Tag Archives: 1960s

by | October 22, 2024 · 6:00 am

The Ronettes’ proto-rock magic

As classic exponents of producer Phil Spector’s “wall of sound”, The Ronettes combined their striking beehive hairstyles and heavy mascara to add a tough, sultry edge to the girl-group genre. The trio, consisting of sisters Veronica and Estelle Bennett and their cousin Nedra Talley, were a group of multiracial women from New York’s Spanish Harlem, born during World War II. They began their musical journey as the Darling Sisters and by 1961, were performing a song-and-dance routine inspired by Chubby Checker’s version of The twist at the Peppermint Lounge. They later recorded for Colpix Records (1961–1962) under the name Ronnie and the Relatives, while also performing alongside disc jockey Murray the K’s (Murray Kaufman) rock shows and providing backup vocals for some of the era’s biggest pop stars.

Signed by Spector to his Philles label in 1963, the Ronettes achieved major success with their debut single, Be my baby, which reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100. While their subsequent releases continued to showcase Spector’s signature production style, none managed to break into the Top 20. By 1966, Spector had lost interest in recording and married Ronnie Bennett. Following a few unsuccessful attempts to launch her solo career, the couple divorced in 1974.

The Ronettes with producer Phil Spector (1963).

Classifying The Ronettes’ sound strictly as pop overlooks the complexities of their artistry, particularly since they did not write the lyrics or produce the instrumental layers that accompanied their vocals. Instead, by examining how their vocal style and visual presentation diverged from the polished tone and conformity typical of 1960s pop girl groups, their contribution may be recognized as a subtle form of rock and roll disguised as pop. The Ronettes crafted a sound and image that embodied proto-rock transgressions and a quasi-drag “bad girl” persona. This blurring of genre boundaries reveals that the distinctions between sonic categories are often more fluid than listeners may acknowledge, especially during the formative years of rock, with The Ronettes skillfully navigating and challenging these boundaries.

This according to the entry on The Ronettes in the Encyclopedia of recorded sound (2005, find it in RILM Music Encyclopedias and “It’s time to recognize The Ronettes as rock and roll pioneers” by Hilarie Ashton (NPR Music [12 March 2018]; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2018-46676).

Below is an AI colorized version of The Ronettes performing Be my baby in 1966.

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by | October 13, 2024 · 6:00 am

Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66

Brazilian pianist and bandleader Sergio Mendes began studying piano at a young age, continuing his education under Carmelita Lago. However, drawn to jazz and popular music, he eventually departed from his classical training and embarked on a successful career in commercial pop music around 1960. Mendes participated in jam sessions at the Little Club in Rio de Janeiro and, in 1961, led the Brazilian Jazz Sextet at the Third South American Jazz Festival in Montevideo. Following the military coup d’état in Brazil in 1964, Mendes relocated to Los Angeles, where he restarted his career by auditioning at various local jazz clubs.

That same year, Mendes, along with bassist Tião Neto and drummer Edson Machado, formed the Sergio Mendes Trio, touring North and South America as well as Japan. In the United States, the trio recorded the groundbreaking LP The Swinger from Rio for the Atlantic label. Mendes also created another group called Brasil 65, which lasted for seven months and produced the LP Brasil 65. He later achieved international acclaim with his next ensemble, Brasil ’66. While in New York, Mendes collaborated with renowned musicians such as Art Farmer, Bud Shank, and Tom Jobim on new bossa nova recordings. For this new group, he secured a contract with Herb Alpert, the leader of Tijuana Brass and owner of A&M Records.

Alongside singers Lani Hall, Sílvia Vogel, and later Karen Phillips, Mendes recorded the album Sergio Mendes & Brazil ’66, which sold over a million copies. Their vibrant cover of Jorge Ben‘s song Mas que nada became a number one hit, with other tracks from the album also climbing into the top 40 charts. To align with U.S. market preferences, Mendes produced stylistic arrangements of Brazilian songs by composers like Chico Buarque, Edu Lobo, and Gilberto Gil. The following year, his group ranked as the third most popular act in U.S. pop music. Each decade brought updates to his ensemble’s name and style: Brasil ’77, Brasil ’86, Brasil ’88, and Brasil ’99. The stylistic evolution of these groups spanned from early bossa nova in the 1960s to more sophisticated interpretations of well-known songs, culminating in an experimental blend of jazz, funk, and modern Brazilian pop. Mendes won a Grammy Award in 1993 for the album Brasileiro, and in 1997, Down Beat magazine honored his album Ocean as the best album of the year in the “beyond jazz” category.

Sergio Mendes passed away on 5 September 2024 at the age of 83. Read more a out his life and career in MGG Online.

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by | March 15, 2024 · 6:00 am

Sly Stone, funk, and Black church aesthetics

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Sly and the Family Stone were pioneers of funk music. Different from other funk acts of that era, Sly and the Family Stone’s funk variant fused psychedelic rock stylings with classic soul, and in that sense, their style differed considerably from the bass-heavy grooves of mainstream funk. The band’s success on the pop charts as well as with urban Black youth made the group especially influential, especially evident in the music of crossover giants such as George Clinton, Rick James, and Prince.

