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50th Anniversary Viewing
The Ed Sullivan Show
Season 21, episode 34
Originally aired June 15, 1969
As represented in
The Best of the Ed Sullivan Show
Ed said:
Now, here from the bitter end of (mumbling), the Everly Brothers singing a medley of their hits.
That transcription is straight from the closed captioning! Don does a brief spoken introduction in which he jokingly describes himself as the intelligent one, as they strum the intro to the first part of the medley, "Walk Right Back" (charted Feb. 6, 1961; #7 US, #1 UK). Don describes the next part, "Bye Bye Love," as the song "that got us out of the hubcap business, and off the streets, and onto
The Ed Sullivan Show years and years ago" (charted May 20, 1957; #2 US, #1 Country, #5 R&B, #6 UK; #207 on
Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time). The Everlys are sporting shaggier, post-Invasion hair at this point than they were in their hitmaking prime, but they're in fine, single-quality form performing these classics.
This clip of the first song is edited differently, showing them going over to talk to Ed (not included in
Best of) directly after it.
Ed said:
Ladies and gentlemen, here is a member of a remarkable family, Phil Crosby!
Phil performs an up-tempo, granny-friendly swing number called "Let There Be Love". Phil doesn't sound much like his father, but he inherited the family hairline.
Also in the original episode according to tv.com:
Music:
--The Everly Brothers - "Bowling Green," "Wake Up Little Susie"
---Phil Crosby (Bing's son) - "You're Nobody Til Somebody Loves You"
--The Inner Dialogue - "The Touch" & "I Go to Life."
--Marilyn Maye - "What's There to Sing About?" and "Misty."
Comedy:
--Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara (comedy team) - reporter interviews parent at high school riot.
--Rodney Dangerfield (comedian)
Also appearing:
Peter Gennero (choreographer with dance troupe) - "Don't Rain on My Parade" production number.
--The Skating Bredos (daredevil male & female skaters)
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50th Anniversary Album Spotlight
Dusty in Memphis
Dusty Springfield
Released January 18, 1969
Chart debut: March 15, 1969
Chart peak: #99, April 12, 1969
#89 on
Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
Wiki said:
Dusty in Memphis is the fifth studio album by English singer Dusty Springfield. It was recorded at American Sound Studio in Memphis and released on 18 January 1969 by Atlantic Records. To make the album, Springfield worked with a team of musicians and producers that included Jerry Wexler, Arif Mardin, Tom Dowd, conductor Gene Orloff, backing vocalists The Sweet Inspirations, bassist Tommy Cogbill, and guitarist Reggie Young.
Dusty in Memphis sold poorly on its first release, despite featuring one of Springfield's top-10 UK hits, "Son of a Preacher Man". The album has since been acclaimed as her best work and one of the greatest records of all time; music critic Robert Christgau has called it "the all-time rock-era torch record" and included it in his "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings, published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981). In 2001, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
"Just a Little Lovin'," originally released as the B-side of "Son of a Preacher Man," starts the album off sounding like a coffee commercial, but the Mann & Weil composition has a nice, smooth sound.
Next is
"So Much Love," the first of four Goffin & King songs on the album and the B-side-to-be of future single "In the Land of Make Believe". Wiki tells me that Ben E. King originally recorded it in 1966.
Following that is the album's bona fide hit single, the classic "Son of a Preacher Man" (charted Nov. 30, 1968; #10 US; #9 UK; #240 on
Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time):
Fun fact that I just read: Hurley & Wilkins composed it with Aretha Franklin in mind...which I can totally hear. Also...
Wiki said:
"Son of a Preacher Man" was to be the last Top Ten chart hit for Springfield for almost 20 years, until she teamed up with Pet Shop Boys for the single "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" in 1987.
"I Don't Want to Hear It Anymore," briefly of our prior acquaintance (charted Apr. 26, 1969; #105 US), was written by Randy Newman and originally recorded by Jerry Butler in 1964. It has a really nice sound, but its B-side, "The Windmills of Your Mind," was promoted over it when it won the Academy Award for Best Song.
