O’Connoradioland for February 13, 2012

Greetings and salutations, here’s Week 39 of our on-going visit here, brought to you this week by the Foundation to Assist Those Hapless Souls Who Forget Their Spousal Obligations on Valentine’s Day.  Which is tomorrow.  Yikes, I better be thinking of something, and quick.

Remember making Valentine’s cards when you were in elementary school?  That was a big deal in the Catholic school I attended in the 50s and early 60s.  If memory serves,  the Valentine assembly line process was sort of toned down by the time you got to 5^th grade or so, but before that, man, the Sisters would break out mass quantities of red and white construction paper, and gallons of white glue to stick all of our creations together. We were pretty much required to make one big V-tine for our Moms, and then we could make a couple of other smaller ones to fire around the room to impress someone who usually turned out to be less impressed with us.  But we had fun. Nowadays, I understand, you’re almost obligated to make enough Valentines to ensure that no one in the room goes without one.  Which is cool, but that isn’t the way real life works.

Being a bit of a class clown even back in elementary school, my specialty was the verse on the card itself. I remember writing one verse: “Hope this card brings lots of luck.  If you like it give me a buck.”  I don’t think she ever paid the dollar.  Now that I think of it, she may have been the one who sent me the card that had the words “you” and “zoo” in rhyme.  Some people just don’t appreciate quality writing.

Anyway, have a great V-Day.

Trivia results are on the way in just a bit here, but first my latest Five Favorites from my all-time best-loved songs list.

1.  ‘At Last’ (My Love Has Come Along)- by the great Etta James who left us just two weeks ago.  She had a  fair-sized pop and soul hit with this in ’61, but the song’s  popularity has grown over the years, having been recorded by lots of other artists, featured in movie soundtracks and several times on ‘Idol.’  Etta had most of her hits in the 60s and 70s, but she enjoyed a great career revival in the last ten or so years. She was a great blues and soul shouter who even toured for a while with the Rolling Stones. ‘Tell Mama’ was another goodie by her, more of an uptempo song with great Memphis-style horns and bass lines.

2.  ‘Tequila’  by The Champs. This huge hit was basically an instrumental—it had one word in it—the title. Just two minutes of  late 50s sheer bliss with an irresistible latin-style melody line. A great song to add to your ‘road music’ collection.

3.  ‘These Eyes’  by The Guess Who.  Burton Cummings and his fellow Canadians really hit it big with this great song and several others in the late 60s-early 70s. I remember some music writer calling Cummings’ voice “one of the best of the rock and roll era.”  He WAS an excellent singer and played piano at the same time, a skill set not many musicians can master. Unfortunately, the group broke up in the mid 70s as Randy Bachman and someone else left to form the soon-to-be supergroup Bachman-Turner Overdrive,  aka ‘BTO.’

4.  ‘Have You Seen Her?’ by the Chi-Lites.  These Chicago guys were big, BIG in the early 70s, although they had been recording since around 1960. I remember their songs well from my time with Armed Forces Radio-TV.  They were part of the so-called ‘smooth soul’ movement, and smooth they were. All their stuff still sounds good 40 years later. They have been through a lot of changes like most groups, but they are still active.

5.  ‘South Street’- by The Orlons. This trio, two girls and a guy,  fired up a lot of jukeboxes and dance floors in the early 60s with their hits ‘South Street’, ‘Don’t Hang Up,’ ‘The Wah-Watusi’ and others.  They were part of the Philadelphia sound of that time, helped immeasurably by the presence of American Bandstand in Philly. Their high school had a group called the ‘Cashmeres’, so they decided to have a little fun and call themselves ‘The Orlons,’ a popular synthetic fabric of the time.  It worked like a charm. ‘Course, having talent doesen’t hurt either.

Do we have Trivia results?  Indeed we do.  Still have no reply (not even a guess!!) on the downtown Great Bend question. Look at my Feb 6 post for the question. This is NOT that hard. There are only so many businesses on the south side of the square. One of them started out in the 1600 Block of Main. Take your pick.

Meanwhile, congrats to Ziggy, who came up with Y.A. Tittle, as the unusually named QB of the Giants back in the early 60s. Y.A.’s full name is Yelberton Abraham Tittle.  How’ja like to have that name dropped on you by your parents?  Thanks to Terry, who guessed “Biff,’ and N. Phelge, who remembered the legendary Hinky Haines. Honors in the music category to Vince B, who knew ‘Eye of The Tiger’ by Survivor as the big hit of 1982 that had the name of a jungle animal in the title.

Alright, we’ll carry on with the same GB question for this week, but here are two new ones. First, what Italian immigrant was so inspired by Henry Ford’s production methods that he started his own ‘transportation’ company? Now, remember, transportation does not necessarily have to mean automobiles, or even motor-powered.  This is a fun question that I used a few years ago on our early morning Trivia feature on KVGB.

As for the music category, what 60s superstar male group named themselves after a bowling alley?

Have yourself a memorable week!  See you Monday.

John