In the cool of the evening when everything is gettin’ kind of groovy

I didn’t think the Classics IV were cool until I discovered the Atlanta Rhythm Section had morphed from this prior group.  I always thought they were some studio concoction from L.A., not a real band, whose hits were written by committee by the usual suspects. But it turns out that J.R. Cobb and Buddy Buie, ARS’s guitarist and producer respectively, added lyrics to a regional instrumental track to come up with the Classics IV’s original hit, "Spooky".

It did sound spooky.  Not quite like anything else on the radio.  And I knew everything on the radio.  Underground FM had finally taken hold, but automobiles were still definitely AM, our transistors didn’t have the FM band.  And, we hadn’t given up on the hits yet, we’d become addicted when the Beatles took hold and didn’t give up until they broke up.

Today, minivans come with multiple audio systems.  The kids in the back seat can listen to their music while their parents indulge in their favorites in the front seat.  If the kids are not watching a DVD, listening to the soundtrack via their headphones.  Families are Balkanized in the twenty first century, but in the sixties we were all in it together, in the station wagon.  Would our parents let us listen to our music?

My father did not have a long fuse.  We knew that he got to control the radio dial.  Listening to either NBC’s "Monitor" or Beautiful Music stations.  Every once in a while, he’d be singing along to a rendition of one of our favorites, like Stevie Wonder’s "For Once In My Life", but when we pointed this out he wasn’t amused, he just ignored us and continued to sing along.  But when it was a long trip, like the three and a half hour journey to Vermont, somewhere during the ride our dad would indulge us.  Usually with WDRC in Hartford.  Sometimes we’d listen until the station faded out, but usually, Dad would freak out, utter an expletive and switch the station while the signal was still strong.  He’d had enough.  And unlike today’s children, we didn’t argue, we didn’t talk back, not unless we wanted him to reach over the seat and smack us.  I’m not sure what frightened us more, getting hit or worrying that he’d run the car off the road while his eyes were averted.  Ultimately there would be crying and the radio would be turned completely off.  Then normalcy would return.

I remember so many of the Top Forty songs from those drives.  Steppenwolf’s "Magic Carpet Ride", "Love Is Blue" and "Spooky".

"Spooky" wasn’t the Classics IV’s only hit.  It was followed by the similarly titled, yet just a tad different "Stormy" and ultimately "Traces", which was just too MOR for us.  Oh, we know every lyric of this song, but it was records like this that made us pledge allegiance to FM.

But it sounds so good today.

But not as good as "Spooky".

I’ve never seen it this windy at Vail.  Felice and Chris only made one run.  But I cut my teeth in Vermont, bad weather doesn’t faze me.  I kind of enjoy it, makes me feel alive.  But completely frozen sometime after two, I skied to the bottom.  And when I was taking off my skis, I heard "Spooky".

They’re tuned to Sirius XM’s "Sixties On Six" at the bottom of the hill.  We’ve been hearing one classic after another at the beginning and end of each ski day.  But "Spooky" really got to me.  Because of the groove.  Because of the death of Dennis Yost.

Oh, every paper had an obit.  But no one e-mailed me about his passing, his death seemed to elude the collective consciousness. Kind of weirded me out.  Are we now expecting our sixties stars to die?  Were those hits so long ago, so far in the past that we’ve forgotten what an integral part of the cultural fabric they once were?

Funny thing about those sixties hits, they still resonate just as much today.  You might wince when you hear "Ice Ice Baby", but you feel warm and fuzzy when you hear a sixties classic.  You’re immediately jetted back in time to exactly where you were at when you hear tracks like "Spooky".  Going to school.  Feeling awkward at dances.  Believing the radio could get you through.