Meta-hits of 1967: Spotlight on the Year Pop Music Celebrated Itself in Song

by Wayne Cresser

In the frothy days of hit parades and top forty stations that could in the space of thirty minutes serve up pop songs from Eydie Gorme’ to Frank Sinatra, jazz from Cannonball Adderley to Ramsey Lewis, garage rock from ? Mark and the Mysterians to the Standells, soul from Aretha Franklin to Otis Redding, psychedelic rock, blues rock, folk rock and novelty hits from alpha to omega, the occasional tribute song, or as I like to think of them, meta-hit, offered a wonderful little diversion.

None of the songs I’m listing and breaking down here were number one records, although several of them did very well, starting with Arthur Conley and Otis Redding’s rewrite of Sam Cooke’s “Yeah Man”, more familiarly known as “Sweet Soul Music,” released in 1967 after Redding brought Conley over to his new label, Jotis Records.

Conley’s song not only finds the singer name-checking some of the biggest stars in 60s soul, including Redding, Sam and Dave, Wilson Pickett and James Brown, but also features his on- the-fly impressions of those singers. Owing to Conley’s driving energy and free associations to the best of soul music, “Sweet Soul Music” reached number 2 on the Billboard Top 100.

Also a top ten hit was a song which unspooled the early history of the group that created it, the Mamas and Papas, and referenced musician friends they made along the way, who were also starting to make inroads on fame.

The title, “Creeque Alley,” has nothing to do with the East Coast folk scene from which the Mamas and Papas derived. Instead, it references the location of a bar in the Virgin Islands where the Phillips’ first group, the New Journeymen, once took a powder.

The happy result of recalling how “itchie” Michelle and John were to move beyond folk music, “Creeque Alley” references pals Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, Zally and John Sebastian of the Lovin’ Spoonful, and Barry McGuire of the New Christy Minstrels (who made the first recording of “California Dreamin’ with the Mamas and Papas backing)  and reached number 5 on Billboard’s Top 100 in late May, 1967.

From the title of Peter Paul and Mary’s “I Dig Rock n’ Roll Music,” the listener might think they too were getting itchy to move beyond the very comfortable niche they’d carved out for themselves on the folk circuit, but the song, written by the group’s Paul Stookey along with James Mason and Dave Dixon, was not without its thorns. Maybe they were just having a laugh, poking fun at the aforementioned Mamas and Papas, the Beatles and Donovan when they complained that they (meaning the bands) had a good thing going “when the words don’t get in the way.” And if they were laughing, it was all the way to the bank, since the song reached number 9 on Billboard’s Top 100 during, you guessed it, the summer and early fall of 1967.

There was nothing parodic about another 1967 meta-hit, which although not the chart-climber that the previously mentioned numbers were, firmly planted its singer and his newly-constituted band on American soil, Eric Burdon and the Animals, “Monterey.” Composed by the group, which then included Burdon, John Weidler, Vic Briggs, Danny McCulloch, and Barry Jenkins, “Monterey” delivers a psychedelically tinged “account of the June 1967 Monterey Pop Festival,” where the Animals performed, along with other acts Burdon fervently mentions in the song, including the Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, the Who, Hugh Masekela, and Jimi Hendrix. “Monterey” peaked at number 15 on Billboard’s Top 100.

Admittedly, I’m stretching the premise a tad to include this last song, but technically, Donovan’s “The Fat Angel,” was not released in the United Kingdom until 1967, despite its inclusion on the American release of his late 1966 album, Sunshine Superman. Two reasons why I mention it in this discourse. One, it’s a standout track on both that record and its UK version, which was a compilation of Donovan’s follow-up, Mellow Yellow, and its predecessor. And two, the title allows me to circle back to the Mamas and Papas and Cass Elliot, for which the track, “The Fat Angel,” is named. Donovan’s inspiration was the result of a friendship he and Elliot developed during his ten-night residency at a Sunset Strip nightclub called The Trip.

Described in various places as a bit of “hippie whimsy”, the song pays homage to Jefferson Airplane in the lyrics, “Fly Jefferson Airplane, get you there on time.” The Airplane later covered “The Fat Angel” in their shows and included it on 1968’s Bless Its Pointed Little Head, recorded live at both the Fillmore East and the Fillmore West.

To my knowledge, “The Fat Angel” never charted and that was probably intentional.

By the by, enjoy the vids. Iris wipe and out for now.