Johnny Rivers' "Memphis" and "Help Me, Rhonda"

Between yester-day and to-day, I listened to the two discs of a Johnny Rivers compilation titled Secret Agent Man: The Ultimate Johnny Rivers Anthology.  I found some interesting things about two of his covers.

The liner notes mention Rivers' "flair for interpreting and rearranging other people's material" and explain that he took the riff for his version of Chuck Berry's "Memphis" from "Tommy Tucker's recent R&B hit 'Hi Heel Sneakers.'"  Aside from Berry's original and Rivers' cover, the only other version of "Memphis" I'm really familiar with is a live version by the Searchers (slightly re-titled to "Memphis, Tennessee") that appears on the 40th Anniversary Collection.  (I have two versions by the Beatles, but I haven't listened to them that much.  They're both closer to Berry's original, so are irrelevant to my point here anyway.)  Until reading the liner notes for the Rivers anthology, I hadn't fully realized that his version and the Searchers' version have the same riff.  The liner notes for the Searchers album don't give an exact date for their version; they mention only that it's from a live appearance on Swedish radio from 1964, although based on the track listing - which is more or less chronological - it seems that it's from December 1964.  So Rivers' version, released in May 1964, is older, and the Searchers probably modeled their version after his.  (It seems unlikely that they would use the same riff - and in the same way - that Rivers did.)

It's hard for me to wrap my head around that because not only am I more familiar with the Searchers' version, but I've always thought that the Searchers were older than Johnny Rivers.  I knew that both had long careers, but I'd always placed the Searchers' pinnacle of success in the early '60s and Johnny Rivers' in the mid- to late-'60s.  The Searchers' taking inspiration from Johnny Rivers certainly illustrates that I was wrong and that they overlap more than I'd thought.

Secondly, I think Rivers' cover of the Beach Boys' "Help Me, Rhonda" is particularly interesting because it adheres more closely to the album version ("Help Me, Ronda," from Today!) rather than the single version (which was also released on the Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) album).

Rivers' cover re-instates the harmonica that appears on the Today! version (it doesn't appear on the Beach Boys' single version), and he replaces shattered with ruined in the line "but she let another guy come between us and it shattered our plan," which - again - is what the Today! version has.  The Beach Boys changed it to "shattered our plan" for the single version.

According to the liner notes, Rivers' version of "Help Me, Rhonda" was released in 1975, which is well after the Beach Boys' versions and well after their single version became a hit.  The liner notes also mention that Brian Wilson contributed backing vocals to Rivers' version.  Rivers' basing his version on the older, album version and Wilson's appearance on the track both seem to suggest that Rivers recorded the song because he genuinely liked it and not because he was just trying to get a hit song (although it apparently did well in the charts anyway).

The Lovin' Spoonful's "You're a Big Boy Now"

I'm still making my way through the Greatest Hits albums.  Currently, it's the Lovin' Spoonful.  In "You're a Big Boy Now," I discovered the riff from Buster Brown's "Fannie Mae."  It comes in after the first chorus, played on guitar and harmonica.

I hadn't realized that that riff was so important.  Along with the reference in "You're a Big Boy Now," it informed the melody of the Beach Boys' "Help Me, Rhonda," and on the earlier version on Today! (titled "Help Me, Ronda"), the riff is played on harmonica near the end.

EDIT: I just realized that that same phrase is also used for the melody in the Silhouettes' "Get a Job" - the first "sha na na."

Paul Revere & the Raiders' "The Great Airplane Strike" and "Action"

As I alluded to in my last post, I just listened to Paul Revere & the Raiders' Greatest Hits.  I found two different instances of what I think are their imitations of other musicians' styles.

First, "The Great Airplane Strike," which has some Dylanesque qualities in the lyrics.  More specifically, it's a lot like "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" from Bringing It All Back Home.  They're both long, involved stories told in past tense.  Additionally, both feature a series of characters that the singer/narrator has conversations with.  I realize that's kind of a broad statement, but those conversations are narrated in the same way - in a very brief fashion in which inflections of said are frequently used.

Part of the second verse of "The Great Airplane Strike":

The man said I could ride the wing and I said that was fine
He said I could fund your reservation and put the plane on hold
He comes back and said sorry but that wing space's just been sold

The sixth verse of "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" (found here):

Well, I rapped upon a house
With the U.S. flag upon display
I said, “Could you help me out
I got some friends down the way”
The man says, “Get out of here
I’ll tear you limb from limb”
I said, “You know they refused Jesus, too”
He said, “You’re not Him
Get out of here before I break your bones
I ain’t your pop”
I decided to have him arrested
And I went looking for a cop

Both songs are also very loosely connected in a narrative sense.  Almost any verse of Bob Dylan's song provides an example, but the best example in Paul Revere & the Raiders' is the fire the singer/narrator builds in the washroom, to which the panicked janitor replies, "That's all right" once the situation is explained.  I guess it's a lack of real-world reactions and situations that the songs have in common.

