Author Chuck Gunderson is working on a book on the Beatles tours of America. He is working on the Bobby Hebb section this week.
Visual Radio interviewed Chuck on Thursday, January 3, 2012
More information to follow.
http://www.beatlestix.com/
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TRIVIA QUESTION:
Q:What was the 3rd song of Bobby Hebb's 5 song set opening for The Beatles in Toronto at
Maple Leaf Stadium? August 17, 1966 Maple Leaf Gardens, Canada?
A: Bobby's TREMENDOUS cover of the Barry Mann / Cynthia Weil classic "Good, Good Lovin'" - here is the original by The Blossoms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv69RAxE0-Q
Margaret Ross Williams of the Cookies sings an acapella version on Visual Radio! Maybe we'll ask Margaret to let us include it on the Bobby Hebb boxed set! with Bobby's version from the Toronto show.
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Bobby Hebb's SET LIST
Concert Performance with The Beatles show
Concert Performance with The Beatles show
Maple Leaf Garden Toronto August 17, 1966
1)Crazy Baby (Bobby Hebb)
2)For You (Van McCoy)
3)Good Good Lovin (Mann/Weil)
4)Got My Mojo Working (Muddy Waters)
5)Sunny (Bobby Hebb) (Long version; backed up by Barry and The Remains on all 5 songs)
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BOBBY HEBB WITH THE BEATLES
FROM BIOGRAPHER JOSEPH TORTELLI
SMALL FACES "GOLDMINE" MAGAZINE COVER STORY.
This material copyright Joseph Tortelli and Goldmine and cannot be quoted without proper credit to the authors. Please ask for permission (Hebb_project {@} yahoo.com )
issue 415, Vol 22, No 13, 6/21/96
 Published on the 30th Anniversary of the Beatles tour. |
In Joe Tortelli's Goldmine article on Bobby Hebb he quoted Bobby on the Beatles tour:
If anything could possibly match the thrill of a hit record,_ then Hebb found it: He joined the Beatles' 1966 American tour. Commencing August 12 at the Chicago International Amphitheater, the Beatles whirled through such sports venues as Suffolk Downs near Boston, Municipal Stadium in Cleveland and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Covering 14 cities in little more than two weeks, the Beatles closed the tour at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on August 29. Neither Hebb nor anyone else suspected that he had participated in the Beatles' final tour.
Barry and the Remains, the Boston band that should have made it, opened the shows, followed by the Cyrkle, who hit that summer with "Red Rubber Ball" and "Turn Down Day." Longtime Beatle favorites the Ronettes appeared next. Then Hebb sang "Sunny" plus a few other songs from his album. Ultimately, the Fab Four -and pandemonium.
Hebb remembers the tour in a straightforward, businesslike fashion. The entire troupe flew on planes together, played a lot of Password between shows, and treated each other professionally. Because of tight scheduling, little time remained for socializing. In such cities as Detroit, Memphis and Toronto, they played both an afternoon and an evening show; once, as a result of a rain postponement, they played one city, Cincinnati, in the afternoon, and another, St. Louis, at night.
"This was one of the most pleasing rewards ever," Hebb said about the Beatle stadium tour. "1 enjoyed an audience of that size. The kids did scream in such a way that most of the time the Beatles did not hear themselves, but they listened to me. I'll never forget Shea Stadium, because I was living in New York at that time. So that was coming home."
from the forthcoming book:
SUNNY: THE BOBBY HEBB STORY
Chapter 1: Beatles Tape Auctioned in August of 2008
An original 1966 Beatles
audio recording tape and the tape machine it was recorded on at the
last concert in Toronto, Canada, was put up to bid at 10 AM August 11,
2008 with a minimum bid of $10,000.00. One of the fellows involved in
the auction asked me to hear the Bobby Hebb recordings in order to identify Bobby’s five-song set list. It was an honor to hear The Ronettes, The Cyrkle, Barry & The Remains,
Bobby and some of the Beatles along with the interview materials the
audio-documentary producer put together on August 17, 1966 at the Maple
Leaf Gardens, Toronto, Canada. On or about Wednesday, January 23,
2008 I wrote some information to give to the individuals engaged in
putting the documentary up for auction. This article (written November
14, 2009) is an edit from that essay. This information is part of the
forthcoming book: SUNNY - THE BOBBY HEBB STORYBacked by Epic Recording artist Barry & The Remains, there’s a marvelous performance from the “song a day man” which concludes with an extended version of his signature tune, “Sunny”. One month before the Beatles appeared in this Canadian city- one of the fourteen stops on their North American tour - Hebb was riding high with Cashbox magazine ranking “Sunny” as the #1 hit in its publication while Billboard had the song at #2, July 23, 1966…so the song was a constant on the radio smack dab in the middle of this tour. What is also unique about this event is that in October of 1965 Paul McCartney’s song “Yesterday” hit #1 and now – two men who composed songs that history tells us would be all-time classics of 20th century songwriting – were appearing on the same tour. Certainly it was “Sunny” that landed Bobby the gig, but equally important was the respect and admiration The Beatles had for American rhythm and blues artists. You would have to call The Ronettes a pop band more than an R & B group, so Bobby was the sole representative of the sound that helped shape the product the Beatles would present to the world.
