Best Summer songs from AM radio

[tuned]

With the nice, hot weather we are having what are some of your favorite songs from long Summer days when AM ruled? Groovin' by the Rascals was the first one that I thought of.

[radiofan]

Summer In The City by Lovin' Spoonful

and how about...

They're Coming To Take Me Away Ha Haaa by Napolean XIV!

[radiofan]

Another all time summertime favorite was Hot Fun In The Summertime by Sly and The Family Stone ... a song that CKLG DID NOT play as a current hit, but eventually played it as an oldie.

All is forgiven for that faux pas Mr. Hennessy.

[butch]

In the summertime by mungo jerry

[PMC]

I see that someone has turned Itsy bitsy yellow poka dot bikini into a commercial now... it only took 46 years

[kat]

I never had an FM radio in the old '75 Dart, so I lived with AM MONO.

Eddy Grant's Electric Avenue sounded great in '83 and in '85 it was Katrina And The Waves Walkin On Sunshine were a couple of summer favorites in the 80's.

[Glen Livingstone]

Can't Forget "Summertime Blues" by Eddie Cochran ... "I'm a-gonna raise a fuss, I'm a-gonna raise a holler ... "

[Jack Bennest]

two I just heard on the Top Forty site


cliff richards - fun and laughter on a "summer holiday"

"Here comes summer" - don't know who by - DC5 or the undertones?

If you check the Top Forty site - Jim asks the question - who
is this voice in clip #1 on the 1963 soundathon page


I have given my guess to him - if you have one - post it on this thread as well

[Neumann Sennheiser]

I have two very clear and warm memories related to a couple of tunes already listed.

"They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha Haaah"....Osoyoos Lake...hot summer day in 1968 with that song playing continuously and loudly from somewhere within a beachside park concession booth. If the guy running the stand was a local, I'll bet he was considered the young town trouble-maker..good for him!

"In The Summertime"...My first summer in radio...what else can I say. Mungo Jerry played the Isle of White Festival that summer. Some maintain that the 1970 Isle of White line-up was the most historic of all of them, rivaling even Woodstock:

Arrival
Joan Baez
Cactus
Chicago
Leonard Cohen
Miles Davis
Donovan & Open Road
The Doors
Emerson Lake and Palmer
Everly Brothers
Family
Free
Good News
Groundhogs
Richie Havens
Heaven
Jimi Hendrix
Jethro Tull
Kris Kristofferson
Lighthouse
Ralph McTell
Melanie
Moody Blues
Pentangle
Procol Harum
Taste
Tony Joe White
Joni Mitchell
Mungo Jerry
Redbone
John Sebastian
Sly & The Family Stone
Kathy Smith
Rosalie Sorrels
Spirit
The Who

Canadian artists of the day pretty well represented there; Lighthouse, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell.
Just consider it though; The Who, Hendrix, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, The Moody Blues, Chicago, Procol Harum, The Doors...AND Miles Davis!!! Where's my damn time machine?

[radiofan]

Here Comes Summer was by Jerry Keller

The continuous playing of They're Coming To Take Me Away in Osoyoos was quite likely Top Dog when he spent the summer working as a car hop at the A&W there.

[tuned]

How could I forget Sunny Days by Lighthouse. Grazing In the Grass by the Friends of Distinction.

[Glen Livingstone]

Yeah Neumann, the lineup of talent at the Isle of Wight was quite unprecedented; didn't Bob Dylan perform there as well?

I have a double CD of some of the live performances that took place which I bought because Dylan was on it ... Turns out his was the only performance on the CD where they used a studio recording in place of the live one! Some licensing problem I suspect.

On another matter. this is a little off topic, but it reinforces what a special time the sixities were.

Would everyone agree the complete and utter impossibility of the song "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" ever getting any airplay if it were released today in 2006, or even recorded, for that matter?

Here's the story ( with thanks to Daniel Rubin ).

It was written & produced by a guy named Jerry Samuels, who these days performs for senior citizens in nursing homes.

