I Have Been Seeking P.F. Sloan II Quiz

Answer: Take Me for What I'm Worth

Although "Take Me for What I'm Worth" was the Searchers' last song to reach the Top 20 in the U.K. (as well as the Top 30), it made little impact in the U.S., reaching only number 76 on the Billboard Top 100. Nevertheless, writing a hit song for a Merseybeat group during the "British Invasion" provided Sloan with a counterpoint for his early advocacy of The Beatles: he had advanced from being a mere promoter of the Merseybeat sound to a creator of it.

Answer: The Spokesmen

The Spokesmen were three L.A. songwriters, two of whom (John Madera and David White) had previously co-written such hits as "At the Hop" for Danny and the Juniors, "You Don't Own Me" for Lesley Gore and "1-2-3" for Len Barry. They took their patriotic, anti-Communist song to Decca Records, which was run by Hollywood legend Lew Wasserman, who pushed the song as a response to Sloan's negativity. It managed to spend three weeks in the Hot 40, peaking at number 36. Co-writer Madara said that, after touring Vietnam with the Bob Hope tour during Christmas 1966, he "had some personal regrets" about having written this song.

Another patriotic answer song, the lengthy spoken word "Day for Decision" by Johnny Sea, made it to number 35 on the Billboard Hot 40, as well as reaching the top 20 on the country charts, and was nominated for a Grammy.

Answer: Venus in Blue Jeans

"Venus in Blue Jeans" was a top ten hit in the U.S. and Canada in 1962 in a version by Jimmy Clanton. In the U.K., a cover version by Mark Wynter reached the top ten. Greenfield and Keller also wrote several U.S. top ten pop hits for Connie Francis, including Billboard number ones "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" and "My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own". Greenfield's other main writing partner was Neil Sedaka, with such hits as "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do", "Calendar Girl", and the 1970s comeback "Love Will Keep Us Together". He also wrote an Everly Brothers hit, "Crying in the Rain" with Carole King. Keller, meanwhile, wrote several hits in the 1960s and 1970s with Diane Hildebrand, including "Easy Come Easy Go" for Bobby Sherman.

As the last two questions show, other songwriters were among Sloan's most vocal critics.

Answer: You Baby

Sloan said that he began writing "You Baby" because it was a "favorite expression" of the older R&B artists on Aladdin Records. For example, Amos Milburn frequently had "baby" in his Aladdin song titles (such as "Atomic Baby", "Let's Make Christmas Merry, Baby", "Hold Me, Baby", "Baby Baby" and "Thinking of You, Baby"), and Thurston Harris had recorded an Aladdin song called "Nobody but You", so Sloan was "really taken in" with the idea of a song entitled "Nobody But You Baby".

However, Aladdin went broke, and "You Baby" was not completed until eight years later, when Sloan was 21.

Answer: Ballad of a Thin Man (Mr. Jones)

The story, as told in Sounes' book "Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan", began after Dylan played Sloan his song "Ballad of a Thin Man", which had left both men laughing. David Crosby showed up, and Dylan and Crosby went into the bedroom. Immediately after they left, two women wearing nothing from the waist up came into the room from the bedroom and sat on the couch "like book ends," as Sloan described it. Then a man hanging from a rope and wearing a Zorro outfit swung into the room through the window, sat on the couch in between the women, and stared at Sloan. In Sloan's telling, Crosby and Dylan were gone for "15, 20 minutes", during which "nobody said a word." To Sloan, this appeared to be a joke by Dylan based on the lyrics of the song, with its references to naked people, circus performers and being all alone. Then the women and "Zorro" finally left through the front door, Crosby came out of the bedroom and introduced himself, and Dylan resumed playing the album. Immediately afterward, Sloan and Steve Barri recorded a cover version of "Ballad of a Thin Man" (under the title "Mr. Jones") with their band The Grass Roots, which was released in October 1965, but it fell just short of making the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.

Dylan biographers have debated for years whether there was a deeper meaning to Dylan's prank, such as disrespect for a "faux" folk singer like Sloan. The best answer appears to be that we'll never know for sure.

