Life Optimized
When Atlantic records needed a single from the “Fragile” LP, they didn’t tell the band they were cutting the 8:29 album version to 3:27. Yes first heard it on the radio when traveling between gigs and they weren’t happy about it… until it became a smash hit.
“I Shot the Sheriff” was the hit single from Eric Clapton’s “461 Ocean Blvd” LP. But, for me, “Let It Grow” is the cut that never grows old.
There is beauty in simplicity. Peel back all the conflicting stories about what the lyrics in “Itchycoo Park” mean, that’s the message.
Some don’t consider “California Soul” to be a major 5th Dimension hit. But it still hooks me, every time I hear it.
At barely two minutes, Del Amitri’s 1995 smash, “Roll To Me” is a timeless tune that channels the best of the 1960s.
Producer Bones Howe is the real catalyst behind Jimmy Webb’s iconic, “MacArthur Park”. He came up with the idea. Webb created the charts. The Association rejected it. Richard Harris, with WABC programmer, Rick Sklar’s help, made it a hit.
“Motherhood is.. the one job where, the better you are, the more surely you won’t be needed in the long run.” ~ Barbara Kingsolver, Pigs In Heaven
The inimitable Creem and Rolling Stone rock journalist, Lester Bangs dubbed the Troggs, the “godfathers of punk”. So there’s a certain irony that their most enduring hit was a love song.
When Nathan East decided to release a collection under his own name, Van Morrison’s “Moondance” was one of 14 eclectic tunes to make the cut. With Michael MacDonald on vocals it rocks like few cover tunes ever do.
When Kiki Dee joined Elton John’s Rocket Records, a career that had been simmering since the mid 1960s took off. And 1974’s “I’ve Got the Music In Me” was the fuse that lit the fire.