One Hit No More, No. 44: Norman Greenbaum & a Series of Accidents

He thanks you for the royalties, I'm sure.

The Hit
Somewhere in my late 20s, I remember lamenting to someone over how much I hated the idea of Bible thumpers laying claim to the beautiful, blues boogie riff that plays under Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” (found the original video). I’ve mellowed to a point where I just ignore evangelical Christian pop culture because it always tells the same damn story (e.g., person has problems, they find Jesus, Jesus makes it better, the end. Every. Damn. Time).

I never struggled to get through “Spirit in the Sky,” though, at least not till it reached a suffocating level of ubiquity by way of oldies’ radio play and movie soundtracks, which tells you how far a riff straight from heaven can carry a song. The fuzzed-up snarl on the guitar gives it a nice crunchiness too…only the song didn’t come straight from heaven.

The Rest of the Story
“It wasn’t my religion; I just did it. I didn’t think twice about it. I took some of the seriousness out of it, but I didn’t do it as a joke or against anyone. I guess people can take offense to almost anything. There was the song about the plastic Jesus on your dashboard. They liked that one.”

“[Now], quite a few churches have put it into their services and they sing it quite often. So it turned out OK. To be blunt, I don’t think it’s on the shit list.”
- Norman Greenbaum, Rolling Stone, January 2020 (and here’s that song about plastic Jesus)

As Wikipedia’s entry notes, Greenbaum was raised “an observant Jew.” It also implies he remains observant, but he says otherwise in Rolling Stones’“’Spirit in the Sky’ at 50” retrospective, published earlier this long, awful year. He had to learn a little about Christianity just to write what he did and didn't satisfy everyone; he still gets the odd grievance by first-class mail complaining about the line, “Never been a sinner, I’ve never sinned,” and that’s where the reference to people taking offense comes from.

One Hit No More, No. 43: Frijid Pink, Who Were Named by Their Parents

Decided to roll with what might have been...

The Hit
I’d never heard Frijid Pink’s “House of the Rising Sun” until last week and…it’s fine, a sound spin on what I learned was their particular mash-up of influences. I’ll cover that story below, but think hard rock meets the sounds of Detroit.

I also learned that Frijid Pink recorded that cover as filler for their debut album - i.e., they had some empty space to fill on the LP, so they producer asked them if they had anything else. They’d been working up their take on “House of the Rising Sun” for their live shows, and for exactly the same reason. They knew it, though, and recorded the album version on the first take. Even if it doesn’t top the most popular version* (I assume), it’s a nice serving of fuzzed-up acid-rock typical of the burned-out come-down from the 1960s. And the theme is timeless, obviously…I just struggle to accept someone getting famous on the back of a cover, but accept that’s more personal bias than a judgment of artistry.

(* I’m confident this list isn’t even half-thorough, but it looks like Georgia Bell Turner recorded the first version in 1937 (on bad tech, from the sounds of it), Bob Dylan revived it for his debut, and then The Animals played the version that I think most people know.)

It hit big, rising as high as No. 7 on the Billboard, where it stayed for 13 weeks; it made loud noises in Europe (11 weeks at No. 1 in Germany) and Canada. It gave a gold record to a rock band from Detroit for the first time, thereby (arguably) putting Detroit rock on the map, you’re welcome, KISS. The accidents continued from there, not all of them happy…

The Rest of the Story
It starts with two kids who picked up music early and on their own, drummer Rick Stevers and bassist Tom Harris. By the time they reached high school, circa 1967, they had an actual touring band made up of kids they own and managed by Stevers’ parents, Clyde and Clara. They played as the Detroit Vibrations and mainly as a cover act, if one with ambition: they kept tabs on every song that came out and prided themselves on being the first band to perform it on the Detroit party/lounge/whatever circuit. They rode that into something like a residency at The Chatterbox, their hometown hot-spot in Allen Park, Michigan, by winning one battle of the bands after another.

One Hit No More, No. 42: Mountain, Woodstock and the Other Side of "Mississippi Queen"

West did cut an impressive figure...

The Hit
Badly as I want to kick this off with, “you know what’s coming the second you hear that cowbell,” I would have never heard Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen” if they didn’t have it on one of the editions of Rock Band (2, I think). I have literally never heard this song any other time (and I linked to the only video I possibly could in tribute).

