Blood, Sweat & Tears -- "Spinning Wheel" (1969)

It's amazing to think that in rock history, there were only two jazz/rock bands that ever became huge: Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago. While both were pioneers that began in the late 60's, they could not have been more different: Chicago was a rock band with jazz elements, powered by a guitarist who worshiped Jimi Hendrix (the late Terri Kath), and had more hits than I have fingers and toes that went on for a few decades.

On the other hand, Blood, Sweat & Tears was a jazz band with rock chops, a big band New York vibe that swung hard, and like "The Natural," they soared to mystical heights once early on and never got it back again.

While initially an experiment conceived by rock Zelig Al Kooper for their debut album, Kooper departed, and in stepped lead singer David Clayton-Thomas, the stars aligned and they produced the magical album Blood, Sweat & Tears. Ironically, this album, and most of Chicago's classic output were produced by the same man, James William Guercio.

Like a bunch of West 52nd Street jazz escapees who wanted to put some rock juice into the mix, Blood, Sweat & Tears were the truest combination of the two genres: merging bluesy rock with bebop swing and chords you just never heard on Top 40 radio before. As a matter of fact, this was a band where you really had to listen to all the parts, because they were just such accomplished musicians that there was no member who really played "normal" rock style -- they were all skilled moving cogs in the wheel.

And that wheel was "Spinning Wheel," the second single from the album that just blew the roof off and you couldn't hide from it. I urge you to listen to the bass, because it's all over the place, not like any rock song at the time. Like all the best BS&T songs, the arrangement was amazing, horns blasting up and down like the song's immortal opening "what goes up" line, key builds between verses, and clever spaces to let Bobby Columby's airy drum riffs cut between the lines.

Happy enough with the single, the album version went a full minute longer with a crazy jazz jam break, featuring an extroverted Maynard Ferguson-type trumpet solo, swinging piano chords mixed clearly in another speaker, and a sax blast right off a Sonny Rollins album.

That never-heard-it-before rumble earned them a spot on the bill at Yasgur's Farm. Think about it -- this large group of intellectual-looking studious jazz/rock nerds actually played Woodstock, surrounded by the pinnacles of raw hippie culture and acid rock like Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Ten Years After, Sly & The Family Stone, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

I had my own personal musical connection to the song back in junior high school. Pushing aside the classical pieces of my old world piano teacher, I became a regular buyer of rock sheet music at Sam Goody, Colony and other stores. "Spinning Wheel" was one of them, because it started so promptly on that groovy E7th-A7th-D7th-G piano bass note riff. Man, I practiced that song over and over, because I was heading to the elementary school talent show to play what I knew. The real bitch of the song was that wacky jazz chord, one I had to really put my fingers in some weird formation, when the "let the spinning wheel turn" line came up. You know that part -- it's like a cross between a major and minor chord.

When I had my chance on the baby grand piano at the Robert H. Goddard JHS stage, I got nervous and fumbled. I don't even remember if I finished the whole song. All I know is the girl piano prodigy got up shortly afterward and played the whole damn thing perfectly with no sheet music in front of her.

Below, you have Blood, Sweat & Tears doing the single version of "Spinning Wheel" on live TV back in '69 (and the only solo is Steve Katz's little guitar number), followed by the full album version below it.

The Nice -- "Hang On To A Dream" (1969)

Not all prog rock was synth noodling. Sure Keith Emerson brought monstrous analog synthesizers into the studio and on stage, moved around the cables, and made all kinds of weird and wonderful noises when Emerson, Lake & Palmer became musical sensations.

But before ELP, Emerson led the late 60's trio The Nice, where he mainly stuck to pianos and occasional Hammond organ. The Nice were definite precursors to ELP, mixing rock, free jazz and classical genres, sometimes to bombastic but not elaborate extremes. They took particular joy in morphing classical, jazz and folks songs into their own updated arrangements, adding a driving rock beat, jamming on a chord progression, and sometimes turning the original into something unrecognizable.

Like Yes, they turned Leonard Bernstein's "America" from West Side Story inside out. Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo A LA Turk" was sped up, changed to the rock standard 4/4 time, and distorted.

Somehow I fell into possession of The Nice's third album (I think one of my limousine driving neighbors gave it to me), simple called Nice, around the time it came out. I only listened to side one, three melancholy songs followed by the 8-minute musical rock/jazz sound collage "For Example" which I remember during the whirlwind climax featured horns playing the opening notes to "Norwegian Wood." The album's second side consisted of two live recordings, the aforementioned Brubeck cover (now simply called "Rondo '69") and a completely lunatic reworking of Bob Dylan's "She Belongs To Me."


The album's opening number, "Azrael Revisited," set off the mood with a sinister dissonant piano riff accompanied by a snapping drum beat and relentless cowbell, all the better for a song about the angel of death, right?

As if death wasn't grabbing enough for a curtain opener, then came the rather poetic two-faced cover version of American folk singer Tim Hardin's "Hang On To A Dream." Ostensibly a simple song about being left behind by your girlfriend and hoping for the best, leave it to Emerson and company to turn it into something far more complicated and unexpected.

Emerson was always about as subtle as a sledgehammer and seemed to delight in showing off not only how amazingly fast he played, but that he could do it in nearly every genre. And just in case you didn't get the point, he would simply mix in a few genres in the same song, whipping off everything with lightening speed.

Tim Hardin's "Hang On To A Dream" is a beautiful stark song, and The Nice's rearrangement manages to retain that beauty yet gassing it up into something you'd hear in a Balinese temple. Emerson is all piano flourishes and classical riffs. Vocalist Lee Jackson sounds mopey and crackling, especially when he stretches out "she says what she do-o-o-o-o-oes." A little triangle for the emotional touch, a holy choir for the choruses, and a cello for the chamber effect.

Really nice, really pretty and actually moving, and then suddenly Emerson breaks into a series of major jazz chords for no apparent reason and boom, the Nice has shifted into rocket bebop mode, Jackson's electric bass now pumping double time, Emerson racing up and down the piano, a tambourine hitting the quarter note beats, and the song is now off to the races. This break comes to a dramatic climax, and then Emerson gives one of his patented classical downward spirals, a very brief pause and a Chinese gong is smashed, cue choir.

