You may not know Chuck Prophet. OK, check that. I’ll play the odds here. You have no idea who Chuck Prophet is. Don’t know him, in fact, from Adam’s housecat.
But you should. Man, you really should.
And in celebration of today being the first day of summer, let me offer you just one of many reasons why.
May I introduce to you the single greatest summer song you’ve never heard; a Chuck Prophet song whose vibe is as laid-back and as full of sunbaked attitude, and a song that is as much a sultry, shimmering groovefest as anything you've heard since Hot Fun in the Summertime. It is a tune that captures the essence, if not the very sound, of a long hot summer's day like few ever recorded; a song so cool you'd swear it’s gotta wear shades.
Listen to Prophet’s sun-bleached voice. Listen to the guitars doing their ever-loving best to mirror what the midday heat might sound like as it's rising off a stretch of two-lane blacktop and making the tar stick to the bottoms of your worn out Chuck Taylors. Listen to his off-hand but delicately placed pop culture references that suddenly take that sultry summer day out of the universal and somehow make it not only recognizable, but personal.
The song is Summertime Thing, and it’s the song, frankly, Kid Rock was trying to make a few years back when he mashed up Warren Zevon and Lynyrd Skynyrd and spit out All Summer Long.
But as you’ll soon hear, Kid Rock is no Chuck Prophet.
Check it out. Here’s to summer. Here's to sultry. And here’s to a summertime thing or two for everyone in need of it.
MC, Nice tune, May I suggest "Under the Boardwalk" by the Drifters, and "Summer in the City" by the Loving Spoonful. The cultural references in these songs resonate greater with me.
T: Thanks. But so that I'm clear, I didn't say this was the best summer song you ever heard. I said it was the best one you never heard. But to your point, those two songs (which are both terrific) are far more urban in their view of summer -- which would make sense since in that both were written by people who, like you, grew up in NYC.
Thanks again for the comment and hope you're well.
MC: You're right -- certainly is a great summer tune -- and I've never heard it before now. Great post. (I just re-discovered a long lost 'summer song' by Tommy James called 'Love Song'....loved it many (many) summers ago, although probably heard it only 5 times on the radio. When I hear it now I get transported, which I guess is the magic alchemy of 'our' summer songs in the first place!
Bob Allen, Syracuse