Tommy James & the Shondells -- the very mention of their name, even to someone who doesn't really know their music, evokes images of dances and the kind of fun that rock & roll represented before it redefined itself on more serious terms. And between 1966 and 1969, the group enjoyed 14 Top 40 hits, most of which remain among the most eminently... [+] Read More

Tommy James & the Shondells -- the very mention of their name, even to someone who doesn't really know their music, evokes images of dances and the kind of fun that rock & roll represented before it redefined itself on more serious terms. And between 1966 and 1969, the group enjoyed 14 Top 40 hits, most of which remain among the most eminently listenable (if not always respected) examples of pop/rock. The group was almost as much of a Top 40 radio institution of the time as Creedence Clearwater Revival, but because they weren't completely self-contained (they wrote some, but not all, or their own hits) and were more rooted in pop/rock than basic rock & roll, it took decades for writers and pop historians to look with favor on Tommy James & the Shondells.

Tommy James was born Thomas Jackson on April 20, 1947, in Dayton, OH. He was introduced to music at age three, when he was given a ukulele by his grandfather. He was an attractive child and was working as a model at age four, which gave him something of a taste for performing. By age nine he'd moved to the next step in music, taking up the guitar, and by 1958, when he was 11, James began playing the electric guitar. In 1960, with his family now living in Niles, MI, 13-year-old James and a group of four friends from junior high school -- Larry Coverdale on guitar, Larry Wright on bass, Craig Villeneuve on piano, and Jim Payne on drums -- got together to play dances and parties. This was the original lineup of the Shondells, and they became good enough to earn decent money locally, and even got noticed by an outfit called Northway Sound Records, who recorded the quintet in a Tommy James original entitled "Judy" in 1962. That single didn't make much noise beyond their immediate locale, but in late 1963, the group came to the notice of a local disc jockey starting up a new label called Snap Records. They cut four sides, two of which were issued and disappeared without a trace on their first Snap single.

The second Snap label release, "Hanky Panky," was golden, at least in the area around Niles. A Jeff Barry/Ellie Greenwich song that the couple had already recorded under their nom de plume, the Raindrops, as a B-side that James and company had heard done by a rival band, "Hanky Panky," had become part of James' group's stage act. It was enormously popular on-stage, and the Snap single took off locally in Niles and the surrounding area, but it never got heard any further away. James and company picked up their marbles and went home, abandoning aspirations for a recording career in favor of pursuing music part time -- the singer/guitarist took a day job at a record store and confined his music efforts to the nighttime hours. The two years that ensued, from early 1964 until 1966, saw the original Shondells break up, as members left music or were drafted. This didn't seem to make much difference until a day came when James got an urgent request from a promoter to do a concert in Pittsburgh, PA.

Considering that the group had never even played there, he was puzzled. He soon found that the Snap Records single "Hanky Panky," recorded back in 1963 and overlooked in Chicago and Detroit at the time, had suddenly broken out in Pittsburgh. A promoter, having found a copy of the Snap single in a used-record bin, had liked what he heard and gotten the record played locally at dances. In one of those fluky instances that made the record business in those days a complete marvel, people suddenly started requesting "Hanky Panky," and in response to the demand, bootleggers began producing it, attributed to various labels -- some sources estimate that as many as 80,000 copies were sold in Pittsburgh before the smoke cleared.

James saw what he had to do, but he no longer had a band and was forced to recruit a new group of Shondells. The lucky winners were the Raconteurs, a local Pittsburgh quintet. They became the Shondells, with Joe Kessler on guitar, Ron Rosman on keyboards, George Magura on sax, Mike Vale on bass, and Vinnie Pietropaoli on drums; eter Lucia and Eddie Gray, respectively, replaced Pietropaoli and Kessler, and Magura and his saxophone didn't last long in the lineup.

From near-total obscurity, this version of Tommy James & the Shondells went to playing to audiences numbering in the thousands, and were being courted by Columbia Records and RCA-Victor. It was Morris Levy and Roulette Records, however, who outbid everybody and won the group's contract, and got a number one national hit with "Hanky Panky," in the version cut by the original group nearly three years earlier.

Tommy James & the Shondells, revamped, revised, and reactivated, spent the next three and a half years trying to keep up with their own success. "Say Am I," their second Roulette single and the first by the extant group, only got to number 21, but it was accompanied by a pretty fair Hanky Panky LP, showing off the group's prowess at covering current soul hits by the likes of the Impressions, James Brown, and Junior Walker & the All-Stars. A third single, "It's Only Love," reached number 31, but the fourth, "I Think We're Alone Now," issued in early 1967, got to number four, and the fifth, "Mirage," was another Top Ten release. The latter record was truly a spin-off of the previous hit in the most bizarre way -- according to James, "Mirage" was initially devised by playing the master of "I Think We're Alone Now" backwards. Those recordings were the work of songwriter and producer Ritchie Cordell, who became a rich source of material for the group for the remainder of their history.

Tommy James & the Shondells were lucky enough to be making pop-oriented rock & roll in an era when most of the rest of the rock music world was trying to make more serious records and even create art (often even when the act in question had no capacity for that kind of activity). They were at a label who recognized the need to spend money in order to make money, and didn't mind the expense of issuing a new LP with each major single, despite the fact that Roulette was mostly a singles label where everything but jazz was concerned. The group members themselves were having the time of their lives playing concerts, making personal appearances, and experimenting with advancing their sound in the studio. Audiences loved their work and their records, and it only seemed to get better.

Their songs ran almost counter to the trend among serious rock artists. "Mony Mony," a number three hit coming out in the midst of Vietnam, the psychedelic boom, and just as rock music was supposed to be turning toward higher, more serious forms, was a result of the group looking for a perfect party record and dance tune; even the name was sheer, dumb luck, a result of James spotting the Mutual of New York (MONY) illuminated sign atop their building in mid-town Manhattan at a key moment in the creative process. The group did grab a piece of the prevailing style in late 1968 with "Crimson and Clover," an original by James and drummer Peter Lucia that utilized some creative sound distortion techniques. A number one hit that sold five million copies, it was the biggest single of the group's history and yielded a highly successful follow-up LP as well -- ironically, the latter album included liner notes by Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who had gotten to know the band in the course of their performing at some of his campaign events during his 1968 run for the presidency.

James and company were among the top pop/rock performers in the world during 1969, with two more major hits, "Sweet Cherry Wine" and "Crystal Blue Persuasion," to their credit. Indeed, their presence on the Crimson and Clover album, in addition to the title cut, helped loft that record to a 35-week run on the charts, an extraordinary achievement not only in the history of the band but also -- for a non-greatest hits album -- for Roulette Records, who weren't known as a strong album label. They also began experimenting more with new sounds during this period, most notably on their next album, Cellophane Symphony. The latter record, whose release was delayed for four months because of the extraordinary sales of Crimson and Clover, had its share of basic rock & roll sounds but also plunged into progressive/psychedelic music with a vengeance, most notably on "Cellophane Symphony," a Moog-dominated track that sounds closer to Pink Floyd than anyone ever imagined possible. Cellophane Symphony sold well without breaking any records by its predecessor, and proved in the process that Tommy James & the Shondells could compete in virtually any rock genre. The only miscalculation made by the band was their declining an invitation to perform at Woodstock; the mere credit, coupled with perhaps an appearance in the movie or on the album, might have enhanced their credibility with the counterculture audience.