Below is a very entertaining black and white video of The Nice performing "Hang On To A Dream" live on the Beat Club television show. No choir, but you can see Emerson was clearly in charge, nearly overpowering everybody else on stage, even plucking the piano strings at one point. You can barely hear Jackson's low-key singing. The jazz break in this show goes on far longer than the album version, but Emerson is pretty much unstoppable and a certified madman.

Ellie Greenwich, songwriter RIP

Ellie Greenwich, who along with her ex-husband Jeff Barry, wrote many classic Phil Spector "girl group hits" died today of a heart attack at the age of 68. They were the classic Brill Building songwriting duo, much like Carole King and Gerry Goffin.

They co-wrote "Leader of the Pack," "Be My Baby," "Da Doo Ron Ron," and "Chapel of Love," all of them iconic songs of the era.

Here is Ike and Tina Turner performing one of Greenwich's most famous compositions, "River Deep, Mountain High" in 1971.

The hit songs from Hair

With the hype of the 40th anniversary of the "Summer of Love" behind us -- Woodstock nostalgia getting the lion's share of it -- and the revival of Hair a success, it's time to take a look at this groundbreaking musical.

Not that it was a very successful "hippie" musical that featured a bit of nudity and went on to win all kinds of awards. It was the last Broadway musical that spawned Top 40 single cover versions, in this case, four of them, all in one year. Talk about endless free built-in saturated AM radio marketing for your show.

Think back.. how many musicals produced big hit songs in the rock era? The Jackson Five had a minor ride with its cover of Pippin's "Corner of the Sky." Bar mitzvah DJ's love spinning "Seasons of Love" from Rent, but it's never made it onto the Billboard charts. After Hair, you'd have to go back to 1972 for the cast of Godspell and "Day by Day" (also written by Pippin's Stephen Schwartz). Since then... nothing.

It's a tribute to composers James Rado, Gerome Ragni and Galt McDermott that they not only created a musical that would still resonate after all these decades, but one that would be the blueprint for classic songs that truly represent the pop-making machinery of the era. The show went so well when it first appeared off-Broadway at the Public Theater in 1967, that by the time it reached Broadway two years later, these cover versions were primed to go right to the radio.


THE 5th DIMENSION -- "AQUARIUS/LET THE SUNSHINE IN" (1969)

The quintessential big LA pop production, the 5th Dimension already had two big cover version hits behind them, Jimmy Webb's immortal "Up Up And Away" and Laura Nyro's "Stoned Soul Picnic" ("Can you picnic?"). Their producer Bones Howe came up with the ingenious idea of seamlessly splicing two Hair songs together, literally and figuratively, each in different keys and rhythms and turning it into one cohesive single. You can read more about how it call came together from this article in Mix magazine.


THE COWSILLS -- "HAIR" (1969)

The Rhode Island-based bubblegum group which was the inspiration for the TV show "The Partridge Family" seemed awfully square to be swimming in the hippie pool. But they did it once in 1967 with "The Rain, The Park And Other Things" (which I wrote about here) and then again with this pretty faithful cover version.


THREE DOG NIGHT -- "EASY TO BE HARD" (1969)

The threesome who made an entire career of brilliantly picking the right songs written by soon-to-be famous composers and rearranging them took on this ballad as their followup to their debut hit, "One."

OLIVER -- "GOOD MORNING STARSHINE" (1969)

William Oliver Swafford took one of Hair's goofy touchy-feely tunes to the top with lots of jangling tambourines, sparkles and bangles. Who can forget lyrics like "glibby glub glooby/nibby nub nooby/la la la lo lo/sabba sibbi sabba/nooby ana nabba/lee lee loo loo/tooby ooby wala/nooby ooby wala/early morning singing song!"

Steppenwolf -- "Sookie, Sookie" (1968)

Steppenwolf is the most criminally overlooked hard rock band of the 60's. Or should I say, "heavy metal," since I do believe they were the first band to not only use it in a song ("Born To Be Wild"), but they embodied the term first.

Astonishingly, they are not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and this has got to change.

This was not a cult band, but one that had huge hits and a couple of well-stocked greatest hits compilations. Yet, the closest Steppenwolf has ever been given a tribute was Blue Oyster Cult's animated covers that they performed in concert and on their 1975 live album On Your Feet Or On Your Knees. This connection is no coincidence, as BOC clearly was directly musically connected to the primal roar of Steppenwolf.

Fronted by the always-in-shades John Kay (born in Germany with the much more complicated name of Joachim Krauledat), Steppenwolf was a blues-based hard rock band that had a lot of soul, a characteristic that was way ahead of its time. They sometimes could actually bring on the R&B in their tidal wave of Marshall amplification and Goldy McJohn's glorious organ, and there was no better example than the first song from their debut album, "Sookie, Sookie."

Co-written by longtime soul songwriter Don Covay ("Chain of Fools"), "Sookie, Sookie" was all shuffle rhythm made for the 60's dance floor, much like the popular fad dances like The Watusi and The Swim. Steppenwolf just lays three heavy opening chords (for no apparent reason), and segues into pure heavy metal party funkiness, hitting that major 7th chord nearly the entire song long, and going up a key at the end.

Combining hard rock and funk were almost unheard of at that time. This was almost as monumental as Run DMC rapping their way into heavy metal with Aerosmith in "Walk This Way" in 1986. Yet, Steppenwolf didn't give up its rock cred at all when they released "Sookie, Sookie" as a single right after the iconic "Born To Be Wild."

The hip hop/rap connection to Steppenwolf stretched on years later, as "Magic Carpet Ride" was sampled and covered by Grandmaster Flash ("The Message") in 1987.

Here are two videos from 1968, and of course what caught my attention are those Rickenbackers on rhythm and bass! Who said Ricks had to be just the jangly Byrds tone? The color one features lots of groovy threads but the big question is whose party has Steppenwolf as the house band? Lucky them. Then there's a splendid black and white appearance on the British TV show "Beat Club."

The Recession Playlist 2008

If you're going to be out of work, out of money, unable to pay the rent, flipping out at food prices, cutting coupons, searching for sales, pinching for pennies, suffering service outages, scraping to get by, begging for a job, borrowing cash, and standing on the dole line, you may as well sing and dance about it.

With kudos to my friend Andrew Pendrill, here's our Recession Playlist, in no particular order:


Clarence "Frogman" Henry - "Ain't Got No Home": Straight from the city of New Orleans, this was a rousing 1956 blues number later covered by The Band. You can hear the song on the soundtrack to the film "Diner." According to Wikipedia, Henry opened up 18 North American concerts for the Beatles in 1964.


