Continuing with our avian theme for one more day (yesterday’s song was Paul McCartney’s “Bluebird,” with the Beatles’ “Blackbird” the day before that), today’s classic song of the day is “Mrs. Bluebird” by a group called Eternity’s Children. This one’s a little more obscure than either of Paul McCartney’s bird tunes—and it’s likely that many of you haven’t heard it at all.
“Mrs. Bluebird” is a piece of sunshine pop that was released in May of 1968. It charted fairly low on the Billboard Hot 100 (it topped out at #69) but did better in some regional markets, including San Diego, San Francisco, Tulsa, Miami, Dallas, and, in Canada, Toronto and Winnipeg. It may have skipped some markets completely.
Eternity’s Children were birthed in Cleveland, Mississippi, as the Phantoms. They were formed in 1965 and changed their name the following year. The group consisted of Linda Lawley on vocals, Bruce Blackman on vocals and keyboards, Johnny Walker on guitar, Charles Ross III on bass, and Roy Whittaker on drums.
“Mrs. Bluebird” was written by an equally obscure songwriter named Karl Marion, of whom I know next to nothing. The group issued a follow-up single, “Sunshine Among Us,” that failed to crack the Hot 100. They released their first album, the self-titled Eternity’s Children, in 1968, and broke up in 1970. The various members went their various ways, with Blackman and Walker founding the group Starbuck, which had a top five hit in 1976 with “Moonlight Feels Right.”
And that’s about all I know about “Mrs. Bluebird” and Eternity’s Children. It’s not a bad tune, all things said and done; it sounds a little like the Association, Spanky and Our Gang, and other vocal-heavy groups of that era—but with a psychedelic fuzz guitar solo in the middle.
That leads us to today’s daily bonus video of the day, Eternity’s Children lip synching “Mrs. Bluebird” on some television program back in 1968. Groovy, baby.
