Scrumthing Good: You, I, and The Rugbys

The Rugbys “You, I” (Amazon, 1969)

Mike Shanley

The Rugbys

Back when 5 & 10 (or “Five and Dime”) stores were easy to find in Downtown Pittsburgh, during the early ’70s, there were more things than the smell of roasted nuts that could win over a kid’s attention while moms looked at discount clothing or other boring things. There were crates of records – albums and singles. Sometimes the 45s came sealed in plastic with three records available for one price. They also came packed in white boxes, lending a bit of intrigue to them. 

These singles weren’t leftover copies of “Close to You” or “Billy Don’t Be a Hero” or other Top 40 fare. These were acts that never quite made the big time. The ones that fell into my hands were on labels like Decca and UNI or smaller imprints like SSS International, Plantation or Amazon. Incidentally the first set of initials were not related to either Germans during World War II or a Pittsburgh industrial label (that wouldn’t happen for about 15 more years), nor did the third name have any connection with a current corporate monolith. The three S’s stood for “Shelby S. Singleton,” a Nashville record producer who had a hand in all these labels.

For a young kid who loved devouring records in general, it didn’t exactly matter if the music wasn’t that great. They were something new to check out. But when a record was great, there was a good chance that it would land in heavy rotation on the phonograph and stay there.

The Rugbys, from Louisville, Kentucky, produced one such single. It came on the Amazon imprint, whose art featured the label named written in big letters above the spindle hole. On the left side of the label was a drawing of a young lady with long flowing hair covering the important body parts. As a youngster, I overlooked the drawing, being more interested in what I would hear when the needle on my Mickey Mouse record player dropped into the groove.

The Rugbys “You, I” single label

The sound that launches “You, I” resembles an angry bumblebee, buzzing close to the microphone. As a kid, I knew it was a guitar but I liked that it didn’t sound like one, at least not yet. After a few seconds the source of the buzz, guitarist Steve McNicol, goes into a chunky riff and the rest of the Rugbys kicks in.

McNicol, organist Ed Vernon, and bassist Mike Hoerni (yeah, sure that was his real name) play staccato stop-start chords during the verses, while drummer Glenn Howerton keeps going. Sounding like a distant cousin of the Kinks’ “Till The End of the Day,” the riff’s arrangement adds tension, which the song needs since the lyrics were on par with songs I was writing back in my grade school days:

You … [stretched into two syllables]
You don’t want me to
Fall in love with you
What else can I doooooooooo
I, when I think of you
Every time I do
All I see is bluuuuuuuuuuue

[I skipped ahead to the second verse, just for the record.]

The Rugbys “You, I”

Clunky lyrics aside, they’re creating suspense as they keep starting to rock out after every third line, only to cut back to staccato during the vocals. It eventually leads up to a wah-wah guitar solo that sounds both vocal and a little whiney. McNicol must have been listening to his Hendrix and early Deep Purple records and was ready to use that pedal his own way. Combined with the band’s falsetto vocals behind the solo, he’s not been fully successful. In fact, the end of the solo almost sounds like a mistake. But the best was yet to come.

After another verse, where McNicol goes from pleading back to a garage rock snarl, the song starts to slow down. As it does, the guitarist unleashes a blast of wah wah that sounds like a feral cat ready for a brawl. As McNicol and Vernon hold down their final chord, Howerton’s drums cue the ending. It felt like the whole song was building up to that moment, a big ugly noise that would make any hip eight-year old record fan laugh every time.

A few months after buying the “You, I” single — or looking back, maybe it was just a weeks later — my mom returned to the 5 & 10 and came across Hot Cargo, the Rugbys lone full-length album. Spread over an entire album, the quartet had a bit of a Doors vibe going, at least when McNicol handled the singing. Vernon’s songs were equally catchy, though it was hard to take his gothic “Wendegahl the Warlock” seriously after hearing him mock (presumably) southern preachers in “Song To Fellow Man.”

That initial copy of the “You, I” single got lost somewhere along the way, but I came across another at an estate sale, with the same white label, as opposed to the color labels that other pressings and the album featured. The song holds up, though I think I was more excited to hear the B-side, “Stay With Me,” remembering that, in a flip of the typical standard, the album version faded out before the band went into a brief freak out in the coda. Hot Cargo, on the other hand, is still on my shelf though I picked up another copy (still sealed!) just a few years ago since my first copy amassed a few deep scratches over the years. 

Jacked Up Once More: It’s Animal Time, Again

Animal Time “It’s Like I’m Being You” (Brave Dog, 1988)

Mike Shanley

Animal Time, from the back cover of “Jacked Up? No More”–note the Chapman Stick on the stove top

The Chapman Stick is an instrument normally associated with progressive rock. For most folks, the 10-stringed device (six strings in the guitar range, four in bass range) likely evokes images of Tony Levin playing in King Crimson from the 1980s until now. The man who looks like a taller version of G. Gordon Liddy knows how to tap out bass lines with one hand and additional guitar lines with the other in some busy music. He doesn’t make it sound overstuffed either. Punk rock, on the other hand, is not a style where one might expect Chapman Stick.

But during the ’80s, it happened.

Down in Atlanta, Georgia, or thereabouts, lived brothers Jeff and Jay Norem. In the mid to late ’80s, they were making music together under the name Animal Time. Jeff played the Chapman Stick. Jay played the drums. But the brothers weren’t dabbling in any purely prog or jazz sounds, at least they weren’t by the time they went into the recording studio. Jay also sang and when he got worked up, his holler sounded a lot like Ian MacKaye, especially when he was defending himself by wailing, “I! WAS! ONLY! TRYING TO HELP!”  on their EP Double Veteran. As he was cutting loose on drums and throat, his brother was tapping out a riffs that were like jazz via the Minutemen –  quite visceral.

Eventually Animal Time grew in personnel. Steve Dixon joined on guitar and Dave Materna took over the drum stool so Jay could step out front and sing without having to straddle those tricky drum fills that complemented his brother’s licks. In addition to singing, he also blew some mean harmonica. The 1988 album Jacked Up? No More featured the quartet predominantly but it also included a few songs that were recorded as a duo. “It’s Like I’m Being You” had already been released as the B-Side of a single and it distills the best elements of the Animal Time attack.

