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Rusty Young – 4/2021

Rusty Young (75) – Poco – was born  Feb 23, 1946 in Long Beach, California, but grew up in Denver, Colorado. He began playing lap steel guitar at age 6, and taught guitar and steel guitar lessons during his high school years at Jefferson High School, Lakewood, Colorado with George Grantham. By 16 or 17, he was keeping a schedule that would have left adult professionals panting. He taught lessons in a guitar studio in the afternoons and then played country music in bars until the wee hours of the morning. Then he would pack up and head to jam sessions, catching a few hours of sleep before it was time to go to high school. In 1966, he was surprised to get a call from a local rock band, the Boenzee Cryque. “Are you sure you want him?” Young’s mother apparently asked, “He’s in a country band you know.” Boenzee Cryque was about the most popular Denver rock band at the time and had done fairly well with several locally produced singles that were picked up by the psychedelic-obsessed Uni label. He worked with this band for two years, incorporating the pedal steel and utilizing some of his strange effects for the first time.

In the late 1960s, an acquaintance of Young’s, Miles Thomas, became the road manager for Buffalo Springfield. Richie Furay and Jim Messina needed a steel guitarist for the Furay ballad “Kind Woman” on their final album Last Time Around and after Thomas told Young about the opportunity, Young was hired. After Buffalo Springfield broke up Young and Randy Meisner (later of Eagles), Jim Messina (Loggins and Messina) and Richie Furay formed Poco with drummer George Grantham. Meisner quit a year later and was replaced with Timothy B. Schmit, who would also replace Randy later once again in Eagles. Along with Furay and Messina, Young became a founding member of Poco in 1968 upon the former band’s demise. Drummer George Grantham and bass player Randy Meisner rounded out the original Poco lineup.

“Richie had done country-rock with ‘A Child’s Claim to Fame’ and ‘Kind Woman’,” Young said in a 2014 interview. “That was the country part of the Springfield where Neil (Young) and Stephen (Stills) were way more rock ’n’ roll. You have to remember that in 1969, there weren’t synthesizers, so if you actually wanted a certain sound, you had to have a real musician playing. So that’s why I got involved — because I could play steel guitar and Dobro and banjo and mandolin, and pretty much all the country instruments except for fiddle. So I added color to Richie’s country-rock songs, and that was the whole idea, to use country-sounding instruments. Also, I pushed the envelope on steel guitar, playing it with a fuzz tone, because nobody was doing that, and playing it through a Leslie speaker like an organ, and a lot of people thought I was playing an organ, because they didn’t realize I was playing a steel guitar. So we were pushing the envelope in lots of different ways, instrumentally and musically overall.”

The band’s membership fluctuated over the years. After Furay left the group, Young took on more song writing responsibility, along with Paul Cotton and Timothy B. Schmit.

Young credited David Geffen for forcing him to become a singer-songwriter, after he’d initially only contributed a few songs to the band and never done any lead vocals on the early albums.

When it became clear that Furay was leaving to start up the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, Young said, there was a meeting where Geffen “starts with Tim and says, ‘Now, Tim, you write songs and sing, don’t you?’ And Tim says, ‘Yes.’ So he says, ‘Well, don’t you worry about Richie leaving; you’ll be fine.’ And he looks at Paul, and he says, ‘You play guitar and sing and write songs, don’t you?’ And Paul says, ‘Yes.’ … Then he looked at me and George, and he looked me in the eye, and he said, ‘Now, you don’t sing, and you don’t write songs, do you?’ And I said, ‘No, I don’t.’ So he said, ‘Well, you’re in trouble.’ And that was the day I became a singer-songwriter, and if it weren’t for David Geffen saying that to me, it never would have happened, and I owe him greatly for that.”

Young is best known for writing the Poco songs “Rose of Cimarron” and “Crazy Love“. Actually Young wrote more than a dozen of the group’s most well-known songs. 

“Crazy Love,” was named the No. 1 adult contemporary song of 1979. In a 2008 interview, Young said, “The only reason we’re talking now is ‘Crazy Love’. That was our first hit single. It’s a classic, and it still pays the mortgage.”

A reunion album in 1989, “Legacy,” brought Furay, Messina, Meisner and Grantham back into the Poco fold for a single project. The band was active until the end of the ’80s, but seemed to make less and less use of Young’s instrumental talents as the years went on.

Although based out of Nashville, Young avoided the recording session work that is the bread and butter of most pedal steel players in that area, due to the lack of space for experimentation. He could sometimes be heard playing solo at that city’s Bluebird Cafe in the ’90s and 2000s, but his main venture in the late ’90s was a trio with John Cowan and Bill Lloyd called Sky Kings. The group recorded an album for RCA Nashville in 1992 but the label shelved the record. Sky Kings then moved to Warner, releasing three singles in 1996, but their completed From Out of the Blue never saw release. Rhino Handmade would release the unheard Warner album in 2000, while Sony put out the RCA Nashville album as 1992 in 2014. Starting in the year 2000, a reunited Poco was Young’s main concern. The group released Running Horse in 2002 and toured steadily over the next decade — several live albums were released during this period and 2013’s All Fired Up.

In 2009, a handful of reunion shows saw Furay and Schmit returning, including an appearance at the Stagecoach Festival in California. Otherwise, the group carried on with Young as the sole remnant of the group’s original legacy.

In 2013, Young was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame. At the end of 2013, Young announced his, what turned out to be a short-lived, retirement and a desire to write his memoirs. However a few shows were booked into 2014 including three farewell shows in Florida. One of those shows was a performance in a recording studio in front of a live audience for a DVD document of the band’s live show. Young said there could be some one-offs in the future after that, but the band would not be actively touring as before. The final version of the band, which had Young backed by Jack Sundrud, Rick Lonow and Tom Hampton, was still performing more than 100 gigs a year.

The group celebrated its 50th anniversary reunion in 2017. Young released  his first solo album, “Waitin’ For The Sun ” that same year. Young and Jack Sundrud wrote and recorded music for children’s story videos as the “Session Cats”. Young continued to do guest performances with former members of Poco and other country rock artists. Young then released new music “Listen to Your Heart”, in 2019 was released digitally and benefited a local Steelville, Missouri animal charity, Santana’s Hope for Paws (Friends of Steelville, MO Pound) Animal Shelter.

In 2020 Young reflected on his career saying, “I’ve been fortunate to have had a magical career. From the moment I was called to play on the Buffalo Springfield album, all through Poco, and now through my solo projects, things have just fallen into place. I’ve worked really hard to be the best I can be, and I think my music is the proof.”

Poco’s Rusty Young died on April 14, 2021 from a heart attack at age 75.

In a statement Blue Elan Records released, “It is with great sadness that we confirm the passing of Poco co-founder, Rusty Young, at the age of 75. Young suffered a heart attack last night. A beloved member of the Blue Élan Records family, Young was best known as the heart and soul of Poco – the band widely considered to be one of the founders of the classic Southern California country rock sound. Young was an integral member of the band throughout their influential six decade career.”

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Greg Kihn 8-2024

Greg Kihn (75) – Greg Kihn Band – was born in Baltimore on July 10, 1949 to parents Stanley J. Kihn, a city Health Department inspector who fought in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II, and Jane (Gregorek) Kihn. Kihn’s early influence was the Beatles and their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

“Just about every rock and roll musician my age can point to one cultural event that inspired him to take up music in the first place: The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. If you were a shy 14-year-old kid who already had a guitar, it was a life-altering event… In a single weekend everything had changed. I’d come home from school the previous Friday looking like Dion Dimucci. I went back to class on Monday morning with my hair dry and brushed forward. That’s how quickly it happened.”

Kihn began his career in his hometown of Baltimore, working in the singer/songwriter mold. But he switched to straightforward rock and roll when he moved to San Francisco in 1972. He started writing songs and playing coffee houses while still in high school in the Baltimore area. When Kihn was 17, his mother submitted a tape of one of his original songs to the talent contest of the big local Top 40 radio station, WCAO 600 AM. Kihn took first prize and won three things that would change his life: a typewriter, a stack of records, and a Vox electric guitar.

After moving to California, Kihn worked at painting houses, singing in the streets, and a behind the counter job at Berkeley record store , Rather Ripped Records. His co-worker was future bandmate and Earth Quake guitarist Gary Phillips. The next year, Kihn became one of the first artists signed to Matthew King Kaufman’s Beserkley Records. Along with Jonathan Richman, Earth Quake, and the Rubinoos, Kihn helped to carve the label’s sound—melodic pop with a strong 1960s pop sensibility—an alternative to the progressive rock of the time.

In 1976, after his debut on the compilation album Beserkley Chartbusters, he recorded his first album with his own ensemble the Greg Kihn Band, which he formed with Steve Wright on bass. Wright became the most influential member of the Greg Kihn band, co-writing Kihn’s hit songs. The group further consisted of Robbie Dunbar (guitar) and Larry Lynch (drums). Dunbar, already a member of Earth Quake, was replaced by Dave Carpender in time to record their second album, Greg Kihn Again. Meanwhile, Kihn’s old record store pal, Gary Phillips, who had contributed guitar work to Kihn’s first album, returned as a session musician on the band’s Glass House Rock (1980) album. He officially joined the band as keyboardist for the follow-up album, RocKihnRoll (1981). The lineup of Kihn, Wright, Lynch, Phillips, and Carpender lasted until 1983, when Greg Douglass replaced Dave Carpender.

Through the 1970s, Kihn released an album each year and built a strong cult following through constant touring. The Greg Kihn Band became Beserkley’s biggest seller. In 1981, he earned his first big hit on the Billboard Hot 100, “The Breakup Song (They Don’t Write ‘Em),” from the RocKihnRollalbum. The song reached No. 15 on the charts and was frequently heard on album rock FM stations.

Kihn continued in a more commercial vein through the 1980s with a series of pun-titled albums: Kihntinued (1982), Kihnspiracy (1983), Kihntagious (1984), and Citizen Kihn (1985).

His global mega hit, “Jeopardy, charted at number two in the spring of 1983. The number one song then was Michael Jackson’s super hit, “Beat It”. “People like Huey Lewis and others actually opened for him,” and  Kihn’s music was even used in the epic mob series, “The Sopranos.” The groundbreaking “Jeopardy” video became an MTV favorite. In the video, Kihn plays a would-be groom with fears about getting married. “Jeopardy” received heavy airplay on the fledgling cable music channel and spawned countless imitators.

Many of the videos that followed were sequels with connecting story lines. “Jeopardy” was spoofed by “Weird Al” Yankovic as “I Lost on Jeopardy“, in subject of Al appearing the on the Jeopardy! game show the track was featured on Yankovic’s 1984 album in 3D, later that same year Jeopardy! made a comeback to syndicated nighttime television hosted by Alex Trebek (until his death on November 8, 2020), Kihn said he was flattered to be parodied, and appeared at the end of the video driving a convertible with the license plate “LOSER.” In a radio interview, Kihn commented that he received “a nice check” from Weird Al’s record company every month.

For most of the 1980s Kihn toured frequently, opening arena-sized shows for groups including Journey, the Grateful Dead, and the Rolling Stones. Kihn often appeared on TV during this period on shows such as Solid Gold, American Bandstand, and Saturday Night Live.

In 1985, Kihn broke with Beserkley Records and signed with EMI. Matthew Kaufman continued to produce Kihn’s albums. “Lucky” (1985) reached a modest No. 30 on the Hot 100 and spawned a splashy video sequel to the popular “Jeopardy” video. In 1986, Joe Satriani replaced Greg Douglass on lead guitar, Tyler Eng replaced Larry Lynch on drums, and Gary Phillips left with Pat Mosca taking over on keyboards. That is the lineup which recorded the album Love and Rock & Roll (1986.

Greg Kihn was more than a musician; he was a storyteller, a radio personality, and an author whose influence extended far beyond the stage. His years as a morning radio host in San Jose brought joy and laughter to countless listeners, while his novels showcased his unique gift for narrative.

From 1996 through 2012, Kihn was a morning radio disc jockey. He did wake-ups for KUFX, a Bay Area classic rock radio station. Kihn also wrote four horror fiction novels, beginning with Horror Show (1996), which was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel, followed by Shade of Pale (1997). Big Rock Beat and Mojo Hand were released as sequels to Horror Show.

