REACH OUT IN THE DARKNESS for FRIEND & LOVER and MARK TWAIN

July is the month to remember “Friend and Lover.” 

July of 1968 was when their lone hit, “Reach Out in the Darkness” climbed from a promising debut in June to stay in the Top 20 through the month. It was an optimistic song, and it may have helped some people deal with the murder of Robert F. Kennedy just a month earlier, June 5, 1968.  Martin Luther King Jr. was killed only a few months before that, April 4, 1968. 

July 4th 2018 was the date when Cathy “Cat” Conn died. The event wasn’t well covered in the papers, as it had been a long time since she and her friend and lover (and ex-husband) Jim Post were getting a lot of airplay. While Jim is still active in the music business, and can celebrate the 50th anniversary of the “Friend and Lover” album (released in 1969),  Cathy left it long ago. She had two more marriages and three children. She was born in Chicago, lived quite a while in New Mexico, but came back to Evanston, Illinois two or three years before the end.      

 In the beginning, the husband-wife team (they were married only a few months after they met) played the local Chicago folk clubs, including Earl of Old Town, which had welcomed Phil Ochs, Steve Goodman and so many others. As “Jim and Cathy,” they recorded a 1965 single for Cadet: “Santa’s Got a Brand New Bag” b/w “People Stand Back.” Their next single, now under the “Friend and Lover” name, was for ABC Records: “A Town Called Love” b/w “If Tomorrow.” 

Then they auditioned for Verve’s Jerry Schoenbaum, he preferred them to be heard but not seen: “You have to send me a tape,” he told the duo, “I never listen to people in person because I’m affected by the way they look.” After all, it was all about radio play back then, and the sound. Jim said, “Why don’t you turn and look out the window?” He did and he signed them. “I think it’s so groovy now…”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqLRd4neGGE

    Yes, this was an uplifting tune, especially since it was pretty much of a lie: “people are finally getting together.” Really? Well, yes: “We went to a love-in in Central Park. When we left, I had two lines written on a napkin: ‘I think it’s so groovy, now, that people are finally gettin’ together,’ and ‘reach out in the darkness.” Inded,  there were the love-ins and peace marches, but there was also rioting in the street and two major assassinations. 

     The hippie-dippie tune was just the newest “summer of love” anthem. The previous year, July of 1967, it was The Youngbloods’ sappy “Get Together,” with the Pollyanna scolding of: “Come on people now, smile on your brother, Everybody get together, try to love one another right now.”  That dopey tune had been around for years, recorded by the Kingston Trio and even Jefferson Airplane before these shit-kickers punted it into the Top 40. Now, wise “Friend” Jim Post was singing:  “I knew a man that I did not care for…we sat and talked about things on our mind. And now this man, he is a friend of mine.” 

    “Reach Out in the Darkness” was Top 10, with session man and novelty singer Ray Stevens playing keyboards and Joe South producing, but the follow-up, “If Love Is In Your Heart” b/w “Time On Your Side: You’re Only 15 Years Old” didn’t make it. The latter, a kind of naggy Sonny & Cher tune, offered helpful advice: “Go talk to someone 65. You’ll be happy you’re so young and alive. And in a few years you’ll discover your father and mother love you so much more than you ever knew!” 

    Their hit was successful enough to warrant a full album, which came out in 1969, 50 years ago, but that was it. Produced not by Joe South but by Buddy Buie, and included nicely harmonized but silly things like “Weddin’ March: I Feel Groovy” and energetic soul-pop nonsense “I Wise Man Changes His Mind.” The lead track “Boston is a Lovely Town” is bombastic, but who the hell cares? They were raving at high speed over “lovely houses standin’ all around, made from stone out of the ground….fly up to New England!”  

    Friend (Jim) and Lover (Cathy) divorced, and Jim tried for a solo career with “Colorado Exile” on Fantasy, the label that had Creedence Clearwater Revival. Undaunted by the lack of commercial success of his debut, Post continued to create indie albums (including “Ship Shape,” “The Crooner from Outer Space” and “Reach Out Together”), and even branched out into children’s books, with gimmick “board books” including Barnyard Boogie” and “Jungle Beat.” (If you buy “Frog in the Kitchen Sink” by mail, be sure to ask the seller if it’s the first 3D rolling, bulging eye version or the one with a halograph sticker instead.)  And yes, Jim re-married too; his wife Janet is a children’s book author. 

    Jim also works as a Mark Twain imitator. Unlike Hal Holbrook, his impression includes music. His JimPost dotcom shows that he’s still performing the Twain show at a local restaurant/theater in Galena, Illinois. That’s his real mustache, folks. He also still performs his solo songs in local Illinois clubs. A highlight is his reworking of “Reach Out in the Darkness” melded with “Get Together.” Cool! Isn’t it? Well, actually, yes. Bless old hippies everywhere. They are more tolerable than young rappers. And props to Jim for saying “I don’t have any CDs here to sell. I don’t care what you do.”