SET THE "WAYBAC MACHINE" TO SEPTEMBER, 1969

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GROOVY '60s
2-Disc Compilation by Various Artists
copyright: 2001 by Medalist Entertainment
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Back in the day, all the smart kids dug 'The Rocky And Bullwinkle Show', so I'm sure that you remember the segment featuring that brainy dog, MR. PEABODY, his boy, SHERMAN, and their time travel device called THE WAYBAC MACHINE. Well, if Mr. Peabody escorted us back to September of '69, do you know what we'd find?
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* The city of Los Angeles is still gripped by fear after the bizarre Tate & LaBianca murders. Rewards are being offered by private citizens as LAPD seems stymied. (It will be a couple more months before the world hears the name Charles Manson.)
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* Julie Newmar (37"-22"-37") sans her Catwoman outfit -- or any other outfit, for that matter -- appears in the pages of Playboy magazine, making every MAN BATTY and every BOY WONDER.
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* A groovy little kid named Stephen T. McCarthy sits day after day at his desk in Mr. Oldham's fifth grade class at Grant Elementary School in Santa Monica. He doesn't learn much but he enjoys flirting with the girls and making a tie-dyed T-shirt in class.
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* "The Real" Don Steele of KHJ is spinning these 26 songs through transistor radios all over Southern California.
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Only a few Septembers ago {September 17, 2002}, my Brother and I drove across the desert to visit the lost kingdom of our Boyhood. We were listening to old tunes along the way. When "Aquarius" by The 5th Dimension played, I said that it was, for me, one of two songs that most exemplifies the day-glo paint & black-light poster daze of the late '60s. The other candidate being Oliver's version of GOOD MORNING, STARSHINE (both songs, coincidentally, originating with the Broadway musical HAIR, a dippy hippie sign of its times). It then occurred to me that I'd really like to own Oliver's trippy hippie flashback...
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When we got to our earliest childhood stomping grounds in Orange County, I spent 45 minutes looking through compilations at the Tower Records store at 220 N. Beach Boulevard in Anaheim, but to no avail. I was just about to give up when my Brother holds up the 2-disc set GROOVY 60s and says, "Does this Go-Go Girl give you any ideas?" I replied, "Nah, she's not my type. ...But let me see that!" And sure enough, there was Oliver with his "far out" musical tribute to Hippiedom: Disc 2, Track 7, GOOD MORNING, STARSHINE. "Right on!"
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There are two things that I especially like about this collection:
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1) It does not indulge in the outrageous excesses of the era. Not to be found are... Frank Zappa's "SUZY CREAMCHEESE" nightmare; the acid-induced "EXPERIENCE" of Jimi Hendrix; the shameless BLUES HEIST of Led Zeppelin; or the (for me) unbearable artsy pretentiousness of The Beatles and their "TOE JAM FOOTBALL" and estimate of "HOW MANY HOLES IT TAKES TO FILL THE ALBERT HALL". Instead, you'll find the mainstream mid to late '60s AM radio favorites.
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2) Unlike many collections that claim to capture an era but actually offer mostly minor hits, GROOVY 60s really does represent the apex of the Pop Music charts. 22 of these 26 cuts found their way into BILLBOARD's TOP TEN in their day. Of those, 14 climbed within the TOP FIVE, with 5 making it all the way to NUMBER ONE!
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Some of these tracks go beyond just the novelty of nostalgia: Nilsson's EVERYBODY'S TALKIN'; The 5th Dimension's WEDDING BELL BLUES and UP, UP & AWAY; Sergio Mendes' THE LOOK OF LOVE; Dionne Warwick's I SAY A LITTLE PRAYER; and The Percy Faith Orchestra's THEME FROM "A SUMMER PLACE" are genuinely fine musical pieces.
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Finally, we've found a first-rate collection of AM radio-friendly songs that gives us an authentic everyday taste of the groovy, psychedelic '60s. And now if we could just find someone who can actually remember the groovy, psychedelic '60s!
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(*I couldn't help noticing that the only other person to post a review of this 2-disc set at Amazon.com was also living in Phoenix, Airheadzona. Well, I guess now we know where all of the "freaks" went.)
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~ Stephen T. McCarthy
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