From “Red Rubber Ball” to rudderless, “Turn Down Day” to turned-around life. Both bouncy hits by the Cyrkle ("Red" written by Paul Simon), Beatles manager Brian Epstein’s first America-signed acts, are here. But after he died, “the band was left with little direction, and the members broke up the band a short time thereafter.” A little prefab foursquare position is also taken up by Boyce and Hart, writers of such Monkees hits as “Last Train to Clarkville,” and “Valleri.” “I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonight” made it to number eight in 1968, but “the Boyce & Hart ‘artist’ concept was short-lived, although they joined ex-Monkees Dolenz and Jones, and recorded and toured in the ‘70s as ‘Dolenz, Jones, Boyce, and Hart.'"
The stand out track for me on Nuggets, Volume Three: Pop is The Bobby Fuller Four’s vibrant and rollicking “Let Her Dance,” a stomping and shimmering production suffused with reverb and lyrical defiance and ache. “The Bobby Fuller Four,” notes the commentary, “was originally from Dallas, but relocated to Hollywood, where they became a very popular club band. A listen to their very best work reveals what may have been the state-of-the-art of rock recording for that period. ‘Let Her Dance’ … preceded ‘I Fought the Law,’ and was the record that established the band in Los Angeles.”
Indeed, encountering a mobbed Bobby Fuller was one of my first up-close-and-personal rock star moments, when as a kid growing up in L.A. — shortly before he was mysteriously found dead in his car, a death implausibly ruled a suicide — I saw Fuller at an in-store appearance in 1966. It was also the same department store where I would later buy my first electric guitar. And, in retrospect, where I would start collecting my own rock ’n’ roll nuggets, good and bad.
- 1. "Lies" - Knickerbockers
2. "Sugar and Spice" - Cryan' Shames
3. "I Feel Good (I Feel Bad)" - Lewis & Clarke Expedition
4. "Sunshine Girl" - Parade
5. "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight" - Boyce & Hart
6. "Turn Down Day" - Cyrkle
7. "You're a Very Lovely Woman" - Merry-Go-Round
8. "Let Her Dance" - Bobby Fuller Four
9. "Can I Get to Know You Better" - Turtles
10. "Red Rubber Ball" - Cyrkle
11. "Baby What I Mean" - Spiral Starecase
12. "Time Won't Let Me" - Outsiders
13. "I Love You" - People
14. "October Country" - October Country
Article comments