The end of the Shondells' history came not from any real decision, but simply their desire to take a break in 1970, after four years of hard work and a lot of great times. The moment also seemed right -- James was getting involved in other projects and moving in other directions, including writing and producing records for acts like the Brooklyn-based band Alive and Kicking, whose "Tighter and Tighter" got to number seven, and his own solo recordings. The Shondells continued working together for a time as well, under the name Hog Heaven, cutting one album for Roulette before withdrawing back to the Pittsburgh area where they'd started.

James went through a lot of different sounds on his own records, including country (My Head, My Bed, & My Red Guitar) and Christian music (Christian of the World), and charted in the Top Ten one last time in 1971 with "Draggin' the Line," although he also saw more limited success for another two years with records such as "I'm Comin' Home" and "Celebration."

In the mid-'70s, he made a jump from Roulette Records, where he'd based his career for nearly a decade, to Fantasy Records, and he later recorded for Millennium Records. Following his 1980 Top 20 hit, "Three Times in Love," he resurfaced as a concert artist playing his old hits as well as new songs, although some of these shows were marred by reports of late arrivals and less-than-ideal performances; he has since reestablished a record as a serious crowd-pleasing act, cutting records anew with Cordell and even releasing a live hits collection in 1998.

Tommy James & the Shondells have even achieved something that they saw relatively little of in their own time -- respect. In the years 1966-1970, they were regarded as a bubblegum act and part of the scenery by the few discerning critical voices around, but in the '80s, their music revealed its staying power in fresh recordings (and hits) by Joan Jett, Billy Idol, and Tiffany, with "Crimson and Clover," "Mony Mony," and "I Think We're Alone Now," respectively; indeed, in one of those odd chart events that would have seemed more likely in the '60s, in 1987, Tiffany's version of "I Think We're Alone Now" was replaced at the number one spot after two weeks by Billy Idol's rendition of "Mony Mony." Rhino Records' reissue of the Crimson and Clover and Cellophane Symphony albums, in addition to greatest hits collections and a survey of James' solo recordings from the decade 1970-1980, also seemed to speak for the group's credibility, and a 1997 Westside Records double CD, It's a New Vibration, offering unreleased songs from the '60s as well as all of the key single tracks, confirmed the level of seriousness with which the group was perceived.

Tommy James was no Mick Jagger or Jim Morrison, to be sure, and his songwriting -- which was usually not solo, in any case -- lacked the downbeat, serious tone or the little mystical touches of John Fogerty. He's usually put more comfortably in the company of such figures as Paul Revere & the Raiders' Mark Lindsay, or with Johnny Rivers or Tommy Roe, in the middle or early part of the '60s. But from 1968 through 1970, when artists like Jagger, Fogerty, and Morrison were in their heyday, Tommy James & the Shondells sold more singles than any other pop act in the world, many of them written, co-written, or at least chosen by James. The mere fact that he released a concert DVD in the fall of 2000 is loud testament to the power and impact of his work four decades into his career. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Herman's Hermits were one of those odd 1960's groups that accumulated millions of fans, but precious little respect. Indeed, their status is remarkably similar to that of the Monkees and it's not a coincidence that both groups' music was intended to appeal to younger teenagers. The difference is that as early as 1976, the Monkees began to be... [+] Read More

Herman's Hermits were one of those odd 1960's groups that accumulated millions of fans, but precious little respect. Indeed, their status is remarkably similar to that of the Monkees and it's not a coincidence that both groups' music was intended to appeal to younger teenagers. The difference is that as early as 1976, the Monkees began to be considered cool by people who really knew music; it has taken 35 years for Herman's Hermits to begin receiving higher regard for their work. Of course, that lack of respect had no relevance to their success: 20 singles lofted into the Top 40 in England and America between 1964 and 1970, 16 of them in the Top 20, and most of those Top Ten as well. Artistically, they were rated far lower than the Hollies, the Searchers, or Gerry & the Pacemakers, but commercially, the Hermits were only a couple of rungs below the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

The magnitude of their success seemed highly improbable, based on their modest beginnings. Guitarist/singer Keith Hopwood (born October 26, 1946), bassist/singer Karl Green (born July 31, 1947), guitarist/singer Derek "Lek" Leckenby (born May 14, 1945), and drummer Barry Whitwam (born July 21, 1946) were among the younger musicians on the Manchester band scene in 1963, when they started playing together as the Heartbeats. The city was home to many dozens of promising bands, most notable among them the Hollies, the Mockingbirds, and Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders. Later that year, the Heartbeats got a new member in 16-year-old Peter Noone (born November 5, 1947), who filled in one night when their regular vocalist failed to turn up for a gig. Noone was already a veteran actor, trained at the Manchester School of Music and Drama; he had been a child star on television in the late '50s, on the television series Coronation Street, but he also had musical aspirations. As a vocalist with the Heartbeats, he initially worked under the name Peter Novak. The quintet followed the same path that any other struggling band did, playing shows at youth clubs and local dances, hoping to get noticed, and they picked up a pair of managers, Harvey Lisberg and Charlie Silverman.

Accounts vary as to the origins of the name they ultimately adopted -- some say that their managers remarked on the facial resemblance between Noone and the character of Sherman in the Jay Ward cartoon show "Mr. Peabody & Sherman"; others credit Karl Green with mentioning it. In any case, "Sherman" became "Herman" and the group, in search of a more distinct name, became Herman & His Hermits and then Herman's Hermits. They played a pleasing, melodic brand of rock & roll, mostly standards of the late '50s and early '60s, with Noone's attractive vocals at the fore. Their big break came in 1964 when producer Mickie Most was invited by Lisberg and Silverman to a show in Manchester. He was impressed with their wholesome, clean-cut image, and with Noone's singing and pleasant, non-threatening stage presence, and he agreed to produce them, arranging a recording contract for the group with the EMI-Columbia label in England; their American releases were licensed to MGM Records.

Herman's Hermits' debut single, a Carole King/Gerry Goffin song called "I'm Into Something Good," released in the summer of 1964, hit number one in England and number 13 in America. Ironically, considering the direction of many of their future releases, the group displayed anything but an English sound on "I'm Into Something Good." Instead, it had a transatlantic feel, smooth and easy-going with a kind of vaguely identifiable California sound.

Of course, that statement assumed that the group had much to do with the record -- as it turned out, they didn't. In a manner typical of the majority of the acts that Most produced, the Hermits didn't play on most of their own records; Mickie Most, as was typical of producers in the era before the Beatles' emergence, saw no reason to make a less-than-perfect record, or spend expensive studio time working with a band to perfect its sound -- as long as Peter Noone's voice was on the record and the backing wasn't something that the group absolutely couldn't reproduce on stage, everyone seemed happy, including the fans. Conversely, the group didn't have too much control over the choice of material that they recorded or released. On their singles in particular, "Herman's Hermits" were mostly Peter Noone's vocals in front of whatever session musicians Most had engaged, which included such future luminaries as Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, with the other members relegated to background vocals, if that.

The group was grateful for the hit records that they chalked up, the revenue that those generated, and the gigs that resulted. They charted six Top 20 hits each in the years 1965 and 1966 and were a major attraction in concert, usually in a package tour situation, with the Hermits at or near the very top of whatever bill they were on. Their records were smooth, pleasant pop/rock, roughly the British invasion equivalent of easy listening, which set them apart from most of the rival acts of the period. Their cover of Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World" (which reached number four in America) and remake of the Rays' 1950s hit "Silhouettes" were good representations of the group's releases; on their EPs and early LPs, they also threw in covers of old rock & roll numbers like Frankie Ford's "Sea Cruise." They were purveyors of romantic pop/rock just at a time when the Beatles were starting to become influenced by Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and the Who were redefining the British beat sound with higher volume, greater complexity, and harder sounds.