The song begins with a chugging post-punk vamp that keeps dropping a beat. If you don’t know Jeff is playing the stick, you might mistake it for a simple guitar and bass lines. After a few bars of intro, things stop. “You’re like a Christmas tree with its lights unplugged,” Jay deadpans. When the music kicks back in, he’s at full boil, clarifying one of the greatest opening lines of the time: “A depressing sight, you don’t look like much.”

Perhaps Animal Time did have a little progressive rock in them because even at a near-hardcore tempo, they’re still able to chop off a few beats and keep things thrashing. Jay continues to channel the bile of Minor Threat-era MacKaye (Fugazi was still coming to the surface at this point) or any other pissed off punk peer from that time. And he does it with some well-executed barbs: “You and me, we’re a lot alike/ You disgust me, get out of my sight.” Then there’s the title line itself – “It’s like I’m being you – AND I DON’T LIKE THAT.”

After three verses, with room for an off-key harmonica break in the middle, the Norems bring in a trumpet and tenor sax duo to blow over the coda. Their harmonized line has an Zappa-esque sense of  angularity which works perfectly. The song drifts to an end, with a chuckle from one of the brothers, probably Jay, punctuating it. A similar bit of levity had happened at the end a song on Double Veteran. After ranting for 60 seconds over a thrashy riff in “So Far Behind,” things fall apart and  Jeff innocently says, “I thought that was fine.” From the control room comes a chorus of laughter. Like all good punks, he was pissed off but didn’t take himself too seriously.

Album cover for Animal Time’s 1988 album “Jacked Up? No More”

In the fall of 1988, the four-piece Animal Time toured to promote Jacked Up? No More. The band came to Pittsburgh and played a short-lived venue called The Foundry, which was essentially a hollowed-out industrial building in the Strip District. I had spent the summer listening to their records so I knew several of the songs and was excited to see them. After the set, Jay Norem approached me, having noticed that I was singing along to a few tunes and we struck up a conversation. He seemed flattered; I was happy to chat with a guy in a touring band. Drummer Dave Materna had friends in town so we all ended up going to party with them later that night.

Like many good bands from that period, Animal Time never released another record. Every so often, I’d pull out the album and wonder what happened to them.  In the early days of social media, I found Jay on MySpace and we exchanged a greeting or two.

Then last November, I received an email through my membership in the Jazz Journalists Association. “This is Jay Norem of the band Animal Time. We met in 1988 at a gig in Pittsburg [sic]. I have a box of the album Jacked Up? No More and I wonder if you’d like me to send them to you.” Some people might react to the message with a perplexed, “Wha??” but I remembered that show it like it was yesterday (even the terrible noisy band that preceded them).

As I was putting this column together, I reached out to Jay again, hoping that the records weren’t lost in the holiday mail. Turns out he hadn’t sent them yet, but promised to do so soon. So in lieu of finding their music online, and posting a link here, I will gladly deliver a copy of the album to any curious readers. It still holds up really well.

If anyone reading this happens to have a copy of Animal Time’s Double Veteran 12” EP, I would gladly take it. I never owned a copy.

And Jay doesn’t have any left.

Neither does his brother Jeff. Jay asked him.

---

Editor’s note: I’ll take one, Mike!

‘Tis the Season: “Girl Police”

Christmas “Girl Police” (Big Time, 1986)

Mike Shanley

Album cover art for Christmas’ “In Excelsior Dayglo”

D. Boon was dead: to begin with.

That’s how 1986 started. Or rather, how 1985 ended: personal denial, then the truth courtesy of MTV. Punk rock was taking a strange twist in the new year. No one knew that the Minutemen’s rhythm section would return in a new band before the year was over. Meanwhile, Hüsker Dü was about to release an album on Warner Brothers, which was … okay, I guess. Black Flag? They were starting to sound like that music that arty punks like me were trying to avoid in the first place – metal. “Slip It In” was cool, but all that My War stuff, and “Drinking and Driving” (“Drink / drink / drink / don’t think / drive/ kill”)? I’d be better off listening to Scorpions.

There had to be something else out there. My ears headed to Boston, in part because I still had dreams of attending the Berklee School of Music and hanging out with Pittsburgh ex-pats the Five. (Save your chuckles on both counts. I know.) Volcano Suns had proven there was life after Mission of Burma for Peter Prescott, who was becoming quite the songwriter and belter. Before 1986 wrapped up, came Christmas early.

For whatever reason, the bands that shook me to my core and filled my head full of musical ideas have been trios, predominantly. Many of them were infiltrating my head around that same time too: the aforementioned Minutemen, Hüsker Dü and Volcano Suns as well as Mission of Burma (yeah, I know they were actually a quartet if you count Martin “Soundman/Tape Loop Master” Swope), 28th Day (which gave us Barbara Manning for the first time), 100 Flowers (who were also gone but who I delved into whole hog). And Christmas.

Christmas — the band, not the holiday/commercial institution — was the trio of Michael Cudahy (guitar, vocals), Liz Cox (drums, vocals), and Dan Salzman (bass, backing vocals). They weren’t punks. In fact their songs were kind of catchy and jangly at times. Cox, who resembled actress Carol Kane a bit, added some high harmonies behind Cudahy when she wasn’t swapping lead vocals with him. Cudahy (whose name I mispronounced as “KOO-da-hi” until I found out about the city in Wisconsin pronounced “KUD-a-hee”) wrote most of the lyrics and had a wry sense of humor, not unlike Prescott. He came up with some great rants to go with the catchier moments. Even if Christmas wasn’t a punk group in the typical sense, they could rock out like one, as we’ll see.

In Excelsior Dayglo, the band’s debut album on Big Time Records, should have been a huge college radio hit. Maybe it was. I dropped out of college after one semester, and became a hanger-on at the two local university stations, so I don’t know for sure. But I have a feeling that most college radio listeners who wanted a sense of humor with their hooks preferred the ZANY over-the-top-HEY-LOOK-WE’RE-CLEVER antics of They Might Be Giants or wiseguys like the Dead Milkmen to Christmas. But In Excelsior Dayglo was overflowing with potential hits. So much so that it’s hard to pick one track that captures all that’s great about this band. 

“Dig We Must” has some pile-driving guitar, sweet do-do harmonies and nonsense scatting from Cudahy before it careens off the rails, in the middle eventually getting it together for its sole verse.

“A Pig Amongst Men” has a hypnotic repetitive bass line, strummy guitars and overlapping vocals by our heroes. 

“Boys’ Town Work Song” is also largely instrumental at first, followed by some gang vocals from the band and friends before a shouted verse about the importance of work, like a mean foreman. 

