Some 1950's & 60's Rock, Pop and Doo Wop figures pass on

Ray Manzarek, keyboardist for the Doors died of cancer. A hugely influential band but I must say it was years before I could listen to them. See I grew up in Scarbourgh listening to punk, new wave as well as garage and rockabilly from the 50's & 60's while everybody else was listening to Q-107 who insisted on playing the same playlist every fucking day for years and years. The Doors, Zeppelin, Stones, Who, Floyd and Rush literally every fucking day, at least twice a day. No exaggeration. I really resented that at the time. It wasn't till years later that I got over that and decided that they were actually good bands. Except for Rush, they still suck.

Anyway where was I? Oh right, Ray Manzerek. He also produced the first X album as well, on which they buzz-sawed their way through "Soul Kitchen". Which was in turn later used in an episode of "Miami Vice" just before something blew up real good. So there's that.

THE DOORS ~ "LIGHT MY FIRE";



X & RAY MANZAREK ~ "SOUL KITCHEN";


Ronnie Splinter ~ Guitarist for influential 1960's Dutch garage band The Outsiders (not be confused with the 1960's American garage band The Outsiders who had a hit with the classic "Time Won't Let Me")

THE OUTSIDERS ~ "LYING ALL THE TIME";


Marshall Lytle ~ Bassist with Bill Haley's Comets as well as his preceding band The Saddlemen. Also co-wrote "Crazy Man Crazy" and a few songs for Haley associated group The Jodimers including their big hit "Rattle Shakin' Daddy", pioneer of the Rockabilly "Slap Bass" sound ~ 79

BILL HALEY & THE COMETS ~ "ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK";


BILL HALEY & THE COMETS ~ "RAZZLE DAZZLE";


Johnny Smith ~ 1955 Guitarist who did the original version of the surf classic "Walk Don't Run", later covered by The Ventures, Shadows, Belaires, Los Straitjackets and virtually every other surf band ~ 90

THE VENTURES ~ "WALK DON'T RUN";


Jim Sundquist ~ Guitarist for 1960's garage band The Fendermen "Mule Skinner Blues" ~ 75

THE FENDERMAN ~ "MULE SKINNER BLUES";


Eddie Bond ~ 1950's Rockabilly singer originally on Sun Records then on Mercury later became a country singer ~ 79

EDDIE BOND ~ "TORE UP";


EDDIE BOND ~ "ONE WAY TICKET";


Floyd McRae ~ Singer with 1950's Doo-Wop group The Chords who do the original version of the classic hit "Sh-Boom" later covered by The Crewcuts ~ 80

THE CHORDS ~ "SH-BOOM" (recorded in 1980);


THE CREWCUTS ~ "SH-BOOM";


Virgil Johnson ~ Singer with Doo-Wop group The Velvets ~ 77

THE VELVETS ~ "MY LOVE";


Bob Engemann ~ Singer with 1950's Pop Vocal Group The Letterman w/hits like "Love is A Many Splendored Thing", "When I Fall In Love", "The Way You Look Tonight", "Softly", and covers of pop hits like "You'll Never Walk Alone", "Up Up And Away", "Put Your Head On My Shoulder" and "Walk On By" ~ 76

THE LETTERMEN ~ "LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING";


THE LETTERMEN ~ "WALK ON BY";

The really long notes

In my earlier post I talked about some great really short songs, mostly punk. These are the obvious logical extension of punk's "less is more" philosophy which came as a result of the excesses of the psychedelic era, like long sprawling solos, rock operas, and endless Grateful Dead concerts that went on for days. I am down with that in theory. But you have to admit there were some really cool, really long songs of the psychedelic era. Before prog rock had to ruin everything.

The evolution of rock from the Jump Blues, Swing, R&B, Rockabilly, Doo-Wop, Honky-Tonk, Girl Group, Skiffle, Mersey Beat, Surf, Frat Rock, Folk Rock, Garage days of rock's first decade to the Psychedelic excess of the late 1960's was actually perfectly logical in retrospect. The first generation of Rock was based around the limitations of the jukebox single, tightly constructed dance songs or ballads that could fit onto a two and half to four minute single. AM radio simply followed that model. However by the late sixties the single had been taken over as the main focus of Rock by the long playing album which meant that artists were no longer faced with the time limitations of the 45 single. Jazz musicians had already been exploring this new freedom with the likes of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman abandoning structured, song oriented swing in favour of long jam oriented suites with extended solos that could take up the entire side of an album. Many Rock musicians were fully aware of these developments and were eager to engage in some of the same freedoms.

This brings us to the other change in rock in it's second generation aside from the technical development of the LP, and that is the fact that both the artists and audience had now grown up listening to Rock and Roll and were not just high school kids and working class youth but now included middle class, educated and cultured youth who would never have been caught dead listening to Rock and Roll in the 1950's. It's often forgotten that in Rock's first decade few university students took it seriously and instead listened to either jazz, folk or pop vocals. However by the late sixties there were a whole generation of youth who had grown up with Rock and Roll as well as being exposed to jazz and classical music as well as poetry and high literature and art. For these musicians the freedom of being able to explore these ideas in the context of Rock and Roll was perfectly logical. Others had also developed ideals of virtuoso musicianship that opened the way for extended jazzy solos and instrumentals. Add in to this the influence of psychedelic drugs, pot and/or heroin as well in place of the liquor and pills of the 1950's as an added ingredient. The new medium of FM radio, looking for a way to differentiate itself from AM radio's top 40 formats eagerly embraced these new approaches.

Later this sort of experimentation would lead to sprawling, wretched excess of course. And hopelessly wrongheaded ideas like rock operas and classical rock fusions. Which would in turn lead to an inevitable back to basics reactions like punk, new wave, glam, pub rock and revivals of rockabilly and garage.

But as necessary as these reactions were, that doesn't mean that some of the early extended explorations of the psychedelic era should just be dismissed as bloated hippie crap. Some of the classic examples still stand as solid rock songs in their own right. Some are really just basic garage or R&B songs stretched out with long solos, (ie Iron Butterfly, CCR, Chambers Bros, Black Sabbath, Ten Years After, The Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray") while others are jazz influenced jams (Paul Butterfield, Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, Pharaoh Sanders crossover epic) and then there are conceptual art pieces like The Velvet's "Heroin" or Arlo Guthrie's comedy jam.

The Top 20 over 7 minutes long (I figure they are so long that a Top 40 would go on forever);

1. The Chambers Brothers ~ "Time has come today";




2. Credence Clearwater Revival ~ "I heard it through the grapevine";




3. Paul Butterfield Blues Band ~ "East/West";




4. The Velvet Underground ~ "Heroin";




5. The Chambers Brothers ~ "Love peace and happiness";




6. Iron Butterfly ~ "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida";




7. Credence Clearwater Revival ~ "Suzie Q";




8. Led Zeppelin ~ "Stairway to Heaven";




9. The Temptations ~ "Papa was a rolling stone";




10. The Doors ~ "The End";




11. Pink Floyd ~ "Interstellar Overdrive";




12. Black Sabbath ~ "Warning";




13. The Velvet Underground ~ "Sister Ray";




14. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band ~ "Work Song";




15. The MC5 ~ "Starship";




16. Vanilla Fudge ~ "You keep me hanging on";




17. Ten Years After ~ "Going home";




18. Quicksilver Messenger Service ~ "Who do you love";




19. Pharaoh Sanders; ~ "The creator has a master plan";



20. Tangerine Dream ~ "Journey through a burning brain" (a remix, couldn't find a embeddable copy of the original;



21. Arlo Guthrie ~ "Alice's Restaurant massacree";