months afterward—and, more important, about us.
Tom and Dick Smothers became close friends of the First Edition, so we ended up on their Comedy Hour quite frequently. I can’t stress enough how much Tom and Dick helped us during that time. You have to remember, we had little name recognition and no big hits when they began having us as guests on their show. We also became Pat Paulsen’s official “Presidential Band” when he ran for the office in the ’68 election. He actually blamed us for not being elected. We all loved his warped sense of humor.
As a group, we thought we had a great sound and a big company behind us and we were ready to set the world on fire. The first song we rehearsed was “I Found a Reason,” a terrific tune by Mike Settle. Mike also sang lead vocals. We watched the charts daily, to no avail. Our first try went nowhere. However, we weren’t all that worried. Mike had been writing songs since he was in diapers, and we knew how good he was. To this day, some of my favorite Mike Settle songs that the First Edition recorded were not the hits they should have been. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t wonderful songs. They were and are.
When we started looking for songs for our first album, one kept coming back to me over and over. And it started in high school.
When I was a senior back at Jeff Davis in Houston, I met a guy named Mickey Newbury. Mickey started school at Jeff Davis in our junior year. He would come around every now and then to listen to the Scholars practice. He begged us time and time again to let him be a part of our group, but there was one small problem at the time: he couldn’t sing or play an instrument.
But Mickey liked to write music, and one day when he brought us a song he had made up, I honestly don’t think we took him seriously. You’d have to know Mickey to appreciate this, but he wasn’t insulted in the least. This guy never met a problem he couldn’t solve if he put his mind to it. His solution was, he would go home and lock himself in his bedroom for a month or two and practice. No one saw him for the entire summer.
I don’t know how he did it, but the next time he sang and played guitar for us, we were dumbfounded. He could play and he could really sing!
He was now way too good for our group, and he knew it. For those of you who don’t know him, Mickey went on to become one of the premier singer-songwriters in any genre of music in his generation. In 1966 alone, he pulled off the incredible feat of having written three No. 1 songs and one No. 5 song across four different categories—Pop/Rock, R&B, Country, and Easy Listening. If you have never heard Mickey sing, you owe it to yourself to find one of his albums and just sit down and listen to this guy.
Mickey sang and played one of those songs for me years later, long after high school. It was called “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In).” I was with the Christy Minstrels at the time, but it was way too bizarre and psychedelic for their image, and it had apparently already been promised to Sammy Davis Jr.
But the song kept coming back to me. There was something about it that I thought made it perfect for the First Edition’s first album. Remember, I had long hair, an earring, and rose-tinted glasses, and our drummer, Mickey Jones, looked like a wild man. We kind of fit the image of a song about altered consciousness. Once I got in touch with Newbury, he said he was sure it would be fine for us to record it. Sammy never did anything with it, and Jerry Lee Lewis had already recorded the song, but never released it.
An interesting side note: Glen Campbell played guitar on the recording of “Just Dropped In” as a studio musician not long before he began singing on his own records. Several of the best-known musicians of that era became regulars on First Edition records. Aside from Glen Campbell, there was Hal Blaine, probably the best-known drummer in the country at the
Tom and Dick Smothers became close friends of the First Edition, so we ended up on their Comedy Hour quite frequently. I can’t stress enough how much Tom and Dick helped us during that time. You have to remember, we had little name recognition and no big hits when they began having us as guests on their show. We also became Pat Paulsen’s official “Presidential Band” when he ran for the office in the ’68 election. He actually blamed us for not being elected. We all loved his warped sense of humor.
As a group, we thought we had a great sound and a big company behind us and we were ready to set the world on fire. The first song we rehearsed was “I Found a Reason,” a terrific tune by Mike Settle. Mike also sang lead vocals. We watched the charts daily, to no avail. Our first try went nowhere. However, we weren’t all that worried. Mike had been writing songs since he was in diapers, and we knew how good he was. To this day, some of my favorite Mike Settle songs that the First Edition recorded were not the hits they should have been. But that doesn’t mean they weren’t wonderful songs. They were and are.
When we started looking for songs for our first album, one kept coming back to me over and over. And it started in high school.
When I was a senior back at Jeff Davis in Houston, I met a guy named Mickey Newbury. Mickey started school at Jeff Davis in our junior year. He would come around every now and then to listen to the Scholars practice. He begged us time and time again to let him be a part of our group, but there was one small problem at the time: he couldn’t sing or play an instrument.
But Mickey liked to write music, and one day when he brought us a song he had made up, I honestly don’t think we took him seriously. You’d have to know Mickey to appreciate this, but he wasn’t insulted in the least. This guy never met a problem he couldn’t solve if he put his mind to it. His solution was, he would go home and lock himself in his bedroom for a month or two and practice. No one saw him for the entire summer.
I don’t know how he did it, but the next time he sang and played guitar for us, we were dumbfounded. He could play and he could really sing!
He was now way too good for our group, and he knew it. For those of you who don’t know him, Mickey went on to become one of the premier singer-songwriters in any genre of music in his generation. In 1966 alone, he pulled off the incredible feat of having written three No. 1 songs and one No. 5 song across four different categories—Pop/Rock, R&B, Country, and Easy Listening. If you have never heard Mickey sing, you owe it to yourself to find one of his albums and just sit down and listen to this guy.
Mickey sang and played one of those songs for me years later, long after high school. It was called “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In).” I was with the Christy Minstrels at the time, but it was way too bizarre and psychedelic for their image, and it had apparently already been promised to Sammy Davis Jr.
But the song kept coming back to me. There was something about it that I thought made it perfect for the First Edition’s first album. Remember, I had long hair, an earring, and rose-tinted glasses, and our drummer, Mickey Jones, looked like a wild man. We kind of fit the image of a song about altered consciousness. Once I got in touch with Newbury, he said he was sure it would be fine for us to record it. Sammy never did anything with it, and Jerry Lee Lewis had already recorded the song, but never released it.
An interesting side note: Glen Campbell played guitar on the recording of “Just Dropped In” as a studio musician not long before he began singing on his own records. Several of the best-known musicians of that era became regulars on First Edition records. Aside from Glen Campbell, there was Hal Blaine, probably the best-known drummer in the country at the
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