Saturday night is oldies night everywhere, it seems, even in Canada, eh? CBC Radio One has Randy Bachman’s Vinyl Tap. Randy Bachman was the first name in Bachman Turner Overdrive, and before that with Burton Cummings he formed the core of The Guess Who, a band that had a string of big hits in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
David Lee Roth had an infamous failed attempt at being a DJ, but other musicians have done well as radio hosts. I always enjoy Nights With Alice Cooper, aired Saturdays over WZLX in Boston. Bachman is also very good. It comes in on 1550 AM on my GE Superadio III, but it’s better to play the live streaming audio.
Tonight, Bachman had an all-British show, starting with songs by Cliff Richard and The Shadows, and finishing, of course, with Petula Clark. Here are the last 10+ minutes of tonight’s program.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2008/FEB/RandyBachman.mp3]Did you hear “Baby, Now That I’ve Found You” by The Foundations? To my ears this is definitely a different vocal than the American single, maybe even a different singer. I happen to have an original 45 of the song from 1967. And here it is.
As always, I’ll rely on Pop Musicologist D.F. Rogers to provide some explanation.
Synchronicity! Shirley Jones is guesting this week only on “Days of our Lives” as Colleen Brady, the matriarch of the fabled Brady family, who turns out to be John Black’s father. Never mind; too complicated . She went to school with a childhood friend of Tom’s mother. This woman was at Irene’s funeral, and Tom DRAGGED me over there, since he knows I love celebrity “friends.” She was very nice, attractive, and well-dressed, but I forget her name!
Was I the only teen boy who was more interested in Shirley Jones than Susan Dey? I suspect not! 😉
S.N.O. special guest was Shirley Jones of the Partridge Family
I assumed the “Now That I’ve Found You” single is the one (our sister) Liz had. But if you had it, I must have bought it somewhere. I used to haunt several different used record shops.
Playing singles always reminds me of my too-brief time in the radio biz. I enjoyed doing tight segues between songs, using a technique called a “slip cue,” where you find the beginning of the cut and hold the record in place while the felt-covered turntable spins below, letting go of it at just the right moment. This was something Liz (not our sister) didn’t like to do. The problem with slip cuing was it caused “groove burn,” where the lead-in to the song would get very noisy. WABC in New York put everything onto magnetic cartridges, so the records were played only once and suffered no wear. So technically there were no “disk jockeys!” Strictly speaking, the WABC on-air personalities were announcers, because they didn’t engineer their own shows. Somebody else hit the buttons for them. Back in those days you needed a third class radio engineer’s license to be allowed to “run the board.”
Speaking of Saturday night oldies shows and WABC, Mark Simone is still doing his program. Last night’s show has been posted and can be heard at this link. There are too many oldies options on Saturday night!
Listened to the rest of it. I soak in Epsom salts a lot! They really do work. Now when I take an Epsom salt bath, I’ll feel naked, like Pet is watching! EEK! Just kidding. I would concur with Dennis’s analysis of “Baby, Now That I’ve Found You.” Interesting that he uses the word “honey” instead except when singing the chorus.
Speaking of different versions of songs, to this day, it STILL bugs me when I hear “Penny Lane” and I don’t hear the original demo given to WABC with the seven-note piccolo trumpet ending instead of the feedback. I did find it on YouTube recently, though. It’s like finally getting an itch scratched!
SAY! I thought I gave that 45 back to Liz on her 50th birthday! 😉 along with all the other 45s that belonged to her! Where did you get it? Actually, I think hers had a totally yellow label. Interesting post!
The streaming audio feed is only 32K, and with that limited bandwidth it is wisely limited to mono. But it originates from an FM station, as heard at the tail end, so undoubtedly that’s why they went with the stereo version. As you’re fond of saying, “Let’s look at the record,” whether it’s a chart, or literally an LP or 45 record! And an original 40-year-old single is an irrefutable source.
Sounds like an interesting show! Let me say first that I saw a Guess Who Reunion show with Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings a few years ago. It was a fantastic concert in a small setting, the South Shore Music Circus in Cohasset, MA, and hearing Randy and Burton together again was a real treat. “No Time” is one of my All Time Favorites from that period.
Now, on to the Foundations. Yes, upon first listen, the version played on the CBC radio show sounded “wrong”. The vocals weren’t quite right (too smooth) and the percussion was a bit different. So, I consulted “Pat Downey’s Top 40 Music On Compact Disc” book – a veritable treasure trove of info.
Sure enough, “The Very Best Of The Foundations” on Taragon Records contained an alternate version of “Now That I’ve Found You” along with an extended version of the original single. The alternate take is listed at 2:51. If you look at the timing on Doug’s music bar, that seems to be the length of the version Randy played on his show. The reason they included that alternate take on the cd was most likely because it is a stereo version of the song. The original is available only in mono. It’s hard to tell from this excerpt, though, whether the show is actually broadcast in stereo.
http://tinyurl.com/2ogdg4