The Four Tops - 1967 - Bernadette FLAC

Bernadette/I Can't Help Myself/It's the Same Old Song/7 Rooms of Gloom



The Four Tops are a vocal quartet from Detroit, Michigan, USA, who helped to define the city's Motown sound of the 1960s. The group's repertoire has included soul music, R&B, disco, adult contemporary, doo-wop, jazz, and show tunes. Founded as the Four Aims, lead singer Levi Stubbs, Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Renaldo "Obie" Benson and Lawrence Payton remained together for over four decades, performing from 1953 until 1997 without a change in personnel.

The Four Tops were among a number of groups, including the Miracles, the Marvelettes, Martha and the Vandellas, the Temptations, and the Supremes, who established the Motown Sound heard around the world during the 1960s. They were notable for having Stubbs, a baritone, as their lead singer, whereas most male and mixed vocal groups of the time were fronted by a tenor.
 

 The group was the main male vocal group for the highly successful songwriting and production team of Holland–Dozier–Holland, who crafted a stream of hit singles for Motown. These included two Billboard Hot 100 number-one hits for the Tops: "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)" in 1965 and "Reach Out I'll Be There" in 1966. After Holland-Dozier-Holland left Motown in 1967, the Four Tops were assigned to a number of producers, primarily Frank Wilson, but generally with less success.

When Motown left Detroit in 1972 to move to Los Angeles, California, the Tops stayed in Detroit but signed a new recording deal with ABC Records' Dunhill imprint. Recording mainly in Los Angeles, they continued to have chart singles into the late 1970s, including the million-seller "Ain't No Woman", their second release on Dunhill, produced by Steve Barri and the composers Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter.

In the 1980s, the Four Tops recorded for Casablanca Records, Arista Records and Motown, returning to that label on two occasions for brief stays. Apart from their album Indestructible (owned by Sony Music Entertainment), Universal Music Group controls the rights to their entire post-1963 catalog (through various mergers and acquisitions) and also their 1956 single, "Could It Be You".

A change of lineup was forced on the group when Lawrence Payton died on June 20, 1997. The group initially continued as a three-piece under the name the Tops, before Theo Peoples (formerly of the Temptations) was recruited as the new fourth member. Peoples eventually took over the role of lead singer when Stubbs suffered a stroke in 2000, with Ronnie McNeir then joining the group. On July 1, 2005, Benson died of lung cancer. Payton's son Roquel Payton replaced him. Levi Stubbs died on October 17, 2008. Fakir, McNeir, Roquel Payton, and Harold "Spike" Bonhart, who replaced Peoples in 2011, are still performing together as the Four Tops. Fakir is the only surviving founding member of the group.

 "Bernadette" is a 1967 hit song recorded by the Four Tops for the Motown label. The song was written and composed by Holland–Dozier–Holland, Motown's main songwriting team, and produced by Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier. The song reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was The Four Tops's final Top 10 hit of the 1960s. On the soul chart, "Bernadette" went to number three. It also reached #8 in the UK on its first release and was a hit again in 1972, reaching #23.

"It's the Same Old Song" is a 1965 hit single recorded by the Four Tops for the Motown label. Written and produced by Motown's main production team Holland–Dozier–Holland, the song is today one of The Tops' signature songs, and was reportedly created—from initial concept to commercial release—in 24 hours. It reached number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #2 on the Billboard R&B Singles chart. It also reached number 34 in the UK.

 "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)" is a 1965 hit song recorded by the Four Tops for the Motown label. Written and produced by Motown's main production team Holland–Dozier–Holland, the song is one of the most well-known Motown tunes of the 1960s. The song reached number one on the R&B charts and was also the number-one song on the Billboard Hot 100 for two non-consecutive weeks, from June 12 to June 19 and from June 26 to July 3 in 1965. It replaced "Back in My Arms Again" by labelmates The Supremes, was first replaced by "Mr. Tambourine Man" by The Byrds, then regained the top spot before being replaced by "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones. Billboard ranked the record as the No. 2 song of 1965. It was also the Four Tops first Top 40 single in the UK, reaching #23 on its original release, and a 1970 reissue peaked at #10 in the UK charts.

