Fantastic Friday Festival Celebrating the 2022 Birthday of the Troggs, Dovells, Ink Spots, Sopwith Camel, and the Blues Magoos!
by Robert Wilkinson
Gemini continues to offer us some major musical birthdays, and today we have a broad spectrum of musical offerings! Tonight we celebrate the birthday of one of the prototypical punk rockers, Reg Presley of the Troggs, who gave us one of the most memorable tunes in history, as well as the birthday of Len Barry of the Dovells and Bill Kenny of the Ink Spots! We also celebrate the birthday of Terry McNeil of Sopwith Camel, and the birthday of Peppy Castro of the Blues Magoos!
Our first set has major attitude! Reg Presley (12 June 1941 – 4 February 2013) was the lead singer for the Troggs, said by Lester Bangs to be the "godfathers of punk." (I’d actually give that distinction to the Kinks. The Troggs actually began via the Kinks' manager.) While not really well known, they did give us one monster hit. For your remembrance and awe, the prototypical grunge tune that blew the doors down in 1966! Here is Reg fronting the Troggs in a very peculiar music video set in a train station, lip synching to the studio version of their singularly iconic grind, "Wild Thing."
Here are the Troggs live in 1973 at the Marquee Club in an incredibly psychedelic taping of them performing "Wild Thing"
If you wonder about how influential this song was, the greatest Guitar Master of all blew America’s mind by his performance at the legendary 1967 Summer of Love Monterey Pop Festival, with (as he put it) “all thanks to Bob Dylan's grandmother." This year that iconic 9+ minute clip of Jimi performing the "English and American combined anthem" is nowhere to be found. However, I found this 7 minute video of the moment Jimi Hendrix the musician became the legend! This is history in the making! "Wild Thing"
I also found four more great video performances from that era which are mind blowing!
Check this out! In Ipswich on my birthday 1967, an awesome live video of the Sag guitar wizard performing "Wild Thing." And from a few weeks later in May, Jimi live in France! "Wild Thing." We then go to a Music Orama Paris performance from October 1967 of "Wild Thing," and close with a performance from Dec 1967 at Blackpool where he goes to town on the song and his guitar! "Wild Thing."
Here's another Troggs song that also rocked the house! For your enjoyment, a great live video performance on French TV in 1966 of the Troggs cranking out a tune with major attitude, “I Can’t Control Myself” (if it doesn’t synch then just refresh the page)
Here’s the original music video for “I Can’t Control Myself”
From 1966, sounding like one of the more mellow Velvet Underground tunes, here’s what said to be the promo film for “Any Way That You Want Me.” I also found this 1967 color music video for “Any Way That You Want Me.”
Check out the Troggs live in 1967 performing their second hit, "With A Girl Like You."
Here's the original studio flip side of “With A Girl Like You,” a great grinding garage rocker "I Want You"
The Troggs in 1968 performing their Top Ten 1967/68 hit "Love Is All Around."
Here’s the original 1966 studio version of their first single, with a very grungy driving beat! “Lost Girl”
We now go to Paris in 1967, where the Troggs are live and cranking out “I Can Only give You Everything” and rocking hard to “From Home.”
I found it again! Here’s their live Paris performance of Bo Diddley’s classic rocker “Mona,” and here’s their studio version of “Mona”
This is said to be the entire 16 minute clip! The Troggs Live in Paris - 1967
From July 1967, a very weird music video of the Troggs doing “ Night of the Long Grass”
We'll close with a great 10 minute live clip from the following year! The Troggs Live at New Years’ Eve 1968 (the music is not synched to the video, but it’s still live)
In previous years I had a great three part 1994 documentary on this unique prototypical punk/grunge band from Andover, UK, but it’s disappeared, as has the 22 minute 1996 documentary from the My Generation BBC 2 tv series titled The Troggs – My Generation
For the encore, an 18 song clip of their hit singles! Some you’ve heard, some you haven’t. The Troggs Hit Singles Anthology
RIP Reg, and a huge thanks for what is probably the unofficial national anthem of just about every Western influenced culture! "Sock it to me one mo' time again, aw shucks I think I love you...."
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Our second set is short, and celebrates the birthday of Terry MacNeil (June 13, 1944), lead player for Sopwith Camel, one of the early Bay Area psychedelic folk bands who hit big in 1966-67 and faded fast.
Here’s the Sopwith Camel, who had one gigantic hit! Here they’re lip synching in one of the more bizarre “music videos” ever made performing their gigantic hit “Hello Hello.” Here’s the entire one hit wonder album! Sopwith Camel First Album.
Here are two from that album that typify the 60s! First, the grunge protopunk of “Cellophane Woman” and the etherial psychedelia of “Maybe in a Dream”
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For our third and fourth sets, a return to more innocent times and music. Len Barry (born Leonard Borisoff - June 12, 1942-November 5, 2020) was a Grammy Award nominated American vocalist, songwriter, and record producer. He was the lead vocalist of the Philly sound hitmakers the Dovells, and went on to a successful solo career. For your enjoyment, Mister Len Barry! These were all produced and/or written by the legendary Kal Mann!
