Getting It Together
Could there be a better time to listen to and heed the words of this song? Trump and his forces are doing everything that they can to drive our Nation apart. I give this song a listen when I'm feeling that divide. It helps me remember what we need to do in this world and how we felt back in the late 1960's and early 1970's about all of the subjects that divide us now.
I thought we had it down pat back in the day, but I thought wrong. Many of my generation are among the ignorant fools who have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by big money, big religion and big power. Those evil entities have gotten a hold of too many minds from my generation. We're in trouble, folks - WAKE UP!!
OK, so enough politics! I cover that in my other blog. Let's talk about this song!
A singer/songwriter, Chet (or Chester) Powers (aka Dino Valenti) wrote the song. Powers/Valenti had been part of the Greenwich Village folk scene and had gone to Los Angeles to pursue his career in 1963. During that time he wrote Let's Get Together.
I fell in love with this song immediately when the one-hit-wonder Youngbloods took it to Number 5 on the charts in 1969. It is certainly at least in the top five favorites on my list, and it might even be my favorite song of all time.
Some people have called the Youngbloods' version of this song "old and tired" but it never gets old for me. The goose bumps and tears still make appearances, just as they did when I first heard it played by one of the radio stations outside of the grandstand building at the Minnesota State Fair.
I bought the 45 (back before "45" had such a negative connotation), later put it on a cassette tape and even later, bought a compilation CD that it was included on. Finally, I ripped it from that CD to my MP3 collection, and there it still is, among the most-played songs in my collection.
Get Together was actually first released by the Youngbloods in 1967, getting up as high as number 62 on the Hot 100 List. In 1969, though, it was part of a public service announcement by the National Conference of Christians and Jews that was played on the radio trying to promote brotherhood. This generated renewed interested in the song and it was re-released in 1969, this time making it all the way up to Number 5 on the Hot 100 List.
The Youngbloods' version of this song has made it into several movies, TV shows and commercials over the years. In 2001 after the 911 attacks, Clear Channel Communications put the Youngbloods' version on its list of "lyrically questionable" songs. What???? Part of the job of molding the Trumper mind, I suspect.
I never really thought about versions of this song other than the one that the Youngbloods did, but as it turns out, there were many. Some of them are beautiful, some I don't like as well, but the song shines in all of the versions on its own merit. Oddly enough I do not remember any of these other versions. Below is a sampling of some of them.
Probably the first to record it was the Kingston Trio who recorded Let's Get Together in a live performance in March of 1964. It was a much more rabble-rousing type rendition than the Youngbloods would come up with three years later. The song can be found on their 1964 album, Back In Town. It wasn't ever released as a single, but the Kingston Trio performed it live fairly often.
Possibly next to record was a young David Crosby (of Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash fame). It is uncertain exactly when he recorded it (before or after the Kingston Trio's recording) but Crosby's recording of Get Together, featuring his voice, young and true, didn't make it onto an album until it finally showed up on the Byrds' 1969 compilation album, Preflyte.
The We Five released their version of Let's Get Together in 1965 and it made it into the Top 40, peaking at Number 31. Beverly Bivins, the group's lone female member did a fantastic job as lead singer on their rendition. It was a follow-up to their hit, You Were On My Mind, and ended up on their 1967 album, Make Someone Happy.
Let's Get Together shows up again on Jefferson Airplane's album Jefferson Airplane Takes Off in August of 1966. The harmonies in this version strike a chord with me (literally) that one-ups the Kingston Trio at their own game, in my humble opinion. The song wasn't ever released as a single, but the album made the Top 100 at Number 97.
The obscure (to me, anyway) psychedelic band out of Chicago, H.P. Lovecraft, released a psychedelic rendition of Let's Get Together in 1967, the same year as the Youngbloods' initial release. The song appeared on their debut album, H.P. Lovecraft. It has its moments with nice harmonies on the chorus, but it's a little more "out there" than I tend to like.
The Sunshine Company came out with the song as Let's Get Together in 1968. It appeared on their album, Sunshine & Shadows, and with beautiful harmonies throughout (reminiscent of a chorus in a musical) it is one of my favorite versions. This group always seemed to be just on the edge of stardom.
Let's Get Together came out again in 1968, released by a Canadian band called 3's A Crowd on their only album, Christopher's Movie Matinee. The song is done in a sort of military style that doesn't quite fit the content until it gets going. It's a very "late-sixties" beat. The lead singer on the song, Donna Warner, has a beautiful, powerful voice that sounds a lot like Mama Cass Elliot's voice. Ironically (or maybe not) Mama Cass was one of the album's producers.
Another version of Let's Get Together was released in 1969 by the band, Smith, and came out on their album, A Group Called Smith. Another female lead, Gayle McCormick, belts it out in a rendition that I suspect Bonnie Raitt would be comfortable doing. It's very different from the other versions of this song, but I think I could get used to it. McCormick had a hell of a voice.
The Carpenters recorded Get Together and released it in 1969 as well. It ended up on their debut album, Offering (which was later re-released as Ticket to Ride). As one would expect, it flows beautifully out of Karen Carpenter's mouth. This one really surprised me! I don't remember ever hearing this song done by them. And in the same year it became a hit for the Youngbloods. One would think it wouldn't have gone so unnoticed, or was I the only one who didn't notice it?
In 1970, country music team Gwen & Jerry Collins released Get Together as a single. What?? Now, what was a country western duo doing recording this hippie-dippie flower-power song? It's actually pretty good, too, as country music goes. It made it all the way up to Number 34 on the U.S. Country charts that year. I certainly never heard it, nor have I ever heard of Gwen & Jerry Collins. It's out there, though, and it's not all bad.
Also in 1970, the Dave Clark Five came out with the song, calling it Everybody Get Together. It made it up to Number 8 on the charts in the U.K. I don't recall ever having heard it over here, and that's just as well as far as I am concerned. This is probably my least favorite version of the song. This group was not one of my favorites, though I did like their song, Bits and Pieces. I, personally, wouldn't go out of my way to listen to their rendition of Everybody Get Together again.
OK, we've had about everything else, why not a Reggae version? Well, sure. In 1995, a group called Big Mountain covered Get Together. They added some extra words and turned it into what a former coworker of mine, Francine, would have called "jumpin' music." Even if Reggae isn't your cup of tea, you have to admit that it's pretty well done. The song appeared on Big Mountain's 1996 album, Resistance and made it up as high as Number 44 on the Billboard Hot 100.
OK, one more version. On the same day in 2017 that Drumpf was inaugurated, an all-girl band from California called Bahari released their cover of Get Together. Surprisingly, it is quite well done. It's basically a modern rendition of the Youngbloods' version. The young women in this band are very talented. I hope that they go far.
NOTE: My sources for all of this information were almost all pretty unreliable, so if you know of errors or omissions, please let me know. I got info mainly from Wikipedia, Discogs and YouTube.
