🚢Yacht Pop Anchors #1: Jay Ferguson, Henry Gross, April Wine

No point in trying to foist yet another genre on an unsuspecting music-listening public; that ship has sailed.🚢We sally forth, and in so doing, we discover the not-Top-Ten melody makers few heard.

Yacht Pop Formula: Pop, Power, Few Ears, Artists with Length

“Yacht rock,” proclaims the mighty Wiki, “is a broad music style and aesthetic commonly associated with soft rock, one of the most commercially successful genres from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s.”

Fine. We’ll start there. That shipping lane is already fairly crowded, so we’ll let the podcasts, dedicated satellite stations, and stand-up comics keep treading that sometimes tepid, well-traveled water.

We’ll certainly (and happily) jettison that “commercially successful” phrase. Everybody (and their grandmothers) already have that more than covered.

We endeavor to explore another area of the ship, though. Call it the Lido, or pool, deck, where dress and activities are just a little more laid-back, a little more “cazsh.”

It’s the collision of The Bottom Ten, the anti-hit, with the more power pop-leaning tunes (sometimes highlighting the power but mostly the pop…oh, there will be guitars!), and mostly by longtime, legacy artists with whom you might already be familiar!

🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸

🚢S.S. Yacht Pop, Now Boarding…

Jay Ferguson, “Thunder Island,” 1978, Asylum Records

“Thunder Island” live, 1980, on TV’s Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert:

A “poor man’s Kenny Loggins”? Maybe. But, with dues-paying records and tours with Spirit and Jo Jo Gunne, the native Burbankian (now 76) also recorded three solo albums for Asylum Records.

His second, Thunder Island (produced by Yacht Rock mainstays, The Eagles’ producer, Bill Szymczyk, and Ed Mashal), contained the self-composed hit of the same name that peaked at #9 in the U.S. in 1978. One of Szymczyk’s ‘70s production clients was Yacht Rocker, Joe Walsh, who plays slide guitar on this track! Close-knit musical family of four, table near the window!

“Thunder Island” contains enough classic power pop elements to turn the Raspberries green with envy: Guitar-driven tempo, piano glissandos, close harmonies, a bitchin’ bass line (courtesy Harold Cowart, on loan from the Andy Gibb Band), and not one, but two sets of catchy nonsense lyrics, i.e. “Doo-doo-doo-doo” and “Sha-la-la-la-la-la-mah-lady,” to go with Jay’s tropical story of making love out on Thunder Island, “in the sun with your dress undone.”

Jay left Asylum after his third LP, and recorded 2 albums for Capitol in the early ‘80s.

For a couple decades, Jay has composed film soundtrack music, and many TV fans are familiar with his theme song to NBC’s version of The Office. (In that show, Jay is also the guitarist in character Kevin’s band, Scrantonicity):

Henry Gross, “Shannon,” 1976, Lifesong Records

Plaid to the bone: Henry engrossed in rooftop pickin’, ca. mid-’60s around age 15.

“Shannon” performed live on The Midnight Special, 1976:

Henry Gross began his career as the original lead guitarist in the camp, parody-50’s group, Sha Na Na, in the late 1960’s, which means that the Brooklynite born in 1951 performed at Woodstock at 18, the youngest musician to do so!

From the August 7, 2019 Tampa Bay Times: “He could tell you about splitting a bottle of Jack Daniel’s with Jimi Hendrix. He could tell you about smoking up and holding court backstage with Jerry Garcia. He could tell you about the joy of watching Carlos Santana and Alvin Lee play guitar, or the religious experience of watching Joe Cocker sing.

“‘I was 20 feet away,’ he said, ‘and if that didn’t lift you off the f-ing planet Earth, you’re not human.’”

Here’s Henry singing lead on “Remember Then,” a Sha Na Na cover of The Earls’ 1963 single:

Gross, known as a “one-hit-wonder,” started singing as a solo in the early ‘70s, and had that one biggest hit when “Shannon,” a song written about the death of Beach Boy Carl Wilson’s pooch (both shown below), went to #5 on the Billboard Hot 100. In fact, he managed to craft what many feel is a very Beach Boys-like record (he even spent a fair amount of time touring with the band).

