#Goffin King

[singeratlarge]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Billie Joe Armstrong, Michael Bay, The Beatles’s 1967 single “Penny Lane,” Jim Brown, Narciso Casanovas, Arcangelo Corelli, musician Andrew Crowley, Buddy DeFranco, Vicente Fernández, Fred Frith, Rowdy Gaines, Taylor Hawkins, Hal Holbrook, Paris Hilton, Arthur Hunnicutt, Michael Jordan, José José, Isaac Kappy, Alicia Key’s 2004 single “If I Ain’t Got You,” Larry the Cable Guy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mickey McGill (The Dells), Loreena McKennitt, Lola Montez, Chanté Moore, Huey P. Newton, Jerry O’Connell, Banjo Paterson, Lou Diamond Phillips, Puccini’s 1904 opera MADAME BUTTERFLY, Denise Richards, Rene Russo, Ed Sheeran, Sivakarthikeyan, The Temptations 1969 CLOUD NINE album, Buck Trent, Margaret Truman, Henri Vieuxtemps, and the consummate vocalist and songwriter Gene Pitney. He brought depth to simple pop songs, crafting choice cuts for Rick Nelson, Roy Orbison, Bobby Vee, and (famously) “He’s a Rebel” for The Crystals. Like Bryan Ferry, Gene had a powerful and unique vocal technique that seizes ownership of any song or style. I also compare Gene to Harry Nilsson because they were branded as songwriters but had hit records from songs they didn’t write. Gene’s popular arc in the USA ran from 1961-68, but he continued to draw international audiences, particularly for his Italian language records (I’m a big fan of “Lei Mei Espatta”). His career intersected with Marc Almond, Burt Bacharach, George Jones, The Rolling Stones, Phil Spector, and other eclectic notables, and he kept touring literally till the day he died in 2006.

Please enjoy my cover of Gene’s “Every Breath I Take” (written by Goffin/King). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PZcTHaYjfA Another GP “deep cut” I recommend is “Somewhere in the Country,” a densely orchestrated goth-folk-pop track akin to early Bee Gees. Meanwhile, HB to GP—thank you for your amazing music!

#genepitney #bryanferry #thecrystals #marcalmond #ricknelson #royorbison #rebel #harrynilsson #burtbacharach #georgejones #rollingstones #philspector #bobbyvee #goffinking #johnnyjblair

[guessimdumb]

Earl-Jean - I’m Into Something Good (1964)

This Goffin-King song was made famous by Herman’s Hermits, but this is the wonderful original by Earl-Jean McCrea of the Cookies.

The Cookies - I Never Dreamed

[davidhudson]

Happy 82nd, Carole King.

With Al Nevins and Gerry Goffin.

[mywifeleftme]

360: Dusty Springfield // Dusty Springfield's Golden Hits

Dusty Springfield's Golden Hits Dusty Springfield 1966, Philips

These early Dusty Springfield singles really get the “Wall of Sound” production treatment, despite Mr. Spector’s absence from the credits: mixed loud as hell like the kids liked it, screaming string charts, backing vocals en regalia, and a big beat knocking around underneath. Folks love to cite her as the second artist of the British Invasion to hit the U.S. charts, and for cultural reasons that may be significant, but her early sound was indistinguishable from American acts like Lesley Gore and the Shirelles. I don’t know many of the details about her career, but it seems like whoever was managing her was hell-bent on breaking her in the States. Call it a credit to English ingenuity (and specifically arranger Ivor Raymonde) that they were able to give Springfield a knock-out sound that passes for the contemporary Hollywood (or Detroit) product.

Dusty Springfield’s Golden Hits, her first major compilation, is Brill Building / girl group-style music par excellence, with a murderer’s row of hitwriters from both sides of the pond (Bacharach/David, Goffin/King, Beatrice Verdi/Buddy Kaye, etc.). Practically anyone could’ve had chart success with these songs and this packaging (and a number of these were subsequently hits for others), but Springfield had a cannon of a voice on her that makes the best of these numbers undeniable. Those who place her voice with the Arethas and Dionne Warwicks wish she’d been guided towards soul or sophisticated torch songs from the start, but I personally love it when someone vocally overqualified for bubblegum is made to tear into a good bop. “I Only Want to Be With You” is buffeted along by the force of her voice, the violins shrieking like a 33rpm record dragged up to 45; “Little By Little” could’ve been written for a Motown powerhouse like Darlene Love (but scarcely improved on by her); “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself” moves from the sound of a girl sadly combing her hair before her vanity to Sampson bringing down the temple.

