Hey, I'm back doing these!
Another song I had on my infamous mixtape a long, long time ago was "The Letter," a hit for The Box Tops in 1967. In fact, it was their biggest hit by far and it later became a hit again when Joe Cocker recorded it. I didn't know anything about the group in '67…just that this was a good song and KHJ played it with a frequency that felt like every ten minutes.
I later heard that The Box Tops was a group that, at least at times, was any five musicians that the group's managers could get to show up at any concert venue, play the group's hits and be passed off as the guys on the records. I guess it helped that we, the public, didn't hear much about the original band members and it always made me think about that Rocky & Bullwinkle storyline about a plot to flood the world with counterfeit box-tops from cereal boxes.
The Box Tops had a few other records on my mixtape which we'll get to. In the meantime, these are the original musicians — I think…
And while we're on the subject, here's the way Joe Cocker sang it…