| "Take a Giant Step" | |
|---|---|
 US single | |
| Single by The Monkees | |
| from the album The Monkees | |
| A-side | "Last Train to Clarksville" |
| Released | 16 August 1966 |
| Recorded | 9 July 1966 RCA Victor Studios, Studio C Hollywood, California |
| Genre | Pop rock |
| Length | 2:31 |
| Label | Colgems 1001 |
| Songwriter(s) | |
| Producer(s) | |
"Take a Giant Step" is a song written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and first released by American pop rock band the Monkees in 1966.
The song was released as the B-side to the band's first single, "Last Train to Clarksville", and later appeared as the closing track on side one of their debut album. [1] Micky Dolenz performed lead vocals. [1]
The song is presented as a plea to a heartbroken girl to move on from her past romantic disappointments, and to "learn to live again at last", by "taking a giant step outside your mind". Critic Eric Lefcowitz describes the song as "proto-psychedelic." [2] The song features a main lyric and a counterpoint, both of which Micky sang; Davy Jones later repeated that on When Love Comes Knockin (At Your Door).
Fountain of Youth released a version of the song in June 1968 on the Monkees' own Colgems label, featuring a different arrangement. [3] [4]
The song was later covered by singer Taj Mahal, in a significantly rearranged version, and included as the title track to his 1969 double album release Giant Step/De Ole Folks at Home . [5] It was also recorded by Rising Sons—featuring Mahal and Ry Cooder—in 1966, but not released until 1992 on their self-titled album. [6]
The song was also covered by Bobby Sherman in the March 20, 1970, episode of the television series Here Come the Brides , titled "Absalom".
In 1994, Monkees member Peter Tork released a folk version on his debut solo album Stranger Things Have Happened . Nina Hagen released a German version of the song (titled "Riesenschritt") on her 1995 album FreuD euch . [7]
The Monkees were an American pop rock band formed in Los Angeles in the mid-1960s. The band consisted of Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork. Spurred by the success of the television show of the same name, The Monkees were one of the most successful bands of the late 1960s. With international hits, four chart-topping albums and three chart-topping songs, they sold more than 75 million records worldwide.
Ryland Peter Cooder is an American musician, songwriter, film score composer, record producer, and writer. He is a multi-instrumentalist but is best known for his slide guitar work, his interest in traditional music, and his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.
Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr., better known by his stage name Taj Mahal, is an American blues musician. He plays the guitar, piano, banjo, harmonica, and many other instruments, often incorporating elements of world music into his work. Mahal has done much to reshape the definition and scope of blues music over the course of his more than 50-year career by fusing it with nontraditional forms, including sounds from the Caribbean, Africa, India, Hawaii, and the South Pacific.
Catharina "Nina" Hagen is a German singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her theatrical vocals and rise to prominence during the punk and Neue Deutsche Welle movements in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She is known as "The Godmother of German Punk".
Joseph Spence was a Bahamian guitarist and singer. He is well known for his vocalizations and humming while playing the guitar. Several American musicians, including Taj Mahal, the Grateful Dead, Ry Cooder, Catfish Keith, Woody Mann, and Olu Dara, as well as the British guitarist John Renbourn, were influenced by and have recorded variations of his arrangements of gospel and Bahamian songs.
"Statesboro Blues" is a Piedmont blues song written by Blind Willie McTell, who recorded it in 1928. The title refers to the town of Statesboro, Georgia. In 1968, Taj Mahal recorded a popular blues rock adaptation of the song with a prominent slide guitar part by Jesse Ed Davis. His rendition inspired a recording by the Allman Brothers Band, which is ranked number nine on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time". In 2005, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ranked "Statesboro Blues" number 57 on its list of "100 Songs of the South".
Rising Sons was an American, Los Angeles, California-based blues rock and folk music band, which was founded in 1965. Their initial career was short-lived, but the group found retrospective fame for launching the careers of singer Taj Mahal and guitarist Ry Cooder.
Safe as Milk is the debut studio album by American music group Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, released in June 1967 by Buddah Records. A heavily blues-influenced work, the album features a 20-year-old Ry Cooder, who played guitar and wrote some of the arrangements.
The Monkees is the debut studio album by the American band the Monkees. It was released on October 10, 1966 by Colgems Records in the United States and RCA Victor in the rest of the world. It was the first of four consecutive U.S. number one albums for the group, taking the top spot on the Billboard 200 for 13 weeks, after which it was displaced by the band's second album. It also topped the UK charts in 1967. The Monkees has been certified quintuple platinum by the RIAA, with sales of over five million copies.
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"Last Train to Clarksville" is a song by American rock band the Monkees. It was released as the band's debut single on August 16, 1966, and was later included on the group's self-titled album, which was released on October 10, 1966. The song, written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, was recorded at RCA Victor Studio B in Hollywood on July 25, 1966, and was already on the Boss Radio "Hit Bounds" playlist on August 17, 1966. The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending November 5, 1966. Lead vocals were performed by the Monkees' drummer, Micky Dolenz. "Last Train to Clarksville" was featured in seven episodes of the band's television series, the most for any Monkees song.
Then & Now... the Best of The Monkees is a compilation album of songs by the 1960s American pop group the Monkees, released by Arista Records in 1986.
The Monkees Greatest Hits is the first greatest hits compilation album by the American pop rock band the Monkees, released in 1969 by Colgems Records.
Taj Mahal is the debut album by American guitarist and vocalist Taj Mahal. Recorded in 1967, it contains blues songs by Sleepy John Estes, Robert Johnson, and Sonny Boy Williamson II reworked in contemporary blues- and folk-rock styles. Also included is Taj Mahal's adaptation of Blind Willie McTell's "Statesboro Blues", which inspired the popular Allman Brothers Band recording.
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FreuD euch is the seventh solo studio album by Nina Hagen. It was released in 1995 on Ariola. The record has the punk feel of her first album, with short, caustic guitar-driven tracks. The cover artwork includes three holographic designs amongst holographic flowers, which when tilted from right to left show Hagen spelling something.
"Walkin' Down the Line" is a song written by Bob Dylan and first recorded by him in November 1962 for Broadside magazine. Dylan recorded the song again in March 1963 for his music publisher Witmark and this version was released in 1991 on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 1961–1991.
Volksbeat is the thirteenth solo studio album by Nina Hagen, released on November 11, 2011 by Koch Universal. It is the first all-German Nina Hagen album since 1995's FreuD Euch and contains covers as well as original songs.
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