Most recognized that those acts were leaving behind a huge number of listeners who would still buy songs resembling simple, relatively innocent sounds of 1964 or even earlier. Just how far back he and the group could reach was revealed to them by accident, following the release of Introducing Herman's Hermits on MGM Records in the United States during 1965, coinciding with their first U.S. tour. An American disc jockey heard the song "Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter" on that album and convinced the label to issue it as a single. The song had been done almost as a joke by the group, its guitar/banjo sound and Noone's vocal performance -- cockney accented and laced with a vulnerable, wide-eyed innocence -- deliberately reminiscent of George Formby, the immensely popular ukelele-strumming British music hall entertainer of the 1930s and 1940s. In England, that record would never have been considered for release by an image-conscious rock & roll group; the parents and grandparents of their audience would have loved it, but it would also have destroyed their credibility. In America, however, it was considered just another piece of British Invasion pop/rock and a pleasant, innocuous, and eminently hummable one at that -- and it shot to number one on the charts, earning a gold record in the process. It seemed to slot in with Americans' image of England's past in a comfortable, cheerful way, evoking a kind of "theme park" cockney image that easily adjoined the contemporary vision of "Swinging London." In the end, "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter" sold 14 million copies around the world, making their first film appearance (in the movie When the Boys Meet the Girls), which came off of that same U.S. tour, seem almost an after-thought. In England, however, "Mrs. Brown" was never issued as a single.

After that, a formula was established. Mickie Most got the group to record more songs in the same vein, including the actual Edwardian-era music hall number "I'm Henry the Eighth, I Am," specifically for release as singles in America. The latter record reportedly made the group members cringe over what it would do to their image in England, but in America it hit number one and chalked up yet another gold record award. Amid all of this American chart action with novelty tunes and albums that easily rose into the Top 30 in the U.S.A., the group's British releases were a whole other story. The Hermits continued to issue current romantic pop/rock, which sold well and kept up their image as a respectable if somewhat soft rock group. At the same time, their British album sales were virtually negligible, only their debut LP ever charting (at number 16). This was unfortunate, as the British version of their second album, Both Sides of Herman's Hermits, was a perfectly respectable pop/rock LP with some very hard, loud sounds (and one "period" standard, "Leaning on a Lamp Post"), mostly solid Brit-beat numbers like "Little Boy Sad," "Story of My Life," and "My Reservation's Been Confirmed," as well as a stripped-down, straight-ahead version of Graham Gouldman's "Bus Stop." That album and its 1967 follow-ups, There's a Kind of Hush All Over the World and Blaze (which never even came out in England), were excellent representations of the full range of the group's sound, including hard rock, psychedelia, and pop/rock, featuring very respectable originals written by Green, Hopwood, and Leckenby.

While their record sales remained healthy in America well into 1966, their British singles gradually slackened in sales until the group recorded Graham Gouldman's "No Milk Today," which put them back in the U.K. Top 10; in America, the same song was also a hit paired off with "Dandy," a poppish cover of the Kinks song. The group made their second film appearance, this time in a starring role in the comedy Hold On! (1966), which mixed Herman's Hermits in a story about space flight. By the end of that year, however, the stage was set for the gradual decline in the group's fortunes, even in America. Producers Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson, in conjunction with NBC and Columbia Pictures Television, had devised a television series that touched upon a formula for success very similar to what Mickie Most had found with Herman's Hermits: The Monkees -- all about a fun-loving pop/rock group created specifically for the series.

The program debuted in late 1966 and by that winter, the Monkees were selling millions of singles and LPs to the very same young teen audience that Herman's Hermits had cultivated. The presence of English actor/singer Davy Jones in their lineup, as the principal vocalist on their records and the romantic heartthrob of the group, only heightened the resemblance between the two acts. By 1967, Davy Jones and the Monkees were selling millions of copies of "Daydream Believer," a song that surely would have gone to the Hermits had it been written at any time earlier.

"There's a Kind of Hush (All Over the World)," a bright, upbeat pop number, put the Hermits back at number seven in England and number four in America; but an attempt at latching on to the folk-rock and psychedelic booms with a recording of Donovan's song "Museum" never charted in England and reached only number 37 in America before disappearing. They made the American Top 20 just once more with "Don't Go out Into the Rain," after which everyone seemed to recognize the inevitable. The group made one more feature film, entitled Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter -- the song, which had rocketed them to fame in America, served the group one last time, yielding a movie about dog racing that gave Noone a lead acting role and which was a decent box office success in 1968.

During this period, Noone co-produced a good LP for songwriter/singer Graham Gouldman (with whom he later went into partnership) that never sold well, despite some very interesting sounds. The Hermits, as a group, hewed closer to the pop market after "Museum" and enjoyed another two years worth of hits in England before Peter Noone decided to leave in 1970. The group soldiered on for another three years, cutting singles for RCA in America that were duly ignored and Noone returned briefly to the fold in 1973 to capitalize on the rock & roll revival boom and made an appearance hosting NBC's The Midnight Special, in an installment devoted to the sounds of the British Invasion, that became one of the most collectable shows in that program's run. Thereafter, Noone tried re-entering the rock & roll arena fronting a new band, the Tremblers, in 1980, without much success. He fared much better on stage in The Pirates of Penzance on London's West End, which was a huge hit in the mid-'80s. Both he and the latter-day Herman's Hermits have turned up on the oldies circuit at different times, usually working in the context of a revival of the British Invasion sound. Derek Leckerby passed away in 1994 at the age of 48, but drummer Barry Whitwam was leading a group of Herman's Hermits at the opening of the 21st century. Noone has resumed performing regularly and also became a star VJ on MTV's VH1 channel. In the year 2000, Repertoire Records began the long-overdue exhumation of Herman's Hermits album catalog, issuing state-of-the-art CD editions with bonus tracks that show off the full range of the group's music. Just as Rhino Records had previously done with the Monkees catalog, it seems like Herman's Hermits may finally be getting the recognition they deserved. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Singer, songwriter, and pianist Neil Sedaka enjoyed two distinct periods of commercial success in two slightly different styles of pop music: first, as a teen pop star in the late '50s and early '60s, then as a singer of more mature pop/rock in the 1970s. In both phases, Sedaka, a classically trained pianist, composed the music for his hits,... [+] Read More

Singer, songwriter, and pianist Neil Sedaka enjoyed two distinct periods of commercial success in two slightly different styles of pop music: first, as a teen pop star in the late '50s and early '60s, then as a singer of more mature pop/rock in the 1970s. In both phases, Sedaka, a classically trained pianist, composed the music for his hits, which he sang in a boyish tenor. And throughout, even when his performing career was at a low ebb, he served as a songwriter for other artists, resulting in a string of hits year in and year out, whether recorded by him or someone else. For himself, he wrote eight U.S. Top Ten pop hits, including the chart-toppers "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," "Laughter in the Rain," and "Bad Blood." The most successful cover of one of his compositions was Captain & Tennille's recording of "Love Will Keep Us Together," another number one. And over the years his songs were recorded by a wide range of pop, rock, country, R&B, and jazz performers including ABBA, Frankie Avalon, LaVern Baker, Shirley Bassey, Teresa Brewer, Carol Burnett, Glen Campbell, the Carpenters, Nick Carter, David Cassidy, Cher, Petula Clark, Richard Clayderman, Patsy Cline, Rosemary Clooney, Sheryl Crow, Vic Damone, Bobby Darin, John Davidson, Neil Diamond, Gloria Estefan, the 5th Dimension, the Four Seasons, Connie Francis, Crystal Gayle, Lesley Gore, the Happenings, Engelbert Humperdinck, Wanda Jackson, Jan & Dean, Tom Jones, Carole King, Earl Klugh, Peggy Lee, Little Anthony & the Imperials, Tony Martin, Johnny Mathis, Susannah McCorkle, Clyde McPhatter, Mandy Moore, Nana Mouskouri, Maria Muldaur, the Monkees, Jim Nabors, Wayne Newton, Jane Olivor, Donny Osmond, Patti Page, the Partridge Family, Bernadette Peters, Wilson Pickett, Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, the Searchers, Sha Na Na, Kay Starr, John Travolta, Dinah Washington, Andy Williams, and Glenn Yarbrough, among many others.

