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All posts for the month March, 2016

Cherry Slush – I Cannot Stop You

Posted by funky16corners on March 27, 2016
Posted in: 45s, garage punk, Iron Leg, Michigan Rock, Music, psychedelia, Rock, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

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Cherry Slush

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Listen/Download – Cherry Slush – I Cannot Stop You

Greetings all.

The record I bring you today is a long (LONG)time fave, which has appeared in mixes and the Iron Leg Radio Show over the years.

I first encountered it’s fuzzed out wonders back in the olden days of the early 80s on Boulders Vol5, along with some other groovies by the Children and the Caretakers.

‘I Cannot Stop You’ by the Cherry Slush is one of those records that kind of blew my mind from the first time I heard it, combining garage punk, pop and just enough psychedelia to flip your wig.

The Cherry Slush were a Saginaw, MI band that had released records in their previous incarnation as the Bells of Rhymny.

They had fallen in with local bigshot Dick Wagner, then of the Bossmen, later of Frost and the Alice Cooper Band, who wrote ‘I Cannot Stop You’.

The record was released in 1967 on the Coconut Groove label, and then picked up by Chicago’s USA label.

It became a big regional hit, and even made inroads on the national charts (it even got Canadian and European pressings). The Cherry Slush performed on a bunch of televised dance party shows, and toured outside of the region.

They did one more 45 for USA, but unfortunately the label tanked not long after it came out, dooming any opportunity the band had for capitalizing on the success of ‘I Cannot Stop You’.

The song has been reissued a bunch of times on bootlegs, and the legitimately on the excellent survey of USA Records put out by Sundazed.

I hope you dig the track, and I’ll see you next week.

Peace

Larry

 

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PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

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Mickey Newbury – Just Dropped In

Posted by funky16corners on March 20, 2016
Posted in: Culture, folk rock, Iron Leg, Music, pop, psychedelia, Rock. 1 Comment

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Mickey ‘Nehru’ Newbury

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Listen/Download – Mickey Newbury – Just Dropped In

Greetings all.

If you don’t know the name Mickey Newbury, you will surely recognize today’s selection.

Newbury was a Texas based singer-songwriter, who – despite his own amazing work – was better known for the recordings of his songs by other people, like Tom Jones, Don Gibson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, and in the case of today’s selection, Kenny Rogers and the First Edition.

Newbury wrote ‘Just Dropped In’ in 1967, and it was recorded first by Teddy Hill and the Southern Soul, then Jerry Lee Lewis, with Newbury’s version, from his first solo album ‘Harlequin Melodies’ in 1968.

Newbury is a particularly interesting performer, because though he is largely identified with country music, his own oeuvre is much les specific in its focus.

His own records wander freely between folk, country and pop, and his 1969 LP ‘Looks Like Rain’ is an absolutely sublime work of genius. I’ve wanted to write about it for years but have hesitated only because I worry that I wouldn’t do it justice.

That said, his version of ‘Just Dropped In’ may not be the masterpiece of faux-psychedelia that the First Edition version was, but it does contain its own share of psych trappings – sitars, cymbaline etc- and Newbury’s vocal has a bit of grit missing from Kenny’s.

Apparently Newbury was not happy with the busy production and arrangements (some, but not on this track, by Tupper Saussy!), but as I mentioned before, he wasn’t an easily categorized kind of performer. You can hardly blame 1968 record execs for slapping sitars on a song about a bad acid trip.

I like his version, and I would HIGHLY recommend picking up a copy of the amazing ‘Looks Like Rain’.

I hope you dig the track, and I’ll see you next week.

Peace

Larry

 

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PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

Iron Leg Radio Episode #59

Posted by funky16corners on March 13, 2016
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

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Why hello there!