That said, a particular detail in the game-play of Rock Band - at least on the drums, the only “instrument” I ever so much as looked at - makes the tune a happy memory. I got through the easy setting on the drums on something close to the first take, and even the first handful of games on the moderate setting. “Mississippi Queen,” as it happens, is the first song in that run that really forces the player to get their legs and arms moving together but separately. It took about a dozen takes to get past it for the first time, but it also got me over the hump on that fairly-specific physical challenge, and that might have been the first thing I’d taught my body to do since my late 20s. It hasn’t come in handy yet, but it’s in the back-pocket…

The Rest of the Story
In a word, dramatic. The mystique of Mountain begins with where they played their third-ever live performance. It was Woodstock, a gig they appear to have picked up by way of sharing a booking agent with Jimi Hendrix. Jimi, of course, had one of his iconic moments at Woodstock, but here’s a recreation of the scene from a 2019 retrospective in Goldmine Magazine:

“The band’s close to classic lineup, sans soon-to-be-enlisted drummer Corky Laing, ripped through a set largely culled from guitarist Leslie West’s recently released solo album entitled “Mountain.” The wide-eyed, expressive and impressively built West manned center stage as if the fates conspired to place him there at that moment and time, while former Cream producer Felix Pappalardi stood semi-shadowed to his right unleashing furious bass runs in accompaniment. It is little stretch to say the massive crowd heard nothing quite like this before.”

One Hit No More, No. 41, Eric Burdon & War: The Burden of Burdon

Necessary springboard?

The Hit
I assume, without investigation, that the context in which you first heard 1970’s “Spill the Wine” went almost all the way in terms of shaping how seriously you take it. Even that assumes that anyone takes that song seriously…

Of which, I’ve now confirmed, via Lonnie Jordan, but to multiple sources, the actual lyrics to the chorus of “Spill the Wine.” In his own words (from a decent 2018 interview with Entertainment Today):

“You know, in recording “Spill the Wine” he improvised the song. The chorus [‘spill the wine, take that pearl’], people think it is ‘girl.’ But it is ‘pearl,’ that’s the lady’s nether regions.”

For the record, learning this information did not impress my wife. Still, the part about Eric Burdon, formally and made famous via The Animals, improvising the daffy story at the heart of the song makes the whole thing a little more impressive. It’s hardly high art - it’s more a “holy shit” brag about the things Burdon gets to do (and a bit Playboy cliché), and a “story” only in that sense - but that’s one hell of a jam playing under it. The instruments War played were old as rock ‘n’ roll, but they got something new out of them - at least in actually popular music, aka, the stuff that charts. “Spill the Wine” rose high enough to put Eric Burdon & War on the map and to set them touring across Europe over 1970 and 1971…

…not bad for a band that came together half by design and half by accident. Oh, and to finish the thought, I think I first heard this song in my early 20s and it was presented ironically. No offense to all concerned, but that really stuck. Once you're the butt of a joke, and for whatever reason...

The Rest of the Story
“It is hard to put a label on us, it is hard to put a library card on us. Tower Records had us in a lot of departments, jazz, reggae, RnB. Universal Street Music, that is what I call us.”

First, that's the framing of War as a band out of the way. Second, I was more interested in War than Eric Burdon & War after hearing four albums all of once. I’ve still never made it through The Black-Man’s Burdon, their 1970 follow-up to Eric Burdon Declares War, and I know I never will, not unless someone pays me to do it (note: it wouldn’t take a lot). Critiques of the album aside, Burdon checked out after they recorded it - and in the middle of a European tour. I’ve read a couple reasons for the split and, as much as I like the artistic romance of “he got bored and left,” Jordan told a gentler version to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2019:

One Hit No More, No. 40: Beware the Ides of March...

Also a little conflicted...

The Hit
The more I listen to The Ides of March’s “Vehicle,” the more convinced I am that I’ve heard it. On the other hand, it didn’t ring a bell of any kind the first time I heard it.

Assuming you haven’t heard it, it packs a big sound - lots of horns, a Chicago-funk bass line, the rhythm churns, some really solid call-response - the whole thing just screams “ANTHEM.” This is the sound of kicking ass, chewing bubblegum and naming names…which only makes the song’s origin more notable. The songwriter, Jim Peterik, had an ex-girlfriend who called him for rides after the break-up and he obliged often for it to inspire a song; as he phrased the concept in an (always) undated interview with Best Classic Bands, “all I am to you is your vehicle.” In an ending that’s both fitting and that gets at how relationships really work, they reconciled some time after and eventually got married. I’ve found that people who aren’t sure they want to be together have a way of finding excuses to bump into one another…

The Rest of the Story
Before digging in, I need to get something out of the way: I did not like The Ides of March. I made it through their catalog just four times before tapping out and walking away. There’s nothing wrong with having a bias; the real crime is hiding them for ulterior motives. The importance of that idea will come up later, but also in daily life. Moving on…

The Ides of March came up - and I mean that literally - in (or near) Chicago, Illinois (Berwyn, Illinois). The best way I can think to explain that is to note that, 1) when they dropped the name “The Shon-Dels,” they found inspiration from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, which they were reading at the time for high school, and 2) the band’s first hit, “You Wouldn’t Listen to Me” (No. 42 on The Billboard and No. 7 regionally, so not bad) was written during an all-nighter at Peterik’s 15th birthday party. Also, one of their moms, Ann Millas, was the one who arranged their break-trhough meeting with Mercury Records. (For reference, I found most of the finer anecdotes in this post in MusicTAP’s 2020 interview with Peterik.)

