Animation + Rock = Fun: The Danny Hutton Interview

Animation + Rock = Fun: The Danny Hutton Interview

by Chris Davidson

Pal to big Brian Wilson, L.A. scenester of long-standing (and, oh yeah, one-third of Three Dog Night!), Danny Hutton will live forever in the collective bubblegum consciousness for one additional and amazing reason: he worked for the grandpappy of cartoon rock labels—Hanna Barbera Records. For a year beginning in 1965, Hutton acted as the label’s resident hip youngster and recorded three of the company’s best forays into the pure pop 45 market. He also lent vocals and studio know-how to the maddest cartoon rock album of all—Monster Shindig, a bizarre horror-rock conglomeration credited to “Super-Snooper and Blabber Mouse, the Gruesomes of the Flintstones, Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, and the Wolf Man.” (What, no Morocco Mole?)

HBR hit with the Five Americans’ “I See the Light” during Hutton’s tenure with the label and went on to release a hefty amount of garage, light psych and pop over the next couple of years, including “Blue Theme” by the Hogs (AKA the Chocolate Watchband). While the majority of singles appear to have been one-off national distribution deals with bands experiencing regional chart noise, HBR long-players took the animated TV characters as a starting point and crafted dozens of mind-splitting vinyl adventures and hot session-man rock-and-roll.

Danny Hutton arrived at the start of HBR’s pop barnstorming.

Chris Davidson: How’d you get started with Hanna Barbera Records? Was that your first experience with a record label?

Danny Hutton: I was working in the warehouse for Disney/Buena Vista Records. I was basically a grunt during the day at work, but at night I hung around in the L.A. musician spots, like IHOP across from Hollywood High and Liberty Records, where I used to see Sonny & Cher, Jan & Dean, and those people. I had put out a couple of records already. My first was as the Chartermen on Invicta Records. It was called “Winken, Blinken and Nod.” This was done through Kim Fowley, who I was introduced to by Pat and Lolly Vegas. Kim actually lived up in my attic for awhile. I also had a single out on ALMO Records called “Home in Pasadena.” That was released as Daring Dan Hutton. Then I cut “Farmer’s Daughter” on Mercury as Basil Swift and the Seagrams. One day, a guy named Larry Goldberg contacted me. He was trying to get something happening at HBR. He was sort of an A&R guy, a hustler, not a musician. But he brought me into the deal as proof of his street credentials. I was a young musician, so HBR gave me a half-hour tryout. In that time, I wrote two songs, so they gave me a job!

CD: Did you cut the songs you wrote for the audition?

DH: Yes. The first song was called “Nothing at All.” I did all the vocal and instrumental parts on the record, and it was released as the Bats [HBR 445]. It was all me! The other song was “Big Bright Eyes,” which we recorded as the B-side. We did the whole session at Western Studios in six hours. I wrote “Big Bright Eyes” in the studio in ten minutes.

CD: That was one of the best singles on HBR. “Big Bright Eyes” was later a local hit for you in L.A.

DH: The version that later came out [HBR 453] under my name was the same version as the Bats, but with a different backing track. We took the original, which was more acoustic and made it more pop.

CD: What about “Roses and Rainbows,” your other L.A. hit before “Big Bright Eyes?” Wasn’t that the song they used for your appearance on The Flintstones?

DH: “Roses and Rainbows” was a big hit in town. I think it was helped along when Billboard featured it on a flexi disk in one of their issues. I really had no intention of performing live at the time. I considered myself a studio guy. But the label put the single out under my name [HBR447], set me up with a manager and started promoting me as a solo act. One day they asked if I wanted to be in The Flintstones, and right after that they showed me the finished product. I didn’t do anything. They just used the released version of “Roses and Rainbows” in the show. Funny story about The Flintstones. When I met my wife, Laurie, she told me she’d seen the episode I was in and fell in love with me on TV. She fell in love with me from the cartoon!

CD: Now, that’s a woman! Can you tell me about the flip to “Roses and Rainbows?”

DH: “Monster Shindig” was on the back.