“Fish Eye Sandwich” centers around a story Cudahy tells in the middle about young Cox’s experience with the title object. 

But after much back and forth, the track to explore if you must explore only one Christmas song should be “Girl Police.” When the track begins, it’s hard to figure out where Cox is placing the downbeat. Salzman and Cudahy make their understated entrance a few bars later, but they continue to keep it mysterious. It’s only when Cox starts singing that we get our bearings.

I’m a female policeman
And I know that you are being bad
Do not try to escape me
I am mad

It might sound simplistic if Cox didn’t sound so sweet and believable.

Christmas “Girl Police”

Some loud chords eventually imply a louder shift towards the chorus but they’re just red herring. The band pulls back again and Cudahy, who belts it out elsewhere on the album, puts on his best choir boy imitation, climaxing with “Crime does not pay / crime does not paaaaaaaaaay!” 

This adds another level of intrigue. Are both singers on the same side of the law? Is Cudahy a voice overseeing the scene? What’s going on in the song? A friend once pondered that it might be about watching the ’80s crime-drama Cagney & Lacey, which featured two tough-talking female cops. A line in the second verse about “the boys … drinking beer as they watch us on TV,” could imply that. 

But Cox is no Tyne Daily or Sharon Gless. “We are truth / we are beauty / we are girls / In government issue gloves and pearls,” she sings in verse three. Then a twist: “Please pull down my blindfold / ah, the scales have fallen in my eyes.” At this point, the loud guitar chords, which led to the chorus earlier, ring out and the song is over. It’s hard to tell if this “female policeman” has been kidnapped, if that request is a giant metaphor or something else entirely. 

Ultimately, it’s not important. Christmas proves that songs don’t require linear storylines. The more ambiguity, the better. 

Big Time Records did not live up to its name. When Christmas finally released a second album in 1989, the even-better and even more misanthropic Ultraprophets of the Psykick Revolution, the trio was on IRS Records. That imprint didn’t do them much better and Cudahy and Cox eventually formed Combustible Edison, a band that was at the forefront of the cocktail-lounge movement in the ’90s. (Don’t call them “retro.” In an interview with Cudahy around that time, he politely explained they weren’t about that.) 

On a recent visit to a record store in Niagara Falls, a copy of In Excelsior Dayglo leaped out at me from a box. I already owned it but it wasn’t expensive and I figured I could find a happy home for it.  With it’s beautiful packaging – a dayglo treatment of the Inverted Jenny stamp, a lyric sheet with each song in a different font, a photo of the band in early American garb — it’s mandatory listening and viewing for anyone with an interest in post-punk/pre-indie rock music of the last ‘80s. Buy every copy you see and share them.

Not Old, But Wise: “Just Because”

Roosevelt Franklin “Just Because” (Columbia, 1971)

Mike Shanley

Three shades of Roosevelt Franklin

Joe Raposo understood.

While composing music that would be heard primarily by kids, he never dumbed down either the music or the lyrics in an effort to keep his listeners’ attention. A perfect example comes in the Sesame Street box set, Songs From the Street: 35 Years of Music. The box’s booklet begins with a story about 2 a.m. recording session in which Raposo was teaching Jim Henson a song that had been written just a few hours earlier. Henson was getting frustrated in part because the song had free form lyrics, and they didn’t even rhyme. Raposo was undeterred. The kids wouldn’t worry about song structures. Henson finally nailed it. The song went on to become a classic in part because Raposo didn’t even consider his listeners to be kids. “We’re just dealing with a short audience,” he once said.

The song in question that night was none other than “Bein’ Green.” Most people associate it with Kermit the Frog (the character Henson would voice at that session), but heavyweights like Frank Sinatra, Lena Horne, and Ray Charles also sang the song, the latter two on Sesame Street. I’ve heard the song hundreds of times and it never occurred to me until I read the story that there are no rhymes. But something told me the song could be about more than just the musings of a frog. Coming out in 1969, it had undercurrent of racial difference and pride at its base, to borrow some ideas from Songs from the Street. Raposo was shaping minds.

Someday perhaps I’ll expound on the myriad instrumental cues that Raposo penned for Sesame Street. Today is reserved for a special character from the show and song he sang on his album. Roosevelt Franklin was a spastic muppet who sang songs about the ABCs and counting to ten over some soul-jazz grooves, staring the camera with his mouth wide open – like many of the Muppets – and barely staying focused thanks to the presence of his mother. Roosevelt was the creation of Matt Robinson, a writer on the show who also portrayed Sesame Street cast member Gordon for the first three seasons.

In 1971, or perhaps a year earlier, depending on your source, Columbia Records released the album emphatically titled The Year Of Roosevelt Franklin, which was subtitled “Gordon’s Friend from Sesame Street” presumably for context. Robinson appeared on the cover along with the Muppet. He also wrote the lyrics that went seamlessly with Raposo’s music.

“The Year of Roosevelt Franklin” album, featuring “Just Because”

Along with Roosevelt, the album includes appearances by his Mother, sister Mary Frances (both voiced by actress Rosalind Cash), little brother Baby Ray, friends A. B. Cito and Mobity Mosely and some real life singing kids. The counting and alphabet songs bookend the record, with tracks in between about perseverance while learning (“Keep On Trying”), sharing (“Halfsies,” in which A. B. Cito’s exaggeration Spanish accent sings over a Mariachi band, sounding a bit dated now), days of the week, and months of the year.

Several songs went a little deeper. Over a funky bass line (probably played by session ace/Blue Note regular Bob Cranshaw), Baby Ray sings “The Skin I’m In.” Its message of confidence could be adopted by all listeners, but the second verse offers a not-too-hidden lesson in Black pride: “Way, way back in the old days / We used to be ashamed (imagine that) / then we found out we were beautiful / and we’ve never been the same.” No one is hitting the listeners over the head with the message, but the seed is planted.

That song opens Side Two. The real heavy hitter comes at the end of the Side One. After singing “Safety Boy Blues” (which is just as the title implies: Roosevelt talking about safety in the street as a harmonica wails over a 1-4-5 blues behind him), he then introduces a song “about not hurting other people.” “Just Because” begins slowly with just a piano and Roosevelt, who plays it straight. Ask him to rid the world of rats, snakes, sharks, and sickness for you, and he’ll do it, he sings. (You can’t expect a young guy to understand the need for rodents or reptiles, so we’ll overlook that.) But ask to hurt someone, “just because you tell me to”? Forget it. He’s not having it.

