YouTube Gold: Good Lovin’

We’re going to offend some people here but honestly, some of the worst American music ever was written during the 1960s. We’re not talking about the great groups - Creedence Clearwater, the Grateful Dead, Dylan, Jimi Hendri, Janis Joplin - but about the trite and trivial junk. Some of it was just god awful.

In between the trash and the immortals though there was also a level of music that was pretty great. You could go for Sam and Dave or Carolina Beach music or Clarence Carter, almost anything out of FAME studio.

But one of the more under appreciated bands of the era was the Rascals, aka the Young Rascals.

Songs like Groovin’, People Got to Be Free, as well as big radio hits such as the much-covered How Can I Be Sure? and A Beautiful Morning still sound great.

But their best song was almost certainly Good Lovin’ and they did a great version on the Ed Sullivan show. Still a popular song today, and lovingly covered by the Dead for years, this version is as high-energy as you could wish for. Check out the drummer. That guy is having a great time. Take away the goofy clothes and they’d be fresh today.

Something we never thought about with this band though: like The Doors, no base player.

Something else we didn’t know: the original was by a band called Lemme B. Good & The Olympics. It’s pretty different but definitely interesting.