Cover jam of the day, and a vinyl find at Jerry's Records: "Come On Down To My Boat"

Artist: Every Mother's Son / Meeting of Important People / The Rare Breed
Song: "Come On Down To My Boat"

Like many other vinyl fans in Pittsburgh, I trekked to Jerry's Records this past weekend after hearing he was planning to give away 33,000 records in boxes of LPs and 45s. (Why 33,000? He just likes the number, although I think 33,333 would have made more sense.) He's done giveaways like this before, and I've lucked into some good stuff (check out my "vinyl find" series for some of those). I was already needing to stop by the store and pick up some auction wins anyway (super clean copies of Fresh Cream and Bob Dylan and, as Jerry noted upon pickup, not quantity but definitely quality), so I looked around to see if anything caught my eye. While walking through the "rock" area, one album was sitting at the front of the "miscellaneous E" section and it grabbed my attention: the album Every Mothers' Son by the band Every Mother's Son (note the subtle apostrophic difference). The name was familiar, and in case I couldn't remember, a sticker on the album cover notes the inclusion of "Come On Down To My Boat". Aha! This song was covered by my fave local band, Meeting Of Important People, on last year's Quit Music EP! I don't think I knew for a couple of months after the release that it was even a cover song, but I learned the band's name at some point and it stuck in my head until now.

Based on the cover photo, this is a band of preppy dudes who write bubblegum pop songs, and some web research supports this hypothesis. Wikipedia notes the band's signing to MGM in 1967 was "supposedly because management saw the band's clean-cut image as an antidote to the hippie influx". Haha. But it's strange that the back cover of this album has silly band member bios, and one says "Lary can out-drink the toughest guy on the block" and Christopher is clearly reading an issue of Playboy in his photo. Maybe it's funny because Lary is chugging milk from the carton with a straw, and Christopher is grimacing at the magazine? I dunno. It's also strange that the song is really called "Come On Down To My Boat" yet the back of the album lists it as "Come And Take A Ride In My Boat". The album copy I grabbed is a little scratchy, but it just adds to the nostalgic feel, and the tunes are pretty solid for what they are: sweet and simple pop. ("For Brandy" is a particularly lovely little ditty.)

Enough chit-chat, here are two versions of this pretty and fun tune: Every Mother's Son's 1967 original version first (recorded live for some TV spot, in this particular video; here's a link to the album version), and then Meeting Of Important People's garage pop take on it 43 years later!
 

 

 
"Old garage song about a completely harmless man and his boat."
 
Hey now, hold on there! I just learned that Every Mother's Son aren't even the original recorders of this song! The Rare Breed (later known as The Ohio Express) hold that title, releasing a version entitled "Come And Take A Ride In My Boat" (aha, whence the confusion mentioned above) in 1966, but it never hit the charts. Somehow, Every Mother's Son's version did. There ya have it, folks, the fickleness of the listening public …
 

 

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Meeting of Important People on the web: Website / Facebook / Twitter / Bandcamp

Vinyl find: Tommy James & The Shondells / "Crystal Blue Persuasion" b/w "I'm Alive"

(Check out the first post in this series for the back story.)

Artist: Tommy James & The Shondells
Album: "Crystal Blue Persuasion" b/w "I'm Alive" 45 RPM 7" single
Label: Roulette Records
Released: June 1969


I grew up on oldies radio. It's what I heard on the radio in the car and it's what I played at home, pretty much up to and through high school, even. My parents didn't have a turntable (but they did have a hidden record recollection, albeit a sparse one, that I only found out about and dug into in the last few years after buying a turntable myself) and the CD collection mostly consisted of greatest hits compilations of various Motown groups and oldies artists, which were actually pretty enjoyable (and soundtracks of films, musicals, etc. which were impressively unenjoyable). So between those compilations and the singles perenially chosen by oldies DJs, I essentially ingested nothing but regurgitated radio hits 30ish years after their release until I hit college. Considering my appetite for new and undiscovered music these days, I can't help but feel slightly bitter about the stunted growth of my musical appreciation that could have been flourishing for so many more years, but at the same time, I couldn't think of a better foundation (no matter how narrow it is) to build upon than oldies/classic rock hits.


Okay, enough personal-history rambling. The bottom line is this: I've heard songs by Tommy James & The Shondells more often than I could possibly count, and I'm a mathematician. Chances are you know "Crimson & Clover" (I remember my friend's P2P mp3 file labeled that one as a Simon & Garfunkel song haha) and "Mony Mony" (c'mon, you've been to a cheesy high school dance, haven't you?) and maybe even "Hanky Panky". But the reality is that TJ & The Ss had a bunch more hits (in the charts sense) and a handful of other great songs, too (in the sense of my opinion). I confess that I hadn't actively listened to them in a long time before stumbling across their Crimson & Clover LP at Jerry's for $3 a couple years ago, but the name caught my eye and brought back all those memories of hearing "Crimson & Clover" on the radio, and some other stuff. Buying that used record may be one of the best $3 purchases I've made, because I almost wore that record out in the first couple of months after buying it. It has so many fun (and funny, at that!) songs and builds beautifully on the psych-pop genre of that time. They aren't featured on the single I'm explicitly discussing here, but I have to point out the playful humor of "I Am A Tangerine" and the oh-so-sweet psychedelic love in "Kathleen McArthur" and the triumphant rock of "Breakway". All of them are on that LP. And then there are the popular hits!

The A-side on this one is "Crystal Blue Persuasion", one of the softer and slower songs that the group played, with carefully-picked guitar, bongos leading into the verses, and some overdubbed horn parts on the single version (absent on the LP version, for some reason, hmmm). It's one of the better uses of Tommy's surprisingly sweet vocals and, hell, it was featured in the pilot episode of The Wonder Years. What's not to love?



The B-side here is the deliciously upbeat and exultant rock 'n roll cut "I'm Alive". It builds and it retreats and builds again, playing off high-pitched organ chords, rollicking bass, and Tommy's shouting. It's mighty fun, with a guitar lick that makes you (or me, at least) wanna play air guitar along while shouting "I'm alive!"



Side note: one of the books I've been meaning to read since hearing about its existence is Me, the Mob, and the Music: One Helluva Ride with Tommy James & The Shondells, a biography of sorts by TJ about his time in the music industry and dealing with the shady behind-the-scense business work. Sounds interesting to me.