There are too many folks
I’ve never seen
Who could be friends of mine
I’ll shake their hands
Break bread with them
Even though they’re not your kind

It almost rhymes, but like “Bein’ Green” the message is more important than the couplet.

Roosevelt Franklin “Just Because”

In 1971, I was four years old and knew nothing about the civil rights struggles that had been going in the U.S. In fact I wasn’t even sure I knew what Roosevelt was saying. When he repeats this verse, he speaks the words, not unlike a preacher. I used to wonder if maybe he wanted to shake the heads of these new friends of his, like it was a game. Not knowing my Biblical phrases, I also wondered if he wanted to play Bread – spinning 45s of “Baby I’m-a Want You” or “It Don’t Matter to Me” because he liked that style of soft rock. (When you’re four years old, the world has infinite possibilities.)

I did understand the message that Roosevelt was not down with hurting other people who were different, since he explained that in the introduction. Years later (I still have the original album and it still plays well), it hit me that “Just Because” is a message against racial violence, spelling it out for younger listeners in a way they can relate to – “Don’t tell me to hurt someone who never hurt me or you.”

Joe Raposo and Matt Robinson are no longer with us, passing in 1989 and 2002, respectively. The Year of Roosevelt Franklin was reissued a few years later with more casual title My Name is Roosevelt Franklin, getting rid of the extensive liner notes and accolades by everyone from Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm to B. B. King, Ed McMahon and Ed Sullivan. Roosevelt’s character was pulled from Sesame Street a few years later when it was felt that he relied on Black stereotypes.

Unknown to all but a few Sesame Street fanatics like me, “Just Because” never went out of date and really has taken on greater significance today, in light of the way the LGBTQ community, as well as minorities are treated in this country. The gospel-inspired song probably won’t make  people like Marjory Taylor Greene have a Come To Jesus moment. But if you sat Billy Porter down at a piano and had him sing it, the positive vibrations that he could pull out of listeners could create a seismic wave of change. If not him, somebody needs to bring this song back to the forefront.

Raposo was deep. With help from Matt Robinson, he was even deeper.

Because of that, I suppose I can forgive him for the sugary “Sing,” the Carpenters’ Top 40 hit which they nicked from Sesame Street.

Help, I’m a Bad Cover

The Mothers of Invention “Help, I’m a Rock” (Verve, 1966) / West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band “Help, I’m a Rock” (Reprise, 1967)

Mike Shanley

Some rocks need more help than others

“That didn’t sound too much like ‘Satisfaction.’”

“Well, that’s how it’s written on the page.”

That paraphrased exchange of dialogue appears early in the uncomfortable dark comedy Welcome to the Dollhouse. Three young adolescent boys try cook up a version of the Rolling Stones’ classic on the unlikely triumvirate of keyboards, drums, and clarinet. But they come up way short, thanks to their sheet music and lack of rhythm. It’s one of the pitfalls of attempting a cover version of a classic.

Sometimes a band can’t come within screaming distance of the original song’s power, like those three. At other times it’s best to turn a song inside out and have a good time in the process. Shockabilly, the band that included Eugene Chadbourne and Kramer, attacked rock and roll classics with a destructive glee, doing for them what Spike Jones did for popular music in the ’40s. That band, and Jones’ City Slickers, walked a fine line between parody and homage, which made their work so good. (Or as the old folks would say, “When they settled down, those guys could really play!”)

On rare occasions, someone’s cover can pack enough power to make you forget the original. Case in point: Nilsson’s version of “Without You.” If Harry sang that way to you, you would never want to dump him. But you’d probably forget that Badfinger did the song first. Let’s not forget that Aretha Franklin is synonymous with “Respect,” but Otis Redding asked for it first.

Then there’s the other side of the cover coin. The “what the hell do you think you’re doing” side. Cat Power’s cover concept walks a fine line between deconstructing the song and not caring enough to learn it. I give her the benefit of the doubt and think that Chan Marshall probably leans closer to the former route. Conversely, I once saw a guy cover a Nick Cave ballad, singing the words while playing two chords that probably just seemed close enough to the original to suit him. If I wasn’t so busy shaking my head in disgust, I’d’ve furrowed my brow and wondered, “Do you even know the original?”

That overly long intro leads to this week’s song. Like my previous entry on Phil Ochs’ “The Crucifixion,” this doesn’t exactly represent an endorsement of a song so much as it introduces a trainwreck worth hearing at least once.

The Mothers of Invention “Help, I’m a Rock!”

“Help, I’m a Rock” appears on the Mothers of Invention’s debut album, Freak Out. The eight-minute piece is broken up into three movements. The first (“Okay to Tap Dance”) introduces a 6/4 riff with a jerky feel, like the record might be sticking. On top of the music, members of the band chatter and bark in foreign tongues. The riff continues in Movement Two (“In Memoriam – Edgar Varese”) but now vocalist Ray Collins is in the forefront, sounding agitated as he growls “Help, I’m a rock,” like he just woke up abruptly, or as if he’s trying to continue the nihilistic feel that has pervaded the album up to this point. As the rock (aka Collins) ponders a better life, he imagines being a cop, a bus driver and the mayor.

Movement Three begins with the group, now lead by Frank Zappa, singing in intentionally sloppy harmonies (“barbershop quartet,” he says in the liner notes) about how “It Can’t Happen Here” (this movement’s title), never clarifying what “it” might be. “Who could imagine,” the group ponders — stretching out the syllables of the first and third words— that people might freak out in all-American locales like Kansas, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C. When each state is introduced, the band members use it as a springboard for more goof-ball singing. Nothing deep, and pretty non-sensical unless I’m missing something, but highly entertaining.

Freak Out was released in the summer of 1966, several months before the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band released Part One, their debut for Reprise Records. But the band had played shows on the Sunset Strip with the Mothers. So it’s possible they heard the Zappa crew play “Help, I’m a Rock” live and decided to cover it on their album. Or maybe someone in the band mentioned it at practice one day and they came up with their own version, without bothering to listen closely to the original.

The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band “Help, I’m a Rock!”

My money goes with the latter theory because nothing was ever that simple with the WCPAEB. The group were devised by a wild-eyed playboy/son of an oil tycoon named Bob Markley, whose talent was inversely proportional to his wealth. While Bob banged on a tambourine and scoped out the free-loving young ladies on the Sunset Strip, the real work was done by brothers Shaun and Dan Harris, John Ware and Michael Lloyd. Part One includes a few catchy psychedelic pop numbers but their four-minute version of “Help, I’m a Rock” is not one of them.