CD: It’s a wild song and also the title track of a great HBR album [HLP2020]. Did you do the other songs on that record—“Super Snooper” and “The Monster Jerk?”

DH: That was me. I don’t remember the session too much, but I know I worked on that record. I contributed a lot to the albums being made at the time.

CD: What else do you recall about your time with the label? Did you run into any of the other acts?

DH: I was there from the very beginning, when they were just moving in the furniture. It was about a year all together. I always felt like it was more of an experiment than anything else, a cartoon company trying out the record business. The Guilloteens were being worked in L.A. [three singles on the label], but I never met the Five Americans. They never had a presence in L.A. It was a great time while it lasted, though, and definitely helped me get a leg up in the business.

Selected Discography of Hanna Barbera Records

SINGLE GROUP TITLE

HBR 445 The Bats Nothing At All / Big Bright Eyes

HBR 446 The Guilloteens I Don’t Believe (Call On Me) / Hey You

HBR 447 Danny Hutton Roses and Rainbows / Monster Shindig

HBR 451 The Guilloteens For My Own / Don’t Let The Rain Get You Down

HBR 453 Danny Hutton Big Bright Eyes/ Monster Shindig Part 2

HBR 454 Five Americans I See the Light / The Outcast

HBR 462 Art Grayson Be Ever Mine / When I Get Home

HBR 468 Five Americans EVOL Not Love / Don’t Blame Me

HBR 472 Dale & Grace I’d Rather Be Free / Let Them Talk

HBR 473 Charles Christy In The Arms Of A Girl

HBR 476 Scat Man Crothers Golly Zonk! (It’s Scat Man) / What’s A Nice Girl Like You Doing In A Place Like This?"

HBR 477 The Dimensions (Five) She’s Boss / Penny

HBR 482 The Tidal Waves Farmer John / She Left Me Alone

HBR 483 Five Americans Good Times / The Losing Game

HBR 485 Riot Squad I Take It We’re Through

HBR 486 The Guilloteens I Sit And Cry / Crying All Over My Time

HBR 488 Ron Gray Hold Back The Sunrise

HBR 489 Ronnie & Robyn Cradle Of Love / Dreamin’

HBR 492 13th Floor Elevators You’re Gonna Miss Me / Tried To Hide

HBR 494 Dynatones The Fife Piper / I Always Will

HBR 495 Scotty McKay Waikiki Beach / I’m Gonna Love You

HBR 500 Positively Thirteen O’Clock

Psychotic Reaction / 13 O’ Clock Theme

HBR 501 The Tidal Waves Big Boy Pete / I Don’t Need Love

HBR 506 Dewayne & the Beldettas Hurtin’

HBR 507 W.C. Fields Memorial Electric String Band

Hippy Elevator Operator /Don’t Lose The Girl

HBR 508 The New Breed Want Ad Reader / One More For The Good Guys

HBR 509 The Four Gents Soul Sister / I’ve Been Trying

HBR 511 The Hogs Blue Theme / Loose Lip Sync Ship

HBR 513 Sunny Lane Tell It Like It Was / Trollin’

