A Song A Day: The Dave Clark Five, "Try Too Hard"

JUNE 5, 2017

“TRY TOO HARD” (WRITERS: DAVE CLARK–MIKE SMITH)

ARTIST: THE DAVE CLARK FIVE

RELEASED 1966 ON 7” 45 AND ON TRY TOO HARD LP

Despite arriving on the Beatles’ tails in 1964, the Dave Clark Five offered a very different option from the working-class lads from Liverpool up north. For one thing, the Five hailed from working-class London, down south.

Purveyors of the so-called “Tottenham Sound”—a raucous, pile-driving, pounding white R&B—the DC5 were soccer players, perhaps somewhat “hard,” like the Beatles. Both bands loved R&B, but played it quite differently.

The DC5 claimed a huge fan base, ranking a solid #2 among British acts in the magical years of 1964 and 1965. A lot of American kids preferred their straight-ahead, unfiltered approach to the more varied palate of the Beatles.

In 1966, stakes in pop music were rising. The Fab Four were already incorporating new instruments, rhythms, and arrangements. Other British groups followed suit. The Dave Clark Five, though, were late to the party, sticking to energetic, catchy, jackhammer-beat material, much of it self-composed.

One such DC5 hit is “Try Too Hard,” which drummer Dave Clark and singer/keyboardist Mike Smith wrote. Clark’s rocking shuffle beat, innovative piano and guitar lines from Smith and Lenny Davidson, a thumping bass from Rick Huxley, and Denny Payton’s drone-like sax provided support for a strong vocal line and strident, aggressive harmonies. Catchy no-nonsense rock, it’s among their best.

 “Try Too Hard,” issued in late March 1966, was the Dave Clark Five’s 13^th top 20 hit in just over two years, a pretty staggering total. But though nobody could know, this was also the start of the end. After climbing consistently on the Billboard chart to a still-rising peak of #12, “Try Too Hard” took an unexpected nosedive in mid May and fell completely from the Hot 100 two weeks later. Record World had “Try Too Hard” reaching #9, while in Cashbox it topped out at #10. It dropped quickly from those lists as well.

Despite its quality, the record just did not click in most of the country’s biggest markets (Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, Philadelphia). “Try Too Hard” did reach the top five in many mid-size and smaller cities. Perhaps Epic Records, the Five's label, cut its promotion/payola efforts on the record, hoping that kids would buy it on the Dave Clark name.

If so, Epic miscalculated. The train began grinding down. In the U.S., the DC5 enjoyed just one more major hit, “You Got What it Takes,” which didn’t come until 13 months later in spring 1967. Epic then released a few more mediocre singles, which weren’t hits, and by September, the band was done in America. Clark and his crew refocused on the U.K. and Europe, going in a poppier direction; occasionally innovative later material (“Inside and Out,” “Live in the Sky,” “Remember It’s Me,” “Best Day’s Work”) were barely heard in the States.

The Dave Clark Five lack the exposure that their quality and 60s rep would suggest. This is in part because of Clark’s odd strategy in re-releasing his material. As other British 60s rockers enjoyed endless repackaging, the DC5’s original albums sat out of print for decades. It also took far too long for a reasonable CD compilation to reach the market.

This is the band in its rocking prime.

Look (at an incredibly cool video) and listen.         

A Song A Day: Daybreak, "Lonely Little Town"

JUNE 4, 2017

“LONELY LITTLE TOWN” (WRITER: SISTER KATHLEEN MELIA)

ARTIST: DAYBREAK

RELEASED 1971 ON ON THE WAY LP

During the 1960s, the world saw a spate of albums by nuns singing folk music, usually in unison. There were enough of these records that a genre called “nunfolk” was born among collectors.

The album On the Way, recorded by Daybreak—a group of Franciscan sisters living in Chicago—appears on its surface to be in the orthodox (sic) tradition of the Medical Mission Sisters, Soeur Sourire, Medical Missionaries of Mary, the Claretians, etc.

But this album is different.

For one thing, Sister Kathleen Melia wrote a spate of strong songs, some joyful and secular, some worshipful, some downcast and introspective. I’ve heard a lot of such albums, and none of them have as many good songs as On the Way.

Second, many songs feature solely Sister Kathleen, or have spare backing vocal arrangements that vary from the normal arrangements on such albums. These songs are for me On the Way’s clearest and sharpest compositions and performances.

