6 - 5 - Meanwhile Back East (827)

8/9/2019 6 - 5 - Meanwhile Back East (827)

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In a lot of what we've talked about withregard to The American Response, we'vetalked primarily about things that werehappening in LA.And we talked about folk rock, we talkedabout a lot of artists that had startedin the New York, Greenwich Village scenebut sort of migrated to LA.So it's easy to get the impression thatalmost everything that was important thatwas happening as part of the Americanresponse, was happening in Los Angeles.And while there were certainly a lot ofsignificant stuff coming out of L.A., itwasn't the only thing going on duringthose during those days.And it wasn't the only part of theAmerican response.We said before that a lot of artistscontinued to have success both before andafter the arrival of The Beatles inFebruary of 1964.And some of you may have wondered why I

haven't already mentioned Frankie Valli &the Four Seasons.Well, talking about Frankie Valli & theFour Seasons brings us back now to theEast Coast, to the New York, New Jerseyarea.To New York as an entertainment centerand some of the music that was coming outof that part of the country.And that's what we'll talk about in thisvideo.Well, let's talk about Frankie Valli andthe Four Seasons of course, made popular

in the most recently, in the most recentyears by the, by the musical Jersey Boys.Right?Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons hadbig hits in 1962.Number one hits with Sherry and Big GirlsDon't Cry, in this period that we'retalking about during the British Invasionthey continued to have hits.Let's Hang On was the number four hit forthem in 1965 and Workin' My Way Back toYou was the number nine hit in 1966.So during this entire period between from

before the Beatles, going back to 62 andthen going all the way forward to 66 wecan see Frankie Valli and the FourSeasons have tremendous success.For me, anyways, it's interesting that wehave a kind of what you might think of asa west coast falsetto and an east coastfalsetto.On the west coast, that sort of falsetto,that high male voice, that you flip into



the high part of your voice, that's avery big part of the Beach Boys soundwith Bryan Wilson being the high falsettoin a lot of those Beach Boys surf musicrecords and even the ambitious surf musicthat we start to get into in the mid1960s.Frankie Valli.A kind of a different sounding falsettovoice, maybe a little bit more raspy, butstill when we think about the Beach Boysand Frankie Valley and the Four Seasons,we have really groups, that in a lot ofways, are essentially are, are similar ina number of sort of essential ways, onerepresenting the West Coast and otherrepresenting the East Coast.Also with the, with Frankie Valley andthe, with the Four Seasons and what washappening with them, during the BritishInvasion, remember that when we'retalking about the Beatles we said thefirst couple singles they had, theycouldn't get released by Capitol Records.

Capital Records just did not believe thatAmericans would be interested in aBritish group.And so, three of those singles werereleased on VJ Records, an indie labelout of Chicago.And VJ also had most of the material fromthe first Beatles British album, and sointerestingly, the Beatles were in theposition where when they broke inFebruary, they had albums that werenumber one and two on the charts, but ondifferent labels, one on Capital and one

on Vee Jay.Well after things started to cool alittle bit with that material that VeeJay owned they also had Frankie Valli &the four seasons so there is an albumthat collectors that is really big withcollectors called I think it's called TheBeatles vs The Four Seasons which wasreleased in late 1964 which featured alot of The Beatles stuff that VJ hadlicensed plus kind of a greatest hitsPackage of the Four Season.So even VJ was trying to take advantage.

