JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

I made a run over to Richmond, MO, today to play golf (by myself, walking, wearing gloves on both hands), and all the way back I listened to the ’60s on 6 on SiriusXM.

Disc jockey Pat St. John was playing “feel good” songs in an effort to lift listeners’ spirits during this time of national and worldwide crisis.

As I rolled west on Missouri 210, a nice ride in the country (at least outside the Clay County part), I let my mind drift back to my high-school and college days, when life was still a battle but those great songs came spilling out of the recording studios, soothing life’s rough edges and planting seeds of hope for love and adulthood.

After getting home today, I researched a few of the songs I had heard and found three, in particular, with interesting stories behind them.

Here are the three I settled on. I hope they make you feel as good as they made me feel this afternoon.

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“It’s Not Unusual” by Tom Jones

I defy anyone to listen to this song and not start singing along with the horn section and not start bobbing his or her head to the staccato beat.

The song was written by Les Reed (“There’s a Kind of Hush”) and Gordon Mills. Jones was unknown at the time. Wikipedia says Reed and Mills first offered the song to Sandie Shaw (“(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me”). Jones recorded what was intended to be a demo for Shaw, but she was so impressed with Jones’s version that she recommended Jones release it himself.

It reached No. 1 in the UK singles chart in 1965 and peaked at No. 10 in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100, marking Jones’s first hit here. Jones performed it three times on The Ed Sullivan Show — twice in 1965 and once in 1968.

On the day of the recording session, Jones’s group, Tom Jones and the Squires, was missing its regular keyboard player. Someone ran across the street to a coffee house in London’s Tin Pan Alley and recruited a keyboard player named Reginald Dwight.

Dwight later adopted the stage name Elton John.

On “It’s Not Unusual,” Dwight’s (John’s) playing is overshadowed by the horns, strings and myriad other instruments, but you can catch the keyboard from time to time in the background.

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“This Is My Song” Petula Clark

You would never guess who wrote this song…Charlie Chaplin.

The silent film star wrote the song in 1966 with the intention of using it in the movie A Countess from Hong Kong, which Chaplin wrote and directed. Wiki says Chaplin saw the film as a throwback to the shipboard romances that were popular in the 1930s and wrote “This Is My Song” with the intent of evoking that era. He was determined to have the old vaudeville performer Al Jolson sing it, but, unbeknownst to Chaplin, Jolson had died 16 years earlier.

Chaplin then considered having “This Is My Song” recorded by Petula Clark, who had a home in Switzerland near his residence. Clark’s husband and manager Claude Wolff received a copy of “This Is My Song” in September 1966 and liked it. However, Clark’s regular collaborator Tony Hatch wasn’t taken with it and refused to arrange it for Clark to record.

Eventually, Clark recorded it at Western Studios in Los Angeles. Another interesting side note is that the recording session featured the backing of the Wrecking Crew, a loose collection of Los-Angeles-based studio musicians who were employed on thousands of rock-‘n-roll recordings in the ’60s and ’70s. The cast of the Wrecking Crew included the great bass guitar player Carol Kaye, the only female member of the group.

The song hit No. 1 in the United Kingdom, No. 3 in the U.S. and No. 4 in Canada.

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“I Can Hear Music” by the Beach Boys

This song was written in 1966 by Phil Spector and the incredible team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, who wrote such songs as “Be My Baby,” “Baby, I Love You,” “Then He Kissed Me,” “Da Doo Ron Ron,” “Hanky Panky” and “Do Wah Diddy Diddy.”

It was first recorded by Spector’s group the Ronettes but only spent a week on the Billboard Hot 100…at No. 100.

Three years later, the Beach Boys recorded it, and it went to No. 24. It was also released on the Beach Boys’ album 20/20, with Carl Wilson on lead vocals. “I Can Hear Music” is considered by many to be Carl Wilson’s first taste at being the “leader” of the group, succeeding brother Brian Wilson, who stopped touring in 1965.

A lifelong smoker, Carl Wilson died of lung cancer in 1998 at age 51.