HBR 514 The Unrelated Segments

Story Of My Life / It’s Unfair

HBR 515 The Tidal Waves Action (Speaks Louder Than Words) / Hot Stuff

HBR 516 The Timestoppers I Need Love / Fickle Frog

HBR ? The Countdowns Hold Back The Sunrise / The Shake

ALBUM GROUP TITLE

HLP 2020 Super-Snooper & Blabber Mouse Monster Shindig

HLP 2021 Flintstones Goldilocks

HLP 2023 Yogi Bear & Boo Boo Red Riding Hood & Jack and the Beanstalk

HLP 2024 Magilla Gorilla Alice in Wonderland

HLP 2025 Pixie & Dixie Cinderella

HLP 2026 Snagglepuss Tells The Story Of The Wizard Of Oz

HLP 2027 Wilma Flintstone Tells The Story Of Bambi

HLP 2028 Doggie Daddy Pinocchio

HLP 2029 Touche Turtle & Dum Dum The Reluctant Dragon

HLP 2030 Johnny Quest 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

HLP 2031 Top Cat Robin Hood

HLP 2037 Jetsons First Family on the Moon

HLP 2041 Atom Ant Muscle Magic

HLP 2043 Squiddly Diddly Surfin’ Surfari

HLP 8503 Five Americans I See The Light

HLP 8504 Renaissance Society Baroque ‘N Stones

HLP? Gene Kelly Jack and the Beanstalk TV Soundtrack

HLP ? Hillbilly Bears Hillbilly Shindig

HLP ? Winsome Witch It’s Magic

HLP ? Flintstones & Jose Jiminez The Time Machine

HLP ? Yogi Bear Mad Mad Dr No No

HLP ? The Flintstones S.A.S.F.A.T.P.O.G.O.B.S.O.A.L.T.

HLP ? Precious Pupp Hot Rod Granny

HLP ? Secret Squirrel & Morocco Mole Super Spy

HLP ? Fred & Barney Mary Poppins

HLP ? Super-Snooper & Blabber Mouse James Bomb

HLP ? Jetsons First Family on the Moon

HLP ? Sinbad Jr. Treasure Island

HLP ? Pebbles & Bamm Bamm Good Ship Lollipop

Sunshine Pop by Chris Davidson

Sunshine Pop
by Chris Davidson

What can sunshine pop hope to prove in this evil, angry world? Sunshine pop—the effervescent song of rampant happiness. A thousand hummingbirds grooving to newly discovered nectar. The virginal essence of pop, wispy and white and skimmed off a cool vanilla milkshake to be infused with gleeful melody. The together timbre of the Association, the pleasing gum-snap of the Yellow Balloon, or—most perfectly—the dazzling choral layercake of the Cowsills. What chance do these sun-drenched sounds have with us moderns?

Those with the faintest longing for purity know well the uplifting—nay the inspiring—power of this music. At its most blinding it matches bubblegum’s oomph note for note. But not for sunshine pop the sexual subtext or nasal bleating: where bubblegum says, “I got love in my tummy,” s-pop exclaims: “I love the flower girl.” A fine line, to be sure. Over here one type of joyful noise, over there another. But darn it if sunshine pop isn’t its own cheerful potpourri of twirling, exuberant arrangements and over-the-bra lovey-doveyness. Baroque pop, you ask? Not really, although the harpsichord features prominently at times, and an Old World flavor definitely pervades. Folk rock, then? Not quite, despite an acoustic drop cloth on which everything eventually lands. The balance is precarious. The peel of a harmonica or improper throaty vocal will snatch an otherwise frisky sunshine tune from your grasp and deposit it back into the standard 1960s pop camp.

Sunshine pop had a fling with the best-seller crowd in the mid-’60s—or, more correctly, light harmony pop did, for its lush harmonies and wistful themes approached but did not capture the oblique and melancholy X Factor of sunshine pop. Radio staples like “Younger Girl” and “Love (Can Make You Happy)” came close. Reams of sublime examples ducked beneath the charts. Bubbling under, the likes of the Sunshine Company’s “I Just Want To Be Your Friend” the well documented “The Grooviest Girl In The World” and “California My Way” by the Committee turned us gay with AM delight.

Some b-gum stars straddled both camps—the Archies’ “Sugar and Spice” is sun-baked like Dennis Wilson’s split ends. But sunshine pop is best discovered in the margins of bubblegum where the acknowledged luminaries took a backseat to a simplified (and remarkably moving) emotional milieu, an endless series of first dates and the blinding optimism of youth. Hit and flop alike, speak softly, and behold sunshine pop’s gentle-hearted best and brightest:

The Beach Boys
Traced directly to these rapturous lads, the roots of sunshine pop reside not so much with the overplayed hits as with certain pre-Pet Sounds album cuts. The trick is the rich B. Wilson production, which piles high the harmonies—a central facet and key differentiator between straight surf vocal disks and the true sunny stuff. Sunshine pop is, after all, less about summer rock-and-roll and more about the evocation of summer shadiness, a delicate point. A thousand harmony-laden masterpieces owe patent infringement damages to “In the Parking Lot” and especially “Let Him Run Wild.”

