The “Golden Hits“ 

Main MenuConcept Refinement The Author..Wayne JancikGolden Age Of The 50sGolden Age Of The 60s1970s and There After

 

GLENCOVES

 “Hootenanny”

(     )

Select 724

No. 38    July 27, 1963

.

.

.

For a moment in time, hootenannies were gatherings of folkies and fans gathered to sing and to

exchange songs of interest.   Pete Seeger has said they were like a “wingding or a shindig.”   Pete ought to

know.   Souls have said that it was he who practically created the term.    In the early ’60s, the public

caught on to those folkie flavored sounds of the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul & Mary and these hoots,

as the hip called them.      The vigilant moguls at ABC the network in 1963 even fabricated a

“Hootenanny” program to tie in with the growing fad.   Seeger told Arnold Shaw, author of the

Dictionary of Pop/Rock that, “It was really a phony program.   It wasn’t a real hootenanny.   The word

almost got ruined and I almost stopped using it.”

Likewise, the Glencoves were not really a folk group.    Seemingly, the “group” did not even exist prior to

producer Al Ham getting the notion to package some product to meet the needs of this newly delineated

market.    Ham reportedly rounded up some pop voices, added some folkie sounds, and Select Records

succeeded in creating something of a hit.   By the release of their follow-up, “Devil’s Waitin’ (on Bald

Mountain),” the “group” and its producer had actually come up with something pleasing and unique.

The disk actually had some of that genuine folk-rock intensity that the Beau Brummels and the Bryds

would months later rediscover and offer.