Before he became Patti Smith’s lead guitarist, Lenny Kaye compiled the 2 album set, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era. Released in 1972, the two-LP set covered American garage rock and psychedelia from the years 1965 to 1968 and was a major influence on punk rock. Rhino Records reissued an expanded version of the set in 1998, with 118 tracks in total. I’m profiling and rating each of these 118 tracks, working backwards.
Track 67/118: Little Bit O’Soul by The Music Explosion
From: Mansfield, Ohio
Aphoristic Rating: 9/10
LITTLE BIT O’SOUL – The Music Explosion [2:18]
(John Shakespeare/Kenneth Lewis)
Personnel/JAMIE LYONS: vocals, percussion * DON “TUDOR” ATKINS: lead guitar * RICHARD NESTA: guitar * BURTON “BUTCH” SAHL: bass * DAVE WEBSTER: drums
Produced by JEFF KATZ, JERRY KASENETZ & ELLIOT CHIPRUT for SUPER K PRODUCTIONS
Recorded in New York, NY
Laurie single #LR-3380 (4/67); Pop #2
The Music Explosion were a five-piece band from Mansfield, Ohio. They were discovered by record producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffry Katz. Kasenetz and Katz also signed the bubblegum pop acts 1910 Fruitgum Company and The Ohio Express, and produced Ram Jam’s 1977 hit ‘Black Betty’.
I’d never heard of The Music Explosion before undertaking this project, but their 1967 song ‘Little Bit O’Soul’ is one of the highest charting songs on the Nuggets set, reaching #2 on The Billboard Charts.
The song was written by British writers John Carter and Ken Lewis, best known for penning the 1965 Herman’s Hermits’ hit ‘Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat?’. Before becoming a songwriting team, Carter and Lewis formed the band Carter-Lewis and the Southerners, briefly featuring Jimmy Page on guitar. ‘Little Bit O’Soul’ was originally recorded by British band The Little Darlings in 1965, but The Music Explosion’s version is the definitive version.
I’m surprised ‘Little Bit O’Soul’ hasn’t remained a radio staple – it sounds fresh and vibrant, a soul-influenced song with some garage rock grit. Jamie Lyons’ vocal is brash yet musical.
The Music Explosion were unable to capitalise on the success of ‘Little Bit O’Soul’. None of their other singles cracked the top 50, and their sole album was unsuccessful. There’s a fascinating comment section on Mark Prindle’s review site, with people like the band’s bass player Burton Stahl commenting on how unscrupulous Kasenetz and Katz were. The below comment refers to their practice of getting The Music Explosion to record thinly-veiled rewrites of other songs on their 1967 album.
First off, if you play the Music Explosion track titled, “Can’t Stop Now” and then play the song called “Up and Down” by John Fred & The Playboy Band (one of their 45’s on Paula, as well as a track on their “Judy In Disguise” LP), you will find that “Can’t Stop Now” is a “note-for-note” complete rip-off of the John Fred tune right down to the exact melody and phrasing!… To no surprise, the song was actually written & recorded by John Fred first. I had mentioned this to John Fred in an interview that I done with him several years ago (before his recent death), and John readily acknowledged that he was fully aware of the Music Explosion “rip-off” tune. Needless to say, John was pissed as hell about it, especially because the Music Explosion track was not listed as John Fred being the writer of the song.
[email protected], http://www.markprindle.com/musicexplosion.htm
Lyons also enjoyed a Northern Soul hit as a solo artist with ‘Soul Struttin”, but passed away from heart failure in 2006.
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Aphoristic Album Reviews is almost entirely written by one person. It features album reviews and blog posts across a growing spectrum of popular music.
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Graham Fyfe has been writing this website since his late teens. Now in his forties, he's been obsessively listening to albums for years. He works as a web editor and plays the piano.
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This is a Top 10 Nugget, so it’s a 10/10
Yeah, I was wavering between a 9 and a 10.
Old Gold. I love that guy’s voice and am sadly surprised at what I learned about the band in this post. Another group that should have continued at the top of the charts with the right manager, promotion, etc. Graham, this is the first entry I think I’ve seen in this series. Great idea. I followed your link and scrolled back to #118 but after repeated attempts to comment on it I gave up.
It’s weird you can’t comment on that other one – I just did a test and it was OK.
I normally write about a “Nugget” every second Sunday morning (NZ time). Still a couple of years to go, plus can move onto the British Commonwealth box next.
That “screwed by the manager” story is sadly a recurring theme.
I’ve given up on trying to figure out how these sites work. I will keep my eyes open for future installments.
I never saw this video before but it’s great. The guy is f****** cool.
Yup, he’s got some IDGAF stage presence. Like a honey badger.
Lol. He sure does. And that was from American Bandstand too!! They had absolutely everybody on that show. I love watching those old clips.
And The Ramones did a pretty fine cover of this too!