He performed it only once, back in the summer of 1966, when Samuels, then a 28-year-old recording engineer from Queens, had the No. 1 song in the country. It was a manic rant that stormed AM radio and sold nearly a million copies in less than two weeks, then disappeared overnight.

He recorded it under the pseudonym Napoleon XIV.

He never sought stardom. He just had an original idea: making a record where the pitch changed, but the tempo didn't. For nine months he worked on the words and technology. He knew the theme would be manic. He'd spent some voluntary time as a teenager in a mental institution and was confident that the patients he knew would think the record was funny.

He and his partner Nat Schnapf recorded a drummer who played poorly, then looped 10 seconds of his chink-a-chink beat nonstop throughout the record. Three people provided percussion by slapping bare thighs. Samuels added five police sirens.

When Samuels played the song over the phone for a talent man he knew at Columbia Records, he was offered $25,000 and a 7 percent cut on the spot. Samuels held out for 10 percent, signing with Warner Bros. for a $500 advance. By the time they cut the check, Warners had added another zero because ``They're Coming to Take Me Away. Ha-Haaa!'' had become a monster hit. Dr. Demento, the syndicated radio-show host, called it "the most sensational novelty record in American history. ''

Samuels had hoped to hide behind the name Napoleon XIV, but the DJ Cousin Brucie ended that, announcing to his radio audience that the artist was really this guy in Queens.

The late Los Angeles ( he also worked briefly at KKMI Seattle in 1984 ) disc jockey Bob Hudson who later became half of the comedy duo Hudson & Landry recorded an answer song to "They're Coming to take Me Away" called "I'm Normal."

That one's worth seeking out as well, as is a song called "I'm Here" by Boots Walker, ( circa 1966 or '67 ) which utilized the same repetitive beat as the others two but added a guitar.

[radiofan]

To add to Pluto's post above... Pat O'Day owned KKMI 96.5 in Seattle. Prior to it's short-lived KKMI incarnation, the station was Modern Rocker KYYX. Today, 96.5 is JACK-FM.

Somewhere I have an aircheck of Bob Hudson on KKMI that I'll post one day.

Here's a few goodies from the archives:

[Neumann Sennheiser]

...and just for the hell of it...the lyrics:

They're Coming To Take Me Away

Remember when you ran away
And I got on my knees and begged
You not to leave
Because I'd go berserk?
Well!
You left me anyhow and then
The days got worse and worse
And now you see I've gone
Completely out of my mind.

And

They're coming to take me away, Ha-ha
They're coming to take me away, Ho-ho
Hee-hee-haa-haa
To the funny farm
Where life is beautiful all the time
And I'll be happy to see those
Nice young men in their clean white coats and
They're coming to take me away, ha-ha!

You thought it was a joke
and so you laughed, you laughed,
when I had said that losing you
would make me flip my lid.
Right?
You know you laughed
I heard you laugh
You laughed, you laughed
and laughed and then you left but
Now you know I'm utterly mad

And

They're coming to take me away, ha-ha,
They're coming to take me away, ho-ho,
hee hee, haa haa
To the happy home
With trees and flowers and chirping birds
And basket-weavers who sit and smile
And twiddle their thumbs and toes
And they're coming to take me away, ha-hahaha...

I cooked your food, I cleaned your house,
And this is how you pay me back for
All my kind, unselfish, loving deeds,
Hah?
Well you just wait, they'll find you yet
And when they do they'll put you in the ASPCA you mangy mutt!

And

They're coming to take me away, Ha-ha
They're coming to take me away, Ho-ho
Hee-hee-haa-haa
To the funny farm
Where life is beautiful all the time
And I'll be happy to see those
Nice young men in their clean white coats and
They're coming to take me away, ha-ha!

To the happy home
With trees and flowers and chirping birds
And basket-weavers who sit and smile
And twiddle their thumbs and toes
And they're coming to take me away, ha-hahaha...

To the funny farm
Where life is beautiful all the time
And I'll be happy to see..(fade)

[sparky]

Long time lurker, first time poster here.

Light My Fire and White Rabbit take me back to the summer of 67. Saw Jefferson Airplane at the Trips Festival and The Doors at Dante's Inferno.

It didn't get much better than that.