SINGLES GOING STEADY: "I'M YOUR PUPPET" (AND SOME OTHER STORIES)

Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham

Dan Penn was a producer and songwriter who always wanted to write soul songs and had the ability to do so quite well.  When he teamed up with a dude named Spooner Oldham, a fellow songwriter, producer and organist, some would say magic occurred quite often.  

Magic occurred in 1966 in the form of "I'm Your Puppet," a Top 10 hit which was written for a couple of cousins named James and Bobby Purify.  Penn and Oldham wrote a lot of songs for the Purify cousins, but to this day, "I'm Your Puppet" with it's wonderful vocal and horn harmonies, B3 organ and fairy godmother glockenspiel, remains James and Bobby's best known hit.  It's a GREAT song and one of many Penn and Oldham hits.  By the way, their songs have been reinterpreted by a variety of artists including Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Huey Lewis and Cat Power.  

"I'm Your Puppet" by James & Bobby Purify

One year later, the team of Penn and Oldham was hired to produce a young blue-eyed soul group (that means soul music sung by white people) called The Box-Tops.  Though the group's hit was another Penn/Oldham composition called "The Letter,"  The Box-Tops also recorded a version "I'm Your Puppet."   This version has no harmonies (except on the backing vocals) and uses slightly sharp bells in place of the glockenspiel.  The bells, and the dissonance of their sharp pitch against the rest of the instruments, are actually quite chilling.

The majority of the members of The Box-Tops were rather ordinary musicians.  Many session dudes came in to augment a lot of the songs with more instrumentation and vocals.  The one stand out star was the group's lead vocalist, Alex Chilton, who at 16 years old possessed one helluva husky voice.  He really sells his vocal on "I'm Your Puppet" and can deceive you into thinking he's an old seasoned pro.  

"I'm Your Puppet" by The Box Tops (Remember, the kid singing is 16!!)

After The Box-Tops broke up, Alex Chilton met a dude named Chris Bell and formed the power pop outfit known as Big Star.  Shockingly, Chilton's voice changed by the time this band formed.  No, it didn't get huskier.  It actually became clearer and higher pitched—how often does that happen?  Here's one of their best songs, a song which has been recorded by everybody from Tom Petty to Counting Crowes.  

"The Ballad of El Goodo" by Big Star (Can you believe it's the same kid singing?)

Big Star never really made it big, which is a real shame because they made great music.  Today, there isn't anybody who knows Big Star who doesn't believe they should have been huge.   Fact is, if it wasn't for red tape and record label bureacracy, they probably would have been.  Perhaps their best known song is a song which was later rerecorded by Cheap Trick.  If you've watched a lot of TV in the 90s and early 2000s, I'll bet you a coke that you know this number.

"In The Street" by Big Star (sung by Chris Bell)

You probably owe me a coke now...

Finally, I'd like to show you this album by the aformentioned duo Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham.  This is from a concert recorded in 1999.  They begin with our favorite song, "I'm Your Puppet."  It's shocking that nobody from the audience interrupts this song with applause when they start to play it!  That an audience could be so quiet for the entire duration of such a hit is a testament to both the song and the audience. These simple performances really emphasize just how good these songs are.  I highly recommend you check this out.

Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham: Music From This Theater

SINGLES GOING STEADY: "BROWNSVILLE GIRL" BY BOB DYLAN

Despite all the die-hard fans Bob Dylan had accumulated with such classics as "Blowin' In The Wind," "Like A Rolling Stone," "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Tangled Up In Blue," this Minnesotan dreamer turned Greenwich Village troubador had pretty much fallen off the radar in the mid 1980s.  By 1986, Dylan seemed to be coasting on albums that, with some exception, were mediocre at best.  It must have been frustrating for fans who watched as Paul Simon released his landmark album, Graceland, which became one of the biggest selling albums of the 1980s (and of all time.)  Simon was still making great music at 45.  Why wasn't Bob Dylan?

The thing is, Dylan was releasing some great music in the 1980s, but much of the public wasn't paying any attention.  When the artist's 24th studio album Knocked Out Loaded was released in 1986, most fans were disappointed in every album following 1976's Desire.  So, it was no longer a really big deal when news broke that Bob Dylan had a new album coming out.  It's not like it was going to be any good.

Knocked Out Loaded was not a strong album, it didn't break new sonic ground like Graceland and its sales were pretty weak.  It did, however, feature a couple of decent songs and one great one.  The latter was an 11 minute epic written with playwright Sam Shepard called "Brownsville Girl."  The song was on par with most other Dylan epics and was even better than a couple classics (See "Joey" on the album Desire.)  

Village Voice "Consumer Guide" rock critic, Robert Christgau, actually hits the nail right on the head.

• "One of the greatest and most ridiculous of Dylan's great ridiculous epics.  Doesn't matter who came up with such lines as 'She said even the swap meets around here are getting pretty corrupt' and 'I didn't know whether to duck or run, so I ran' — they're classic Dylan."

So, let's have a listen:

"Brownsville Girl" by Bob Dylan

SINGLES GOING STEADY: "SOMETHING IN THE AIR" BY THUNDERCLAP NEWMAN

Thunderclap Newman

Thunderclap Newman was the ultimate one-hit wonder band.  Their lone hit "Something In The Air" has been in countless commercials, movies and TV shows,  It's for a good reason, too.  Why? Because the song is really, really, really good.  

Formed in 1968, the band consisted of three members: vocalist, guitarist and drummer John "Speedy" Keen,  pianist Andy "Thunderclap" Newman and guitarist Jimmy McCullough.  

Although he isn't pictured, you could say the band had one other member.  He was a gifted singer/songwriter, guitarist and producer who played in a very successful band.  Who was he? Get this...

Pete Townshend of The Who

...Crazy, right?

Pete Townshend not only assembled Thunderclap Newman, he produced them and played bass on all their singles.  Townshend had met singer John "Speedy" Keen during the sessions for one of The Who's best albums The Who Sell Out.  Keen had written the opening song "Armenia In The Sky"—one of only a few Who songs NOT written by Pete Townshend, by the way.  

So, Pete decided he wanted to work on some other projects between albums for The Who.  He brought Speedy to his home studio to record the song "Something In The Air."  He also brought Thunderclap and Jimmy (who was only 15) for completely unrelated projects.  You could say he was trying to start another career as a marathon producer.

Thunderclap Newman wasn't intended to be a band, but a band it became.  Pete had a lot of work ahead of him for what would become the album Tommy, so he decided to scrap the other projects and just focus on "Something In The Air" using Thunderclap and Jimmy for additional backing.

The only person who expected the song to be huge was probably Pete Townshend.  He had such good taste and was such a genius that he had to have known "Something In The Air" was a really special piece of music that had the power to move people.  It really is.  The song hit number one in 1969.  

The band released an LP's worth of tunes and several other singles, but nothing reached the impact of "Something In The Air."  The band broke up in 1971 but partially resurfaced in 2007.  Today the song still sounds incredibly fresh.  

Here's my favorite version of the song which appeared on a reissue of the soundtrack to the film Easy Rider. 

Something In The Air by Thunderclap Newman