Friday Musical Feast Celebrating the 2022 Birthday of Members of the Chords, Chordettes, Esquires, Spirit, and Love!

by Robert Wilkinson

We’ve had a host of musical birthdays since the Equinox, so today we dance to some short sets of acts you may not recognize, but you’ve definitely heard their music!

First, we celebrate the music of Claude Feaster (September 23, 1933 - November 1975) of the Chords, who had one gigantic hit in 1954! “Life is but a dream sweetheart....” “Sh-Boom”

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Our next short set celebrates the birthday of Janet Ertel (September 21, 1913 – November 22, 1988) of the Chordettes, an amazing acapella group known for two massive hits in the mid-50s!

Live on tv in February 1958, performing this classic for Dick Clark’s Saturday Night Beech-Nut Hour “Lollipop” and “Mr. Sandman”

They also hit #5 with “Born to Be With You”

We’ll close with this one which went to #14! “Eddie My Love”

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Our third short set celebrates the life and work of Sam Pace (born Sammie L. Pace, September 22, 1944 - January 7, 2013) of the Esquires, an R&B group who had one gigantic hit in the ‘60s! “Get On Up” made it to #11 on the pop charts, and #3 on the R&B charts in 1967, and was on the radio several times a day for months!

“Get On Up” with “And Get Away”

They never made much of an impact besides these two songs, but here’s a clip which will autoload several tunes they did, showcasing their style. They playlist begins with “Everybody’s Laughing” and goes from there. Enjoy!

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We now go to a couple of longer sets of musicians who made their mark in the Los Angeles music machine of the late 60s! Our next set features the work of Bryan MacLean (September 25, 1946 – December 25, 1998) of the band Love, a unique creation of the troubled legend Arthur Lee. From Wikipedia:

”Bryan MacLean's mother was an artist and a dancer, and his father was an architect for Hollywood celebrities such as Elizabeth Taylor and Dean Martin. Neighbor Frederick Loewe, of the songwriting team Lerner & Loewe, recognized him as a "melodic genius" at the age of three as he doodled on the piano. His early influences were Billie Holiday and George Gershwin, although he confessed to an obsession with Elvis Presley. During his childhood, he wore out show music records from Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma, South Pacific and West Side Story. His first girlfriend was Liza Minnelli and they would sit at the piano together singing songs from The Wizard of Oz. He learned to swim in Elizabeth Taylor's pool, and his father's good friend was actor Robert Stack. Bryan appears in the 1957 Cary Grant film An Affair to Remember singing in the Deborah Kerr character's music class….”

He hung with the Byrds, dated Jackie DeShannon, auditioned for the Monkees, and finally climbed into Arthur Lee’s car and made history! They made the first three Love albums, and the third, Forever Changes is generally considered a masterpiece to this day. It’s been one of my favorite albums of all time, but it does leave me in a strange emotional space each time. Released in late 1967, it was written and recorded during the legendary “Summer of Love,” but painted a darker picture of the counterculture than any of the other psychedelic offerings of the time.

To note, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Forever Changes 40th in its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. NME puts it 6th, and many reviewers across the years feel it's one of the top three of all time. From AllMusic,

Forever Changes is also an album that heralds the last days of a golden age and anticipates the growing ugliness that would dominate the counterculture in 1968 and 1969; images of violence and war haunt "A House Is Not a Motel," the street scenes of "Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hillsdale" reflects a jaded mindset that flower power could not ease, the twin specters of race and international strife rise to the surface of "The Red Telephone," romance becomes cynicism in "Bummer in the Summer," the promise of the psychedelic experience decays into hard drug abuse in "Live and Let Live," and even gentle numbers like "Andmoreagain" and "Old Man" sound elegiac, as if the ghosts of Chicago and Altamont were visible over the horizon as Love looked back to brief moments of warmth. Forever Changes is inarguably Love’s masterpiece and an album of enduring beauty, but it's also one of the few major works of its era that saw the dark clouds looming on the cultural horizon, and the result was music that was as prescient as it was compelling.

