This would be the iteration of the Yardbirds with Jeff Beck, after Eric Clapton left, and before Jimmy Page joined.
Blame Chuck Miller for getting The Shape of Things in my head. For his K-Chuck Radio: More Forgotten 70’s Hits, half of which I’d never heard, I wondered which version of the title song the Headboys played. As it turns out, it a different iteration altogether, and now that I heard it, it was vaguely familiar.
One of my few singles purchases in the 1960s was The Shape Of Things To Come by Max Frost And The Troopers, written by the prolific Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. I remember it being a very short song, less than two minutes, and with a red label.
What I did not know until far later was that the attributed band was in fact “a fictional rock music group created for the exploitation film Wild in the Streets, released in 1968. The film featured Christopher Jones as the highly influential singer Max Frost.” It only got to #22 on the US charts, which surprised me; I thought it was a bigger hit. But it stayed two weeks at #2 in Canada.
It was only around then that I heard an earlier song with a similar name. The British invasion group the Yardbirds had recorded The Shape of Things, arguably “can justifiably be classified as the first psychedelic rock classic.”. This would be the iteration of the band with Jeff Beck, after Eric Clapton left, and before Jimmy Page joined. It was a #11 single in the spring of 1966 in the US, getting to #3 in the UK and #7 in Canada.
The Headboys was a Scottish group, and their Shape of Things to Come only got to #67 on the US pop charts, and #45 on the UK charts, in 1979, a classic one-hit-wonder.
The Shape of Things – the Yardbirds. Listen HERE or HERE.
The Shape Of Things To Come – Max Frost and the Troopers. Listen HERE or HERE.
The Shape of Things to Come – the Headboys. Listen HERE or HERE.
R Dean Taylor had an unlikely Motown hit of his own, Indiana Wants Me
One of the earlier compact discs I bought was The Never-Before-Released Masters by Diana Ross and the Supremes. It was definitely a mixed bag of songs from 1961 through 1969 that represented both major iterations of the group: Mary Wilson and Diana Ross with the late Florence Ballard, and after the group name change, with Cindy Birdsong.
Among other things, the album contains recordings for the unreleased album Diana Ross & The Supremes Sing Disney Classics, not my favorite section of the collection. And the cover of the Classics IV hit Stormy is unnecessary. I do enjoy some of the covers of other Motown artists.
My favorite song on the album is Am I Asking Too Much. It was written by R. Dean Taylor and Deke Richards, R Dean Taylor had an unlikely Motown hit of his own, Indiana Wants Me, #5 pop on the Billboard pop charts in 1970. Deke Richards died of esophageal cancer on March 24, 2013, at age 68.
The songwriting credits immediately suggested the Diana/Mary/Cindy period, since most of their earlier hits were by Holland/Dozier/Holland. Indeed, Taylor and Richards were co-writers on the #1 hit Love Child. Am I Asking Too Much was recorded on March 26, 1968, according to the Don’t Forget The Motor City website.
Listen to:
Am I Asking Too Much – Diana Ross and the Supremes HERE
Sweet Thing (William Robinson-Terry Johnson-Al Cleveland) – Diana Ross and the Supremes HERE or HERE
The Eagles was an American rock band based on Los Angeles who became one of the most successful musical acts of the 1970s. In 1971, Linda Ronstadt her then-manager recruited local musicians Glenn Frey and Don Henley for her band. They, Randy Meisner, and Bernie Leadon played on her eponymous third album, before recording the first Eagles’ album. The songwriting partnership of Frey and Henley really was established with the group’s second LP.
The country-folk-rock band had some hits but wanted a bit of a harder sound. Leadon’s childhood friend Don Felder played on a couple of songs on the third album and then joined the band full time.
But it was the fourth studio album, One of These Nights (1975) that really broke through on the charts, the first of four albums to reach #1. The title track also went to #1, Lyin’ Eyes reached #2 on the charts, and won the band their first Grammy. The final single, Take It to the Limit, went to #4. The song reached number 4 on the charts. The album was nominated for a Grammy award for Album of the Year.
At this point, they released the Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) album that has challenged Michael Jackson’s Thriller as the all-time best-selling album in the United States.
