The Sixty Niner

David Bowie - Space Oddity

Fifth Dimension - Aquarius/Let the Sunshine

The 5th Dimension were an American popular music vocal group, whose repertoire also includes pop, R&B, soul, and jazz.  Originally known as The Hi-Fi's, the five original members were Billy Davis, Jr., Florence LaRue, Marilyn McCoo, Lamonte McLemore, and Ron Townson.  They changed their name to the 5th Dimension in 1966.  Their breakthrough hit, Up, Up and Away, a mid-1967 #7 hit that won five Grammy Awards.  The following year, the group scored major hit singles with Laura Nyro's songs Stoned Soul Picnic and Sweet Blindness.  The group received a gold record for their album Stoned Soul Picnic.  In 1969 the group's success broke wide open, with Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In from the musical Hair topping the Hot 100 in April and May, and another Nyro song, Wedding Bell Blues, doing the same in November.  Their cover of Neil Sedaka's Workin' On A Groovy Thing went to #20 in-between. Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In is a medley of two songs written for the 1967 musical Hair by James Rado & Gerome Ragni (lyrics), and Galt MacDermot (music).  The lyrics of this song were based on the astrological belief that the world would soon be entering the Age of Aquarius, an age of love, light, and humanity, unlike the current Age of Pisces.  The exact circumstances for the change are When the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars.  This change was presumed to occur at the end of the 20th century; however, major astrologers differ extremely widely as to when.  Their proposed dates range from 2062 to 2680.

Jackie DeShannon - Put a Little Love in Your Heart

Jackie DeShannon, born Sharon Lee Myers in Hazel, Kentucky, August 21, 1941, is an American singer-songwriter with a string of hit song credits from the 1960s onwards.  She was one of the first female singer-songwriters of the rock 'n' roll period.  Jackie came to the public attention in February 1964 when she supported The Beatles on their first US tour, and formed a touring band with guitarist Ry Cooder.  A songwriting partnership with Jimmy Page in 1965, resulted in the hit singles Dream Boy and Don't Turn Your Back on Me along with Marianne Faithfull's Top Ten UK and US hit Come and Stay With Me.  Later co-writing with Randy Newman, produced such songs as She Don't Understand Him and Did He Call Today Mama?, as well as writing You Have No Choice for Delaney Bramlett. Put a Little Love in Your Heart is a song originally performed in 1968 by Jackie DeShannon, who composed it with her brother, Randy Myers, and Jimmy Holiday.  In the USA, it was DeShannon's highest-charting hit, reaching #4 on the Hot 100 in August 1969 and #2 on the Adult Contemporary charts.  In late 1969, the song reached number one on South Africa's hit parade.  The song rivaled the success of her 1965 signature song, What the World Needs Now is Love.  Jackie currently is an entertainment broadcast correspondent reporting historical anecdotes and current Beatles band members' news for Breakfast with the Beatles on Sirius XM Satellite Radio on the weekends.

Sly & Family Stone - Everyday People

Sly and the Family Stone were an American rock, funk, and soul band from San Francisco.  Active from 1967 to 1983, the band was pivotal in the development of soul, funk, and psychedelic music.  Headed by singer, songwriter, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist Sly Stone, and containing several of his family members and friends, the band was the first major American rock band to have an integrated, multi-gender lineup. In late 1968, Sly and the Family Stone released the single Everyday People, which became the band's first number-one hit.  Everyday People was a plea for peace and equality between differing races and social groups of all kinds, and popularized the catchphrase: Different strokes for different folks.  The song's chorus prclaims: I am everyday people, meaning that each of them (and each listener as well) should consider himself or herself as parts of one whole, not of smaller, specialized factions.

Tommy James & the Shondells - Crystal Blue Persuasion

Tommy James and the Shondells are an American rock and roll group whose greatest period was in the late 1960s.  They had two No. 1 singles in the U.S. — Hanky Panky (1966) and Crimson and Clover (1969) — and also charted twelve other Top 40 hits, including five in the top ten: I Think We're Alone Now, Mirage, Mony Mony, Sweet Cherry Wine, and Crystal Blue Persuasion. Crystal Blue Persuasion composed by Eddie Gray, Tommy James and Mike Vale, is a gentle-tempoed groove, built around a prominent organ part with an understated arrangement, more akin to The Rascals' sound at the time than to James's contemporary efforts with psychedelic rock.  It included melodic passages for an acoustic guitar, as well as a bass pattern, played between the bridge, and the third verse of the song.  In a 1985 interview in Hitch magazine, James said the title of the song came to him while he was reading about the New Jerusalem in the Biblical Book of Revelation.  However, At the time of the song's release there were several popular types of high quality blue-colored LSD tablets in circulation on the west coast.  Further, the song will be forever associated with the iconic television series Breaking Bad (2008-2013) that centered around the producing and selling of a crystal blue methamphetamine.

Wanderin' Spirit
April, 2014
"The Sixty Niner"

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