He released Carved in Rock: Short Stories by Musicians, a collection of short stories written by him and other well-known rock musicians including Pete Townshend, Graham Parker, Joan Jett, and Ray Davies. In 2013, Kihn released Rubber Soul, a murder mystery novel featuring the Beatles.

Kihn’s last album, ReKihndled, was released in 2017. He continued to perform live as late as December 2019.

Greg Kihn died from complications of Alzheimer’s disease in the San Francisco Bay Area, on August 13, 2024, at the age of 75.

Greg Kihn’s legacy, which included one more top-40 pop and dance track with the solo 1984 tune “Lucky,” is more than just a series of clever songs and unexpected chart triumphs.  He was the epitome of the underdog rock star—modest, hardworking, and apparently always ready to laugh at himself.

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Danny Harris 10/2012

Danny Harris (65) – West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band – was born Daniel Duffy Harris in Colorado Springs, Colorado in March 1947. Danny Harris and his brother Shaun grew up in a musical family — their father, Roy Harris, was a respected composer, and their mother, Joanna Harris, was a pianist who taught at Juilliard. Both of his parents were classical music legends, Roy and Johana Harris. When John F. Kennedy made his Time Capsule of his years in the White House, Roy Harris” 3rd and 5th Symphonies were included.

In 1962, their family relocated to Los Angeles and the Harris Brothers joined a local rock band called the Snowmen, with Danny on guitar and Shaun on bass. Danny and Shaun attended the same high school as Michael Lloyd, who was playing guitar in another, more successful local group called the Rogues; Shaun was recruited to join the Rogues as bassist, and soon Michael, Shaun, and Danny began working together on music of their own. They installed a makeshift recording studio at Lloyd’s house, and cut a handful of fine singles under the name the Laughing Wind, with John Ware as their drummer. Danny played guitar in bands such as Brigadune, California Spectrum, Markley, The Laughing Wind, The Rogues (5), The Snowmen (4), The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and Scorpio Rises

 The Laughing Wind had become acquainted with noted L.A. producer and scenester Kim Fowley, and Fowley introduced the band to Bob Markley, the Oklahoma-born son of a wealthy oil tycoon who had studied law but had ambitions of making a name for himself in music, having released an unsuccessful single for Reprise Records.

Markley owned a large mansion in Hollywood where he played host to the Yardbirds, who played a party at his home when they found they couldn’t book a public show due to problems with work permits. Markley was impressed by the attention the band received from the audience of music business insiders and teenage girls, and decided he wanted to form a band rather than work as a solo act. Markley liked the Laughing Wind well enough that he made them an offer: if he could join the group as vocalist and lyricist, he would bankroll touring expenses and new gear, including a full light show. The band agreed, and soon Markley had renamed the group the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band; he also drew up contracts that saw to it that he owned the group’s name, as well as their publishing.

And thus, one of the more offbeat acts to emerge during the psychedelic era, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band were certainly eclectic and ambitious enough to live up to their slightly clumsy moniker, capable of jumping from graceful folk-rock to wailing guitar freakouts to atonal, multilayered, avant-garde compositions at a moment’s notice, but they also reflected a strongly divided creative mindset, with Bob Markley, the lyricist and ostensive leader of the group, on one side and the rest of the band on the other.

In 1966, Markley arranged for the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band to release their first album, Part One, which appeared on a small local label, Fifo Records; it was largely devoted to covers (many recorded by the Laughing Wind before Markley’s involvement), though he did contribute some originals such as “Insanity” and “Don’t Break My Balloon.” While the album’s sales were modest, the band won a following in Los Angeles for their adventurous sound and elaborate light show, and they landed a deal with Reprise Records. The WCPAEB’s first major-label album, Part One, was the first full flowering of the group’s musically ambitious side, through Markley’s lyrics tended to draw a polarized reaction from listeners; the album also saw the group expand into a sextet with the addition of monster guitarist Ron Morgan, another former member of the Rogues who arrived as tensions grew between Markley and Lloyd, the latter of who thought little of Markley’s talents.

In August 1967, just prior to recording sessions for the WCPAEB’s second Reprise album, Shaun Harris took a hiatus from the band. His departure was partly due to his disillusionment with the group, primarily with the WCPAEB’s lack of success, and it served as a waiting period while his brother, Danny, was being treated for depression. Lloyd was gone from the lineup for their third LP, Vol. 2: Breaking Through, released later in 1967, with all but two songs credited to Markley and Shaun Harris. By the time the group began work on their third album, the WCPAEB were beginning to splinter — Danny Harris left the band due to health problems, with guitarist extraordinaire Ron Morgan handling all the guitar chores, and John Ware was out as drummer, with session musician Jim Gordon taking his place. The finished product, A Child’s Guide to Good and Evil, is often cited as the band’s best and most adventurous work, but Markley’s convoluted lyrics became increasingly pretentious and bizarre, and when the album failed to sell, they were dropped by Reprise.

The Harris Brothers and Lloyd formed a short-lived group called California Spectrum with Danny, Lloyd, and Jimmy Greenspoon., but when Jimmy Bowen, who had produced the group’s earlier work, launched his own label, Amos Records, the WCPAEB landed a new record deal. The group’s 1969 release Where’s Daddy? credited Markley and the Harris Brothers, though Michael Lloyd and Ron Morgan also played on the sessions; the album featured several songs that dealt with young women in a somewhat disturbing manner, and once again they failed to connect with a larger audience. California Spectrum toured the Midwest with Markley’s state-of-the-art light show, and released two singles in its brief recording career, “Sassafras” (the same version featured on Volume One) and a cover of the Left Banke‘s “She May Call You Up Tonight”, none of which were met with much attention. When Harris returned to the WCPAEB in 1968, he touted a completely different line-up, and promoted the California Spectrum with his column in the teen zine Tiger Beat until the group disbanded sometime in early 1969. 

Lloyd negotiated with Curb to distribute the group’s fifth and final album on Forward Records. Released in 1970, Markley insisted the album, originally self-titled, should be released under the name Markley, A Group. The album benefited from the full involvement and production experience of Lloyd, who sang the majority of the lead vocals, provided keyboards, and organized the orchestral arrangements. Danny Harris was a key influence on the album, writing half of its tracks. However, although the album is generally considered an improvement over Where’s My Daddy?, the group could no longer cope with Markley’s erratic behavior, and disbanded soon after the album’s release.

Even by this band’s standards, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band’s swan song was curious: Markley opted to rename the group Markley, and recorded an album titled A Group, though the full WCPAEB lineup appeared on the LP. A Group received little notice, and soon the group was history under either name. Lloyd went on to a successful career as a producer and A&R man, Shaun Harris launched a brief solo career before going into film, Ron Morgan first enriched the Electric Prunes and then went on to play with Three Dog Night.  Bob Markley produced material for other artists until he died in 2003. From the break-up on Danny Harris divided his time between acting and folk music.

Danny married his wife Victoria in 1984 and performed as a folk music duo for the full 28 years of their marriage, seven of these years in Sweden, where they resided near Stockholm. Daniel had left the band business after the demise of Westcoast Popart Experimental Band and worked in films and became a SAG member in 1997. His best role was the prison minister in The Green Mile.

Danny and his wife Victoria moved to Cambria in 2007 to care for Victoria”s mother, Irina Wilson, and remained residents in the same home. They performed locally as a duo at Sandy”s Deli and CARES, as well as Tognazzini”s Dockside in Morro Bay.  Daniel also became a member of the Cambria Chorale after having read in the Cambrian that director Michael Bierbaum”s favorite influences had been his father, Roy Harris.   Daniel also had performed in the Pewter Plough”s production of “Love Town.

Although Danny Harris was initially disillusioned with the music industry, he recorded the gospel album Thank Him Every Day in 1980. He also worked as a folk musician and actor before dying on the set of Saving Mr. Banks from a heart attack, during a noteworthy California heat wave on October 1, 2012. 

 

West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band – WCPAEB – A Veritable Rabbit Hole

To begin with there was the name itself. Long and unwieldy, it seemed designed to defy recollection and sink the heart of poster designers everywhere. Was it a six-word manifesto of creative intent, or simply a cynical attempt to climb aboard the ‘psychedelic’ bandwagon? Then there were the song credits and album photos, according to which a certain Bob Markley was the band’s driving force, a position seemingly confirmed by the appearance of his final ‘solo’ LP: ‘A Group’. Yet, somewhat confusingly, on the back of that album’s sleeve there appeared – for the first time since the band’s debut on the Fifo label – pictures of all four original members. Last, and definitely not least, there were the songs themselves. Along the way the music encompassed almost every musical genre – harmonic guitar pop, acoustic folk, psychedelic rock, jazz and avant-garde; and then there were those extraordinary lyrics – some starkly political, others naive and child-like; at times dark and sinister, at others simply insane. As Brian Hogg observed in his sleeve notes to Edsel’s mid-80s compilation ‘Transparent Day’: “(t)here are few groups as enigmatic, as mysterious or as plain contradictory…” This article does not pretend to be a definitive account of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band – indeed, it now seems clear that some questions will never properly be answered – but the story which emerges is fascinating nevertheless, not least as an insight into how extraordinary music could emerge from a group driven by internal conflicts and held in the thrall of a man driven by dubious motives.

Born in Colorado Springs in 1946 and ’47 respectively, Shaun and Danny Harris were brought up with three sisters in an atmosphere of prodigious, but decidedly eccentric, talent. Their father, Roy Harris, was the world-renowned composer of sixteen symphonies while their mother, Joanna, was a classical pianist who taught post-graduate at New York’s Julliard School of Music. As Shaun ruefully recalls, such an environment proved to be something of a mixed blessing: “One day our mother was showing us a couple of harmony things on the piano and my dad came in and said to us: ‘You’re never going to even approximate my success, so let’s go out to lunch!’ Neither Danny nor I were trained in instruments when we were young and our parents didn’t force us. I think that was unfortunate. Later I would be asked to compose movie scores but I had to turn the work down because I didn’t know how to write music.” Years later, Shaun and Danny would proudly play their father the test pressing of the first Reprise album. As Dan recalls: “He listened to it in silence and then told us to sit down. We thought he really liked it until he said ‘It’s like bringing you up for seventeen years and realizing you’re members of the Hitler Youth Movement’! It was just so far removed from his way of musical thinking. That kind of thing has happened all our lives.”

Meanwhile, in Beverley Hills, despite the fact that neither of his parents were professional musicians, Michael Lloyd‘s mother insisted that he take lessons from a young age: “I had been playing classical piano since I was four. In the 4th grade of grammar school I met Jimmy Greenspoon who was a piano player too and we started playing duets and writing our own little instrumental songs. At that time we didn’t really sing so we decided that one of us had to learn the guitar. We both tried, but since Jimmy was more of a piano player than a guitar player, I learnt the guitar and that was when we started to play Surf music.” In 1962, while still at junior school, Michael and Jimmy formed their first band, the Dimensions, and began to play Surf instrumentals inspired by bands like the Ventures. The following year, having built up an impressive reputation locally as a live act, the New Dimensions [as they had now become] cut their first record at Stereo Masters, the 2-track studio where The Beach Boys had made their debut two years earlier: “We actually played with The Beach Boys at a couple of concerts, but we never thought of them as a Surf band because as far as we were concerned the real Surf music was instrumental!” Despite releasing several albums [recently compiled on a Sundazed CD], Lloyd’s band had little of the success of their illustrious predecessors, but it was while recording at Stereo Masters that Lloyd had a chance meeting which was to prove prophetic. As Kim Fowley recalls: “I was there mastering one day when I saw this kid being dropped off by his mother with several reels of tape under his arm. I guess I was 24 and he was 14. I said to him “Excuse me young man, are you a musician, engineer or producer?” He said “All three. Who are you?” It was the beginning of a friendship that was to prove highly significant, not just for Fowley and Lloyd, but also for the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band.

When The Beatles invaded America in 1964 Michael Lloyd, in common with many others, realized that the future belonged to vocal music. For a brief period the New Dimensions performed and recorded as a vocal group under the name the Alley Kats, but when the members drifted apart Michael formed a new group, the Rogues. In the Fall of ’64 he left High School and entered the comparatively liberal atmosphere of Hollywood Professional School and it was there that he met the Harris brothers for the first time.