Here, the once jagged riff of the Mothers gets filed down to a simple 4/4 beat, landing somewhere between “Psycho Killer” and “This Diamond Ring.”  Instead of sounding grouchy or ominous, the vocalist (probably Shaun Harris) goes for a pleading, dramatic performance that tries too hard. The rest of band repeats the title ad nauseum in cartoon voices behind him. It’s hard to tell what Zappa was going for with the original, but whatever it was, this bit of tomfoolery ain’t anywhere near it.

Up to this point, it’s not that bad. You can cut these kids some slack. But when the “who could imagine” question changes to the statement “I wonder if they’re freaking out in Minnesota/Kansas/DC,” the whole thing moves from amateur to carelessness. It’s the equivalent of getting a punchline wrong. Now it feels like one of the Harris brothers started telling the band about the original “Help, I’m A Rock” but couldn’t remember details of the song, so they just based their version on sketchy details.  To put it another way, they left out all the good stuff.

If that wasn’t crazy enough, Reprise Records found the song strong enough to make it the second single to be pulled from Part One. This required editing two minutes out of the album version, which was probably a blessing, and probably making it a contender for novelty shows all over underground radio. You could probably really freak out listeners in 1967 by playing “Help, I’m a Rock” back-to-back with “They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!”

A Sanctified Wail and a Greasy Organ: “Just Ain’t No Love”

The Young-Holt Unlimited “Just Ain’t No Love” (Brunswick, 1968)

Mike Shanley

Just ain’t no love

Eldee Young and Red Holt personify the phrase “in the pocket.” The bassist and drummer, respectively, held down the groove in Ramsey Lewis Trio’s version of “The In Crowd,” a jazz instrumental that crossed over into the Billboard Top 10 and won a Grammy in 1965.  Young and Holt weren’t flashy but, together with Lewis, they created excitement through subtle dynamics, accents and a steady, driving beat. The song could appeal to hard boppers and teenyboppers.

Holt and Young parted with Lewis a year later and started the Young-Holt Trio, later to be rechristened as The Young-Holt Unlimited. These two seemed to know the magic happened in the rhythm section; pianist Don Walker and his successor Ken Chaney get short-shrift on many of their albums. Walker at least appeared on the cover of the one album credited to the Trio. Once they became Unlimited, Eldee and Redd were the only faces on the record covers.

The group bridged the gap between easy-to-digest versions of jazz tunes like Horace Silver’s “Song for My Father” and classy versions of “Monday Monday” and “The Beat Goes On.” A few were minor hits, like their own “Wack Wack.” But they hit paydirt in 1968 with “Soulful Strut.” The mid-tempo tune definitely has a funky gait to it, with trumpets accenting between phrases from the crisp piano line. To these ears, it’s felt like a laidback cousin to Hugh Masekela’s “Grazing in the Grass.”

“Soulful Strut” also won a Grammy  — a mere three months after it was released. But the song has a bit of controversy connected to it. The backing track is identical to vocalist Barbara Acklin’s “Am I The Same Girl.” Acklin and a chorus of back-up singers take the place of the piano melody. (You can tell immediately which is which by whether or not a chorus of “ooh”s begin underneath the trumpet fanfare.) While the duplication, in and of itself, is not exactly a crime, a rumor has persisted that no one from Young-Holt Unlimited played on either version of the song.

I’m not here to clear up this rumor. I’m merely here to point you in the direction of a song that’s even funkier and swings harder.

The Young-Holt Unlimited “Just Ain’t No Love”

The Soulful Strut album features a festive mix of fluff (“Little Green Apples,” a song everyone seemed to do at some point), funk (a version of Johnnie Taylor’s “Who’s Making Love”) and original vamps with lyrics built around the song titles (“Baby, Your Light Is Out”). But side two kicks off with a stomper, a song that takes us to church while taking us onto the dancefloor. “Just Ain’t No Love” finds Young and Holt laying down a heavy backbeat. It’s simple but it’s big.

Along with Chaney’s gospel-inspired piano, a greasy organ is added to the rhythm section. And a second piano lays the melody out on top, occasionally staggering over the beat for a righteous effect. When the turnaround in the 1-4-5 structure comes, a horn section comes in a sanctified wail. It’s kind of hard to sit still during a piece of funk like this. It’s also hard not to be disappointed when it fades away after just 2:52.

“Just Ain’t No Love” was written and produced by Eugene Record and Carl Davis. The latter was part of the brass at Brunswick Records, Young-Holt Unlimited’s label. Record, in addition to his work as a writer and producer, was also a member of the Chi-Lites. The contributions of these two can’t exactly be underestimated on Soulful Strut. Record’s name appears in the songwriting credits for five of the 11 tracks.

Barbara Acklin “Just Ain’t No Love”

But while researching “Just Ain’t No Love” to prepare for this article, another bit of info came onto our radar. Barbara Acklin also recorded the song for Brunswick. And – you guessed it – her version has the same funky backing track as Young-Holt Unlimited’s version. If the rumor that “Soulful Strut” was not played by the trio were true, that could also put “Just Ain’t No Love” in jeopardy too. And that could end this entry with the shrug of the shoulders, and the feeling that maybe some anonymous crew of Chicago players are funkier than Eldee Young, Redd Holt, and Ken Chaney.

But I doubt it. Sure, I don’t have hard evidence to back me up, but I have the records. This is a band that would swing “Light My Fire” and “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head” on future albums. (Not a hard swing, but a swing nonetheless.) If anything, Record and Davis could be accused of double-dipping with the rhythm tracks, to make more singles that would appeal to soul, jazz, and pop audiences. With results like this, there’s no reason to quibble.

Somebody to Love

Janis Joplin “To Love Somebody” (1969, Columbia)

Mike Shanley

You’ve heard Janis Joplin. You probably know something like “Piece Of My Heart,” which she recorded with Big Brother & the Holding Company. Maybe you know that band’s vicious version of “Ball and Chain.” Perhaps you’ve even seen footage of that song from the Monterey Pop Festival, which netted them a contract with Columbia Records. There are others songs, of course. “Move Over,” “Me and Bobbie McGee,” “Try (Just A Little Bit Harder).”

