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 1965-1968 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 42/118: I’m Gonna Make You Mine by The Shadows of Knight
Release Year: 1966
From: Chicago, Illinois
Aphoristic Rating: 7/10
I’M GONNA MAKE YOU MINE – The Shadows Of Knight [2:35]
(Carole Bayer/William Carr/Carl D’Errico)
Personnel/JIM SOHNS: vocals * JOE KELLEY: lead guitar * JERRY McGEORGE: guitar * DAVE “HAWK” WOLINSKI: bass * TOM SCHIFFOUR: drums
A DUNWICH Production
Recorded in Chicago, IL
Dunwich single #45-141 (10/66); Pop #90
Chicago blues band The Shadows of Knight have three songs on Nuggets – unusually for the set, all three are covers. The Shadows of Knight established their recording career with another cover – they enjoyed a local hit with a sanitised cover of Them’s ‘Gloria’. After the original was banned on a Chicago radio station, they released a version with Van Morrison’s original line changed from “she comes to my room, then she made me feel alright” to “she called out my name, that made me feel alright.”
The band were originally called The Shadows – a name they had to change for obvious reasons. Lead singer Jim Sohns was only 16 when The Shadows of Knight formed in 1964. After a stint as the house band at The Cellar in Arlington Heights, Illinois, they attracted attention when they opened for The Byrds.
I’ve always been a little prejudiced against this band – their remake of ‘Gloria’ isn’t as exciting as the original. This song is strong, however. It’s most notable for its big sound for 1966 – the punchy power chords and soaring chorus aren’t far from 1980s stadium rock, even though it’s not particularly polished. The song was co-written by Carole Bayer, famous for writing a bunch of syrupy hits like ‘That’s What Friends Are For’ and ‘A Groovy Kind of Love’.
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Punchy is a good adjective for it. Not bad.
Yeah, I’m interested in how they got thar tough sound in 1966.
I noticed on the picture of the 45 that you got up there that where it lists the writers one of them is D’errico, and I said to myself that name sounds so familiar. So I looked it up and the reason it sounded familiar is because it’s Carl D’errico, and he was one of those minor Brill Building writers who only wrote like one hit. And the one that he wrote is It’s My Life by The Animals, which is their greatest record. Well, besides House of the rising Sun. And another one it says is Carole Bayer Sager who was another one of those minor Brill Building people. She used to be married to Burt Bacharach. But anyway, this song is all right. It’s pretty hard sounding for that time period, kinda.
Carole Bayer kept on going past the Brill Building era. That’s What Friends Are For!
She had one excellent song in the late seventies called Come in from the Rain, which millions of people recorded. I have a couple of them myself by Melissa Manchester and also Diana Ross and I think some male soul singer too, maybe Luther Vandross or something. I can’t think of any other songs she wrote besides the ones you said.
Arthur’s Theme. Nobody Does It Better. A Groovy Kind of Love. (I didn’t know these off the top of my head btw – I had to look it up.
I forgot that Burt Bacharach also used to be married to the actress Angie Dickinson, of Police Woman fame. That show was awesome. I used to watch it in reruns and it’s one of those really really ’70s police shows that were so great. Angie was so awesome. Lol
I do not know anything about Police Woman.
And Police Woman’s name was Pepper on the show. Pepper Anderson or something. Can’t remember if she was a Sergeant Detective, which they usually were on those cop shows, but if she was she would have been Sergeant Pepper, which I think I would have remembered if everybody went around calling her Sgt. Pepper. And I don’t remember them doing that. Lmao!!!!
Yeah she really was Sgt. Pepper. See this from Wiki.
From 1974 to 1978, Dickinson starred as Sergeant “Pepper” Anderson in the NBC crime series Police Woman, for which she received the Golden Globe Award for …
It’s a pretty solid tune. I love the raw sound and the band’s energy. Where it’s perhaps a bit lacking is the melody. After listening to it once, I couldn’t hum it.
I maybe could have rated it a little higher but I’m not huge on Gloria or their previous Nuggets song.
That guitar…I wasn’t expecting that. I never heard that kind of distortion before this time…it does look toward the future. A huge Thumbs Up on this song.
It’s much better than their version of Gloria.
I think we’ve talked before how rock music suddenly sounded tougher around 1969. These guys managed to mostly get there in 1966, I reckon.
I agree…I was expecting what I heard.
Hey, that was pretty good. I confess to being puzzled about why your dislike of their other songs should have any impact whatsoever on your feelings about this song. I could cite a fair number of bands who have one or two songs I like and the rest I dismiss. Many are just one-hit wonders. I don’t much like Maxwell’s Silver Hammer or Doctor Robert. Should I then not like, say, Get Back?
Nah you got that mixed up. You should love Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and dislike Doctor Robert. Haha
The other three Beatles begged Paul to keep that POS off of Abbey Road.
The only song I might have kept off it is Because. Everything else I pretty much love. The two that people usually don’t like are Maxwell’s and Octopus’s, both of which I love. And for some reason a lot of people don’t like Mr Mustard and Polythene Pam. I don’t understand why because they’re both great. Too bad they were so short though and not full length which would have been great.
Yeah, don’t like ‘Octopus’ either. Take them off and give Harrison the space. As to the other two, that whole Side Two medley is great. Despite all that, Abbey Road is my favorite Beatles album.
Harrison must have had a shed load of great songs by that point.
Yes, and if you saw the recent Beatles doc put together by a Famous NZ director, you’d know that George was working some of those tunes out with the band pre-Abbey Road. The big ego guys largely snubbed him, hence ‘All Things Must Pass.’
I really don’t like I Want You (She’s So Heavy) or Oh! Darling, which I understand isn’t a conventional opinion.
Ya know what? I had to learn to like those two songs too. I always liked the She’s So Heavy part but not the other part. Now I like the whole thing. And then I started to like Oh Darling after I started to like doo-wop and 50s pop, which is really what it is.
Oh Darling has a hard edge, though. It probably wouldn’t have been a hit for a white band in the 1950s.
It’s just written in the 50s style, but performed in a harder 60s style. Which is what makes it so great.
It’s part of a subgenre named “Paul’s granny music” – I think that’s what Lennon called it?
I think it was George who called it granny music. Which is funny. But I like them all especially Your Mother Should Know. And When I’m 64.
And he was right. Lennon was often highly critical of his own tunes as well.
BTW, check out Wikipedia on that one. You certainly don’t have to agree. But Good Christ the guy could be great and then lame in the same breath.
Which song are you talking about.
Wikipedia? Maxwell
I always just thought it was one of those songs in the old tradition of songs about criminals and outlaws and killers and stuff. I forget what they call it but it’s something like gruesome humor or something like that. It goes back like hundreds or thousands of years or something. A lot of times they were called The Ballad of so and so. about a criminal who killed all these people. And they were like upbeat sometimes so it contrasted with the words. You know what I mean.