Shaun and Danny had been living very much in the shadow of their parents’ musical careers, which had taken them all over North America and beyond, but in 1962 the Harris family settled in Los Angeles. It wasn’t long before the two brothers joined the Snowmen, a local band who had already had a minor hit, ‘Ski Storm’, under the guidance of producer Kim Fowley. Shaun remembers: “The guitar player was Chris Gordon who I met at a Summer Camp for entertainers’ children in the mountains. I contacted him when we got back to LA and we ended up in that band. We had a rehearsal place behind one of the members’ houses. Up until then Danny and I had been playing more like folk music and I had never used an electric guitar – only a nylon stringed acoustic – but I really liked playing this guy’s Stratocaster and twin reverb amp. I liked being in a band but I never felt I had the stage presence for it – I just liked the music. The first recording I actually remember was called ‘While I Was Away’, or something like that. When it was pressed up I drove out to California going to little radio stations, but I had no idea of the complexity of the record industry. I heard it played a few times, but it never really saw the light of day. That was quite dispiriting really. When Danny and I went to Hollywood Professional School Lloyd was in a band called the Rogues and we were in the Snowmen. There was a little bit of competition and I remember them coming to see us one night. Michael had real dedication but the rest of his band were just High School students looking for something extra to do [one member of the group, Michael Lembeck, went on to be the Director of the TV show ‘Friends’]. Danny and I had a whole lot of dedication too and I started playing bass in the Rogues. I had never played bass guitar before, but Michael showed me how in about 5 minutes.” For a short while Shaun played bass in the Rogues and whilst he was a member the band released a single on Fowley’s Living Legend label. Entitled ‘Wanted: Dead Or Alive’ b/w ‘One Day’, the A-side was a joint composition between Michael and Shaun.

Danny also remembers this time: “I went to the same Santa Monica High School as Ry Cooder and we would play Bluegrass together. When Shaun and I joined the Snowmen I was 16 and he was 17 and we played every night at the Methodist Church in Pacific Palisades. Although I could play great Bluegrass and Country guitar, I was such a bad electric guitarist that they only allowed me to play a nylon acoustic and no one could hear me! It was just at this time that we met Michael who had his own band the Rogues. Shortly after that we started our last years in High School at the Hollywood Professional School. At that time Michael was living in Beverley Hills and we were living in Malibu, so we would come by and pick him up on the way into school. The teachers there were all at least eighty years old with shiny blue hair. I stood for Student Boy President and won! So I got to meet people like O.J. Simpson. He spoke at the Police Academy and told me: ‘Stay at school Dan and get into your music, but stay healthy!’ Kim Fowley and Michael came out to hear us playing at the church. That was the time when he had groups like the Laughing Wind who were recording on Tower Records. It was a week after that we started playing together. You could say that it happened over night. We were going to the same school and all playing in bands.”

After the trio realized that they shared a common passion for music, they used some recording equipment borrowed from Shaun and Danny’s father to set up a small studio in Michael’s bedroom. It was there that they made some of the rudimentary recordings which would later appear as ‘Volume 1’ on the Fifo label under the name of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. Shaun: “My dad had some old Ampex recording equipment in his garage and we took this stuff over to Michael’s house. We would work all night and have school the next day and make demo records for people like Kim Fowley. The personnel in those days were Danny Belsky [who had already played sax with Lloyd in the Dimensions], Michael, Danny and me. Dennis Lambert was a guitar player in the band in the early days and later we added John Ware [who replaced Belsky] on drums. My girlfriend took the picture on the cover of the Fifo album – I think that was outside our recording studio in Beverley Hills.”
As Lloyd recalls: “We sat in my bedroom for a while with some Ampex tape machines and did some stuff there, but then that got to be crazy – we couldn’t have any drums. So we found a little place to rent nearby and we ended up putting our version of a little studio in and recorded all kinds of things, including that record. It was two track and Mono and we really squeezed by on whatever was handy – which wasn’t much – but it was fun. I remember at about that time the Yardbirds were playing in a club over in Hollywood and we hung around with them for a little while, specifically for Jeff Beck, and watched them play. So when we did the Fifo album it was, you know, Fender amplifiers up full and we would hit them and that’s what’s happening in our version of ‘You Really Got Me’. I don’t know if I could get the same sound again. It is just so over-driven, so much distortion – it was crazy! And that’s what all that was about. We would just kind of do each song, see what it sounded like, and then go on to the next one. Not a lot of time was spent on it.”

Danny: “The Fifo album was recorded in the Burton Way studio. The equipment was so good that word got around that we were not just a demo house – we were mastering. We would watch the British invasion on ‘Shindig’ and we loved the sounds. The harmonies of Peter & Gordon and Chad & Jeremy. We loved Marianne Faithfull, we thought the Dave Clark Five were stupendous and, of course, we saw The Beatles at the Dodgers’ Stadium. That was a catalyst to us in the sense that we thought: ‘If these guys can do it then so can we!’ After all, if it hadn’t been for Brian Epstein they might have stayed in Hamburg or Liverpool.”

Judging by their achievements thus far, it is clear that Shaun, Danny and Michael lacked neither the talent nor the ambition to achieve considerable success – had they been left to their own devices. According to Lloyd, the trio had already released a single on Tower records – ‘Good To Be Around’ b/w ‘Don’t Take Very Much To See Tomorrow’ – under the guise of the Laughing Wind. Their destiny was, however, about to take a rather unusual turn, for it was during the period of these early recordings that the fateful meeting with Bob Markley came about.

The unwitting introduction was made by Kim Fowley: “I first met Markley in 1960 because we shared the same Attorney. He was about 7 years older than me and was a guy in the tradition of Robert Conrad. He had a Colgate smile and he looked like an actor. As a child he had been adopted by an oil millionaire. He got a degree in law and was in college groups playing the bongos – a beatnik kind of thing – and he had a TV show in Oklahoma which was like American Bandstand. So there he was as the Dick Clark of Norman, Oklahoma when this Warner Bros executive came through town, saw him on camera and said: “Gee, why don’t you come to Hollywood and be an actor?” So he went to Hollywood and got signed to Warner Bros, but he failed as an actor and then he recorded that single – it was worse than Fabian! Luckily he still had his inheritance and his big house. So he was an actor, singer and lawyer who didn’t act, couldn’t sing and never practised law!” That single was, of course, the infamous Bob Markley ’45 released on Warner Bros: ‘Summer’s Comin’ On’ b/w ‘It Should Have Been Me’. Although on its surface a fairly standard piece of teenage doo-wop, there is something decidedly weird about the record and Markley’s spoken ‘rap’ anticipates the vocal style which he would later adopt on songs like ‘1906’. It would be no coincidence when, a few years later, the Reprise subsidiary of the same label released three albums by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band.

 In 1965 the Yardbirds followed hot on the heels of The Beatles with their first US tour. It was not a runaway success. As Kim Fowley recalls: “When I was in London in 1964 I met the Yardbirds at Richmond Athletic Club and became friendly with Giorgio Gomelsky. When they came to the States the following year he rang me up to tell me that they were in danger of being thrown out of the country because they didn’t have work permits. Apparently the only way they could perform was by playing a private party. So Giorgio asked me if I could fill a house with people that would break the group and I agreed.” The chosen venue was a smart mansion which Markley had rented in a fashionable district of Beverley Hills. “I told Epic to invite all the radio programmers and rock critics and we had over 180 industry journalists, programme directors, disc jockeys and a handful of the in-crowd. Al Kooper was the warm up act and Phil Spector came with his binoculars so he could watch Jeff Beck’s fingers. The Yardbirds started playing in the dark and when we put the lights up people cried and threw roses.” Amongst the guests were three awestruck teenagers – Michael, Shaun and Danny Harris. They were ‘blown away’ by the band and, like Spector, a certain member’s highly unorthodox guitar technique. As Lloyd recalls: “Jeff Beck was hitting the amplifier with his guitar and using an Vox AC30 to overdrive an AC100. In those days there weren’t any of the little attachments to produce that distorted feedback kind of sound. So there they were playing and I remember in the middle of ‘For Your Love’ and ‘I’m Your Man’ he was doing all these amazing things and we had never heard anything like it”.

But Markley was, apparently, less impressed by the Yardbirds than he was by the crowd which they had drawn to his house – especially the large number of teenage girls. So when Fowley introduced him to Michael, Shaun and Danny and told him that they had a band of their own, he took an immediate interest. According to Lloyd: “He seemed like an OK guy. We were really impressed that he had this great house and he knew all these starlets and stuff. At that time we didn’t have too much equipment and we wanted to get a light show, and so here was this guy who was saying to us: ‘Well, I want to be in your band. What I’ll do is I’ll get the equipment and I’ll just play the tambourine or congas or something’. So that is what happened. He had seen the incredible amount of girls that thought rock and roll was really cool and that was his only motivation.”

Kim Fowley adds another insight: “Knowing Markley he hustled the younger guys. He saw that with Michael and the Harris brothers he could have a Hollywood Surf version of The Velvet Underground with some Frank Zappa thrown in. The Velvets had played in New York and nobody had paid much attention, but Markley followed the media – he wasn’t stupid.” So it was that in this unlikely alliance the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was born.

It seems that much of the material which made up the Fifo album was already completed by the time Markley became involved. However, the inclusion of certain tracks – ‘Don’t Break My Balloon’ [a prime example of Bob’s ‘singing’] and ‘If You Want This Love’ – indicates that he must have had some influence over the sessions and, more to the point, their subsequent release on vinyl. As Shaun concedes, it was Bob who had the money and the contacts: “The Fifo album came about because Markley was the one who had the money to press up the records and wanted something tangible. He came up with the name – I think it was after he saw The Velvet Underground – but I thought it was pretentious and over-long. We started playing at a trendy club called The Other Place (so-called because there was a trendier club nearby called The Daisy) on Tuesday nights and we had the first on-going light show with a movie screen [see the back cover of the first Reprise album]. Markley would bring people out to watch us and that probably led to the deal with Reprise.”

Danny’s recollections are similar: “How did we end up on Reprise? That’s where Markley came in. It all happened in about six months from the time of the Yardbirds party where he heard about us, but I don’t give Markley any credit. He didn’t discover us. We already had our own studio and he had a volcanic rock pool! Starlets would come up to his house on a Sunday and we wandered into that. It was a kind of trade-off. We said: ‘OK. We’ll record these songs and put them out as a West Coast Pop Art thing and in return we want to be able to come up here and hang out’. Markley was ten, maybe fifteen years older than us and with his long hair and expensive clothes he personified the sixties look, but he had the mind of an astute lawyer. He was gifted with his tongue but not in a musical way. The biggest taunt we could give him was when he was throwing a party and we would put on that single that he did for Warner Bros!
Markley was very good at meeting people and ingratiating himself. He said ‘I’m from Tulsa, Oklahoma, son of an oil tycoon, I own my own house, I lease my place up here on the Strip and all I have to do is find a band, become a non-musical member and look the part’. Then he said that he had registered the name and not the members of the group, that he could replace anyone he chose and even sack the band. He put all the publishing through his own company – that was a typical Attorney’s move – and even though we played some big places like Birmingham, Alabama, all our earnings were nothing like they should have been.”

According to Lloyd, Bob “came to Hollywood, he had a lot of money and he liked to meet people. He played tennis at Jack Warner’s house, who used to own Warner Bros. It was a whole different kind of echelon from what we were working with – we would have been lucky to meet Jack Warner’s gardener!” As for the name, Lloyd explains: “The ‘Pop Art’ stuff was because of Andy Warhol, ‘Experimental’ because we could do almost any kind of music at that point and ‘West Coast’ because we were on the West Coast which at the time was this mystical, special place. Also it was just an odd name. It wasn’t a very serious statement of intent. I think we were just trying to put something together that sounded interesting.”

