Listening in the Rain - Vintage Pop

[rayge]

It all started when I was looking for something else entirely on my iTunes, and I saw how many high-quality songs had some version of 'rain' in the title and the concept of the song. So I went down a rabbit hole, and came back with about 30 songs that I've loosely grouped together and shoved in here complete with a poll: not that the poll matters, it's not a contest, just me rummaging around in my history to see if there's something someone else likes. The choice is entirely personal, and I've left out some obvious candidates because I never owned a copy. Please do listen, vote and comment on any you fancy - or just walk away, I won't be hurt. I'll be back to add my own comments and commentary later.

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Buddy Holly - Raining in My Heart

Everly Brothers - Crying in the Rain

Jerry Butler - Rainbow Valley

Lovin' Spoonful - Rain on the Roof

The Move - Flowers in the Rain

Nirvana - Rainbow Chaser

Ronettes - Walking in the Rain

[Deleted]

Some really great picks.

Funnily enough Buddy Holly was probably my least favourite and I am usually a Buddy Holly fan.

Jerry Butler cut was absolutely pure and wholesome and yeah wow.....what a little gem.....perfectly timed and holds you.....there is joy to some of this music that I think can escape some of the more modern stuff....who knows why that is. I'll need to check this guy out I guess.

I remember my mum and dad having a "Heartbeat" compilation from the TV show and "Flowers in The Rain" was on it and I played it all the time, never thinking how weird and quirky a song it is and not in Radiohead kind of way but like a catchy poppy way.

[rayge]

Buddy H was just bwefore my time, and I never really got into him in the same way as several of hs contemporaries: I never bought any of his albums, but someone I know had the Greatest Hits, and this was one of my favourite on that. Nowadays, though, I find it too tweely 50s pop, and not in a good way: much prefer his self-written stuff.

I'll never knock the Everlys, but this is firmly in the second tier of their Warner Brothers Golden Age singles: there's a lack of invention and variety in the arrangement for a start. Still, even mid-table second division Everlys of this era are well worth a listen or several.

I didn't hear this track when it was released. I knew Jerry as the original first tenor of the Temptations: Curtis stepped up when JB left for a solo career, that was largely based on the Sam Cooke Template of a light soulful warm-toned vocal on what were basically pop songs, although later he moved back into soul territory. There's too much of a rather undistinguished backing chorus on this for my taste, and JB occasionally disappears in the mix, but there's still enough of that exceptional voice to make it listenable. H'e best heard on the gorgeous For Your Precious Love, Make it Easy on Yourself, He Will Break Your Heart, and loads of other singles without the word Rain in the title.

The Spoonful usually get forgotten when talking about the best groups in the second half of 60s America. For me, they deserve to be given the same critical weight as The Doors, Airplane, Byrds, Dead I know Sebastian is a soppy hippy, and there were no virtuosos in what was essentially a wheezy jug band without the jug, but by Krint they could craft a single, and not, as with many lesser contmporaries, the same one over and over again with minor variation. in two years, early 65-76 they released this, Daydream, Summer in the City, Nashville Cats, Do You Believe in Magic?, You Didn't Have to Be So Nice, Jug Band Music, Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?, Full Measure and Darling Be Home Soon as single A-sides: while they all shared a woozy, stoned vibe of one kind or another, all the songs, tunes, arrangements, effects, themes were different, not only from each other, but from much of what else was around at the time. A pop band for grown-ups.

Birmingham's finest - let's face it, Brum's ONLY decent - group, although their best singles would come later. In retrospect, you can here Roy Wiid's infatuation with Spector and everything-INCLUDING-the-Kitchen-sink arrangements, which would come to glorious fruition in Wizzard, but at the time it was a pleasant clattery mess with a jaunty tune that sounded fine on a tinny transistor radio.

I missed Rainbow Chaser the first time round, but glommed on to it when it was reissued maybe a decade or so later. While I'm not enamoured of the vocalist, sonically it's a masterpiece - not a word I often use in relation to British 'psych'.

The only industry award given to Spector in his pomp was for the downpour sounds on this. Oi... It's Second Division Ronettes: while that puts it ahead of many of its contemporaries, it was a mild disappointment for me, following on as it did from the also rather pedestrian Do I Love You: the next two singles, Born to Be Together and Is This What I Get for Loving You Baby, were pure gold, though, up there with BE MY BABY. This track sounds a bit messy, in a way that most PS don't, at least to my non-GAV ears and overcrowded: the effects make it lesser for me.


Buddy H was just bwefore my time, and I never really got into him in the same way as several of hs contemporaries: I never bought any of his albums, but someone I know had the Greatest Hits, and this was one of my favourite on that. Nowadays, though, I find it too tweely 50s pop, and not in a good way: much prefer his self-written stuff.

I'll never knock the Everlys, but this is firmly in the second tier of their Warner Brothers Golden Age singles: there's a lack of invention and variety in the arrangement for a start. Still, even mid-table second division Everlys of this era are well worth a listen or several.

I didn't hear this track when it was released. I knew Jerry as the original first tenor of the Temptations: Curtis stepped up when JB left for a solo career, that was largely based on the Sam Cooke Template of a light soulful warm-toned vocal on what were basically pop songs, although later he moved back into soul territory. There's too much of a rather undistinguished backing chorus on this for my taste, and JB occasionally disappears in the mix, but there's still enough of that exceptional voice to make it listenable. H'e best heard on the gorgeous For Your Precious Love, Make it Easy on Yourself, He Will Break Your Heart, and loads of other singles without the word Rain in the title.

The Spoonful usually get forgotten when talking about the best groups in the second half of 60s America. For me, they deserve to be given the same critical weight as The Doors, Airplane, Byrds, Dead I know Sebastian is a soppy hippy, and there were no virtuosos in what was essentially a wheezy jug band without the jug, but by Krint they could craft a single, and not, as with many lesser contmporaries, the same one over and over again with minor variation. in two years, early 65-76 they released this, Daydream, Summer in the City, Nashville Cats, Do You Believe in Magic?, You Didn't Have to Be So Nice, Jug Band Music, Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?, Full Measure and Darling Be Home Soon as single A-sides: while they all shared a woozy, stoned vibe of one kind or another, all the songs, tunes, arrangements, effects, themes were different, not only from each other, but from much of what else was around at the time. A pop band for grown-ups.

Birmingham's finest - let's face it, Brum's ONLY decent - group, although their best singles would come later. In retrospect, you can here Roy Wiid's infatuation with Spector and everything-INCLUDING-the-Kitchen-sink arrangements, which would come to glorious fruition in Wizzard, but at the time it was a pleasant clattery mess with a jaunty tune that sounded fine on a tinny transistor radio.

I missed Rainbow Chaser the first time round, but glommed on to it when it was reissued maybe a decade or so later. While I'm not enamoured of the vocalist, sonically it's a masterpiece - not a word I often use in relation to British 'psych'.

The only industry award given to Spector in his pomp was for the downpour sounds on this. Oi... It's Second Division Ronettes: while that puts it ahead of many of its contemporaries, it was a mild disappointment for me, following on as it did from the also rather pedestrian Do I Love You: the next two singles, Born to Be Together and Is This What I Get for Loving You Baby, were pure gold, though, up there with BE MY BABY. This track sounds a bit messy, in a way that most PS don't, at least to my non-GAV ears and overcrowded: the effects make it lesser for me.

[neige]

Love 'em all dearly, only the Nirvana a little less