Smile A Little Smile For Me – The Flying Machine- Another one hit wonder, this one has that wistful summer day quality that takes you back in time.
Smiley – Ronnie Burns-An odd little Australian curio. It definitely has a BeeGees/Beatles kind of vibe which I guess is expected given the place and timeframe it comes out of.
Someday Man – The Monkees-Davy Jones on vocals during this version of the Paul Williams tune.
Someday We’ll Be Together – Diana Ross & The Supremes-The last worldwide chart topper before Diana went solo. She is in fact the only member of the group singing here.
Something – The Beatles-The second most covered Beatles song, (after “Yesterday”) even though it’s a Harrison tune, McCartney’s fingerprints are all over the instrumentations and arrangement.
Something In The Air – Thunderclap Newman-John Keen, who was employed by The Who as a roadie wrote this, and Pete Townshend arranged the strings and played bass. It features those very unique raspy kinda vocals, but a certain innocence shines through. The song lives on in several movies, commercials and the like. The fact that it was such a big hit surprised all that were involved with it, so I’m sure they never envisioned it having the kind of shelf life that it does.
Son Of A Preacher Man – Dusty Springfield-My son knows about this tune because of “Pulp Fiction”-Thanks Quentin, now if you can just get him to appreciate Zappa we’ll be all set.
Soul Deep – The Box Tops-Alex Chilton (aka Bobby Boxtop) grunts and vamps over this deeply soulful record. The double tracked harmony parts are an instant winner.
Space Oddity – David Bowie-A 1969 UK top ten, this would not chart stateside until 1973. Probably one of the first hit recordings to use a string section played with a Mellotron , a keyboard instrument that was attached to a series of tape loops. Rick Wakeman is playing it.
Spirit In The Sky – Norman Greenbaum-Many times you hear a popular record form the ‘60’s and it seems very dated. Not so here, the handclaps double with the snare to create an infectious rhythm section and the fuzz guitar just pulsates over the top. The record has become a classic and has been used countless times in movies and TV programs.
St. Louis – The Easybeats-I may have been a little hard on these guys earlier in the alphabet, but this here is an infectious little tune
St. Stephen – Grateful Dead-It took me a long time to come around to them, but The Dead played as well as anybody else you can name back then and were as funky if not more so than most of the competition.
Stand! – Sly & The Family Stone – The tune is relatively straight forward, but the performance is razor sharp, and the sentiment is topical for the times and still rings true today. Unbeatable in many ways.