Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. was a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music. He is credited with helping to define the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and 1970s. He has been referred to as Canada's greatest songwriter and his songs have been recorded by some of the world's most renowned musical artists. Lightfoot's biographer Nicholas Jennings said, "His name is synonymous with timeless songs about trains and shipwrecks, rivers and highways, lovers and loneliness."
John Benson Sebastian (born March 17, 1944) is an American singer, songwriter and musician who founded the rock band the Lovin' Spoonful. He made an impromptu appearance at the Woodstock festival in 1969 and scored a U.S. No. 1 hit in 1976 with "Welcome Back."
Eurreal Wilford "Little Brother" Montgomery was an American jazz, boogie-woogie and blues pianist and singer.
Spanky McFarland (1928–1993) was an American actor, member of Our Gang.
Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane is an American singer best known for fronting the vocal group Spanky and Our Gang in the late 1960s. She was nicknamed "The Queen of Sunshine Pop".
Spanky and Our Gang was an American 1960s sunshine pop band led by Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane. The band derives its name from Hal Roach's Our Gang comedies of the 1930s, because of the similarity of McFarlane's surname with that of George McFarland (Spanky). The group was known for its vocal harmonies and had major hits in the US and Canada in 1967–1968 with "Sunday Will Never Be the Same," "Lazy Day," "Sunday Mornin'," and "Like to Get to Know You."
Herman "Junior" Parker was an American blues singer and musician. He is best remembered for his voice which has been described as "honeyed" and "velvet-smooth". One music journalist noted, "For years, Junior Parker deserted down home harmonica blues for uptown blues-soul music". In 2001, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. Parker is also inducted into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame.
Spanky McFarland (1928–1993) was an American child actor in the Our Gang comedies.
"Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan. It was originally recorded on August 2, 1965, and released on the album Highway 61 Revisited. The song was later released on the compilation album Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II and as two separate live versions recorded at concerts in 1966: the first of which appeared on the B-side of Dylan's "I Want You" single, with the second being released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert. The song has been covered by many artists, including Gordon Lightfoot, Cat Power, Nina Simone, Barry McGuire, Judy Collins, Frankie Miller, Linda Ronstadt, the Grateful Dead, Neil Young, The Black Crowes, Townes Van Zandt, and Bryan Ferry. Lightfoot's version was recorded only weeks after Dylan's original had been released and reached #3 on the Canadian RPM singles chart.
John Seiter is an American musician. He is best known for his work as a drummer for Spanky and Our Gang and The Turtles.
Songbook is a career retrospective album released by Canadian singer Gordon Lightfoot on the Rhino label in 1999. The album contains 88 songs on four CDs covering Lightfoot's career, and includes 16 previously unreleased tracks. The only material not covered are the albums Harmony and Solo, which were released after Songbook.
Joe Wissert is an American record producer. Wissert has worked with artists such as Earth, Wind & Fire, Boz Scaggs, Helen Reddy, The Lovin' Spoonful, Gordon Lightfoot and The Turtles.
"Take This Hammer" is a prison, logging, and railroad work song, which has the same Roud number as another song, "Nine Pound Hammer", with which it shares verses. "Swannanoa Tunnel" and "Asheville Junction" are similar. Together, this group of songs are referred to as "hammer songs" or "roll songs". Numerous bluegrass bands and singers like Scott McGill and Mississippi John Hurt also recorded commercial versions of this song, nearly all of them containing verses about the legendary railroad worker, John Henry; and even when they do not, writes folklorist Kip Lornell, "one feels his strong and valorous presence in the song".
Spanky and Our Gang is the debut album by Spanky and Our Gang, released on August 1, 1967. The album was released by Mercury Records and included three songs that were released as singles. These were "Sunday Will Never Be the Same", their biggest hit, which reached number Number 9 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in the summer of 1967, "Making Every Minute Count", which reached Number 31, and "Lazy Day", reaching Number 14.
The discography of Canadian folk and country music singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot consists of 20 studio albums, three live albums, 16 greatest hits albums and 46 singles. Lightfoot's songs, including "For Lovin' Me", "Early Morning Rain", "Steel Rail Blues", "Ribbon of Darkness"—a number one hit on the U.S. country chart with Marty Robbins's cover in 1965—and "Black Day in July" about the 1967 Detroit riot, brought him wide recognition in the 1960s. Canadian chart success with his own recordings began in 1962 with the No. 3 hit "(Remember Me) I'm the One", followed by recognition and charting abroad in the 1970s.
Like to Get to Know You is the second studio album by Spanky and Our Gang, released in 1968. It is the first of their albums to exhibit their signature sound, partially owing to it being produced by two different people than their debut album.
Love Is Everything is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was released by Mercury Records on March 5, 1965, and included covers of hit songs from the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s as well as new songs from the composers of "Fly Me to the Moon", "What Will Mary Say", and "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year".
Europe '72: The Complete Recordings is a box set of live recordings by the rock band the Grateful Dead. Billed as a "mega box set", it contains all of the band's spring 1972 concert tour of Europe—22 complete shows, on 73 CDs. It was released on September 1, 2011.
Paul Michael "Oz" Bach was an American folk musician and bassist for the 1960s group Spanky and Our Gang.
