It Was 50 Years Ago Today: “A Groovy Kind of Love” by The Mindbenders
June 7, 1966
“A Groovy Kind of Love” by The Mindbenders
#1 on the Cashbox Top 100, June 4-10, 1966
In April 1965, a scrappy beat group from Manchester named Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders was suddenly propelled to the front lines of the British Invasion. While the band had already scored a hit in their native Britain with “Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um,” their follow-up single “Game of Love” elevated the group from obscurity in America to the very top of the US singles charts. Penned by Texan songwriter Clint Ballard Jr. — who also wrote the Hollies’ 1965 UK #1 “I’m Alive” — “Game of Love” stood out from the rest of the British Invasion by sounding like a more polished version of an American garage rock tune, blending “Louie Louie”-inspired verses with a Bo Diddley beat in the chorus.
As quickly as Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders’ fortunes had lifted, however, they dropped again. Before the year was out, Fontana left the Mindbenders for a solo career — in the middle of playing a concert, no less. While the loss of a frontman at the height of a band’s success would have been enough to fell most groups, the Mindbenders were determined to carry on as a trio. As guitarist Eric Stewart huffed afterward, “All we lost was our tambourine player.”
For their first single without Fontana, the Mindbenders issued a record that was the polar opposite of “Game of Love”: a gentle ballad rather than a raucous rocker, with dewy-eyed romantic lyrics rather than its predecessor’s leering come-ons. Instead of borrowing from American rock and blues, “A Groovy Kind of Love” quotes from classical composer Muzio Clementi’s Sonatina in G major, op. 36 no. 5. In short, the only things “A Groovy Kind of Love” shared with “Game of Love” — apart from three of the four Mindbenders — were its UK chart placement (both topped out at #2) and an American origin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXeBFEpNSVU
In addition to marking the Mindbenders’ Fontana-less debut, “A Groovy Kind of Love” was the first hit penned by a pair of NYC-based teenagers, Carole Bayer Sager and Toni Wine. Their use of the word “groovy” was possibly the first use of the term in a major pop record, preceding even Simon & Garfunkel’s “The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)” released later that year. Both young songwriters would go on to lengthy careers in the music business: Bayer Sager as writer of such hits as “Nobody Does It Better” and “That’s What Friends are For”; Wine with “Black Pearl” and “Candida,” and as a backing vocalist for artists ranging from Willie Nelson to the Archies.
“A Groovy Kind of Love” also seemed a promising start for the Mindbenders. The record was nearly as popular as “Game of Love,” climbing to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and all the way to the top of Cash Box singles chart for a week in 1966. Not only did the Mindbenders prove they could succeed without their “tambourine player,” but “A Groovy Kind of Love” outperformed all of Fontana’s solo singles, none of which even charted in the US. Nevertheless, the Mindbenders struggled to sustain their second wind, folding in 1968. But while the band may have collapsed, two of its members found even greater success just a few years later. Guitarist Eric Stewart and late-era bassist Graham Gouldman would continue to collaborate for decades afterward, most notably as members of the ’70s art-pop band 10cc. The massive success of that group — three UK #1s and several US hits, including 1975’s “I’m Not in Love” — made the Mindbenders’ performance seem modest in comparison, and left Wayne Fontana a distant memory.
It Was 50 Years Ago Today examines a song, album, movie, or book that was #1 on the charts exactly half a century ago.
