1960 Archives – How Good It Is

…before we were so rudely interrupted…

This is a song that I’m long-overdue in covering, if only because of the backstory it has. It’s simultaneously heart-warming and heart-breaking. It’s a love letter from lyricist Doc Pomus to his wife. That’s not unusual, of course. Many songwriters compose songs dedicated to a loved one. But this one has an extra special twist to it. I shan’t spoil it here, though: you’ll have to actually listen to the show.

So in this episode we’ll learn about the genius of Doc Pomus, the genius of Dick Clark, and a little bit about children’s television.

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The post 171: Save the Last Dance For Me appeared first on How Good It Is.

How many times now have I gone into the backstory with a song and learned that the person who wrote it says something akin to, “Yeah, I knocked that one off in about fifteen minutes.”

Oftentimes they also think that the song isn’t going to amount to very much, which I find kind of funny. But it also supports a working theory I have that it’s not always the song itself, but the way it’s presented. The Crickets (sans Buddy Holly) and a few others approached it one way, but Bobby Fuller and The Clash looked at it differently, and it paid off for them.

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The post 170: I Fought the Law appeared first on How Good It Is.

Merry Christmas!

I actually had a different show in mind but I got to listening to some old radio airchecks (not my own) and I was inspired to do something different from the usual show.

The first thing you’ll notice is that it’s a half-hour long. That’s because I’m playing songs in their entirety and not really talking very much. (If any episode is going to net me a C&D letter, this’ll be the one.)

In this year’s Christmas episode, I’m playing eight songs that don’t get airplay anymore for some reason. A few of them are kinda goofy, a couple are kind of derivative, and I daresay a few of them are seminal to their genre. And while I share a little history with you here and there, the intent this time is to just sit back and wonder why the All Christmas All The Time station in your area is sticking with the same twenty songs, and not playing any of these guys.

All of these songs can be found without too much hassle on Amazon Music or YouTube. If you want to revisit them, here’s the playlist:

• Merry Christmas, Mary—Tommy Dee and Carol Kay
• Merry, Merry Christmas, Baby—Dodie Stevens
• Santa’s Song—The Oak Ridge Boys
• Yulesville—Edd “Kookie” Byrnes
• Santa Claus Meets the Purple People Eater—Sheb Wooley
• Please Come Home For Christmas—Charles Brown
• White Christmas—The Ravens
• Silent Night—The Ravens (flip side of White Christmas)

And just for the giggles, here’s one more song that didn’t make it into the show itself. It’s Bobby Helms’ other shot at a Christmas tune, from 1965. He wasn’t the original artist (I think he was the fourth) to release this song. I think the most popular version came from Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass in 1968, though Bobby Vinton’s version is kind of well-known, too. At any rate, here’s Bobby Helms:

Sorry, no transcript of this episode, since it’s mostly music.

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The post 135: Lesser Known Christmas Pop appeared first on How Good It Is.

First off, I have to note that I do have fun doing the artwork for these episodes.

Where were we? Oh yeah. Somewhere in the late 50s, early 60s. And Hank Ballard has a new song that’s picking up traction in Baltimore thanks to the Buddy Deane Show, when suddenly it gets yoinked out from under him by a newcomer from Philadelphia.

That newcomer is named Chubby Checker, and the song is (surprise!) “The Twist,” which rockets to the top of the charts just a few weeks after Dick Clark features Checker on his Saturday night show. Suddenly the floodgates open up and the nation is awash in Twist records for two years. I’m talking about a couple of dozen songs at least, and those are just the ones that made the charts.

No wonder The Beatles just walked in and took over. I kid! They’d have done that anyway.

This didn’t make it into the show for some reason (though it’s in the transcript), but Ballard wasn’t even mad about Chubby Checker (and Dick Clark) hijacking his record. You see, Ballard’s label didn’t have a lot of confidence in it—hence its placement on a B side—and as one of the writers, Ballard made a pile of money on it anyway. Plus, his version peaked at Number 28 the same week Checker’s version reached Number 1 the first time around. And Dick Clark made it up to Ballard by promoting his other single, “Finger Poppin’ Time,” which was at Number 7 that same week. So, all’s well that ends well.

And, as promised, here’s the Chubby Checker/Fat Boys video for ye. Man, I thought rap in the 80s was just the most fun.

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The post 130: The Twist appeared first on How Good It Is.

Holy Moley! Episode 100! What a milestone!

This is the first of TWO episodes I’ll be publishing this week. You’re getting this one now, and another one sometime tomorrow, because I felt badly about taking my time with Episode 99.

As I mentioned during the show, the Phil Spector-produced Christmas album went through several re-issues and name changes between its release in 1963 and the early 1980s, including an unfortunate period when the album was remastered into manufactured stereo. In those days, that often meant that the higher-end sounds went to one channel and the lower-end stuff went to the other. It was a mess and really added nothing to the product overall.

At any rate, it was around the same time in the 1980s that a bunch of different events came together and allowed the song to finally break out. One was the reissue of the album on Rhino Records, in its original mono mixes. The second was Darlene Love’s appearance in a Broadway show, which led directly to her string of performances on David Letterman’s show on both NBC and CBS, and finally we have the cover version by U2 the following year. All of these things made for a resurgence in both the popularity of the song, and in Darlene Love’s career.

Stay tuned! Very soon we’ll take a look at a Nirvana song, by listener request!

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The post Episode 100–Christmas (Baby Please Come Home appeared first on How Good It Is.

Holy Moly! The show is back!

For those of you who don’t follow the show on Facebook or Twitter, I’ll be posting the pictures here in another couple of days, outlining the New Studio Project. My return to the Podcast Zone was delayed a little bit by a faulty cable I needed to replace, plus I was getting into a weird funk. But fortunately I got a mental boot in the butt by Greg Yates over at the No Head Trash Nation Podcast. I met Greg a few weeks ago when I was in Orlando and, while he considers himself a relative newbie to podcasting, I’m constantly finding myself saying “Yeah, this guy knows his stuff.” “Holy cow, he’s right.” He and I spoke face to face for about twenty minutes and I’m practically ready to follow him into a burning house. Anyway, Greg’s a smart guy and you should check out his show.

But first, you’ve been waiting forever for this show! And here it is! The songs in this show were actually selected several months ago, and I lost the list. (That does seem to happen to me a lot, doesn’t it.) It turned up when I was cleaning out a computer bag, and I took it as a sign from above. Or from my computer bag, whatever.

At any rate, you probably know that most of the songs I talk about today are covers, but I’m pretty sure I still have a couple of surprises for you. Go check it out.

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The post Episode 91–Under the Covers, Part 5 appeared first on How Good It Is.

Everybody Say Yeah!

(Yeah!)

I love a good call-and-response.

Stevie Wonder’s “Fingertips Part 2” was only the second Number One hit for Motown Records. The first was 1962’s “Please Mister Postman” by the Marvelettes. (Fun Fact: the drummer on both these songs was Marvin Gaye! He was still an up-and-coming artist, so he played as a session musician on a lot of the early tracks for the label.)

But Motown had a bit of a tough time getting audiences to appreciate The 12-Year-Old Genius, and even this song wasn’t the catalyst for his career. It took a little perseverance and the onset of puberty to turn him into one of Motown’s biggest performers, with a career that’s still going strong fifty-five years later, and counting.

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The post Episode 24–Fingertips Part 2 appeared first on How Good It Is.