Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, Cannonball Adderley Quintet (1966)

Soul-jazz instrumental Mercy, Mercy, Mercy was one of those rare gems that teenagers got exposed to by virtue of the eclectic nature of the pop charts during the 60s. In today's narrowcasting world, nothing like that would ever happen.

I seriously doubt the entire 5+ minute version that youtube gloriously offers was actually what we were hearing on the radio in those 3-minutes-and-out days, but what we did hear was the epitome of sophisticated cool.

Written by the Quintet's keyboardist, Joe Zawinul, who had played with Maynard Ferguson and later went on to form Weather Report with Wayne Shorter, the smouldering licks of Mercy, Mercy, Mercy never failed to transport me to somewhere better - and more swinging - than I was at the time. There is an automatic and extended visceral reaction from the song's slow burn to the exhilarating finish - a reaction I'm still having 42 years later.

But Zawinul wasn't the only one with a pedigree - Julian "Cannonball" Adderley had played sax with Miles Davis in the 50s, and his brother, cornet player Nat, had been with Lionel Hampton. With Zawinul, rounding out the rhythm section were drummer Roy McCurdy (he's 72 and has a myspace page!), who had worked with Chuck Mangione and Sonny Rollins, and on bass, Victor Gaskin, who went on to play with Dexter Gordon and Duke Ellington. Is it any wonder this song killed?

In 1967, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy popped back up, complete with lyrics (I know not from where), in a recording by the Chicago-based group the Buckinghams. It earned a higher chart position than the original, but doesn't hold a candle to it.

I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself, Dionne Warwick (1966)

It is probably only in hindsight that I've come to realize how artists like Dionne Warwick were pivotal in fostering my lifelong appreciation of virtuoso singers.

An ubiquitous presence over the airwaves throughout the 60s, I'm not sure I completely appreciated her gifts then. She was just always there, with one hit after the other - 20 during that decade alone - served up via what she has described as the "three-sided marriage that worked" - her lengthy collaboration with composer Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David.

Before she was discovered by Bacharach, Warwick had her own gospel group, the Gospelaires, with sister Dee Dee and aunt Cissy Houston, and sang backup on records for the Drifters, Bobby Darin, Dinah Washington, Brook Benton, the Shirelles, Ruth Brown and Chuck Jackson. It was at a Drifters recording session for the song Mexican Divorce that the two met.

Originally hired to cut demos, it was soon clear that Warwick was destined to be a star in her own right, and had her first hit with Don't Make Me Over. Her songs were a thing apart from rock and roll or R&B, and being hard to classify were sometimes relegated to that category of popular music that was seen somehow as less cool. Yet when I listen to these songs today, I find many of them quite breathtaking, and they unfailingly evoke my teenage years.

Dionne was easily the most serene and elegant female performer of that era, with a wide vocal register that defied description and made for deceptively easy listening. Check it out ... Although an earlier version of I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself was a hit for Dusty Springfield, I find that arrangement much more overwrought than seems strictly necessary. Dionne's version captured what it feels like to confront the emptiness of lost love to perfection.

In a 2003 story on Warwick in the Independent, Elvis Costello described the Tao of Dionne thusly: "The things that make Burt and Hal's songs extraordinary also create all kinds of difficulties for a performer. In Dionne Warwick, Bacharach and David found this incredibly talented singer who was able to negotiate things that were metrically and harmonically terribly complex, and make them sound conversational and effortless. She has great control and range: she has that dry, close voice but she can also get really big and dramatic without ever sounding strained. Bacharach used to say: `Don't count it - feel it.' And Dionne feels it. That's her great gift."

You Don't Own Me, Lesley Gore (1964)

A youtube commenter asks, "You mean to tell me that in the sixties, teenage girls actually had to have voices and know how to sing before they had hit records?"

What a concept. Discovered singing in a hotel by the legendary producer Quincy Jones, then a producer for Mercury Records, soprano Lesley Gore had a supremely confident voice that had been honed singing in a jazz group. That voice was first shared with the world in the form of teenage girl standards It's My Party and It's Judy's Turn to Cry, which did absolutely nothing for me. Then came You Don't Own Me.

To this day, the song remains an anthem for independently-minded females everywhere. The other day I mentioned that Linda Ronstadt's Different Drum was an early feminist hit, but I'd forgotten that You Don't Own Me, performed by Gore when she was still a senior in high school, pre-dates that by several years. It was way ahead of its time, actually. (Still performing, Gore has reimagined the song with a stripped-down version on her latest release, Ever Since.)

Written by two men, John Madars and David White, the song was climbing the charts and landed at #2 the week I Want to Hold Your Hand grabbed the #1 spot and didn't let go for three weeks. I can still remember how the dramatically shifting key changes on the arrangement combined with Gore's convincing delivery affected me. I was sure I didn't want anyone to own me! Yes, I was 11, but it got under my skin.

Brown Earth, Christmas In My Soul, Laura Nyro (1970)

I can't narrow it down to one, so I'm serving up two Laura Nyros from one particular album - Christmas and the Beads of Sweat (not a Christmas LP, by the way) - each showcasing the strengths of this otherworldly singer and brilliant composer who was better known for the scores and scores of songs others covered than for her own recordings.

Nyro never sought and actually shunned fame, and her prodigious output became the platform from which others' careers often skyrocketed. The first song of hers that I ever heard was Blood, Sweat and Tears' hit recording of And When I Die.

