I will open this chapter with Only In America, having already told you the story behind it. Last year I think it was, I did a 4-part Podcast theme series called A Celebration Of America- and it is here at WLSO.FM. At the end of Part 4, I played that same song but by the Drifters, only because I wanted to play a different interpretation. Not knowing at the time that THEY had done the first and original version! So if you want to hear that piece of history, as I say, it is here. You just have to go back and look for it. After that great song for this holiday, Jay Black at his operatic best with a song by Rodgers s first success as a songwriter? They did a song he wrote called Sunday And Me, and I ve got and will play it, you ll hear if you listen, lol. The band s last hit reached # 19 in 1970, and was an old Ronettes tune. After that, I have a strange one, a curiosity they released in late 1966- an odd, very 60 s sound not at all like what we were used to hearing from them. Even the title is kinda weird, He s Raining In My Sunshine. Far out, man! Turns out Jay Black had a big gambling problem with some big debts, and he sold the group name to pay them off. Of note is that over the years the group included Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, who left to form Steely Dan. Then, I have a couple of treats. One member of the Americans, Kenny Vance, started a group with the Planetones that in 1975 came out of nowhere with their doowop retro style, for an unlikely hit in the midst of what was by then a no longer experimental but a formulaic music scene. Their throwback sound broke the formula, and I just remember it seeming so out of place. But I liked it then and I like it now. As a born and bred New Yorker, I knew about singing in the subways and the bathrooms and Looking For That Echo! I will end this Independence Day show with a song I have played quite a few times before on the radio. I will never understand why this beautiful, wonderful song, done years ago by Eric Andersen, never became a perennial hit. Happy 4th Of July everyone, everywhere! And Happy Birthday America! Mike
