AM GOLD MUSIC OF THE 60s & 70s

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I heard it through the Grapevine was cut by three Motown acts before Marvin Gaye.The Isley Brothers' version stayed in the can,and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles' version wasn't released until around the same time as Gaye's.Glady's Knight and the Pips took it to No. 2 pop (and the top of the soul charts) in 1967.Marvin poured all his passion and paranoia into the performance,and he wound up selling four million copies and creating a standard that has entered the Billboard Hot 100 four times since then (by King Curtis,CCR,Roger and the California Raisens).

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The Temptation had a Strong-Whitfield gem in I Wish It Would Rain. David Ruffin's unforgettable reading made the song stand out from the Broadway ballads that dominated the Tempts'In a Mellow Mood album.The 5th Dimension was a pop-soul group that made a career out of smooth harmonizing,usually on songs by Jimmy Webb or Laura Nyro,who wrote Stoned Soul Picnic. With A Beautiful Morning, an obvious attempt to recapture the success of its 1967 chart topper Groovin the nations leading blue -eyed soul band changed its name from the Young Rascals to the Rascals.

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Dion was a folk surprise. Dion fled his native Bronx for Miami in 1968 to kick heroin,which had kept his career on hold much of the decade.During that period,he also became a huge blues fan. Dick Holler wrote Abraham,Martin and John as a blues shuffle the day after Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.Producer Phil Gernhard and Dion spent nearly three weeks reworking it into this form,which Dion insisted was his form of blues even if everyone else considered it topical folk-pop;the single also marked his return to Laurie,the label where he and the Belmonts had their early hits.

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Jose Feliciano was born blind in Puerto Rico,and his family moved to New York's Spanish Harlim when he was a child.He made his first appearances on the Hispanic circuit but quickly moved downtown to Greenwich Village folk clubs.In addition to singing,he played guitar,bass and congas on his remake of the Doors' Light My Fire, which marked his first foray into the pop-rock world.

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Spanky and Our Gang Like to get to Know you.were Chicago's answer to the Mamas and the Papas; leader Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane even sang the late Mama Cass Elliot's parts in the mid-1980 re-formed version of that group.Merrilee Rush went top 10 with Angel of the Morning after Evie Sand's version failed because Cameo,her label,went out of business two weeks after releasing it in 1966. When Rush began getting some attention in her native Pacific Northwest,songwriter Chip Taylor,who had penned Angel in a 10-minute burst that ended a half-day of false starts,hired his own promo man to make it a nationwide hit.

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The Vogues,who were originally the Val-Aires but dressed so sharp that they had to change their names,broke out of their native Pittsburgh by working up two different shows,one for teens and one for parents.Turn Around,Look at Me managed to please both audiences.

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The members of Classic IV were from Jacksonville Florida,but their Spooky broke first in Loisville,Kentucky: remnants of the group later evolved into the Atlantic Rhythem Section,purveyors of mid-1970s Southern boogie.

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1968 Glen Campbell continued his crossover success with the atmospheric Wichita Lineman ,one in a series of country place-name songs written for him by Jimmy Webb.

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1968

Bobby Goldsboro,a southerner who had never enjoyed country hits before,had an even bigger crossover with Honey,written by Bobby Russell.After deciding at the last minute to stay home one weekend night,Russell started contemplating how much the tree in his front yard had grown in the last four years,and somehow from that observation he built this ballad about the death of a young bride.

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1969

In October 1967,Joseph Papp chose a new musical called Hair to launch his New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater,a choice that bore fruit on the pop charts in 1969.The musical didn't have much in the way of a story line,instead just dropping in and out of the interwined lives of several hippies.But people were fascinated with hippies.They were new and exotic then,with their carefree attitude towards drugs and sex and especially with their unprecedented long hair.

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Get Together----------Youngbloods

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1969

Michael Butler(soon to be a producer of the Woodstock festival) took Hair to the Biltmore Theater on Broadway,where it opened on April 29,1968 with a revised book and music.Along the way,the title gained the line--"an American tribal love-rock musical."

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1969

With Hair, the hippie image ceased to be a social threat and went mainstream.In September the show opened in London,and it was soon playing in the rest of Europe as in Japan,Mexico and Australia.

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1969
The book and Lyrics to Hair were written by a pair of actors,Gerome Ragni and James Rado.The music, an encyclopedia look at the controversial rock music coming out of san Francisco,Los angeles and New York, was by South African-trained Galt MacDemot,the son of a Canadian diplomat.

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sugar&spice-come go with me.

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1969

Easy to be Hard was the first hit for Three Dog Night,a Hollywood harmony group whose artistic credlbility hinged mainly on the talents of its respected lead singer,Danny Hutton.Formed in 1968 as a seven-piece group doing soul-inflected pop.3DN remained popular well into the 70s.

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1969

The Cowsills, a Rhode Island family group that had been on the charts regularly since 1967,enjoyed their last top-40 hit with Hair itself.Retired U.S. Navy chief petty officer Bud Cowsill had put his wife together with his four youngest sons to form the group,which specialized in fluffy "poptoons." But Cowsills ran the group on a more or less military model,which led to acrimony and a short career for all.

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1969

A newcomer,Oliver, scored with Hair's Good Morning Starshine. As William Swofford (Oliver was his middle name),the North Carolinian had sung with a couple of country-rock Units before hooking up with New York producer Bob Crewe.Oliver charted twice more in 1969 and then returned to anonymity.

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1969

The 5th Dimension,who went to No.1 early in the year with a Hair Medley of Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In, repeated the feat in the fall with a remake of Laura Nyro's Wedding Bell Blues.Nyro, one of the team's favorite writters,had enjoyed modest success with her song during the 1967 Summer of Love. The 5th Dimension revived it mainly as a joke.Group members Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis were engaged and their producer,Bones Hoew,thought it would be a hoot to hear her sing the opening line,"Bill, I Love You so,' as her first lead solo.

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1969

The jazzy,11-piece Brooklyn Bridge,meanwhile,got Worst That Could Happen from the 5th Dimesion.The tune (written by Jimmy Webb,another of the 5d's favorites)appeared on one of their early albums,which Brooklyn Bridge leader Johnny Maestro checked out while screening material for his group's debut