Mick Hartley

The man who brought us "The In Crowd" and "Drift Away" died earlier this week. Here he is on Shindig in 1965:

The NYT obituary describes "The In Crowd" as "an upbeat hymn to hipness that captured the social restlessness of the time", but really it's more a ghastly reminder of the shallow narcissism of the time:

We breeze up an down the street
We get respect
From the people we meet
They make way day or night
They know the in crowd is out of sight…

As a slice of social history, though, it can't be beat. "If it's square, we ain't there…"

But he did much much better than that. We Had It All could hardly be more different. A truly great song…

And yes, of course, I have to include "Drift Away" (1973) – a stone classic:

"Thanks for the joy that you've given me…"