Band COULDN’T Nail Down TOUGH Vocal…Finally LET Random Kid at Studio TRY…It Hit #1—Professor of Rock

coming up in 1967 the illustrious Summer of Love A psychedelic Sunshine pop standard hit number one on the US charts but this song was cloaked in controversy first of all it was supposed to be a bside it was actually released as a bside originally then it was found that the song was allegedly based off an instrumental idea from two of the band members who were never given credit to this day they still don't have songwriting credit one of them would go on to help compose Sweet Home Alabama in Leonard Skinner sweet home [Music] Alabama every band member tried to sing the song but it wasn't right amazingly they were sung by a friend of the band it was a 16-year-old kid who happened to be at the recording studio as a guest to watch him record he walked up and recorded the song coming up next we get the story from an interview with the co-founder of this Mystery Band I'm Professor Rock hey music junkies professor of rock always here to celebrate the Great greatest artist and the greatest songs of all time you know if you used to pour over the liner notes while you were listening to records as you were growing up you're going to like this channel dig this channel of deep musical Nostalgia make sure to click on the bell I mean click the subscriber button first the red button and then the Bell so you always know when our latest interviews come out and our latest videos check us out on patreon and our merch that helps us keep it a daily Channel well it's time for another edition of our show bottle lightning we haven't done one of these in a while most call them one ha wonders we call them bottle lightning where that band's one big song ruled the charts but they weren't able to sustain long-term domination here's the deal there are certain songs that when played are more effective than a time machine they evoke the decade better than any other emotion or feeling outside of actually being there now unfortunately I never got a chance or I never got to experience the 60s I was born in the decade after that but as I was growing up I got firsthand experience of growing up in that wondrous decade from my dad my pop who told me about all of his experiences coming of age in that time also of course done interviews with hundreds of artists who released life-changing music in that decade so I've gotten that [Music] standpoint I remember my dad telling me about several song from the 60s that were so potent so drenched in the sounds of that era that it instantly took him back to that time to him incense and peppermints was one of those songs a great slice of psychedelic Sunshine pop and one of the first number one hits of that genre by a band with an equally groovy name Strawberry Alarm Clock the song went to number one in the summer of love and has lived on since then in pop culture it's an interesting story behind the song for sure was alleged L based off an instrumental idea by bam members keyboardist Mark whites and guitarist Ed King H God bless the late Ed King who passed away from cancer just a few years ago and of course would go on to be a charter member of Leonard skinnard and create one of the greatest guitar riffs of all [Music] time Mark Whit and Ed King created the instrumental idea only they didn't get any credit for it was officially credited to producer and an anr man John S Carter and Gilbert of the band The Rainy Days the very least whites has stated that he and Ed should have received a co-writing credit I mean if it came off an instrumental idea from them sadly it's an off told story from the early days of rock and roll musicians not being fairly credited or compensated for that [Music] matter then their friend uh a 16-year-old kid named Greg mford who is attending the recording sessions as a visitor just to watch because the band members had a hard time singing the lyrics that John es Carter wrote I had the opportunity to discuss this at length with co-founding member and keyboardist Mark whites and he has the in-depth story of this classic song along with some other fascinating facts you're going to love this one you know it's something I think about every now and again about one hit wonder status the term one hit wonder um it's always being debated does something qualify as a one hit wonder if it was the Lone hit for an artist does it have to uh the second hit technically have to hit the top 40 or the top 10 to not be a one hit wonder what if the band had a second top 40 song a lot of questions out there about this that's why I'd rather call these songs lightning in a bottle um Strawberry Alarm Clock actually wasn't a one hit wonder they had a second top 40 hit after incense and peppermint song called Tomorrow went to number 23 tomorrow hasn't been as massive as uh in and peppermints but uh this band and this song is so indelibly tied to the 60s it's one of a few songs like I said that absolutely defines the era here's the story of the number one smash from Mark now as we go into this interview I do want to thank our sponsor zeny eyear and seriously check out the glasses I wear I love them go design your own you can do a virtual try on before you even buy to see how you look by clicking on info button right up here actually take you there you can design your own pair of glasses up to 80% off regular retail price just check it out today here's Mark with the [Music] [Applause] [Music] story what's let's talk about really get into incense and pepperin the album itself went to number 11 sold 250,000 copies a masterpiece of psychedelia I mean it really was well thank you incense and peppermints yeah was a song that I remember as a kid my dad playing the 45 cuz he had the 45 that my parents always play the records as I was walking around the house and that would marinate in me so when I think of the' 60s there are a couple of key songs for what is worth is one of those songs that like this is must be what the 60s felt like turn turn turns that way incense of peppermints is one of those songs I feel like I'm like getting some kind