Groovin’
Groovin’ begins with bird sounds. The Brigati brothers whistled them into the studio microphone, inspired by the immersive sound effects the Beatles had used on Yellow Submarine. Dino Danelli played congas with a woodblock taped to the side. Cavaliere said the result sounded like a clock you ignored on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. There were no conventional drums, no organ, no guitars in the opening. Felix Cavaliere switched to piano. Chuck Rainey came in on bass when Gene Cornish could not nail the part. A studio janitor named Michael Weinstein played harmonica on the single version when time ran out. Arif Mardin supervised the arrangement. The whole record was built to make you feel like nothing was happening, which was the entire point.
Felix Cavaliere wrote the song about his girlfriend, Adrienne Buccheri. He was touring and recording constantly, and Sunday was the only day he had free to see her. The music came from Latin rhythms he had picked up while working mountain resorts in Upstate New York years earlier. He hummed the melody to Eddie Brigati, who wrote the words. Atlantic Records did not want to release it. Jerry Wexler thought it strayed too far from what the band was known for. The DJ Murray the K was in the studio during the session, heard the playback and told Wexler it was a certain smash. He promised to play it on his radio show. That was how a song with no drums, no organ and no guitars in the conventional sense became a number one record.
Groovin’ was released as a single on April 10, 1967. It entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 79 on April 22 and hit number one on May 20. The song spent four non-consecutive weeks at the top because Aretha Franklin’s Respect bumped it for two weeks in between. It also reached number three on the Hot R&B Singles chart and went RIAA gold by June 13. The album Groovin’ followed on July 31, 1967 and reached number five on the Billboard 200. The song is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. It holds a Grammy Hall of Fame Award. It prompted the band to drop the word Young from their name. Fifty-nine years ago today, the album was out and summer was ending. The feeling it was built to hold outlasted both.