April 13, 2020 —– Chart #1

Hello musical friends,

Well we seem to be locked in a strange situation today. A weird virus of debatable origin has rendered us homebound and concerned of the unknown. We need a little relief from all this so my way of dealing with it is to turn to music. I am playing my guitar more now and thinking about songs from my earlier days. Its fun to listen to old songs and learn about the artists who wrote and performed them. And of course I want to play them as well.

Here’s an example.  “Never My Love” is a pop standard written by American siblings Don and Dick Addrisi, and best known from a hit 1967 recording by The Association. The Addrisi Brothers had two Top 40 hits as recording artists, but their biggest success as songwriters was “Never My Love”. Recorded by dozens of notable artists in the decades since, in 1999 the music publishing rights organization Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) announced it was the second most-played song on radio and television of the 20th century in the U.S.

The first recording of “Never My Love” to achieve success was by The Association, an American sunshine pop band from California. Their version of the song, recorded with members of The Wrecking Crew, including Hal Blaine on drums, Joe Osborn on bass, Larry Knechtel on keyboards, and Al Casey and Mike Deasy on guitar, also including producer Bones Howe on tambourine, peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, kept out of the number one spot by “The Letter” by The Box Tops, and hit number one on the Cashbox charts in October 1967, one of the band’s five top-ten hits in the late 1960s. Their third number 1 on the Cashbox Top 100 Singles Chart, following “Cherish” (1966) and “Windy” (1967), it was featured on the band’s album Insight Out (1967). The song also reached number one in Canada’s RPM charts.

By the time The Association’s record was certified Gold by the RIAA for one million copies sold as of December 1967, Billboard noted that sixteen artists had recorded the song. Their third number one single had made them a top concert act and highly in demand by the TV variety series, specials, and talk shows that were a predominant format at the time, and they performed the hit on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Andy Williams Show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, The Hollywood Palace, The Dean Martin Show, Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, Hullabaloo, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Dick Cavett Show, The Joey Bishop Show, The Steve Allen Show, and a Carol Channing special.

Play this one and see if it brings back any memories.

Here it is on American Bandstand (awkward dancing):  https://youtu.be/QDk43bk1ZIU

Keep Rockin my friends,

Stan