The O'Jay's - "For The Love Of Money": Philly Soul's famous ode to greed, driven by a funky major 7th bass riff which is up front and center the whole song long. Lots of flanger effects, ghostly voices, a trilling trumpet and the three O'Jay's repetitively singing: "Money, money, money, money... MONEY!"


The Kinks - "Low Budget": Brilliantly timed 1979 rock singalong from Ray Davies and the boys when the country was in a recession. "Cheap is small and not too steep/But best of all, cheap is cheap/Circumstance has forced my hand/To be a cut-price person in a low budget land."


ZZ Top - "Cheap Sunglasses": That lil' ol' band from Texas gets down and dirty with a bluesy tribute to inexpensive eyewear. From the album Deguello, this was the first time they used a keyboard in a hit song, in this case, a gritty rough electric piano.


REM - "Everybody Hurts": Something of a modern classic, lead singer Michael Stipe aches along with this ballad that basically says you're not alone, we're all suffering. "Sometimes everything is wrong/Now's the time to sing along" is a worthwhile philosophy we can all live by now.


Gwen Guthrie - "Ain't Nothin' Goin' On But The Rent": Late 80's disco diva wailing about "bill collectors at my door" so "what can you do for me?" Not your typical sugar daddy request, but a man to help her pay the rent and perhaps in return, they'll get something in return. She makes it pretty clear that there's "no romance without finance!"


Johnny Rivers - "The Poor Side of Town": Moving rock and roll aside for a soulful ballad, Rivers took out the twangy guitar to tell his girl that the rich guy she'd been dating was using her as a "plaything." His best line is "Girl, it's hard to find nice things/On the poor side of town."


ABC - "How To Be A Millionaire": Leave it to singer Martin Fry, the man who gave us the witty New Wave hits "Poison Arrow" and "The Look of Love," to open up this 1985 dancer with "I've seen the future/I can't afford it/To tell the truth, sir/Someone just bought it." Like the Guthrie song, you can dance as a poor person and hope somebody, or at least fate, can deal you some extra cash.

ABC - How To Be A Millionaire
Uploaded by ABC

BB King's "Help The Poor": A blues classic from the great Gibson guitarist. Former LA Express guitarist Robben Ford did a terrific cover on his first Warner Brothers solo album, and then King joined Clapton for a version on their duet album. Is the singer looking for monetary charity or lopve from a girl gone away: "Help the poor/Won't you help poor me?/I need help from you, baby/I need it desperately."


The Beatles - "Money (That's What I Want)": A late 50's hit by Barrett Strong and co-written by Motown founder Berry Gordy, this searing rocker has been covered by the Fab Four, the Flying Lizards and even Josie and the Pussycats! That's doesn't make its sentiment any less serious. "The best things in life are free/But you can keep'em for the birds and bees!"


Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers - "We Need Some Money": Eight minutes of solid thumping go-go beat, right out of our nation's capital. With overabundant percussion, funky horns and glitchy analog synths, Brown updates the Gordy song sentiments and there's no holding back: "I'm gonna lay it right on the line/A dollar bill is a friend of mine/We need money!"

Nobody Does It Better: The James Bond Theme Songs From Best to Worst

AS HEARD ON NPR'S "ALL THINGS CONSIDERED"

With "Quantum of Solace" opening this weekend, this is a timely opportunity to evaluate all the James Bond theme songs from best to worst.

Performing the title song to a James Bond movie used to be a musician's badge of honor, and many of them became hits. However, starting with the film "License to Kill" in 1989, not only did the hits dry up, the songs almost uniformly stunk. Yes, the opening credit visuals that accompanied them were still stunning and the movies they went with were almost always excellent. But that musical badge of honor didn't mean anything if they didn't deliver the goods.

The James Bond franchise is very special, but certainly one of the main contributing elements has been the music. Never has there ever been such a long series of films so closely aligned with the style and output of one composer, the brilliant John Barry. The producers lucked out with the English jazz trumpeter and orchestrator, who had such an individual style, emphasizing big brass stabs, swinging jazzy chops, and a penchant for blending major and minor chords for stark effect over three decades.

Most of Barry's theme songs (which he co-wrote with different lyricists) were either big sassy numbers like "Goldfinger" and "Thunderball" that became stylistically dated as the 70's rolled on, or straight-ahead pop ballads like "You Only Live Twice" and "We Have All The Time In The World." He collaborated with rock artists on two theme songs, imparting his signature brass hits on "A View To A Kill" and "The Living Daylights," although the Pretenders did two very cool numbers on the latter soundtrack, which flew under everybody's radar. Three of Barry's theme songs were sung by histrionic Welsh belter Shirley Bassey: "Goldfinger," "Diamonds Are Forever" and "Moonraker." Most Bond title songs have never "rocked."

Barry pioneered the use of signature themes in all his Bond scores, long before John Williams did the same for all the Star Wars and Indiana Jones flicks. The surf guitar of "The James Bond Theme" is as instantly recognizable as the Coke logo. That minor chord pattern in the same theme was dipped into a number of his future scores and songs, and ripped off blatantly for the guitar lick in Johnny Rivers' "Secret Agent Man."

Three times during the Sean Connery/Roger Moore/Timothy Dalton era, the Bond assignment went to different composers and two of those title songs were smashes too. Famous producer George Martin scored "Live and Let Die" so it was inevitable that Paul McCartney did those opening honors, while Bill Conti (best known for the "Rocky" theme) did "For Your Eyes Only." When they hired 80's hitmakers Narada Michael Walden, Jeffrey Cohen and Walter Afanasieff for the "License To Kill" theme song, it understandably bombed along with its pedestrian Michael Kamen score, beginning a still-standing dearth of title song hits.

What makes a good James Bond song, as opposed to just any other song? It has to be seductive, with the sort of "spy"-type arrangements and chords that acid jazz musicians have appreciated for years. Some bombast falling just short of annoying. Lyrically containing those existential "live" and "die" themes that preoccupy the movie titles themselves. Honoring the John Barry tradition of jazzy horn stabs would be admirable.