Answer: Where Were You When I Needed You

"Where Were You When I Needed You" had been given by Sloan and Barri to Herman's Hermits for the "Hold On!" movie, and their performance of it appeared in the film. When the Hermits declined to issue it as the follow-up single to "A Must to Avoid", however, Sloan and Barri were able to convince Lou Adler to let them and some of their friends (such as producer-engineer Bones Howe on drums) record their own version of it for Dunhill Records under the name The Grass Roots. To Dunhill's shock, the record reached number 28 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Dunhill refused to allow Sloan and Barri to tour in support of the single, however (in part because performers were paid more than songwriters), and forced them to recruit a band (S.F.'s "The Bedouins", featuring lead singer Bill Fuller) who "became" The Grass Roots and started playing throughout California under Sloan and Barri's guidance.

Ultimately, the Grass Roots would record three versions of the song: one sung by Sloan (the hit, which appeared on the first album), one sung by Bill Fuller (an alternate single version), and one sung by later lead singer Rob Grill (which appeared on the second album).

Answer: The Peppermint Trolley Company

The Peppermint Trolley Company, led by brothers Danny and Jimmy Faragher, parlayed their regional hit "Lollipop Train" on faltering Valiant Records into a contract with Acta Records, where they released seven singles and an album as well as recording the version of "The Brady Bunch" theme song that was used during the opening credits of the show's first season.

They would probably have been better off sticking with Valiant, as fellow "sunshine pop" act The Association did, because Warner Brothers Records bought Valiant right after the Peppermint Trolley Company left and made The Association into major stars.

Unfortunately, the Peppermint Trolley Company's one album has been reissued with all of the Acta singles as bonus tracks, but it does not include the Valiant single.

Answer: Sloan's tour of Europe with Barry McGuire behind "Eve of Destruction"

Although all of these events did happen in early 1966, the one singled out by Barri as the turning point in their relationship was Sloan's brief tour of England, France and Italy with Barry McGuire in late 1965 and early 1966. According to Barri, Sloan "came back a completely different person, convinced he didn't want to write pop stuff anymore."

Each of the other events may have played a role as well. In April 1966, Sloan and Barri were in the studio working with Jan Berry on new Jan and Dean material, although Sloan said that Jan "was in a strange mood, not quite there." On his drive home, Jan's car crashed, and he suffered brain damage, basically ending the career of Jan and Dean. In May 1966, Adler and his partners Jay Lasker and Bobby Roberts sold Dunhill Records to ABC, which installed Lasker (whom Sloan disliked) as label head, and Adler's involvement with the label became progressively less. Soon thereafter, Barri became Dunhill's new director of A&R in place of Adler. In early June 1966, after several headlining performances at venues such as the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco as The Grass Roots, the former members of the Bedouins, including lead singer Bill Fulton, decided that they wanted to play their own music and so quit the band. Without live appearances, the first Grass Roots album (mostly sung by Sloan) failed to chart.

Answer: Let's Live for Today

A Los Angeles group named the 13th Floor (not to be confused with the successful garage-rock band The 13th Floor Elevators) became The Grass Roots in late 1966 and were responsible for all further Grass Roots records, with their first two albums ("Let's Live for Today" and "Friends") produced by Sloan and Barri.

The British group The Rokes wrote and recorded a smash hit in Italy entitled "Piangi Con Me" (which translates as "Cry with Me"). The Rokes then created an English-language version of the song entitled "Passing Thru Grey" -- but Dick James Music, which held the publishing rights, didn't like their English lyrics and had a staff writer compose the "Let's Live for Today" lyrics. Both the Rokes and a New York group named the Living Daylights recorded the new song before Sloan and the Grass Roots did, but Dunhill's rush-release of the Grass Roots version made it the hit, selling over two million copies just in the U.S.

Answer: "I Count the Tears" by the Drifters

The chorus of the Drifters' 1960 hit "I Count the Tears", written by the famous songwriting team of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, features a chorus of "Na, na, na, na, na, na, late at night." The chorus of "Let's Live for Today" uses the exact same tune with lyrics "Na, na, na, na, na, na, live for today." Although Sloan was familiar with "I Count the Tears" and recognized the plagiarism, he knew that neither he nor Dunhill would be involved in any subsequent copyright litigation (which never happened, because Doc Pomus refused to join a lawsuit against Dick James Music, the song's publisher).

