This episode of Hippie Love Turbo, on KUCR 88.3 FM was light with the dialogue but heavy in the tunes. Most of the songs were moodier than usual or featured more pop orientated psych flavorings, which I find nice as the wind rages and the temperatures cool.
At some point during the show, you heard The Everly Brothers cover of The Spencer Davis Group's Somebody Help Me, which was first released on their album Two Yanks in England. Between the two versions I prefer The Everly Brothers' version as it's one of the few moments the Brothers got close to making something that resembled a psychedelic song. Other songs of theirs that flirted with psychedelia include: the sunshine pop sounding Talking To The Flowers, baroque pop influenced June Is As Cold As December, A Voice Within, Mary Jane, and the bluesier You Got The Power Of Love and The Price of Love. Out of all their albums, The Everly Brothers Sing has their most psyched out songs before they began their country rock phase. During this time, it seemed that rock artists from the '50s were struggling to find new sounds to fit in with the changing musical landscapes. We've looked at a couple examples before with Del Shannon and Chuck Berry's Bound To Lose from his album San Francisco Dues, as heard on the episode Sapote.
Two Yanks in England heavily featured The Hollies as the album's backing band, which obviously influenced the albums direction towards a beat sound, which the Everly Brothers appeared to be fond of when you look at their previous album Beat 'N' Soul. Of course, The Hollies are best known for their song Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress), however, at time that they recorded Two Yanks in England the band was mostly known for their beat covers of popular songs such as: The Coasters' Searchin', Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs' Stay, and Doris Troy's Just One Look. Supposedly, Two Yanks also featured an uncredited Jimmy Page but it seems like every album recorded in England in the late '60s is claimed to have been graced by Page's presence. You can read more about this album's inception here.
As the show continued you heard The Nightcrawlers' The Little Black Egg which I mentioned was covered by The Cars for their 1981 album Shake It Up. The cover was dropped from the original release but appeared, with new lead vocals, on Bebe Buell's ep Covers Girl and later on The Car's 2018 re-releases. It's interesting comparing the two versions because, although the music is identical, Ocasek's voice brings the right amount of rocking weirdness to match the stripped-down new wave sound as opposed to Buell's more theatrical wailing.
That's about it folks! Thanks for reading the blog and be sure to listen over the air on KUCR 88.3FM on Saturdays at 9pm PST. You can also listen through KUCR.org, Radio Garden, or Tune-In.
You can also check out this week's playlist below:
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