Mellow Mellow AM Radio: Bubblegum Soul & Ear Friendly Pop

Enjoy my tribute to (mostly) the hit sound of AM Radio (1960 - ±1975)! It's music I don't usually play on Mixcloud, so this might be one episode only ;-)

During the 1960s and early 1970s, AM radio was by far the most popular format. Bubblegum pop’s syncopated, catchy rhythms and singalong lyrics, like the songs from Motown, sounded best on portable mono radios. In Europe AM pop was mainly played by pirate stations, which made it even more exciting to listen to. Around the mid-70s stereo hifi-equipment replaced the transistor radio and pirate stations disappeared one by one, due to government decisions. FM radio stations were willing to play album tracks and longer songs in better sound quality. They pushed back the inferior sounding AM stations that were more tightly programmed and singles-oriented. It was the end of an era.

According to an early promoter of the Beach Boys, Fun, Fun, Fun was inspired by an incident involving Shirley Johnson, the daughter of a radio station’s owner, who had borrowed her father's 1963 Thunderbird. Instead of going to the University library, as she promised, she went to a drive-in theatre. When her father found out that he had been fooled by his daughter, her driving privileges were withdrawn. In 2007, Johnson told KSL News that she was complaining loudly about the incident at the radio station, where she worked as a part-time secretary, when the Beach Boys happened to be there for an interview. Brian Wilson and Mike Love, amused by the incident, wrote down the beginnings of the song as they were driven to the airport that afternoon.

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In the early seventies when he was looking for new directions after his successful years with the Four Seasons, Frankie Valli recorded quite a few tracks, including Thank You for Motown. For reasons only svengali Barry Gordy knows, most of the songs were never released and Frankie Valli left the famous music factory soon afterwards. A few years later the single The Night, a song from these sessions was successfully picked up by the British northern soul scene. Around the same time Frankie Valli's My Eyes Adored You became a big hit in the United States (a song that he had bought back from Motown). Motown wanted to earn some money from this sudden and unexpected success and came up with the album Inside You with Frankie Valli's shelved Motown recordings. Later in the decade he became a (part-time) member of the (renewed) Four Seasons again and sang on hits like December 1963 and Who Loves You.

Tracklist:

The Isley Brothers – Listen To The Music (1973)
Cliff Richard ‎– Nothing To Remind Me (1974)
Edwin Starr – There You Go (1973)
Hollywood Freeway ‎– You're The Song (That I Can't Stop Singing) (1973)
The Sunrise Highway ‎– Goin’ To California (1968)
The Imaginations ‎– Summer In New York (1967)
Margo Thunder – Expressway To Your Heart (1974)
Diana Ross ‎– Ain't No Mountain High Enough (1970)
Kool & the Gang – Hollywood Swinging (1974)
Joni Mitchell – Help Me (1974)
Foster Sylver – Misdemeanour (1973)
Major Lance – It Must Be Love Coming Down (1971)
Dusty Springfield – Summer Is Over (1964)
Carpenters – Fun Fun Fun / The End Of The World (1973)
Sérgio Mendes & Brasil '66 ‎– The Look Of Love (1970)
Neil Diamond ‎– Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon (1967)
R. Dean Taylor – Ain’t It A Sad Thing (1970)
John Edwards – Tin Man (1973)
Linda Carr & The Love Squad ‎– Highwire (1975)
Gilbert O'Sullivan ‎– Miss My Love Today (1978)
Yvonne Elliman – Love Me (1976)
Frankie Valli – My Eyes Adored You (1975)
The 5th Dimension ‎– Wedding Bell Blues (1969)
The Eighth Day – Brandy (Doesn’t Love Here Anymore) (1968)
The Tams – Shelter (1966)