It’s all powerful stuff. But one song in the Janis catalog grabbed me before I could read and has held me close ever since. It has everything – tension and release, a fat horn chart, and a vocal that sounds personal. All this comes from the pen of Barry and Robin Gibb.

The two Brothers Gibb wrote “To Love Somebody” as a soul number, with the hope that Otis Redding would cover it. Supposedly he heard it and liked it, but Redding never got to record it before he died. Nina Simone, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and even Michael Goddam Bolton recorded the tune – but they don’t hold a candle to this version.

Janis Joplin recorded it on her first solo album, I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama, which came out in 1969. After parting ways with Big Brother, she was attempting to head into more of a soul direction herself, and the album featured a four-piece horn section to give her a blast of R&B. The combination of tenor and baritone saxophones play a significant role on “To Love Somebody,” creating an especially brawny growl.

Janis Joplin “To Love Somebody”

But before you even get to heart of the horn charts, the arrangement makes a radical departure from the Bee Gees’ – or anyone else’s – version of the song. It’s dramatically slow – about half speed. It also starts out sounding pretty spare. During the verses, guitarist Sam Andrew chunks the strings on the two and four with the drums, with a few runs between the lines. (Presumably that’s Sam. Word has come out in later years that Steppenwolf members Michael Monarch [guitar], Jerry Edmonton [drums], and Goldy McJohn [organ] appeared on some of the album.)

The almost-dirgelike quality gives Janis the opportunity to really make the lyrics personal, stretching out phrases and words and taking liberties with the rhythm. She even adds a few lines of her own.

In the Bee Gees version, the release comes with the chorus: “You don’t know what it’s like…..” With Janis’ version, the release comes earlier. She starts to build toward the end of the verse:

There’s a waaaaaaay, ooh everybody say
You can do anything, every little thiiiiiiiing

At this point, sounding like she’s on the brink of tears as she opens up to her lover, the saxes enter, taking the chords down a few notes, and Janis loses it:

But what good, what good
Honey, what good could it ever bring
‘Cause I ain’t got you with my love
And I can’t find you, babe, no I can’t

The chorus line was originally a simple, direct thought: “You don’t know what it’s like to love somebody / Like I love you.” Here, the band takes a break when Janis leans into the first “love,” changing the next direct object to “anybody,” and delivering it in a voice that used to send my mom through the roof, with “all that screaming that she does.” Love has that kind of effect on a person.

During the song’s second chorus, another very simple ad-lib proves to be especially poignant. After closing the chorus with “…the way I love you, babe,” Janis adds the tag, “And I just want you to know I tried.” It’s an afterthought, off the cuff, but it makes her sound more vulnerable. As the swelling B3 organ and those wailing horns take over, you can envision Janis crouching at the base of the mike stand, staring off into the distance and ruminating on that line.

Some extra Joplin-isms in the final chorus get a little heated. In addition to not knowing what it’s like to love somebody, she tells her partner, “And you never, ever did.” As the song reaches its climax, the band looks into an emotional coda which, thanks to the B3 pedals, seems to go lower than a bass guitar would allow. Janis won’t let go of the accusation about love. “No you never, ever. I know it/ you know it/ no, you never , ever, ever,” she wails.

But as the band stops suddenly to line up for the final notes, the accusation turns to a plea:

“Oooh, let me throw my love, throw my love all around you.”

The last word has a quivering tremolo. After all that raw emotion, and the lack of affection from the other person, this gal is steady for a second chance. Did Janis collapse onto the studio floor after that take? How many takes were required to get that performance out of her? Maybe one of the many books on Janis can answer that question. But the real question here should be why “To Love Somebody” isn’t spoken about in the same breath as her other “hits.” Granted, part of my fixation with it relates directly to hearing it as a young age, but over time, the depth of her performance helps it to retain its place in my heart.

On the Grape

Moby Grape “Seeing” (Columbia, 1969)

Mike Shanley

Seeing … something. Album cover for “Moby Grape ’69”

The members of Moby Grape are all perched on a rocky formation on the cover of their third album, Moby Grape ’69.  Peter Lewis, Bob Mosley, Jerry Miller and Don Stevenson all look to the right at something out of the frame. It could be that Bobby Klein shot the photo in the morning and the guys were watching the sun rise. Or maybe it was setting. But the final minute of the album sets my imagination reeling and I often think imagine that something bigger, and more powerful, was grabbing the band’s attention from a hillside just out of the line of vision — the band’s fifth member, Skip Spence. This is artistic license speaking here, not fact, as you will see as we continue on.

The unfortunate tale of Moby Grape should be common knowledge to most music enthusiasts. This San Francisco quintet released a spotless self-titled debut for Columbia Records in the summer of 1967. Unlike pretty much any band at that time, all five members of the band wrote songs and sang really well, and they took turns in the spotlight. In the studio, they didn’t need to borrow from the Dylan Songbook to make an impression. They didn’t need the Wrecking Crew to bring their songs to life either. The Grape did it beautifully on their own.

Classic Grape

Instead of being the next Byrds (a valid comparison since they were labelmates), the band sputtered when Columbia over-hyped them by releasing four singles from the debut, none of which made much of a dent. Their follow-up album, Wow, had some good tunes that were outweighed by gimmicks, most notably a song that had to played on 78 RPM, and an accompanying album of tepid noodling called Grape Jam. (Side note: Robert Plant, a vocal Grape fan, likely bought Grape Jam and nicked the opening line of Bob Mosley’s “Never” for Led Zeppelin’s “Since I’ve Been Lovin’ You” years later.)

The biggest casualty of the Wow sessions was Skip Spence. Every band has a wild man, a savant, who shines onstage even if he can’t keep it together offstage. Spence, the third guitarist in the band, was it. While recording the sophomore record in New York, he was reportedly taking a lot of acid. This likely inspired a visit to the hotel where the band was staying, in search of drummer Don Stevenson. Spence hacked the door to his Stevenson’s room with an axe. It eventually landed him in Bellevue Hospital for six months. Upon release, he recorded his great solo album Oar all by himself, but his days with Moby Grape were over, at least for the moment.

Moby Grape ’69 documented a four-piece version of the band, but the final track, “Seeing,” had been recorded during the Wow sessions and features its composer, Skip Spence, once again leading the band. It also serves as something of a poetic version of what was likely going on in the mind of the wild-eyed guitarist during those New York sessions. And this is not artistic license.