Third, this isn’t just an album of songs backed by a nylon-stringed guitar or two. A full band plays on nearly all the album, with professional sidemen providing skilled instrumental work and interesting arrangements.

I really am impressed with what Sister Kathleen and her cohorts created here. Today I’ll share with you one particularly sad, evocative song that approaches what some record collectors call “downer folk.” Hope you enjoy this.

Listen.

A Song A Day: The Things, "All The Time"

MAY 3, 2017

“ALL THE TIME” (WRITER: STEVE CRABTREE)

ARTIST: THE THINGS

RELEASED 1984 ON COLOURED HEAVEN LP

For many people, their early twenties are a time of discovery—your first years as an adult. New responsibilities, new freedoms, new opportunities. I turned 21 in 1984.

Back then, there wasn’t too much but music in my life. Concerts, clubs, parties, record stores, rehearsal spaces, guitar shops…it was just what I did, me and an amazing young woman and our friends. Regardless of what we did to make a living, going to shows and buying records and following bands was pretty much a consuming passion.

At that time, there were so many new acts we loved. Of course REM and the dB’s, the recently departed Squeeze, Buzzcocks, and Blondie, Game Theory, XTC, the Reivers, Green, Let’s Active, Sade (!), Camper Van Beethoven, Love Tractor, the Chesterfield Kings, the Rain Parade, the Lyres, Elvis Costello, the Replacements, the Windbreakers, Christmas, the Long Ryders, the Specials, the Beat, The Circles, Guadalcanal Diary, 007, New Order, the Minutemen, the Fleshtones, the Bangles, Devo, Julian Cope...I’m sure we saw two-thirds of the bands on that list, most of them more than twice.

Then there were The Things. I heard them thanks to a high school kid from LaSalle-Peru who we met at an REM show the day the Cubs lost the 1984 playoffs.

I’m sure I was dressed like a fool that night, probably in magenta corduroys and a ruffled paisley shirt and a scarf and beads. But it was my thing, and my girlfriend not only accepted my psychedelic psartorial tastes but encouraged them, herself wearing the coolest vintage outfits and amazing op-art earrings.

At some point after the show, standing in the lobby at a merch table, this kid talked to us and we struck up a conversation and we EXCHANGED STREET ADDRESSES because that’s how people kept in touch back then.

So we began a correspondence and traded tapes. On the first cassette he sent us was Coloured Heaven by The Things. A California band, their album was released by Voxx, Greg Shaw’s indie psych/powerpop label. We’d probably heard of them but not heard them.

Steve Crabtree was the band’s guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter, singer, and producer, buttressed by drummer Roy McDonald and bassist Pete Rouch. The trio had excellent songs and a spirited, fresh performance, leaving Coloured Heaven alternately sweet, crunchy, hazy, trippy, and melancholy.

The production of the album is, to put it kindly, thin. All the elements lack presence and drive, everything mixed low-volume and bathed in echo. A lot of independently-produced records of the time sounded like that; cheap recording equipment from 1965 was far better than cheap equipment in 1985.

Perhaps Crabtree shouldn’t have carried the entire load itself, but the band was clearly his baby. Their next album didn’t generate any buzz, sadly, and The Things eventually capitulated.

Thinking back on the music of this time in my life, I’m filled with conflicting emotions. There’s some sadness and regret about times lost, some happy memories of things we did, and a lot of music still in my head and heart.

I think about that 21-year-old often and wonder what he’d think of me now, what he might’ve done differently had he known more. I also think about our old friend, who we haven’t seen in nearly 30 years and will likely never see again. And I think about the young lady who spent those years of young adulthood with me. How blessed I am that she is still in my life.

Here is “All the Time,” giddy with the rush of new love, of youth, of possibility.

Listen.

A Song A Day: Slim Harpo, "Got Love if You Want It"

JUNE 2, 2017

“I GOT LOVE IF YOU WANT IT” (WRITER: SLIM HARPO [JAMES MOORE])

ARTIST: SLIM HARPO

RELEASED 1957 ON 7” 45

Born James Moore, Slim Harpo renamed himself  for his superb harmonica, or “blues harp,” work.

An orphan from Louisiana, he came to music relatively late and didn’t sound like anyone else. His distinctive vocal accent, catchy songs, and swampy, loping beat set him aside from the rougher, flashier bluesmen from Chicago, New Orleans, and Memphis.

Harpo spent his entire career recording for the Excello label out of Nashville. For the first few years, he recorded near his Baton Rouge home, working with a regular crew of musicians and producer Jay Miller. 

