Is there a cure for a migraine headache? No, but aspirin might offer temporary relief. For cynicism about the world we live in, for me music offers that temporary relief—but not just any music, but music that helps you to forget how bad things can be. For me, the Sixties band The Rascals offers such temporary relief.
Now, there are a few people, like Tom Breihan who has a music website called Stereogum, who are not fans of that blue-eyed soul group, that originally called itself The Young Rascals. Breihan asserts that “These days, nobody thinks of the Rascals as belonging to the highest echelon of ’60s bands.” Note that he’s nitpicking a bit here, because he knows that most people into the music of that period think that the Rascals are at least in the “upper” echelon of Sixties bands. Breihan claims that “Good Lovin” is the only Rascals song he really “likes,” so we can assume that this only means his musical tastes are rather limited.
Other sources with more credibility have a different opinion. The Rolling Stone record guide gives the Rascals Time Peace hits collection a five-star review, while former Village Voice music critic Robert Christgau lists it as one of the essential records of the Sixties. Allmusic simply says “Arguably the greatest greatest-hits album of the '60s. A White-soul classic.”
I like any song that Christgau would call “tight and tuneful” regardless of genre—or better yet, simply “pop” music of any genre. Frankly, “pop music”—if one means catchy melodies and positive (mostly) energy, is something that simply doesn’t exist anymore in the American music scene; this is probably why if a television commercial needs a catchy jingle, or a film needs a song to express a certain “feel,” they usual find the appropriate song from the vast resource of Sixties, Seventies and occasionally Eighties hits.
Of course that suggests that the Rascals are best remembered for their string of easily digestible, life-affirming hits during their commercial and critical peak in the second half of the Sixties—including three number-one hits, of which “Groovin” and “People Got To Be Free” were among the biggest hits of the decade—and five top-20 studio albums as well as Time Peace, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard album chart.
The Rascals were called by Rolling Stone “the blackest white band ever,” and along with The Righteous Brothers were the most successful of the “blue-eyed soul” genre, although as time went on they expanded their artistic reach. “Groovin” was their biggest hit on Billboard’s R&B chart, reached #3, and it was their only real hit in the UK, peaking at #8; British bands like the Rolling Stones claimed to be influenced by R&B and they may have been early in their career, but the fact that most American R&B and soul acts (even white ones) barely registered on the UK charts suggests that the British record-buying public wasn’t as “open-minded” as some British musical groups claimed to be.
The reason why a few hardheads dismiss the Rascals is the same reason why a collection of their hits is for me is my favorite “pick-me-up” music. The Rascals had a “the world can be a good place if you get your mind right” vibe—even their songs that were intentional social messages. Besides, who wants to listen to “feeling good about feeling bad” music all day anyways, which is the “vibe” of most contemporary music today? Well, apparently a lot of people in the current self-absorbed environment; I feel sorry for those people, frankly. I mean, doesn’t life suck enough that you have to listen to somebody else’s moans and groans about their own pathetic “issues”?
Now, you might say that this guy is showing his age when he says he likes music by acts as old as the Rascals. Actually, I didn’t hear much Sixties music in my house as a child; I recall my mother having a few Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass records, and later some Jim Croce (they were bit on the “swarthy” side too). My musical “education” was mainly Casey Kasem’s American Top-40 radio show, which of course not only turned my ear toward “pop” music, but the various genres that contributed to it; if it was “tight and tuneful,” it didn’t matter if it was soft or hard rock, “Countrypolitan,” Philly Soul or even Disco. Great songs are great songs.
While the Eighties still maintained the basic song structure of Seventies music (and many artists who were already “big” during the Seventies became even bigger in the Eighties—Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Lionel Ritchie, Hall and Oates, Michael Jackson), Sixties music was something that I hadn’t yet really discovered—but since Seventies music was an outgrowth of what came out of that decade, I “discovered” a lot of great music from the Sixties. I wasn’t even all that familiar with the Beatles until after John Lennon was assassinated, when Beatles songs were played continuously for a while even on the German radio stations when I was stationed there in the Army.