One Hit No More, No. 39, Shocking Blue: "Venus" Wore a Wig...

O.G.

The Hit
While it’s not unheard of in this project (see, Syndicate of Sound post), Shocking Blue’s “Venus” provides the rare case where it’s fair to ask people whether they heard their version first or Banarama’s. I know my answer - Banarama’s (also, The Divinyls on the one above) - and I refuse to feel shame about it…especially now that former, and now deceased drummer Cor van der Beek confessed that they “borrowed” (he straight-up says “stole”) the guitar riffs from The Beatles.

That said, I agree with van der Beek that Shocking Blue’s version beats all the others.

The song dropped in 1970 and shot to No. 1 on the Billboard in the States and blew up just about everywhere else besides. Anchored by an electric piano(/organ?) riff, a light funk shuffle rhythm plays under while curly-cue guitars hooks play over it: it’s music made for go-go dancing. And the vocals - imperious, almost demanding worship - roll it all together into a celebration of feminine power and/or mystique. “Goddess on the mountain-top/burning like a silver flame…”

The Rest of the Story
Because this was a case where I wanted so much more, I’m a little disappointed that there isn’t much available on Shocking Blue. Three of the four original members are dead - a couple of them for some time - and the only living member is, by now, quite old and “very media-shy.” That just leaves talking about what’s available.

A guitarist/sitarist named Robbie van Leeuwen started Shocking Blue in The Hague, The Netherlands (note: I often feel like I’m doing it wrong when I type “The” before “Netherlands”), with van der Beek (again, drums) in 1967 with Klassje van der Waal on bass, and a guy named Fred de Wilde on lead vocals. The band’s original line-up recorded a couple singles that no one remembers (but that one can look up at this point), and that was enough to move de Wilde to chuck the band for the Dutch Army. van Leeuwen found Mariska Veres singing in a club and the rest is history.

The more I read about musicians, the more I see that, for a lot of them, the story doesn’t get more complicated than, “we (or he or she) wrote a bunch of songs, and we toured a lot, probably more than we wanted to, but that's the job.” A vast under-belly teems and writhes under that bare narrative - e.g., as revealed in a 1988 (subtitled) interview with Veres and van der Beek, it’s a blur of hiring body-guards to keep half-crazed fans from grabbing you and or cutting your hair (or wig; fun fact, Veres wore wigs) in Japan - and a band doesn't draw half-crazed fans without a hit, and Shocking Blue did manage that. Some parts of the band lasted until 1971 - when van der Beek and van der Wal checked out - while van Leeuwen made it 1974; Veres was the last hold-out, and small wonder. If “Venus” is all you know, those vocals really catch your ear...

One Hit No More, No. 38, The Spiral Starecase: A Long, Hard, Corruptly-Managed Road

They had one freakin' guy on sax. WTAF?

The Hit
There’s a song called “Pickin’ a Chicken” by Eve Boswell that’s defiantly upbeat enough that it strikes me as a song of intense denial, the strained smile that precedes light serial killing, etc. Of course I don’t really think that, and also assume Boswell never killed anyone (that she didn’t mean to), but it’s just strident enough to keep me from buying the premise.

The Spiral Starecase’s “More Today than Yesterday” prompts a similar version of that physical reaction. Whatever qualities it has musically get lost in the way that all the bright, soaring notes come off as a parody of happiness, especially when paired with Pat Upton’s crisp, ringing vocals. Upton wrote the song and with the encouragement of one of the band’s early managers, a guy from Columbia named Gary Usher, and there’s an anecdote about the writing that I picked out of a post to an entertainment law firm’s website (McLane & Wong), who picked the quotes out of Upton’s book about his time with The Spiral Starecase and it’s predecessor act, The Fydallions (sometimes, the Fedalions, but only in LA, apparently):

“The last time I saw Gary was in Vegas and I had just written 'More'. I played it for him and it only had two verses. He said it needed another verse, so I wrote another.”

I find that priceless on two levels. First, the fact he (and I believe others) refer to The Spiral Starecase’s hit single as, “More,” because the nickname makes it feel like another member of the band. Second, what was the hold up on that third verse? In his defense, however, that third verse does feel a little more polished…

The Rest of the Story
“…with a full horn section to replicate the sound of their biggest hits.”

