Music Flashback from LA Radio.com to August 25, 1971, and a Comment on Password cheating

Before getting to the less enjoyable items of events in politics of Los Angeles and Sacramento by persons who used to be called "Public Servants" I will stay on the lighter side a little longer, but still, you see there's a gripe here, but not so much for myself, but for the site where this music information was presented today.

Going back to the well today for another taste of days gone by in music, taken from today's LARadio.com, that by the way, is a subscription site addressing the radio industry from mere listeners like me, to inside industry operations and the story behind scenes and more information about current activities and a lot of history and stories.

Password Sharing on LARadio.com
Another note about this site, laradio.com, is that it may not continue past this year since there are thousands of hits daily on this site using other people's passwords, even though the basic yearly subscription cost is only about $4 a month. A subscriber will give out his or her password then it continues to be used by more people, continuing with others now "Sharing" the password.

Sharing passwords on pay sites really is not harmless and hurts the small operations like this one, speeding the end of its operations as not being worth the effort that it takes to put it together everyday. In this situation, the results directly create an effect that is immediately and directly felt by the website.

There are two harmful sides to this password-sharing action:

First, giving out the password is being the first offender and simply unfair, violating the agreement agreed upon to be the only user in the first place.

Second, getting the password to use for free is being a cheapskate, and it's done by many who could afford to pay. Collectively it amounts to some significant financial damage to the site's operations. If people find LARadio.com to be enjoyable- and they must if they keep checking it out- a cost of less than a dollar a week is fair and a bargain for what it there every day.

It should not be a huge burden when you consider the other things that people spend similar amounts of money on routinely, for example, when eating out anywhere, even fast food. And have you seen parking rates ANYWHERE, both public or private lots? The cost of ONE beer at a restaurant or bar would about cover a month's worth of the subscription. This site is very cheap to subscribe to, but the password sharing is being really a cheapskate. That's the gripe.

As you see, this music particular part of LARadio.com gets my attention everyday, but unless they are songs from farther back, I usually don't know them as well.

Top Five Flashback, August 25, 1971:

How Can You Mend A Broken Heart by the Bee Gees,
Take Me Home Country Roads by John Denver,
Signs by the Five Man Electrical Band,
Mercy Mercy Me by Marvin Gaye,
Mr. Big Stuff by Jean Knight.

For me, this was all at the end of my time as an undergrad and the beginning of moving on to other things. There were lots of people from four years of time as a student that I would never see again, or would fade out, little by little, friends included. Disco had not begun yet and you can see the Bee Gees were performing a delicate ballad here, while Marvin Gaye had begun to move on to social commentary in his songs.

Going back to August 24 in 1962 for some hit tunes.

Here's a few tunes from this date a long time ago, appearing in today's LARadio.com. You might remember these songs, and if you remember them as original hits, then you are from a long time ago, too. This music was from a time before the British Invasion, Psychedelic Rock and it followed the period where DooWop was strong. The Beach Boys and other groups had helped to keep surfer music maintain a solid hold in the pop scene around this time.

The songs in the list could all be heard on single stations that at that time played all types of music before the later change that kept stations playing music in particular categories like country, R&B, hard rock, Soft Rock, Smooth Jazz and so on. If you listen to 94.7 "The Wave" now, you will hear songs on that "Smooth Jazz" stations that were once conisdered very pop, including rock, Motown, easy listening, regular oldies as well as newer releases. Just goes to show you that changes happen all the time and there's often a return to practices of the past that work out again at a different time.

Top Five Flashback, August 24, 1962:

The Loco-Motion by Little Eva,
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do by Neil Sedaka,
Things by Bobby Darin,
You Don't Know Me by Ray Charles,
Sheila by Tommy Roe.



One feature of these songs of this period in the past is that the lyrics are very easily understood and the content is usually about life experiences relating to love and relationships or group activities like certain dances and events that mostly are on the fun side.

PostScript: The singer, Little Eva, only 19 when "The Locomotion" became a hit, died on April 10, 2003. The obituary in the UK site for "The Independent" from April 12, 2003, show quite a bit of her life's path and also demonstrates that many financial rewards from hit songs and their re-birth when performed by other artists do not always trickle down to the original artists and performers, especially in those days.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/little-eva-730204.html