I probably took an instant liking to the music of the Rascals because their hits were the kind of stuff that just “sticks” in the memory. What better way to just forget about how shitty the world is and replay “Groovin'” over and over in your mind? Frankly, I can’t think of any other musical act that just made me feel “good” to be alive quite like the Rascals did, no matter how bad things are. I mean, what the hell is wrong with a sentiment like this, from “Ray of Hope”?:
I
know a lot of people who think like me
That this world can be a place that's filled with harmony
First there's a lot of things we've got to rearrange
Put an end to hate and lies
So peace can come and truth shall reign
Well, anyways what brought me to this point was the discovery of Rhino’s Original Album Series, which comprises CD mini “box sets” of mostly obscure acts with a few better known ones mixed in. The CDs of separate albums are enclosed in cardboard sleeves that are supposed to be replicas of the original LPs—meaning that you need a microscope to read the song titles and credits. One of these releases was The (Young) Rascals, which comprised the five studio albums from their "classic" period:
Don’t be fooled by appearances. The guy who looks like Paul McCartney is just the band’s drummer; the guy on the left, Felix Cavaliere, was the band’s principle lead singer and creative force. Allmusic regards the first four albums very positively, while the fifth, Freedom Suite, is faulted mostly because of the unnecessary second disc of instrumental jams (which is also problematic on George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, whose third disc is just pointless jamming). Having never heard the records surrounding their great hits, I decided to make the purchase and check them out.
The Rascals were composed of Cavaliere, a classically-trained pianist but known for his distinctive vocals and organ-playing, and also along with vocalist Eddie Brigati wrote most of the band’s original songs. The guitarist and occasional song contributor was Gene Cornish, and Dino Danelli was the drummer and had experience playing with jazz musicians. The intention was to be a four-man self-contained band, although Brigati was never able to learn to play bass guitar and was usually seen on stage with a tambourine or maracas.
Cavaliere—who was the de facto leader of the Rascals—explained his affinity for R&B and soul music simply that it was the music he grew up with and that it came “natural” within him. From here I’m going to provide a brief overview of the five albums from the Series set, and highlight the “essential” hits which I keep in a separate folder on my phone’s music directory and listen to from time to time when I feel like I need a “lift.”
Signed as the first all-white group by Atlantic Records, the Rascals perhaps not surprisingly were the label’s most commercially successful act during the Sixties. The self-titled debut album, The Young Rascals—initially called “Young” because another group calling itself the Rascals objected, but later dropped since it was clear who the “real” Rascals anybody cared about was—was released in the spring of 1966, and it sounded like a garage rock band doing R&B, and all the numbers are covers save for the one group-composed song, “Do You Feel It,” which one senses from the positive sentiments expressed was where this group’s true vibe was headed once they took control of the songwriting. Cavaliere’s distinctive vocals and organ served to immediately set the group apart from others.
The first single release was “I Ain’t Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore” and seems out-of-place in comparison to subsequent single releases, which is explained by the fact that it was not a Rascals composition, and like with his loquacious onstage personality, Brigati—who sang lead on the song—injected some truculent asides to the song. Cavaliere (or Atlantic executives) apparently thought this hurt the song’s commercial appeal, so from then on he sang lead on most of the group’s subsequent single releases.
The next single, with Cavaliere on lead vocal, was “Good Lovin”—also a cover version but was considerably more successful than in its previous iterations, reaching No.1 on the Billboard chart. But like the first single, this would be somewhat atypical of the band’s sound going forward, sounding more like a raucous garage band. While covers of the Beau Brummels’ “Just a Little” and Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” adhere close to the originals (particularly Brigati’s snarky lead vocal on the latter), the band’s rocking cover of the Larry Williams hit “Slow Down” was much better than the Beatles’ version, and their slow burning versions of R&B standards like “Mustang Sally” and “In the Midnight Hour” are tentative steps of band finding its own personality and sound—one that would adapt to changing times.