Sedaka was born in Brooklyn on March 13, 1939. His father, Mac Sedaka, a taxi driver, was the son of Turkish immigrants; his mother, Eleanor (Appel) Sedaka, was of Polish-Russian descent. He first demonstrated musical aptitude in his second-grade choral class, and when his teacher sent a note home suggesting he take piano lessons, his mother got a part-time job in a department store for six months to pay for a second-hand upright. He took to the instrument immediately. In 1947, he auditioned successfully for a piano scholarship to the prestigious Juilliard School of Music's Preparatory Division for Children, which he began to attend on Saturdays. He also maintained an interest in popular music, and when he was 13, a neighbor heard him playing and introduced him to her 16-year-old son, Howard Greenfield, an aspiring poet and lyricist; the two began writing songs together.

In high school, Sedaka formed a vocal group, the Tokens. After singing at local functions, they got an audition with a music publisher in Manhattan at 1619 Broadway, the famed Brill Building. This, in turn, led to an audition with the head of a small label, Melba Records, which released a single containing two Sedaka/Greenfield compositions, "I Love My Baby" and "While I Dream," in 1956. It achieved some airplay locally, but did not become a national hit, and Sedaka left the group, which later reorganized and went on to professional success in the 1960s. Around the same time, another song written by Sedaka earned a more prominent recording. He had collaborated with his brother-in-law, Eddie Grossman, on "Never Again," which Grossman arranged to have published and which was recorded by Dinah Washington for Mercury Records.

Meanwhile, the budding composer continued to attend Lincoln High School in Brooklyn and to pursue his classical studies. In 1956, he was one of a small group of New York City high school students chosen in a competition judged by Artur Rubinstein to play on the local classical radio station, WQXR. Upon his graduation from high school, Sedaka was accepted by the college division of Juilliard. At the same time, however, he and Greenfield continued writing songs and taking them to publishing companies at the Brill Building and another Manhattan office building just up the street at 1650 Broadway. There they encountered a new firm, Aldon Music, run by Al Nevins and Don Kirshner, who signed them to a songwriting contract and also signed Sedaka to a management contract as a performing artist. In 1957, without his prior knowledge, two demonstration recordings he had made of his songs "Laura Lee" and "Snowtime" were released as a single by Decca Records, giving him his first solo disc. Again, the record was not a hit. But the team of Sedaka and Greenfield finally did reach the charts when they placed "Stupid Cupid" with the new singing star Connie Francis in 1958. Francis had broken through with a revival of the 1920s ballad "Who's Sorry Now," while "Stupid Cupid" was up-tempo rock & roll. It peaked at number 14 on Billboard's Hot 100 in September, and Francis followed it with another Sedaka/Greenfield composition, "Fallin'," which peaked at number 30 in November. (In a harbinger of things to come, the songs were even more successful in the U.K., where "Stupid Cupid" hit number one and "Fallin'" made the Top 20.)

Another of Sedaka's demos, "Ring-a-Rockin'," turned up on disc in 1958 and even earned an airing on the American Bandstand television series, but did not become a hit. Nevertheless, interest in Sedaka as both a songwriter and a performer clearly was growing. In the fall of 1958, he took a leave of absence from Juilliard, and he auditioned at RCA Victor Records. He was signed, and RCA quickly issued his first formal solo single, the Sedaka/Greenfield song "The Diary," which peaked at number 14 in February 1959. But its follow-up, the up-tempo "I Go Ape," missed the Top 40 (despite reaching the Top Ten in Great Britain), and his third RCA single, "Crying My Heart Out for You," was a flop.

In his 1982 autobiography, Laughter in the Rain: My Own Story, Sedaka writes that, after the disappointing performance of his second RCA single and the failure of his third, "I knew I had to have a hit. I would get no more chances." To come up with that hit, he consulted the international charts in Billboard, then went out and bought the three most successful records he saw listed and listened to them repeatedly, "analyzing what they had in common. I discovered," he writes, "they had many similar elements: harmonic rhythm, placement of the chord changes, choice of harmonic progressions, similar instrumentation, vocals phrases, drum fills, content, even the timbre of the lead solo voice. I decided to write a song that incorporated all these elements in one record." The result of this deliberate effort was his fourth RCA single, "Oh! Carol" (dedicated to songwriter Carole King, an early girlfriend of his), which turned his performing career around, becoming his first American Top Ten hit as an artist in December. (In 1962, the Four Seasons covered it on their chart album Sherry & 11 Others.)

Meanwhile, RCA had released his debut album, Neil Sedaka, and it earned a nomination for the 1959 Grammy Award for Best Performance by a "Top 40" Artist, losing to Nat King Cole's "Midnight Flyer." And as a songwriter, he had other hits during the year: LaVern Baker reached the Top Five of the R&B chart with "I Waited Too Long"; Connie Francis took "Frankie" into the pop Top Ten; Clyde McPhatter reached the R&B Top 20 with "Since You've Been Gone"; and Roy Hamilton had a pop chart entry with "Time Marches On."

After the success of his fifth RCA single, "Stairway to Heaven," which peaked in the Top Ten in May 1960, the 21-year-old Sedaka finally began making personal appearances to support his records. Soon, he was touring extensively, including shows in South America, the Far East, and Europe. (He also began recording in Italian, German, Japanese, and Spanish, increasing his international popularity.) Meanwhile, the hits kept coming. His next single was a double-sided success, with "You Mean Everything to Me" making the Top 20 and "Run Samson Run" the Top 30, and his third 45 of 1960, "Calendar Girl," gave him his third Top Ten hit with a number four peak in February 1961. He seemed to have less time to write songs for other artists, but Jimmy Clanton peaked in the Top 30 in June 1960 with "Another Sleepless Night." Clanton had another Sedaka/Greenfield song, "What Am I Gonna Do," out by the end of the year, and it charted in January 1961.

The busy pace seemed to take a toll on Sedaka by 1961. "Little Devil" gave him his sixth consecutive Top 40 hit in May, but his next single, "Sweet Little You," was his first with a song that he had not composed himself (it was written by Barry Mann and Larry Kolber), and it broke his string of hits. "Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen," another Sedaka/Greenfield composition, was out before the end of the year and returned him to the Top Ten with a peak at number six in January 1962, however. (Neil Diamond covered it on his 1993 chart album Up on the Roof: Songs from the Brill Building.) Also in 1961, Sedaka released his second album of new studio recordings, Circulate, on which he sang pop standards. And his pen was far from idle otherwise. He and Greenfield had written the song score for the film Where the Boys Are, Connie Francis' acting debut, which resulted in a Top Five, gold-selling hit in her recording of the title song in early 1961.