I've heard the Alicia Keys/Jack White duet "Another Way To Die" from the new film. It has a few of the Bond song trademarks -- darting horns, deep mysterious piano notes, and the word "die" in the title. However, there's a lot of semi-rapping and shouting, not much melody at all, and it takes over 40 seconds to get started. I'll take a pass on this one, unfortunately.

People are always arguing over and listing their favorite James Bond movie, actors, villains and stunts. But I don't recall a ranking of those nearly two dozen theme songs, so here's my totally opinionated evaluation, from worst to best, with links to each title sequence.

20. "Die Another Day" performed by Madonna: A plum assignment handed to the globally famous musical chameleon and she blew it big time. Released the year before her inferior "American Life" album, Madonna foresakes the memorable dance beats of her "Ray of Light" hit for jagged samples and a forgotten thrown together mess. So much for banking on what the producers were hoping would be a sure thing. Totally ridiculous S&M inquisition video too.



19. "License To Kill" performed by Gladys Knight: Sampling the horn hook from "Goldfinger" (and paying the original composers the royalties too), the songwriting team behind 80's Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Aretha Franklin and Starship hits forces poor Motown great Glady Knight to grumble in a low register and spend a lot of time groaning "Uh-huh" and "license to kill!"





18. "The Man With The Golden Gun" performed by Lulu: The corniest title song ever composed by John Barry matched this equally silly film. Sample awful lyric: "His eye may be on you or me/Who will he bang?/We shall see!" Somebody dragged obscure English 60's pop sonstress Lulu out of the mothballs in 1974 to sing this one. Not worthy of John Barry stature by any means. The Alice Cooper song of the same name was far better.



17. "The World Is Not Enough" performed by Garbage: Current Bond score composer David Arnold has yet to create a good title song to this day. Trying to turn Garbage lead singer Shirley Manson into a chantreuse was a huge mistake and this sounds nothing like the crunchy grungy rock of Garbage. This is a very ordinary song, far from the standards of what a Bond title tune should be.



16. "Tomorrow Never Dies" performed by Sheryl Crow: One would have hoped this could have been a rocking Bond theme song with Crow in place, much like what I anticipated from Garbage. Instead, Crow rolls out an unmelodic swaying ballad which just comes and goes with no notice, much like "The World Is Not Enough."




15. "Moonraker" performed by Shirley Bassey: Coming on the heels of Carly Simon's enormous 70's contemporary pop hit of "Nobody Does It Better," pulling Bassey out for one last glitzy over the top rendition felt like the franchise took one step backwards. While the song was bonafide John Barry, with those delicately placed strings and his trademark major-minor chord transitions, it was not one of his best and too Las Vegas-y to make it up the charts.

14. "You Know My Name" performed by Chris Cornell: Finally getting close to the mark, new Bond score composer David Arnold joined forces with great rock baritone Cornell for something that sounds, well, James Bond-ish. Charging distorted guitars, rising strings, a pounding sense of desperation, and a real rock song melody. Appropriate that it appears in the film series' recent return to old school form.



13. "For Your Eyes Only" performed by Sheena Easton: Notable for being the only Bond title song where the artist actually appeared in the opening credits, "For Your Eyes Only" was a nice smooth pop ballad with a good hook and a babe on the vocals. Very synthetic and perfect production values.



12. "Goldeneye" performed by Tina Turner: Many surprises here. Turner was made for singing a Bond title song and it's a revelation that it took until 17 movies for somebody to come up with that idea. Give all the credit to writers U2's Bono and The Edge, along with urban producer Nellee Hooper, who created all the earmarks of danger and mystery: finger snaps, a bursting brass riff, a choppy rimshot-driven drum loop, and low pizaccato strings evolving to the romantic undertones that had been missing for so long.



11. "All Time High" performed by Rita Coolidge: Thankfully not using the title "Octopussy" anywhere in it, Barry swung for the adult contemporary radio format fences and got himself a huge hit. You know it's Barry by the giveaway string arrangements. This was Coolidge's last chart-topper, as it came at the end of a run of successful soft rock covers ("We're All Alone" and "Higher and Higher").



10. "Diamonds Are Forever" performed by Shirley Bassey: For Sean Connery's last Bond venture, Barry put a little more swing into Bassey's bellowing ("Diamonds are forever, forever, forever"), some blatant sexual innuendo ("Hold one up and then caress it/Touch it, stroke it and undress it"), a dose of guitar wah wah, and plenty of seductiveness.




9. "Live and Let Die" performed by Paul McCartney & Wings: A truly bizarre song for the Bond genre, employing McCartney's tried-and-true "three songs in one" gimmick (see: "Band On The Run," "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey"). The lyrics are utter nonsense, and there's much ado going on with big orchestra runs with chase scene riffs, with that dramatic unexpected minor chord ending.


8. "Nobody Does It Better" performed by Carly Simon: A perfect 70's hitmaking machine behind this huge pop hit -- composer Marvin Hamlisch and lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, cranking out a fluffy concoction that transcended the Bond movie into a popular catch phrase of the era.







7. "From Russia With Love" performed by Matt Munro: There's something truly Rat Pack-ish about this song, as you can almost picture Sinatra belting this one out in a nightclub. With Lionel Bart's dashing playboy lyrics ("From Russia with love/I fly to you/Much wiser since my goodbye to you/I've travelled the world to learn/I must return/From Russia with love") and the Slavic tack piano effects, this was the series' "Strangers In The Night."




6. "A View To A Kill" performed by Duran Duran: This is the first Bond song that actually "rocked" and did it very successfully. The New Wave stars collaborated with Barry on a horn-hit filled 80's-styled danceable rock tune with those immortal words: "Dance into the fire/The fatal kiss is all we need!" Crunching heavily-compressed power guitar chords and funky little Strat licks, those immortal Bond minor chords simmering underneath, Duran Duran and Barry's joint venture still sounds well today, especially to 80's nostalgia fiends.


5. "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" performed by The John Barry Orchestra: The title theme of a movie full of "only's" -- the only film to star George Lazenby as James Bond, the only film directed by renowned editor Peter Hunt, and the only film to have an instrumental title sequence. If you thought the James Bond theme itself was wicked, this came in a very close second. Oozing cool, Barry's composition sounds like the best action chase music from the late 60's, building horns, changing keys, and a fuzzy harpsicord-sounding Moog synthesizer running down the twisting baseline.