Having tasted success, the Rascals proved with their follow-up record, Collections, that they were not a “one-hit wonder” and had ambitions to be a great band with artistic pretensions like their contemporaries, the Beatles and the Beach Boys. Like the debut, it was self-produced, but this time six of the eleven cuts were written by band members, and the “vibe” is noticeably different. “What is the Reason” sounds like the band imitating British Invasion pop, Cavaliere does an Otis Redding impression on the Lenny Welch hit “Since I Fell For You,” while the top-10 hit “Lonely Too Long” and “Love is a Beautiful Thing” are the kind of infectious pop songs that clearly represented the band’s true instincts.
Perhaps the most interesting songs on the record were written and/or sung by Gene Cornish—“No Love to Give,” a ballad with a string quartet, and about the closest thing to a thing to a traditional ballad the Rascals recorded on these albums. But then Cornish turned around and wrote “Nineteen Fifty-Six,” a brief return to the garage rock sound of “Good Lovin” (think of The Troggs having two songs as wildly dissimilar as “Wild Thing” with “Love is All Around”). In fact this album is all over the map; most people who are familiar with “More” recall the Kai Winding instrumental, which was a top-10 hit in the U.S., but the Rascals version (the one with words) dispenses with the familiar melody and turns it into an R&B stomp.
The band’s third album, Groovin’, is regarded as their best. This time all the songs are written by the band members, again produced by the band but this time bringing a couple of session players to play flute and bass guitar, and Brigati’s brother David for vocal support. Moving with the times toward a “psychedelic” sound, the result was three top-10 hits, “A Girl Like You,” “How Can I Be Sure” and the huge No.1 “Groovin,” which would have stayed at the top spot for five weeks had its streak not been interrupted for a week by Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.” Brigati was allowed to sing lead on “How Can I Be Sure,” and this time he provides a suitably tender performance.
There is still “bluesy” sentiments that were present in some of the songs they covered previously, like “You Better Run” and “I Don’t Love You Anymore,” the latter that features some great harmony singing. But the prevailing vibe—as in “Groovin’s” simple pleasure of taking a stroll on a nice Sunday afternoon—remains positive and truer to the “flower power” sentiment than some other acts were, and the production was far beyond their original garage band sound. That distance would be stretched even further on their next album.
The Rascals fourth album, Once Upon A Dream, found Cavaliere clearly seeking to emulate the artistic pretensions of the Beach Boy’s Pet Sounds (an album that I think is great) and the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (an album that I think is overrated), and Groovin certainly demonstrated that they could take that next step with another strong set of self-composed songs. To take that “next step,” the Rascals recruited producer/arranger Arif Mardin and some old hands in jazz and blues like King Curtis, Ron Carter and Chuck Rainey. However, although Dream had some elements of the “old” Rascals present insofar as their “blue-eyed soul” cred was concerned (and in the general vibe and melodicism of the songs), the production was advanced further not necessarily with a more psychedelic sound, but a “bigger” sound—adding musical “flourishes” into a similar “soundscape” as Pet and Pepper, although more open to the use of orchestration than those albums were.
Dream begins with a voiceover intoning “once up a dream” before a harmonica kicks in for a laid-back “Easy Rollin” which sounds to me more countrified than bluesy, so you knew right off this was going to be something different. Swirling strings accompany “Rainy Day,” while saxophone and call-and-response vocalizing appears on “Please Love Me.” The song released as a single, “It’s Wonderful,” is the most overtly psychedelic song on the album, featuring electronic and animal noises, a brief fadeout and even whistling. A catchy but kind of “weird” song, which I suspect a lot of Rascal fans probably missed because they thought it was by another band.
“I’m Gonna Love You” was typical good-natured Rascals, but the musical experimentation wasn’t over, this time with what sounds like a brass band used on that recording. If you didn’t know that “My Hawaii” was written by the Rascals, you would have sworn they were covering an old “standard” from the 1940s, while Cavaliere’s organ returns for a sweetly sung “My World.” The soulful “Silly Girl” continues the production flourishes with orchestration, flute and horns. “Singing the Blues” does in fact does sound like a jazzy blues number, but then again why should we be surprised to hear a sitar on a song called “Sattva”?
