Roger Green: a librarian's life, deconstructed.
Kathyrn Dawn Lang was born on the 2nd of November, 1961 in Consort, Alberta, Canada, which means she turns 50 this year. For reasons more complex than I need to note here, I always associate the country singer turned chanteuse with an ex of mine.
Anyway, this is a lovely song from k.d. lang’s 2000 Invincible Summer album, Summerfling, which came out well past the time I broke up with my ex.
The song marks the last recording of Paul Williams, who would die the next year.
I REALLY loved the Temptations, and even more so after they stopped being primarily the background singers for David Ruffin, who left the group in 1968. They became more a five lead-vocal group, under the production leadership of Norman Whitfield, who, with Barrett Strong, wrote most of their songs in this period.
While primarily doing psychedelic soul at this point, the Temps recorded, on the 1970 album Psychedelic Shack the ballad It’s Summer [LISTEN!]. I’m not a big fan of songs that involve a lot of talking rather than singing. But I was a big fan of the bass voice of Melvin Franklin, so I rather liked this. It also appeared as the B-side of the #3 single Ball of Confusion.
After some personnel changes, involving the departure of Eddie Kendrick and Paul Williams, the Temptations released the 1972 album Solid Rock, which featured the re-recorded It’s Summer [LISTEN!], which obviously swipes from the Gershwin brothers. The remake had been released as a single back in the summer of 1971, where it only went to #51 on the pop charts. The song marks the last recording of Paul Williams, who would die the next year.
Maybe because I heard the Melvin version first, I still prefer it to the remake.
Summer in the City entered the Billboard charts on the 16th of July 1966, and spent 11 weeks there, including three consectutive weeks at #1, starting on 13th of August.
When I joined the Capitol Record Club in 1965, book and record clubs had this thing called the negative option. That is, you would get the selected book or record UNLESS you sent in the response card in time. I was really bad at the negative option; I almost NEVER got the card in on time.
Which is how I ended up receiving the album Daydream by the Lovin’ Spoonful on Kama Sutra Records; loved that yellow label. Turns out, I was very fond of the early Spoonful. And when the subsequent single Summer in the City came out in 1966 (b/w Butchie’s Tune from the Daydream album), I had to buy it, probably from the Philadelphia Sales discount department store in Binghamton, NY, which was only two blocks from my elementary/junior high school, one of the very few singles I ever purchased; I was, even early on, an LP guy.
Summer in the City entered the Billboard charts on the 16th of July 1966, and spent 11 weeks there, including three consecutive weeks at #1, starting on the 13th of August.
It is one of the few songs I ever learned to play on the piano, albeit very badly.
I had a LOT of Seals and Crofts albums for a while. My college girlfriend even got me to see the duo live in New York City, on the birthday of Bahá’u’lláh, in 1971.
Summer Breeze entered the charts on 9/9/1972, spent 16 weeks on the charts, getting to #6. (S&C had three songs get to #6, including 1973’s Diamond Girl and 1976’s Get Closer), which is as high as they ever charted on Billboard.
Anyway, here’s the record and here’s a live version, with narrative on the scroll which could have been put in the notes.
Part of the info was that the Isley Brothers had a UK hit with the same song in 1976, which you can hear HERE.
A song from the summer of 1969, Hot Fun in the Summertime by Sly & Family Stone entered the Billboard charts on August 9, remained there for 16 weeks, and got up to #2 for two weeks, blocked from the top spot by the Temptations’ Can’t Get Next To You.
It also entered the soul charts on August 23, and got up to #3.
In a clever bit of marketing, the first time this song appeared on an album was the greatest hits collection. Unless you owned the singles, and you wanted this song, Everybody is a Star, and Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), you needed to buy the LP. And so I did.
A religious experience.