Media Condition: Near Mint (NM or M-)
Sleeve Condition: Near Mint (NM or M-)
Country: US
Released: 1994
Genre: Rock, Funk / Soul
Style: Soft Rock, Pop Rock, Soul
Location: CD 32
Comments:
CD, Artwork and Case are like new
Notes:
Time-Life released this disc as [r8860110 (SUD-05) in the [l774983 series in 1991, and as [r619389 (AM1-08) in the [l328190 series in 1994. ℗ 1991 Warner Special Products © 1991, 1994 Time Life Inc. Track durations obtained from software. Publishing: Track 1- Charles Koppelman Music/Jonathan Three Music/Martin Bandier Music BMI Track 2- Hudson Bay Music Inc. o/b/o Ft. Knox Music, Inc. BMI Track 3, 8, 15- Screen Gems-EMI Music, Inc. BMI Track 4- Duchess Music Corp. BMI Track 5- Delicious Apple Music Corp./Downtown Music/Top of The Town Music ASCAP Track 6- Pamco Music, Inc. BMI Track 7- Jobete Music Co., Inc. ASCAP Track 9- Blue Seas Music, Inc/Jac Music Inc. ASCAP Track 10, 19- Gibb Brothers Music BMI Track 11- Conrad Music/Olrap Publ. Co., Inc. BMI Track 12- Irving Music, Inc. BMI Track 13- ATV Music Corp./Duchess Music Corp. BMI/Welbeck Music Ltd. PRS Track 14- Painted Desert Music Corp. BMI Track 16- Charing Cross BMI Track 17- Akbestal Music/Luvlin Music Inc. BMI Track 18- Stone Agate Music BMI Track 20- Tree Publ. Co., Inc. BMI Track 21- Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. BMI Track 22- Northridge Music Co. ASCAP Complete liner notes: Not only was Ode to Billie Joe one of the biggest hits of the '60s, it was also one of the most unlikely-and, thanks to a 1976 movie based on the song, it was still alive nearly a decade later. Which is more than could be said for poor Billie Joe McAllister, the song's protagonist. Bobbie Gentry grew up Roberta Lee Streeter in Chickasaw County, the heart of the Mississippi Delta. In 1957, at the age of 13, she moved with her mother to Palm Springs, California; after seeing Jennifer Jones in Ruby Gentry, she changed her name. By 1966 she was fronting her own vocaldance group in Las Vegas. In search of a publisher for the songs she had written, Gentry cut a demo of her Mississippi Delta-but after it reached a Capitol executive she became a recording artist. Before her first session for the label, Bobbie woke up at three one morning and scribbled down the line "Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge." She later built her song around those words and cut it in 30 minutes at the end of a session, as the B side to Mississippi Delta. But the languid, Southern Gothic Ode raised so many questions (What did Billie Joe throw off the bridge? What happened to him?) that it became the hit; it also won three Grammys. Bobbie married Vegas magnate Bill Harrah and worked the Nevada resorts, even though she couldn't sustain a recording career for long. When the Billie Joe movie came out, she cut a new version of the song, which enjoyed brief chart status. The movie struggled conspicuously to keep up with the times as it answered the big questions: After throwing his girlfriend's rag doll off the bridge, Billie Joe killed himself because he feared he was gay. But back in 1967, the year of flower power, hits like Windy and Up-Up and Away were more typical. The former was written in 3/4 time by 19-year-old folkie Ruthann Friedman about her Haight-Ashbury boyfriend. Producer Bones Howe, brought in to bolster the Association's sagging commercial power, was responsible for the song's overhaul. This was the first record on which the group members didn't play their own instruments. Up-Up and Away, the 5th Dimension's first top-10 single, won four Grammys, including Best Song honors for its writer, Jim Webb. Webb's inspiration for the song was the hot-air balloon his San Bernardino DJ friend William F. Williams flew on promotions for radio station KMEN. Both men felt this would make a fine title tune to a documentary they hoped to shoot on ballooning. The film never happened, but a couple of years later, rehearsing the 5th Dimension for Soul City Records in the absence of label owner Johnny Rivers, Webb gave the song to the group. Rivers made it the title song of the 5th Dimension's debut album. The Mamas and the Papas were still going strong in 1967. Dedicated to the One I Love was a rhythm and blues ballad cowritten by Lowman Pauling and done by his group, the "5" Royales, in 1958; but it's more likely that John, Michelle, Denny and Cass knew the song via its 1961 girl-group interpretation by the Shirelles. Gene Pistilli and Terry Cashman wrote Sunday Will Never Be the Same with the Mamas and the Papas or the Left Banke in mind. But when both those groups passed, the team took it to Mercury producer Jerry Ross (who also did Keith's 98.6), and he recorded it with Chicago Mamas and Papas sound-alikes Spanky and Our Gang. The Turtles were a former surf band (known as the Crossfires) riding the folk-rock bandwagon. Put together by Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, who later performed as Flo and Eddie, the group was breaking up when songwriters Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon (of the Magicians) brought a dub of Happy Together to a Turtles gig at the Phone Booth in New York City. The dub had been rejected so many times it was almost unplayable, but Kaylan and Volman liked the song. And Happy Together gave the Turtles' career a second wind. Though it sounds buoyant, it is, according to the writers, the depressed fantasy of a guy in love with a woman who doesn't care for him. The Stone Poneys were a folk-rock trio with Linda Ronstadt up front. But she was backed by studio musicians on Different Drum, written by Michael Nesmith of the Monkees. The record's success led her to quit the