 | After performing a Muddy Waters' song entitled "Got My Mojo Working", Bobby Hebb says to the crowd "Thank you very much. This is a song you made possible..." and when Barry Tashian and The Remains begin the opening chords there's pandemonium from the audience on a scale equal to the response The Beatles were receiving. Of all the opening acts on the bill, only Bobby Hebb had the timing perfect - his song riding the top of the charts just as he's touring with The Fab Four, and his uptempo creation with its good-feel modulation and extended vamp here, as superb a daylight as if The Beatles themselves were singing “Good Day Sunshine”, the song McCartney say was inspired by listening to The Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Daydream”. That the song has snow-balled since garnering that applause equal to John, Paul, George and Ringo – probably a thousand covers 44 years after its first recordings in 1965 (vibraphonist Dave Pike in America, Mieko “Miko” Hirota in Japan…songs recorded before Jerry Ross produced Bobby’s hit version) - indicates that Hebb could write a song on par with John and Paul and without the Beatles machine behind it to launch it; but a song that could benefit The Beatles tour and stand on the same platform as “Yesterday”, “Let It Be”, “Revolution” and “Day In The Life”. |
| Bobby Hebb's Concert Performance with The Beatles show 1)Crazy Baby (Bobby Hebb) 2)For You (Van McCoy) 3)Good Good Lovin (Mann/Weil) 4)Got My Mojo Working (Muddy Waters) 5)Sunny (Bobby Hebb) The Ronnettes are Ronnie-less at this event, so when you hear them perform “Be My Baby” or a cover of The Shirelle’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” you are hearing the back-up singers. According to Artist’s Facts “Spector did not let Ronnie tour with The Beatles. He replaced her with another Bennett cousin.” So you had Estelle Bennet Vann and Nedra Talley Ross along with another Bennett, but not Ronnie Spector. Keep in mind that The Cyrkle had the guidance of Brian Epstein to help them, and on the fourth of June, 1966, their “Red Rubber Ball” hit #2 on Billboard (as Bobby would a month later with “Sunny”) while “Turn Down Day” was #16 on August 27th, according to Joel Whitburn’s essential “The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits”. So The Cyrkle were riding high at the same time Bobby Hebb was – Mr. Hebb’s second hit from the Sunny album, the Porter Wagoner cover of the J.H. “Red” Hayes/Jack Rhodes composition “A Satisfied Mind” reaching #39 on November 5 of 1966. Oh, to go back in time and change releases! "A Satisfied Mind" was a #1 Country hit for Porter Wagoner in 1955, and though Bobby Hebb certainly had big country leanings – his work with honky-tonk piano legend Poppa John Gordy and the King of the Hillbillies, Roy Acuff proof of that – the Mercury subsidiary, Philips Records, should have followed the smash pop song with “Love Love Love” (which would hit #35 in the U.K. six years later thanks to the Northern Soul movement re-igniting the production from the original Sunny album) or the non-lp single “Love Me”, a Jerry Ross/Kenny Gamble re-write of “Sunny”. Add to this the fact that Bobby turned down “Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie” (though the instrumental was recorded for him) as it was too much of a novelty song for his repertoire, and you see how history changes in the blink of an eye in the record industry. But on the concert stage on this tape Hebb's voice and sound are phenomenal. To hear this vintage concert after recording many Bobby Hebb performances live (since1995) well, as you can imagine the renditions are different, soulful and exciting.  The
Hebb show with The Beatles opens with a Bobby Hebb original, "Crazy
Baby", the tenth track on the "Sunny" album. It is followed by a
beautiful version of Van McCoy's "For You", the twelfth track on "Sunny"
(McCoy, of course, scored with "The Hustle" during the disco era, a #1
hit in May of 1975). The next track is a cover of a Darlene Love
& The Blossoms Reprise 45 RPM which may have been a minor hit.
