Tag: Martha & The Vandellas

Saturday Matinee – Dancing In The Street

Martha & The Vandellas‘ 1964 hit “Dancing In The Street” has staying power, and was covered by many, including The Mamas & The Papas (1966):

Gah! See how long you can stand it. (At least Mama Cass did the Mash Potato.) Sixteen years later, it was covered by Van Halen (1982):

https://youtu.be/Yau0BCVdsaw

Holy crap. That was actually worse than the Mamas & Papas’ version. It wasn’t until David Bowie and Mick Jagger got together to do a halfway decent video cover (1985):

https://youtu.be/9G4jnaznUoQ

You don’t need to watch that full video either – it’s only posted for those who have never seen it and to restore faded memories for the rest of us. All that preening and prancing takes away from the original, but finally there’s an excellent stripped-down studio cut version, vocals only (2016):

Martha Reeves is laughing her JaggerBowie off about now.

Tip ‘o the Tam to Octopus for the heads-up on the strip-down. Have a great weekend folks. See you back here tomorrow for more suffrage.

Saturday Matinee – RIP JFK & 1963 Radio

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by a communist named Lee Harvey Oswald. I was very young, but I remember understanding that something terrible had happened.

JFK was indisputably the last conservative democrat to hold the Office of the Presidency, and the loss still echoes.
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On a lighter note, in 1963 one of my prized possessions was a transistor radio that I listened to constantly, and I wasted a large number of batteries by falling asleep with the radio on my pillow.
Here are three favorites.

No. 10 in the Billboard rankings for 1963: The Impressions‘ “It’s All Right.” Curtis Mayfield was with the group from 1958 – 1970. The vid is from the TV show “Hollywood A-Go-Go” in 1965.

Martha & The Vandellas, live at The Apollo. Martha Reeve’s voice still blows me away.

The Chantays performed Pipeline live on The Lawrence Welk Show in 1963. According to the liner notes on their album, the oldest member of the band from Santa Ana California was 17 when they invented surf-rock.

This was the also the age of the “girl groups.” Before lil’ Bunk was in the double digits of age he liked girls, just couldn’t admit it to his buddies, and was secretly in love with Ronnie Spector, Skeeter Davis, Barbara Lewis and The Chiffons, but not Leslie Gore – what a whiner.

Have a great weekend, folks.