The Association
Too freshman-year earnest after their first hits to qualify as mainstays of the movement, the Association delivered a superb first album—And Then Along Comes The Association—overseen by producer Curt Boettcher and featuring tight bursts of harmony pop shrapnel. Forgive the facial hair for their still-thrilling “Along Comes Mary.”

The Cowsills
Optimism rock—family division. The vociferous Cowsill brood galvanized Rhode Island with the most gleaming pipes of all, a team of precision instruments tightly wound like a teenage Magnificent Seven. After a few flop singles, the tribe exploded with towering, sun-basted material: “The Rain, The Park And Other Things” “Gray, Sunny Day” “We Can Fly” and, most euphoric of all, “All My Days” part of a Cowsills EP sponsored by the American Dairy Association (fully one-sixth of tiny R.I.’s milk supply is suspected to have been consumed by a Cowsill).

The Bee Gees
Happy in spurts amidst ever-present (but very welcome) pensiveness, the Bee Gees mastered the pop form while still teens. The early Australian recordings point skyward while simultaneously staring down and come extremely close to sunshine pop without fully capitulating. Still, brothers in lock-step harmony singing about butterflies says include them with an asterisk. Said “Butterfly” is a good place to begin. “Cherry Red” and “Spicks and Specks” receive extra points for overcoming the Euro-sunshine curse, as relatively few overseas pals convincingly linked up with this sound (is it even possible to be truly happy outside of the U.S.?). Yes, the Hollies came a breadth away with “Everything Is Sunshine.”

Yellow Balloon
Gary Zekley, SoCal insider and one of many budding maestros orbiting the Wilson camp mid-decade, found chart fame producing the Clique’s “Sugar On Sunday” and writing hits for the Grass Roots. Of his earlier work, this delicious ‘67 album typifies the airy and upbeat mini-Spector density found on the most atmospheric s-pop. The Yellow B.’s self-titled theme song was also cut by a Jan-less Jan and Dean on the lost, but since rediscovered, Save For A Rainy Day LP. No better full-length specimens of sunshine pop exist.

The Ballroom / Sagittarius / Millennium
Surfacing soon after his association with the “Along Comes Mary” crew, Curt Boettcher launched a harmony steamship with a trio of worthy vessels. In quick succession, the Ballroom gave way to the Gary Usher-led Sagittarius which sired the stud-filled Millennium. The constant? Boettcher’s ability to wrest symphonic miracles on cut after cut of California vapor-pop.

The Vision
“Small Town Commotion” b/w “Keepin’ Your Eyes On The Sun” (UNI). Top side, a complex weaving tale of a fiery municipal disaster. The flip provides a luscious Gary Zekley artifact (produced under the nom du rock Yodar Critch), a perfectly realized distillation of July using girl backup, harps and a driving beat. Zeke’s command: walk with me awhile and smile.

Wind
“Make Believe” b/w “Groovin’ With Mr. Bloe” (Life). Uplifting melodious bubblegum masquerading as a 4 Seasons-like beat ballad. Joey Levine involvement. Slice off the harmful instrumental flip side, and a sun is born.

The Pleasure Fair
“Morning Glory Days” b/w “Fade In Fade Out” (UNI). Add one more entry to David Gates’ long cool-guy resume. Gee-whiz harmony with light orchestral fanfare, like a very white Fifth Dimension (perhaps the Fourth Dimension in disguise).

Hyle King Movement
“Flower Smile” b/w “Forever ‘N Ever” (Liberty). Atmospheric swirl akin to Sergio Mendes harmonizing in a hot-house garden—plus decidedly hippie sentiments told in a deliciously un-hippie manner.

The Melodic Milestones of Jeff Barry

The Melodic Milestones of Jeff Barry
by Chris Davidson

The bubblegum firmament boasts many a bigwig but none bigger and firmer than Jeff Barry, a man blessed with ears you should smooch the next time you see him. For without those nutty lobes, which uncannily heard glistening super-pop pumping up from the subway grilles on his stroll to the office down Broadway every morning, we