 "7-Rooms of Gloom" is a song recorded by the Motown Records vocal quartet The Four Tops. It was released as a single in 1967 on the Motown label and reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was a Top 10 R&B Hit, charting at #10. It was also a hit in the UK, their seventh, staying for nine weeks in the UK Singles Charts and reaching #12 and in the Netherlands where it made #23 in the Dutch Top 40.

Free - 1971 - All Right Now FLAC

All Right Now/ I'm A Mover/Wild Indian Woman/Mouthful Of Grass



Free were an English rock band formed in London in 1968, best known for their 1970 signature song "All Right Now". They disbanded in 1973 and lead singer Paul Rodgers went on to become a frontman of the band Bad Company along with Simon Kirke on drums. Lead guitarist Paul Kossoff formed Back Street Crawler in 1975, but died from a pulmonary embolism at the age of 25 in 1976. Bassist Andy Fraser formed Sharks.

The band became famed for their sensational live shows and nonstop touring. However, early studio albums did not sell very well until the release of Fire and Water, which featured the massive hit "All Right Now". The song helped secure them a place at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970, where they played to 600,000 people.
 

By the early 1970s, Free became one of the biggest-selling British blues rock groups; by the time the band retired in 1973, they had sold more than 20 million albums around the world and had played more than 700 arena and festival concerts. "All Right Now" remains a rock staple and has been entered in ASCAP's "One Million" airplay singles club.

Rolling Stone has referred to the band as "British hard rock pioneers". The magazine ranked Rodgers No. 55 in its list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time", while Kossoff was ranked No. 51 in its list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".


"All Right Now" is a single by the English rock band Free. The song, released in 1970, hit #2 on the UK singles chart and #4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. "All Right Now" originally appeared on the album Fire and Water, which Free recorded on the Island Records label, formed by Chris Blackwell. In 1991, the song was remixed and re-released, reaching #8 on the UK singles chart.

 "All Right Now" was a #1 hit in over 20 territories and was recognised by ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) in 1990 for garnering 1,000,000 plus radio plays in the U.S. by late 1989. In 2006, the BMI London awards included a Million Air award for 3 million air plays of "All Right Now" in the USA.

According to drummer Simon Kirke, "All Right Now" was written by bassist Andy Fraser and singer Paul Rodgers in the Durham Students' Union building, Dunelm House.

Move - 1968 - Flowers In The Rain FLAC

Flowers In The Rain/(Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree/Mist On A Monday Morning/Kilroy Was Here


The Move were a British rock band of the late 1960s and the early 1970s. They scored nine Top 20 UK singles in five years, but were among the most popular British bands not to find any real success in the United States. Although bassist-vocalist Chris "Ace" Kefford was the original leader, for most of their career the Move was led by guitarist, singer and songwriter Roy Wood. He wrote all the group's UK singles and, from 1968, also sang lead vocals on many songs, although Carl Wayne was the main lead singer up to 1970. Initially, the band had 4 main vocalists (Wayne, Wood, Trevor Burton and Kefford) who split the lead vocals on a number of their earlier songs.

The Move evolved from several mid-1960s Birmingham based groups, including Carl Wayne & the Vikings, the Nightriders and the Mayfair Set. Their name referred to the move various members of these bands made to form the group. Besides Wood, the Move's original five-piece roster in 1965 was drummer Bev Bevan, bassist Kefford, vocalist Carl Wayne and guitarist Trevor Burton. The final line-up of 1972 was the trio of Wood, Bevan and Jeff Lynne; together, they rode the group's transition into the Electric Light Orchestra. Between 2007 and 2014, Burton and Bevan performed intermittently as "The Move featuring Bev Bevan and Trevor Burton."

