getting to the remaining quintet of Hermits' chart toppers before long (one of them in just a few days in fact) but I should point out that they're a grim batch. They consist mainly of poorly thought out cover versions voiced by the workmanlike singing of Peter Noone. Apparently, he was something of a pinup back in his day though I couldn't tell you why (girls, and indeed some boys, must've really liked lads with lots and lots of teeth). Still, he was certainly far easier to look at than listen to.

"Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter" is probably the best of their number one hits. Yes, the bar is low. It's tempting to grade it on a curve and give it a bonus point or two but I won't be doing that. Herman's Hermits recorded a lot of material over the years, mostly in tandem with big time English producer Mickie Most along with some future members of Led Zeppelin as session musicians. Noone — the sole member who appeared on every one of their hits — had every opportunity to grow as an artist just as many of his contemporaries were doing. I don't know if I'd necessarily say that he blew his chance given how big he became but chart hits were the priority; overall quality clearly wasn't valued.

That said, it was probably a wise decision to have Noone just try to ape British music hall legend George Formby on "Mrs. Brown". The guitar part(s) — played by Hermits Derek Leckenby and Keith Hopwood — even manage to sound like Formby's trademark banjolele. Had Noone tried to copy The Beatles or Stones he doubtless would've sounded like even more of a fraud. Stick to your wheelhouse is something some people supposedly say and they might as well be describing a certain young English actor who wished to cash in on the British Invasion by recording some half-baked pop of his own.

With both ABBA and The Monkees having been given critical reconsideration in recent years, there's always the chance that Herman's Hermits might be given similar treatment in the future. Somehow I doubt it though. So-called guilty pleasure groups manage to rise above the dregs for either their outstanding craft — like ABBA — or for being able to make the most of some dire creative conditions — like The Monkees — but neither of these apply to Noone: he had no craft to speak and ended up getting very little out of some favourable studio conditions. His reign of ghastly terror was on.

Score: 4

Petula Clark: "I Know a Place"

April 12, 1965 (1 week)

As I hammered home the last time she came up, Petula Clark was a good deal older than her pop contemporaries. (At number two on the RPM chart during the week of April 12, 1965 was Sandie Shaw, a full fifteen years Clark's junior) While North America treated her like any other member of the British Invasion, she had already established herself in Europe so it wasn't as if she was this overnight success story. Yet, her relatively advanced years and the fact that she was working primarily with a milquetoast composer/producer set her apart and might have put her at a disadvantage, even if her run of hits in North America indicates she overcame this particular handicap.

"I Know a Place" was a canny move on the part of Clark and longtime collaborator Tony Hatch. While the heavier drum sound suggests they were adapting to current Merseybeat trends, the song's message of her being aware of this basement club in which "the music is fine, the lights are low" is far more important. She wasn't jumping on the Beatles' bandwagon, she's hip enough to know where to seek them out. Better yet, she's also cool enough to know the fantastic bands who aren't yet such a big deal. "Look, the older woman who lives down the road and who you secretly fancy is actually hip!"

Like "Downtown", "I Know a Place" is about a refuge. A place to go for lonely people to escape from their sad lives. But whereas her signature hit happened to be about New York, a city most people didn't really have the chance to visit back in the mid-sixties, this follow-up deals with a nice club which could be anywhere. Yeah, I suppose it's meant to be set in Soho in the middle of London — or maybe the Cavern up in Liverpool if we want to take The Beatle connection to the fullest extent — but it could be about any mid-size city's top music venue, the kind that kids would sneak out to visit.

While "Downtown" is the much more familiar Petula Clark hit, "I Know a Place" is the stronger single overall. Though more contemporary, it still allows Clark to unleash her West End/Broadway vocals and is thus not out of place for her. Not especially brilliant and no doubt nowhere close to as good as the music she experienced at this club but a fine record nonetheless. But that is the problem here: as she herself hints, there's far better pop to be found than with her modest efforts. She may indeed have had good taste in bands that were worth seeking out but that doesn't mean she was able to hold her own with them.

Score: 6