According to the text with the video, this came out in 1961, so I was thirteen years old. I loved it and can remember specific times when I heard it. I was particularly taken with that now-classic guitar lick, which, or some variant, has been heard in a lot of songs. I've always assumed this was the first but I could be wrong.
That album cover with the white couple is kind of interesting.
I never thought about that guitar lick beginning anywhere. How do you know stuff like that.
AMDG
I don’t know, it just sticks. Been sticking a long time, too, obviously.
I noticed that album cover, too. I remember at times wondering about the race of this or that performer. I guess the record companies preferred not to draw attention to the race of black artists, at least until the mid-’60s or so. There was no mystery about the Four Tops or the Supremes or Otis Redding or Aretha Franklin.
Dang, this is great.
what?
The song! I listened to it through my stereo. There’s so much more to it than I ever heard on AM radio, or through my computer speakers at work yesterday.
I think album covers showed the artists were black before the 1960s. See a Johnny Mathis cover from 1957 here and one for Nat King Cole the same year here. And before that there were the Mills Brothers and <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ella_sings_gershwin_1950.jpg” rel=”nofollow”> Ella Fitzgerald . Or maybe there were different covers for those same albums when they were sold in the South?
Oops — I see that the Ella Fitzgerald link doesn’t work; maybe this will http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Sings_Gershwin
Oh yeah, I didn’t mean they never showed them. Certainly everyone knew that people like the ones you name were black (or “black” in the case of Johnny Mathis :-)). But it could be that in the case of lesser known artists, or when they were introducing a new artist, that they left the race unknown. I’m really just speculating.
The thing about that particular album cover is that the man is very dark. It’s sort of suggestive.
I love this song because it’s one of the ones I used to listen to on the radio in my grandparents bedroom when we went there on Sundays for lunch.
AMDG
right, there’s sort of a hint.
I love it somewhat nostalgically, too, but I think I would love it if I had never heard it until today.
I wouldn’t have thought it was a “white couple” – obviously not being attuned to the difference between tanned and coloured.
“White” and “black” are not to be taken as physical descriptions.:-) “Black” means “of African ancestry”, which can be indicated in two ways: obvious physical characteristics, or inherited cultural identification, i.e. being part of the “black” community. So an Indian the color of walnut is not black, but a member of the black community who is the color of cafe au lait is. It’s a pretty crazy mess.
The guy on the album cover doesn’t have African features at all, hence is presumptively white, but like Janet says it’s ambiguous.
Having thought about it a little more, remembering Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley albums that showed them on the cover, I decided that my initial suggestion was wrong. But then I found this article. Scroll down about halfway, to the Chantels’ album. So apparently it was done at least sometimes.
Light On Dark Water 
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