After all that just transpired, the record closes with the suitably dreamy “Once Upon a Dream” sung by David Brigati. Although not a single release, it seems appropriate to close out even a record devoted to the hits.
Although Dream reached the top-10 on the album charts based on the expectations of those who liked Groovin’, it was the first Rascals album to fail to achieve gold record sales, which suggested that the attempt to expand its horizons was likely hurt by the lack of a hit song expected by fans—and the obvious failure to expand their fan base, because record buyers already had a preconceived notion of the Rascals’ music. For me personally, despite the lack of a big hit, Dream—like Pet Sounds—is a record of consistently good songs with some odd but scintillating production flourishes that don’t sound too weird (i.e. Sergeant Pepper) that you can just lay back and take in a pleasant haze.
The Rascals next album was the hits collection, Time Peace, which included one new song, the No. 3 hit “A Beautiful Morning,” which helped re-solidify the band’s reputation as a great singles act, confirmed by Time topping the album charts.
Freedom Suite, the fifth record on the Original Album Series set, is the Rascals making a grand political “statement.” There were differing rationalizations for it; in a recent interview, Cavaliere asserted that the inspiration for the monster hit “People Got To Be Free” was when he first learned of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination while vacationing in Jamaica (1) ; another story is that while on tour in the South the band members were once harassed by rednecks for being “longhairs.” Whatever the reason, there is no doubt their social concerns were sincere, as the band would insist for a time that they would not perform at a concert that did not include a black recording act (for their part, when the Beatles were touring America, it was stipulated in their contract that they would not perform before a segregated audience).
Freedom kicks off with “America the Beautiful”—not the familiar anthem, but rather a song that tells us that we have a way to go before realizing the “dream” that America is “beautiful.” Then “Me and My Friends” are going to show you how it is “meant to be.” In “Look Around,” we hear police sirens as Cavaliere bemoans all the violence we see on the television screen. The album proceeds in that vein; there are those who think political and social message songs should talk about what is wrong with the world—you know, stuff like “Eve of Destruction”—but the Rascals want to believe the world is in the “Dawn of Correction.”
On “Heaven,” Cavaliere admits that some people think that anyone who believes in “a place called Heaven” is “kind of square,” but the Rascals’ message was that there was still time for humankind to get its act together. For me the album is hurt somewhat by the fact that some of the songs sound like they were not composed organically, but more like a square peg trying to be fit in a round hole; the melodic pop hooks that the band was so great at seem mostly absent in the effort to fit the music around the more “complex” lyrics.
The second disc (included on the same CD) starts out with “Adrian’s Birthday,” which is a listenable jazz number; Danelli is credited as the “songwriter” on “Boom,” and is a good showcase of his jazz drumming. But do you really want to listen to a 14-minute drum solo? “Cute” is too cute by half, a disjointed 12-minute instrumental excursion before closing out with a reprise of “Look Around.”
Still, unlike Dream, Freedom contained—besides a great soul number in “Island of Love”—instantly memorable hits like “Ray of Hope” and of course the horn-driven “People Got To Be Free,” which spent five weeks at #1 (here being performed live on The Barbara McNair Show):
… all of which improved album sales back to gold status. After that it was mostly downhill, although to be fair their run of hit records was impressive for a typical Sixties band. The Rascals sixth album, See, contained their last top-40 hits, the rocking “See” and “Carry Me Back,” which sounds like they are trying to channel the Edwin Hawkins hit “Oh Happy Day.” And that was about it, although Cavaliere did record a couple of solo albums. While “real” soul acts of the Sixties continued to find success in the Seventies and even the Eighties (Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Gladys Knight and the Pips), blue-eyed soul was strictly a phenomenon of the Sixties.
But the Rascals output left us some of the most positive, life-affirming music out there, and again I say what hell is wrong with that? Alright, so some people react to catchy pop tunes like this…
…and I say to them I hate to be inside your head.
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