California Dreamin’ On Such A Winter’s Day: Sunshine Pop & Sixties Romance

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Some sunshine pop and joyful songs from the 1960s to warm you up and make you feel happy in these cold, dark days of winter! 😊 

Sunshine pop is a label that is put on the happy, sometimes a little psychedelic, Californian music of the late 1960s and is lyrically inspired by the peace movement and musically by the vocal harmonies of bands like the Beatles, Beach Boys and Mamas & Papas. It makes you feel like being in warm California:

I'd be safe and warm
If I was in L.A.
California dreamin'
On such a winter's day

(California Dreamin')

The track by West Coast Consortium is from their new 3 CD box set All The Love In The World – Complete Recordings 1964 to 1972:

“Not a group from the Cali scene of the 60s, as their name might make you expect – but instead a very cool UK group, and one who've picked up some of the best sunshine pop inspirations of the period, then mixed them with trippier touches as well!”

(Dusty Groove)

Primarily recorded in Los Angeles, thousands of miles away from Motown's regular Hitsville recording studio in Detroit, Love Is Here And Now You're Gone by The Supremes was the first number one song on the Billboard Hot 100 for one week. It was the group's ninth number-one single. On Sunday, January 22, 1967 Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson and Diana Ross performed the song for the first time on television, seven weeks before it went to the top of the charts. In the Netherlands it was a minor success, only reaching number 35. Pop journalist Jon Savage named the track "melodrama in excelsis", because of the baroque elements and the ultimate victim role of lead singer Diana Ross. 

Next week we will tune in to Sunshine Radio again! 😊

Tracklist:

Tahta Menezes – Daytripper (2008)
Oliver – Good Morning Starshine (1969)
Mel Tormé – Happy Together (1969)
Toni Pinelli & Loulou Gordon – California Dreamin' (1967)
Octopus – Girlfriend (1969)
Dee Dee Warwick – It's Not Fair (1969)
Carl Carlton – Don't Walk Away (1969)
Supremes – Love Is Here And Now You’re Gone (1967)
Del Shannon – Needles And Pins (1965)
Jackie DeShannon – When You Walk In The Room (1963)
David And Jonathan – Lovers Of The World Unite (1966)
Gallery – Little Balloon Lady (1968)
Lollipop Fantasy – It's A Groovy World (1968)
Curt Boettcher – Meadows And Flowers (1960s)
Cat Stevens – Father And Son (1970)
Zombies ‎– Whenever You're Ready (1965)
West Coast Consortium – Looking Back (1967)
Sunrise Highway ‎– Goin’ To California (1968)
Cowsills – The Rain, The Park & Other Things (1967)
Imaginations ‎– Summer In New York (1967)
Every Mothers' Son – Come On Down To My Boat (1967)
Pretty People – Going To San Diego (1969)