And from Wikipedia, a final note:

In an obituary of Lee in early 2007, Kandia Crazy Horse of Vibe Magazine wrote that "Forever Changes (was) his psychedelic masterpiece ... an exhilarating mash-up of West Side freak folk with East Side mariachi and blues. Lee out-jangles his heroes the Byrds on the immortal 'Alone Again Or' and aims his symphonic trigger dead at the Beatles on his greatest work, 'You Set the Scene.' In total, a glorious song cycle exploring the dark side of hippiedom."

For your consideration, the music of Bryan Maclean!

First, a very rare find! Here's Arthur and Love on what looks to be Where the Action Is with Dick Clark hosting. Yes, that's Bryan looking very young, and Johnny looking very guitar-y! Welcome to Love as they do a "live" performance of "Little Red Book"

Now we go to the studio work. We’ll begin with Arthur and Bryan’s masterpiece. Here’s the entire album Forever Changes in its magnificent uniqueness. From November 1967, it’s haunting to this day. Love – Forever Changes. From that album, the haunting "A House Is Not A Motel," "Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale," and "You Set the Scene."

From that album, Bryan’s beautiful and compelling “Alone Again Or” and “Old Man”

Counting back, from November 1966, the second Love album (featuring their hit “7 and 7 Is”): Love – Da Capo.

From that album, Bryan’s “Orange Skies”

From March 1966, the very first Love album (featuring “My Little Red Book”): Love – the First Album

From that album, Bryan’s “Softly to Me” and “Mushroom Clouds.”

Also from the first album, we’ll close with one of Bryan’s tunes, clearly Byrds influenced! “And More”

The encore is his 1997 album of all the tunes he wrote while with Love which were never put on an album (and some which were). This is 47 minutes of music from 1966 through 1982 including several from the Forever Changes era, so enjoy this alternate trip back to the 60s with updated versions of his classics performed in the 70s and 80s. For your enjoyment, Ifyoubelievein

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Our last set features the work of John Locke (September 25, 1943 – August 4, 2006), keyboard player for Spirit and Nazareth. Today’s we’ll focus primarily on his work for Spirit.

We begin with Spirit on French tv performing their hit from their first album “Fresh Garbage” From the same gig, another great performance! Here are two gems written by Randy California! “1984” and “I Got A Line On You.”

Here’s the very exciting music video of “I Got A Line On You”

A gem! It's the original lineup in an exciting psychedelic video made in LA in 1970 cranking out “1984”

From their first album, one of my all-time favorites titled "Elijah."

I found it again! This year we have the entire 43 minute audio set from the legendary 1969 Texas Pop Festival. For your enjoyment, Spirit Live at the Texas International Pop Festival – 1969. (This had just happened when I hit the UT campus in September of 1969, and people were buzzing!)

A real score! From May 1970 at the Fillmore West, 2 hours and 9 of Spirit Live at the Fillmore West – 1970

Last year I had the original line up doing a great live hour and 23 radio broadcast at the Paramount Theater in Seattle on New Year’s Eve 1971, but it also disappeared. However, from that show, I found this 8 minutes of gold! Spirit – “Hey Joe”

From 1984 in SF, a great live performance of their first hit, the very hypnotic “Mechanical World”

From their second album, a tune Ed and Randy wrote! "It's All the Same."

To get a sense of how this band was so different from other bands of the era, here are some of their early albums that blew the doors down!

Their first album was revolutionary, since it created a sound that was never known before then! The first three songs (“Fresh Garbage,” “Uncle Jack,” and “Mechanical World”) are a seamless suite of rock, jazz, and psychedelia! The fourth, “Taurus,” is what Jimmy Page reworked in “Stairway to Heaven.” For your enjoyment, Spirit

From 1968, their second! The Family that Plays Together

From 1969, their third album! Clear Spirit

From 1970, their 4th legendary album, The 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus

He also played on Randy California’s solo album Euroamerican

In the early 80s, he did keyboards for this incarnation of Nazareth! The Fool Circle and 2XS

He also played on the album Snaz, and if you liked that, you’ll love this live hour and 33 show in Vancouver! Nazareth Live in Vancouver The Snaz Tour - 1981

We’ll close with work he did for the Stray Cats, sharing keyboard duty with the awesome Ian Stewart of the Rolling Stones! Gonna Ball

For the encore, the title song of an album John played on for Tom Rush! “Wrong End of the Rainbow.”

© Copyright 2022 Robert Wilkinson

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