Bobby Hart and Tommy Boyce
Boyce and Hart with Elizabeth Montgomery as ‘Serena’ on Bewitched
Listen/Download – Boyce & Hart – I’m Gonna Blow You a Kiss In the Wind
Listen/Download – Boyce & Hart – Smilin’
Greetings all.
I hope the new week finds you all well.
Late last week I was slacking in front of the TV set and one of my fave guilty pleasures, the 1968 film ‘Where Angels Go Trouble Follows’ came on TCM.
It’s not a particularly fantastic movie, but it does carry with it a great flavor of the times, as well as the confusing spectacle of the unbearably hot Stella Stevens dressed as a nun.
What it also has is the outstanding title song by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart.
Boyce and Hart are remembered mainly as the guys that wrote so many cool songs for the Monkees back in the day, or (mainly by women that were teenyboppers during the mid-to-late 60s) as slightly aged teen idols.
Though they’re probably more famous for writing songs like ‘Last Train to Clarksville’, the duo recorded some excellent records of their own, like the brilliant ‘Out and About’ (from 1967, covered in this space a few years ago) which they performed on an episode of ‘I Dream of Jeannie’.
A few years later, they would perform one of today’s selections on another popular sitcom.
Oddly enough, I didn’t originally know of ‘I’m Gonna Blow You a Kiss In the Wind’ as a Boyce and Hart song, having first heard it covered on the 1984 Redd Kross LP ‘Teen Babes From Monsanto’. I was actually lucky enough to see Redd Kross perform the song live a few years later.
When I finally picked up a copy of the Boyce and Hart original (and saw the episode of Bewitched that contained the song) I was pleased to discover that I dug the OG even more than the cover.
The Bewitched episode includes two performances of the song, one by Elizabeth Montgomery as ‘Serena’ and again by Boyce and Hart.
The Boyce/Hart ‘I’m Gonna Blow You a Kiss In the Wind’ was the last 45 they released as a duo (in the Fall of 1969).
Though the record has a bubblegum heart, the delivery is a little harder edged than most of that genre and has an excellent arrangement by Jimmie Haskell.
The single is also notable for carrying with it a most excellent B-side with ‘Smilin’.
Despite the fact that both sides of the single were top notch pop, neither song made even a minor dent in the charts.
I hope you dig both tunes, and I’ll be back next week.
Peace
Larry
PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.
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Awesome selection.
“Oddly enough, I didn’t originally know of ‘I’m Gonna Blow You a Kiss In the Wind’ as a Boyce and Hart song, having first heard it covered on the 1984 Redd Kross LP ‘Teen Babes From Monsanto’. I was actually lucky enough to see Redd Kross perform the song…”
That is the exact same for me. In fact, I listened to the rather bitchin’ Red Kross version just a few months ago.
It’s worth noting that “Smilin’” was re-worked for use in a Coca-Cola commercial for the “things go better with Coke” series of ads which featured dozens of big name artists from the 60′s. I can’t find the “Smilin’”-based commercial on Youtube, but their other Coke commercial is on there, and it’s pretty great, too.
Y’know Robert, now that you mention it I seem to have a vague recollection of those ads.
good call on that one.
It’s hard to state just how great the output of B&H was.
When the kids were little we were watching “Home Alone” on teevee Thanksgiving week-end. They had a little news break around the commercials and announced that Tommy Boyce had killed himself. It knocked me for a loop. In his book Davy Jones says he realized Tommy dropped clues he was gonna check out but missed them until after the fact.