4. "Thunderball" performed by Tom Jones: The Welsh singing god of the 60's rips his shirt open once more in this bombastic ode to the man who "runs while others walk." Surrounded by a maximum horn riff as beguiling as the one Barry created for "Goldfinger," I can always picture the silhouetted female scuba divers from this film's credit sequence. You've got to hand it to Mr. Jones when he used every ounce of air in his lungs when he explodes with that last "Thun-der-bal-l-l-l!"


3. "The Living Daylights" performed by a-ha: I have great love for this song which went nowhere in the US but of course was a huge European hit. The Norweigian synth pop group collaborated with Barry, like Duran Duran, and produced the sleeper of the whole bunch. As I wrote back on this blog in December 2007: "a truly compelling title song, with tricky key changes, wide open production, a veritable mix of dark Europop and John Barry snazz... Heavily treated electric guitars, hard acoustic guitar strums at emphatic parts, galloping drums with suddenly building snares, twinkling synths, a distorted sax solo, and the falsettos and harmonies of the group itself. John Barry comes in loud and clear with his trademark brassy blasts during the intro and the chorus. Listen for the in-time horseshoes when the song settles in about halfway through before that dirty sax solo."


2. "Goldfinger" performed by Shirley Bassey: The flagship Bond song -- huge, pompous, and mysterious. The blueprint for all future lyricists assigned to focus on a villian as their subject. Parodied and worshipped, Barry's masterwork came in the third Bond film, where he was allowed to step out for the score from beginning to end. Where did he come up those chords for the words "Goldfinger" -- an F major leading to a D flat? Hats off to lyricists Anthony Newley and Lesley Bricusse for coming up with the phrase that he had such a "cold finger." My God.



1. "You Only Live Twice" performed by Nancy Sinatra: This movie and song had a profound effect on me in 1967, as it was the first Bond film I saw in a theater, in this case, the Green Acres Theater in Valley Stream, Long Island. The combination of Sean Connery machine gunning around in that flying Little Nellie, bodies flying through the air from explosions inside the empty volcano crater, exotic Japanese women, and spaceships eating other spaceships was mesmerizing. But that song -- Nancy Sinatra's sexy voice mysteriously floating through the classic Barry melody, with those endless major/minor chord switches, the downward cascading strings, and the Asian influenced xylophone notes, accompanying the literal explosions of chrysanthemum color of the Maurice Binder-designed credits. I never get tired of this song and I knew I was justified when I heard Coldplay perform it live on the b-side of a CD single I bought in the UK several years ago.


SPECIAL MENTIONS

Although these songs were not the "title" theme songs, they were prominently featured on the soundtracks and I consider them very worthy and prime additions to the Bond genre.

• "We Have All The Time In The World" performed by Louis Armstrong: The very last performance from the great jazz trumpeter, the song has great simplicity and poignancy that reflects the ironic jarring ending of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." Armstrong enunciates every syllable delicately while Barry's swirling strings hit you right in the gut.

• "Where Has Everybody Gone?" and "If There Was A Man" performed by The Pretenders: These are two treats on soundtrack of "The Living Daylights," true collaborations between Chrissy Hynde and John Barry. The former is a snarling Bond-ish rocker with mocking open trumpets and switchblade guitar work, while the latter is one of the most beautiful ballads ever to appear in a 007 movie.
  

James Brown -- "I Got You (I Feel Good)" (1964)

My first experience with "the hardest working man in show biz" was in fifth or sixth grade, watching one of those cheesy low budget "Beach Party" movie rip-offs called "Ski Party" on TV. Starring beach movie regular Frankie Avalon and "Dobie Gillis" star Dwayne Hickman, I thought this movie was hilarious at the time, a real "find" that I had to tell all my friends about.

This movie predated the "Bosom Buddies" concept of men dressing like women by at least a decade. And like many movies of its ilk, it featured cameo performances by rock, pop and soul stars of the time. "Ski Party" had Leslie Gore singing "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows" on the college bus traveling to the ski chalet, and the Hondells performing "The Gasser" on a beach somewhere.

However, the corniest cameo was by far James Brown and his Fabulous Flames, who play a heavily-dressed ski patrol crew who rescue one of the goofball characters, somebody recognizes them for who they are, and they suddenly break out in "I Got You (I Feel Good)," dropping their parkas and wearing the most preppie red and white wool sweaters you've ever seen in your life.

I feel privileged and honored to present this classic scene.


But that was about the only James Brown song I liked for a long time. "Mother Popcorn" became a hit, but I didn't get into it because it remained on pretty much one chord for the whole song. That was my complaint for all the James Brown stuff I heard -- too long on one chord.

Fast forward to the early 80's. The new wave and New Romantic movements of music, all heavily influenced by and making tribute to American black soul, bring back a rush of all these classic R&B and Motown songs to the clubs again. I bought a 12" single by an English studio group who put together their own "Stars on 45" by slicing together various James Brown hits to a pumping 4/4 beat. I started hearing James Brown at parties, and then put them on my mix cassette tapes. When I went out dancing with my girlfriend at the time, and the DJ spun"I Got You," I not only had every word memorized, but the black man inside propelled me up in the air, spinning around with arms flailing and legs kicking.

I finally started to get James Brown, a very delayed reaction for a white guy from Queens who got into R&B and soul at an early age. I hung out at the Sounds used record store on St. Marks Place one afternoon, and they were on a James Brown marathon over the stereo system. I caved and bought a James Brown greatest hits compilation on Polydor records, and then in later years, bought the whole Startime anthology.

I finally understood Brown's power of the never-ending groove, funk and jazz, even if it was one chord for a few minutes. I realized I had to let loose a little more, not think about it and just let it take me.

Sometimes the best songs are just the simplest. "I Got You" has the award-winning intro of a patented James Brown wild scream ("Wo-o-w-w-ww!"). You hear that shout, you know it's time to get going. It's about as close to a pop song you'll hear from Brown, under three minutes of uptempo blues, swinging saxophones, and those easy nursery rhyme lyrics.

I feel good, I knew that I would, now.
I feel good, I knew that I would, now.
So good, so good, I got you.

Whoa! I feel nice, like sugar and spice
I feel nice, like sugar and spice
So nice, so nice, I got you.

When I hold you in my arms,
I know that I can't do no wrong.
and when I hold you in my arms
My love won't do you no harm.

and I feel nice, like sugar and spice.
I feel nice, like sugar and spice.
So nice, so nice, I got you.