 "Flowers in the Rain" backed with "(Here We Go Round) the Lemon Tree" is a song by English rock band The Move. The song was released as a single and reached number two in 1967 on the UK Singles Chart, and number four in Ireland. It achieved its own place in pop history by being the first record to be played on Radio 1 when the station was launched in 1967 (though technically Johnny Dankworth's "Beefeaters" was the first track to be heard, since Tony Blackburn chose it as the theme tune for his Daily Disc Delivery, and so it was heard before "Flowers in the Rain". "Flowers in the Rain" was also the last single by The Move to have Carl Wayne on lead vocals before Roy Wood took over as the band's lead vocalist for "Fire Brigade". The distinctive instrumental arrangement, including oboe, clarinet, cor anglais and French horn, was suggested by assistant producer Tony Visconti. "Mist On A Monday Morning" and "Kilroy Was Here" were album tracks of their first album "The Move"

B0b Dyl@n - 1967 - J0hn Wesley H@rd!ng

John Wesley Harding/The Wicked Messenger/Baby Tonight/All Along the Watchtower

"John Wesley Harding" is a song by Bob Dylan that appears on his 1967 album of the same name.Dylan told Jann Wenner in a 1969 Rolling Stone interview that the song "started out to be a long ballad. I was gonna write a ballad on ... like maybe one of those old cowboy ... you know, a real long ballad. But in the middle of the second verse, I got tired. I had a tune, and I didn't want to waste the tune; it was a nice little melody, so I just wrote a quick third verse, and I recorded that.

"The Wicked Messenger" is a song written and originally performed by Bob Dylan for his album John Wesley Harding. The song was recorded in Columbia's Studio A, Nashville, on November 29, 1967. The song's instrumentation is light, a characteristic shared with the rest of John Wesley Harding. It features a repetitive descending bass line that carries the song, and the most prominent instrument used is Bob Dylan's acoustic guitar.

"All Along the Watchtower" is a song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan backed with "Baby Tonight" both songs initially appeared on his 1967 album John Wesley Harding it was the only single taken from the album and it was not successful, "All Along the Watchtower" has been included on most of Dylan's subsequent greatest hits compilations. Since the late 1970s, he has performed it in concert more than any of his other songs. Different versions appear on four of Dylan's live albums.

Covered by numerous artists in various genres, "All Along the Watchtower" is strongly identified with the interpretation Jimi Hendrix recorded for Electric Ladyland with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The Hendrix version, released six months after Dylan's original recording, became a Top 20 single in 1968 and was ranked 47th in Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Following a motorcycle accident in July 1966, Dylan spent the next 18 months recuperating at his home in Woodstock and writing songs. According to Clinton Heylin, all the songs for John Wesley Harding were written and recorded during a six-week period at the end of 1967. With one child born in early 1966 and another in mid-1967, Dylan had settled into family life.

Young Rascals - 1967 - Groovin' FLAC

Groovin'/Sueсo/Come On Up/Too Many Fish In The Sea


 "Groovin" is a single released in 1967 by the Young Rascals that became a number-one hit and one of the group's signature songs it's B-Side was "Sueno".

Written by group members Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati and with a lead vocal from Cavaliere, it is a slow, relaxed groove, based on Cavaliere's newfound interest in Afro-Cuban music. Instrumentation included a conga, a Cuban-influenced bass guitar line from session musician Chuck Rainey, and a harmonica part, performed first for the single version by New York session musician Michael Weinstein, and later for the album version by Gene Cornish.

"Come On Up" / "What Is the Reason" was released in September 12, 1966 taken from the album Collections it reached #43 on the US charts while "Too Many Fish in the Sea" was a track from the same album.

Jeannie C. Riley - 1969 - Harper Valley P.T.A. @320

Harper Valley P.T.A/ Sippin' Shirley Thompson/Widow Jones/Mr. Harper


Jeanne Carolyn Stephenson was born in 1945 in Stamford, Texas. As a teenager, she married Mickey Riley and gave birth to a daughter, Kim Michelle Riley on January 11, 1966. Later, they moved to Nashville, Tennessee, after receiving a letter from Weldon Myrick, who heard a demo tape of Jeannie's and believed she could be successful.

In Nashville, Riley worked as a secretary for Passkey Music while recording demos on the side.

Riley's career was stagnant until former Mercury Records producer Shelby Singleton received a demo tape of Riley's voice. Singleton was starting and succeeding with his own label, Plantation Records, at the time. He worked with Riley in the recording of the Tom T. Hall demo song that Singleton saw potential in, "Harper Valley PTA." The record quickly became one of the best-known country music songs of all time. Riley became the very first female with the Number 1 in the Pop and Country charts at the same time. 