Like many artists of his time, Harpo had his songwriting royalties garnished; Miller added his name to many of Harpo’s compositions (which were often collaborations between the singer and his wife Lovelle). That was just part of the deal back then, crooked as it was.

While American R&B and pop listeners were certainly familiar with him, the British blues-influenced groups of the early/mid 1960s loved Slim Harpo. His recordings were artful, distinctive, and left plenty of room for reimagining.

As a result, the Stones, Kinks, Pretty Things, Moody Blues, et al. covered his songs, giving unique interpretations but seldom approaching the quality of the originals. Even Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd cut Harpo’s “I’m a King Bee” at their first recording session.  Sometimes, of course, some of the more nefarious British groups simply added new words to existing R&B songs and took the writing credits. (Calling The Who!)

The royalty payments that did come Slim’s way allowed him to play music on a full-time basis beginning in the mid-1960s. He also ran a trucking business.

Slim continued to grow artistically during the decade, enjoying his biggest single in 1966 with “Baby, Scratch My Back,” a rocking, raw, funky country blues with a rough backbeat an amusing vocal delivery. In the latter half of the 1960s he broke with Jay Miller and began cutting discs in Nashville with a new producer.

Known for the highly musical quality of his live performances—measured, tight, the opposite of in-your-face—Harpo’s star continued to ascend as he was able to devote more time to music. But in 1970, he died at just 46 of a heart attack in Louisiana.

“I Got Love if You Want It” is the b-side of Harpo’s first release, the smash “I’m a King Bee.” Surely this is among the great two-sided debut 45s of all time.

I give the edge to “Got Love” for its odd elements and the way they come together. Harpo’s delivery is laid-back almost to the point of petulance, and it's clear that neither party in the conversation is innocent or necessarily steeped in good intentions. On this 45, brothers Gable and Fats Perrodin provided guitar and bass, with Clarence Etienne on drums, and Slim on that harmonica. Someone is also shaking some pretty fine maracas.

Recorded and released in 1957, it sounds years ahead of its time.

Listen.

A Song A Day: The Creep, "Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, and Dean"

JUNE 1, 2017

“HALDEMAN, EHRLICHMAN, MITCHELL, AND DEAN” (WRITER: BOB WARREN)

ARTIST: THE CREEP

RELEASED 1973 ON 7” 45

Another memory.

When some friends and I became aware of this song back in 1973, we tried to learn more about it, but I didn’t know about Top 40 radio and it wasn’t being played there anyway. Finally we learned that someone’s older brother had it. So we all went over to Michael’s house, listened to it with the door closed, and laughed our little 10-year-old brains out. They’re making fun of that crook in the White House!

As we struggle through this time of odious presidential malfeasance, it’s good to remember that protest can sometimes be funny. And necessary.

In late spring 1972, United States Attorney General John Mitchell, domestic affairs adviser John Ehrlichman, and presidential counsel John Dean, all serving under President Richard Nixon, became involved in an attempt to discredit and weaken the Democratic Party by breaking into Democratic National Committee offices and taping phone conversations.

Mitchell soon left the AG’s office to head up the newly formed CRP (Committee to Re-Elect the President), which kept close ties with the Nixon White House. After five men, four of them Cubans, were arrested in a sloppy attempt to secretly enter DNC offices in Washington’s Watergate Hotel office complex, the FBI and CIA began to sniff around.

White House chief of staff H.R. “Bob” Haldeman and President Nixon orchestrated a cover-up of the incident to insulate the president, and Nixon was handily re-elected in November 1972. But the CIA, FBI, and the press continued to dig, finding more and more links between the abortive bugging, the CRP, and the White House.

By spring 1973, as the story grew before a disbelieving American public, Nixon distanced himself from Mitchell--who had used CRP funds to pay those responsible for the break-in--and on April 30 “accepted the resignations of” Haldeman and Ehrlichman (who had lied to current AG Richard Kleindienst about his involvement) and fired Dean and Kleindienst.

None of this worked out too well for the parties involved. Evidence of criminal activity continued to mount, and over the next year, Watergate became a pathetic tragicomedy playing out through endless congressional hearings and further White House stonewalling. Nixon named a special prosecutor to investigate the scandal, hoping that it would fizzle out. Then he fired the prosecutor when he began to uncover more irregularities. Smaller fish began to be sacrificed to save the Nixon presidency. Etc. Etc. Etc.

