Here Today Is The Now Sound of Yesterday

December 5, 2007 5:47 PM

The Now Sound of the Sixties is what's groovy, baby! Even Big Bands and Canadians are getting warm, wild, wonderful with the crazy sounds of that love generation. Check out Ella Fitzgerald singing Sunshine of Your Love and Lord Sitar's I Can See for Miles. Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 do Wichita Lineman and Day Tripper, while lounge act Jackie & Roy do a rare cover version of the Beatles' The Word. The Alan Copeland Singers can't stop Goin' Out of My Head, but the Back Porch Majority looks like an outtake from A Mighty Wind with the hippie anthem, Get Together. But the hippest hep daddy of them all is Bing Crosby, who has both a Beatles medley and another medley of hit '60s tunes.
posted by jonp72 (20 comments total)

Hot damn! My blog got linked to in an FPP! Good sir, you have made my day.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:06 PM on December 5, 2007

Great post. Great post. I'll say it again: great post.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:42 PM on December 5, 2007

Oh, man! This was worth it just for that version of Wichita Lineman.
posted by evilcolonel at 6:53 PM on December 5, 2007

somewhat disturbing...

I will look at this again in the morning... should my response be the same when I've not consumed one (ok, perhaps two) bottles of cabernet, I shall hunt you all down...

aaaarggggg...
posted by HuronBob at 7:07 PM on December 5, 2007

Lord Sitar's video was revolutionary in its understated minimalism. The Replacements totally ripped him off.
posted by Tube at 7:13 PM on December 5, 2007

In fact the '60s was initiated by these Canadians.
posted by Creosote at 8:14 PM on December 5, 2007

Oh, man, I've got an example of this by the Four Freshman on an old school vinyl with a cover that is a masterpiece of bad album cover art. It's got the usual titles--Simon and Garfunkel are in the house!--for the time and these three Peggy Moffitt clones in the miniskirts and short bobbed long banged hair all akimbo and aslant and lit under some sort of stained glass light show slide. Very east coast psychedelic mod Warhol affectless cool. Or, at least a horrid failure at an attempt to evoke such a mood. Man, that cover. I only wish I could have found a link...
posted by y2karl at 9:11 PM on December 5, 2007

Lord Sitar's video was revolutionary in its understated minimalism.

I recognize that sound.

In the early seventies, on the Northern Soul scene there was a famous bootlegger named Simon Soussan. Soussan used to specialize in discovering obscure soul discs which he'd supply to a couple of the biggest DJ's. Once they'd broken the record, he'd issue a bootleg -- either as a counterfeit pressing, or on his own 'Soul Fox' label. For example, he bought the rights to the Mirwood back catalogue, and would issue the instrumental backing tracks under names like 'Mirwood Strings' or Mirwood Orchestra'. Usually, these were 60's soul records, but sometimes he'd issue the strangest pop records in the mix.

One of those pop records that was big for a period was a cover of 'Paint it Black' which he attributed to 'Super Electronic Love Sitars' but sounds very much like Lord Sitar to me.

Soussan also discovered the original copy of the most expensive 45 ever, Frank Wilson's 'Do I Love You'.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:59 PM on December 5, 2007

Ahh, I'm sorry, but Bing Crosby's Beatles' Medley made me cringe. No, no, no, that is not what should be done with Beatles songs. Ever.

In particular I couldn't stand the blond who sang Can't Buy Me Love. I think that shattered my innocence.
posted by alon at 2:33 AM on December 6, 2007

...Bing Crosby's Beatles' Medley made me cringe.

Heh. Poor old Bing. I think dring the singing of every song he ever sang, he was all the while thinking "I'd rather be singing White Christmas". Or just holding his pipe and looking like your dad.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:07 AM on December 6, 2007

Um, "dring" = "during".
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:08 AM on December 6, 2007

The Now Sound of the Sixties is what's groovy, baby!
. . .
Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 do Wichita Lineman

Some of these things are not like the others. Even the trendoids who actually used the word groovy would not have applied it to Glen Campbell's song.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:28 AM on December 6, 2007

That Ella Fitzgerald video just made my day.
posted by algreer at 4:45 AM on December 6, 2007

I haven't laughed this hard since Joe Piscopo used to chanell Sinatra doing lounge-swing covers of stuff like Talking Heads' "Life During Wartime."
posted by pax digita at 6:39 AM on December 6, 2007

So you're the one who laughed at that stuff. Are you also the one who thought Bill Murray's lounge singer was funny?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:47 AM on December 6, 2007

Thanks for that Ella video!

I had the Crosby medley playing in the background and then I read alona's comment and looked at the blonde singer. Mindwipe please. Covers of the Beatles are more often than not worse than the originals.
posted by ersatz at 6:59 AM on December 6, 2007

Are you also the one who thought Bill Murray's lounge singer was funny?
"Star Wars...nothing but Star Wars..."
posted by kirkaracha at 8:13 AM on December 6, 2007

Ella Fitzgerald singing "Sunshine of Your Love" gives me some serious cognitive dissonance.

Sergio Mendes rocks the Abraham Lincoln beard/no mustache combo.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:20 AM on December 6, 2007

Not so keen on the Bing/Beatles one, but the Bing/'60s one (with several of the same songs) is great. The folks he's jamming with -- well, they're not too shabby either.

Bing Crosby. Visionary and plain-looking. No way he could get signed these days. Sigh. Sergio Mendes probably could though.
posted by eritain at 3:30 PM on December 6, 2007

That vid of Ella is at Monterey with a small combo. A more killer version is with the big band at Newport. Huge sound, funky beat, with the lady swinging like a rusty ax. Cream never had it so good!
posted by bonefish at 9:13 PM on December 6, 2007