In the early days the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band appeared fairly regularly on the Los Angeles live circuit and it wasn’t long before they ventured beyond the rather cramped confines of clubs like The Other Place. As Shaun recalls: “The Velvet Underground’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable had been up on Sunset and Markley assembled the light show. We played live at that time and I remember playing at some Exhibition Centre with Frank Zappa and Little Gary Ferguson.” A flier for a gig at The Shrine Exposition Hall on the 17th of September 1966 shows the group sharing a line-up with the Mothers of Invention, the Count V, Lowell George’s Factory and the ‘sensational 7 year old’ Ferguson. The band’s photo shows Lloyd, Markley, the Harris brothers and John Ware sitting in field of flowers. “That was an old picture. Danny is wearing the glasses and the guy on the right was John Ware who played drums.” The latter’s fairly scathing account of the band’s early days, given in an interview with the Omaha Rainbow in 1981, is well known. According to Ware the band’s live performances, dominated by an ambitious light show directly inspired by Andy Warhol, were “the ultimate street happening for a while”, but he suggests that Markley was cynically motivated by the commercial exploitation of his largely teenage audience. He concludes: “It was so dumb. It had nothing to do with music.” Shaun is not impressed: “Ware had a way of saying things which was pretentious, you could say delusional, even. We didn’t make tons of money.” The light show was clearly a large part of the band’s appeal. As Fowley recalls: “I only saw them play once – at The Daisy. It was full of lots of teenagers who Markley had assembled to witness his greatness. They had a great light show done by Buddy Walters, a Hillbilly guy who later did the lights for Hendrix and The Animals.” And Lloyd said: “I think we had some sort of a following around here, I mean the Mothers of Invention opened up for us at the Shrine Auditorium when we played there. It was this gigantic light show that we used.”

With a certain irony, in the summer of 1967 the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band actually played with the Yardbirds [although Jeff Beck had by this time been replaced by Jimmy Page]. Also on the bill at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium were the Strawberry Alarm Clock, Captain Beefheart and Moby Grape and a review of the gig appeared in the LA Free Press. Despite describing the band as “instrumentally quite good” the reviewer took no care to disguise his contempt for their “non-participating producer and general hypester”, observing that “a kid in the audience was keeping better time on his tambourine than Markley.” How far this was a genuine reflection of the group’s live act, and the talents of their apparent leader in particular, is hard to judge – the Free Press was a notoriously left-wing newspaper which would inevitably have taken an antagonistic stance to a band from Beverly Hills – but photographs taken of the group playing at The Other Place the previous year, do show Markley brandishing a tambourine, his microphone conspicuous by its absence.

Wherever the truth lay, the Reprise debut album ‘Part One’ was a stunning album, not least on account of its lurid orange cover, which attempted to convey the excitement of the band’s live performance. In the effusive words of the Los Angeles Times reviewer quoted on the back cover, this was “a total experience. The group developed an S.R.O [standing room only] following”. The music occupied a broad scope, ranging from anthemic pop songs and acoustic ballads to harder-edged psychedelic numbers, but the eclectic mixture said much about the band’s internal contradictions. Markley’s influence surely lay behind the unlikely choice for the album’s only single: ‘1906’ b/w ‘Shifting Sands’. Since the songs were credited to Markley/Morgan and Baker Knight respectively, it was obvious who was in control. Despite being on a major label and having a limited release in France, the single, like the album, was not a commercial success and, given the A-side’s bizarre lyrics, this was hardly surprising. For example:

“See the frightened foxes / See the hunchback in the park / He’s blind and can’t run for cover / I don’t feel well / Hear my master’s ugly voice / See the teeth marks on my leash / Only freaks know all the answers / I don’t feel well.”

From the very beginning the rest of the band were unhappy with Markley’s dominance in the studio which was, in their opinion, out of all proportion to his musical ability. According to Shaun: “In the early days we had to acquiesce with Markley telling us what to do. The part that was frustrating was that he had no musical aptitude of any kind and so what he was trying to do to be different and innovative ended up sounding contrived. It was an embarrassment. I still feel that way.”
Danny agrees: “The musical talent in the band belonged to Shaun, Michael and myself, period. Shaun was an incredible bass player and on the first Reprise album I did a lot of the finger-picking stuff. But not only that. There was a lot of feedback, a lot of spontaneous stuff, a lot of one-take cuts.” It is arguable, however, that such internal tensions contributed much to the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band’s unique sound, since one of the undoubted strengths of their three Reprise albums lay in the constant juxtaposition of musical styles; not just between songs, but also within them. One of those extraordinary tracks was ‘Leiyla’, another was the ‘Overture’ on ‘Volume Two’. Danny: “While decibels of sound were exploding outside I would be sitting in an isolation booth listening on headphones where I would lay on a little classical thing – like a Bach cantata – right into the song.”

Although Jimmy Bowen was co-credited with Markley as the album’s Producer, he apparently made little contribution to the actual recording. As Danny recalls: “Bowen would come in with his wife at the top of the sessions at United Western recording studios and then come back after three or four hours to check it out. By that time we would have finished a song, including the vocal harmonies and everything, and he would say: ‘My god! A silk purse from a sow’s ear!'” But the presence of Bowen, who had begun his career in Texas with Buddy Holly and later went on to be a Country music producer for MCA, may have had more to do with why the band were able to record for Reprise in the first place.

Shaun: “Jimmy Bowen was basically a southern guy and Markley was from Oklahoma and that was probably how they met.” Another southern contact was Baker Knight, who composed both ‘Shifting Sands’ and ‘If You Want This Love’. “Markley had a friend called Baker Knight who wrote Ricky Nelson’s songs and ‘The Wonder Of You’ for Elvis. Because they had been hits he acted as if he could write songs for any genre – even psychedelic music. He had written very good pop songs but these were fifteen years before. ‘Shifting Sands’ was a good song but I think this owed as much to our arrangement as anything else.” According to Fowley: “‘If You Want This Love’ was originally a hit on Aurora Records for Sonny Knight, a black artist. I remember Markley told me a story once that Baker Knight had tried to commit suicide by sticking his head in a gas oven and lighting a match and he had to have plastic surgery.” By an interesting coincidence [or was it?] Jimmy Bowen’s wife, Keely Smith, had also recorded a swing version of the song under the title ‘This Love of Mine’. Danny: “We changed the time signature and made it very driving. I remember when Baker Knight first heard the playback he didn’t know what to make of it and said [adopts gruff southern drawl]: ‘Hey! I thought this was a Country song!'”

The group’s more commercial side was represented by two tracks which showcased their immaculate harmonies. According to Danny ‘Transparent Day’ “came about in the studio, much like the Everly Brothers. Shaun and I wrote that with Michael.” ‘Here’s Where You Belong’ was, of course, written by the immortal P.F. Sloan: “We were recording a thing for the Ed Sullivan show at The Other Place. It wasn’t a live recording, they were taping our group with our lightshow. Phil Sloan came by with this tune of his – it was this folk-rock Byrds kind of song – and I think Shaun had heard some of his stuff and felt that, if it was embellished with some electric guitar and our three-part harmonies, it could become a very powerful song and help our album out. Michael agreed and so the three of us met with Phil and he had to show us sheet music and how it sounded – these were the days before you had demo tapes – and I guess we recorded that about two weeks later.”
Lloyd recalls: “P.F. Sloan was a big name around here, he was like a big time songwriter. We were going to do a another of his songs called ‘Where Were You When I Needed You’, but I think, because the Grass Roots had the hit, we just didn’t get it recorded in time.” Further contrast was provided by the tracks which closed each side of the album. According to Dan, ‘Will You Walk With Me’ was “primarily coming from a classical background – there’s a string quartet and a celeste.” The song was also a good opportunity for him to demonstrate his ability on the acoustic guitar. The announcement ‘Part 1: The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band’, which introduces Van Dyke Parks’ ‘High Coin’, was an echo of the group’s live act, where the piece would be used to open each portion of the show.
Danny: “Parks was a brilliant musician. His was a piano rendition but for that first album I made my own arrangement so that it became like our break song. To me that was the high point were we blended the acoustic and electric sounds and tied it together with harpsichord.” As Lloyd recalls: “When we played live that was how we used to end each set and begin the next and that’s how ‘Part 1’, ‘Part 2’, etc. came about. We always liked that chord progression – it would fit into our folk kind of thing – but we never really knew the song.” The tune would later reappear on Lloyd’s wonderful Smoke album under the title ‘Daisy Intermission’.

There has long been confusion about who actually participated in the band’s recordings once they were signed to Reprise. According to Shaun: “We recorded the first Reprise album some time in 1966, although it wasn’t released until the following year. I was playing bass, Danny was playing acoustic guitar and either Hal Blaine or Jimmy Gordon played drums. I’m trying to remember who played guitar – I think it was Ron Morgan. Ron was friends with some of the Standells. He was a great guitar player but he had no sense of responsibility or being on time. Sometimes he wouldn’t turn up at all – he wouldn’t even get out of bed to catch a flight! The last I heard of Ron he was driving a cab in Denver.”
The involvement of Morgan, whose distinctive lead guitar playing can be heard on this and all their subsequent albums, has long been overlooked.

A clue to his involvement can to be found on the labels of the records themselves, where he is credited (alongside Markley) with writing some of the most significant songs: ‘1906’, ‘Smell Of Incense’, ‘Eighteen Is Over The Hill’, ‘As The World Rises And Falls’ and ‘A Child Of A Few Hours Is Burning To Death’. Despite this, he appears in only a single album photo – as the mysterious mustachioed figure in the round glasses and cowboy hat on the back of ‘A Child’s Guide To Good And Evil’. He would look much the same a year or so later when he turned up as a member of the ‘new improved’ Electric Prunes on their dismal Reprise swan song ‘Just Good Old Rock And Roll’.

The involvement of Ron Morgan also had another significance, because it seems that his arrival coincided with the departure of Michael Lloyd, an early casualty of the internal conflicts which would eventually destroy the band completely. According to Shaun: “Morgan got involved to replace Michael which was a thing between him and Markley – that was the time when Michael was starting his other projects.” Danny recalls: “I was never involved in that. It wasn’t Michael’s fault. It was a personality conflict because people liked Michael and they didn’t like Markley. The people who liked Markley were the sort of people who wanted to hang out at his house and meet starlets. I remember we were recording an album and there was an argument between Michael and Markley about who was going to walk out of the studio with the master tapes. It developed into a fistfight and Michael broke a guitar over Markley’s back. He just decided ‘Who needs this when I can do this by myself?’ So the studio was shut down over at Burton Way and he had a custom-made 16 track put in his own home. At that time another guy was hired just to play the guitar – that was Ron Morgan. He was a very good lead guitar player and when the band dissolved he went on to play with Three Dog Night. Unfortunately he died last year in a car accident.”

Lloyd himself has difficulty recalling exactly which of the group’s recordings he participated in, but in view of the vast number of other projects in which he was involved this is hardly surprising. During 1966 and ’67, as well as doing production work for Kim Fowley and Mike Curb, he also produced, played and sang on LPs by October Country and his own band the Smoke. He even found time to score Steven Spielberg’s first short film ‘Amblin”. Lloyd only shared one song-writing credit on ‘Part One’ – the beautifully understated ‘I Won’t Hurt You’ – and although he had sung lead on the Fifo version of the track, the Reprise recording was sung by Shaun, who also took lead vocals on most of the other songs on the album. Michael’s name or voice would not reappear on any of the band’s records until the ‘Where’s My Daddy?’ LP. According to Lloyd: “The problem was that, after a little while, it became more and more difficult for the three of us to be in a group with Markley. I don’t want to make it sound like we hated him or that it got into a huge scene, but he started to believe that he was like, you know, the real deal, as opposed to the guy who doesn’t sing and doesn’t really have any musical thoughts and stuff like that. He wasn’t content anymore just being the guy who ended up with the girls that he could get from it. Now he wanted to be respected or something – he wanted more out of it. Well, we had a lot of problems with that, because that wasn’t the deal and yet we were in this kind of symbiotic relationship. So I ended up getting a deal with Tower and Shaun and Danny and I did some stuff over there as the Laughing Wind, but nothing really happened with that.”
On the question of who sang on the records, Lloyd says: “Sometimes all three of us would sing at the same time, like on ‘Sassafras’ for instance. We recorded that as the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, but never used it and put it out later as the California Spectrum. Occasionally we did stuff like that, because Shaun and Danny were kind of folk based – acoustic guitar, finger-picking stuff, you know – and they were used to singing kind of group stuff together. Not like lead singer / backing singer, which I was used to, but people singing harmony all at once. That was something a little different for me and it was a good influence. We did a lot of stuff like that – I don’t remember now on a song by song basis – but a lot of them were Shaun alone. Who sang kind of depended on who was fighting with Bob at the moment and who wasn’t, you know. Before, on the first recordings, it was almost always me and then later, when I had a falling out with Bob, it was mostly Shaun. It was like ‘Well see, he’s my favourite now’, you know.”

