First Edition revamped article. Lots of Beach Boys mentions

[MBE]

http://www.examiner.com/article/tell-it-all-brother-why-you-should-dig-the-groovy-music-of-the-first-edition
Please share this with people if you enjoy it.

[MBE]

I am very happy that some of you have checked this group out through me but I would like to make one more appeal on this thread to Beach Boys fans, sunshine pop fans, anyone who likes harmony rock from the sixties and seventies. This wasn't Kenny Rogers country backing band, he was one of the featured vocalists and he happened to click commercially with radio. He was previously in the Bobby Doyle Three who were doing the same kind of music as the Four Freshman. Brian has cited Kenny as a favorite and I was happy to send him a copy of that LP. I wonder if it ever got to him?  Not important I guess right now. The purpose of this post is that people just don't realize what the First Edition were and I hope this may claify why the Beach Boys have a connection if mostly in influence. Brian and Mike name checked "Condition"  in "H.E.L.P. Is On The Way".  

It's kind of like the Beach Boys only being known for only Surfin USA and Mike going solo having a lot of hits like Almost Summer. That's really where the groups status is at and I would like to change that simply because the music is that good to me. That much is being lost to fans of the era who just don't know of the music. Share one last story. At Brian's concert this summer and heard a mix comp play before the show and between sets. C50 shows had it too. Every little sixties harmony group who ever had a mid size hit was on there. Some great, some eh, but the one missing was the First Edition. Even clued in people around Brian who make these sort of things just don't know.

Do yourself a favor if you love sixties harmony give them a half hour, the best stuff is on my youtube channel. Not all will be impressed. It isn't Brian Wilson or the Beach Boys and I understand that fully. Just want them to have their place like all the other bands of the time seem to. Don't let the Roasters fool you, this was an interesting group.
http://www.youtube.com/user/MikeEder?feature=watch

Give this one song one play. Last twenty seconds in particular just listen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca3P13abFQ0&lch=email&lc=IAkv_deoX_9VUKoN4wHODxKvBaSR8oRo9F4e7_LXtSw&feature=em-comment_received

[MBE]

Well Jack Rieley made me think a lot today. A music form this part of the board so I guess I should at least keep trying to share what I feel here.

Jack Rieley is someone I never thought I would be talking to and this is just me thinking with you all. Please don't take any of my thoughts in the wrong light. I simply feel a kinship with him in one way, the way you know him

I just realized in writing Jack Rieley back today that he was in the very same position right after "Sunflower" that I am in with the First Edition. I am not trying to look at myself as anyone but myself, but I will briefly explain what is going on.

I love the people and the music, I know they have no image at all, or the wrong one, I am now actually working in media full time and can creatively come with angles to get across new things musically. I am working with some of the best creative minds I have been lucky enough to pick and 99 percent of you likely do not know them or their real individual takes on music that blended together perfectly.

I know they are not a Beach Boys but all creative people should have the freedom to create. They just haven't been allowed for far too long. Not from lack of talent, but lack of attention.

Even though harmony sixties pop is likely to hit home with the same people. It is just sad to hear the tape Brian's band plays at shows of all the obscure harmony groups and that THEY don't even know about they group. Very turned on people there with a life none of us will ever be able to totally know. Brian Wilson is just Brian Wilson. He is a regular guy on most levels. That's what you see and why his rough edges show. He used to be able to disguise that with the sheer force of his voice. Since 1976 he has struggled with public life and in private the issues were there a decade before. I just felt this today and I won't share this thread on the main board because I think it is too off topic, but Brian is someone I cannot help but talk about in all things I do. I see him this way and that is I Can Hear Music. Not a puff piece, I am honest. Yet I hope I really feel Brian correctly, I think that's what we all want on this board no matter how much we differ in other ways. I hope some posters that normally aren't willing will read this thread will now browse this but I am doing this with taste, I hope, and don't want to force Beach Boys  fans to read this.
 
Going back to the First Edition, well I have my work cut out for me, but it WILL happen the way it should. Just because all artists deserve their audience. Again nobody I know of has their albums squashed since the first pressing, and then has a later solo star get literal artwork and sole credit. Let's make it clear Kenny Rogers has nothing to do with any of this, but it actually just reflects badly on him to have a female singer for at least an album worth of songs and only see his name! Never mind the group were ALL lead singers of some talent. A full six of their 12 albums had equal time for all members. Even Kenny will admit those were the best ones.

Even if you think I am off track, listen to Kin Vassy once. You will thank me. My youtube has plenty of him and he just is THE best voice. I am serious only a dozen or so in his league, to me. He is just one of them and sadly he died before I could do this project and maybe get him played again. 

Sorry to get so preachy, I just feel so strongly about them having their little place in pop culture. I want their fair share for them. Not for money because it won't be a windfall for anyone. This isn't 1980 and the time to make big money with Kenny Rogers in marketing has passed. He does very well considering, but for those who don't know him other than for MADTV sketches and failed chicken joints, he wasn't always so safe. Just want their music out there for everyone in a real sense.

I am not again think I can be Jack, he is just someone I relate to. I cannot even think of writing songs, because frankly I can't. Jack is Jack because of his word skills with music and I admire the hell out of him. I only hope I can reintroduce them ( in a kind of music lover approach) in the way he did the Beach Boys. Again I don't compare anyone to Brian or Dennis or any of the guys. I simply like them for their own thing.

[Sheriff John Stone]

This wasn't Kenny Rogers country backing band, he was one of the featured vocalists and he happened to click commercially with radio. He was previously in the Bobby Doyle Three who were doing the same kind of music as the Four Freshman.

As you know but many don't, Kenny Rogers was actually a member of The New Christy Minstrels for a couple of years in the mid-1960's! I believe Kim Carnes was in the group around the same time.

I remember when "(Just Dropped In) To See What Condition My Condition Was In" was an AM radio hit. I was very young and used to think it was a spooky or eerie song when it came on the radio. Only recently did I read that Glen Campbell played lead guitar on the record. Willie Nelson did a great cover version of the song a few years ago.

Some of those First Edition songs ("Ruby", "Reuben James", "Something's "Burning") were later re-recorded by Kenny Rogers and when I first heard them - and saw Kenny perform them live - I thought they were ALWAYS Kenny Rogers solo songs. And, oddly enough, a lot of the more well-known songs were written by outside the group artists - "Something's Burning" (Mac Davis), "Ruby" (Mel Tillis), "Just Dropped In" (Mickey Newbury), and "Reuben James (Alex Harvey).

[MBE]

Sheriff, you don't know what you unleashed in me positively. I think I can use your post in an article I have planned correcting a few myths about the band. Email me if you want your actual name used in my pitch, I will PM you too. Anyhow one thing needs to be cleared up right away and it is something that takes some explaining.


Terry loved working with all the studio musician known as the "Wrecking Crew", but Campbell gets false credit...in a way. Terry: "A few people did the guitar solo when it came time to track it. Mike Post was our producer and he had Glen try. It wasn't bad and it was turned around the be the backwards intro of the record. It wasn't planned that way but when I did the solo everyone liked it. That was what was used". Terry is too modest really but Jimi Hendrix told Kenny it was his favorite record when they played the UK in early 1970.