We’re smack dab in the middle of summer, a great reason to listen to some of my favorite Top Forty summertime hits. Some pop standards and rock and roll anthems echo a disdain for having to work during a time when freedom and making out were priorities.
“Roll out those hazy, crazy, lazy days of summer, those days of soda, and pretzels, and beer, you’ll wish that summer would always be here.” Summer just wouldn’t be summer without a summer song.
Since it’s almost summer, I thought it appropriate to investigate the world of surf music. Not the culture displayed by vocal surf music, but the sport and the dance as revealed by the instrumental sound . . .
Fifty years ago, Marvin Gaye released one of the best albums ever put on wax, that being the heralded What’s Going On. What made it so great, and why is it still very much relevant today?