My wife was born in 1966 so I made her a playlist CD for her car with all the hits of 1966. One song that stuck in my head was Frank Sinatra’s “Summer Wind”, so much so that I learned to sing it and play it on my guitar (it has two upshifts in key!). I also did some research on how it came to be written.
It happens that Heinz Meier wrote it in Germany in 1965 as “Der Sommerwind” with lyrics by Hans Bradtke. Johnny Mercer liked the song and wrote English lyrics keeping the same theme, a story of love found and lost, using the changing seasons as a metaphor. The summer wind of the title is the southern European sirocco wind. Wayne Newton recorded his version also in 1965, as did Bobby Vinton and Perry Como.
But it is the Frank Sinatra rendition that most people know because it was the most popular as measured by the hit parade charts. Why? The earlier versions are good, done by music professionals, but were not popular.
First, Sinatra’s voice in 1966 was familiar to most listeners, and his reputation had reached stellar proportions. His timing and inflections on “Summer Wind” are technically superb and perfect, including the two pitch changes.
Second, it was one of his last collaborations with Nelson Riddle, a masterful arranger of popular music. To a deceptively simple song, Riddle added the pitch changes and a big band, recalling that era for the listener, and eliminated the second chorus to let Sinatra’s voice drift off at the end, just like the wind.
This reminded me of George Strait’s “Amarillo By Morning”, a song written by Terry Stafford and Paul Fraser and recorded by Stafford in 1973. Several cover versions followed, including one by rodeo champion Chris LeDoux in 1975. But it was George Strait who made it a major hit in 1983. As he says with typical modesty, “I put it on an album and y’all made it a hit.”
Why? As with Sinatra, Strait was an established star in popular music with a laconic style of singing that conveys sincerity and masculinity, essential qualities for a country performer. Strait’s arrangement opens with a distinctive violin riff that announces the simple musical theme (with only one upshift in key!).
I’m also reminded of John Stewart’s “Daydream Believer”, a song he wrote and performed with his band The Cumberland Three to no great audience response, but when the Monkees recorded it, the song became a chart-topping hit.
T.S. Eliot said that immature poets imitate; mature poets steal. Granted, it was in defence of his own approach to writing, but it holds true for many arts. Like Eliot, Sinatra and Strait took material others had created and made it uniquely and successfully their own. We often romanticize the creative artist as someone unique, completely individual, who makes a great something out of nothing. The reality is different. Artists work within the framework of a tradition, a set of conventions that give shape to what they create. It is in the selecting and melding of elements that creativity lies, like that high, lonesome fiddle that opens Strait’s “Amarillo By Morning”.
By the way, don’t confuse popularity with quality. They are two different things, both important. Many popular songs are good; many are not.
Be well.
Odin the Wanderer 