Not only the fact that they had FrankieValli and the Four Seasons, but that theyhad this Beatles music and so you seethis interaction between these two groupsoccurring.Also in New York, we should talk aboutthe Lovin' Spoonful.There's a situation of folkies from theGreenwich Village scene who didn't go toL.A., but who rather stayed in New York



City and made their careers there.John Sebastian.The lead singer and songwriter andinterestingly enough one of the fewexamples of rock and roll auto harp.If you check out the videos on theinterest somewhere, you'll see himsinging and playing an auto harp, whichwas actually kind of a harp that hadlittle sort of chord presets on it.So, if you push down a button, you'd geta C major chord or an A minor chord andthese were used a lot by people in thepublic schools to sort of accompany kidswhile they sing in folk songs.You wouldn't have to learn how to playthe guitar, you just sort of pushed thedifferent buttons down for the chords andyou could accompany.and so there's John Sebastion their bigsong probably their big break out songwas Do You Believe in Magic a number ninehit in December of 65, the same time thatwe're getting Like a Rolling Stone and

Mr.Tambourine Man.And then in 1966 a number two hit withDaydream in addition to another, a bunchof other hits.Now The Lovin' Spoonful projected kind ofan upbeat image you hear a lot of thesort of jug band influences, jug band akind of a folk sort of amateurish folkstyle.it's sort of a populous kind of style.You see, you hear a lot of that sort of agood time music happened in The Lovin'

Spoonful.Another group from the, from the New Yorkarea was The Rascals.And in a minute we'll talk about PaulRevere and The Raiders and the way woreRevolutionary War garb as part of theirsort of their stage uniform.Well The Rascals started out as the YoungRascals wearing outfits that looked anawful lot like the Little Rascals.Who had been part of a telev, well amovie series, series of movies, shorts,and episodes that had played earlier in,

I suppose it was the 30s and the 40s.So anyway, they called themselves theYoung Rascals, but I guess that, thatkind of got tired of that issue, and theyjust became The Rascals, but theirinfluence was far less in pop andvocal-oriented music than it was withblues roots.So if you think about, maybe, The Birdsbeing the answer to the Beatles,



The Rascals would kind of be the, theanswer to The Spencer Davis Group, maybe,or, I don't know, The Animals.Just sort of except that The RollingStones, The Rolling Stones were a littlebit more song oriented.In fact, The Rascals opened for TheBeatles at that famous Shea Stadiumconcert in 1965 featuring Felix Cavaliereon the organ.And Eddie Brigandi on vocals.Those two guys often wrote songstogether.Big hit for them came in the spring of1966.Good Lovin', which still gets a lot ofair play.That was their cover of a R&B hit for agroup called The Olympics from 1965.And then right in the middle of this, thebeginning of the psychedelic era, AGroovin was a number one hit for them in1967, lots of other music there.Finally lets talk about a group that's

started out in Indiana.This group is called The McCoys andfeatured Rick Derringer on the guitar andRick Derringer would later becomeimportant for playing with the EdgarWinter group and then having his own solocareer in the 70s.But at this point he and the rest of theguys in his band are young, I mean younglike under 18 young.So young that when they have a hit, anumber one hit in 1965 with a tune calledHang On Sloopy, they can't tour until

spring break from high school becausethey can't cut classes to go out andtour, right.And so that's what we're talking about,really, really young guys.They were produced by a fellow named BertBerns who worked for Atlantic Records andhad picked up production of the Driftersafter Lebron Stoller left off.So he was already producing groups andhis sort of Beatle-zesh, Beatlish group,an American response group was going tobe the McCoys.

As I say, they had this big hit in 1965with Hang on Sloopy, which was, for allintense and purposes, a kind of thereworking of the song Loui Loui.We'll talk about Louie Louie in the nextvideo coming up here.Interestingly, Bert Berns as I said, RickDerringer went on after the McCoys tohave his own career with Edgar Winter,and as a solo artist.



But Bert Berns went on to produce NeilDiamond, on his first couple of singles,including Cherry, Cherry, which was a hitfor him, which was a hit for Neil Diamondin 1966.Neil Diamond, as we'll mention a littlebit later, also went on to, also as asongwriter, had a big hit in with, in 66with the Monkees, a song called I'm aBeliever.So, in the next video, let's turn togarage bands.I've already mentioned Louis Louis, andlet's see what was happening with youngkids influenced by the Beatles, pickingup guitars, and playing music inbasements and garages all across thiscountry in the middle of the 1960s.

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6 - 5 - Meanwhile Back East (827)