I love the “Woodstock” concert film, but I gotta say Sha Na Na’s “At the Hop” hasn’t dated nearly as badly as Ten Years After’s “Going Home” or John Sebastian’s “Younger Generation.”

Gringo: Aside from the occasional commercial, doo-wop is a great, almost-forgotten music.

I couldn’t believe the hate on Billy Joel, in part because he let his doo-wop colors fly!

The Longest Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_XgQhMPeEQ

Although the Beatles spanned my teenage years, currently I listen more to doo-wop than I do to the Beatles.

parker: Amen to that!

Some old rock stars like Joni Mitchell and David Crosby say today’s record companies wouldn’t have signed and promoted many of the classic rock acts. Today record companies want a look and a sound they can package.

Which isn’t to say that didn’t happen back then, but there was still room for original performers, who might not have the looks or might not be easy to pigeonhole, to succeed.

As a thought experiment I wonder what would happen if a 19 year-old Laura Nyro showed up today to audition. Would the record companies know what to do with her?

Nyro was a great songwriter. My wife introduced me to her music. We still listen to her own recordings now and then. Her interpretation of her own songs was better than the covers.

BTW, Van Morrison does a fine cover of Momma Said.

neo: A brainy, beautiful college housemate played “Eli and the Thirteenth Confession” for me in 1975 and I never got over it.

Glass acknowledged how many amazing musicians he knew who just didn’t make the right connection at the right time as he had.

Your story reminds me of Judee Sill, who grew up in Oakland — not quite a dreary California valley town — learned piano in her father’s bar, was convicted of armed robbery as a teen, then solidified her musical chops as an organist in reform school and studying Bach.

She fit into the 70s LA music scene. David Geffen signed her as his first artist for Asylum Records. But she didn’t sell and she was complicated.

Sill and Geffen had a falling-out. Then she had a nasty auto accident. (Danny Kaye rear-ended her on a winding LA canyon road!) She got into trouble with painkillers and eventually OD’d in a trailer park.

She was also a homebrew Christian. Here is her signature song, recorded by Warren Zevon among others:

Jesus Was a Cross Maker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8tDmPmC_Bk

I love her too.

Nyro was a favorite of mine, back in the day.