Playlist

Episode #57

Alan Hawkhaw/Keith Mansfield – Action Scene (KPM)
The Beatles – The Night Before (EMI)
The Beatles – The Word (EMI)
The Beatles – Tomorrow Never Knows (EMI)
The Beatles – Strawberry Fields Forever (EMI)
George Martin – Sea Of Time (Apple)
George Martin – Sea of Holes (Apple)
George Martin – March of the Meanies (Apple)

Temperance Seven – Everybody Loves My Baby (Kapp)
Temperance Seven – Pasadena (Kapp)
Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas – From a Window (Imperial)
Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas – I’ll Be On My Way (Imperial
Cilla Black – It’s For You (Capitol
Cilla Black – Alfie (Capitol)
The Action – Twenty Fourth Hour (Capitol)
The Action – Never Ever (Capitol)
Stan Getz – Because (MGM)
Paul Winter – Icarus (Epic )

Marketts- Richie’s Theme (WB)
Chaparral Brothers – Hello LA Bye Bye Birmingham (Capitol)
Flatt and Scruggs – Nashville Cats (Columbia)
Bruce Johnston – Disney Girls (Columbia)
Claudine Longet – Snow (A&M)
Claudine Longet – It’s Hard To Say Goodbye (A&M)
Claudine Longet – Small Talk (A&M)
Claudine Longet – Walk In the Park (A&M)

Listen/Download -Iron Leg Radio Show Episode #59 – 156MB/256kbps

Greetings all.

Welcome to this month’s episode of the Iron Leg Radio Show.

This time out I put together a tribute to the late, great Sir George Martin, including a set of Beatles tunes (and some of Martin’s compositions for Yellow Submarine) and a set of Martin productions in trad jazz, Merseybeat, pop, rock and jazz.

There’s also a set of new arrivals covering all kinds of sounds.

As always, I hope you dig it.

See you next week.

Peace

Larry

 

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PS Head over to Funky16Corners

The Fireballs – Groovy Motions

Posted by funky16corners on March 6, 2016
Posted in: 45s, Culture, Iron Leg, Music, pop, psychedelia, Rock, Uncategorized. 4 Comments

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The Fireballs

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Listen/Download – The Fireballs – Groovy Motions

Greetings all.

The tune I bring you this week is a prime example of what one might consider to be ‘opportunistic’ garage/psych.

I use that term, as opposed to fake or bogus because the example in question manages to work in spite of its decidedly non-garage roots.

The group in question is the Fireballs, who had themselves a particularly interesting history.

Starting out in New Mexico as a primarily instrumental group, they scored their first hit in 1959 with ‘Torquay’. They continued with the instrumental template, until piano player and vocalist Jimmy Gilmer joined the group.

With Gilmer they scored their biggest hit, 1963’s ‘Sugar Shack’. This extremely square piece of pop was for me (and I’m sure for most people) the beginning and end of the Fireballs saga.

They continued on for a few years, scoring a few more hits with Gilmer (‘Daisy Petal Pickin’) and then more after he left in 1967, like the slightly demented ‘Bottle of Wine’.

‘Bottle of Wine’ sounds like the bastard child of the Dave Clark Five and the Byrds (it’s a cover of a Tom Paxton tune) that sounds like it’s been driving through the neighborhood of garage punk quickly with the windows rolled up tight.

Today’s selection ‘Groovy Motions’ is the kind of thing, that presented in a slightly lower fidelity, would have fit right in on a volume of Pebbles.

I mean, I remember picking this 45 up out of a stack of 25 cent records and thinking, “Interesting title”. Imagine my surprise when I finally gave it a spin!

It features fuzz guitar, thumping bass, psychedelic phasing, electric sitar and trippy lyrics (produced by none other than Norman Petty!), and like ‘Bottle of Wine’ resides just short of the real thing (if you take a look at video of the Fireballs from the time period, they look like they haven’t experienced anything more psychedelic than reruns of ‘Laugh-In’).

It’s a wild record, which unfortunately made no impact at all when it was released, though it’s extremely sappy A-side ‘Goin’ Away’ was a minor hit.

I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

 

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PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.