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John Sebastian on Summer Songs
John Sebastian of the Lovin Spoonful is certainly no stranger to summer songs. His 1966 #1 hit song “Summer In the City”, is one of the all time greatest summer songs and one of my absolute favorite songs of his. I loved this song when I first heard it as a kid, even before I knew about the Lovin Spoonful and John Sebastian.
In the spirit of the recent fabulous MLT summer song duo session cover of the Beatles “Good Day Sunshine”, inspired by John Sebastian’s “Day Dream”, here is an interesting short interview clip with John Sebastian where he talks about another summer song “ I Get Around” by the Beach Boys, and he explains how he hears Johann Sebastian Bach in it. It’s fascinating to hear a music master song writer like John Sebastian dissect a song like this. I never realized there was Bach in that song. I think John Sebastian is a kindred spirit of mine!
You can listen to the 4 minute radio interview with John Sebastian here:
https://www.wbur.org/npr/111997251/story.php
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26 Replies
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I wonder if the similarity in name, John Sebastian and Johann Sebastian Bach is just a coincidence, or if his parents had something to do with naming him John Sebastian?
Maybe a fun question, Mona and Lisa, to ask the next time you happen to speak to John Sebastian. 🙂
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I remember hearing somewhere that the way they achieved that long echo after the forceful drumbeat in the intro to “Summer in the City” was by recording it in the stairwell of the studio building.
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A nice interview with Sebastian there Jung. It’s a pity the Beach Boys name and image has been trashed so badly over the years they’ve become merely a vaudeville act cover band trying to relive past glories.
A huge contrast to the MonaLisa Twins. This is from a very recent new member.
“I support all META-MUSICIANS who use music to promote the spiritual ideals of PEACE LOVE FREEDOM TRUTH & JUSTICE. Indeed, JOHN LENNON was the quintessential META-MUSICIAN and as such an inspiration for my META-PHILOSOPHY OF IDEALISM co-creating a greater humanity committed to the spiritual ideals of PEACE LOVE FREEDOM TRUTH & JUSTICE. So many thanks to the MONALISA TWINS accepting the META-MUSICIANS’ torch from JOHN.”
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It is amazing creativity like that David that made bands like The Lovin Spoonful and Beach Boys so great and their music stand the test of time for generations even if they are not out contantly performing to keep their music alive.
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Howard, despite the ups and down the Beach Boys went through, at least they were original and paved their own path. Their creativity was their own, unlike the Stones.
This article clearly shows how much the Rolling Stones were a “Beatles wanna be band”, always following and copying the footsteps of the Beatles. They’ve certainly got a lot of mileage out of the anti-Beatles image to gain their popularity over the decades. Even the sitar used in Paint It Black was inspired by George Harrison who adopted the Sitar in Rubber Soul months earlier. After Beatles adopted Baroque style in their music with such songs as Yesterday, the Stones copied and did “As Tears Go By” adopting a baroque style copying what the Beatles did. The examples of the stones copying the Beatles are extensive as reflected in this article. At least Mick and Keith surrounded themselves with good musical talent like Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts etc to make up for the lack of singing talent. Obviously all the showman ship Mick developed was needed as he couldn’t sing. Does Keith actually make a sound when he sings, or is he lip syncing in those early 60’s videos?
http://www.sfctoday.com/under-the-influence-how-the-beatles-influenced-the-rolling-stones/
🙂 🙂 🙂
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Jung is all aboard the Beach Boys train, while Howard aboard the Stones train…lol…..you both are clearly the Ying and Yang, night and day, when it comes to your music ideals/preferences ….lol…quite amusing and entertaining to sit back and read back and forth, the tennis match of musical preferences and opinions thereof in full play….Peace vs Love….lol…..
I’ve always enjoyed Spoons even though as a kid, wasn’t necessarily aware/interested who their names were but was far more aware /observant in the songs and the singer’s voice, that’s more memorable for me…lol…I had no idea of connection of John being behind the Welcome Back Kotter tv show theme song until years later when I was older, the voice was familiar , just couldn’t place my music ear finger on where I had heard that distinctive voice before, until years later ….It seems as a child, I had a good ear for liking awesome music and singers 😉
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Glad to hear David, thanks for link… I always enjoy that song?
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Welcome Back Kotter is a great song Jacki, and I never knew it was John Sebastian’s song until I learned about it here too. Thanks for sharing that video David, very nice performance of that song by John. Love it when he whips out that blues harp and starts playing it.
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It’s lip-synced, but he’s clearly trying his best to duplicate the sound. I love how he wrist-flips the harmonica into instant oblivion when he has to go back to the guitar immediately at the end of the interlude.