Even the title "The Great Airplane Strike" seems to suggest some of Dylan's more protest-influenced songs from a few years earlier.

According to the liner notes, "The Great Airplane Strike" was recorded on 18 July 1966, well after "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream," but still while Dylan was in his electric and enigmatic period.

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Second, "Action" seems to be a nod to the style of the early Beach Boys.  At the beginning and ending of the song, there are layers of vocals.  The last syllable of "Oh, baby, come on" is sustained while the line "Let me take you where the action is" comes in.  And then "Oh, baby, come on" starts again before "Let me take you where the action is" has quite finished.

This same technique is used on the Beach Boys' "Catch a Wave."  In the second verse, the line "all the surfers going strong" turns into a single held note that supports the next line - "they said it wouldn't last too long."

During the verses of "Action," the backing vocals are just "ooh"s in a style reminiscent of the Beach Boys.  Particularly in the first verse, this association is strengthened through the line "In every little town across the U.S.A.," recalling the Beach Boys' "Surfin' U.S.A." and its catalogue of places.  Two other verses include the line "Dance, dance, dance," which - obviously - is the title of "Dance, Dance, Dance," which appeared on the Beach Boys' Today!

Looking at the data in the liner notes provides more credence for this pastiche.  "Action" was recorded on 5 August 1965, well after "Surfin' U.S.A." and "Catch a Wave" and a few months after Today!  Furthermore, one of the writers is "S. Venet," the brother of Nik Venet, who produced some of the Beach Boys' early material.

The Beach Boys' "Don't Hurt My Little Sister"

I kept thinking about the Beach Boys' "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" because the melody of Brian's falsetto part sounded familiar too.  Last night, I finally figured out where I know it from.  There's a song by Jay and the Americans called "Things Are Changing," which - in my opinion - is one of the worst in their catalogue.  Some of the melodies of the background parts are grating, and the song as a whole seems more like propaganda.

But in any case, it has the same melody as part of "Don't Hurt My Little Sister."  I looked it up and was surprised to discover that it was actually co-written by Brian Wilson (with Phil Spector).  While looking up the recording dates, I discovered that "Things Are Changing" is pretty much just Phil Spector's revision of "Don't Hurt My Little Sister."  From Keith Badman's The Beach Boys:  "Brian originally wrote this song for The Ronettes and submitted it to their producer Phil Spector, who then altered the lyrics and called it "Things Are Changing (For the Better)".  Brian will recall that Spector kicks him off the session because he 'couldn't play the song right'.  Spector later cuts the revamped song with The Blossoms as a public-service announcement for equal opportunities."

The melody of the first part Brian's falsetto section ("why don't you kiss her") remains unchanged in Spector's rewrite ("it doesn't matter"), which is what first caught my ear.  But listening to the beginnings of the two songs back-to-back, the resemblance does come across.

The recording dates:  The Beach Boys' "Don't Hurt My Little Sister" was recorded on 22 June 1964 and 18 January 1965 and was released on Today! on 8 March 1965.  Jay and the Americans' "Things Are Changing" was recorded in August 1965 and released in January 1966.

The Beach Boys' "Don't Hurt My Little Sister"

I went a bit out of alphabetical order this morning and listened to the Beach Boys’ Today!  The recurring riff in “Don’t Hurt My Little Sister” caught my attention.  I figured out how to play it and then compared it to the first few seconds of “She’s So Fine” by Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids from the American Graffiti soundtrack.  The riffs are identical, save that the Beach Boys’ is in Bb and Flash Cadillac’s is in B.

I’m not sure what to make of this though because the chronology is confusing.  The Beach Boys’ Today! is from 1965.  American Graffiti is from 1973 but is set in 1962 and features some of the earlier Beach Boys songs, like “Surfin’ Sufari” and - anachronistically, as it’s from 1964 - “All Summer Long.”

I guess “She’s So Fine” was a good choice for the film’s soundtrack if it’s trying to be reminiscent of the Beach Boys (both “She’s So Fine” and “Don’t Hurt My Little Sister” heavily feature piano as a rhythm instrument and harmony and falsetto singing), but its resemblance is to a song that came a few years after the film’s setting.