Thursday, August 12, 2010

One You Know ... One You Didn't Even Know You Forgot!

Here's a piece I've had ready to run for about six months now ... I just never got around to posting it because my original intention was to tie several of these examples together into some sort of an on-going series ...

But when I saw THIS email exchange the other day, I figured "What The Heck!" ... let's get a couple of these out there right now! So here goes ...

>>>I suggested to Scott Shannon that the next time he does a True Oldies Channel Twin Spin Weekend, we do what I call a "FIRST AND FOREMOST" Weekend. It would consist of an artist's first Top 40 hit followed by the singer / group's BIGGEST hit. That means the list would include tons of the biggest hits and also add a few seldom-heard "surprises," such as Keith -- Ain't Gonna Lie (another great forgotten song) and 98.6. (Don Effenberger)

Who forgot it? Where I come from, (when we had an oldies station, that is), Ain't Gonna Lie got played at least once every three or four days while I NEVER heard 98.6 get any airplay on the station at all!
Tom Diehl

Truth be told, there are a couple of never-played Keith tunes worthy of some airplay once in a while ... check out The Forgotten Hits Website today and tomorrow to check out a couple of my favorites! (kk)

***

A couple of years ago we got Scott Shannon to feature our "One You Know ... One You Didn't Even Know You Forgot!" True Oldies Channel / Forgotten Hits Twin-Spin Weekend. Who knows ... maybe we can drum up some interest in doing this again one of these days if we throw a couple of "teasers" out there!!!

First up ... KEITH!!!

EVERYBODY knows Keith's Top Ten Hit "98.6" ... it went all the way to #7 back in 1967 ... but Keith also had two OTHER Top 40 National Hits that seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth (and oldies radio) ever since. 


Today we'll feature the first of those ... in fact, THIS one pre-dates "98.6" by about three months.

In September of 1966, Keith (real name James Barry Keefer ... he later legally changed it to Bazza Keefer in 1988, after his mother!) debuted on The Billboard Chart with his first chart single "Ain't Gonna Lie". It ultimately reached #39 in Billboard and rose to #31 in Cash Box Magazine. (Here in Chicago, it went all the way to #14 so we were QUITE familiar with Keith's earlier work!)

Keith's first two singles featured the background vocals of The Tokens.

Not to be confused with Keith Allison (as was often done back in the day ... Allison was a semi-regular on the hit afternoon television series "Where The Action Is" and the guys even looked a little bit alike), OUR Keith also made several appearances on this Dick Clark-produced program, including shows featuring Forgotten Hits Regular Preston Ritter and The Electric Prunes, the recently-departed Sky Saxon and The Seeds and The Blues Magoos.

Give a listen to "Ain't Gonna Lie" today and see if that doesn't spark a memory or two!!!