For several years, the “Happy Together Tour” of Sixties and Seventies performing artists has
stopped in my hometown, Englewood, NJ. I had been mildly curious about seeing
the half-dozen acts that I had grown up with listening to. But only because of
a mix of circumstances—dominated by malaise—did I finally decide to see them on
Tuesday night at BergenPAC.
By the time the concert was over three hours later,
it had fulfilled my original hope. This unabashed nostalgic trip lifted my
spirits.
The title—taken from the biggest career hit of the
headliners and prime movers of this long-running tour, The Turtles—hints at the
format’s advantages and limitations: Take half a dozen groups or solo acts
(with a backup band to supplement the whole crew) who will do five or six of
their biggest hits without extended musical solos or other embellishments, then
make way for the next act. Don’t expect many surprises, except (if you count
this as a surprise) some jokes about the Sixties or aging.
(A sample: Jim Yester of The Association,
introducing “Along Comes Mary,” scoffed at the controversy arising from its alleged
drug references at the time: “But have you heard what’s on the radio lately?”
Bandmate Jules Alexander responded: “Jim, I can remember when ‘Ho’ referred to
Don’s last name!”)
“Rock ‘n’ roll keeps you young!” one of the
performers, Mark Lindsay, yelled as he finished his set. While performing in
front of appreciative crowds like this one certainly provides an adrenaline
rush, aging and even mortality are inevitable. The signs of them were
definitely apparent for longtime fans of these rock ‘n’ rollers.
Health challenges, for instance, had sidelined one
of the two mainstays of The Turtles, Howard Kaylan, with his place on the tour
taken by contemporary Ron Dante. Even
Kaylan’s partner, the normally ebullient Mark Volman, apologized for forgetting
the names of backup musicians, explaining that he had undergone treatment for
cancer in the last couple of years.
The bigger ensembles were similarly afflicted, with
The Cowsills and The Association now effectively trios—about half the size at
their commercial peak.
For the most part, these performers were not
particularly innovative or masterful on their instruments even in their primes,
as two other artists from the Sixties who have appeared at BergenPAC, organist
Felix Cavaliere of The Rascals and guitarist Robbie Krieger of The Doors, were
and are. But if you are seeking soaring harmonies and songs that stick in your
memory—ones that, with good reason, have been staples of oldies radio
stations—then Englewood was the place to be earlier this week.
Here’s a rundown of the acts, from last to
first billing:
*The Cowsills: Beforehand, this was the band I knew least about,
and afterward represented the most pleasant surprise. This group, which
inspired The Partridge Family, played
“The Rain, The Park and Other Things” (which, with its much better-known
refrain—“I love the flower girl”—could hardly embody better its release date
during the Summer of Love), “We Can Fly,” “Indian Lake,” and two title theme songs—one, from the musical
“Hair,” the other which I was unaware of, despite listening to the show
religiously on Friday nights as a kid), “Love, American Style.” Bob, Paul and
Susan (the youngest of the siblings—my age), having endured the normal
vicissitudes of show business along with family tragedies (an abusive father,
the loss of their mother, and the deaths of brothers Bill, Barry and John),
remain heartingly upbeat and able to manage their complex vocals.
*Mark Lindsay: The former lead singer of Paul Revere and the
Raiders was not my favorite among the acts. Indeed, had it only him on the
bill, I would not gone to the show. But he was certainly the most striking of
all the performers, with his lanky frame, his onstage wardrobe changes (from gleaming
silvery jacket to the Revolutionary War jacket that served as his trademark
with the Raiders), and his still-strong voice that belted out hits like "Indian Reservation," "Kicks," "Hungry," and "Arizona."
*The
Association: I had been most curious about how this
group sounded. Their major hits—“Windy,” “Never My Love,” and “Cherish”—were
practically the first songs I can distinctly recall coming over the radio when
I was a youngster. A sextet at the height of their fame, with a stupefying
amount of lineup changes over the past five decades, they were down to a trio
now. Amazingly, though, their characteristic vocal harmonies sounded as
intricate as ever, and they finished the first half of the show with a rousing
version of their first hit, “Along Comes Mary.”
*Gary Puckett: The front man of The Union Gap epitomized much of
the summer firefly quality of these performers, with five Top 10 singles
including their 1967 debut, “Woman Woman,” as well as “Young Girl,” “Lady
Willpower” and “No Getting Over You.” The least jocular, most earnest performer
on the bill, he was also the one with the least amount of non-singing thrills,
and with his baritone still in fine form.
*Chuck Negron: Formerly one of the three lead vocalists of Three Dog Night, he
exhibited none of the substance-abuse and intra-group tensions that led to that
mega-selling band’s breakup in the mid-Seventies. He did acknowledge, in
introducing “Joy to the World,” that his colleagues back then didn’t really see
the point in a song featuring a frog and a fish, but he also named and thanked
them for being part of his early success. Through his short set, he wove
gratefulness for being alive to see eight children with some pointed humor (“I
grew up not far from here, in the Bronx; I still carry a knife”), bringing the
audience to its feet with hits such as “Celebrate,” “Mama Told Me Not to Come,”
“One” and “Eli’s Coming.”'
*The Turtles: I had been most concerned before the show about
Kaylan and Volman. I knew, from hearing them as guests on rock ‘n’ roll radio
shows as “Flo and Eddie,” that the comic schtick
factor with them could be quite high. But their live performances of recent
years, captured on YouTube, had, I thought, gone quite over the top. I was
afraid that it would get out of hand again. But I needn’t have worried. Though
Volman did his characteristic cowbell-whacking on one of my favorite songs of
the Sixties, “She’d Rather Be With Me,” it was—perhaps because of his admitted
health issues—a bit more restrained than before. Better yet, Dante proved a
more-than-capable replacement for Kaylan. Not just a singer (lead vocals for
The Archies, the fictional “band” featured on the “Archie” cartoon show of the
late Sixties that I watched as a youngster), he is also a multi-dimensional
force as a guitarist and producer of other artists (Pat Benatar, Cher and Barry
Manilow), making him a peppy, highly compatible “sunshine pop” onstage partner
for Volman. He not only played “Sugar, Sugar,” his indelible bubblegum hit with
The Archies (the first single I ever bought, at the tender age of nine), but
expertly complemented Volman on such Turtles tunes as Elenore,” “It Ain’t Me
Babe,” “You Showed Me” and the inevitable “Happy Together.”
No account of this concert and tour would be
complete without a tip of the bat to the unbilled, unsung backup band. Even though
the headliners share common roots in the feel-good Southern California pop of
the mid-Sixties, and they have appeared often together (including this frankly
nostalgic tour) over the years, every performer is individual and needs to be
accommodated by backup musicians.
Yet the backup players (headed by guitarist
and tour musical director Godfrey Townsend) provided consistent, seamless
musical textures from one headliner to another, giving the show a necessary
continuity.
The musicians on the Happy Together Tour occupy a
kind of middle ground between the one-hit wonders of the rock ‘n’ roll era and
megastars who had extended success for 10 or more years. Not having written
many of their own songs, they are not often regarded as the kind of major
influences that guarantee election to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. But their
biggest hits retain an exuberance and magic that have endeared them across
generations and they are well worth seeing.
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