Artist: The First Edition
Album: The First Edition
Released: 1968
This is the kind of song that I love just because once you start looking into the song’s history, it just opens you mind to so many other musicians, bands, and styles. Of all though, which I have tried to give every release its due, the version by The First Edition is my favorite.
Now, it is likely more than the fact that the singer of this version is none other than Kenny Rogers! But to hear him sing a ditty about the dangers of LCD, and him explaining an LSD trip, it gives him a whole other life for me.
I have been a fan of Kenny for a very long time. But back when I actually listened to him a lot, there wasn’t Google and Wiki and all this backstory of folks. To me, Kenny Rogers was just that awesomely smooth sounding voice that told you to know when to hold them and know when to fold them, who informed Tommy he doesn’t have to fight to be a man, and who stood side-by-side with Dolly and sang about some amazing islands in the stream.
It isn’t crazy any longer to see artists jumping from one genre to another, I guess anymore it actually feels like a requirement. But back in the 60s, I guess I wasn’t aware that happened much. Granted, the more I listen to The First Edition I can see that transition being very easy.
What amazed me on this song though, was when I started digging in and looking at its use. Of course, most my age, are probably familiar with it from the hit movie The Big Labowski. A very well placed song in a movie for sure.
But going back to the writing of the song, and some of its earliest coverings, it is easy to see why it eventually became a hit. The song was written by Mickey Newbury. And of the various recordings, to me his probably follows right behind The First Edition’s cover.
After this though, it was actually recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis, Teddy Hill & the Southern Soul, and rumor has it, it was actually offered to Sammy Davis Jr! Of course, I had to find these recordings so that I could see what take a piano giant like Lewis would take on it. And sure enough, it speeds the tempo up a bit, and puts some lift to it all. Definitely sounds like Lewis from top-to-bottom. Teddy Hill & the Southern Soul do a pretty solid take similar to that of Newbury’s.
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