As the band’s creative force, Texas-native Sylvester Stewart (better known as Sly Stone) developed an impressive music business resumé in San Francisco in the mid-1960s, excelling as a radio disc jockey, songwriter, and record producer for the likes of he Beau Brummels, Bobby Freeman, and the Mojo Men. His first attempt at heading a group, the Stoners, failed in 1966; however, Sly and the Family Stone, which included his brother, guitarist Freddie Stone and sister Rosie Stone, who sang and played keyboards and harmonica, and a cousin, bassist Larry Graham drew sufficient attention locally in 1967 to garner a contract from Epic Records.

Sly and the Family Stone played a crucial role in introducing Black church aesthetics to mainstream popular music audiences in the late 1960s. Sly introduced secular audiences to what James Cleveland called “the Sanctified Church” through his personal experiences in the Black Pentecostal church. In the foreground of Sly’s work was the recording Stand! (1969), particularly the single I want to take you higher. Furthermore, the band’s integrated gender and racial demographic along with an overall message that all people need to work together in harmony represent the epitome of post-Civil Rights culture. In a 2023 interview, Sly spoke about his work and the transformative power of music. According to him, “I know music can always make a difference. I knew it back when I was [a radio DJ]. People would call into the station and say that they wanted me to play this song or that song and I could tell how much it meant to them. That was what we wanted to do with the music that we made. That’s what we did.”

Sly Stone turns 81 on 15 March 2024.

Read the full entry on Sly and the Family Stone in the Encyclopedia of recorded sound (2005; find it in RILM Music Encyclopedias), and in “Sly Stone and the sanctified church” by Mark Anthony Neal, an essay included in The funk era and beyond: New perspectives on Black popular culture (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008; find it in RILM Abstracts of Music Literature).

Below, Sly and the Family Stone perform If you want me to stay on the television show Soul train circa 1970.

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by | January 2, 2024 · 6:00 pm

Joni Mitchell and 1960’s women’s sexual freedom

Born in Fort MacLeod, Alberta in Canada, a young Joni Mitchell (born Joan Anderson) moved to North Battleford, Saskatchewan with her parents shortly after World War II. Inspired by an older friend, she begged her parents at age 7 to allow her to take piano lessons which lasted for a year and a half. After moving to Saskatoon, Mitchell contracted polio, which she recovered from with the care of her family and her interest in music. As she recalled in a Rolling Stone interview with Cameron Crowe in 1979, “I guess I really started singing when I had polio. Neil [Young] and I both got polio in the same Canadian epidemic. I was nine, and they put me in a polio ward over Christmas. They said I might not walk again, and that I would not be able to go home for Christmas. I wouldn’t go for it. So I started to sing Christmas carols and I used to sing them real loud. When the nurse came into the room I would sing louder. The boy in the bed next to me, you know, used to complain. And I discovered I was a ham. That was the first time I started to sing for people.”

In her teens, Mitchell scraped together enough money to buy a ukelele and performed regularly at parties and coffeehouses in Saskatoon. Following high school, in 1964, Mitchell attended the Alberta College of Art in Calgary, but only for a year. Instead, she preferred performing at a local Calgary coffeehouse called The Depression—she moved to Toronto soon after in search of success as a folk singer. In 1966, she managed to secure a spot on the bill of the Newport Folk Festival. It was at this time that her marriage to fellow folk singer Chuck Mitchell ended, and with nothing to tie her down, Mitchell moved to New York City to be closer to venues on the U.S. eastern seaboard. With the recording of The urge for going by Tom Rush and other cover versions by a variety of artists, she was able to get bookings west to Chicago and south to Florida. New York was still elusive but with the help of manager Elliot Roberts she landed gigs in town. While performing in Coconut Grove, Florida she met David Crosby of The Byrds who was impressed enough with her talent to convince Reprise Records to record and release the Joni Mitchell album in 1968.

Mitchell’s early records mapped the sexual terrain of the mid-1960s–the period during which premarital sex lost its taboo status and became a normative part of maturation and development–from a woman’s perspective. Mitchell’s songs employed a strong storytelling component, putting into popular circulation narratives of sexual freedom that engaged with emerging social practices in a manner consistent with countercultural values while helping to legitimize the new choices available to young women of the 1960s.

Learn more in “Feeling free and female sexuality: The aesthetics of Joni Mitchell” by Marilyn Adler Papayanis (Popular music and society XXXIII/5 (December 2010) 641–656. [RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2010-7782] and in an entry on Joni Mitchell in The Canadian pop music encyclopedia (2020) in RILM Music Encyclopedias.

Below is Joni Mitchell’s 1969 performance of Chelsea Morning, a song addressing the moral codes governing so-called appropriate sexual conduct for women.

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