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Project Jenny KLIK - 1st Inf Di v Women in Vietnam RELATED-- To AFVN To Saigon To Vietnam Further Afield Index
From: Jim White
Dated: March 12, 2017
Subject: The Music You Played
Ken (and others),
Before you go digging for your playlists (Did you bury them in the back yard?), go look at https://www.afvnvets.net/afvn-history.html Paragraph 12-3 and https://nebula.wsimg.com/d0d1deaa85123c30a1d407ac098b309e?AccessKeyId=867C324947D38D2A0B0A&disposition=0&alloworigin=1 These are attributed to you. I got them off of the old Geocities site. The instructions at the bottom of the PDF are incorrect. Simply close the tab. I'll get that changed later today.
Jim W
From: Ken Kalish
Dated: March 12, 2017
Subject: The Music You Played
I’ll dig out my playlists, Ann. The Letter is my top one, and I’ll see what I can find about some of the requests I got from buddies in the Delta and a Marine aviation unit.
Ken Kalish
The Music You Played
March 2017
From: Jim White
Dated: March 12, 2017
Subject: Songs
Ann,
Nancy,
The ;list of 10 songs below matches https://www.afvnvets.net/hist---top-1969.html on the AFVN Website. I most likely got it from the old GeoCities website. The reference to "We Gotta..." matches what I have heard from a number of sources.
Jim W
From: Ken Kalsih
Dated: March 13, 2017
Subject: Ann's Request and those Odd Letters
Friends:
Jim, many less expensive web building and e-commerce tools do not have a full alphabet set. When the program encounters something it doesn’t understand, it substitutes “stuff.” The “etq oaf” you see is one such piece of stuff. It usually indicates punctuation, as does the “&a pos;” in the Oldies.com product descriptions which are trying to translate an apostrophe.
Ann, here are mine:
The Letter The Box Tops Released this one before I got to Vietnam in 1967, but it was among the most requested from my friends and I used it to close out my last show on February 28, 1969. Since most of us left by air, the lines “Gimmie a ticket for an aero plane, Ain’t got time to take a fast train, Lonely days are gone, I’m a goin’ home, My baby wrote me a letter” became a short-timer’s theme.
I Heard it Through the Grapevine Marvin Gaye, 1968-69, eventually became the theme for the California Raisins powerful ad campaign and an upbeat reaction to those suggestions of unfaithfulness back home.
I’m Gonna Make You Love Me Diana Ross and the Supremes, 1968-69, was another often resonating with guys who had received the dreaded Dear John letter.
Fire Arthur Brown, from the album The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, 1968, used to open with the original line “I am the god of hell fire, and I bring you FIRE!” but it was sanitized by AFRTS and other outlets to remove all but the last word of the open.
Light My Fire Jose Feliciano, 1968, held multiple meanings. Some people, upon first seeing the name, thought it was Jose Fellatio and it was said that way at least once on AFVN.
I’m going to add a bit more, if you think it can be used.
Abraham, Martin, and John Dion, 1968, a powerful piece of music and philosophy tying together the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and John F. Kennedy
Magic Carpet Ride Steppenwolf, 1968, a theme for those of us on the boats and our compatriots in the Hueys, the Seawolves - and not for the drug-related reasons. Sitting in the forward gun tub behind a pair of fifties on a glass calm morning with those two big diesels screaming us along at 35 knots was truly a “magic carpet ride.”
Ken Kalish
From: Charles Seward Park
Dated: March 12, 2017
Subject: The Music You Played
1 "Ballad of the Green Berets" SSG Barry Sadler
2 "Cherish" The Association
3 "(You're My) Soul and Inspiration" The Righteous Brothers
4 "Reach Out I'll Be There" The Four Tops
5 "96 Tears" The Mysterians From 1966.
Best, Park
From: Ann Kelsey
Dated: March 12, 2017
Subject: The Music You Played
The New York (City) Historical Society is mounting a major exhibit on the Vietnam War opening next fall. It is in the planning stages now. There will be audio portions, and the curator in charge is interested in creating playlists of the music that soldiers most remember listening to. The museum has a licensing agreement with BMI and ASCAP, so rights and permissions are covered.