Moby Grape “Seeing” (album version)

“Seeing” begins softly, with a finger-picking guitar and a droning organ cueing the vocal. Spence sounds fragile as he softly intones, “If you’d see the naked dream I had of you/ would you care and come through?”

As he sings, Stevenson taps a ride cymbal which is so heavy with reverb that it feels out of sync, but the band comes in on time. Or rather, they explode, with Mosley’s bass on top, thumping in a way that would make John Entwistle jealous. And then Skippy makes a plea, in a voice so bold that it could be mistaken for Mosley, the band’s standard belter:

Take me far away
My wiles and mind
Can’t beat a dream of death today
Hard to get by
When what greets my eye
Takes my breath away

Jim Morrison might have mused about breaking through to the other side. “Seeing” gives the impression that Spence had a first-hand look – and it scared the hell out of him. Every instrument sounds overdriven in the loud section, as if the levels were set for the opening passage and not adjusted. This technical slip of the engineer fits the song perfectly, though, giving us a passage to Spence’s brain. Compared to this version, an earlier demo, simply titled “Skip’s Song,” sounds like a simple folk song.

The real payoff comes in the second chorus – which isn’t exactly a chorus, since it has a new set of words. Here, the guitarist seems to be talking about Moby Grape’s hype machine, along with his own fragile mind that lurks beneath that spaced-out smile.

Some try to hide because they lied
They were not true and they were afraid
They refuse to see or be free
Be one with me, and to gods they prayed…

And here’s where it really explodes: “Cryin,’ SAVE ME! SAVE ME!”

Buried in all that reverb, a very telling line follows that plea, sung in falsetto: “If I save you, can I spend you?” Was Skippy thinking of the Columbia brass when he wrote that? Was he just being anti-establishment? There’s no time to answer because Jerry Miller jumps in with a ripping guitar solo.

The song repeats the first verse and chorus before going into the “Save me” section again. This time it feels like it could unravel, with multiple vocals yelling on top of one another. Following another guitar solo, everything drops out, save for another cymbal tap from Stevenson. But Skippy isn’t done. Some low, foreboding organ notes rumble away. Off in the distance, as if he were standing on a precipice, yelling down to his bandmates who were posing for an album cover, we hear Spence: “Save me,” and possibly even, “Help me!” The organ, driving the VU meters into the red once more, wraps things up with some major chords, but that doesn’t break the tension. Moby Grape ’69 ends on a rather eerie note, as if to remind us why Skip Spence isn’t seen or listed anywhere other than the song credits.

Moby Grape “Seeing” (1968 “Wow” sessions version)

When Columbia Legacy released a two-disc Grape retrospective in 1993, “Seeing” was the set’s final track. However, they must’ve realized that it was too ominous an ending to an already tragic tale of the band. To lighten the mood, the track continues with some hidden outtakes from “Just Like Gene Autry – A Foxtrot,” Spence’s old-timey contribution from Wow that played at 78 RPM. Veteran radio man Arthur Godfrey attempts to introduce song, with a chuckling Spence spurring him on. Memories of better days.

Skip Spence would later reunite with his Grape mates over the years, appearing on a few albums. He was also one of the catalysts in the formation of the Doobie Brothers, having introduced drummer John Hartman to guitarist Tom Johnston. But he would never again reach the artistic highs of the first Moby Grape album or the idiosyncratic beauty of his Oar solo album. Between those two signposts, “Seeing” stands as one of the deepest and most effecting documents of what happens when a delicate mind tries to reach too far.

Rough Grape

Don’t Stop Disbelievin’

Kak “Disbelievin’” (1968, Epic)

Mike Shanley

Kak “Kak-Ola” album cover art

On August 7, 2022, Gary Lee Yoder passed away at the age of 75. His name is not one that’s typically known outside of conversations between devotees of uber-obscure ’60s garage rock. Mr. Yoder played guitar in a later version of Blue Cheer, several years (and band members) after their version of “Summertime Blues” came out. Prior to that, he played in Oxford Circle, a garage band that originated in Davis, California. They only released one single during their existence but they generated some buzz when they appeared in San Francisco during the early stages of the psychedelic scene. A live 1966 recording was released in the late ’90s. But to this music enthusiast, Yoder’s name will be forever associated with a band he fronted for less than two years following Oxford Circle.

That band was called Kak.

Kak and I go way back, to a time before I could read, discerning one record from another by the shapes on the either side of the label. In the spring of 2021, I wrote a post on this site about a Little Richard 45 that our family came into, most likely through my late uncle. For those who want the whole back story, said uncle — Rege Cordic — left town in the early ‘60s to try his luck at adapting his smoky city early morning radio humor to the Los Angeles airwaves. It didn’t fly and he wound up playing bit parts on The Monkees and every crime drama in the following decade.

The chronology doesn’t exactly match up with Rege’s radio tenure, but somehow the family wound up with multiple copies of promo singles on the Epic, Okeh, and Columbia imprints which came out towards the end of the ’60s. The red lines on the “Plug Side” helped me differentiate the songs. Kak was one of them and I proceeded to rip that record up on several phonographs. I mean that literally. The last time I remember seeing the single, it had a pretty bad crack in it and even I knew it was time to say goodbye. The reason for the continual abuse can directly linked to the snarling guitar line in “Disbelievin.’”

Kak “Disbelievin'”

While the band pounds away on a two-chord riff, Kak guitarist Dehner Patten locks into a single-note line that runs down the scale, resolving on the downbeat. As he repeats that, Gary Yoder (who also played guitar), belts out a sad tale about coming home to find his lady has left him. Yoder leans into his vowels, especially at the payoff line in each verse: “Well, I’m disbelievin’ / Disbelieeeeevin’/ Disbelieeeevin’/ every WORD that she said.” The power of his voice is so convincing that you might not stop to wonder if the title is a real word. (It is, and the Oxford Dictionary says it can be used as either an adjective or a verb.)

The song does get a little repetitive and Patten takes two guitar breaks before things fade out, topping the song off at 4:00, a pretty lengthy single for 1969. But those guitars make up for it, as does Yoder’s bark. This guy had no aspirations to imitate Dylan or the Beatles, like almost everyone other psyche vocalist from that era.

Yoder’s sensitive side came across with on the Plug Side, the country-tinged “I’ve Got Time.” Here Patten pumped up the treble on his axe to approximate the twang of a pedal steel and Yoder expressed a sunnier optimism, not rushing through the world or letting people around him bring him down as they stared at him, probably wigged out by the length of his hair.