There’s plenty of treacle here, and “Wishin’ and Hopin’” probably set feminism further back than “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss),” but this is a worthy addition to any ‘60s pop library.

360/365

[midchelle]

bits from the lennon and mccartney song book bbc special that made me smile <3

[ilovedig]

1966, King, Goffin and Michael Nesmith

I listen for your footsteps (Sweet young thing) And your knock upon the door

1968, Ringo Starr

I listen for your footsteps coming up the drive Listen for your footsteps, but they don't arrive Waiting for your knock, dear, on my old front door

Related? I'm not sure, but it's not the only time I've heard a Monkees song and thought it was inspired by a Beatles song until I realized the Monkees song came first.

[thislovintime]

Peter Tork with the Fairfax Street Choir (in their bass vocal section); pictured in photo 1 with Ralph Pennuneri, Hosanna Bauer, and Bill Craig. Via the Fairfax Street Choir Facebook page, except for photo 4 (courtesy of Mark Kleiner).

Photo 2: “Peter Tork has his banjo but never played it with the choir that I remember but He was a really good musician and I remember him playing at the Lady. [...] I've heard some of his live stuff on tape that he did at the Sleeping Lady and was blown away by how great he really was as a musician.” - Marla Hunt Hanson, Facebook, January 3, 2021

“Peter showed me some banjo picking patterns... he was a nice guy fun to play music with.” - David Carlson, Facebook, January 2021

“To us, he wasn’t famous, he was just Peter. [...] He was just a sweet, dear man that, you know, everybody loved... He was just a good guy. You know, ‘Sleep on the couch, have a good one. You know, we love you. Come on in.’ [...] His destiny in this lifetime was with The Monkees. We were like his backup friends, or his backup band, whatever you want to call it.He came to us wounded, like a wounded bird, really. […] He never really got to escape from being one of The Monkees. It was very hard, you know, it was hard for him. I wish we could have given him more. [...] I said to him, ‘Well, why are you going back when they treated you so badly, and blah blah blah?’ And he said, they offered him something he couldn’t turn down, something like that, so it had to do with money of course, because… so, yeah, he went back, poor thing. God bless him. [...] [W]hen you’re a Monkee, the fans will come out of, you know, somehow they’ll seep in through the furnace floor or a little crack in the window. You’re always on display, you’re always having someone looking at you or tagging at you or pulling at you or saying, ‘God, I remember that episode…’You know, and you’re always having to be on the stage or on— in gear, or answering with a smile to your fan group, whatever that is. You’re trained to do that through the industry itself. You know, anyway, I don’t want to go that far. In this group consciousness that he was a part of for a short period of time, he didn’t have to do that. He just didn’t have to do that. And that’s why I think that was — he’ll never forget that group or the Sleeping Lady however many lifetimes he lives. And I’ll tell you this, he was happy in a very strange way for as long as he was there with us. He was happy in a different way, not in the way that you are when you’re famous. In the way you are when you’re happy. [...] Someone like Peter Tork, who shines a light out onto this world, can only shine as brightly as we allow them to. […] When you see a flame, move back and let it shine, don’t go in there and try to get it, because the reason that it’s alive is because it’s got oxygen, air, and there’s not a lot of moths hanging out around it trying to, you know, take its life. I think a lot of that is true about Peter. That’s how — what I think.” - Marla Hunt Hanson, interview with the Nesmith Tork Goffin & King podcast, February 2020

"Back in Marin. Peter Tork began to hang out at the Sleeping Lady. (He works there as a waiter now). One night The Fairfax Street Choir was there. He was amazed, saw a home, and joined. He grins as he adds: ‘In some ways I was a cold, lonely hitchhiker being picked up by a warm school bus.’ [...] He’s happy. Content. And hopeful. For the Choir. And himself." - San Diego Reader, December 6, 1973 (originally published in the Chicago Reader; interview conducted by Chuck Stepner) (read more here)

“What a group! 35 voices strong; some harmonies! It was something, very encouraging, very comforting.” - Peter Tork, Goldmine, May 1982 (x)

Peter Tork: "As soon as The Monkees was over, I went to Marin County to try to recapture some of my Greenwich-Village-days happiness, and I did. I was very, I was very lucky, there was a lovely scene in Fairfax, Marin County, and I had a great time up there for a couple of years, worked as a waiter in a cooperative restaurant and it was great, it was actually great. The thing about The Monkees, it was so difficult, was to be yanked out of — off the street, flung to the pinnacle and then, you know, and then dropped.” Q: “Yeah.” PT: “So, so I went back to the street, where I’d, you know, gotten my roots together. It was great.” - GOLD 104.5, 1999 (x)