I thought who better to ask about music, than the folks who played it. Can you all send me your top five songs for the time you were there? That should make for a nice mix of music and genres over the years from 1966-1973.
Thanks!
Ann
From: Forrest Brandt
Dated: March 13, 2017
Subject: Ann's Request and those Odd Letters
Ann, I arrived in September of 1968. It was during my nine months at Ft. Lewis in 67 - 68 that Phil Ochs' Circle of Friends came out - local (Seattle) radio didn’t know what to do. A significant part of their audience wanted songs like his, and Dylan, Jefferson Starship, the Stones - the whole acid rock, peace, love, war rebellion music scene. Those groups were selling albums and filling music hall venues. What do you do if the radio won’t play the music you want to hear? You either change the station or you shut the radio off. The whole “I’ll give you the music you want to hear if you’ll listen to the ads I need to play” scheme was collapsing. The switch from AM to FM was taking place and FM was willing to give 15 minutes of time to Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands and AM wouldn’t or couldn’t.
Soooo… where am I here? Yeah, I’m listening to this war between kids and AM radio and suddenly I’m in VN. Early on Judy Collins’ Clouds was playing - so here’s a folk song artist doing Leonard Cohen and the kind of folk music that was hot in the early 60’s, but she’s doing it in the late 60s. Clouds sticks out as the first song to make an impression on me in VN. Then, because I was out in the boonies with the First Infantry Division I listened more to KLIK than AFVN and because I was the “OIC” of KLIK - what a joke - like a cat round up with those guys - and KLIK was not restrained by command the way AFVN was, the music that I heard - and that was most requested by the troops out in the FSBs and NDPs we served - was Fixing to Die Rag and Why Don’t We do it in the Road.
Around March, 1969, Kevin Kelly was assigned to the PIO office and soon gravitated to KLIK. He introduced me to Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf and my all time favorite rock song, Sympathy for the Devil by the Stones. One of our photogs, Dominic Sondy, would go into the darkroom and crank Mother’s Little Helper and Paint it Black, also by the Stones.
The two guys I worked closest with, Bill Johanson and Wayne Yeager were into jazz. My favorite music in college had been Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, and George Shearing. Wayne had a stack of cassettes featuring these artists, but also Wes Montgomery, Jimmy Smith, Shirley Scott and others and my taste in jazz increased as a result.
Towards the end of my tour I bought a monster Sansui amp, Pioneer speakers and a Sony reel-to-reel. Somehow got a tape of Hendrix’ Electric Ladyland, the Beatles White Album, Janis Joplin and more Jazz and that became what we - Wayne, Willy and me - listened to.
Forrest
AFVN Group Conversations
From: Jim White
Dated: March 12, 2017
Subject: Songs
Ann,
Nancy,
The ;list of 10 songs below matches https://www.afvnvets.net/hist---top-1969.html on the AFVNVETS Website. I most likely got it from the old GeoCities website. The reference to "We Gotta..." matches what I have heard from a number of sources.
Jim W
From: Roy Burnette
Dated: March 12, 2017
Subject: Songs
Sounds about right to me.
From: Ann Kelsey
Dated: March 12, 2017
Subject: The Music You Played
Ken (and others),
Thanks, Jim. These are great for the years listed. I'd also be interested in playlists for the "niche" programs. I remember in 1970 there was a soul/R&B hour pretty early in the morning followed by a program that played only country western. I also think there was an easy listening program later at night.
Ann
From: Robert Tucker
Dated: March 12, 2017
Subject: The Music You Played
Anything CCR and Simon & Garfunkle
Robert Tucker, 1971-72
From: Nancy Smoyer
Dated: March 12, 2017
Subject: Songs
Ann,
I got this off a vet's website. Don't know about its accuracy.
Nancy
♪♫Top 10 Songs of 1969 ♪♫
1. Aquaris/Let the Sunshine In The Fifth Dimension
2. Sugar, Sugar The Archies
3. Honky Tonk Women The Rolling Stones
4. Get Back The Beatles
5. Crimson and Clover Tommy James and the Shondells
6. Dizzy Tommy Roe
7. Jean Oliver
8. Build Me Up, Buttercup The Foundations
9. Touch Me The Doors
10. Hair The Cowsills
… and the Number 1 hit of the entire Vietnam war: We Gotta Get Out of This Place The Animals