"King of Clowns," Sedaka's first single of 1962, missed the Top 40, but he scored his biggest hit yet with "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," which went to number one in August. It was nominated for the 1962 Grammy Award for Best Rock & Roll Recording, but lost out to Bent Fabric's "Alley Cat." The song went on to become perhaps Sedaka's most valuable copyright, being revived for a pop singles chart entry by the Happenings in 1968, an R&B Top 30 and pop Top 40 hit by Lenny Welch in 1970, and a Top 30 pop hit (and U.K. Top Five) by the Partridge Family in 1972, while also appearing on chart LPs by the Four Seasons, Little Eva, and Sha Na Na, all before Sedaka himself revived it for a hit again in the mid-'70s.

Sedaka's third single of 1962, "Next Door to an Angel," reached the Top Five. RCA marked the completion of his fourth year as a hitmaker by releasing Neil Sedaka Sings His Greatest Hits, which became his first LP to reach the charts. Meanwhile, the Sedaka/Greenfield team placed "Venus in Blue Jeans" with Jimmy Clanton for a Top Ten hit (it also made the U.K. Top Ten in a rendition by Mark Wynter), and "Keep a Walkin'" on Bobby Darin's chart album Twist with Bobby Darin.

By 1963, Sedaka reportedly had sold 25 million records worldwide. But at this point his career began to go into decline. He released four singles in 1963, and all of them charted, with three in the Top 40 and one, "Alice in Wonderland," even making the Top 20, but that was a disappointing performance after his previous successes. 1964, the year the Beatles arrived in America and launched the British Invasion, was worse, with Sedaka's three single releases resulting in only one brief appearance in the Hot 100 for "Sunny," and 1965 wasn't much better, as another three Sedaka singles produced only two chart entries for "The World Through a Tear" and "The Answer to My Prayer" (both written by Chris Allen, Peter Allen, and Richard Everitt). In 1966, Sedaka released two last singles on RCA, but they failed to chart, and by early 1967 he was without a record label. He was not, however, without a publisher. Aldon had been sold to Screen Gems and offered him plenty of opportunities to place his compositions. Screen Gems' main priority at the time was the Monkees, the group created for a television series patterned on the Beatles movie A Hard Day's Night, and the Sedaka/Greenfield song "When Love Comes Knockin' (At Your Door)" appeared on their second album, More of the Monkees, a number one hit in early 1967. That spring the Cyrkle reached the charts with Sedaka/Greenfield's "We Had a Good Thing Goin'." "Workin' on a Groovy Thing," written by Sedaka with Roger Atkins, was a Top 40 R&B hit and pop chart entry for Patti Drew in the summer of 1968, and a year later earned Top 20 rankings in the pop and R&B charts in a cover by the 5th Dimension. Also in 1968, Sedaka had a cut on Frankie Valli's chart album Timeless called "Make the Music Play." In 1969, Sedaka/Greenfield's "The Girl I Left Behind Me" appeared on the Monkees LP Instant Replay. Also, for the first time in three years, Sedaka had his own release, on Screen Gems' SGC label, the single "Star-Crossed Lovers," which became a hit in Australia, but not in the U.S. Nevertheless, he had a second SGC release in 1970, "Rainy Jane," a song covered by former Monkees singer Davy Jones for a chart entry in 1971. Also in 1970, the 5th Dimension recorded Sedaka/Greenfield's "Puppet Man" for a Top 30 pop hit, and a year later Tom Jones also had a Top 30 hit with it. Peggy Lee cut Sedaka/Greenfield's "One More Ride on the Merry-Go-Round" for her 1970 chart album Make It with You, and the team also wrote songs for an animated children's TV series about the comic basketball troupe the Harlem Globetrotters called The Globetrotters.

Perhaps the most significant recording to Sedaka's career in 1971 was one he himself was not involved with, Carole King's breakthrough album Tapestry, which topped the charts. The LP demonstrated the new appeal of soft rock singer/songwriters and made veteran writers from the Brill Building era hip again. Don Kirshner negotiated a manufacturing and distribution deal with RCA for his new Kirshner Records label, and he signed Sedaka to a contract, resulting in the release of Sedaka's first album of new original material in 12 years, Emergence, in September 1971. He also began performing in showcase clubs like New York's Bitter End. The album didn't chart, but it was a new beginning. Meanwhile, Sedaka continued to place songs with other performers. Tony Christie scored a Top 20 hit in the U.K. with "Is This the Way to Amarillo" (aka "Amarillo") in the fall of 1971; TV star Carol Burnett gave great prominence to a Sedaka tune on her early 1972 chart album by calling it Carol Burnett Featuring "If I Could Write a Song"; and Cher had a chart entry in September 1972 with "Don't Hide Your Love."

At this point, Sedaka made two important changes in his attempt to resurrect his career. First, he decided, after 20 years, to sever his songwriting partnership with Howard Greenfield in favor of a new partner who could write in a style more consistent with what he called in his autobiography the "more elusive, more poetic" lyrics of the '70s singer/songwriters, rather than Greenfield's "very slick and polished" words. (He did continue to work with Greenfield occasionally thereafter.) At his publisher's, he met Phil Cody, and they began to write. Second, finding that he was getting a better reception in Great Britain than in the U.S., he moved to London to concentrate on mounting a comeback there. His increasing profile was confirmed by the Top 20 British success of a maxi-single containing three of his old songs, "Oh! Carol," "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," and "Little Devil," in the fall of 1972. Also that fall, Kirshner Records released his next album, Solitaire, which he had recorded in England with a backup band that would emerge later as 10cc. The album did not chart, but it produced two chart singles in the U.K., "Beautiful You" and "That's When the Music Takes Me," the latter reaching the Top 20. Glen Campbell recorded "That's When the Music Takes Me" for his concert album Live at the Royal Festival Hall, which charted in 1977, and other singers found material on Solitaire. Donny Gerrard scored an R&B chart entry in 1975 with "(Baby) Don't Let It Mess Your Mind," and Yvonne Elliman put the same song on her 1978 chart album Night Flight. But it was the title song from Solitaire that became another of Sedaka's most successful copyrights. Andy Williams' cover became a Top Five hit in Britain in the winter of 1973-1974; the Carpenters' version was a Top 20 hit in the U.S. in 1975; and the song appeared on chart albums by Johnny Mathis, Elvis Presley, and Jane Olivor on its way to being a much-performed standard. Sheryl Crow sang it on the Carpenters tribute album If I Were a Carpenter in 1994, and in 2004 Clay Aiken, a runner-up from the American Idol TV talent show, took his recording to number four.

Having reestablished himself in the U.K., Sedaka signed to the European label Polydor, which assigned him to its MGM subsidiary, and recorded a new album, The Tra-La Days Are Over, which was released in the U.K. in the summer of 1973. In the U.S., MGM tested the waters with a couple of singles, but when they did not succeed, the LP was not released in America. In Britain, it was a different story. "Standing on the Inside" and "Our Last Song Together" (the latter, appropriately, the last song Sedaka had written with Greenfield before their split) both made the Top 40, and the LP made the Top 20. Sedaka followed in 1974 with Laughter in the Rain, released on the main Polydor label, which also made the Top 20 and threw off two Top 40 hits, "A Little Lovin'" and the title song. Again, the album was not released in the U.S. Around this time, Sedaka and Cody's expertise was called upon by Swedish songwriters Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus when they wrote English lyrics for "Ring Ring," one of ABBA's early songs.

