3 Replies to “This Place Seems Pretty Groovy”

  1. Ah, I yearn for the simpler days when everything around here was reddish pink.

    I’m wondering who the guys in the studio are.

    It’s telling that they saw fit to include BJ Thomas. You never hear a word about him now, but he was a gifted singer with a string of very big hits. I don’t think he was a native Memphian, but he worked here out of American Studios, which is also now largely forgotten. That is strange, as American, under Chips Moman and Dan Penn, churned out more hits than Stax, which is now far better known.

    So BJ would have seemed like an obvious choice at the time. But I’m guessing that nowadays music nerds under a certain age may not have heard of him at all, whereas they all know about Big Star, who were completely unknown back then. And it’s always been that way. Ever heard of Hans Joachim Raff? I’m guessing not, but he was bigger than Johannes Brahms. Ever heard of Ferdinand Ries or Friedrich Kalkbrenner? More popular than Beethoven, Mozart, or especially Franz Schubert, whose short, productive career reminds me of Big Star’s: known only to a group of friends and some select music nerds. Anyway, all of the now-forgotten artists had one thing in common: they all made pleasant music that was very easy to listen to. They challenged nothing. Sometimes that’s fine.

    1. Some video-editing genius needs to color correct this and upload it. I was really digging the soundtrack, too. All the different moods … So Seventies!

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