"Good Good Lovin" was the flip of their "That's When The Tears Start"
circa 1963 and was written by Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil.
At a minute and 29 seconds it is the shortest song on the Sunny album,
track 5. It’s also interesting to note that Bobby would have a song from
a Ronettes related artist, Darlene Love, in his set and give it that
soul stir that separates his music from that of the legendary “Wall of
Sound”.Bobby likes to call "Got My Mojo Working" by another name "Mojo Workout", but the similar song by the title "Mojo Workout" was inspired by Muddy Waters where Bobby actually plays the original Muddy Waters tune "Got My Mojo Working". "Mojo Workout" is the title of a Sundazed Paul Revere & The Raiders release, written by Larry Bright and recorded by one of Hebb's friends and mentors, Bill Cosby (on Silver Throat: Bill Cosby Sings) as well as Larry Bright (credited on AMG to Julianna Bright). According to Bright's bio on AMG:"Once in the studio, Bright, inspired by Muddy Waters' "mojo song" (he didn't know the title) decided to make up a mojo song of his own: "Mojo Workout." After local black-owned Tide Records picked it up, the track received heavy airplay on KGFJ, the major R& B station in L.A. Jim Randolph, a disc jockey at the station, thought Bobby played "Got My Mojo Working" considerably in his days at The Blue Morocco with Sylvia Robinson (of Pillow Talk fame). Bobby replaced Mickey "Guitar" Baker in Mickey & Sylvia (they, of course, hit with "Love Is Strange"), Bobby; Sylvia releasing one 45 RPM together, but Bobby being nicknamed "Mojo" while performing at that venue. You can hear the "Love Is Strange" guitar riff in Dave "Baby" Cortez's hit "Rinky Dink" from 1962. That's because it is Bobby Hebb on lead guitar; Bobby did a LOT of sessions for other artists: soul pioneer Roscoe Shelton, for John Lee Hooker (while Hooker was using another name on the Excello label), spoons for Bo Diddley as well as the aforementioned Poppa John Gordy (whose son, John Gordy Jr. became a huge football star), and others. "Rinky Dink" hit #10 in Billboard August 11, 1962. "Love Is Strange" hit #11 January 12, 1957 for Mickey Sylvia. Just to give this music a little historical perspective. Columbia artist The Cyrkle's performance included covers of The Four Seasons and The Beach Boys, credible covers that showed their falsetto vocal prowess. The group was highly creative. And The Remains on the tape sound like the early Rolling Stones. Barry and Billy Briggs have appeared on this writer’s television program, Visual Radio, and we've videotaped the group live, so – again - being able to compare something from decades before is totally amazing. Hebb biographer Joseph Tortelli noted that this month, November 2009, The Rolling Stones have a 40th Anniversary Boxed Set commemorating “Get Your Ya Yas Out.” Tortelli feels that the 1969 Rolling Stones tour and the 1966 Beatles/Bobby Hebb tour are two vital and unexplored concert tours. There’s no argument on that here…in fact, I feel that these tours have been under appreciated because of the lack of music available to the public from these giants of the recording industry. There’s no doubt in my mind that scholars hundreds of years from now will appreciate the material that sees release, possibly long after those of us living in this time-line have shed this mortal coil. Just as being with the late Jimmy Miller in the late Allen Klein’s office as Klein’s son Jody played us Sam Cooke productions in 1986 or 1987…material human ears had not heard in decades – it was an honor for me to be among the first to hear this tape, as well as Little Walter DeVenne’s legendary live tape of Jimi Hendrix with Little Richard, discovered (or made public) by my show, Visual Radio, while interviewing DeVenne. There’s lots more Beatles stuff in the vaults. Hoping that this article whets your appetite I remain, Joe Viglione. | |
This material Copyright (C)2013 Joe Viglione and
cannot be quoted without proper credit to the authors.
Please ask for permission (Hebb_project {@} yahoo.com)
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