Recorded and released in 1967, ‘Volume Two’ (Reprise RS 6270) was a more ambitious work than its predecessor, with all of the tracks credited either in whole or in part to members of the band. The cover art was particularly striking, at its centre a photograph taken through a fish-eye lens showing Shaun, Bob and Danny sitting bare-chested on the floor of a silver bathroom. Inspired, apparently, by the Bond film ‘Goldfinger’, the interior was also highly reminiscent of Warhol’s foil-covered Factory in New York. If one looks very closely, Markley appears to be grinning from ear to ear. On the back of the LP the band’s name appeared beneath the slogan: ‘Breaking Through’ and at the bottom was the declaration: “Every song in this album has been written, arranged, sung and played by the group. No one censored us. We got to say everything we wanted to say, in the way we wanted to say it”. Markley, no doubt, saw this as the perfect expression of the agenda which, like the name, he had foisted on the band, but as far as Shaun Harris is concerned, for ‘we’ read ‘Bob Markley’: “The cover was an Art Director’s bathroom in a house in LA. It was probably someone who Markley knew, but if you look at the back cover you’ll notice that his picture is bigger than Danny’s and mine and this is a guy who is hardly on the record!” Well, in one sense that is true, for, as on the other records, Bob did not play any instrument (with the possible exception of percussion) and even though he contributed some of the vocals this was generally limited to his manic speaking, leaving the actual singing to the Harris brothers. But his ideas and, of course, his lyrics, dominated the record.

The album’s startling opening was ‘In The Arena’, a bold, if not entirely convincing, political satire dominated by Morgan’s strident guitar, Markley’s megaphone-sounding voice and Shaun and Danny’s cascading quasi-religious harmonies. But none of this quite prepared the listener for what followed. ‘Suppose They Give A War And No One Comes?‘ was again dominated by Markley’s extraordinary lyrics, although in this instance the missing credit should have gone to Franklin D. Roosevelt. The opening lines were borrowed from part of a famous anti-isolationist speech which he delivered at Chautauqua, New York State on the 14th of August 1936:

“I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen two hundred limping, exhausted men come out of line – the survivors of a regiment of one thousand that went forward forty-eight hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.”

Complete with ‘primitive’ noises, an army of percussion and building to an impressive climax before ending with the sound of a baby’s cries the composition stretches the listener’s credibility to its limits.
Dan: “Here’s this song with a strong rhythm behind it and we would slowly build up a wall of sound from the bottom up and the vocal was almost the least important part. The harmonies were right but the lyrics… well we thought that Markley was just an idiot who was trying to fit into a groove that he just wasn’t into.” Depending upon your point of view, it’s either one the most pretentious things you’ve ever heard or a brilliant expression of anti-war sentiment.

Despite co-writing and singing on the next track, ‘Buddha’, Shaun was not impressed with the results: “Believe me, I’m not going to ask that they play that at my wake! Markley would give you a page of lyrics and tell you what sort of song he wanted it to be – that would be ‘slow’ or ‘fast’ – but he couldn’t tell you nuances or anything like that.”
The album’s undoubted highlight, however, was ‘Smell of Incense’, which featured some wonderful interplay between Morgan’s hypnotic guitar, Shaun’s excellent bass playing and some extraordinary drumming from either Blaine or Gordon topped with the Harris brothers’ breathy vocals. Despite the track’s somewhat heady atmosphere, Danny insists that none of the band’s music was drug inspired: “We lived the legend without the drugs. Shaun and I were Irish kids so we both drank a bit, but Michael had a very strict upbringing so he never even drank and Shaun never smoked.” Kim Fowley adds to this: “I didn’t drink, Michael Lloyd was brought up strictly and he didn’t drink and Markley didn’t drink either. All this madness was done without drink or drugs – not even dope. All of Babylon was raging about us but Pat Boone could have walked in and not been offended!”

On the vexed question of what category the band’s music fell into, Danny has this to say: “Was our music psychedelic? I would say that it needed a moniker and all the rest of the stuff was bullshit. We were a band who considered that we could play any style of music – we had classical nuances in all of our albums. Many of these songs were created in the studio and Ron Morgan was a definite influence on the album – this was the one where Michael wasn’t there. Ron’s father was a jazz musician who played in pizza restaurants in Denver. Because he was a lead player I taught him how to fingerpick. This was an opening up our music into an honest statement of what it was – not when we were still searching for some common ground that people would buy. We never cared if it sold or not.”

After the Overture, with Danny’s short but beautiful coda, closed the first side, the flip was something of a contrast. For the first time – but not the last – the dominating theme of Markley’s lyrics was either girls or women, although the distinction between the two seems deliberately ambiguous. ‘Queen Nymphet’ opened the side with the words: “You’re too young / You’re just a child” and continued with the refrain “When you’re older”. ‘Unfree Child’, the B-side to the group’s second and last single – an edited version of ‘Smell of Incense’ – was also the nearest which Bob ever came to singing on record. Beyond the atmospheric beginning of slowed-down tape effects and echoing guitar and tabla the song addressed the unfree child “sitting at a dull desk in a dull school”, then built slowly to a climax before Markley declared: “Let her be free. Let her sneak off on an adventure. Come tomorrow we’ll watch the dawn. Delicate fawn. Let her be free.”

According to Shaun the blistering guitar track ‘Carte Blanche’, with its repeated “Hey Trish, come on home!” and lines like “You left behind a hotel chain and a stately reputation”, was based on a real person: “Carte Blanche was a credit card tied to the Hilton Hotels and Markley was friendly with Trish Hilton who was married to one of the family.” One of Danny’s contributions to the album was the banjo-driven ‘Delicate Fawn’: “That was a very polite little song about a guy who falls in love with a girl and wants to take her riding on his BSA motorbike. I said ‘I don’t want a bass player on this, it’s too heavy.’ So we used a tuba instead and we brought in a bagpipe player who was from the Black Watch – we got him through the Musicians’ Union! We didn’t know how to end the song so we just had him let the air out of the bag”. The song ended with the line “Stay away from dirty old men.” Says Shaun: “If Markley was obsessed with children it wasn’t in a positive way.”

Unfortunately, the inspiration behind the most obviously biographical song, the jazz-flavoured ‘Tracy Had A Hard Day Sunday’ – about a girl who “lit her candle at both ends and started flipping out on Monday” – remains a mystery. According to Shaun: “These were always personal glimpses, these were people Markley knew.”

By 1968 the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band were poised to release their fourth album – but their last for Reprise. Thus far, in terms of record sales at least, they had conspicuously failed to set the world alight – or even the small corner they call Los Angeles. Yet in many ways ‘Volume III – A Child’s Guide To Good And Evil‘ was the group’s most extraordinary achievement. A newspaper piece of the time – the only contemporary record of Markley’s words beyond his lyrics and sleeve pronouncements – provides us with a tantalizing insight into the creative processes at work within the group. After describing a rare live appearance by the band at a Teenage Fair in Portland, Oregon – at which six girls apparently fainted – Bob was quoted as saying this about ‘A Child’s Guide’: “The lyrical content is so meaningful and gets in so deep that we are treading the fine line of perfect taste. Donovan did it on his ‘Sunshine Superman’ album, Dylan did it on ‘John Wesley Harding’ and I hope that we did it here. What I try and do is take as much material about a subject as I can, condense it to an exact point and hope to capture all the meaning that maybe forty pages of material would have.” The article pointed to the album’s closing track, ‘Anniversary Of World War III’, as the perfect example of Bob’s economy with words – three minutes of total silence.

Whether one views the comparisons with Dylan and Donovan as justified – or merely as evidence of Markley’s delusions of grandeur – the album was certainly the band’s most complex offering to date. As its title suggested, the work was a fusion of innocence and malice, the subject matter perfectly reflected in John Van Hamersveld’s striking cover art work. If the ‘butterfly mind’ represented both the transience of innocence and the psychedelic possibilities of a mind in free flight, its stark black and white setting rendered the image distinctly sinister. Hamersveld, who began working as an Art Director for Capitol Records in 1966, produced some of the most enduring images of the age, including the poster for cult surf movie ‘Endless Summer’ and album covers like Jefferson Airplane’s ‘Crown Of Creation’ and the Stones’ ‘Exile On Main Street’. In 1967 he formed the Pinnacle partnership and promoted gigs at the Shrine Auditorium by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Cream and the Velvet Underground.

John recalls his work on ‘A Child’s Guide’: “Bob Markley wanted a photograph of the band on the back so I took them up onto a hillside near Burbank and photographed them in colour with a Hasselblad camera and a wide angle lens. For the front cover I used the face from a photograph of Stevie, an artist friend who would pose nude for me. I combined my drawings and letterforms in black and white to create a stark contrast in the record racks. Black and white was also an issue in terms of dark and light karma. The butterfly’s wings are a psychological symbol for reading in to the mind, like an ink blot test by a psychologist, but as art. In this image, the head is thinking of the butterfly image – freedom from the karma in the well of darkness.” It was surely one of the most powerful and iconic cover illustrations of its era.

The contrast between light and darkness extended into the music, with the naive peace-and-love message of some of the songs sitting uneasily beside the ironic cynicism of tracks like ‘A Child Of A Few Hours Is Burning To Death’ (“We should have called Suzie and Bobby / They like to watch fires!” Bob cheerfully intoned). Once again, Shaun was distinctly unimpressed with Markley’s ideas and he is at a loss to explain the meaning behind many of the song titles – let alone the lyrics. Take ‘Our Drummer Always Plays In The Nude’, for example: “That certainly wasn’t true! It was just another of his contrived attempts to be hip”. Or ‘Until The Poorest People Have Money To Spend’: “Rest assured that Markley would have been the last person in the world to give anyone a farthing!” Shaun had grown increasingly tired of the way in which his carefully crafted pop compositions were being highjacked by Markley’s bizarre musical agenda: “There would be times when you would have a good melody and you would think: ‘I don’t want to waste it on this…'” Yet, arguably, it was precisely these contradictions which made the work so powerful and unnerving, the disparate words and music often entwining with remarkable effect. Nowhere were the group’s internal conflicts better highlighted than on the album’s title track. The song opened with Shaun’s gorgeous riff and the harmonic fanfare of the wordless chorus before descending unexpectedly into another of Markley’s extraordinary monologues:

“Take my hand and run away with me / Through the forest until the leaves and trees slow us down / A vampire bat will suck blood from our hands / A dog with rabies will bite us / Rats will run up your legs / But nothing will matter. “After the doors of many strange rooms have been bolted and locked / When you come back dragging your day dreams behind you / I’ll give you a new shiny face / And a yellow brick road / The rest of the world is wrong / Don’t let anyone change you. “Evil doesn’t exist anymore / Except for the war”

The mixture of the magical and the macabre was reminiscent of the ‘fairy’ tales of the brothers Grimm, Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice In Wonderland’ or ‘The Wizard Of Oz’, but set to music, as it was here, the unnerving contrast between verse and chorus made the song hauntingly effective.

