File under “songs with numbers in the titles.” Weirdly, the A-side sounds too fast, and the B-side too slow—but at least “3625” has a nice groove to it—and a great title (“3625 Groovy Street”)—which is also the chorus—sung in a goofy, singsong by what sounds like three teenage girls. Who are The Wildcats? I’m not spending all day on the internet to (attempt to) find out—so it remains a mystery. Apparently the “Hazlewood” noted as songwriter (both songs) is indeed Lee Hazlewood—one of my favorite songwriters ever. Makes sense, this is on Reprise, and “3625 Groovy Street” sounds like something he’d come up with. “’64” has its moments—a really hot guitar solo, in that old rock’n’roll guitar style—really nice one. The gist of that song is, we’ve learned The Twist, etc., and so forth, but that’s old hat—so what are we gonna do in ’64? “Will it be something strange and new or will it be something old and blue?” That’s the (sung) question. What were the fads in 1964? There was that Troll Doll. Dumb, but much better than Internet Trolls. I don’t know what else. I know there was this record, with some groovy organ and hot guitar and enthusiastic singing teen-sounding girls. For me, personally, I’m sure there was a lot new—being four years old—but I can’t really remember it! Heavy drinking and smoking weed were, for me, still a decade off.
Posts Tagged ‘1964
“Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um” has to be one of the greatest song titles of all time—no explanation needed—but it’s even better because if you haven’t heard the song, you can’t possibly imagine how to sing it—I mean in the way it’s sung in this song. You might say it, “Um, Um, Um, etc.”—kind of like you’re eating potato chips. But the way it’s sung, in the song, it’s really quite brilliant, not to mention compelling. AKA, hit song. It was a hit in the early Sixties, I guess—I don’t remember it, I was too young. This is a great album, from 1964—a collection of songs (most, or all, released as singles) by Major Lance, a soul singer out of Chicago, on Okeh records. All twelve songs on this record are by Curtis Mayfield—he and Major Lance were collaborators and friends. “The Monkey Time” is another one that was a hit. My favorite songs on the record are those two, as well as, “Hey Little Girl,” “It’s All Right,” “Mama Didn’t Know,” and “I’m the One” All of them are good, though—it’s a fine dance party record. There are liner notes by Curtis Mayfield, as well as by producer Carl Davis. The cover is excellent, a very suave photo the of the strikingly handsome Major Lance, along with the six “Ums” in three bold colors, overlapping each other in a “Pop Art” style—it’s one of the better covers I’ve seen lately.
I had to look up Major Lance on the internet, first of all, to see what his real name is—it’s Major Lance—understandable that he didn’t take on a stage name. He had a singing group with Otis Leavill in the Fifties called the Floats—which is a pretty odd and great band name—what does it mean? Could one use that name now? (Of course, there is [at least one] band by that name, currently.) Another interesting thing to note: one of his kids, a daughter, is Keisha Lance Bottoms, who was the mayor of Atlanta (from 2018 to 2022)—and very nearly, Vice President. Ten years younger than me—reading some about her led me to a very good, and extensive, profile about her in nymag.com—by Zak Cheney-Rice. It’s worth looking up. That was my Friday evening.
Interesting… I wrote a review of this record, October 2019—but never posted it—which makes me wonder what was going on October 2019. I don’t remember. Most likely I was hit by a wave of the ol’ midlife crisis, and seeing how this is a midlife crisis record, maybe it hit too close to home. Am I over my midlife crisis? I guess I am, at this point—seeing how the entire concept seems a bit silly at this point. Anyway, not one to waste effort, I’m going to reprint my earlier review here, and maybe edit a little:
I’m not sure why but this record immediately strikes me as a “midlife crisis” record—regardless of Sinatra’s age, or personal life—I mean it could all be an act. I mean, it is an act, of course!—but always with some personal truth behind it, right? Since this is a 1964 record, I guess he was pushing fifty when he recorded it—so it makes sense. More than anything, it’s the song selection, and none more so than “Here’s to the Losers”—which I think of as the classic Sinatra expression of a certain time period—I guess this one—and feeling—kind of jazzy, jaunty, breezy, romantic, ironic. Of course, it’s not an ode to losers, as in people like me, but to people who lose the battle to not be in love. Here’s some lines: “Here’s to those who love not too wisely, know not wisely, but too well.” Try singing that when you’re drunk. Here’s another good one: “Here’s to those who drink their dinners when that lady doesn’t show.” It alternates between men losers, and women losers, and then one for couples: “To the lonely summer lovers when the leaves begin to fall/ Here’s to the losers, a-bless them all.”