However, some people in the songwriting community, which had previously attacked Sloan for writing "Eve of Destruction", now attacked him for a claimed pattern of plagiarism dating back to his surf music days.

Answer: Sun Studios, Memphis

The album cover states that the album was recorded at Sun Studios, which is now known as Philips Recording to distinguish between it and the original Sun Studio, the one-time home of Sloan's idol Elvis Presley (as well as Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison, among others). According to Sloan, Elvis' mentor Sam Philips himself attended two days of the recording sessions. Part of the album may have been recorded at Muscle Shoals Recording Studios in Alabama as well, but only Sun Studios is credited on the cover.

The album cemented Sloan's reputation as a musical chameleon, as it reflected as much of Sloan's R&B influences from his early Aladdin Records days (in part because of Dowd and the Memphis backing musicians) as it did the surf, pop and folk that he was famous for.

Answer: Paul Stookey

Paul Stookey had become a star as a member of Peter, Paul and Mary in 1961, and the band was always extremely successful until it broke up in 1970. His involvement with Sloan illustrates that the divisions between Sloan and the mainstream folk community from back in 1965 had healed. According to Sloan, Stookey "came to my rescue" after Sloan had done "some nonsensical things." Stookey's intervention began a period during which Sloan suffered a series of physical and mental problems largely caused by undiagnosed hypoglycemia, which brought a premature end to Sloan's mercurial musical career at the tender age of 23.

Answer: Japan

Although Dunhill refused to promote Sloan as a solo artist, its foreign licensees had no such hesitation, and EMI/Toshiba turned "From a Distance" into an unexpected hit in Japan. Sloan's illness at the time kept him from capitalizing on it, although he made a halfhearted try for a comeback with 1972's "Raised on Records" album on Mums in the U.S.

He then had an over 20-year gap to his next album, 1994's "Serenade of the Seven Sisters", which was only released in Japan (because of Sloan's prior success there).

In 2006, his comeback album "Sailover" finally made an impact in the U.S. and renewed interest in his songwriting, performing and producing career.

Answer: The Association

Sloan had played a major role in discovering Webb (who had already written "Up, Up and Away", "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and most of "MacArthur Park" when he met Sloan) and getting him a publishing contract. Like Sloan, Webb wanted to be a recording artist instead of just a songwriter, and a chance meeting with Sloan back in L.A. inspired the song, which appeared on Webb's first solo album, "Words and Music." The song's first lines yielded the title for these quizzes about Sloan: "I have been seeking P.F. Sloan/But no one knows where he has gone." Among the other artists that have recorded the song, aside from Webb and the Association (who had previously recorded Sloan's "On a Quiet Night" in 1967), are Larry Coryell, Jennifer Warnes and British group Unicorn in the 1970s and Jackson Browne in the early 1990s.

Sloan said that he was unaware of the song and first heard The Association's version "at a hot dog stand on Sunset Boulevard.... I had borrowed some coins for coffee.... I was away from music and living on someone's couch.... I had had all my royalties suspended. I had absolutely no money.... I thought to myself, 'God is still alive, and remembers and loves me.'"

Answer: Brian Wilson

Sloan, who was living in India at the time, became aware of Dr. Landy's claims in 1988 and wrote a letter to Billboard denouncing Dr. Landy as a fake. The letter is reprinted in Timothy White's book on the Beach Boys, "The Nearest Faraway Place". One result of the ensuing controversy was that, in 1989, Dr. Landy was charged with "grossly negligent conduct" and fraud in Wilson's case and subsequently surrendered his license to practice in California. Brian Wilson, under new medical care, eventually improved sufficiently to return to music in the 2000s, just as Sloan did. Ironically, according to Steve Barri, Brian Wilson had worked with Sloan and Barri on Jan & Dean records during the mid-1960s, and they had also produced a session with Brian's ex-wife's band The Honeys, but Brian apparently did not remember the real Sloan when Dr. Landy tried to assume that identity.