In these simple lyrics, you get loads of shouts, screeches and held notes. The man is a ball of outrageous energy. And that ending, when the horns do their solo staccato, a tiny pause, a quick snare snap, Brown's explosive "Hey!" and the last chord -- it's just perfect.

Watching the above "Ski Party" clip and the videos below is that this man could dance. Brown swished and swayed across the floor like somebody greased the bottom of his shoes, while snapping his head to the beat. He was so popular, that he broke through the most white bread TV shows of the era. Three very special videos below: the first two are black and white clips of Brown slipping up a storm on early 60's teen TV shows, and finally the man himself on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1966.

James Brown - I Feel Good
Uploaded by bebepanda

James Brown - I Feel Good
Uploaded by swotch

The Guess Who -- "These Eyes" (1968)

The Guess Who were the hippest rock group to ever bust out of Canada. Considering Canada's constant national drumbeating, culminating in its Juno Awards, these guys were that country's most successful export since ice hockey, and although they didn't have the longevity of Rush, they went on a spectacular Top 40 run from the late 60's through the early 70's.

It was true inspiration that the Guess Who's first American hit "These Eyes," was pulled out of the archives for teen horndog flick "Superbad," with actor Michael Cera singing it out of tune with a bluesy bent to a bunch of older weepy stoners.

"These Eyes" is a moderately-paced ballad with a slightly soulful feel, starting from its slightly fuzzy Wurlitzer electric piano Dm7-C riff. Rift with sentimentality and a touch of drama, the song's narrator is full of sadness from a typical breakup, but keeps referring to some kind of pact the couple made, perhaps engagement? Marriage?

You gave a promise to me, you broke it, you broke it.

You took the vow with me, babe, you spoke it, you spoke it.


Lead singer and co-writer Burton Cummings had loads of charisma and a unique emotional vocal timbre. I recall reading in some "Song Hits" magazine at the time that Cumming's cited Elvis Presley as his biggest influence and it showed in his grunts, shouts, and charging delivery. He knew when to turn it up for the choruses and fade outs. Early on, he had long flowing hippie hair, but eventually cut it and grew a bushy mustache. When the Guess Who broke up in 1975, he signed with CBS-distributed Portrait Records and released some middle-of-the-road hits, notably "Stand Tall."

Cummings' right hand man and fellow songwriter was guitarist Randy Bachman, who of course went to be the main namesake of thundering blue-collar rock group Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

More of a garage band in their early days, producing a local hit cover of "Shakin' All Over," the Guess Who hit it big below the border on the RCA label, who made sure the band had all the earmarks of a pop-acceptable band. "These Eyes" was the only hit of theirs that I remember which featured a string arrangement. After that, they were rocking and rolling all the way.

The video below is the Guess Who lip-synching their way on a Canadian TV show around the time the song was a hit. Note the long close-ups on Cummings' face, his high cheekbones leading me to believe he probably had some Indian blood in him. And if you've seen photos and video footage of Bachman-Turner Overdrive, it's sort of wild to see Randy Bachman all clean cut, wearing a jacket and tie, always a large hulking figure.

The Turtles -- "Happy Together" (1967)

Can this be one of the most perfect pop songs ever written, performed and arranged? I'm thinking it's got to be in my top 10.

The Turtles, formerly the surf band the Crossfires, had a string of "sunshine pop" hits in the mid-60's that make it well worth your while to buy their greatest hits album. Many of their songs were highly slick, west coast groovy, semi-bubblegum tunes -- almost all of them not written by the band, but an artillery of LA's top songwriters. In many ways, they were a musical precursor to the wonderful Grass Roots.


The Turtles, besides the rather un-threatening goofy name, were the home of the infamous Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, better known later as dubbed by Frank Zappa as "the Phlorescent Leach and Eddie" when they joined his Mothers of Invention, and later just shortened to "Flo and Eddie." As you'll see in the videos below, Kaylan was the good looking lead singer, practically standing in for rock and roll's first bar mitzvah boy. His good friend Volman was his comic foil, a heavyset goofball with a kinky hair and nerdy glasses, always looking to make trouble or crack him up mid-song.

The verses of "Happy Together" were based on one of music's perennial chord patterns, the descending from the E minor, to the D, to the C, to the B major (ironically, the same blueprint for The Grass Roots' "I'd Wait A Million Years" verses -- if it ain't broke, don't fix it!). The lyrics are very much like a nursery rhyme, and that is why I feel it is so instantly familiar to any living breathing human being with its cadences and rhymes:


Imagine me and you, I do
I think about you day and night
It's only right
To think about the girl you love
And hold her tight
So happy together.

If I should call you up
Invest a dime
And you say you belong to me
And ease my mind
Imagine how the world could be
So very fine
So happy together.

And then later...

Me and you
And you and me
No matter how they tossed the dice
It had to be
The only one for me is you
And you for me
So happy together.


What brings it to a whole other level is the chorus, where it shifts into E major, straight electric guitar chords on the eighth beats, lots of horn and layered vocals ("pa-paa!"), like a blissful explosion of love, flower power and euphoria.

I can't see me loving nobody but you
For all my life
When you're with me
Baby the skies will be blue
For all my life.


This is akin to when Frankie Valli revs to the next gear on the second part of "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You" when he belts out: "I-I love you baby, and if it's quite all right, I need you baby, until the morning light...." You are forced, literally forced to sing along, perhaps loudly, maybe even in a public setting and hypnotically forgetting any embarrassment.

For crying out loud, this is the song that knocked one of my very favorite Beatles songs, "Penny Lane," out of the #1 spot! I remember being at some Queens, NY day camp in the summer of '67, picking up dodgeball throwing tips from some kid named Barry (a two-handed grip on two sides of the ball, making an aggressive circular wind-up and then letting it loose at some poor kid's stomach), and "Happy Together" was rotating constantly on the AM radio. You just could not get it out of your head and everybody sang along to those nursery rhyme lyrics.

Let's just stop and honor these anonymous songwriters of "Happy Together," who never quite became as famous as Lennon and McCartney, or Bacharach and David, but who had the amazing skill to write these classic unforgettable pop songs. "Happy Together" was written by Gary Bonner and Alan Gordon, who also collaborated on Three Dog Night's "Celebrate."