Another highlight was the Markley / Morgan composition ‘As The World Rises and Falls’. The song’s irresistible guitar line evoked the chord progressions of ‘Smell Of Incense’ while the lyrics were some of Markley’s most mysterious and poetic. Sung by Shaun, the dreamy, echoing vocals and lead guitar leant the song an eerie beauty:

“Your eyes have grown tired of / Hunting for the fox and the owl / For smooth stones / And a safe place to hide in the hills by your home / Now you walk with bare feet / Through the wet sand / And the boy sees you and comes running over / And stands about forty seashells away / Wanting to walk on water / To turn you on / But you don’t pay any attention at all. “As the world rises and falls… “Now you have a woman’s shape / Thunderbolts in your fingertips / He has his eyes pinned on you / Be careful he has whips and chains / And he plays ancient games / Without anyone standing in his way / He can change the colour of the sky / If he wants to / But it’s only magic used (?) to him / Because you won’t be easily taken / Or he won’t remember you at all. “As the world rises and falls… “I tried to tell you not to love him / Strongly as you did / You’ll go out again some day / But you won’t forget him for a long time / He tore the mask off your face / And then put you down / And made you want him / More than anyone before / And then he walked away / And you don’t hear from him at all…”

Once more, Ron Morgan’s strident lead guitar dominated the record. For the first time electric sitar – the unmistakable sound of a Coral Electric – was much in evidence, featuring prominently on ‘Ritual #1’, ‘Until The Poorest Of People…’, ‘A Child’s Guide…’ and ‘Ritual #2’. As Morgan’s younger brother, Bob, recalls: “Ron could really put on his guitar antics! He would use some very unusual effects. He had a Magnatone which Seers Roebuck made for accordions and it had a wild organ-type of sound. He would also use a Lesley speaker and a lot of Vox equipment – amps and 12-strings – because the group were sponsored by them for a while.” The album also used some interesting tape effects. According to Shaun, the 3-note electric sitar line on ‘Ritual #1’ was pre-recorded and then looped. Even more bizarrely, ‘As Kind As Summer’ featured a speeded-up-and-slowed-down-tape sequence which sounded the same played both forwards and backwards but made no sense in either direction!

Like many classic albums (and, no doubt, many more deservedly forgotten) ‘A Child’s Guide To Good And Evil’ was recorded by a group in a state of crisis. Effectively, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band had now been reduced to a trio. The same newspaper article quoted above listed the personnel for the LP as: “Ron Morgan on lead guitar, Shaun Harris on bass, and Markley on percussion instruments – all sing”. Danny’s involvement was either minimal or non-existent.

As Shaun recalls: “By this time Danny had become ill. He had a sort of manic depressive illness”. The photo on the reverse of the album reflected the same line-up, showing (from front to back) Shaun, Markley and – at last – the elusive Ron, in apparently heavy disguise. According to his brother, after moving to LA from Denver in 1965 Morgan had swiftly immersed himself in the local music scene, recording a demo with two future members of the Iron Butterfly and playing with the early incarnation of Moby Grape, Peter and the Wolves. It was probably through his studio work that he became involved with the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. “After the first Reprise album he flew back to Denver and he was real happy with that. But he wasn’t very happy with the singing. He wasn’t a solo singer himself – he just did a little back up – but he was always disenchanted with the vocals. Ron kept coming back and forth from LA and Denver and that was how he missed the photo shoot for the second album. It seemed like the band wasn’t organized at all – it was just a case of throwing stuff together whenever they could – and Ron was always out of time. When he got disenchanted with something, he got flaky. I remember that bit about him not getting out of bed to catch a flight. He didn’t want to go back to LA because he knew what he was going into. I think he really wasn’t into it at that time and just wanted to stay in Denver. He said that he would go into the studio where they would have laid down a lot of stuff and he would try and over-dub, but it would have just been awful – it almost had to be done again. To him the musicianship just wasn’t up to snuff. A lot of people had trouble keeping up with Ron – it was quite funny to watch some times. But by the time of the third Reprise album, he told me that the whole thing was just a total embarrassment – it was pieced together so haphazardly. By this time Ron was heavily involved with Three Dog Night so when it came to the photo for the back of the LP he shaved differently and wore these silly glasses and hat in order not to be recognized. And I think he pulled it off!”

Closer investigation of the label credits suggested that, besides Bob Markley, Shaun and Ron, others also had a hand in shaping the album. The fake ‘live’ track ‘Watch Yourself’, with its over-dubbed crowd noises and some very tasty guitar playing, was solely credited to one R. Yeazel. Later a member of Denver outfit Beast, Yeazel’s name would appear on that band’s 1970 single ‘Communication’ b/w ‘Move Mountain (You Got It)’ alongside a familiar cast of characters: Ron Morgan, Jimmy Greenspoon and Roger Bryant. The plot thickened since Bryant, who had shared a credit with Markley on ‘Suppose They Give A War And No One Comes’, now turned up again on the track ‘As Kind As Summer’. An interesting story related by Morgan’s brother may shed some light on this: “According to Ron, Markley was a rare bird. He was off the wall, definitely. One time the band were rehearsing for a Santa Monica gig and they rented this studio at ABC. They were really killing on this one song ‘Watch Yourself’. That was by Bob Yeazel, a local guy. He’s in a bad way right now – got busted for drugs – music really took a toll on him! He was in the band for a short stint during that third album and so was the bass player Roger Bryant, who I also ran into not so long ago. An actor called Joey Bishop had his own TV talk show on the West Coast back then and he invited the band to come on that evening. They set up in the studio and all of a sudden Markley said: ‘Let’s do ‘Help I’m A Rock’. We’ve got to promote the first album!’ Ron couldn’t believe it. Of course the band completely bombed and they didn’t use it. Ron was really livid.”

It was amidst this atmosphere of increasing disillusionment that the California Spectrum was born. Ever since the ‘Legendary Unreleased Album!‘ was released in 1980 by Lloyd and the Harris brothers – apparently in an attempt to kick-start the reissue of all of the albums – this group and its connections with the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band have been the source of much confusion. According to Shaun the origins of the California Spectrum lay in his own growing frustration with Markley’s domination of the group, stemming not only from his antics in the studio, but also his reluctance to promote the band seriously by touring. “Markley would sit there hyping everything and telling you ‘This is great!’ about the songs, but I was disenchanted. I would have been more prepared to believe that his way was right if the albums had sold zillions of copies and we had been really successful, but we weren’t. I think it took some effort to have three albums on Reprise – the same label as Jimi Hendrix – and never really see the light of day. We were never represented by a major booking agency and I don’t think Reprise ever really promoted the band so no one ever got a chance to hear us. I was always unhappy with the situation with Markley – I thought his ultimate aim was just to have an album to show some girl in LA and bring them up to his house. He wasn’t prepared to go out of town and play gigs, for example. Occasionally we would get a deal to play in places like Alabama, but that would have been a highlight – for the most part Markley didn’t aspire to anything other than playing in LA. He thought the Sunset Strip was the coolest place on earth and he was fixated with hustling girls. Twice a year he would get interest on his inheritance and so there were times when he had phenomenal amounts of money and times when he didn’t. He had his nice house up in Beverly Hills and he simply would not have done a hundred-day tour.

“I wanted to move ahead and start playing live more, so around 1968 I decided to take off with the California Spectrum. A guy named Bob Williams, who was this wannabe actor friend of Markley’s, approached us about going out on the road as a band and touring the mid-West, but we weren’t touring because Markley was keeping us in LA. I didn’t know what to do. Should I leave the band? I asked my father and he said he thought we should do it. So my brother and I bought this trailer and we used this drummer called Russ Olmstead. I forget who the guitar player was, but we went through a series of them. For eight months we toured around the central part of the US with a light show and played some West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band stuff, but it was really awful and we made no money. The highlight was playing in Chicago with the Animals in front of about 5,000 people, but we would also have to play beer bars in Illinois from nine ’til four in the morning. One time the Beach Boys were playing at a college nearby and Bruce Johnston, who was a friend of mine, joined us on stage, but no one knew who he was. That’s when I realised that I had made the wrong decision. On that trip I met a few people in the mid-West, bought a house and some offices in Denver and put out some records under the name of the California Spectrum on which I would sing. ‘She May Call You Up Tonight’ was done in just a few minutes at the end of a session Michael had, using musicians like Carol Kaye and Hal Blaine. I would go in and throw the music down and they would play it and later we would add vocals. I sang all the parts on that and I think I speeded it up. The B-side ‘Rainbo’ was just some electronic thing. It was released on Shana records [Shana 7915]. ‘Sassafras’ [later released as Raspberry Sawfly 9735, the B-side ‘Obviously Bad’ was a leftover from the Fifo period] came about in the same way. I would write columns in Teen Beat and Tiger Beat and promote the songs and get them played on record, but there was no band to hire!” Intriguingly, a publicity photo for the California Spectrum gave an address in Hays, Kansas and showed the Harris brothers, Lloyd and someone looking very much like Morgan – everyone, that is, except Markley.

Somehow, despite all this upheaval, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band managed to record ‘Where’s My Daddy?‘, their fifth album and the last to be released under that six-word moniker. If their previous label had finally lost faith in the group then it appeared that Jimmy Bowen, at least, had not: the Amos label belonged to him. Nevertheless, after the consistently high standard of the trio of Reprise LPs, the new album was something of a disappointment. Quite apart from the quality of the songs and performance, the record simply sounded different. Whether or not the change of studio and engineer had anything to do with it (recorded at Wally Heider, Warner’s Joe Sidore, who had mastered the previous two albums, was replaced by Bill Halverson, engineer on the first Crosby, Stills & Nash sessions), the warm, echoing depth of its predecessors had disappeared and in its place was a crisp and closely-miked sound which appeared unsuited to the band’s style. Perhaps it was nothing more complicated than the absence of reverb, but although the record had its moments – particularly melodic songs like ‘My Dog Back Home’ and ‘Free As A Bird’ – much of the material simply sounded unrehearsed or even unfinished. Several of the songs – ‘Give Me Your Lovething’ and ‘Not One Bummer’ for example – were barely more than laboured riffs. The latter, in particular, suggested that this was a group running short of fresh ideas – if that guitar line sounded familiar that was because it had simply been lifted from Markley’s old single, ‘Summer’s Comin’ On’. Shaun offers a possible explanation: “On the first album we had been playing the songs live and working out arrangements beforehand, whereas later on the songs were just worked out in the studio whilst we were recording the albums.”

Lyrically, in place of the magic and mysticism of the previous album there was madness; instead of dreams, stark social reality. Many of the themes were familiar: the evil’s of wealth (‘Where Money Rules Everything’), conflicts with authority (‘Have You Met My Pet Pig’) and, of course, young girls. Although at first glance the album cover appeared innocuous, closer inspection revealed a distinctly unsettling image. A lonely, barefooted girl, clutching a doll and sitting beside a crumpled beer can, gazed straight into the eyes of the viewer, of whom she seemed to ask the question which was the album’s title. She was, most likely, the same girl whose shrill voice could be heard introducing the album’s second side with the words: “Part IV – The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band”; to be immediately followed by the song ‘Everyone’s innocent daughter’: “Licking her lollipop fingers / Soft is this girl / Wise is this child / Down below in the city / Faces as grim as granite / I want to run tell the world / How much fun you are…” Another track, ‘Coming Of Age In LA’, had even more questionable motivation. After a spoken opening which appeared to have something to do with puberty, Markley exhorted the listener with the cry: “Step right up folks and get your ticket to LA – the greatest freak show on earth!” Appropriately enough, the rest of the song ran through a bizarre list of lowlife characters, but the narrative began and ended with the tale of “Poor Patty, a beautiful orphan of ten in army surplus clothes” who finished up in court before a drunken judge having been beaten, raped and robbed. It ended abruptly with the voice of the same little girl as before exclaiming: “Judge! Not one bummer the whole beautiful summer!”

Against this backdrop the bare-chested photographs of the band on the album’s rear sleeve made an uncomfortable contrast – a return to the line-up of Bob, Shaun and Danny which had last appeared on the back of the second Reprise LP. The younger Harris brother, in particular, looked in a bad way. Shaun: “Dan was not in good shape. I look at that picture and I think that it was exploitative of Markley to allow him to have his picture taken at that time.” What is slightly puzzling, however, is the absence of Lloyd, despite the fact that he shared credits with Markley on three of the songs and could be heard singing on several tracks – ‘My Dog Back Home’ for instance. Likewise, Ron Morgan’s name was nowhere to be seen even though his spidery lead guitar could still be heard throughout the album. Perhaps he was still trying to remain anonymous.