[i-am-the-oyster]

In this rehearsal of Don't Let Me Down John repeatedly improvises

Oh keep your hands off my baby

Possibly a reference to this song:

I don't know if the link will go directly to the track. If not, you want to select the circle 14 from the end and go to the track Don't Let Me Down 29.09

[peninsularian]

Classy 1970 version of the Carole King classic, featuring the Hi house-band under the leadership of Willie Mitchell

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

Seven Pounds (2008, Gabriele Muccino)

26/08/2024

[singeratlarge]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Billie Joe Armstrong, Michael Bay, The Beatles’s 1967 single “Penny Lane,” Jim Brown, Narciso Casanovas, Arcangelo Corelli, musician Andrew Crowley, Buddy DeFranco, Vicente Fernández, Fred Frith, Rowdy Gaines, Taylor Hawkins, Hal Holbrook, Paris Hilton, Arthur Hunnicutt, Michael Jordan, José José,Isaac Kappy, Alicia Key’s 2004 single “If I Ain’t Got You,” Larry the Cable Guy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mickey McGill (The Dells), Loreena McKennitt, Lola Montez, Chanté Moore, Huey P. Newton, Jerry O’Connell, Banjo Paterson, Lou Diamond Phillips, Puccini’s 1904 opera MADAME BUTTERFLY, Denise Richards, Rene Russo, Ed Sheeran, Sivakarthikeyan, The Temptations 1969 CLOUD NINE album, Buck Trent, Margaret Truman, Henri Vieuxtemps, and the consummate vocalist and songwriter Gene Pitney. He brought depth to simple pop songs, crafting choice cuts for Rick Nelson, Roy Orbison, Bobby Vee, and (famously) “He’s a Rebel” for The Crystals. I compare Gene to Bryan Ferry as both have a powerful and unique vocal technique that seizes ownership of any song or style. I also compare Gene to Harry Nilsson because they were branded as songwriters but had hit records from songs they didn’t write. Gene’s popular arc in the USA ran from 1961-68, but he continued to draw international audiences, particularly for his Italian language records (I’m a big fan of “Lei Mei Espatta”). His career intersected with Marc Almond, Burt Bacharach, George Jones, The Rolling Stones, Phil Spector, and other notables, and he kept touring literally till the day he died in 2006.

A GP “deep cut” I recommend is “Somewhere in the Country,” a densely orchestrated goth-folk-pop track akin to early Bee Gees. Meanwhile, HB to GP—thank you for your amazing music!

#genepitney #bryanferry #thecrystals #marcalmond #ricknelson #royorbison #rebel #harrynilsson #burtbacharach #georgejones #rollingstones #philspector #bobbyvee #goffinking #johnnyjblair

[guessimdumb]

Irma Thomas - Yours Until Tomorrow (1967)

Written by Goffin-King and recorded at Muscle Shoals in 1967, Chess records foolishly didn’t release this until 1984.  Incredible southern soul - Irma just kills it.

[davidhudson]

Happy 81st, Carole King.

With Gerry Goffin.

[musicrunsthroughmysoul]

I'm not really amazed by anything on this album (although to be FAIR, apparently these recordings were not intended to be released as an album and were simply DEMOS; it was pressed as an album, anyway), except for THESE LYRICS RIGHT HERE:

"There are no such things as border lines (Border lines) Boundaries exist in your own mind (Your mind) Why destroy the things that you can't possess? (Woah) Or take credit for what you have not done? We should stand together when we compete (Woah) Why don't you try to be in my feet?"

According to information on discogs, this song was written by Hilary Shapiro (now known as Hilary Shepherd), Louise Goffin, Brie Howard (now known as Brie Howard-Darling), and Dennis Herring

[ronnydeschepper]

Gerry Goffin (1939-2014)

Het is ook al tien jaar geleden dat de Amerikaanse songschrijver Gerry Goffin is overleden. We kennen hem vooral als de echtgenoot van singer-songwriter Carole King, waarmee hij in 1959 in het huwelijk was getreden. Ondertussen zijn ze al lang uit elkaar, want Goffin was een womanizer die haar voortdurend bedroog. Al is dat misschien niet het juiste woord, want soms kondigde hij zelfs op voorhand…