I lifted that quote from Wikipedia’s“just the facts, ma’am” entry on The Spiral Starecase. It’s a decent history, and it reconciles some inconsistencies between some other sources in a way that feels either satisfying or correct, but it also glosses over how long and hard this band worked for its shot. Their reward: getting screwed over by management and told that they didn’t look right by Columbia Records (but watch the performance for "More Today" above...that's hip?). Not all members had the last laugh in the end, but some of them did. Despite dropping just one album that anyone cared about - this was after “More Today” (see? not so hard) - parts of the band toured until the 1980s. And, for reasons that defy mathematics, they somehow squeezed seven goddamn compilation albums out of that one album. To go back to the beginning…

Two members of the band - Upton and saxophonist, Dick Lopes - got together a band for an Air Force talent show at the station where they were based near Sacramento, CA. They used the Fydallions named even then and set out to build a bigger better band for Sacramento’s civilian scene. Bobby Raymond came into the line-up on bass guitar, Harvey Kaye on keyboards, and Vinnie Parello on drums; Upton played lead guitar and sang while Lopes stuck to the saxophone. Low-hanging documentation on The Fydallions is low, but I did find a contemporary news segment (I love you google as much as I hate you) that shows them playing the scenic California capital’s Old Tropicana Club and, honestly, I would have enjoyed listening to that band a lot more than The Spiral Starecase, but the assignment chooses the bands in this project, not the other way around. Moving on…

This is one of those cases where they phrase “one-hit wonder” gets under my skin a bit, because The Fydallions paid 4-5 years worth of steep dues - working the San Francisco scene, five-hour lounge shows in Vegas, auditioning via random recordings and waiting for the phone call in Los Angeles. They added some new members in 1966 - Gene Austin (more bass), Mark Barret (more drums…srsly?), and Al Sebay on electric guitar, but otherwise bumped around like that for some time when Columbia discovered them, signed them, demanded they change both their name and look (too conservative, they said, which wasn’t wrong in 1969, and yet...). It’s worth talking about management a bit, because that looms large.

An undated post in RebeatMag’s “Story Behind” series gives the fullest tallying of their problems with managers - equipment bought on a stolen credit card then repossessed before a show, skimping on weekly payments for a PA system during their residency at The Flamingo Sky Lounge in Vegas…also, repossessed. And all this happened before “More” (fuck it; going with it) became a hit. The burn-out and bickering among the band was bad enough by then that no one had the endurance to stick it out. Basically, five striving years as The Fydallions ended in 18 stressful months as The Spiral Starecase. If there’s a silver lining to all that, they got to open for bands like Three Dog Night, Sly and the Family Stone and Creedence Clearwater Revival; even if they got only three songs before the proverbial cane yanked them off the stage, five guys from the Air Force wrote a hit and played with the stars. Now, to close on some happier stuff…for the most part…

About the Sampler
Once again, there is no sampler, because only the one album. While it looks like The Spiral Starecase put out two albums under the Columbia label - one with Usher and one, post “More” with his replacement, the perfectly-named Sonny Knight (screams "producer"), Spotify only had the latter - named More Today Than Yesterday - which is mostly previously released 45s cobbled together into an LP. To its credit, the entertainment law site (link above) does the best job of mapping the tangled path. For the first pitch, Usher tried “Baby What I Mean” backed with “Makin’ Up My Mind” - both songs, significantly, not written by the band. [Ed. - Fun Note: of all the members of The Spiral Starecase, only Upton and Kaye play a role in the studio version of "More Today."] Next, they tried “Broken-Hearted Man” (which Dick Clark himself declared “the second single”) with “More Today.” While I can’t say for sure which 45 ultimately broke them into the Billboard (and Cashbox and Canadian charts), one source or the other (trust me, it’s not important) named “No One for Me to Turn To” as they b-side for “More Today.”

As much as I respect The Spiral Starecase for their time-in, I’d only recommend them to someone who likes post-political, horn-heavy late-60s/early70s pop music. The more I look the past of American popular music, the more convinced I become that some version of Tin Pan Alley continues to this day, coopting and polishing the sounds that come up from the original stuff that bubbles up and turning them into Marketable Commodities. I can’t argue that The Spiral Starecase offered anything truly novel to the American music scene - and that goes back to their days as The Fydallions - but they did write at least one song that, whatever I think of it, still lingers in the zeitgeist. I used to care about how all that worked, but who really gives a shit? A random guy serving time in the Air Force wrote a song that made people happy then and it keeps making them happy now.

Crap. I forgot the post-script, which matters because it has two reasonably happy endings. It was Kaye (the keyboardist) that reformed the band in Vegas and that played all those gigs (and, again, somehow conjured seven compilation albums out of one actual album; then again, do pay attention to the dates they were released and look for the pop culture brands they associated with; money, baby!) all the way to the 1980s. We’d all do well to remember that what passes for “good taste” isn’t universal. Upton caught a break of his own when he became a session player with Ricky Nelson. Moreover, in Upton’s own words he gets “more today than yesterday” in royalties from his song.