of energy from the 60s I don't know just that sound those vibrations it's it's it's really amazing it's stimulating mind expanding safer to use that alcohol it's the in thing no drugs tell me about that because a lot of people always said oh there's a drug song we were straight as an arrow in the studio and most of the time on stage we were not a druggy band as me people depicted us as you know on stage our songs were complicated we had to have all our faculties to play plus you're traveling do you ever try to have four hours of sleep and then do three three shows in a day I mean that's you know you don't want to sound lousy on stage the harmonies the harmonies you guys came up with tell me about that a new member of the band at the time a new Drummer came in named Randy seal he helped us with the harmonies and we at the time were involved with a vocal coach his name was Howard Davis he was the man behind our harmonies on the 1 the second and the third third album he would write these elaborate 40s and 50s kind of close harmonies together cuz that's the era he was from he was a fantastic piano player he was the guy that uh the harmonies that you hear the rich harmonies they took a lot of work some sessions we would do nothing but we're I mean we we'd rehearse ahead of time these harmonies and then go into the studio and it' still be a a tough go at it we were not professional singers most of the guys in the band were 18 years old so take some 18-year-old guys from a band that that started in birbman California and say you're going to be a perfect harmony singer now so we really it was amazing that everybody Rose to the occasion I don't know how we did it it was a lot of rehearsal before the recording you don't rehearse in the studio uh Ford track was the standard of the industry at the time our engineer at the original sound Studios his name was Paul buff he invented or designed a 10 trck machine and when we were recording we thought it was an eight track but later on we found out it was a 10 track there wasn't any 10 trck machines around the backstory is on this is that um our producer never put out a stereo version of incense and peppermints wow he said no it's a 45 nobody makes nobody buys stereo 45s everybody's got their little mono player and to this day there is no such thing as a stereo version of incense and peppermints really yeah our number one H it uh it it was recorded in mono uh on a multi-track machine when they mixed it down it was in they never did a stereo mix on it which was a big mistake but nevertheless our producer Frank slay Jr made that decision at the time for whatever [Music] reason well it came from an instrumental that you you wrote and Ed came up with the bridge part right Ed King yeah I had this idea and I I called Ed up on the phone phone I said Ed I have this this which let's throw it out there Ed King later was in Leonard skinnard Ed King joined Leonard Skinner I believe was 74 ended up writing uh one of the major contributors to Sweet Home Alabama oh yeah and that famous lick at the beginning of the song that's [Music] Ed Ed was Ed was great about about helping me uh I'd get stuck on a song I said Ed I need you to come over the four songs that actually char on the top 100 Billboard uh Ed helped me on when I got I would get stuck and I said Ed get your butt over here I've got another section and somehow I don't know how we did it we just worked really great together Ed was one of the one of those people that we never thought we never had a mean word to say to each other we always jelled we finished the song originally had four verses in it and it went down to three it was running too long it was into the 4minute range and our producer said we can't go over 3 minutes nothing is is over 3 minutes 45 right it ended up at 3:16 by the way somewhere in there but Ed helped me with the bridge and we went in recorded a instrumental no lyrics the intro the verse the bridge the outro the the major seven at the end of the song that turned out to be the shal La La at the end of the song [Music] sh our producer had another band or WR ERS working in contract under him they were in a band called the rainy days they had a novelty song called aapco gold which uh actually got La AirPlay but as soon as the dis jois figured out what aop Poco gold was they yanked it off the air and that was the end of [Music] that John Carter and Tim Gilbert were the two writers and Frank slay sent him a realtoreal uh of the instrumental version of incense of peppermints it hadn't been called that yet in fact our manager called it the happy Whistler I don't know where that came from but that was the working title and which of course we hated but that's the sides of point they wrote somehow I don't know where the lyrics came from but John Carter came up with the lyrics he sent the the realtoreal back playing an acoustic guitar singing in sense peppermints crippling mankind you know and we uh Frank slay brought us to his office in Hol on Hollywood Boulevard we sat down he put it up on the speakers and we listen and we listened to the whole song and we said wow where did he come up with those lyrics who cares what games we choose little to win but nothing you know it was rebellious enough that first I said wow this is a great you know song you can there's like innuendo in it there's there's you can think of it a lot of it had a lot of different meetings and and you'd like to keep things that way you know you didn't this means this and you know the reason we said this lyrics it just seemed to flow the majority of us like the lyrics and we went into the studio uh our producers said well here's the lyrics let's see who's going to sing this song and we're all looking at each other we went around and everybody they ran the track and everybody tried to sing incense and peppermints you know there's the lyrics on the music stand next you know the next guy would come up he'd sing next we went around the whole room and he goes God I just nobody just sounds like right for this friend of ours and our he had his own band and he was trying to start a