I did notice that when I was researching but only just listened to it now. That Ramones cover is pretty faithful – 1960s garage ios clearly part of their lineage.
A great song that, being so damned old, I fondly remember from when it was a big hit.
Yeah, I’m surprised it’s not all over classic hits radio – sounds like an obvious hit song to me.
It used to be. Or at least it was through the 1980s it was a staple of oldies radio.
Yeah, I don’t know if it just wasn’t big in NZ or it slipped off playlists over time.
Do they play a lot of American music in New Zealand? What other kind of stuff do they play down there? I bet ya they play a lot of Australian music
I haven’t listened to the radio for years but obviously we’re in between the USA and UK and get a bit of both. Lots of Australian music too. The 1960s and 1970s are a bit thin for NZ music though, didn’t get many successful bands until the 1980s.
Me neither. I haven’t listened to the radio since the ’90s. Do people even listen to the radio anymore, I don’t even know. It’s a damn shame too, because music used to be better when the radio and the corporations picked it out for us. I think the exact opposite was supposed to happen when the internet came along and we didn’t have to let the corporations and radio decide what we heard. At least that’s what everybody said but it turns out they were wrong
I think radio kind of backed itself into a corner with over analysis – they do all this research on what songs on their playlists people might not like, but then they end up with these tiny playlists that won’t interest music nerds.
I love streaming and having access to masses of music, but it requires effort to digest unfamiliar music. If you don’t make an effort it’s easy to just get spoonfed the same old stuff all time.
I figure there’s about 20 songs that are 10/10’s on the whole album. But then there’s a bit more that are like in the 8-9 range. And probably the overall average I would say is about 7.
There haven’t been any horrendously bad songs so far, which is impressive.
My hometown is Mansfield, Ohio. I was 8 years old when this song came out. As with Cleveland about 2 hours drive to the north, Mansfield was hit hard by the British Invasion, so I’m not surprised this song was written by two Brits. (I’ve spoken with guitar-player Rick Nesta a few times. Very nice man, soft-spoken and humble. He now runs his father’s restaurant in Mansfield’s less-than-exciting downtown square.)
It’s cool you come from the same place as The Music Explosion (and Luke Perry). It’s cool you’ve met the guitarist as well.
Oh, sure. Of all the tunes you’ve featured this one is the least obscure. Big hit in its time and I’m sure you can still hear it on the Sixties channel on Sirius if nowhere else. As to all the rip-offs, well, welcome to the music biz.
As someone who missed the entire 1960s and the large majority of the 1970s, Louie, Louie is the biggest Nugget. I can’t believe ‘Little Bit O’Soul’ wasn’t still in radio rotation though – just feels like a robust hit song.
What radio rotation exactly would you expect them to play this on? It was a Sixties hit and – at least in my area- the only place I might hear this tune is on Sirius 60s channel.
Back in the 1990s when i listend to radio we had a classic hits 1960s and 1970s station and an oldies station. I never heard it on either. The 1960s are twice as far away as they were then.
Is that Ginger Baker singing?
LOL, it does look like him.
How come you’re from New Zealand but you never did a post on Dunedin sound?? You’d think you would of. I never even heard that word until last night cuz this guy asked me if I liked the Chills and I said I never heard of them and he said it was the Dunedin sound, and I said what the f*** is that?? I never heard of it before. although I looked up some of the bands and I’ve heard of a couple of the names before like the Bats and the Verlaines. I might have heard them before but I’m not sure.
Im actually from Vancouver Island.
I tried to comment on your stuff before but wasnt able to. Im not the most computer slick guy on the planet.
Now I have to investigate the “Dunedin sound”.
I always get so confused about Vancouver and Vancouver Island cuz I just figured they were the same thing but they’re not. And on top of that, I wasn’t sure if it was in Canada or the United States because I didn’t know that there was two of them. One in Canada and one in the US.. Like I always thought the band Heart is Canadian, and people would always tell me that they weren’t and I would say Yes they are, they’re from Vancouver. And they would say, It’s a different Vancouver, asshole. Lmao!! But eventually I figured out that there’s one in British Columbia and one in Washington State.
Thing is Heart played Vancouver Canada regular when they started out. It was their adopted city. They played Yes covers back then. Geography was never my thing. All I know is I like where I live and the music goes down good no matter what part of the world it comes from. AS LONG AS ITS GOOD!
Vancouver Island is very pretty. I looked up pictures of it. They’ve got whales there too!!
This one was one of my favorite singles growing up. I can’t remember how I got it… but probably from an older cousin. This one and Hang On Sloopy…I should have grown up during the mid sixties.
Yeah, I should probably go back and give it a 10 – everyone else loves it and it was right on the cusp between a 9 and 10 for me.
I never heard this on the radio but did hear Hang on Sloopy a lot. The name “Sloopy” always hindered my enjoyment of the track to an unreasonable degree.
The only reason I heard both was because someone gave me the old singles… cool garage band song though.