Below, a fun home-movie-type promo video shot in '67 for "Happy Together," followed by their semi-live performance on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

The Grass Roots -- "Midnight Confessions"

Rock and roll is filled with "manufactured" groups -- acts that were put together solely for the purpose of looking good and singing hits written by professional songwriters and producers. The most famous case, of course, is The Monkees.

The Grass Roots (and note that "grass" and "roots" are two separate words for these guys) started off as one thing and then, like a writer taking out his pencil eraser, wiped it out and created something completely different.

I was listening to The Grass Roots' Greatest Hits today in my car and was struck how their first great hit, "Let's Live For Today," sounds almost nothing like what followed afterwards. Heck, that song was even in the famous Nuggets garage rock compilation.

The Grass Roots were ABC subsidiary Dunhill's baby, under the wing of the Steve Barri/P.F. Sloan team. It was when they released "Midnight Confessions," a completely re-arranged version of a song written by Lou Josie for a group he managed called The Evergreen Blues, that the group exploded into a string of best-selling singles.

"Midnight Confessions" was truly the template for the big songs that came afterwards: slick pop/soul tracks, infused with traces of bubblegum, performed and arranged by the top L.A. studio cats. In a way, The Grass Roots were like an even smoother version of Three Dog Night, white boys with great voices, covering other people's songs with a little soul inside. The personnel of The Grass Roots may have changed every couple of years, but the one constant was lead singer Rob Grill.

That pop/soul LA sound really blossomed in the early 70's, notably with Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds ("Don't Pull Your Love," "Fallin' In Love") and the Four Tops' post-Motown run at Dunhill ("Keeper of the Castle," "Ain't No Woman (Like The One I Got").

For a simple pop single, the arrangement for "Midnight Confessions" is quite intricate, changing keys and chords patterns throughout the song. With that unmistakable opening bass line and cracking Jimmy Haskell horn arrangement (same guy who did Steely Dan's "My Old School" and you can definitely tell), "Midnight Confessions" just sort of grabbed you with its infectious tambourine beat and prominent organ arpeggios and chords. Grill has an air of desperation with his pop single predicament -- the girl he loves is engaged? Married?

The sound of your footsteps
Telling me that you're near
Your soft gentle motion, baby
Brings out the need in me that no-one can hear, except

In my midnight confessions
When I tell all the world that I love you
In my midnight confessions
When I say all the things that I want to
I love you!

But a little gold ring you wear on your hand makes me understand
There's another before me, you'll never be mine
I'm wasting my time.

Staggering through the daytime
Your image on my mind
Passing so close beside you baby
Sometimes the feelings are so hard to hide, except...

In my midnight confessions
When I tell all the world that I love you
In my midnight confessions
When I say all the things that I want to
I love you!


In around 2000, I was out in LA handling the publicity for Maxim magazine's first party there ("Circus Maximus") and the contracted producer had a gorgeous staff member helping us get ready for the big event. She was in her early 20's and was tantalizing us all with promises that she was going to visit New York City. She said her last name was Grill and her father "toured and sang." Well, leave it to the music trivia nut to take a few seconds and pull it out of the hat to ask her, "Rob Grill? The Grass Roots?" And yes, this was his daughter.

Below is a classic late 60's video of the band lip-synching their way through the marvelous "Midnight Confessions." I'm loving Rob Grill's pink frilly shirt under his brown tassled jacket... very hip.

Two more great song openings from the 60's and 70's

I recently heard two more song introductions that absolutely qualify for my list of Best Song Openings of the 60's and 70's. And just to remind you of the criteria, I'm not looking at openings that mimic the song's riff or chord pattern... I'm looking at intro's that stand unto themselves, intro's that have almost nothing to do with the rest of the song, they were written to be, well, original cool curtain raisers by themselves.

So the list now rises to nineteen songs.


Steely Dan -- "Josie": Here's a perfect example of what I mean, if you haven't clicked back to the original posting. It hit me when I recently took the family to see Steely Dan perform at the Beacon Theater. "Josie" opens with a weird Asian-sounding set of cutting electric guitar minor-key root chords with wind chimes swirling around in the background, a high hat lightly keeping a quarter note beat to build the tension. It segues into four typical Steely Dan minor seventh chords, cymbals crashing on each chord, hanging on the last one while an electric piano twirls some notes... then wham, into the funky beat and guitar riff of the song. The intro and the rest of the song are not related, but somehow they just click. Everything about the Steely Dan world is off-kilter, so piecing these two parts together seamlessly is par for the Fagen/Becker course.


The Mama's and The Papa's -- "California Dreaming": I had this entire song in reserve for a deserved post by itself, but as far as great intro's, this one was not only outstanding, but done on an acoustic guitar, well ahead of the similar sounding Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer." Pretty much panned to the left speaker, a solo acoustic guitarist picks out a canticle-like E suspended pattern, joined by another guitar in a higher counter melody until a hard E major chord strum. Pause. And then out of the right speaker, "All the leaves are brown...."

The 17 best song openings of the 60's and 70's

I first suggested this concept a few years ago to Blender magazine's editor in chief when we worked together. And like most story ideas I gave them, they ignored it. But I didn't forget it and that's why we have blogs like this, so we can do it. Except I'm just focusing on two decades the 60's and 70's.

Here's how I define the criteria for this list: it's an introduction that signals something is about to come, a true curtain raiser. It's not a riff -- if I wanted to do a list of great riffs, that would be something else. I wanted to single out openings that were not the song's main riffs.


1) The Beach Boys -- "California Girls." This was the first song I thought about when I devised this concept. I used it during the opening credits for a California family trip video I made because the opening has distinct sections that could be timed. "California Girls" unfolds like a slowly growing flower, dual guitars in unison playing the melody as the saxophone section blares louder and louder, the tingles of the cymbal rides, surrounded in Brian Wilson's amazing wall of sound reverb.

2) Michael Jackson -- "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough." This is like a bottle under pressure ready to pop. To the steady rhythm of an egg shaker, it seems like an electric bass and synth bass blended together in a rather short, sharp pattern. Jackson does a famous under his breath cosmic mumble: "You know I was, I was wondering if we should keep on. Because the force it's got a lot of power. And it makes me feel like... It make me feel like ...WOOOOOOOO!" From my favorite Jackson album, Off The Wall.