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Well thanks for sharing that very interesting article with us Jung. I’ll be responding in detail at another time.
David Schoen and the Students at St. Francis College would obviously have their own particular bias, given the ideological nature of their college, which I guess is why you have chosen the article. Still, in your inimitable style, you have cherry picked the article, in a very biased way also, in order to support your own assumptions, which are different from the intentions of the writer.
As I said there will be more to follow. Thanks again for providing the opportunity to explore the similarity and differences of the most popular sixties bands further, but for now, let’s just leave it with an extract from the article you provided.
“The Beatles were a legendary British Rock Band that formed in Liverpool, England in 1960. The Rolling Stones are a legendary British Rock Band that formed in London, England two years later in 1962. Though many of their appearances, performances, trends, songs, and styles were vastly unique, both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones shared many similar qualities. There is no doubt that the bands had a mutual impact on their English Rock Band counterparts during the musical explosion known as “British Invasion” of the early 1960s. The Beatles even named their 1965 album Rubber Soul after they overheard a musician describe the singing style of The Rolling Stones’s Mick Jagger as “plastic soul.” However, since the Beatles erupted into the music scene two years prior to their London peers, they had a profound influence on the Rolling Stones both musically and visually.”
This first paragraph you seem to have chosen to ignore as it doesn’t suit your narrative!
To be continued
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Hi Howard. You can try to dispell the source, but the article is very solid and compelling. Others can come to their own conclusions after reading it.
But this whole debate is pretty silly and I think is pointless. I only refrenced it because of your poking of the Beach Boys. Who would I be if I didnt defend my passion?.
The fact is both the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys were and are legends in their own right respected and admired by their peers, the Beatles, and loved by legions of fans across all the generations. They both profoundly changed music. I will leave it there. ?
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And I salute to both Howard and Jung to now putting this to rest…. There comes a time when… Well, time to close the door and move onwards, no rehashing and recycling strong opinions, going to get nowhere man…. Lol… ?
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Now Jung, I think you should be at work and I should be in bed. I don’t want to get you fired but you can’t just make claims like “Obviously all the showman ship Mick developed was needed as he couldn’t sing. Does Keith actually make a sound when he sings, or is he lip syncing in those early 60’s videos?” and then run, without expecting a Stones fan to retort.
Yes, “the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys were and are legends in their own right respected and admired by their peers”, however, you have raised much with this article that deserves consideration.
Mick can’t sing!! Wow! Big call Jung, especially when he is the lead singer of probably the greatest and most successful Rock ‘n Roll band in history. Keith probably thinks that too, but is afraid to tell Mick cause he doesn’t want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs! However, Bob Dylan thinks they’re the greatest rock ‘n roll band ever and who am I to argue with Bob, another singer who can’t sing, but has forged one of the greatest careers ever out of singing his own compositions.
There is much more material here I’d like to discuss but I’ll have to leave it for another time as it’s bed time for me. As you like numbers though. I’ll leave you with a few to contemplate. Be sure to read the comments at the bottom as they are very interesting to.
Don’t take any of this too personally Jung as it is the way that music comes into being and the forces and influences behind the creators that interests me, and discussing articles like the one you have provided enhances our knowledge of our favourite bands while giving that incentive to explore further. Just as there was friendly rivalry between some of the Beatles, Stones and Beach Boys in the sixties, there is no reason why we can’t share a similar friendly rivalry regarding our favourites.
I hope yo have a good day. Probably bad weather with your winter. It has been raining heavily here all night after raining almost continuously for over a week now. There is widespread flooding over at least two of our states. This after two years of drought followed by the biggest bush fires in our history. Our farmers have been praying for rain for months and now I guess they’re praying for it to stop. At least all the fires have been put out. I’ll have to put in a special request to Mona and Lisa for another CCR song – – “Who’ll Stop The Rain”. I certainly don’t need to hear them singing “Have You Ever Seen The Rain”.
On that note, I believe there may be video somewhere out there of the two of them, very small infants, jumping on a lounge singing “singing in the rain”. Now that would be nice to see again.
Here are some numbers:
The official forum of Leonardcohenfiles.com and SpeakingCohen.com
The Beatles and The Rolling Stones vs. The Beach Boys and Chicago vs. The Bee Gees.https://www.leonardcohenforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=36514
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Howard, guess what I came across?
The Rolling Stones are doing a single stop in Canada in May, and right in my backyard. Ive never been to a Stones concert. What do you think? ?
By the way, a fascinating article by Leonard Cohen. Lots of numbers and stats to digest, but interesting nonetheless. Will dig into it a little deeper. Thanks for sharing.
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