“You
might realize from the sound of my voice...that I...am not...from San
Jose. (much audience laughter) No, I come from across the
water...Sausalito. (more laughter)”
-Ray
Davies of The Kinks, from his one man show The
Storyteller, Alcazar Theater, San Francisco, circa 1996.
“Cruising
'round 'round, fell out of my boat/Swam around, swam around, started
to float
/Floated
'round 'round, hanging onto the flow/There I found, there I found
Sausalito/
Perfect
leaf green, it's all in the view/Every shade, marmalade, every
hue/Houses in stilts grow out of the sea/Everything's growing, it's
growing for me.../Sunning all day, loving all night/(Write/ride?) a
bit, fight a bit, got it just right/Music and flowers, the sight and
the sound/Fish a bit, wish a bit, magic's all around.../You oughta go
there, everything grows there/When you get high on a mountain,it
snows there
/Everything's
groovy, like in a movie/Sausalito is the place to go to now...”
OK,
I know: as song lyrics go it's not exactly on the level of, say,
'Visions Of Johanna'...but what would you honestly expect from one of
the prime movers of that celebrated and reviled sub-genre of Rock
known as Bubblegum?
Released
the summer of and month before the Woodstock Festival in 1969, this
became one of the last singles to be released by The
Ohio Express, part of the
stable of the undisputed masters of Bubblegum, Jerry
Kasenetz and Jeff Katz.
Emerging during the Summer of Love, the Bubblegum sound was a simple,
nursery-rhyme-catchy antidote to Psychedelic excess. As a result,
Kasenetz-Katz produced quite the stunning run of Top 40 hits leaping
from transistor radios worldwide between 1967 and '69.
As
stated above, serious rock fans dismissed Bubblegum as mindless
commercial trash, yet its simplicity would later be taken to heart by
those who would create what became Glam (and aspects of Punk) in a
similarly bright, sharp pop image. Another Kasenetz-Katz act, the
1910 Fruitgum Company's
'1-2-3 Red Light' was covered by the original three-piece Talking
Heads, and later hit
'Indian Giver' by The
Ramones.
The Kasanetz-Katz Singing
Orchestral Chorus' hit
'Quick Joey Small' was allegedly the first song The
Cramps
ever attempted to play.
Other
occupants of the Kasenetz-Katz stable of Bubblegum stars were Crazy
Elephant ('Gimme Gimme
Good Lovin'') and The
Music Explosion ('Little
Bit o' Soul', also covered by The Forest Hills Fab Four). Even the
none-more-garagey Shadows
Of Knight were
beneficiaries of 'A Super K Production' with a remake of their hit
'Shake'.
Then
there were The Ohio Express, and the almost annoyingly, adenoidal
bliss of ubiquitous hits like 'Yummy Yummy Yummy', 'Chewy Chewy' and
'Down At Lulu's' (which would provide a Bay Area vintage/rocker
boutique with its name in the late '90s).
After
their initial run of hits, however, lead singer and co-writer Joey
Levine decided to jump ship over money issues. Seeing as much of the
Kasenetz-Katz roster were studio creations to begin with, other
songwriters and players were sought out to carry on the Ohio Express
brand.
Improbably,
one of the journeymen songwriters they turned to was Graham
Gouldman: already a known
hit-making quantity, having penned chart-toppers like 'For Your Love'
and 'Heart Full Of Soul' for The
Yardbirds, 'Bus Stop' and
'Look Through Any Window' for The
Hollies, and 'No Milk
Today' and 'Listen People' for Herman's
Hermits. Finding himself
in 1969 at what he now calls 'a creative lowpoint', Gouldman accepted
Super K's offer and, in tandem with fellow jobbing musician/songsters
Eric Stewart, Lol Creme
and
Kevin Godley, set about
churning out the required Bubblegum.
Reaching
#86 on the American Top 40 charts, 'Sausalito (Is The Place To Go)',
though credited to The Ohio Express, was in fact sung and performed
by the aforementioned Gouldman and co. The four would in time set out
on their own, first as Hotlegs
with 1970's fluke of a global smash 'Neanderthal Man', then more
famously as smart-pop artisans 10cc.
('Sausalito'
and other Gouldman and pre-10cc tunes, written for Kasenetz-Katz and
others, can be found on the 2003 anthology Strawberry
Bubblegum, released by Castle
Music.)
No comments:
Post a Comment