John Dean turned state’s evidence, testifying before a Senate subcommittee that he believed that Nixon was illegally recording conversations in the Oval Office. This was the crusher. Eventually Nixon resigned in August 1974, barely beating impeachment out the door. Haldeman, Mitchell, and Ehrlichman were convicted of conspiracy, perjury, and obstruction of justice and served time in federal prisons, while Dean escaped hard time in exchange for his testimony. He was, however, disbarred, as was Mitchell.

During all this insanity, a record label called Mr. G released a 45 called “Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, and Dean” in June or early July of 1973. The label appears to have been created only to issue this record; it released nothing else. The name of the singing group, The Creep, is clearly a play on John Mitchell’s CRP.

“Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, and Dean” is barbershop-slash-barroom sing-along that sounded like old stuff even in 1973. Maybe that was the point. It features just four comic voices, a pub-styled piano, possibly a string bass, and wood blocks playing an old-time rhythm.

This disc hews to several basic old-time comic-song traditions. First, the individual of a singing group heard last has a comically deep voice. (Laff Theory 101.) Second, “Haldeman” is driven by piano, the instrument most likely to be the center of a group sing. Third, it has topical, quite funny lyrics referencing people and events currently in vogue that may eventually be lost to history. Fourth, it’s a beery waltz. And don’t the names just trickle off the tongue?

Blogger Mark Evanier noted in 2010 that he’d been informed that all four singers on the record were members of the chorus on the 1960s TV Show Sing Along With Mitch. I can find no information about Bob Warren, who wrote the song.

The first contemporaneous mention of the record I can find is from the July 15, 1973, Waterloo, Iowa Courier, in which its TV writer refers to a “rock group” (sic) with “a prospective hit record entitled ‘Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, and Dean.’”

Syndicated entertainment columnist Earl Wilson wrote, two days later, that “Bob Warren’s Watergate record, ‘Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, and Dean,’ is getting airplay.”

Nine days after that (July 26), an AP story in the Hamilton, Ohio Journal News noted about "HAMD" that “Cleveland and Chicago are the two biggest markets for the song,” quoting Sheldon Tirk, who owned Midwest Ltd. Inc., the company distributing the record in that region. The article reported that a New York company had ordered 8,000 copies the previous week and predicted that “Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, and Dean” would sell a million.

But it didn’t.

So what happened?

It seems that the record built some momentum, but as an independent recording not backed by the major companies, it may have lost steam. At least one station—KIRO in Seattle—actually banned the song from its airwaves in August 1973 after listeners called in protest. Other stations may have done the same if pressured by their corporate owners, many of whom supported Nixon.

On September 10, 1973, Bob Warren and the Creep performed the song on Mike Douglas’ syndicated TV show, which was recorded in Philadelphia. But despite such exposure, the record only made it to #116 on the Billboard “Bubbling Under” chart, and struck out on the Cashbox survey; these were the two biggest chart references in the industry.

Perhaps it was crowded out by other records about the scandal. In late June 1973, “Watergrate,” a ‘break-in’ record by Dickie Goodman, became a major hit, just missing the national top 40, while Don Imus (yes, the windy radio host) nearly had success with “Son of Checkers (The Watergate Case).”

Here in Chicago, John “Records” Landecker, the evening DJ on AM powerhouse WLS, released two 45s of Nixon impersonations: a ‘break-in’ entitled “Press My Conference” and “Make a Date with the Watergate,” which featured Landecker rapping, Nixon-style, over a loop from Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side.”

“Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, and Dean” scored its best position on the industry’s #3 survey resource, the Record World chart. The novelty reached #109 on August 18, 1973 and jumped to #103 a week later. It fell to #104 on September 1 and dropped lower in the next three weeks before disappearing for good.

There is little evidence of “Haldeman” hitting any local charts either, as it scored only in some small stations in Virginia and Tennessee. Perhaps, due to the song’s musical style, it got most of its airplay on adult contemporary stations, which generally did not publish charts.

To this day I have no idea how I became aware of the song. And it was nearly 40 years before I heard it again, bringing it home after snagging it at a record fair. It holds a special place in my heart and in my collection.

Now all we need is a new song…something like “Tillerson, Lighthizer, Bannon, and Pence”? “Sessions, Melania, Kushner, and Flynn”? “Spicer, McMaster, Conway, and Chao”?

Listen.

Thanks to Paul Haney and Thom Henninger for assistance with this post.