Bernie Leadon left the band, unhappy with the harder edge of the music. He was replaced by Joe Walsh of the James Gang. The next album was the massively successful Hotel California. It contained two #1 singles, New Kid in Town and the mysterious title track. But after an exhausting tour, Randy Meisner left the band, replaced by “the same musician who had succeeded him in Poco, Timothy B. Schmit.”
The 1979 album The Long Run was successful, less so than its predecessor, and the band went “on hiatus” for 14 years until they reunited in 1994, and put out a popular live album, Hell Freezes Over, and a profitable tour. “In 1998, the Eagles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the induction ceremony, all seven Eagles members (Frey, Henley, Felder, Walsh, Schmit, Leadon, and Meisner) played together for two songs.”
One last album, Long Road to Eden, came out in 2007, without Don Felder, who had been involved with lawsuits against the band.
The band was “slated to receive Kennedy Center Honors in 2015, but this was deferred to 2016 due to Frey’s medical problems. Then on “January 18, 2016, founding member Glenn Frey died in the Washington Heights section of New York City at the age of 67, leaving Don Henley as the only remaining original member. According to the band’s website, the causes of his death were rheumatoid arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis, and pneumonia while recovering from intestinal surgery.” in short order, Henley confirmed the dissolution of the band.
Liking Eagles music is uncool in certain crowds. I appreciate their sound, particularly their tight harmonies.
Some favorite songs – links to all:
10. Take it Easy (Eagles) – written by Frey with his then-neighbor Jackson Browne 9. Already Gone (On the Border) 8. Heartache Tonight (The Long Run) – sounds like a Bob Seger song, in the good sense; written by Henley, Frey, Seger, and J. D. Souther 7. Desperado (Desperado) – particularly hated for its alleged faux profundity; whatever 6. Life in the Fast Lane (Hotel California) – some rockin’ Joe Walsh
5. Tequila Sunrise (Desperado) – one of my drinks of choice in college 4. I Can’t Tell You Why (The Long Run) – I think it’s lovely and sad 3. Take it to the Limit (One of These Nights) – written by Meisner, Henley, and Frey, the only Eagles single to feature Meisner on lead vocals; reminds me of a coffeehouse in my college town that I lived in, and a young woman with long light brown hair, with whom absolutely nothing happened 2. Hotel California (Hotel California) – the Stairway to Heaven of the Eagles’ oeuvre, it shouldn’t be diminished because it was overplayed 1. Wasted Time (Hotel California) – I gravitate towards songs about lost love
Every Mother’s Son did have three other Top 100 songs in the US, two from their second, less successful collection, the imaginatively-named Every Mother’s Son’s Back
The band Every Mother’s Son was likely, depending on how you define it, a one-hit wonder. Come On Down To My Boat was the only Top 40 Billboard hit for the New York group, comprised of brothers Dennis Larden (vocals) and Larry Larden (guitar), who had originally performed as a folk duo, plus Bruce Milner (keyboards), Christopher Augustine (drums), and Schuyler Larsen (bass).
The #6 hit on the Billboard charts was originally recorded by a group called The Rare Breed, which apparently was one iteration of a group called the Ohio Express, but that lineage is too complicated to go into here.
The latter version of Come On Down To My Boat appears on Every Mother’s Son’s eponymous first album, which got to #117 on the Billboard album charts. The single went to #3 in Canada and #26 in Australia.
From the Wikipedia: “Because the group was signed to MGM Records, MGM Television… decided to feature the group in a two-part episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., ‘The Karate Killers (The Five Daughters Affair),’ singing the song in a nightclub as a fight breaks out.”
But Every Mother’s Son did have three other Top 100 songs in the US, two from their second, less successful collection, the imaginatively named Every Mother’s Son’s Back, which failed to dent the Top 200 album charts. Put Your Mind At Ease, which has a riff that reminds one of Pleasant Valley Sunday by The Monkees that had come out earlier in 1967, got to #46 in the US, though made it to #8 in Canada. Pony with the Golden Mane only got to #93 US, #41 in Canada.
No One Knows, apparently, a non-album cut from 1968, only got to #98.
Blame Chuck Miller for getting The Shape of Things in my head. For his K-Chuck Radio: More Forgotten 70’s Hits, half of which I’d never heard, I wondered which version of the title song the Headboys played. As it turns out, it a different iteration altogether, and now that I heard it, it was vaguely familiar.
