The Sound Of Summer Showers

This week’s summer song is, like its predecessors, an absolute corker. The Sound Of Summer Showers was recorded by Jerry Yester in 1966, the same year he contributed bass and vocals to The Monkees’ Headquarters and produced The Association’s Renaissance. What a year!

Jerry Yester first tasted success as part of The Modern Folk Quartet. They might have found greater fame had the one song they recorded with Phil Spector, This Could Be The Night, been released at the time. Brian Wilson was at the session and has called it his favourite song. (Yes, I know he’s a senile old git, but he knows a good tune when he hears one.)

Yester and bandmate Henry Diltz played on most of The Ronnettes’ recordings. Yester even played the piano on the Lovin’ Spoonful’s Do You Believe In Magic?. "There was an incredible camaraderie among musicians in those days," Jerry remembers. "It seemed like everyone helped everyone else make their records, and in this spirit I played piano on the first Lovin' Spoonful single 'Do You Believe In Magic?' in 1965." He joined the band two years later, and went on to produce Tom Waits, Tim Buckley and The Turtles, among others.

The Sound Of Summer Showers, a soft pop classic, remains, however, the pinnacle of a great recording and production career (apart from the piano in Do You Believe In Magic?, obviously).