All You Need Is Love: The Beatles in Their Own Words:

The Sunshine Company's very name summons the spirit of the mini-genre of 1960s pop-rock that, long after its heyday, was named sunshine pop. So does their music, with the requisite exquisite multi-part male-female harmonies, buoyant optimism, and luxuriant late-1960s L.A. studio production. Look a little under the surface, though, and you find tinges of eccentric melancholy that set them apart from many of the frothy Mamas and the Papas-like groups of the period. Just as their music was more multi-dimensional than you might be led to believe by their trio of Top 100 hits, so was their story more complex than many would imagine. Could there have been any other band whose brief career whisked them through the orbits of the Carpenters, the Fifth Dimension, Jackson Browne, the Jefferson Airplane, Mary McCaslin, and John Davidson, ending at the even unlikelier destination of a pre-stardom Gregg Allman?

The Sunshine Company's very name summons the spirit of the mini-genre of 1960s pop-rock that, long after its heyday, was named sunshine pop. So does their music, with the requisite exquisite multi-part male-female harmonies, buoyant optimism, and luxuriant late-1960s L.A. studio production. Look a little under the surface, though, and you find tinges of eccentric melancholy that set them apart from many of the frothy Mamas and the Papas-like groups of the period. Just as their music was more multi-dimensional than you might be led to believe by their trio of Top 100 hits, so was their story more complex than many would imagine. Could there have been any other band whose brief career whisked them through the orbits of the Carpenters, the Fifth Dimension, Jackson Browne, the Jefferson Airplane, Mary McCaslin, and John Davidson, ending at the even unlikelier destination of a pre-stardom Gregg Allman?

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The Sunshine Company's very name summons the spirit of the mini-genre of 1960s pop-rock that, long after its heyday, was named sunshine pop. So does their music, with the requisite exquisite multi-part male-female harmonies, buoyant optimism, and luxuriant late-1960s L.A. studio production. Look a little under the surface, though, and you find tinges of eccentric melancholy that set them apart from many of the frothy Mamas and the Papas-like groups of the period. Just as their music was more multi-dimensional than you might be led to believe by their trio of Top 100 hits, so was their story more complex than many would imagine. Could there have been any other band whose brief career whisked them through the orbits of the Carpenters, the Fifth Dimension, Jackson Browne, the Jefferson Airplane, Mary McCaslin, and John Davidson, ending at the even unlikelier destination of a pre-stardom Gregg Allman?

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Bruce Springsteen once said he intended to make an album with words like Bob Dylan that sounded like Phil Spector where he sang like Roy Orbison, a nifty summary of many, but not all, of his artistic ambitions and a key to his appeal.

Between the fall of 1962 and the end of 1963, Allan Sherman was perhaps the most popular comedian in America, and along with Bob Newhart he was one of the first to rise to fame through the medium of the long-playing record album. Sherman's gimmick was his gift for taking familiar melodies – folk songs, old standards, hits of the day – and pairing them with new lyrics that turned their original meanings upside down and threw them into a whole new (and very funny) light. Sherman's twin obsessions were Jewish-American culture and the daily outrages that were part and parcel of life in postwar America – from cut-rate clothing and extended families to crabgrass and summer camp, Sherman could point out the foibles of muddling through the Kennedy era and show what was both funny and ridiculous about them.

Between the fall of 1962 and the end of 1963, Allan Sherman was perhaps the most popular comedian in America, and along with Bob Newhart he was one of the first to rise to fame through the medium of the long-playing record album. Sherman's gimmick was his gift for taking familiar melodies – folk songs, old standards, hits of the day – and pairing them with new lyrics that turned their original meanings upside down and threw them into a whole new (and very funny) light. Sherman's twin obsessions were Jewish-American culture and the daily outrages that were part and parcel of life in postwar America – from cut-rate clothing and extended families to crabgrass and summer camp, Sherman could point out the foibles of muddling through the Kennedy era and show what was both funny and ridiculous about them.