Scott McKenzie (born Philip Wallach Blondheim III; January 10, 1939 – August 18, 2012) was an American singer and songwriter. He was best known for his 1967 hit single and generational anthem, “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)”.
“San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear [Some] Flowers in Your Hair)” is a psychedelic pop song, written by John Phillips (August 30, 1935 – March 18, 2001), and sung by Scott McKenzie. The song was produced and released in May 1967 by Phillips and Lou Adler, who used it to promote their Monterey International Pop Music Festival held in June of that year.
John Phillips played guitar on the recording and session musician Gary L. Coleman played orchestra bells and chimes. The bass guitar of the song was supplied by session musician Joe Osborn. Hal Blaine played drums. The song became one of the best-selling singles of the 1960s in the world, reaching the fourth position on the US charts and the number one spot on the UK charts. In Ireland, the song was number one for one week, in New Zealand the song spent five weeks at number one, and in Germany it was six weeks at number one.
McKenzie’s version of the song has been called “the unofficial anthem of the counterculture movement of the 1960s, including the Hippie, Anti-Vietnam War and Flower power movements.”
According to Paul Ingles of NPR, “…local authorities in Monterey were starting to get cold feet over the prospect of their town being overrun by hippies. To smooth things over, Phillips wrote a song, “San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair).” Phillips reported writing the song in about 20 minutes.
The song, which tells the listeners, “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair”, is credited with bringing thousands of young people to San Francisco, California, during the late 1960s.
Different issues of the recording use slightly different titles, including: “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)”; “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)”; and “San Francisco ‘Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair'”.
Released on May 13, 1967, the song was an instant hit. By the week ending July 1, 1967, it reached the number four spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, where it remained for four consecutive weeks. Meanwhile, the song rose to number one in the UK Singles Chart, and most of Europe. In July 1967, McKenzie’s previous record label, Capitol, claimed that the “follow-up” to this song was a re-release of his earlier single, “Look in Your Eyes.” The single is purported to have sold over seven million copies worldwide.In Central Europe, young people adopted “San Francisco” as an anthem, leading the song to be widely played during Czechoslovakia’s 1968 Prague Spring uprising.
The song has been featured in several films, including Frantic, The Rock, and Forrest Gump. It was also played occasionally by Led Zeppelin as part of the improvised section in the middle of “Dazed and Confused”. U2’s Bono also led the audience in singing this song during their PopMart performances in the San Francisco Bay Area on June 18 and 19, 1997. New Order covered the song on July 11, 2014, at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. A cover of the song by Michael Marshall appears in the 2019 film The Last Black Man in San Francisco (wikipedia)
And CBS released a remix by Peter Slaghuis in 1989 :
Peter Slaghuis (21 August 1961 – 5 September 1991) was a Dutch DJ, producer and remixer, whose work was mostly released under the name Hithouse (a literal translation of his last name — slag, a hit, a beat; and huis, house).
Slaghuis was born in Rijswijk, Netherlands. He was a figure in the European dance music scene in the 1980s, producing popular remixes of various hits (most notably the “Long Vocal Dutch Mix” of “I Can’t Wait” by Nu Shooz). Slaghuis stated “I hated that song so much… I just had to put a hook over it.” With the arrival of house music in Europe, Slaghuis took up the pseudonym Hithouse and began using his sampling techniques in this field. His best known work, “Jack to the Sound of the Underground”, reached #14 on the UK Singles Chart in 1988. His next few works did not attain the same level of success, though “Jack to the Sound of the Underground” remained in public consciousness in the UK when used as the theme for both the radio and television versions of the BBC comedy show The Mary Whitehouse Experience.
He was part of the VideoKids group, which released the song “Woodpeckers from Space” in 1985, featuring Slaghuis in the video.
Slaghuis also delivered remixes to the Disco Mix Club which published them on their monthly and compilation CDs. One of his most famous mixes was Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita”. He also remixed Petula Clark’s “Downtown” as “Downtown ’88” which hit the British top 10 in December 1988.
Slaghuis’ career was cut short by his death, at the age of 30, in a car accident in 1991, when his car, traveling at a speed of 220 km/h (140 mph), crashed into an oncoming truck. (by wikipedia)
What a fucking and stupid cover version !
Personnel:
Scott McKenzie
+
some fucking overdubs
Tracklist:
01. San Franciasco Remix `89 (1) 4.46
02. San Franciasco Remix `89 (Original version) 2.55
03. San Franciasco Remix `89 (2) 3.00
Written by John Phillips
ManyFantasticColors 