Where does this stand in the panoply of Beach Boys’ singles?

Not very high if you go by its chart placing (no 29 in the UK.)

But to me it’s up there. Not as high as God Only Knows or Good Vibrations certainly, but it’s from that time when the Beach Boys were in their mid-60s pomp.

And it’s also not all that Beach Boys-y.

One of the few black British entertainers – one of the few black faces – to appear on British television in the early 1960s, belonged to Kenny Lynch, who has died this week.

There were US acts of course, such as Sammy Davis Jr, Nat King Cole and Harry Belafonte and Blues and Motown artistes would feature on shows such as Ready, Steady Go! and Top of the Pops but as for British performers Lynch was just about it.

There were quite a few strings to Lynch’s bow, singing on variety shows, popping up on game shows – always with a cheerful demeanour – and he also had a career as an actor but among other songs Lynch wrote Sha La La La La Lee which became a hit for the Small Faces. He was also the first singer to cover a Beatles song (Misery.)

This is his joint biggest UK hit. On it Lynch sounds a bit like Sam Cooke. No small praise.

Kenneth Lynch: 18/3/1938 – 18/12/2019. So it goes.

There hasn’t been an Elvis Presley record in any of my music posts – until now: mainly because I was never a particular fan of his.

This song, however, is worth a listen.

For comparison purposes here is the original version of the song by its writer (F Zambon if you can make out the record label) singing as Mark James. I assume that Zambon had to give up most of the rights to this for Elvis to record it. His manager, Colonel Parker, was notoriously sharkish in that regard.

As I’m sure everyone knows by now, the man credited with changing rock drumming for ever, Ginger Baker, died earlier this week.

He first came to my attention as part of Cream, the so-called first supergroup. I somehow didn’t notice their first single, Wrapping Paper, when it came out, but caught them on Top of the Pops with their second, I Feel Free. Then came Strange Brew and the other songs from Disraeli Gears.

I have already featured their imperious Badge, from 1969.

This track from Wheels of Fire, shows off Ginger’s drumming.

Peter Edward “Ginger” Baker: 19/8/1939 – 6/10/2019. So it goes.

I bought two of the first three Turtles UK hits, Happy Together and Elenore

Neither was the group’s biggest hit in the UK – at least according to chart position. They reached no 12 and no 7 respectively. However, as a no 4, their hit She’d Rather Be With Me, which came between those two, was more successful.

Maybe because it’s a kind of happy-go-lucky, cheer you up song.

An authentic blues song (it might not start, “Well I woke up this morning,” but each verse’s first line is repeated,) Canned Heat adapted On the Road Again from a Floyd Jones song which was itself derived from older blues material. Everything builds on everything. The drone effect (cf bagpipes) is as old as time. Well, as old as written music.

At the time it was released in the UK in 1968 it stood out from its surroundings.

I’ve not had a piece of psychedelia for a while. This is a USian take on the form that wasn’t a hit there – or here.

Stained Glass were originally called The Trolls. I suppose they were about thirty years ahead of the time with that. There might have been some sort of Scandinavian connection though.

While I was away Doris Day died. Her heyday was in the 1940s and 50s – the latter mostly as a film star – but her recording career spilled over into the 1960s and included this belter, part-written by her son, 1960s record producer Terry Melcher.

The song has a peculiarity in that of the fourteen times the title’s words are sung during it, only two of these are uttered by Day herself.

This is an unusual stereo version.

Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff (Doris Day:) 3/4/1922 – 13/5/2019. So it goes.

Songwriter (well, tune writer: he collaborated with lyricists to complete his songs) Les Reed died last week.

Writing for the likes of Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck, Reed was never the most credible with the rock crowd but he helped create a formidable catalogue of notable songs of the 1960s.

It’s Not Unusual, The Last Waltz, I’m Coming Home, Delilah and I Pretend all made No 1 or 2, not a bad achievement for anybody – even if these were mostly bought by Mums and Dads.

Then there’s this song from 1967 (lyric by Geoff Stephens,) and later recorded by The Carpenters.

Leslie David (Les) Reed: 24/7/1935 – 15/4/2019. So it goes.

One of the most distinctive and influential songers of the 1960s and 70s (and beyond) left us this week. Scott Walker.

In the Guardian there were no less than three pieces about Walker and his legacy in the Monday issue (25/3/2019).

Had he only been a member of The Walker Brothers his memory would have been secure via that string of huge hits they had in the mid-60s. Then there was their monumental cover of Tom Rush’s No Regrets in their “comeback” in the 1970s to which his phrasing made such a difference.

The clarity of his voice can be heard in his solo recording of Joanna, a Jackie Trent and Tony Hatch song to which he contributed some of the lyric and which managed to reach no 7 in the UK charts.

His dissatisfaction with simple balladeering though led him to wider and wider experimentation and a uniqur place in pop history.

Among his many signature moments was his version of the Jacques Brel song Jacky in a translation by Mort Shuman.

Noel Scott Engel (Scott Walker): 9/1/1943 – 22/3/2019. So it goes.