>>That hadn’t happened in a while: Ever since Scott McKenzie went to San Francisco with flowers in his hair the previous summer, the Yanks had been frosted out of the top spot in Britain. Whether Londoners (Manfred Mann with “Mighty Quinn”, Love Affair with “Everlasting Love”), Scousers (the Beatles with “Hello, Goodbye” and “Lady Madonna”), Northerners (Georgie Fame, “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde”), East Midlanders (Long John Baldry, “Let the Heartaches Begin”), Wiltshire lads (Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, “The Legend of Xanadu” - our co-Song of the Week #112), semi-Aussies (the Bee Gees, “Massachusetts”), Anglo-Indians (Engelbert with “The Last Waltz” and Cliff with “Congratulations”), or West Indians with a token Ceylonese (the Foundations, “Baby, Now That I’ve Found You”), the Number One pop stars were all British subjects
Ah but Mighty Quinn was written by Bob Dylan. Everlasting Love was written by Buzz Cason. Each was American with a long history of writing and performing.
Cason’s journey brought him into the Crickets (post Buddy Holly), also writing a song that would later be covered by the Beatles, U2, and Pearl Jam (Solider of Love), writing his biggest hit Everlasting Love, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzz_Cason
>>It’s a genuine standard, a late addition to the Great American Songbook, in the sense that zillions of singers take a crack at it - Anne Murray, Joey Ramone, Céline Dion, Shane MacGowan, Ziggy Marley - which is more than can be said of “Green Tambourine” or “Tighten Up” or the other hits of ‘68.
Well Tighten Up became a standard too, recorded originally by Archie Bell and the Drells but subsequently covered by James Brown and many others...
The song accompanies a YouTube video, a slow motion helicopter hog hunt in Texas. Must see.
Think I first heard it play on Monlighting. Womb with a View
Very interesting history. I always wondered why I had never heard that old song until a relative few years ago.
There are a number of artists who are nothing here and major stars in the UK and vice versa.
One day, I went to pick up my son at a church youth group thing. They were finishing off the night reading Trivial Pursuit questions. The question was something like “This artist is the third highest selling artist in the UK and virtually unheard of in the United States.”
I blurted out “Cliff Richard.” instantly impressing 20 high school kids with my intense knowledge of completely trivial things.
I feel ‘aged’ reading this thread.
Bump for later when I have the time.
The melody seems to have been adapted from “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”
West End Blues--Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five (1928)
Record company execs are the Spawn of Satan.... ha ha.
wonderful article about Pops and a song worthy of his greatness as a musician.
a friend of mine, a horn player (clarinet), had the thrill of being called up to back Pops in an after hours session in NY. nothing but good things to say about Pops as man and musician. but he said you’d better know what you were doing when he called the tune. back then labels like “great” and “musical genius” were not thrown around like they are today.