Scott McKenzie – San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)

Scott McKenzie, American singer, turns 69.

Petula Clark – Downtown

Petula Clark, Brit singer and actress, turns 75.

The Sandpipers – Medley

Michael Piano, American singer with The Sandpipers, turns 63.

The Equals – Baby Come Back

John Hall, Brit drummer for The Equals, turns 60.

The Turtles – Outside Chance

Jim Tucker, American rhythm guitarist for The Turtles, turns 61.

Soeur Sourire plays and sings / Dominique (1963)

1933 – Jeanine Deckers, The Singing Nun

The Youngbloods – Get Together

1941 – Joe Bauer, drummer, The Youngbloods

by Richie Unterberger
[Bio & Info © allmusic.com]

The Youngbloods could not be considered a major ’60s band, but they were capable of offering some mighty pleasurable folk-rock in the late ’60s, and produced a few great tunes along the way. One of the better groups to emerge from the East Coast in the mid-’60s, they would temper their blues and jug band influences with gentle California psychedelia, particularly after they moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. For most listeners, they’re identified almost exclusively with their Top Ten hit “Get Together,” but they managed several respectable albums as well, all under the leadership of singer/songwriter Jesse Colin Young. Read More…

The Association – Windy

1943 – Jules Gary Alexander, guitar, vocals, The Association

Dickey Lee – Patches

1936 – Dickey Lee, American singer and songwriterAlbum Review by Greg Adams
[Bio & Info © allmusic.com]

Dickey Lee’s first album, The Tale of Patches, is interesting in that it zeroes in on the narrative aspect of his hit song “Patches” rather than the tragedy angle. True, half of the songs are tragic tales, but the other half are straightforward story-songs or, in the case of “Travelin’ Man,” regular pop songs. “Patches” is one of the grittier teen tragedy hits with its intimation of a double suicide and description of a girl’s corpse “lying face down in that dirty old river,” and gave Lee his biggest pop hit. The Tale of Patches has renditions of other artists’ tragic hits like “Tell Laura I Love Her,” “Teen Angel,” and “Ebony Eyes,” as well as pop remakes of story-songs from the country field (“Wolverton Mountain,” “Miller’s Cave”). Lee’s performances of these well-known songs are different enough to be interesting, particularly with the country material, and the storytelling theme is a crowd-pleaser. It’s hard to say whether the album would have been improved by sticking exclusively to songs of tragedy, but there are enough tragic tunes to please enthusiasts of that particular pop culture craze.

The late fifties/early sixties had some interesting albeit tragic little ditties… (Video is music with pictures.)

The Four Seasons – Big Girls Don’t Cry

1935 – Nick Massi, American singer (The Four Seasons) (d. 2000)from Wikipedia.com

“Big Girls Don’t Cry” is a song written by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio and originally recorded by The Four Seasons. It hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on November 17, 1962, and, like its predecessor “Sherry“, spent five weeks in the top position.

According to Gaudio, he was dozing off while watching the John Payne/Rhonda Fleming/Ronald Reagan movie Tennessee’s Partner (1955) when he heard Payne’s character slap Fleming in the face. After the slap, Fleming’s character replied, “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” Gaudio wrote the line on a scrap of paper, fell asleep, and wrote the song the next morning.^[1][2]

Like “Sherry”, “Big Girls Don’t Cry” is sung mostly in falsetto. The similarity in style was not a coincidence: the two songs were recorded in the same recording session. With “Big Girls Don’t Cry”, the Four Seasons became the first rock-era act to hit the top spot on the Hot 100 with their first two chart entries (their first single, “Bermuda”/”Spanish Lace”, did not appear on any Billboard chart in 1961).

Twiggy – Beautiful Dreams

1949 – Twiggy, English model

Ken Kesey & the Merry Pranksters

1935 – Ken Kesey, American author (d. 2001)

The Fifty Dimension (with Andy Williams) – Hi De Ho & One Less Bell To Answer

1939 – Lamonte McLemore, singer, The 5th Dimension

The Hollies – Bus Stop

1942 – Bernie Calvert, British musician (The Hollies)

The Small Faces – Lazy Sunday

1948 – Kenny Jones, English musician (The Small Faces; Faces; The Who)