While in England, Sedaka met Elton John, at the time the top pop recording star in the world, who was about to launch his own label, Rocket Records. John agreed to sign Sedaka for the U.S., and for his first release they assembled a compilation album drawn from Solitaire, The Tra-La Days Are Over, and Laughter in the Rain. The album was called Sedaka's Back, and it lived up to its name. It was preceded by the release of "Laughter in the Rain" as a single, and the song topped the charts in February 1975, Sedaka's first number one single in nearly 13 years. (To become a hit, the Sedaka version had to outdistance one by Lea Roberts that made the R&B charts; the song was also recorded on chart albums by Johnny Mathis and Earl Klugh.) The album made the Top 30 and went gold, and it spawned two more Top 40 hits, "The Immigrant" and "That's When the Music Takes Me." After "Our Last Song Together" appeared on the album, Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods covered it for a singles chart entry. In addition, Captain & Tennille covered "Love Will Keep Us Together" (another of Sedaka's final collaborations with Greenfield) from the album and released their version as a single that hit number one in June 1975. (Among the many other recordings of the song, Wilson Pickett revived it for a pop chart entry in 1976 and James Taylor Quartet featuring Alison Limerick had an R&B chart entry in 1995.) Captain & Tennille also tapped Sedaka's Back for "Sad Eyes," which they recorded for their 1977 Come in from the Rain LP (that album also contained the Sedaka song "Let Mama Know"). "Sad Eyes" earned another cover by Maria Muldaur on her 1976 chart album Sweet Harmony, after having been a number 11 hit on the Easy Listening chart for Andy Williams in the fall of 1975. "The Other Side of Me," another track from Sedaka's Back, gave Williams a British chart entry in 1976 and was featured on U.S. chart albums by Shirley Bassey and Crystal Gayle. But Donny Osmond had beaten them all by putting it on his chart album Alone Together back in 1973, just after its initial appearance on The Tra-La Days Are Over.

Sedaka toured the U.S. as an opening act for the Carpenters; by the end of the year, he was a Las Vegas headliner. Meanwhile, he had continued to record for the U.K. market, issuing a concert LP, Live at the Royal Festival Hall, in the fall of 1974 and, in the spring of 1975, a new studio album, Overnight Success, featuring the Top 40 hit "The Queen of 1964." Again, this LP was not issued in the U.S., but in the late summer, with Sedaka reestablished, American disc jockeys began playing a cut from it, "Bad Blood," which featured a prominent backup vocal by Elton John. This forced a quick U.S. release for the song, and Overnight Success, with a couple of track substitutions, appeared in America in September 1975 under the title The Hungry Years. "Bad Blood" soared to number one and went gold, and the album made the Top 20 and went gold, while also throwing off a new slow-tempo version of "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" that peaked in the Top Ten in early 1976, leading to the odd occurrence that the 14-year-old tune earned a nomination for the 1976 Grammy Award for Song of the Year, which it lost to Bruce Johnston's "I Write the Songs." "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" was given a new lease on life. Jimmy Bee and Ernie Fields & His Orchestra covered it for an R&B chart entry in 1976, and the same year the Carpenters put it on their chart LP A Kind of Hush. In 1983, the American Comedy Network had a pop chart entry with a parody, "Breaking Up Is Hard on You," and Gloria Estefan sang it on her double-platinum 1994 album Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me. Also, Captain & Tennille located another Sedaka-penned hit on The Hungry Years, recording "Lonely Night (Angel Face)" for a gold-selling Top Five hit in early 1976, and Wayne Newton scored a chart entry with the album's title song, which also earned covers in 1976 on chart albums by Johnny Mathis, Engelbert Humperdinck, Shirley Bassey, and Rita Coolidge.

Sedaka finally managed to put out the same album in the U.S. and overseas at the same time in the spring of 1976 with Steppin' Out, but it was not as big a hit as its predecessors, even though it reached the Top 30 and contained three chart hits, "Love in the Shadows," "You Gotta Make Your Own Sunshine," and the title song. None of the album's songs became hits for other performers, but John Travolta recorded a new Sedaka composition, "I Don't Know What I Like About You Baby," for his self-titled 1976 chart album. Steppin' Out concluded Sedaka's contract with Rocket Records, and he moved to Elektra for 1977's A Song, produced by George Martin of Beatles fame, another modest success that contained his chart revival of his song "Amarillo" as well as "You Never Done It Like That," which Captain & Tennille covered for a Top Ten hit. The duo also recorded "Love Is Spreading Over the World," a new Sedaka song, on their Dream album in 1978, while Jane Olivor put "The Big Parade," another song Sedaka himself had not recorded, on her 1977 Chasing Rainbows LP.

Sedaka's second Elektra album, All You Need Is the Music (1978), missed the charts, suggesting that his second commercial resurgence as a record seller had subsided. But he returned in the spring of 1980 with In the Pocket. It was preceded by the single "Should've Never Let You Go," which he sang as a duo with his daughter Dara Sedaka. The single made the Top 40 and earned a cover by Bernadette Peters on her self-titled chart album released at the same time. In the Pocket only made the lower reaches of the charts, however, and 1981's Neil Sedaka: Now, Sedaka's fourth and last Elektra album, did not chart at all. He switched to MCA/Curb, which had him record oldies in the company of other veteran stars, resulting in an Adult Contemporary chart hit with Dara Sedaka on the old Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell hit "Your Precious Love" in 1983-1984, an Adult Contemporary chart entry with a revival of the Cascades' 1963 hit "Rhythm of the Rain," and the LP Come See About Me.

Clearly, Sedaka's days as a major recording act were over by the mid-'80s, but he had amassed a sufficient backlog of hits that he could perform successfully for decades in theaters and hotel casinos in the U.S. and internationally. That's what he did, meanwhile issuing occasional new recordings and re-recordings of his old songs. The death of Howard Greenfield from AIDS in 1986 prompted the release of the double-album My Friend, containing the duo's best-known work. In 1991, Polydor's Timeless: The Very Best of Neil Sedaka became a Top Ten hit in the U.K. Varèse Sarabande's 1995 collection Tuneweaver found Sedaka revisiting many of his old hits, and the same year saw the release of Classically Sedaka on Vision, an album on which he adapted classical themes into songs with new lyrics that he wrote himself. Tales of Love and Other Passions, featuring a jazz trio, appeared in 1997. In 1999, a TV-advertised collection, The Very Best of Neil Sedaka, charted in the U.K. Brighton Beach Memories: Neil Sedaka Sings Yiddish was released on Sameach in 2003, and the same year Sedaka self-released an album of new songs to which he had written both music and lyrics, The Show Goes On. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

The Everly Brothers were not only among the most important and best early rock & roll stars, but also among the most influential rockers of any era. They set unmatched standards for close, two-part harmonies and infused early rock & roll with some of the best elements of country and pop music. Their legacy was and is felt enormously in all rock... [+] Read More

The Everly Brothers were not only among the most important and best early rock & roll stars, but also among the most influential rockers of any era. They set unmatched standards for close, two-part harmonies and infused early rock & roll with some of the best elements of country and pop music. Their legacy was and is felt enormously in all rock acts that employ harmonies as prime features, from the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, and legions of country-rockers to modern-day roots rockers like Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe (who once recorded an EP of Everlys songs together).

Don (born February 1, 1937) and Phil (born January 19, 1939) were professionals way before their teens, schooled by their accomplished guitarist father Ike, and singing with their family on radio broadcasts in Iowa. In the mid-'50s, they made a brief stab at conventional Nashville country with Columbia. When their single flopped, they were cast adrift for quite a while until they latched onto Cadence. Don invested their first single for the label, "Bye Bye Love," with a Bo Diddley beat that helped lift the song to number two in 1957.

