It wasn't planned in advance, but as I was preparing Wednesday's blog post, I realized that each of this week's episodes of Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) has been brought to you by the letter F: The Flashcubes, The Flamin' Groovies, Flash Gordon, and Freddie & the Dreamers. I figured I might as well run with that, hence yesterday's presentation of Funnyman # 1 and today's all-F edition of Comics And LP Cover Cavalcade.
When I was a kid, my friend Steve lived across the street. His nephew Jeff still lives there with his own family, and Jeff keeps my Mom's driveway plowed in the winter and her lawn mowed in the summer. Throughout the '60s and into the early '70s, Steve's back yard was a frequent hotspot for kids on the block to gather for fun. Just as the weeping willow in my back yard was the neighborhood rocket ship, Steve's yard was the preferred location for hide and seek, croquet, and games of Horse (which I was particularly inept at shooting, but played anyway). There was a loft above Steve's garage, and on a few scattered occasions we found ourselves up there, reading old comic books. I think Steve inherited his comics collection from one or more of his older brothers, though it was neither a large collection nor particularly old. Comics meant way more to me than they meant to Steve. As I recall, his comics stash didn't include much superhero stuff--I only remember an issue of Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane, which I tried in vain to get Steve to sell to me--but they were still comics, and I sure loved comics. Aside from an issue of Hector Heathcote, the only other one of Steve's funnybooks I remember is this one-shot, The Flintstones At The New York World's Fair. The book featured an all-star collection of Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters, from The Flintstones to The Jetsons, all taking in the magic and wonder of the New York World's Fair.
I never visited the World's Fair. We had a souvenir set of World's Fair salt and pepper shakers, which I presume my Dad picked up; a few years later, my first-ever trip to the New York area brought us past the fairgrounds, the ghost shell of the Unisphere a shimmering specter above Flushing Meadows Park. A bit later still, I read about an earlier comic-book connection to the 1939 New York World's Fair, and ached to find a time machine and visit both. Time-travel seemed to work out fine for the Flintstones' fair visit, right?
Simon & Garfunkel offered an appealing summary of one of the side benefits of couples living as one: Let us be lovers and marry our fortunes together. My stuff and her stuff, the lines blur, and we wind up with our stuff. When Brenda and I moved in together in 1980, our respective record collections merged into a new and happy family. Rocket To Russia, meet Tapestry. Innervisions and Abraxas? Say hi to your new brothers, Pure Pop For Now People and Singles Going Steady. I think The Kinks' Greatest Hits! and The Kink Kronikles already knew each other. The 5th Dimension's The Age Of Aquarius was among the platters Brenda brought to the relationship. The 5th Dimension were ubiquitous in the late '60s and early '70s, and how could anyone not like them? Their sound was infectious, bubbly, and everywhere, in a good way. I may have objected to them singin' a song called "Up, Up And Away" without any connection to Superman, but I sang along nonetheless. I don't think it was all that long before I realized that singer Marilyn McCoo was really, really good-lookin'. "The Age Of Aquarius/Let The Sun Shine In (The Flesh Failures)" was a particular favorite of Brenda's when she was younger; a fave-rave single would usually result in the acquisition of a 45, but she got the LP instead. She still had it in 1980, a much-loved and much-played album that may have crackled a bit in spots, but still radiated with love to steer the stars. And we still have that LP today, although I'm more likely to play my 5th Dimension Ultimate CD when I wanna hear about the moon in the seventh house and Jupiter aligning with Mars. In fact, I just let Brenda borrow my Ultimate CD to play in the car. ("Borrow?" "My?" Silly. It's all ours. Mystic crystal revelation, the mind's true liberation.)
SHAZAM! Although I didn't discover the amazing adventures of the original Captain Marvel until decades after the fact, the World's Mightiest Mortal would ultimately be second only to Batman among my all-time favorite superheroes. In the early '70s, my burgeoning interest in the Golden Age of comics in the '40s led me to Cap, to whom I was introduced via retrospective essays and silent Super 8 home movies of the 1941 serial The Adventures Of Captain Marvel. When DC Comics licensed (and much later purchased) the character from former rival Fawcett Comics in 1973, the new series Shazam! included vintage Cap reprints as back-ups to DC's new Captain Marvel adventures. The old stuff was better--a lot better. DC publisher Carmine Infantino loved to use reprints, since that material was already bought and paid for, and available for DC to use and re-use without additional payments to pesky writers and artists. Dovetailing with Infantino's interest in developing new formats to carve out precious space on retail racks, this led to the 100-Page Super Spectaculars and a series of dollar tabloids called Limited Collectors' Edition, all of which featured reprints.