Goffin & King's "Don't Forget About Me" is another single that probably should have done better on the charts than it did (charted Mar. 1, 1969; #64 US):
Side one of the album closes with the above song's B-side,
"Breakfast in Bed," written by Hinton and Fritts. It also has a nice sound, but I can see why this one didn't do as well (charted Apr. 12, 1969; #91 US), though it's something that it charted as a B-side at all. Note the shout-out to Dusty's prior hit "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me".
Side two opens with
"Just One Smile," another Newman composition, and previously recorded by Gene Pitney in 1966. I didn't remember it, but Blood, Sweat & Tears also covered it on their 1968 album
Child Is Father to the Man. Needless to say, their version is arranged quite differently.
Next is one of the more striking songs of the album, "The Windmills of Your Mind" (B-side of "I Don't Want to Hear It Anymore"; charted May 3, 1969; #31 US; #3 AC), written by Bergman, Bergman, and Legrand, originally performed by Noel Harrison in the 1968 film
The Thomas Crown Affair, and currently on the chart 50 years ago this week.
I guess I'd qualify this as a successful cover of the song. I was initially put off by the difference from the original, but comparing the two versions, it makes up for what it loses by also gaining something.
"In the Land of Make Believe" (charts Oct. 4, 1969; #113 US; #27 AC) is relatively unremarkable as Bacharach and David compositions go, but includes some relatively light use of Indian instrumentation.
The remainder of the album is a twofer from Goffin and King,
"No Easy Way Down" and
"I Can't Make It Alone". Both are perfectly decent songs, but not particularly noteworthy to my ear compared to some of the album's other contents.
Overall, this was a pleasant album, and its variety was a welcome change of pace after struggling to appreciate
Odessey and Oracle better than I managed to. But this strikes me as another case of an album being perhaps oversold as a lost gem after the fact. I don't hear anything here that sounds all that remarkable for the day, such that it would belong on an exclusive list topped by
Sgt. Pepper and
Pet Sounds.
Totally off-the-wall trivia point:
Wiki said:
During the Memphis sessions in November 1968, Springfield suggested to the heads of Atlantic Records that they should sign the newly formed Led Zeppelin group. She knew the band's bass player John Paul Jones, who had backed her in concerts before. Without having ever seen them and largely on Dusty's advice, the record company signed a deal of $200,000 with them. At the time, that was the biggest deal of its kind for a new band.
Next up:
Happy Trails, Quicksilver Messenger Service
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Nice. I haven't seen this one among the episodes that we've recorded in the past few months. I'll have to keep an eye peeled for it, since they'll be getting back around to the Tara episodes soon.
FWIW, more than one IMDb reviewer commented that it was a relatively un-surreal episode overall.
It's actually odd that I like it, since it's both a condemnation of humanity and kind of religious.
I've always love this song as it predicts the increasing reliance on soulless reliance on technology to the point where humanity is reduced to something not human at all.
Of note are the lyrics:
"In the year 7510
If God's a-coming, He oughta make it by then
Maybe He'll look around Himself and say
Guess it's time for the judgment day
In the year 8510
God is gonna shake His mighty head
He'll either say I'm pleased where man has been
Or tear it down, and start again."
Its pretty clear that there would no joy in seeing what man had become, so this serves as a cautionary notice for a society that was (and is) becoming something other than what we were always meant to be. Its a message that used to be a component of many sci-fi books and few films of the general era, but that's largely gone now.
An interesting contrast of opinions.
RJDiogenes said:
We're on to something here.
Would Mr. Moose be an accessory?
He'll soon be 80. This remastered version of Yesterday sounds like Paul's lead has been double tracked. The Beatles used to do this quite a bit, but i don't recall the technique being used on Yesterday. Maybe it's just that I am able to hear the recording more clearly now because everything's been so cleaned up.