Category: 1965-1969

“Hello Train” (1968) – John Martyn * Written by John Martyn * LP: The Tumbler * Produced by Al Stewart * Label: Island

The John Martyn from his first two albums (London Conversation and The Tumbler) is a different John from his legend. On these, his percussive trademark guitar had already begun emerging, but their pastoral tweeness would begin wilting away by album three (Stormbringer) onward. One could likely construct a full children’s album out of certain selections from his 1967-1970 output. After hearing the kid-friendly “Hello Train,” with its “April Fool” refrain and backwards tape loops, you may never let an April 1st go by without the song clickety-clacking through your head.

“Ace of Spades” (1965) – Link Wray * Written by Link Wray and Mark Cooper * 45: “Ace of Spades” / “Hidden Charms” * Produced by Ray Vernon * Label: Swan

Menacing nighttime music from the man who had composed the only instrumental record to be banned. But if “Rumble” sounded like leather-jacket gang warfare, “Ace of Spades” sounded like a lone delinquent stalking a deserted boulevard at 3 AM. Dangerous too, but in a different way. Music like this gives the “Don’t Drop Out” message that appeared on mid-sixties Swan releases an embossed effect. Co-writer “Mark Cooper” was an alias for Milt Grant, who hosted a TV show called The Record Hop that boasted Wray and the Raymen as its house band. His song credits are likely of an honorary wheel-greaser nature; none of the Norton label’s Link Wray reissues include him.

“Abba Zabba” (1966) – Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band * Written by Don Van Vliet * LP: Safe as Milk * Produced by Bob Krasnow and Richard Perry * Label: Buddah

“Abba Zabba” foretells the hypnotic, jungle-chant quality Beefheart would bring to his future catalog. But its vocal patter also brings to mind eighties celebrity reports locating Beefheart as a Jack Nicholson-style regular at Los Angeles Lakers games, where he presumably classified the rhythms of bouncing basketballs as a distinct musical genre. So the late Beefheart resembled the old one; he “jumped in a circle,” like the farmer in his “Floppy Boot Song.”

“Neighbor Neighbor” (1966) – Jimmy Hughes * Written by Huey Meaux * 45: “Neighbor Neighbor” / “It’s a Good Thing” * Label: Fame

With his fan base in Houston and New Orleans, it was fitting that “Steal Away” Jimmy Hughes would also chart with a song written by Crazy Cajun Records’ Huey Meaux. “Neighbor Neighbor” (1966) reached #4 on Billboard’s R&B chart and #65 on the Hot 100, and captures Percy Sledge’s Alabama cousin sounding like Little Willie John’s rock and roll twin. In 1970, after a few unsuccessful years on Stax/Volt, Hughes would lose patience with the music industry and abandon it for a job with the nuclear industry in Tennessee.

A 1966-67 TV ad campaign for Benson & Hedges 100’s focused on the extra long cigarettes’ disadvantages, making for situational giggles. The commercial was popular enough for the alluring musical backdrop to get some airplay on its own. Written by Mitch Leigh, the same man who scored the Man of La Mancha musical, the genuine as-heard-on-television article made enough noise in Cleveland to chart locally and to get listed in a 2/11/67 issue of Billboard as a potential breakout hit. This record was credited to “The Answer” on the red Columbia label, and the arrangers are listed as “Music Makers,” aka Leigh’s own production house. (Joel Whitburn’s Top Pop Singles erroneously cites Bill Dean and John Campbell as the songwriters.) Another arrangement of this song, by Phil Bodner’s studio assembly the Brass Ring, entered the charts a week earlier on the Dunhill label with the hyphenated title “The Dis-Advantages of You” (and an arrangement of the “Dating Game” theme on side B). Peaking at #36, it won the battle of the jingle singles, outpacing the original as a full-blown Top 40 hit.

“Superstar” (1969) – Murray Head with the Trinidad Singers * Written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice * 45: “Superstar” / “John Nineteen Forty-One” * LP: Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) * Produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice * Label: Decca * Charts: Billboard #14; UK: #47

The 1969 leadoff single for Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s ambitious rock opera starring the Son of God did its part in generating anticipation for an album that wouldn’t hit shelves until late 1970. The single sleeve attributes the track as coming “from the Rock Opera ‘Jesus Christ’ now in preparation.” The single would enter the US Billboard charts three separate times between 1970 and 1971, and appeared on the UK singles chart as late as 1972. A promo clip featuring vocalist Murray Head, who would be Judas Iscariot in the musical and who had recently starred in a London run of Hair, shows him climbing around cathedral ruins and singing alongside a chorus of six women billed as the “Trinidad Singers.” Its early association with the “Respect” or “Oh Happy Day” tradition ought not to be discounted as a broad appeal factor.