The worst time-sink on the internet is TV Tropes, followed by Wikipedia. And then there’s YouTube, where I got trapped this weekend. I wondered if I could find some of the barely-remembered songs I heard back in ancient times. Many hours later, I had located quite a few. Here are some I unearthed. You can judge for yourselves whether these were buried treasures or something else.
Norman Greenbaum had an enormous world-wide hit with the interminable “Spirit in the Sky.” I much prefer his follow-up, a bit of whimsey which I heard once and never forgot.
This apparently was a major hit across the Atlantic, but it got little airplay over here. Gun featured the Gurvitz (or Curtis) brothers, Adrian and Paul, who later teamed up with Ginger Baker in the Baker Gurvitz Army. Girlschool and Judas Priest both did slick covers of “Race with the Devil,” but I prefer the original.
As I recall, police captain Bobby Stout was quite proud of this song. Vocals and keyboards are by Mike Finnigan, whom you have probably heard, though you might not know it. I never heard this, the original version, ((Allmusic thinks the song is a Manfred Mann original. Nope. And if you submit a correction, as I’ve done — twice — they’ll ignore you.)) on the radio, and didn’t know it existed until I heard it in the same music appreciation class where I learned about Back Door.
The New Survivors were a southeast Kansas band that got very little attention even in Kansas. I think I heard this once on the radio.
One of the great band names in the history of rock. The tune got a fair amount of airplay in its day, and then vanished utterly.
Bunches ‘a Good released one 45 in 1968 and disappeared. I read somewhere that the singer had red hair, and that’s all I’ve been able to find out about them.
Yeah, Roy Orbison is by far the better singer, but I prefer this version to his over-arranged recording. I recall hearing this often when I lived in northern Virginia, longer ago than I want to think about.
From Love Is, Eric Burdon’s attempt at psychedelia. Pianist Zoot Money and guitarist Andy Summers play on this Sylvester Stewart (a.k.a. Sly Stone) song.
And a little something pleasantly nightmarish to end with.
One disappointment: I couldn’t find the audio of Frank Zappa’s anti-drug PSA, which I heard once and never forgot. Over a background of mindless laughter, Zappa lists the effects of amphetamine and concludes, “In general, this drug will make you just like your mother and father.”