3) Average White Band -- "Pick Up The Pieces." A true call to get up onto the dance floor, eight seconds of Hamish Stuart's suspended rhythm guitar chord, the bass starting on one note and up an octave, a mashy organ chord fading up, and a tambourine sizzling through it all. An intro to one of the greatest hit instrumentals of all time.



4) The Beatles -- "A Hard Day's Night." One three-second ringing electric guitar chord from George Harrison's Rickenbacker. That'll get your attention. I always thought it was the one-hit strum of a typically-tuned open guitar (EADGBE). Except a couple of years ago, Guitar Player magazine devoted a whole page to what that opening chord really is. It's an F chord with an added G note on top. And Paul's bass is in there somewhere with a D note. Supposedly, George Martin's got a piano note in there as well.


5) Bruce Springsteen -- "Tenth Avenue Freezeout." The Boss has had many terrific song intros -- "Thunder Road" would be right on top of that list -- but if there's one song that had an intro that stood apart from the rest of the song, it's this one from Born To Run. Legend has it that nobody was happy with the song's horn arrangement until guitarist "Miami" Steve Van Zandt, a true connoisseur of everything great that's rock and soul, basically hummed the arrangement he heard in his head to the horn playing Brecker Brothers. The intro was a three chord R&B fanfare done in time to the ride cymbal, then Max Weinberg's snare powering up like a motorboat, kicking it into glorious life.

6) Edwin Starr -- "War." A five second drum roll that gets louder and louder, clearly meant to represent the military, perhaps "Taps." Then Starr and the singers launch cold into their "War" chorus. Startling and dramatic for one of 1970's most socially-conscious Motown hits.

7) The Fifth Dimension -- "Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In." The epitome of 60's orchestrated pop, this massive hit was the collaboration of producer Bones Howe and the top LA studio musicians and arrangers of the time (I'm thinking of the infamous "Wrecking Crew" with drummer Hal Blaine). Taking hippie culture and making it mass market acceptable for the radio, the song opens with a spacey three note pattern played on flutes and piccolos with a triangle ringing, high strings fading in and then the tuned timpani's booming out that beat, a hi hat on every other beat. The whole opening evoked some kind of out of body travel experience ("When the moon is in the seventh house...").


8) The Rolling Stones -- "Honky Tonk Women." You knew exactly what was coming from the mere distinguishable unaccompanied taps on the cowbell, followed by the thunderous entry of Charlie Watts' drums. I must have worn this 45 down to a pulp and played it for my grandmother, who said she "liked the beat" (a line she must have copped from "American Bandstand").



9) Earth, Wind & Fire -- "In The Stone." This group was at its commercial peak when they released the I Am album, which opened with this song. Of all the songs on this list, this is probably the most full-blown, something you'd picture smoke bombs and fireworks going off, the famous EWF horns, strings, hand percussion -- this sounds like a damn overture for one of the finest dance tunes the band ever did. I'm already envisioning using it for my family's bar mitzvah entrance next March.


10) Billy Joel -- "Piano Man"/"The Stranger." Although this first song is considered a classic, but far from one of my favorites of his, Joel was always a witty jokester. So to begin his autobiographical tale of a lounge piano player, he plays two schmaltzy chords and accompanying overdone dramatic notes, the kinds you would hear in just about any nightclub. Joel went for an even more cinematic effect with the second tune, low Em piano chords and slow sizzling cymbal beats accompanying a heavily-reverbed whistle, evoking the lonely man image of the song.

11) The Hollies -- "Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress." I saw a guy playing this electric guitar intro note per note at the Guitar Center in Carle Place about two years ago and thought I should go home and teach myself that one. This is a virtuoso solo electric guitar piece that has nothing to do with the song that follows it except it just sounds so cool and heck if I know why it's even there. It's an arpeggioed Em-G pattern with two thunderous tom slams at the end of each go 'round, and then into the E major boogie of the song with the nearly un-decipherable lyrics.

12) Arthur Conley -- "Sweet Soul Music." Who would have thought that the main motif from "The Magnificent Seven" on horns could translate into one of the great soul music intro's of the 60's? And what a great song, name checking southern soul greats like Wilson Pickett, Lou Rawls, and James Brown.



13) Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons -- "Let's Hang On." The sung intro to this hit reminds me of a lot of old 40's songs, such as the so-called "American songbook" of Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, which had sung mini-intros that had no resemblance to the rest of the song. It's like that kind of throwback to those days and damn if it works: "There ain't no good in our goodby-in'... True love takes a lot of tryin'... oh I'm cryin'."



14) The Doors -- "Light My Fire." I don't know who thought of the idea of piecing together the chord progressions of John Coltrane's version of "My Favorite Things" and turning it into a Bach-sounding canticle roaring into one of rock's psychedelic classics, but it worked all too well.





15) Jimi Hendrix -- "Foxey Lady." I'm not the world's biggest Hendrix fan, but how can I not appreciate a searing growing feedback buzz coming in from the distance as this song's intro. He was the first to do this on a hit single, and it represented him perfectly.




16) Aerosmith -- "Sweet Emotion." It took a lot of imagination to do a pretty lengthy spaced-out intro like this before Joey Kramer's snare intro bumps into this hard rock classic. Shakers, a guitar talk box, funky bass -- it's all groove with no drums, but it gives you plenty of time to anticipate the roaring guitars about to come.



17) The Sweet -- "Ballroom Blitz"/"Fox On The Run." I can't believe I almost left these two out. "Ballroom Blitz" has a truly insane kick-off, with a hard-pounding snare march and kick back beat, and Brian Connolly calling out each member of the band: "Are you ready, Steve?" "Ah hah." "Andy?" "Yeah!" "Mick?" "OK." "All right, fellas. Let's go-o-o-o-o!" I mean, what the hell was that? And "Fox On The Run" with its analog synth going out of control, its cutoff opening wider and wider until it blows its top. You have to credit the brilliant producer Mike Chapman for those memorable beginnings and songs themselves.


RUNNER UPS:

Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airman -- "Hot Rod Lincoln." How can you not love a song that starts with the singer alone babbling out one cool line from the end of it?

Boz Scaggs -- "Lido Shuffle." Jeff Porcaro's confident fast shuffle to David Hungate's one note bass playing 16ths. Sometimes the simplest things just work.

The 80's

When I get to best song openings of the 80's down the line, I'm 100% sure that Prince's "Dearly beloved" monologue for "Let's Go Crazy" is going to top the list.