July 18, 2020 —– Chart #48

Hello Musical Friends,

Welcome to a hot July summer weekend. Today let’s travel back to 1967 and get groovy. The Rascals (initially known as The Young Rascals) was an American rock band, formed in Garfield, New Jersey in 1965. Between 1966 and 1968 the New Jersey act reached the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 with nine singles, including the #1s “Good Lovin'” (1966), “Groovin‘” (1967), and “People Got to Be Free” (1968), as well as big radio hits such as the much-covered “How Can I Be Sure?” (#4 1967) and “A Beautiful Morning” (#3 1968), plus another critical favorite “A Girl Like You” (#10 1967). The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. Today’s Chart of the Day is Groovin.

Groovin was written by group members Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati and with a lead vocal from Cavaliere, it is a slow, relaxed groove, based on Cavaliere’s newfound interest in Afro-Cuban music. The instrumentation of the song includes a conga, a Cuban-influenced bass guitar line from session musician Chuck Rainey, and a harmonica part, performed first for the single version by New York session musician Michael Weinstein, and later for the album version by Gene Cornish. The song was an RIAA-certified gold record on June 13, 1967. Due to its massive popularity, the track was included on the Young Rascals’ late July 1967 album of the same name, albeit with an alternate harmonica solo by Cornish.”Groovin'” is one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll, and is also the recipient of a Grammy Hall of Fame Award.

The Rascals were inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame in 2010 and also reunited in 2012 for a series of shows in New York and New Jersey. The reunion continued on in 2013 with shows on Broadway. Eddie Brigati (vocals), Felix Cavaliere (keyboard, vocals), Gene Cornish (guitar) and Dino Danelli (drums) started the band in Brigati and Danelli’s hometown of Garfield, New Jersey. Brigati, Cavaliere, and Cornish had previously been members of Joey Dee and the Starliters. Eddie’s brother, David Brigati, an original Starliter, helped arrange the vocal harmonies and sang backgrounds on many of the group’s recordings (informally earning the designation as the “fifth Rascal”). When Atlantic Records signed them, they discovered that another group, Borrah Minnevitch’s and Johnny Puleo’s ‘Harmonica Rascals’, objected to their release of records under the name ‘The Rascals’. To avoid conflict, managers Sid Bernstein and founder Billy (Amato) Smith decided to rename the group ‘The Young Rascals’.

The Young Rascals’ first television performance was on the program Hullabaloo on February 24, 1966, where they performed their debut single “I Ain’t Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore”. The track reached #23 in Canada and touched the lower reaches of the US charts. This modest success was followed by the US/Canada #1 single “Good Lovin'” (1966, originally recorded by Lemme B. Good & The Olympics in 1965 with different lyrics).

The band’s songwriting team of Eddie Brigati and Cavaliere then began providing most of their songs, and the hits kept coming for two years. Their immediate follow-ups to “Good Lovin'”, including “You Better Run” (1966; covered in 1980 by Pat Benatar) and “Come On Up” were only modest hits. “I’ve Been Lonely Too Long” (1967) did better, and “Groovin'” (#1 US/Canada, 1967) returned them to the top of the charts. They reeled off a succession of top 20 US hits, including “A Girl Like You” (1967), “How Can I Be Sure” (1967), “It’s Wonderful” (1968), and “A Beautiful Morning” (1968). The band was exceptionally popular in Canada where “A Girl Like You”, “How Can I Be Sure?” and “A Beautiful Morning” all reached #1. But they struggled in the UK, where they only twice reached the top 75, with “Groovin'” (#8) and “A Girl Like You” (#35). The band would bill themselves as the Young Rascals for the last time with the single release of “It’s Wonderful”; they were known from then as simply ‘the Rascals’.

Bruce Eder, writing for AllMusic, rates the band’s 1967 album Groovin’ as their best, noting the record’s soulful core and innovative use of jazz and Latin instrumental arrangements. 1968’s Once Upon A Dream was the first Rascals album designed from conception as an album, rather than as a vehicle to package their singles (eight of Groovin”s eleven songs had been released as single A or B sides, most in advance of the album). Once Upon a Dream, which peaked at #9 on the album charts, contained the single “It’s Wonderful”. The album’s song “My Hawaii” became a top of the charts hit in Hawaii.

Brigati left the group in 1970, followed by Cornish in 1971. Their last Rascals album was Search and Nearness (#198 U.S.), which featured Brigati’s lead vocals on the Cornish-penned “You Don’t Know”, a cover of The Box Tops’ hit “The Letter”, and drummer Danelli’s composition “Fortunes”. The only single release from the album to chart was the spiritually themed “Glory, Glory” (#58 U.S., #40 Canada), with backing vocals by The Sweet Inspirations. Search and Nearness would be the Rascals’ last album for Atlantic Records, with Cavaliere and Danelli taking the band to Columbia Records in mid-1971.

1967 Performance on television (check out the groovy dancer shadows):  https://youtu.be/4JIq8Zn0AJE

1967 American Bandstand when Groovin was #1:  https://youtu.be/S268sQ_mRSU

Keep rockin’,

Stan