▶︎ "The Music Goes Round my Head"

Melbourne researcher, writer and musician David Johnston has just just published his book The Music Goes Round My Head, a history and commentary about Australian pop music 1964-1969.

Those dates pretty much coincide with my teenage years, so I guess I'm part of the core target audience, those who will easily spot the Easybeats reference in the title. David is also a friend of my site, PopArchives.com.au, and he has given me some nice leads from time to time.

(It was David who finally solved the mystery of The Bowery Boys' original song Just A Poor Boy, long misattributed to Graham Gouldman. I speculated about its writer credits for years; David just went ahead and contacted Kevin Godley, who checked with Gouldman. No more mystery: the story is here.)

Accustomed to having my research - even my words - circulated online without credit, I am full of admiration for David's scholarly approach. His work is properly footnoted, he sources his quotes, and he has cited me and my site in several places, something I find refreshing in this era of cut-and-paste.

So, having declared my slight connection with the author, I can go ahead and recommend this work, which covers just about every artist, famous or obscure, that you'll want to look up in the comprehensive index. (Blimey, even Horsham's Sonamatics get a guernsey!)

It's not all dry facts, as David has managed to get eyewitness accounts from many participants themselves. Quoting Garry Spry, David calls these first-hand sources "the horse's mouth", by contrast with the "the horse's arse". (I am mentioned amongst the latter, but I am in some distinguished company!)

David's commentary is also enriched by his own knowledge of music, a pay-off from his years as a musician. As a non-musician, I often struggle to find the right words to conjure up a song, but he doesn't seem to have this problem. We have both written about The Black Diamonds' See The Way, for example, but David's insights go beyond those of a mere fan like myself.

David has published The Music Goes Round My Head independently, in a limited edition of 1000, with half the proceeds going to Support Act, the charitable foundation for Australian musicians.

I hope, though, that it will eventually attract mainstream distribution, as it will become an indispensable source for this era in Australian pop music. If that happens, no redesign will be needed, as this is a professionally presented work, generously illustrated on every page.

In the meantime, you can order through RoundMyHead.com, 394 pages, $40:00 + handling. Highly recommended, obviously.

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Listen to Red Symons and David Johnston chatting about "The Music Goes Round My Head" on 774 ABC Melbourne this week: link.

▶︎ Barbara Lynn - It's Better To Have It

This live performance of Barbara Lynn's 1964 single It's Better To Have It is from only a couple of years later, in February 1966, but it shows.

Barbara Lynn's vocal styling and the instrumental groove are pretty much as they were in '64, but the live version has added a soulful brass section in place of the poppier backing vocals of the single. The fresh influence of the Stax-Volt sound, by this time familiar on records by the likes of Otis Redding, is evident in this fine performance.

I don't know whether Barbara Lynn recorded the song again in this style, but she should have, because it fits the song like a glove, and a stylish glove at that.

Enjoy this clip while you can: last time around it was removed from YouTube, where it was coupled with a very cool version of Ray Charles's What'd I Say from the same TV soul show, THE!!!! BEAT, hosted by Nashville disc jockey Bill "Hoss" Allen (aka "Hossman"). See my earlier post.

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Further reading:
1. THE!!!! BEAT appearances listed at The Video Beat! (Vols. 1 & 2: links to further volumes).
2. THE!!!! BEAT at Wikipedia.
3. Bill "Hoss" Allen at Wikipedia.
4. Mick Patrick's definitive account of Barbara Lynn at Cha Cha Charming.
5. Red Kelly's post on Barbara Lynn at The B Side.

▶︎ The Town & Country Brothers: the definitive account

After my recent post about The Town & Country Brothers and Sandy, Sandy, their 1963 Only In Oz hit, I heard from Ted Daryll, a member of the group and the writer of Sandy, Sandy.

Ted sent me his definitive account of the group. Not only does it retell the full recording adventures of Ted with Chip Taylor and Greg Richards, but it opens a fascinating window into a music business that no longer exists in quite the same form.

Rather than summarising it, I am giving you the whole document, a PopArchives exclusive, with Ted's approval.

Read the full story by clicking here (link to PDF at iCloud).

The Town & Country Brothers: Ted (left) - Chip (right). 1962 photo taken at Adelphi Recording, 1650 Broadway, NYC (Image: Ted Daryll)

▶︎ Bigger in Oz (12) The Town & Country Brothers - Sandy, Sandy (1963)

Bigger in Oz: tracks that were more popular in Australia than in their countries of origin.

See also: Only in Melbourne.

12. The Town & Country Brothers - Sandy, Sandy
(Ted Daryll)
USA 1963
Tahoe single (USA) #2534 ("Distributed by London Records, Inc.")
London single (Australia) #HL-2123
Later anthologised on GAB (Sony) CD Hard To Get Hits Vol. 3, 1994 

US charts: Did not chart Top 100
Australian charts: #7 Sydney (Gavin Ryan) or #2 Sydney (The Book) #1 Brisbane #29 Adelaide #17 Perth (#15 Australia)

Listen at YouTube: Town & Country Brothers - Sandy, Sandy

I have some answers for anyone who has wondered about the identity of US group The Town And Country Brothers. They had a hit with Sandy, Sandy in 1963, but only in Australia.  

Update: See my follow-up post for the exclusive, full story of The Town & Country Brothers as told by Ted Daryll, composer of Sandy, Sandy.

Let's start with Chip Taylor. Before he wrote Wild Thing, or Angel of the Morning or I Can't Let Go, that is to say, before he worked at 1650 Broadway writing songs for a long list of legends including Dusty Springfield, Baby Washington, and Evie Sands, and before he released his own singles including the original of Cliff Richard's On My Word...

Before that, back in the late 1950s, Chip Taylor and two friends formed a rockabilly-folkie-style trio called Wes Voight and the Town And Country Brothers. This was also before Taylor changed his name from Wes Voight (and, of course, before his brother Jon, keeping the Voight, became a famous movie actor).

None of Chip Taylor's early singles was a hit in the US, not as Chip Taylor or Wes Voight, or with the Town & Country Brothers. In Australia, though, Sandy, Sandy did well and is remembered as a classic oldie by Aussies who were around then.

Sandy, Sandy was written by Ted Daryll (b. Teddy Meister), another member of the Town & Country Brothers.

The third member of the group was Greg Richards (b. Greg Gwardyak). Ted Daryll and Greg Richards also wrote together, notably She Cried, first recorded by Ted Daryll himself but later a hit for Jay & The Americans (1962, #5 USA).

Sandy Sandy was on Volume 3 of Glenn A. Baker's Hard To Get Hits CD series in 1994. At that stage (1994), Glenn was unable to give any background on The Town & Country Brothers, concluding that they had "eluded all pop scholars". 

To read more on Chip Taylor, see Tony Wilkinson's Wes Voight-Chip Taylor page at Black Cat Rockabilly, Taylor's current label Train Wreck Records, and the entries at All Music Guide and Wikipedia. The most detailed source, though, is the Spectropop interview with Chip Taylor by Norman Druker and Mick Patrick which starts way back, covers the obscurities as well as the hits, and brings it up to Taylor's later work in country music.

I've joined the dots between Sandy, Sandy, its writer Ted Darryl and his Town & Country Brothers bandmate Chip Taylor, but none of the above sources mentions Sandy, Sandy. 

Thanks to Doug for asking about this one, and to Kees for further background.