"Harper Valley PTA" was released in 1968. The song immediately became a hit for Riley and went to number one on both the Billboard Pop and Country charts, a feat not repeated by a woman until 1981 when Dolly Parton released "9 to 5". The song is about a widowed woman by the name of Mrs. Johnson, who confronts a group of members of the PTA after her daughter brings home a note from school that is critical of her (Mrs. Johnson's) habits of wearing miniskirts, going out with men, and other behavior of which they do not approve. The climax of the song comes when Mrs. Johnson turns the tables on the PTA and exposes their hypocrisy, one member at a time, noting that their private behavior is far worse than what their letter criticized her for.

Riley and the song became an overnight sensation, and the song earned her the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance and the Country Music Association 'Single of the Year' award. Riley also became one of the few country artists ever nominated in the major pop Grammy Award categories of "Best New Artist" and "Record of the Year". Globally it sold over five and a half million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A. just four weeks after the song's release. The album of the same name sold over one million units to gain a further gold disc for Riley.

 The song was a phenomenon which led to Riley making country music history in 1969 as the first female vocalist to have her own major network variety special, Harper Valley U.S.A., which she hosted along with Jerry Reed and featured performances by Mel Tillis and the song's writer, Tom T. Hall. The song spawned a 1978 film and a 1981-83 television series, both titled Harper Valley PTA and both starring Barbara Eden as the widow Mrs. Johnson.


During the late 1960s and into the very early 1970s, Riley ranked among the most popular female vocalists in the country music industry. She had five Grammy Award nominations and four Country Music Association nominations, and performed a duet with Loretta Lynn. She had success on the country charts again, but on a lesser scale. Other hits following "Harper Valley PTA" include "The Girl Most Likely," "There Never Was A Time," "The Rib," "The Back Side of Dallas," "Country Girl," "Oh Singer," and "Good Enough to Be Your Wife."

 Riley became known as much for her sex appeal and beauty as for her music, foreshadowing Shania Twain and other contemporary female vocalists by nearly three decades. At a time when many country queens were keeping a wholesome image by wearing gingham dresses, Riley kept in tune with typical late-1960s fashion by donning miniskirts and go-go boots for her stage outfits (somewhat in the character of the protagonist in "PTA"). Her mod persona opened many doors (and perhaps started a sexual revolution) in country music, as hemlines of other female country artists' stage outfits began rising in the years that followed. But Riley herself was not comfortable with her image, and she eventually abandoned it for a more conservative wardrobe (floor-length gowns and ankle-length dresses typically worn by conservative female country artists). In the 1993 CBS documentary The Woman of Country, she noted that during the "Harper Valley" period, it was largely her publicist and manager who were responsible for creating and playing up her sexy image (replicating somewhat the look of the protagonist in the song).

Cilla Black - 1969 - Step Inside Love FLAC

Step Inside Love/Words/Aquarius/Surround Yourself With Sorrow


"Step Inside Love" is a song written by Paul McCartney (credited as "Lennon–McCartney") for Cilla Black in 1967 as a theme for her TV series Cilla, which first aired on 30 January 1968.

In late 1967 McCartney was approached to write the theme by Black and her series producer Michael Hurll. He recorded the original demo version at his London home, accompanying himself on guitar, which consisted of just one verse and the chorus.

Black's recording of this song was used as the theme during the early weeks of the show, until it was decided that the song needed an additional verse, so McCartney came to the BBC Theatre and wrote it there. According to Hurll, the opening line of the second verse ("You look tired, love") came from McCartney's observation of Black looking tired from the long rehearsals for the TV show. McCartney then added a third verse and that version was recorded as a studio demo at Chappell Studios in London on 21 November 1967, with McCartney on guitar accompanying Black on vocals. That demo was the basis for the single, although whereas the McCartney demos were recorded in the key of D, the final arrangement of the single version was transposed up a fourth to G, to take advantage of Cilla's higher register.

The single version of the song (with Black singing live over the studio backing track) was premiered on 5 March 1968 edition of her show; the single was released on 8 March 1968, and reached number eight on the British charts in April 1968. The record also reached Number 15 in Ireland in the same month. The recording was also featured on Black's third solo studio album Sher-oo! Remixed club versions of Cilla's original 1960s vocal were released in 2009 on her album Cilla All Mixed Up.