"Bye Bye Love" began a phenomenal three-year string of classic hit singles for Cadence, including "Wake Up Little Susie," "All I Have to Do Is Dream," "Bird Dog," "('Til) I Kissed You," and "When Will I Be Loved." The Everlys sang of young love with a heart-rending yearning and compelling melodies. The harmonies owed audible debts to Appalachian country music, but were imbued with a keen modern pop sensibility that made them more accessible without sacrificing any power or beauty. They were not as raw as the wild rockabilly men from Sun Records, but they could rock hard when they wanted. Even their mid-tempo numbers and ballads were executed with a force missing in the straight country and pop tunes of the era. The duo enjoyed a top-notch support team of producer Archie Bleyer, great Nashville session players like Chet Atkins, and the brilliant songwriting team of Boudleaux and Felice Bryant. Don, and occasionally Phil, wrote excellent songs of their own as well.

In 1960, the Everlys left Cadence for a lucrative contract with the then-young Warner Bros. label (though it's not often noted, the Everlys would do a lot to establish Warners as a major force in the record business). It's sometimes been written that the duo never recaptured the magic of their Cadence recordings, but actually Phil and Don peaked both commercially and artistically with their first Warners releases. "Cathy's Clown," their first Warners single, was one of their greatest songs and a number-one hit. Their first two Warners LPs, employing a fuller and brasher production than their Cadence work, were not just among their best work, but two of the best rock albums of the early '60s. The hits kept coming for a couple of years, some great ("Walk Right Back," "Temptation"), some displaying a distressing, increasing tendency toward soft pop and maudlin sentiments ("Ebony Eyes," "That's Old Fashioned").

Don and Phil's personal lives came under a lot of stress in the early '60s: They were drafted into the Army (together), and studied acting for six months, but never made a motion picture. More seriously, Don developed an addiction to speed and almost died of an overdose in late 1962. By that time, their career as chart titans in the U.S. had ended; "That's Old Fashioned" (1962) was their last Top Ten hit. Their albums became careless, erratic affairs, which was all the more frustrating because many of their flop singles of the time were fine, even near-classic efforts that demonstrated they could still deliver the goods.

Virtually alone among first-generation rock & roll superstars, the Everlys stuck with no-nonsense rock & roll and remained determined to keep their sound contemporary, rather than drifting toward soft pop or country like so many others. Although their mid-'60s recordings were largely ignored in America, they contained some of their finest work, including a ferocious Top 40 single in 1964 ("Gone, Gone, Gone"). They remained big stars overseas -- in 1965, "Price of Love" went to number two in the U.K. at the height of the British Invasion. They incorporated jangling Beatle/Byrdesque guitars into some of their songs, and recorded a fine album with the Hollies (who were probably more blatantly influenced by the Everlys than any other British band of the time). In the late '60s, they helped pioneer country-rock with the 1968 album Roots, their most sophisticated and unified full-length statement. None of this revived their career as hit-makers, though they could always command huge audiences on international tours, and hosted a network TV variety show in 1970.

The decades of enforced professional togetherness finally took their toll on the pair in the early '70s, which saw a few dispirited albums and, finally, an acrimonious breakup in 1973. They spent the next decade performing solo, which only proved -- as is so often the case in close-knit artistic partnerships -- how much each brother needed the other to sound his best. In 1983, enough water had flowed under the bridge for the two to resume performing and recording together. The tours, with a backup band led by guitarist Albert Lee, proved they could still sing well. The records (both live and studio) were fair efforts that, in the final estimation, were not in nearly the same league as their '50s and '60s classics, although Paul McCartney penned a small hit single for them ("On the Wings of a Nightingale"). One of the more successful and dignified reunions in the rock annals, the Everlys continued to perform live, although they have not recorded an album since the late '80s. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide [-] Hide

The Grass Roots had a series of major hits -- most notably "Let's Live for Today," "Midnight Confessions," "Temptation Eyes," and "Two Divided by Love" -- that help define the essence of the era's best AM radio. Although the group's members weren't even close to being recognizable, and their in-house songwriting was next to irrelevant, the Grass... [+] Read More

The Grass Roots had a series of major hits -- most notably "Let's Live for Today," "Midnight Confessions," "Temptation Eyes," and "Two Divided by Love" -- that help define the essence of the era's best AM radio. Although the group's members weren't even close to being recognizable, and their in-house songwriting was next to irrelevant, the Grass Roots managed to chart 14 Top 40 hits, including seven gold singles and one platinum single, and two had hits collections that effortlessly went gold. The group's history is also fairly complicated, because there were at least three different groups involved in the making of the songs identified as being by "the Grass Roots."

The Grass Roots was originated by the writer/producer team of P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri as a pseudonym under which they would release a body of Byrds/Beau Brummels-style folk-rock. Sloan and Barri were contracted songwriters for Trousdale Music, the publishing arm of Dunhill Records, which wanted to cash in on the folk-rock boom of 1965. Dunhill asked Sloan and Barri to come up with this material, and a group alias under which they would release it. The resulting "Grass Roots" debut song, "Where Were You When I Needed You," sung by Sloan, was sent to a Los Angeles radio station, which began playing it. The problem was, there was no "Grass Roots." The next step was to recruit a band that could become the Grass Roots. Sloan found a San Francisco group called the Bedouins that seemed promising on the basis of their lead singer, Bill Fulton. Fulton recorded a new vocal over the backing tracks laid down for the P.F. Sloan version of the song. The Bedouins were, at first, content to put their future in the hands of Sloan and Barri as producers, despite the fact that the group was more blues-oriented than folk-rock. However, the rest of the group was offended when Fulton was told to record their debut single, a cover of Bob Dylan's "The Ballad of a Thin Man," backed by studio musicians. When that single, released in October of 1965, became only a modest hit, the Bedouins -- except for their drummer, Joel Larson -- departed for San Francisco, to re-form as the Unquenchable Thirst. Sloan and Barri continued to record. "Where Were You When I Needed You" was released in mid-'66 and peaked at number 28, but the album of the same name never charted.

Amid the machinations behind Where Were You When I Needed You, no "real" Grass Roots band existed in 1966. A possible solution came along when a Los Angeles band called the 13th Floor submitted a demo tape to Dunhill. This group, consisting of Warren Entner (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Creed Bratton (lead guitar), Rob Grill (vocals, bass), and Rick Coonce (drums), was recruited and offered the choice of recording under their own name, or to take over the name the Grass Roots, put themselves in the hands of Sloan and Barri, and take advantage of the Grass Roots' track record. They chose the latter, with Rob Grill as primary lead vocalist. The first track cut by the new Grass Roots in the spring of 1967 was "Let's Live for Today," a new version of a song that had been an Italian hit, in a lighter, more up-tempo version, for a band called the Rokes. "Let's Live for Today" was an achingly beautiful, dramatic, and serious single and it shot into the Top Ten upon its release in the summer of 1967. An accompanying album, Let's Live for Today, only reached number 75. The group began spreading its wings in the studio with their next album, Feelings, recorded late in 1967, which emphasized the band's material over Sloan and Barri's. This was intended as their own statement of who they were, but it lacked the commercial appeal of anything on Let's Live for Today, sold poorly, and never yielded any hit singles. Eleven months went by before the group had another chart entry, and during that period, Sloan and Barri's partnership broke up, with Sloan departing for New York and an attempt at a performing career of his own. The band even considered splitting up as all of this was happening. The Grass Roots' return to the charts (with Barri producing), however, was a triumphant one -- in the late fall of 1968, "Midnight Confessions" reached number five on the charts and earned a gold record. "Midnight Confessions" showed the strong influence of Motown, and the R&B flavor of the song stuck with Barri and the band.

