Hang On Sloopy

In the mid 60s, a group called the Strangeloves were riding high with a song called I Want Candy. They'd been touring with the Dave Clark Five and had been playing a tune called Hang On Sloopy. The Dave Clark Five liked it so much they were about to record it. But the Strangeloves had other ideas. They gave it to an outfit called Rick and the Raiders, led by 17 year-old Rick Zehringer - later known as Rick Derringer - and they put it out under the name of The McCoys. In October 1965, it hit #1.

Of course Derringer went on to play with the Johnny and Edgar Winter bands, had a decent solo career marked by the hit Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo and has been an in-demand session guitarist, perhaps most notably with Steely Dan.

The song has since been adopted as the football fighting song of Ohio State University. And it's played at home games of the Cincinnati Bengals, the Cleveland Browns, Cavaliers and Indians, not to mention the Columbus Blue Jackets.

In 1985, the Ohio General Assembly designated Hang On Sloopy as the official rock song of Ohio.

Love Potion #9

The Searchers apparently took their name from the 1956 John Wayne film of the same name, directed by John Ford. The group formed in the late 50s and went through various line-ups before they achieved hit records in the 60s.

At one point they gave the Beatles a run for their money on the English pop charts and were the second Liverpool group after the fab four to chart a hit in the States with Needles and Pins in 1964.

Love Potion No. 9 was written by Leiber and Stoller and originally recorded by the Clovers in 1959. In 1965 The Searchers' version reached #3 in the States.

Massachusetts

The Gibb Brothers were born in England and moved to Australia where they grew up. Their early success, such as it was, was achieved down under before returning to England in the mid-60s. This is the period of the Bee Gees career that I like. They may have been more popular at the forefront of the disco scene, earned more money and sold more records but Barry, Maurice and Robin could sure write and perform pop hits in the decade beginning in the mid-60s.

In 1967, the Bee Gees burst upon the scene with such hits as New York Mining Disaster 1941 and To Love Somebody both from the erroneously titled 3rd album Bee Gees 1st. But one of my favourite early Bee Gees songs appeared on their next album - Horizontal - Massachusetts. Massachusetts was the Bee Gees first #1 hit and it was the second song to be played on BBC1 when it went on the air in September 1967 in response to such pirate radio stations as Radio Caroline being formally outlawed by Britain's Parliament.

While written by the Gibb Brothers, the song was originally intended for The Seekers. However, they turned it down.

Need Your Love So Bad

When someone says Fleetwood Mac, one's thoughts immediately go to the killer supergroup of the mid-70s with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. But Mac was a very successful blues band a decade earlier in Britain formed by guitarist Peter Green and his former John Mayall Blues Band mates drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie, after whom the band was named.

Mac's self-titled first album was released 1968. They'd release 9 more albums as a blues outfit before the release of their second eponymous release in 1975 after Buckingham and Nicks joined Fleetwood, McVie and McVie's wife Christine who had been the band's organist since 1970.

After dallying with LSD and following bouts of schizophrenia, in 1970 Peter Green left the group he had founded.

In an obviously lip-synced performance, here's Green and a very young looking Fleetwood and Mac performing a Ray Charles-inspired arrangement of Need Your Love So Bad...