1969
Like great novels, great songs often have their roots in real life. But I never knew that was the case with Suspicious Minds.
I was busy building tree houses and playing with train sets when The Stooges released their debut album so I can only imagine the impact of hearing this when it came out. No need to say when that was either – it’s right there in the title.
This is, and always has been since I first heard it, my favourite song of all time. It’s just perfect in its simplicity: wistful, dreamy, mournful and melancholic.
Not sure how I’ve missed seeing or hearing this remarkable piece of pop history before – a ten-year-old Michael Jackson singing the blues.
RIP Melanie Safka (1947-2024)
I remember Melanie – just “Melanie” – as a hippie chick with long hair, black eyeliner and a warbling vibrato. I first heard her singing a song called Ruby Tuesday. I was a child and she sounded like one too.
This song is so perfect, like a four-minute movie. A miniature kitchen sink drama. Shot in black-and-white, of course, with the principal characaters played by Albert Finney and Rita Tushingham.
Donovan teamed up with the Jeff Beck Group and producer Mickie Most in 1969 to make the album Barabajagal, spawning his last hit single.
Boz Scaggs is another of those guys I know a single song by. I’m not even a huge fan of that song – Lowdown – the single that came out in 1976. Until now.
Candi Staton – I’d Rather Be An Old Man’s Sweetheart (Than A Young Man’s Fool)
16th October 2023 · 1960s, 1969, Music, SoulCandi Staton had been singing in gospel groups for years when the future disco diva recorded a solo album of secular Southern soul at Muscle Shoals in 1969.
This tune was released on Syd Nathan’s legendary King label in Cincinnatti four years after they put out James Brown’s landmark first hit Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag in 1965.