In April of 1969, Creed Bratton left the band, to be replaced by Denny Provisor on keyboards and Terry Furlong on lead guitar. Now a quintet, the Grass Roots went on cutting records without breaking stride, enjoying a string of Top 40 hits that ran into the early '70s, peaking with "Temptation Eyes" at number 15 in the summer of 1971. Coonce and Provisor left at the end of 1971, to be replaced by Reed Kailing on lead guitar, Virgil Webber on keyboards, and Joel Larson -- of the original Bedouins/Grass Roots outfit -- on drums. They arrived just in time to take advantage of the number 16 success of "Two Divided by Love," which was the last of the Grass Roots' big hits. The Grass Roots soldiered on for a few more years, reaching the Top 40 a couple of times in 1972, but their commercial success slowly slipped away during 1973. They kept working for a few more years, but called it quits in 1975. Rob Grill remained in the music business on the organizing side, and by 1980 was persuaded by his friend John McVie to cut a solo album, Uprooted, which featured contributions by Mick Fleetwood and Lindsay Buckingham. By 1982, amid the burgeoning oldies concert circuit and the respect beginning to be accorded the Grass Roots, Grill formed a new Grass Roots -- sometimes billed as Rob Grill and the Grass Roots -- and began performing as many as 100 shows a year. Their presence on various oldies package tours have seen to it that the Grass Roots' name remains visible in the '90s. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Actually, His 12 Greatest Hits consists of 12 songs that were hits for Neil Diamond on Uni between 1969 and 1972. "Cracklin' Rosie" is here, along with Diamond's other chart-topper of the period, "Song Sung Blue," and the Top Ten hits "Sweet Caroline" and "Holly Holy." ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

Actually, His 12 Greatest Hits consists of 12 songs that were hits for Neil Diamond on Uni between 1969 and 1972. "Cracklin' Rosie" is here, along with Diamond's other chart-topper of the period, "Song Sung Blue," and the Top Ten hits "Sweet Caroline" and "Holly Holy." ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide [-] Hide

The Cowsills' volume of 20th Century Masters -- The Millennium Collection: The Best of the Cowsills contains nearly all of the group's biggest hits and best songs, including "The Rain, The Park, & Other Things," "Hair," and "Love American Style." Over the course of 12 songs, almost all of their hits are presented, along with Bill Cowsill's "When... [+] Read More

The Cowsills' volume of 20th Century Masters -- The Millennium Collection: The Best of the Cowsills contains nearly all of the group's biggest hits and best songs, including "The Rain, The Park, & Other Things," "Hair," and "Love American Style." Over the course of 12 songs, almost all of their hits are presented, along with Bill Cowsill's "When Everybody's Here," which means this will satisfy nearly all of their casual fans. Some diehards could use a longer collection, but the rest will find this to be a fine, entertaining collection. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Another erratic early album from the Beach Boys; few other rock LPs have such a wide gap between the best and worst material. On the good side, you have absolute classics in the Chuck Berry-ish "Fun, Fun, Fun" and its superb B-side, "Don't Worry Baby," one of the most advanced pop productions of 1964 with its breathtaking harmonies and unusual... [+] Read More

Another erratic early album from the Beach Boys; few other rock LPs have such a wide gap between the best and worst material. On the good side, you have absolute classics in the Chuck Berry-ish "Fun, Fun, Fun" and its superb B-side, "Don't Worry Baby," one of the most advanced pop productions of 1964 with its breathtaking harmonies and unusual lyric. "The Warmth of the Sun" is one of the most melodic (and melancholic) ballads they ever recorded, and "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" is one of their best oldies covers. Yet the rest reduces the oceanic scale of the classics to dishwater, whether they're throwaway hot rod tunes and instrumentals, innocuous high-school romantic ditties, or a soulless cover of "Louie Louie." When this album hit the racks in early 1964, the Beatles were proving that you could make LPs that were all killer, no filler; the Beach Boys would soon be forced to up their ante. [Surfer Girl/Shut Down, Vol. 2, a Capitol two-fer CD, combines this and Surfer Girl onto one disc, adding the 45 version of "Fun, Fun, Fun," a German version of "In My Room," and the previously unreleased Brian Wilson composition "I Do."] ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Considering that Help! functions as the Beatles' fifth album and as the soundtrack to their second film -- while filming, they continued to release non-LP singles on a regular basis -- it's not entirely surprising that it still has some of the weariness of Beatles for Sale. Again, they pad the album with covers, but the Bakersfield bounce of... [+] Read More

Considering that Help! functions as the Beatles' fifth album and as the soundtrack to their second film -- while filming, they continued to release non-LP singles on a regular basis -- it's not entirely surprising that it still has some of the weariness of Beatles for Sale. Again, they pad the album with covers, but the Bakersfield bounce of "Act Naturally" adds new flavor (along with an ideal showcase for Ringo's amiable vocals) and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" gives John an opportunity to flex his rock & roll muscle. George is writing again and if his two contributions don't touch Lennon and McCartney's originals, they hold their own against much of their British pop peers. Since Lennon wrote a third more songs than McCartney, it's easy to forgive a pair of minor numbers ("It's Only Love," "Tell Me What You See"), especially since they're overshadowed by four great songs. His Dylan infatuation holds strong, particularly on the plaintive "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" and the title track, where the brash arrangement disguises Lennon's desperation. Driven by an indelible 12-string guitar, "Ticket to Ride" is another masterpiece and "You're Going to Lose That Girl" is the kind of song McCartney effortlessly tosses off -- which he does with the jaunty "The Night Before" and "Another Girl," two very fine tunes that simply update his melodic signature. He did much better with "I've Just Seen a Face," an irresistible folk-rock gem, and "Yesterday," a simple, beautiful ballad whose arrangement -- an acoustic guitar supported by a string quartet -- and composition suggested much more sophisticated and adventurous musical territory, which the group immediately began exploring with Rubber Soul. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide [-] Hide

At the time Back to Mono was released in 1991, Phil Spector's reputation as one of pop's great visionaries was intact, but there was no way to hear his genius. It wasn't just that there were no collections spotlighting his productions, there weren't collections of artists he produced. It wasn't until Back to Mono that there was a thorough... [+] Read More

At the time Back to Mono was released in 1991, Phil Spector's reputation as one of pop's great visionaries was intact, but there was no way to hear his genius. It wasn't just that there were no collections spotlighting his productions, there weren't collections of artists he produced. It wasn't until Back to Mono that there was a thorough overview of Spector's greatest work, and while it's not without flaws, it still stands as one of the great box sets. Some may complain that there are no selections from his superstar '70s productions for John Lennon, George Harrison, Leonard Cohen, and the Ramones, but that's for the best, since their presence would have been incongruous, taking attention away from the music that forms the heart of Spector's legacy. All of that music is here, not just on the first three discs, all devoted to singles, but also on the fourth disc, his seminal 1963 holiday album, A Christmas Gift for You, which isn't just the greatest rock Christmas album, but a crystallization of his skills. It could be argued that the song selection overlooks some obscure fan favorites, such as "Do the Screw," but that's simply nitpicking, because what's here are all the great Spector records, which were hardly just great productions, they were great songs as well. As the set plays, it's hard not to be stunned by the depth of the material and clarity of Spector's vision for his famed Wall of Sound, whether you've heard these songs hundreds of times or not at all -- especially because they gain power when grouped together. Many producers have been credited as the true creative force behind many rock records, but usually that's hyperbole. In Spector's case, it wasn't, as this set gloriously proves. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide [-] Hide