1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 93. The Young Rascals – Groovin' (1967)

 

The Young Rascals are included, I think, as an exemplar of the “blue-eyed soul” genre; soul music played by white people, in other words. Imagine if The Monkees played covers of Dusty Springfield songs, and that’s kind of what we get here.

Some tracks, such as A Girl Like You and I’m So Happy Now are upbeat, punctuated by horns, very poppy soul, sounding a little like Happy Together by The Turtles, while others are slower, like Find Somebody and How Can I be Sure?, but still souful. And, actually, what I said in the opening paragraph is reversed, as it was Springfield who did a cover of How Can I Be Sure. It also sounds like Cilla Black could have sung it, with its waltz beat and traces of French accordian.

Bits and bobs of other musical influences can be found as well – Sueno uses Spanish guitar, while the title track Groovin’ uses laid-back Latin beats. If you’ve heard any tracks off this album, chances are that it’s Groovin’, which was one of the Rascals’ biggest hits. The tracks are largely about young love, a mix of exuberance and just chilling on a sunny day, very much a summer soundtrack.

Because of the soul nature I was expecting to find some covers of Holland-Dozier-Holland or the like in the writing credits, but these are all written by the band, either keyboardist Felix Cavaliere, or percussionist Eddie Brigati for the most part. Although all four of the Rascals provide vocals, I think its Cavaliere who is the lead, and he has a very good voice for this kind of music. There’s nothing Earth-shattering or provocative on this album (but, good on the Rascals, they refused to play in segregated venues) but it is plain and simply nice music to make you feel good.

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