The Sixties come alive in the excellent and compelling documentary, “Sunshine Superman – The Journey Of Donovan.” Donovan was originally labeled a Dylan wannabe, but it was hearing the Beatles for the first time that set him on his musical journey, and the direction he took was decidedly British. Donovan connects the dots from the Bohemians to the Beatniks to the Folkies to the Hippies, and to the post-Hippie heavy-hitters Led Zeppelin. Here are a few highlights.
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The video has a bit of “Sunny South Kensington” in which Donovan mentions fashion designer Mary Quant, who is a friend of Prue Bury. And note: Donovan’s song “Jennifer Juniper” is about Pattie Boyd’s younger sister Jenny.
“Dr. No” is from 1962, around the same time that Ska hit the music scene in Jamaica. After the movie came out there was a Jamaican version of the James Bond theme.
Ska came after Calypso and evolved into Reggae, thanks in part to a record producer named Leslie Kong. In 1969, a few months before Woodstock, a Kong-produced record introduced America to Reggae and became a surprise hit on AM radio.
I would be remiss if I didn’t note that passing of Peter Asher’s musical partner Gordon Waller. They had a solid string of hits in the 60’s. I’ve grabbed two of their tunes from 1967 off of an old piece of groovy vinyl I own, both composed by Mike Leander and Charlie Mills. I’m fairly sure Peter produced these singles.
On NPR this morning I heard author Daniel Wilson suggest that by now, 40 years after landing on the Moon, we could have made it to Mars. But I’m sure he knows as well as anybody that the reason America went Lunar roving was not for its own sake, but to beat the Soviet Union in the space race. With that goal accomplished, the pressure was off.
My opinion is that a journey to Mars is still too ambitious and costly an undertaking. The scenario postulated in “2001: A Space Odyssey” is what I favor — a Moon base with a way station. The future was indeed set in 1969, but it was the Arpanet going online, and not Apollo 11, that changed everything.
Which reminds me. Way back in my first month of turning my old web site into this web log, and I wasn’t yet embedding audio, I said that Buddy Holly recorded only three songs in stereo. That is incorrect. There is a fourth recording, called “Moondreams”, although this particular dub doesn’t bring out the full stereo effect.
And back on the subject of Mars, my son Eric has of late taken an interest in the early works of David Bowie, who has a song on “Hunky Dory” called “Life On Mars?”.
Whoever posted “Life On Mars?” on YouTube disabled embedding, so I had to work around that. I got the poster picture of Bowie looking like Keith Richard playing the Cavern Club from a 1972 issue of Rolling Stone magazine.
As I’ve said before, I don’t keep up with the music biz like I used to do. Bands come and go and I really have no idea — I’m middle-aged, OK? — although recently I’ve been listening to the World Cafe, and playing Music Choice’s adult contemporary channel. Past exceptions to my lack of awareness include Green Day‘s “American Idiot”, which caught my attention instantly, radiohead’s “Creep”, and a song that I can’t believe is already more than ten years old. “The Way”, by Fastball.
I don’t know if this was intended to be an homage to Elvis Costello, but that’s what it is. That’s not a knock! It’s hard to convey just how much I admire something like this, that gets everything right and really gets under my skin, whether it’s a scruffy indie band or a piece of slick, commercial fluff — like this. Forty years ago, “Whole Lotta Love” and “Sugar, Sugar” were on the radio at the same time, and I loved listening to both.
Another tune that I think shows something of the influence of Declan McManus is by a MySpace friend of Lía Pamina en España, named Prudencia Valenica, aka: Prudence.
Love that last chord! Very Beatles-ish. This tune is a real gem. On one of the music programs I mention above, I heard something new from Sting, and it was just a long atmospheric drone with no real idea behind it. In contrast, in just the first ten seconds of “No Name No Place”, it’s obviously a winner. You should listen to everything on Prudence’s playlist. I guess I’m just a frustrated A&R man.
And here’s more of Lía! First her lovely performance of Margo Guryan‘s “Someone I Know”, which borrows from J.S. Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”. Then you’ll see Lia’s creatively animated video for Guryan’s demo of “Love Songs” that she later revised and refined for Margo’s studio recording.
You’ve already seen this everywhere else, but now it’s here too. Sir James Paul McCartney at the Ed Sullivan Theater, a place he hasn’t played since 1965.