There were, I think, a total of three Shazam! issues of Limited Collectors' Edition; the Shazam! title was used because sneaky ol' Marvel Comics had trademarked the name "Captain Marvel" back in the '60s, preventing DC from ever marketing the original Captain Marvel in a book actually called Captain Marvel. Bastards. Limited Collectors' Edition led to another dollar tabloid, Famous 1st Edition, which reprinted key Golden Age comic books like Action Comics # 1 (first appearance of Superman), Detective Comics # 27 (first Batman), Sensation Comics # 1 (first cover-featured appearance of Wonder Woman), All-Star Comics # 3 (first Justice Society of America), Flash Comics # 1, and Batman # 1. In 1974, the fourth Famous 1st Edition reprinted 1940's Whiz Comics # 2, the debut of Captain Marvel. I was in heaven. In addition to our pal Cap, this also reprinted the first appearances of Spy Smasher, Ibis the Invincible, and Golden Arrow. It was a great time to be a fourteen-year-old comics fan infatuated with the heroes of a long-gone era.
I was fourteen and on vacation in Missouri when I first saw and heard the group Fanny. Fanny was a self-contained all-female rock group, and the concept of sisters doin' it for themselves in the male-dominated field of rockin' and rollin' was still an oddity in 1974. I didn't know anything about Fanny's back story in '74; by then, the group had already splintered after four albums on Reprise. Founding members June Millington (guitar) and Alice de Buhr (drums) left the group, leaving bassist Jean Millington (June's sister) and guitarist Addie Lee to soldier on with new members Patti Quatro (Suzi Quatro's sister) on guitar and Brie Brandt on drums. It was this newer Fanny line-up I saw on American Bandstand that summer in Missouri, chattin' with Dick Clark and lip-syncing their covers of The Rolling Stones' "Let's Spend The Night Together" and The Bell Notes' "I've Had It." The Stones cover didn't make much impression on me, but I instantly fell for "I've Had It." Fanny would eventually earn belated attention for their work, and those first four albums (plus bonus material) were collected on a Rhino Handmade set called First Time In A Long Time. While that's the better-known and more-celebrated version of Fanny, the Fanny I knew was the group that appeared on American Bandstand, the group that did "I've Had It," the group that recorded that one album, Rock And Roll Survivors, for Casablanca in '74. I didn't get my copy until more than a decade later, from the used bin at Gary Sperrazza!'s Apollo Records in Buffalo, but it's still the only Fanny record I've ever owned.
I was fascinated by The Fantastic Four and The Silver Surfer in the '60s, but I didn't get the comics all that often. I did watch the team's Saturday morning TV cartoon show when I could, and I remember seeing this striking Jack Kirby cover in a Marvel Comics house ad. It was old news by the time I started reading The Fantastic Four a bit more regularly in 1968 (a period where Kirby and Stan Lee were at the top of their game). In the summer of 1970, as my sister Denise was getting ready to start college and I was dreading an unwelcome and unwise jump from fourth grade to sixth grade, Denise's boyfriend George shed the foolish vestiges of his youth and gave his girl's kid brother two huge stacks of old comics. Well...thanks, George! George was evidently fond of early Marvel, so while the stacks included scattered issues of DC books like Justice League of America, House Of Mystery, House Of Secrets, and World's Finest Comics, plus various Gold Key and Dell titles, the treasure trove was overwhelmingly dominated by Marvel. There was The Mighty Thor in Journey Into Mystery, Giant Man and The Incredible Hulk in Tales To Astonish, Iron Man and Captain America in Tales Of Suspense, Sgt. Fury And His Howling Commandos, The Avengers, The X-Men, and--of course!--The World's Greatest Comics Magazine, The Fantastic Four. I read all about the FF's encounters with the cosmic threat Galactus and his noble herald The Silver Surfer, and also subsequent meetings with the Surfer like this 1966 issue pictured above. Fantastic!
In the months before I first heard The Sex Pistols and The Ramones in 1977, my favorite albums were one or another Beatles LPs, The Monkees' Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd., probably Boston's eponymous debut and Sweet's Desolation Boulevard, and definitely Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. Even as punk took hold of me, I never really relinquished my affection for this album, though my teen lust for Stevie Nicks abated over time (as I moved on to Lita Ford and Joan Jett). Some of Lindsay Buckingham's work on Rumours remains just stellar, especially the flat-out power pop of "Go Your Own Way," but also the great "Second Hand News." I haven't retained my initial enthusiasm for Nicks' hypnotic "Dreams" or Christine McVie's peppy "Don't Stop," but "You Make Loving Fun" is still basically agreeable, and "Gold Dust Woman" still reminds me of The White Album for some weird reason. Now, as then, I find I can declare sincere allegiance to both Ramones and Rumours. I am large. I contain multitudes.
