Summer Songs (And Then Some) – An Xperience Column

Summer Songs (And Then Some) – An Xperience Column – by Johnny Mystery.

Well I wonder who bop-a-do has gotten to the beach yet? Not me. Not yet, but any day now. The clock is ticking. We’re just about halfway through. What am I waiting for? What are you waiting for? Where did summer go? Do you need some beach tunes? Do you need a playlist? Welcome to my question festival. Before the leaves start falling, let’s come up with some classic tunes to put you in the summer mood. They don’t have to be about summer, and they don’t have to be serious, but they definitely shouldn’t put you to sleep. Especially if you forgot sunscreen.

“Summer in the City” – The Lovin’ Spoonful. Ok, I said these songs didn’t have to be about summer, yet here’s one right out of the gate. I met John Sebastian once and he was a friendly, personable guy. He wrote and sang this gem and it’s my favorite by them. The drum intro sounds like they dropped a boulder into a dry well. What they really did was record a snare hit out in the stairwell of the studio they were working at. There was natural reverb out there. Too bad nobody records like that anymore. At least not that I’m hearing about. You can get overheated just by listening to this record. Fortunately, it should not warp, unless you leave it on the dashboard of your car.

“Hot Fun in the Summertime” – Sly and the Family Stone. Yeah, summer is in this title too. So what … Sly’s band was the one who did it for me during the Woodstock flick. Well, them and the Who, but that’s another story. Love them piano triplets that kick things off. Getting out in the country sun and outta school. What’s not to love about this song? The horn arrangement is dead on. The backing vocals are jumping all over the place, and is that Sly going “Ooooo YEAH!!!” in that deep register?? Probably one of the most fun tunes they ever did, and they had a good time doing it. But then of course, summer means fun!

“Help Me Rhonda” – The Beach Boys. You can’t have summer without Brian Wilson. Pretty much any record by the Beach Boys would work on a summer playlist. Their marketing ploy in the early days was to have a surf song on one side of a single and put a car song on the flip. This strategy worked multiple times. “Help Me Rhonda” deviated from the tried-and-true Beach Boys formula and became their first number one. That was not an easy task because it hit right in the middle of the British Invasion, when you know who and their fellow countrymen were putting U.S. bands out of business. The first CD I ever bought was their greatest hits album, and when you put the headphones on, the bass harmonicas really jump out at you on “Rhonda.” Is that why I picked this song for our playlist? Like I said, any Beach Boys song would work.

“Under the Boardwalk” – The Drifter. It really paints a picture with words. “Under the boardwalk, down by the sea, the happy sounds of the carousel, you can almost taste the hot dogs and french fries they sell.” That pretty much sums up a summer day. “Boardwalk” is definitely R&B but has obvious Spanish overtones in it. The bridge part could have been played by a mariachi band and light strings sweeten throughout.

“Heatwave” – Martha Reeves and The Vandellas.  Who can resist a Motown tune? Not me. Martha and the ladies had a big hit with this in 1963, and it’s still vital today in terms of Northern Soul fans. It gets major play in any retro club or situation. It’s been covered by the major mods like the Who and the Jam and as great as they are, ain’t nothing like the real thing!

“Itchycoo Park” – Small Faces. It sounds like a great place to hang out and feed the ducks with a bun. Great special effects give it a dreamy, trippy sound. The Small Faces were one of the coolest freak-beat R&B groups on the planet. They had a string of hits in England, but this was the only one to make the charts here. Sadly, they never toured the U.S. until Steve Marriott left to form Humble Pie and Rod Stewart took over on vocals. Don’t get me started …

“Tighter, Tighter” – Alive ‘N Kickin’.  From the summer of 1970. It’s one of those records that got played on the radio every 15 minutes, or it seemed that way to me.  The interesting history of this song is that it was supposed to be recorded by Tommy James. Tommy was having throat problems that he could not recover from at the time. Somebody suggested this New York cover band and it went off like magic. I even dig the Muzak-like trumpet doing the callback lines throughout the entire arrangement. If you want to hear what a perfect pop song sounds like, by all means, take it to your pickup volleyball game and dig the cool breezes.

“Keep On Dancing” – The Gentrys.  So, who can resist dancing on the beach? Maybe at a private party perhaps. If you did it at a public beach, it might feel like one of those corny Frankie and Annette flicks and that would not be cool. This two-minute one-hit wonder is probably the only record you hear twice on one spin. When they cut this in the studio, they realized it was only a minute long. No problem. They just dubbed it twice on the master with a tricky edit and fake ending fade in the middle. The song is so great, they play it twice, all the time.

Enjoy the rest of the summer, and we’ll see you once school gets back in session. In the meantime, go buy some records. I’ll probably see you there.

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