Combined with “Disbelievin’,” “I’ve Got Time” helped to present two complimentary sides to Kak, the raw and the sensitive, both of which factored into the band’s self-titled album. They were capable of acoustic style folk stylings and flat out boogie. While their original album now sells for a mint online, the compilation CD Kak-Ola combines solo Yoder tracks with the original album and is relatively easy to come by. My copy of the album, which looks like a reissue from the ’70s or ’80s, was the first item I ever won on eBay.

Much like Moby Grape, a band that could have been considered a kindred spirit, Kak seemed to have the cards stacked against them. After Oxford Circle broke up, bandmates Yoder and Patten teamed up with bassist Joe Damrell and drummer Chris Lockheed. But the new group never to really got their musical sea legs before they went into the studio to record. So the story goes, they only played just a handful shows during their lifetime, breaking up some time in 1969.

Happily, Yoder was never bitter about his lack of fame. On Daviste, a blog devoted to people and things in Davis, CA, writer Alec Palao wrote fondly about the guitarist, calling him a “salt-of-the-earth gent who had few delusions of grandeur about his notable position within the firmament of Bay Are rock’n’roll repute.” Yoder continued to play music in the city until his health took a turn. I’d be willing to bet he could deliver “Disbelievin’” with the same roar to charmed my young ears many moons ago.

Thanks, Gary.

Shoobee, Doobee, Sugar, and Honey

The Sugar Bears “Happiness Train” (Big Tree, 1971)

Mike Shanley

This Bears repeating. The Sugar Bears live, 1971

These days, if you want to hear a song, all you have to do is click a button. Whether it’s Skip Spence’s Oar or some song you liked in 10th grade or that weird number your young co-worker was raving about—they’re all out there, just a few keystrokes away.

Some of the intrigue of musical discovery is lost that way too, methinks. Long before I had my own paper route, which brought with it the disposable income to blow at used record stores, I took my chances on different ways to discover music. Besides listening to the new sound of 13Q, you could save up your coins for a new 45. You could plead for a certain record at a gift giving season. And sometimes you could find them on the back of a cereal box.

Someone at Post Cereals had the brilliant idea in the early ‘70s to get cardboard flexi-discs made with songs on them and attach them to the back of some of their cereal boxes. All the records would look the same, save for a stamped number that would indicate which of the five songs listed could be heard on that record. Never mind the fact that the grooves on the record might get scratched in transit—kids don’t care about those things. As long as they play, they’re fine.

The Sugar Bears’ standard picture flexi-disc, used for all five songs included on Super Sugar Crisp cereal boxes.

To my knowledge only two “bands” received this free promotion. One was the Jackson Five, and I’m grateful to the p.r. brass at Post because those records provided my first exposure to “ABC,” “I Want You Back,” “Goin’ Back to Indiana” and “I’ll Bet You.” (The latter was a cover of a Funkadelic song, which blew my mind when I heard the original years later.)

The other group was one created especially for Super Sugar Crisp cereal. Before 1980, it was still okay to have the word “sugar” in the cereal name. In fact the group was called the Sugar Bears, named for the laidback bruin who’d been hawking the cereal for years. Hard to believe, but his laissez-faire attitude was supposed to mirror that of Bing Crosby.

The record showed Sugar Bear strumming a guitar. Honey Bear, who also appeared in the cereal commercials, stood nearby, clutching a tambourine. The lineup was completed with Shoobee Bear (drums) and Doobee Bear (bass). In case you’re wondering, Shoobee looked like more of a hippie, with his hairband, sleeveless vest and peace sign necklace.

The first record Mom brought home was number four, “Happiness Train.” Written by one Michael McGinnis, it was a song that could calm even the most vehement anti-rock and roll parents because the lyrics almost sound like something that could be sung at a church camp:

Wouldn’t you rather be up than down
Wouldn’t you rather wear a smile than a frown
Zippity doin’ your thing like a clown
Come on and join us ‘cause we’re happiness bound.

When Sugar Bear and Honey Bear repeated the stanza, in crisp harmony, the final line was substituted with “Ridin’ on the Happiness Train.”

The Sugar Bears “Happiness Train”

In the verses, these happy bears traded lines about how this train had all the answers. You don’t even need a ticket—you just get on and ride away! It was just the kind of sentiment our country could use around that time. Me, I was sold by the intro which featured a baritone sax imitating a low train whistle while the drums played a fast paradiddle. Maybe it’s a little sappy, what with those strings in the background, but I could never hear them on my phonograph anyway. Besides, the whole idea of a song being transmitted from a piece of flimsy cardboard seemed so cool.

I might have forgotten about “Happiness Train” once I wore out the record and the few others that came in that series. But sometime around sixth grade, while flipping through the box of used records at a church flea market, I found Presenting the Sugar Bears or Introducing the Sugar Bears, depending on whether you believed the front or the back cover. Here was a full length album with all five of the flexi-disc songs and six more! I only owned four of them, so I’d finally get the chance to hear “Feather Balloon,” the elusive third flexi-disc.

Despite the back cover’s claim to introduce the Bears to the record buying public, Shoobee, Doobee, and Honey don’t get name-checked. But the names of the songwriters all appear, and they include authors of some past and future hits. Baker Knight had written tunes like “Lonesome Town” for Ricky Nelson. Mike Settle also played in Kenny Rogers & the First Edition. “Happiness Train” composer Michael McGinnis, like Settle, was also in the New Christy Minstrels and more recently received a writing credit on a Miley Cyrus album.

The biggest name to come out of the Sugar Bear gang, though, was the voice of Honey Bear. Although she did sound sweet, falling somewhere between a calming voice and that babysitter you might have had a crush on before you really knew what a crush was, she’d become a household name a decade and multiple cartons of cigarettes later when she developed a husky rasp and sang “Bette Davis Eyes.” Yes, our Honey was none other than Kim Carnes.

I still own that tattered, irreparably finger-printed copy of Presenting the Sugar Bears. To be honest, the songs that didn’t make it onto the Super Sugar Crisp boxes are pretty forgettable. “Feather Balloon” still holds up for Kim Carnes’ voice. She might be singing about an innocent ride in an aircraft or she could just as easily be alluding to something a little more daring.

But when that baritone sax blows out the whistle in “Happiness Train,” I’m huddled in front of the record player again with my friend Eric, ready to hop on board.