The following year came ‘Markley, A Group‘. In all but name the last recording by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, the album’s title was hugely ironic. In the back sleeve photos a boyish Michael Lloyd appeared alongside a sinister, grinning shot of Markley and the rather more sombre-looking Harris brothers for the first time since the Fifo LP. Indeed, Lloyd was even allowed to share the production credit. Any ideas the others may have had about a new spirit of democracy within the band, however, soon evaporated when Markley insisted on star billing. According to Lloyd: “The Forward album was about the last of Bob being really coherent. He had progressed to saying: ‘Oh, we can’t call it the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band – it’s got to be my name’. Well, I had arranged this deal with Mike Curb to do an album by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, which made some sense to him – not a great deal – but some sense. Then Markley wanted to change it. That didn’t come up until we had finished the whole thing and by then, of course, it was too late. It was the same old problem we had with song writing credits and other things and that’s really the way it was across all of the albums, but eventually it just got to be horrible with Markley and contractually impossible. It was a stupid thing really. I mean, we should have called it the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band because at least we would have sold ten copies or something. I don’t know, at that point I think I probably just wanted to get out and get done with it.”

There was also a certain irony in the fact that the LP was on Mike Curb’s Forward label. After all, a year or so earlier it had been Curb who had famously thrown the Velvet Underground and the Mothers Of Invention off Verve (a subsidiary of MGM, of which he was President) because of their association with drugs and ‘weirdness’. Yet here he was releasing an album by a group of musicians who had not only adopted a name directly inspired by the former band, but who had also covered the latter’s ‘Help, I’m A Rock’ – and that was before one even went on to consider some of their own equally bizarre material. Lloyd speaks in Curb’s defence: “I think his motivation was honorable. When you think back to that period of time there were quite a few rock stars who were dropping dead from drug overdoses. Besides, by the time we joined MGM I don’t think the Velvet Underground were selling any more records and their contract might have been up. I went right through all of that and I never drank, I never used drugs – nothing – and I think it was a tremendous blessing. That was despite all of the influences around me, of course. In the 60’s you were almost an idiot if you didn’t take acid – you were like a downer – but I was very focussed on what I wanted to do and it wasn’t something that interested me at all. I didn’t need to feel better because I already felt great. I was doing all the things that I wanted to do.”

As the result, perhaps, of the inevitable confusion caused by the change of name, the ‘Markley, A Group’ album has long been overlooked. For those who favored the harder-edged psychedelic adventures of the earlier recordings, the change of direction after ‘A Child’s Guide’ must have been hard to swallow. Yet in a sense the band had come full circle. After starting out five years earlier in relatively humble fashion on the Fifo label, the high hopes of the three-album Reprise deal had ended with disillusionment and the virtual dissolution of the band. Now, after the low water-mark of the ‘Where’s Your Daddy?’ LP, the band emerged with a work which was, in many ways, a fitting end to their career. Inconsistent certainly, with the first side probably the strongest, the album still had many wonderful moments, particularly a number of delicately structured songs underpinned with subtle arrangements and over-layed with immaculate harmonies.

The record undoubtedly benefited from Michael Lloyd’s full involvement, bringing with him his now considerable production experience. Singing many of the lead vocals, his self-assured keyboard playing featured prominently on several tracks while his orchestral arrangements were exquisite. Danny, too, was once again a full participant in the album, co-writing well over half of the songs on the LP compared with only two on ‘Where’s My Daddy?’ and none on ‘A Child’s Guide’. A clue to his lack of involvement in the previous albums could be found in the opening track ‘Booker T & His Electric Shock’. Sung by Danny, the humorous lyrics belied their serious subject matter. According to Lloyd: “Danny had been a manic depressive and had gone through all kinds of horrible times from way before the band. That song was about a mental institution and the electric shock treatment which he had there. It happened many times and once it started it was almost impossible to stop. It was a horrible thing for him to go through – remember that this was a long time ago when they didn’t really know what to do – but eventually they found out that it was a lithium imbalance.” Shaun, by contrast, recalls having little to do with the album beyond singing on the re-recorded version of ‘Outside/Inside’. With its sweeping strings and trickling harpsichord this was an altogether more confident and polished version than the original, but once again Shaun regarded the lyrics – especially the line “I’m as rough as a cow’s tongue” – as a prime example of Markley’s misguided ruination of his melody.

It seems that Markley was particularly proud of his efforts on this final LP which, for the first time, came with a separate lyric sheet boldly declaring: “Lyrics by Markley.” They were certainly memorable. The usual tirade against wealth continued with ‘Zoom! Zoom! Zoom’ (“Money, Money, Money / Tear it to pieces / Money, Money, Money / I don’t care at all…”) and ‘Roger The Rocket Ship’ was a genuinely funny take on paranoia (“Look out for interplanetary spaceships and magnetic storms / Some sort of advance warning system should be set up / Look out for solar flares, polar bears, and a third eye / That watches every move you make, watches every step you take…”). Not for the first time, however, the abiding theme was childhood innocence facing corruption in an adult world, while a predilection for young girls was evident from the titles alone: ‘Elegant Ellen’; ‘Little Ruby Rain’; ‘Sarah The Sad Spirit’; and ‘Sweet Lady Eleven And The Tattooed Man’. It is tempting to look amongst his lyrics for clues as to how Markley saw himself: perhaps as “the last electric man in the last electric band” of ‘Next Plane To The Sun’; or “Bobby the Bad Bum” loved by ‘Sarah The Sad Spirit’. Amidst the apparently nonsensical words of ‘The Magic Cat’, however, there lay a passage in which Markley almost seemed to anticipate his impending fall:

“Straw the Pink Policeman / Tore thru the wall…DRAW!!! / ‘A gentle fawn on the lawn is nude / And that’s against the law.’ / Girls don’t know much so young / Everyone starts to run…”

If one track justified Markley’s arrogance, however, it was the beautiful ballad ‘Little Ruby Rain’, a song which proved that, despite the internal tensions, the band were still able to unite their disparate talents. Written by Markley and Danny Harris, the latter’s acoustic guitar, played alongside a gorgeous string arrangement, sounded like a mature reflection of his earlier composition ‘Will You Walk With Me’, while the lyrics, confidently sung by Lloyd, were among Markley’s most poetic:

“Stay in the shadows of my hand comfortable friend / You’re a tree-ripened girl, still green, seen on billboards / You’re a baby, not in age, but ideas / Toss and turn my friend to the end of the storm, underneath your sleeping eyelids. Little Ruby Rain, your storm is just a game / But it’s strange to be yesterday’s thunder. You’re the sun reflected in the sand of a faraway land / You’re a circus performer, magnificently twirling / The acrobat inside you is leisurely suspended, using no net / Destiny is below with its casual arithmetic, waiting. Little Ruby Rain… When the vines of Time, squared, electrify your soft hair / And four white horses with ruby-red eyes pull your casket away / Only a thimbleful of people will understand / And as the applause dies down, I’ll remember you the way we are today. Little Ruby Rain…”

If the ‘Group’ album was the last recording to be made by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, for Michael Lloyd it was only the beginning of an extraordinarily successful musical career which has, to date, netted him over one hundred gold and platinum records. After becoming the Vice President of A & R at MGM, aged 20, in the fall of 1969, Michael achieved his first major hit producing Lou Rawls’ single ‘A Natural Man’, winning himself a Grammy in the process. After forming his own band Friends, along with two Australians Darryl Cotton and Steve Kipner (ex-Tin Tin), Michael recorded an LP in 1973 only to see it pulled by MGM when he and Mike Curb left the label. Unperturbed he went on to record two further albums under the guise of Cotton, Lloyd and Christian. However, he soon discovered that his strength lay in producing and composing for others, most notably those toothsome Mormon siblings the Osmonds (including their ‘experimental’ ‘Crazy Horses’ period and Donny’s solo career), as well as other teen heart-throbs like Shaun Cassidy and Leif Garrett. His greatest achievement – in commercial terms at least – came with the 1987 film ‘Dirty Dancing’, for which he acted as musical supervisor as well as producing and co-writing much of the music. It went on to become one of the biggest-selling soundtracks of all time. Now married with four children, Michael lives in a mansion which used to belong to Oscar-winning actress Gloria Swanson, star of Billy Wilder’s ‘Sunset Boulevard’ and, by a strange coincidence, an early silent film called ‘Shifting Sands’…

Meanwhile, Shaun had also continued his career in music: “In the early 70s when Michael became successful producing Lou Rawls I would act as contractor for his sessions, calling up the musicians and co-ordinating the union contracts. I put together a reel-to-reel tape of four songs and sent them around. Through Michael a single off my album come out on Verve under the name Brigadune, but nothing happened. Then Capitol agreed I could do an album. Both my parents appeared on that – my father arranged some of it and Michael and Danny helped out as well. Unfortunately it came out on Capitol on the same day as ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ – how could I compete? After that I realized that if you want to be the creative artist you should get someone else to cut your deal for you. It’s not easy to do both and it was stupid to have an album on a major label and have no manager. Nevertheless, it was the first time I had the chance to do what I wanted to do. From that point I worked with Michael and became president of Barry Manilow’s publishing company. After that I started getting calls from everybody.” Apart from his solo LP (‘Shaun Harris’ and the Brigadune 45 (‘I’ll Cry Out From My Grave (God I’m Sorry)’ b/w ‘Misty Morning’), Shaun also collaborated with Danny and Michael on other singles under names like The Grand Concourse and Rockit. Shaun eventually grew disillusioned with the Los Angeles scene and thereafter lived with his family in Oregon. In recent years he has taken up the cause of standards in education, written a play about his childhood and set up a highly successful children’s film festival – even playing host to Margaret Thatcher.

Although Danny admits to losing the plot somewhat during the 70s, in 1980 he also released a solo album, ‘Thank Him Every Day’, which combined synthesisers with religion. He got his life back on track and in 1984 he married Vicky, who he had first met years earlier when she was running an incense booth at one of those infamous Teenage Fairs at which the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band were playing. After they moved to Sweden, where he worked as an alcohol and drugs counsellor, he continued to play folk music – Ralph McTell’s ‘Streets Of London’ was a particular favorite – and recorded another album which has yet to be released. More recently he has established himself as a film actor, appearing in Jack Nicholson’s Oscar-winning film ‘As Good As It Gets’ where he can be seen dancing in the restaurant scene! He is now writing a book about his experiences in the band and beyond. He and Shaun and Michael remain close friends.

Despite being a founder member of Three Dog Night, Ron Morgan never got to share in their phenomenal success. As his brother recalls: “Ron didn’t do well under pressure. He suffered from bad stage fright, but it was really ‘drug fright’ – he was so high all the time that he became paranoid. They played the Whisky and when someone said Eric Clapton was in the audience he just froze. Ron found the pressure of living up to his image – and everyone’s expectation – was too hard to bear. When Three Dog Night gave him a contract he flew back to Denver and the family lawyer had a look at it. It didn’t look favourable for Ron so he didn’t sign and by the time he got back to LA they had already replaced him. He never thought it would amount to anything anyway. He would never admit it, but their success really bugged him. He felt persecuted.” Almost immediately another opportunity arose in the form of established Reprise act, the Electric Prunes, but unfortunately for Ron the group was about to hit the buffers. According to Dick Whetstone, drummer and vocalist with the final Prunes line-up, Ron became involved after John Herron quit unexpectedly during the sessions for the ‘Just Good Old Rock And Roll’ LP: “We knew Ron from a Denver band called Superband that included Jimmy Greenspoon on keyboards. The two of them had landed a gig with the original version of Three Dog Night prior to the first album release. Ron was anxious to play in a less structured band – he wanted more solos! He was a world-class guitar player. He joined us in time to help finish the last tracks on the album and began touring with us, along with his Harley. Ron lived to play music, but the lifestyle contributed greatly to his death.” After Three Dog Night and the Electric Prunes Ron moved back to Denver. Bob: “He was disenchanted, but he wasn’t going to sell out. He did drive a cab for a while – he loved the freedom of it, there were no pressures and he was his own boss – but Ron got in a bad way. He was strung out on ‘reds’ – addictive sleeping pills – which he had been popping with Three Dog Night and he ended up on the street. He had no skills apart from music, but after he got married in ’76 he sorted his life out and became a janitor. He still played and we used to jam a lot. Then he had a motorcycle accident and things went down hill. He got put in a psychiatric ward for a time. His wife divorced him and kicked him out of the house. It was while he was in hospital that he was diagnosed with Hepatitis C. The worst thing you can do with that is drink, but he had a strong constitution – he could always put away the drugs and alcohol. Unfortunately he didn’t know until it was too late. He died in his sleep in 1989 at 44. I can remember Ron getting his royalty cheques – they were usually for about 75 cents. Ron lived the way he wanted to, but I guess music never gave him the security he wanted.” Bob Morgan continues his brother’s legacy with his own band Blackwood Magazine.