My deep and abiding love of the Charlton Comics line (and its current heir Charlton Neo, which could use your support right now--c'mon, send 'em a buck or two!) has never quite included The Fightin' 5. The titular quintet was a special ops unit that reminded me of DC's Blackhawks, and my first exposure to them was as a back-up strip in the pages of Charlton Action Heroes book The Peacemaker. The Fightin' 5's own title ran for twelves issues (# 28 through 41) from 1964 to '67, the book's numbering continued from a previous Charlton book called Space War. Pictured here is The Fightin' Five # 40, the penultimate issue, notable for me in that the character of The Peacemaker was introduced as a back-up strip in this issue. Peacemaker was again the back-up in The Fightin' 5's final issue, and then returned the favor by letting the 5 take over the back-up spot in his own subsequent title. Whatta guy! I always liked Peacemaker, and it bugs me a little that DC (which bought the character from Charlton in the '80s) has never done him justice.
Ah! A much-cherished purchase from the used bin at Main Street Records in Brockport, and I still own my copy. To this day, I can't tell you whether or not I've ever listened to the whole album; I just wanted the title track. The Five Americans' "Western Union" was such a terrific single to hear blarin' on AM Top 40 radio in 1967, a 45 so firmly tethered to its time that you can't imagine it appearing within any other era of pop music, at least not as some lame parody or quaint nostalgia. But in '67? It was performed in earnest, and it belonged. I now own two CDs by The Five Americans, so I can say that they did indeed record some worthy material beyond their big hit (notably the garage nugget "I See The Light," which just kicks).
DC Comics published 108 issues of The Fox And The Crow from 1952 to 1968. The title feature was licensed from Columbia Pictures, which produced a string of Fox and Crow theatrical cartoons in the '40s. Why DC still thought the property was worth licensing (for whatever fee) into the late '60s is a mystery to me. But they were good funny-animal comics. By 1968, the DC original Stanley And His Monster had replaced The Fox And The Crow as the cover stars on their own comic book. The Fox And The Crow # 106 was probably the only issue of the title I owned in the '60s. After DC evicted both Fox and Crow and re-named the book Stanley And His Monster with its 109th issue, I probably bought all the subsequent issues in its long, long run of...er, four issues. The series was cancelled outright with Stanley And His Monster # 112, also in '68.
The Four Tops are my favorite Motown act. My first awareness of the group was post-Motown, though, when their single "Are You Man Enough?" (from the film Shaft In Africa) tore up the airwaves on Syracuse's WOLF-AM in 1973. The first Motor City Four Tops track I encountered was probably "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)" on oldies radio in the '70s. My Four Tops fandom manifested itself, bit by bit, over the next few years. I cringed at Rod Stewart's smarmy cover of "Standing In The Shadows Of Love" in the late '70s. "It's The Same Old Song" became my top Tops, and I satisfied that itch initially with an otherwise-random flea-market Motown anthology. My first full-length Four Tops LP was this Greatest Hits album, another Main Street Records second-hand purchase in the early '80s. Take a look at that track line-up. This is just a killer collection of pop music, twelve tracks of nothing but the best. If it could somehow shoehorn in "Are You Man Enough?" and The Four Tops' magnificent cover of The Left Banke's "Walk Away, Renee," it would be my ultimate Four Tops album. As is, it's pretty much that anyway.
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Our new compilation CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4 is now available from Kool Kat Musik! 29 tracks of irresistible rockin' pop, starring Pop Co-Op, Ray Paul, Circe Link & Christian Nesmith, Vegas With Randolph Featuring Lannie Flowers, The Slapbacks, P. Hux, Irene Peña, Michael Oliver & the Sacred Band Featuring Dave Merritt, The Rubinoos, Stepford Knives, The Grip Weeds, Popdudes, Ronnie Dark, The Flashcubes,Chris von Sneidern, The Bottle Kids, 1.4.5., The Smithereens, Paul Collins' Beat, The Hit Squad, The Rulers, The Legal Matters, Maura & the Bright Lights, Lisa Mychols, and Mr. Encrypto & the Cyphers. You gotta have it, so order it here.
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