band his name was Greg Munford m u n f o r d Greg was sitting on I think he was like 15 and a half years old 15 16 something like that he was you know long hair sitting on the ground just listening to the you know being quiet minding his own business sitting on the floor like a fly on the wall in the studio he was watching everything and we said hey Greg why don't you get up there and try it so there's you know the vocal mic right there Greg gets up there they do a pass they run it we play it back we all look at each other Greg sounds the best on this he's not even the B he's not even in the band what are we going to do about this you know so we go hey Greg you want to be in the band and he goes no I'm starting my own band you know it's like Crystal circus or something like that colors of Crystal colors or I can't remember the name but we went ahead and used Greg's Vocal Track we did the harmonies and uh mixed it [Music] down George had said that you guys had read somewhere we trying we're trying to do Bri British accents when you were seeing an incense and that's what kind of got this you know the influence of British of UK Rock and and and um the British Invasion it filtered in a little bit sometimes pronunciations especially from the Beatles you know we love to talk like I like to introduces to apple red you know we Tred to you know try to talk like John Lennon or Paul McCartney they were Idols of ours you know the movie hard day night love those movies and and and sometimes our our our lyrics would have a little English kind of like intonation to it here and there although we were not trying to do an English accent we were just trying to color up the lyrics a little bit you know that you have a song with staying power when it's had resurge in so many different time been using Austin Powers what' you think about that when they're using Austin Powers that was uh that was a big surprise that was the one with groovy baby and all that you know uh I I didn't even know that incense of peppermints was in that I was actually in a theater watching it and there's a crane shot in a disco they started playing incense of peppermints I had no idea really yeah that that was going to be in there so I was I was totally taken by surprise on that and you know of course you get on the phone hey we're in in awesome powers you know they had to get clearance to obviously from the Publishers on that to play that but when you saw you know a 100 extras sitting there dancing to your song that that was a shot in the arm that was great and The Simpsons you guys know you're on The Simpsons you know actually name checked when we was talking about medical marijuana yeah he's talking about it pops up here and there oh it does yeah because the record sold a million copies it went gold went to number one on all the charts that was not an easy task back in those days there was no videos on MTV there was no internet obviously but you had a literally go we were pounding California from from San Diego up to San Francisco every little small town we'd stop it every radio station we'd give a record we'd meet the drrocky he'd Play the song on a little 1,000 or 5,000 watt station which dotted up and down the coast and Inland and uh that's how you promoted a record back in days you it was very difficult to get on major uh airplan in a in a large metropolitan area like Los Angeles or San Francisco or New York or you know places like Dallas Texas and it was not easy to get on you know uh radio airplan unless some you had some help it took 6 months to get that record to move up a chart wow to the top 100 I mean when we got on six months of meeting with radio six months of working hard we had to push really hard on that record it's not hitting the thing to go out to YouTube and waiting for it to kind of yeah nope it was town by town and dance club by dance club I mean we played every little dive that you can book in you know uni Records Was was very influential in in getting that record and especially Russ rean head of an anr at the time which took a big chance in signing our band onto the label we were in I think Santa Barbara there was a radio station k i 5,000 watt station out of Santa Barbara California our manager was uh uh friends with the main dist there Johnny Fairchild which uh on our first album we dedicated the album to Johnny because he was the first one to put our songs on the air and we got a lot of requests from the Santa Barbara area that uh helped us move into the LA area so I believe that that was it and when we heard it on La airplate months down the road and we were screaming going down Sunset Boulevard screaming out the window that's us we're on the radio I mean we were screaming at the top here we were like horse because we couldn't believe that we finally made it to La AirPlay which was like I mean we we were ready to die then we're going to heaven we're done you know we made it [Music] thanks so much for watching leave us a comment about this psychedelic classic what are some other bottle lightning songs you think we should cover on here what do you think about this song What are some other songs that Define the 60s and it's just such an interesting story behind this song if you like our content we invite you to subscribe below we'd love to have you as part of our community here we're keeping the musical live that's what we're trying to do until next time three courts and the truth my friends talk to you soon [Music]

Channel: Professor of Rock

Views: 1,336,868

Keywords: professor of rock, professor of rock 60s, behind the music, 60s, 60s greatest hits, 60s music, 60s hits, 60s nostalgia, rock history, professor of rock strawberry alarm clock, strawberry alarm clock, psychedelic rock, psychedelic, psychedelic pop, acid rock, classic rock, rock, 1967, 67, sixties, mark weitz, bottled lightning, one hit wonder, strawberry alarm clock documentary, 60s rock, folk rock, incense and peppermints, incense and peppermints strawberry alarm clock, 1960s

Id: nrZXBPuOs5E

Length: 20min 13sec (1213 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 10 2023