group and work as a solo artist backed by session players. Daydream Believer, written by John Stewart of the Kingston Trio, was the first Monkees hit on which the boys played their own instruments; Nesmith led that rebellion against Don Kirshner and the other businessmen who assembled and controlled the group. But without the benefit of their TV show, which the network canceled in 1968 after 59 episodes, the Monkees began slipping off the charts a little more than six months after this record went to No. 1. Their fellow Beatles imitators the Bee Gees were still on the ascent with songs like To Love Somebody and (The Lights Went Out In) Massachusetts. Among soul acts, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles kept pace with I Second That Emotion. Robinson cowrote this gem with guitarist Al Cleveland after the latter accidentally misstated the "motion" phrase while the two men were Christmas shopping. Love Is Here and Now You're Gone was one of the last Supremes efforts before Florence Ballard was replaced by Cindy Birdsong and Diana Ross took over star billing for the trio. Lamont Dozier, who cowrote and coproduced as usual, recalled that the idea was to take advantage of Diana's unique "talk-singing" style: "She would start singing these songs and if they touched her emotionally, she would just cry and sing on the spot ... it was no big surprise that she went into the movie business." Dionne Warwick's I Say a Little Prayer joined (Theme from) Valley of the Dolls to become her most successful two-sided hit. Aaron Neville's Tell It Like It Is used a black expression that hippies and the student left had begun to adopt. Neville disliked the song before he cut it, as did writer Lee Diamond, former leader of Little Richard's band. But by the time producer George Davis was finished, the record sounded so good that Neville's small label was swamped trying to press (and pay for) enough copies to keep up with the demand. Come Back When You Grow Up marked the return of teen idol Bobby Vee to the top 10 after a five-year absence. Welshman Tom Jones scored with Green, Green Grass of Home, a Curly Putman country standard inspired by a scene in John Huston's 1950 The Asphalt Jungle in which the driver of a gang's getaway car retires to his native South. British chanteuse Petula Clark's Don't Sleep In the Subway was patched together by producer Tony Hatch from fragments of three songs. The Cowsills had a story almost as unlikely as that of Bobbie Gentry. The Rhode Island singing family group was put together by retired U.S. Navy chief petty officer Bud Cowsill, who combined his wife with his four youngest sons. They built a repertoire of 500 songs as they toured, and Cowsill pere used his two other sons as roadie and sound engineer and took his four-year-old daughter along for the ride. Apparently running the operation on a military model, he went $100,000 into debt and was on the verge of surrendering before writer-producer Artie Kornfeld came to the rescue. Kornfeld got the group a deal, gave them The Rain, the Park and Other Things and launched a $250,000 promotion campaign that made them so popular that they inspired the TV show The Partridge Family. At which point the Partridges began putting the Cowsills out of business. -John Morthland
1. The Fifth Dimension - Up-Up And Away 2:39
2. The Turtles - Happy Together 2:55
3. The Monkees - Daydream Believer 2:56
4. The Mamas & The Papas - Dedicated To The One I Love 3:00
5. The Young Rascals - How Can I Be Sure 2:54
6. Spanky & Our Gang - Sunday Will Never Be The Same 2:58
7. Smokey Robinson, The Miracles - I Second That Emotion 2:46
8. Keith (2) - 98.6 3:03
9. Dionne Warwick - I Say A Little Prayer 3:03
10. Bee Gees - To Love Somebody 2:58
11. Aaron Neville - Tell It Like It Is 2:43
12. The Association (2) - Windy 2:52
13. Petula Clark - Don't Sleep In The Subway 2:58
14. Bobby Vee, The Strangers (17) - Come Back When You Grow Up 2:43
15. The Stone Poneys - Different Drum 2:37
16. Harpers Bizarre - The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy) 2:36
17. The Cowsills - The Rain, The Park And Other Things 2:58
18. The Supremes - Love Is Here And Now You're Gone 2:46
19. Bee Gees - (The Lights Went Out In) Massachusetts 2:22
20. Tom Jones - Green, Green Grass Of Home 3:05
21. The Casinos - Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye 3:03
22. Bobbie Gentry - Ode To Billie Joe 4:12
Barcode and Other Identifiers:
Rights Society BMI
Rights Society ASCAP
Rights Society PRS
Remastered At Hit And Run Studios
Phonographic Copyright (p) Warner Special Products
Copyright (c) Time Life Inc.
Published By Charles Koppelman Music
Published By Jonathan Three Music
Published By Martin Bandier Music
Published By Hudson Bay Music
Published By Fort Knox Music, Inc.
Published By Screen Gems-EMI Music Inc.
Published By Duchess Music Corp.
Published By Delicious Apple Music Corp.
Published By Downtown Music Company
Published By Top Of The Town Music
Published By Pamco Music Inc.
Published By Jobete Music Co., Inc.
Published By Blue Seas Music, Inc.
Published By Jac Music Inc.
Published By Gibb Brothers Music
Published By Conrad Music
Published By Olrap Publishing Co., Inc.
Published By Irving Music, Inc.
Published By ATV Music Corp.
Published By Welbeck Music Ltd.
Published By Painted Desert Music Corp.
Published By Charing Cross Music
Published By Akbestal Music Inc.
Published By Luvlin Music, Inc.
Published By Stone Agate Music
Published By Tree Publishing Co., Inc.
Published By Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.
Published By Northridge Music Co.
Manufactured For Time Life Music
Manufactured By Warner Special Products