The album cover is pretty uninspired, as far as Sinatra covers go—there’s a grainy (really grainy) headshot of Sinatra looking like somebody’s dad. The cover also includes the names of four songs and three movies. One interesting thing is that the album title on top is punctuated in this way: SOFTLY, AS I LEAVE YOU SINATRA (it’s the rare comma in a song title). All caps, same font, and no break between the title and “Sinatra”—as if “Sinatra” is part of the song title and the album title. Weird. The back cover has a frame that says: “Frank Sinatra Sings All There Is To Know About Love/ Softly, As I Leave You”—like it’s the label on a can of sardines. Then a classic, vertical photo of Sinatra in the recording studio, standing, hands in pockets, hat on, his face hidden behind a microphone and music stand, standing ashtray nearby. The liner notes, by Stan Cornyn, are some of the best I’ve read in a while. It’s a detailed, poetic description of Sinatra coming into a recording session, going through a song, and finishing off with a Lucky Strike.
End of earlier review. Anyway, this is a very good record. For some reason, I feel like it would be a good one to get if you owned no Sinatra records. Maybe because it’s not one of his best—not even close—yet there is something absolute about it. One interesting thing—in the credits on back, there are arranger credits on each song, and there are multiple—I count five—different arrangers. Usually, I believe, there is one arranger per record—and so there are some real different styles here. That gives it a feeling of a greatest hits, or retrospective. So there are show tunes, movie songs, ballads, and modern pop numbers. As well as a real oddball, “Come Blow Your Horn,” in which he enunciates the lyrics like he’s laying down the law to the staff of a restaurant on opening day—it’s almost like beatnik poetry set to orchestra. They’re all interesting, and some are great. I suppose it was 1964, after all, and this record feels a bit like a transition from the classic Fifties Sinatra records to the later ones, like “That’s Life.” There may be no time in history where popular music took such a severe left turn, and one of the fascinating things about Sinatra is how he tried to adapt. One of the things I’ve always liked about him is how he can be good and bad, corny and profound, old-fashioned and modern—all on the same record—and sometimes within a single song. It’s all a matter of opinion, of course, but I’m a big lifelong fan of all of it.
I picked up this 1964 record knowing nothing about Hampton Hawes—sadly never had heard of him—and I wasn’t expecting much, certainly not that it would be so good, and instrumental jazz—piano jazz trio. I suppose I was guessing by the cover that it was going to be kind of mild crooner pop—only because of the bold yellow font on a blurry, bright green background, and bigger than life-size photo of a very handsome man, presumably Hawes, himself. And because he kind of resembles a young Harry Belafonte, naturally I just thought he was going to be a singer. Of course, that’s dumb of me. By chance, those two were born a year of so apart, and a few years before my dad. Though Hawes died pretty young, in 1977. I see that he wrote a memoir, so I’m going to check that out. (Found the book at the library, haven’t read any of it yet.) Apparently this record came out after he was in prison for five years for heroin possession. This is a fine jazz trio recording; Hampton Hawes on piano, Monk Montgomery on bass, and Steve Ellington drums. Great names—if you throw all six of those names in a hat, with the exception of “Steve,” it just oozes jazz. The liner notes, on back, by Lester Koenig is practically book length—I’m not going to read it now, but intend to later, like maybe when I listen to the record again. It’s one I’m going to leave out for awhile, for listening. It’s good, but subtle. Nothing jumped out at me on first listening, except maybe the first song, a Miles Davis composition called “Vierd Blues.” But often, subtle is a very good thing, calm and simple at first visit, like the Blue Hole, this little duck pond in Ohio that doesn’t look like much, but turns out to be bottomless and legendary.
Sarah Vaughan “The Lonely Hours”
I didn’t know I had this 1964 Sarah Vaughan record, and it’s a good one—I should be putting it on regularly. Twelve bluesy, dramatic songs, arranged by Benny Carter, roughly on the theme of lost love. Sarah Vaughan doesn’t hold back. It’s a nice copy, too, on Roulette records, with that lovely two-tone target checkerboard label. The cover looks like it’s part of an actual painting (no one painted square paintings) that has more deep blue color than any record I own. It’s what looks like a NYC row-house apartment, big steps going up to a darkened front door. The only light is from the bay window, in which a woman, wearing a neglige, I think, is standing, looking out (presumably, in this context, for an absent lover). She may or may not be smoking—a cigarette, that is—one might say she’s “smoking,” as in hot. I don’t talk that way, personally, but I do think it’s odd that she’s white, while Sarah Vaughan, who’s record this is, after all, is black. You’d think they could have found an image that more closely reflected the artist at hand. I wonder if there was a discussion at the label about it. Maybe that’s not so weird, there are sometimes women on the cover of Sinatra records, it’s not always him. White women, of course. No, it’s fucked up.