Brown Earth is a beauty, overflowing with the joy of being alive, the kind of song that is so uplifting one can only just surrender to it. On this lush arrangement, Nyro is backed by the Swampers, a well-respected group of session musicians from that crucible of great American music, Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

Christmas in My Soul, which was produced by the Rascals' Felix Cavaliere, is one of the most devastatingly searing indictments of the injustices and failings of that time in history I have ever heard. Achingly beautiful on every level from a musical standpoint, its uncompromising truths are harrowing to listen to, though it concludes with a sort of catharsis that envisions it could all be turned around. I typically do not fail to break into tears during this verse: Now the time has come to fight / Laws in the book of love burn bright / People you must win for thee / America her dignity / For all the high court world to see / On Christmas. Lyrics that have as much, if not more, relevance now than they did then.

Neither of these two songs is on youtube. The album's best known song (and the only one Nyro did not write, ironically) is, however, so here she is singing Carole King and Gerry Goffin's Up On the Roof.

Different Drum, The Stone Poneys (1967)

With the exception of Martha and the Vandellas, I am horrified to realize that I have to this point featured no women's voices in this blog. That will have to be rectified in short order. Unfortunately, the early years of rock and roll were comparatively thin as far as successful women were concerned. But they were out there.

One who managed very well, thank you, was Linda Ronstadt, who became a sensation when she was with the Stone Poneys. Someone whose career I have followed ever since, her clear, larger-than-life voice was a welcome addition to the folk-rock scene, and catapulted her to solo stardom soon thereafter. Ronstadt was the only other singer besides Laura Nyro whose work I emulated (or tried to) when I took voice lessons in the 80s.

Written and originally performed by the Monkees' Mike Nesmith from the male perspective, Ronstadt's version of Different Drum turned the tables to tell the story of a free spirited woman - one who didn't need a man to complete her. The lyric Yes, and I ain't saying you ain't pretty / All I'm saying is I'm not ready / For any person place or thing / To try and pull the reins in on me / made an enduring impression on me!

According to Kenny Edwards, the Stone Poneys' co-founder and acoustic guitarist, Ronstadt (and Emmylou Harris) had the unusual knack of being able to "... pick songs ... that are perfect for them, as if they'd written them." I think that is one of the things that has really defined her throughout her career - whether it's Warren Zevon, Elvis Costello or Mike Nesmith, her versions of their songs are authentic and unforgettable. She does make them her own.

The burgeoning women's movement notwithstanding, it wouldn't have been common in those days for a woman to sing / I see no sense in this crying and grieving / We'll both live a lot longer / If you live without me / and come across convincingly. Linda could and did.

Sweet Cherry Wine, Tommy James and the Shondells (1969)

I've been thinking a lot about anti-war songs lately, and I was reminded of one from the quintessential singles band of the 60s, Tommy James and the Shondells' rollicking and beautiful Sweet Cherry Wine.

In an interview on the American Gold radio program in 1996, Tommy James said, "My philosophy was that rock and roll was supposed to make you move, not make you think. I always had a problem with people who got too serious with rock and roll. If you want to get serious, fine, but don't call it rock and roll because it isn't. It becomes something else. I also thought there was enough ugliness over the TV every night at six o'clock, watching the war, so, that was hard. I really felt that music should hit you in your stomach, not your brain."

And that's kind of what Sweet Cherry Wine did. Produced by James himself, it didn't beat you over the head with anything but the delicious musicality of it, though the lyrics - "We ain't gonna fight/Only God has the right/To decide who's to live and die" - were quite clearly oriented toward questioning the Establishment's immoral war. I can't even tell you all of the instruments he's got in there, but there are a cornucopia of them, including a flute and an organ. And I think some kind of bell.

The explosive intro remains one of my favorites from that time period. Maybe it's because I'm so inspired by Barack Obama right now, but I'm currently on my 10th replay. The song was irresistible then, is irresistible now, as is the notion that the United States of America might soon find its way back from our long national nightmare with a true leader at the helm.

Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In), Kenny Rogers & the First Edition (1968)

The week Dock of the Bay reached #1 for Otis Redding posthumously, charting in at #5 was a bizarre but highly original composition by prolific Nashville songwriter Mickey Newbury that never fails to bring a smile to my lips when I hear it.

Before Kenny Rogers became a country music phenom, he was a member of The First Edition, a group of refugees from The New Christy Minstrels who felt the need to branch out creatively. I think they achieved that and then some with Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In).

As musical exploits go, this one was a doozie. The song's guitar reverb and reverse riff at the intro - not to mention the insane vocals on the chorus, particularly at the end - established it firmly in the annals of psychedelia. Although Newbury intended it to be a cautionary tale against the use of hallucinogenic drugs, I'm not sure that's precisely how it was interpreted by all members of my generation!

Must-see TV in those days was the groundbreaking Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, which regularly featured Kenny and the group. Brace yourself! The show was a fixture of my weekly television viewing circa 1967-69 until it was unceremoniously axed by CBS, which was gripped in the throes of censorship thanks to Richard Nixon's growing paranoia about the dangers of the First Amendment.

I gather the song experienced something of a renaissance from its appearance on the soundtrack of The Big Lebowski. Haven't seen it, but it was used in a famous dream sequence, so I'm betting it gave everyone the same rush that it used to give us in the 60s. Must put that in my Netflix queue!