Carl Wilson and his Alaskan husky, late ‘60s. Henry, in the mid ‘70s to ForgottenHits60s “I told Carl that I had an Irish Setter at home named Shannon. He was quite moved as he told me that he had an Irish Setter named Shannon that had been killed only recently when hit by a car. We spent the rest of the day jamming and driving around Carl’s world which, as a friend-and to be honest a Beach Boys fanatic-was a thrill.”

In 2002, Gross told ForgottenHits60s.blogspot the “Shannon” story: “I wrote the song without conscious effort to sound like anything. I more or less channeled it while thinking about a visit to Carl’s Beverly Hills home I’d just had. I was always a big Beach Boys fan, and I guess subconsciously I wrote it in their style. It took about ten minutes to write with almost no changes afterwards. One of those ‘meant to be’s’ I guess!”

Gross continues the story: “When I returned to New York City, where I lived [after his visit in L.A. with Carl], I began work on my second A&M album, Plug Me Into Something (1975):

“A few weeks later, just as we were about to master the finished album, I was sitting on my bed with Shannon, strumming my guitar trying to write a song, when I was disturbed by the loud bass sounds from the Latin music blasting from the apartment above me.

“Rather than complain, I made an amazing discovery. If I tried to play records of my own choice, I could drown out the intrusive bass sounds, but was unable to concentrate. But, I found that when I played an “Environments” record called The Ultimate Seashore, I could drown out the bass and have a pleasing and relaxing background sound that didn’t interfere with my writing.”

“In a matter of minutes with the ocean sounds guiding me (and my 1964 Gibson Hummingbird acoustic in my hands), my thoughts drifted to Carl, The Beach Boys and with a glance at my girl, Shannon, the indescribable sadness that losing such a beloved partner in life must be. The song seemed to write itself taking no more than ten minutes and with almost no cross-outs on the paper.

“I made a tape of it on my giant Sony cassette recorder and sent it off to Carl. I was hoping to stop the presses and record it for Plug Me Into Something, which Carl had already sung on, adding background vocals to the opening song, “One More Tomorrow,” but it was too late: I had to wait for the next album to record it. I always wished I could have had Carl sing backgrounds on ‘Shannon,’ but conflicting schedules dictated it wasn’t meant to be.”

In 1976, Gross recorded The Beatles’ “Help!” for the 20th Century Fox documentary, All This And World War II. Panned by critics, the film lasted but two weeks in theatres:

April Wine, “Sign of the Gypsy Queen,” 1981, Aquarius Records/Canada

April Wine, live in 1982, “Sign of the Gypsy Queen”:

April Wine is a Canadian band formed in 1969 and based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Led by singer/guitarist/songwriter, Myles Goodwyn (75), from its inception in 1969 until his retirement in 2023, April Wine first experienced success with their second album, On Record (1972), which reached the Top 40 in Canada and yielded two hit singles.

“Sign of the Gypsy Queen,” written by Lorence Hud, and included on the band’s The Nature of the Beast (Aquarius Records/UK, Capitol/U.S., EMI/worldwide), travels smoothly on its controlled dynamism of a massive guitar wall. The album was produced by Goodwyn and Mike Stone.

It manages to maintain a suitable menace delivering the story of an impending doom brought about by our be-titled G.Q., but does so without the forced minor-chord thudding that might be affected by a more metal-leaning arrangement: Can you imagine Black Sabbath Brontosaurus-marching their way, half-tempo, on an “Iron Queen”?

“Gypsy Queen” features captivatingly close harmonies not usually heard in a lean hard rock song, and the dual-guitar harmonizing throughout rivals the best of early-’70s Wishbone Ash.

It reached #40 on the Canadian Hot 100, and #57 in the States on the Billboard Hot 100, and #19 on its Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.