Quite unrelated, I noticed that there is a Wikipedia page for, besides Sarah Vaughan, a Sara Vaughn—which just struck me as funny because her name is like the more famous singer, but without the “h” in Sarah, and without the second “a” in Vaughan. Sara Vaughn—a middle-distance runner of sufficient success to get a Wikipedia page. She’s 32 years old, five foot one (like the Iggy Pop song), and her race seems to the the 1500 meters—which was close, in distance, to my best race (the mile—but we hadn’t gone metric, yet). Oh, that’s interesting—her best mile time is 4:27—that’s exactly my best mile time! I make nothing of this coincidence—I just take every opportunity to brag about that personal best, since it was not bad for a high school kid in the 1970s. “I’ll Never Be the Same”—is a standout on this record—it’s a familiar song, no doubt I’ve heard Sinatra do it—same with “If I Had You.” “You’re Driving Me Crazy” is another familiar one—I think I know the Kay Starr version—but that song (written by Walter Donaldson) goes back to 1930, the year my dad was born, and was recorded by well over a hundred artists. It makes you wonder if that was even an expression before this song—and if so, where’d it come from? Anyway, I could go on and on—I love all these songs. “(In My) Solitude” and “These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)” are standouts. It’s a real mood record—I’ll have to keep it in mind for the next time I break up with someone… if ever… again… A notion so distant… I’m sure there’s a song about that.
Stan Getz “Reflections”
This is a 1964 Stan Getz record, with “arrangements by Claus Ogerman/Lalo Schifrin” on Verve Records—11 short songs (I wish they were all longer!)—all really nice—what would be a great make-out record, except you have to get up too often to turn it over—but that’s one of the drawbacks of records, in general, for making out. I don’t know why this made me think about making out—I was not thinking of that; I suppose it’s because there is certain evocative appeal of these songs, and these arrangements, and this playing; that tenor sax is so out front at times it’s almost obscene. Or maybe it’s the songs with the choral arrangements, that sound like a movie (some of it is, such as Charade)—from a pre-rock’n’roll corner of the Sixties—a montage with beautiful people driving in a sports car with the top down, Cary Grant with a sick tan, or maybe Tony Curtis acting semi-inappropriate.
The cover has Stan Getz (I assume; he looks like that one character actor, you know, Jimmy Stewart’s cop friend in Rear Window) lying on a hillside in a seersucker jacket, smoking a cigarette, with an expression of either cool or defeat. It looks to me like the art department blacked out the area directly behind him so he wouldn’t just blend in with the grass, but it ends up looking more like we’re seeing a cutaway of him entombed in a fairly spacious grave. If you were to interpret it that way, you might interpret his expression as “not giving a shit.” You could even imagine this cover as one of those early anti-smoking ads, except he doesn’t look miserable enough, even for a man buried alive. Seeing how the album is titled “Reflections,” I’d have to say he’s… reflecting.
There are some serious liner notes on the back (three columns) by Jack Maher—I’d like to read it all, but maybe tomorrow after coffee. Okay, it’s now the next day. Have any of you reached the point in your life where coffee really does nothing as far as keeping you awake? I mean, it works in that it makes me feel normal, but say, to keep awake while reading three columns of text on the back of an album… no. Isn’t it great that someone would think it was cool to put three columns of text on the back of this album? I’d love to read it all, discuss it intelligently, but I don’t really feel like doing any kind of research right now. I know Lalo Schifrin from film scores, but I don’t know much else. I don’t know the Bossa Nova from a Chevy Nova, and I think the Samba is a pocket of dough, deep-fried and filled with something delicious. I read somewhere that everyone was all pissed off at Getz for “selling out” with this record—and I kind of love that idea, in its quaint sincerity—kind of like the folk people getting mad a Dylan for “going electric.” It’s a good reminder for anyone, in any time period, to step back and realize that even if you could look into the future, you have no idea just how bad things can and will get.
DJ Farraginous 
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