With nods to the Doors, Sly & the Family Stone, the Righteous Brothers and Steve Martin, the latest selections to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry have a decidedly California slant.
Each year the institution surveys more than 130 years of sound recordings and selects 25 of the most musically and historically important for special recognition and preservation in the nation’s repository of cultural history.
In addition to the Righteous Brothers’ single “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” Martin’s blockbuster album “A Wild and Crazy Guy” and Sly & the Family Stone’s 1969 masterpiece “Stand!,” the Library of Congress included “The Doors,” the 1967 album that launched the L.A. quartet by way of its breakthrough hit single “Light My Fire.”
“You get ‘Light My Fire’ on your first album, and it’s all downhill from there,” Doors drummer John Densmore, 70, told The Times, with a chuckle. “I feel helium rising up under my skull.”
“I think each generation gloms onto the Doors to help them cut the umbilical cord with their parents. ‘Father! Mother!'” he shouted, echoing Doors singer Jim Morrison’s Oedipal recitation during the album’s epic closing track, “The End.”
“Kudos to the National Recording Registry people who want to preserve that,” Densmore said.
Steve Martin’s second album reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart in 1978 and spent six weeks in that spot. “I could not be more proud of this honor,” Martin said in a statement. “This means the record was probably funny.”
Also selected were Joan Baez’s 1960 debut, “Joan Baez”; Radiohead’s landmark 1997 album, “OK Computer”; radio coverage of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s funeral in 1944; Tennessee Ernie Ford’s 1955 hit “Sixteen Tons”; and rare recordings from the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair showcasing music from other countries.
“By preserving these recordings, we safeguard the words, sounds and music that embody who we are as a people and a nation,” Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said in a statement with the announcement.
By including the Righteous Brothers’ 1965 hit, the Library of Congress adds yet another distinction to a song that since its initial release has been played more than any other on radio and TV, according to the performance rights organization Broadcast Music Inc.
“That record has a life of its own,” said Righteous Brothers singer Bill Medley, who famously traded lines with his duo partner, the late Bobby Hatfield, in a song written by Brill Building husband-wife team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.
“I think it was one of the first real dramatic love songs for young kids,” said Medley, 74, who was 24 when the record hit the charts in 1965. “In those days, it was pretty much cute music. ‘Lovin’ Feelin” is not a cute record, it’s a pretty powerful record.”
“That song is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the writers are in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and now it’s going into the Library of Congress. I think it’s a big deal,” Medley said. “It just kind of keeps going on and on. It’s just always an honor.”
Songs are nominated both by fans and members of the National Recording Preservation Board.