Here’s their first single from 1961. Even though it didn’t chart, it’s a classic! “No No No”
This classic went to #2 on the pop charts in 1961 and inspired a dance! “The Bristol Stomp”
They cranked it up in 1962 with the track from the movie Don’t Knock the Twist, “(Do the New) Continental” which they followed with “Bristol Twisting Annie” (#27 pop) and then another that made it to #25 on the pop charts, “Hully Gully Baby”
Classic do-wop from 1962! “To Make A Long Story Short”
Their last big hit went to #3 in 1963! “You Can’t Sit Down.” Here’s the flip side of that 45, “Wildwood Days”
Len went solo in 1963, and two years later took this tune to #3 on the pop charts! Singing to a backing track on the Hollywood A Go Go tv show, “1-2-3”
For our closer, his last solo hit that went to #27, “Like A Baby”
Thanks for all those musical moments in the early 60s when I was at Seaside Heights on the Jersey shore. The Dovells (and Dee Dee Sharp, the Orlons, Lou Christie, the Four Seasons and more!) blasted non-stop out of those tinny speakers as the waves crashed against the pier. You were in every “stack of wax” at every twist party, and made those Summers special!
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Bill Kenny (June 12, 1914 – March 23, 1978) was the lead vocalist for the original Ink Spots from 1936 to 1954. They were one of the prototypical vocal groups that paved the way for all the doo wop groups that followed. Today we have a few of their best, with Bill’s high tenor 4 octave range on top! (Interestingly, he had a twin who later joined the Ink Spots, giving us a vocal group with Gemini twins up front!) And yes, they pioneered the sound of that solo acoustic guitar being the intro to most of their songs.
From 1938, “I Wish You The Best of Everything”
A great movie clip of them performing in 1939! This was one of their biggest hits, going to #2, with a classic “top-bottom” style they pioneered! This is the first hit ever to have a talking bass section with the high end in the background. “If I Didn’t Care” (this tune is the 10th best-selling single of all time at 19 million units sold!)
1939 was very good for the group, as they followed that with some very big hits! This one went to #1! “Address Unknown”
“My Prayer” (#3)
“Bless You” (#15)
From 1940, “Memories of You” (#29)
“When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano” (#4)
Maybe” (#2 )
“We Three (My Echo, my Shadow and Me)” (#1)
They teamed up with Ella Fitzgerald in 1944, and went to #1 with “I’m Making Believe”
From 1946, another #1! “The Gypsy” which they followed with this #9 hit, “Prisoner of Love”
We’ll close this birthday tribute to an ancient musical era with their last #1, also from 1946! “To Each His Own”
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And now for the closing act, The Blues Magoos! June 16 is the birthday of Emil “Peppy” Theilhelm (aka Peppy Castro, June 16, 1950), one of the guitarists and vocalists for the group. Other than Ron Gilbert (bass - Apr 25, 1946), there’s almost no biographical information on the group members, except that Ralph Scala (keyboards, vocals) was born in 1947, and Mike Esposito (lead guitar) was born in 1940.)
They were one of the truly original psychedelic groups, and I had the privilege of seeing them 3 times when they were huge! One show they came out in leather jackets and pants, trimmed with glowing and flashing neon tube lights sewn into the fabric. After blowing all the fuses in the auditorium three times, they turned off their neon flashing outfits and finished the show in regular clothes. Whether you think this is psychedelic or grunge garage rock, this music is exciting!
From their first album released in 1966, Psychedelic Lollipop, here’s a lip-synched “performance” of their first big hit! “We Ain’t Got Nothing Yet”
Here’s a great loud and raucous live performance on The Jack Benny Show of another tune from the first album, the John D. Loudermilk classic “Tobacco Road”
Here are 3 more from that album!
“Sometimes I Think About (High)”
Here’s the entire album! Psychedelic Lollipop
Live on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967, their hit from their second album Electric Comic Book, “Pipe Dream”
He’s another live performance, this time of another from that album, “There’s A Chance We Can Make It”
Here are the studio versions of “There’s A Chance We Can Make It” and “Albert Common is Dead”
This link takes you to the entire album! Electric Comic Book
From their third album Basic Blues Magoos, we have 4! First, the very driving and hypnotic “There She Goes” which we’ll follow with “I Want To Be There.” We’ll take it into “Accidental Meditation” and finish with the Roy Wood #5 hit for the Move, “I Can Hear The Grass Grow.”
Here’s the full album! Basic Blues Magoos
After all these years, they’re still rocking strong! You can find out more by going to their website The Blues Magoos
© Copyright 2022 Robert Wilkinson
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