And what became of Bob Markley? Appropriately enough his fate was the most bizarre of all. Towards the end of the sixties he was involved in a few other projects beyond the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, most notably producing an LP by J.J. Light – actually Jim Stallings, bass player with the Sir Douglas Quintet – called ‘Heya’. Despite claims that this album also involved other members of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, none of those spoken to have any recollection of it, although the guitar playing does bear the unmistakable signature of Ron Morgan. The title track was a hit throughout Europe and Markley later shared a song writing credit on a re-recorded version (although not the original) on United Artists under the priceless name of Zonk. He was also involved with Lloyd and Danny Harris in a gospel album called Goodness and Mercy. After the ‘Group’ LP, however, it appears as if Markley simply dropped out of music all together.

Fowley takes up the story: “It was 1971-2 and I had grown tired of living in Laurel Canyon. There were forest fires and I didn’t want to burn. Markley was living on the beach at Santa Monica and at his suggestion I moved down there too. When I walked into his place I couldn’t believe it! Here was a guy who had lived in a big mansion on Sunset Strip and now here he was living in this 1920’s house which was tacky and furnished like a beachcombers shack. I asked him: ‘What happened, did you lose your money?’ He said: ‘I don’t want to talk about it, but girls down here don’t like nice things – they want you to look like you just washed up on the shore.’ He wore a torn T-shirt and he had a dog to attract girls – he really was like a character out of a surf movie! I moved in to a place ten minutes away and I would go down to the beach and see this Pied Piper figure walking around with short girls and his big St. Bernard talking beach jargon. That’s when he said to me: ‘Never come by unless you call me first’. Eventually I moved to England where I reconnected with Jeff Beck and Ian Hunter and I lived there for about a year from 1972 to ’73. Then in the middle of all this I got a message from LA: ‘Bob Markley has run into problems’. I knew it had something to do with women. Well, I came back from England to the story that he had disappeared. Then I remembered his rule: ‘Always call first’. Now Markley, with all his wealth and emphasis on physical possessions, was always something of a bully, but it was then that I realised that, for all his indulgences, at least he didn’t involve his friends in his other world – and whatever the issues were that caused his problems with law enforcement. Bob was always very secretive about his male and female encounters.”

Shaun takes up the story: “One day the police came looking for Markley. I was living next door to him at the time, near the beach. They hassled me and even Gray Frederickson who was one of the producers of the Godfather movies. I heard that Markley ended up getting beaten up in Detroit.” Lloyd: “What happened to Bob is he kept seeing younger and younger girls. He was living at the beach – very Bohemian. You would never guess this guy was a successful attorney who used to live in a fancy house. Then one day he came home and there was a bunch of policemen outside the door. Shaun was living in the next apartment and he heard everything about it because then the police busted his place. Apparently Bob had been seeing two very young sisters down at the beach. I guess he was able to get away and we didn’t hear anything about him for some time – maybe he called or something. Apparently he ended up in Detroit. He had some horrible run-in with like gang members, got hit on the head with a baseball bat, he was in hospital – horrible stuff. It was something to do with some girls he was involved with there. Then he went to the Bahamas, something like that. Anyway he was gone for quite some time. Eventually he came back to LA and got arrested. He went to trial and I guess he was in jail for a short while, or maybe he had bargained some sort of plea. I would like to think that was in the early to mid-70’s. Every once in a while Kim would tell us what was going on, or we would get a call from Bob out of the blue saying: ‘I’m in such and such a place. I’ve changed my name’ – crazy stuff. It was very sad. I mean we had antagonistic times and everything, but still this was our friend. It was a bad scene. Years later, in about 1980, I was recording Shaun Cassidy and Bob was the furthest thing from my mind. Then out of the blue he called me – he was strange sounding – and he said: ‘I’ve written more stuff, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done’. Then he sent me this tape and it was weird stuff – you can’t imagine how weird! I still have it, the notes and everything. Not long after that he disappeared again. The next person to hear from him was Kim.”

Fowley continues: “In about 1983 I was lecturing at UCLA as part of a music convention. I was standing talking to some students when this guy walked up to me with a scarred face and these strange eyes – he looked like the Scarecrow of Oz! All the students were recoiling in horror and at first I didn’t recognise him. Then he introduced himself. It was Bob. I asked him what he was doing and he just said ‘You know me, I just like to have fun!’ Then he left. The rumour I heard was that he had disappeared from California and ended up in Detroit. He fell in love with a black girl and her family didn’t like it so they had him beaten up. Then one day in about 1988-89 I dropped by my lawyer’s office and there was this thing in the corner of the room – like a broken body crumpled up in a chair, shaking with palsy. You know those pictures of Howard Hughes in the last years of his life: toothless, weighing 70 pounds with white hair. But it was Bob. Apparently his father had just died and he had come by to pick up some documents – he was now worth millions. I went up to him and he looked right through me. It was very scary. Then a few years later, in 1991 or ’92, I heard a story from J.J. Light, who was an old friend of Markley’s. He told me that Bob had been sitting in this rowing boat on a lake near Las Vegas – he was like a recluse. It got loose from its moorings and he drifted off alone for a day and a half. He was already pretty messed up, but he got very badly dehydrated. When they eventually found him he was taken to some hospital and placed on a life-support system, unable to speak or think. J.J. went to visit him there, but he said he was so spooked by what he saw in the hospital that he never went back.”

Back to Lloyd: “This was maybe five years ago, probably more. He was in a hospital at this point, like a vegetable. We’ve tried to call a couple of times, but we can’t get through – you can’t even talk to the doctor. He has no family, no one to call, no one to say anything – just bunches of money. To me, in an awful sense, it sounds like some place he has been put where they know he has got a lot a money and he is just going to sit there sedated, or whatever they do to these kind of patients, because there is no reason to do anything else. It sounds horrible to say, but to me that’s what it looks like – he’s just being slowly bled dry.” Kim again: “So in the end Bob Markley was like Dorian Gray! He’s probably dead by now. One factor in all of this was Bob Markley junior. Apparently Markley had made a girl pregnant while he was at college. I don’t know whether he knew at the time or not, but I heard that he didn’t meet his son until the early 70’s when the kid was 18. Bob was mind-blown – apparently he was a really nice kid. Then his son died in a car wreck. Do you think that the death of his long-lost son threw him over the edge and led to a downward spiral? His only contact with decency and normality was gone. He was a guy with a trust fund – smart but not immensely talented; clever but not brilliant. He threw parties and then decided to form a band and write songs. Then, when it was all over, he found out he had a child who he never knew – who almost immediately died – and he freaked out because he was growing old, his only child was dead and his rock and roll hobby was over – so why not terrorize the neighbourhood!”

Shaun: “Markley? I’ve heard he’s in a mental asylum. I called there once out of curiosity but I couldn’t even get to talk to him. He seemed to do so many things in life. I’m not very big on religion but if there’s such a thing as karma he could be the poster boy for it. He took advantage of people – not just in a dollars and cents way – but he was ethically indigent and morally bankrupt and it ended up being reflected in his life. I think he was an encumbrance. To even refer to him as musical is outrageous. Musically he was an embarrassment – he would have a dead microphone on stage. It was like dealing with a caricature. I’m not sure if meeting him was such a good thing in the end. When you look at bands like Buffalo Springfield who had record companies who were involved in their careers and had direction, they were making musical statements instead of having this nut with a fascination for hustling underage girls. That’s partly why I became progressively less and less interested. If you look at the first albums I was really involved, but by the end it was a dry hole – it was just a vehicle for him to be able to say that he had a new album out. And he wasn’t getting cured either. The fact that he had his name on the last one, for instance. Look at the Doors – without Morrison the band could do nothing – but Markley brought nothing to the table. I think if we had not had Markley insisting that we do asinine stuff it would have been very good. I wish we had got a record deal without him. It would have been called something else, but I think we would still have recorded. We would have had more mainstream success – I don’t mean a cop out – but if you had taken any artist of the period and made them do the same thing I think it would have had the same sort of negative effect. I ran into a woman once who said she was a program director in Boston for seven years and they played ‘I Won’t Hurt You’ for the sign-on song every day. If we had been handled like a regular band with a major booking agency and management firm things might have been different.”

Lloyd: “Markley constantly wanted to do weirder things, but we weren’t into that. It was like two bands on one record – you can see from cut to cut. He made the deals and that was both a good and a bad thing. It was a good thing because it existed, but it was a bad thing because we had to deal with him. This was our compromise: for every ‘Transparent Day’ there would have been something like ‘A Child Of A Few Hours Is Burning To Death’, or ‘In The Arena’ – that was Markley.” Kim: “Bob Markley created his own legend in his own mind and when he talked to me I almost wondered if it was a press release which he had written and then memorized. That was his downfall: he was narcissistic. He had certain musical ideas and wasn’t totally stupid, but there was so much psychedelic shit around in those days. Markley was attempting to be like the Mothers Of Invention but it was silly and a waste of time – except for getting laid. When Michael and the Harris brothers were left alone by Markley to sing and play it was remarkable – they were wonderful songs – but when there was all that weird shit, that was when Markley wrote the words and it was a waste of time.”

The history of music is littered with tales of missed opportunities and stolen chances, yet even amongst these the troubled story of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band reads like a fable. Undoubtedly, much of the abiding fascination with the group stems from Markley’s involvement, but it would be a mistake to concentrate upon his contribution to the exclusion of all else. For whatever Markley brought with him, he also took a great deal away – perhaps quite literally. Had the more accessible compositions been chosen for the singles; had they received more promotion from their record company; had they gigged more widely without an aging front-man who could not sing; had they even chosen a less cumbersome name, then it seems certain that – within their own time at least – they would have received the recognition they so richly deserved. Looking back over the intervening years, it is clear that Michael, Shaun and Danny have decidedly mixed emotions about their experiences and, from the recollections of his brother, it appears that Ron Morgan, too, became gradually disenchanted. Inevitably, much of their disappointment is focussed upon Markley – and who can blame them. His motives for joining the band were dubious, to say the least, and the nature of his talent will always be open to debate. Yet the fact remains that, while others came and went, it was Markley alone who made his unmistakable imprint on every album. Indeed, of one thing we can be certain: if Markley had never become involved then the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band as we know them would never have existed. The essence of any classic band will always be something more than the sum of their individual participants and here was a group filled with contradictions: they recorded ‘psychedelic’ music while, for the most part, eschewing drugs; they railed against the evils of money despite the fact that most of them came from privileged backgrounds; and they sang anti-war anthems whilst they fought with each other.

Giving his own impression of the West Coast scene of the time, John Cale wrote once: “It was some kind of airy-fairy puritanism that was based on the suppression of adult feelings about what was out there in the world.”

Undoubtedly an egotist, Markley was a spoilt orphan who came to despise his inheritance and who seemed terrified of growing old. The sleeve photos bear witness to a man obsessed with looking younger, while the album covers, song titles and lyrics became increasingly preoccupied with childhood and the transience of beauty and innocence. Yet what set the music of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band apart from many of their peers was the way they reached beyond such themes to explore the darker side of an age which, with the turning of the war in Vietnam, the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, riots in many American cities and – in Los Angeles itself – the Manson murders, was about to reach an ugly climax. If one record, above all, tells you all you need to know about the group – and the influence of Markley in particular – it is ‘A Child’s Guide To Good And Evil’. Its monochrome cover superimposed a butterfly’s wings upon a child’s face, while the songs dwelt on love and hate, greed and war and, above all, the concept of the innocence of every human being until corrupted. In doing so, it showed remarkable prescience.

Side one of the ‘Markley, A Group’ LP ended with the short, bittersweet coda ‘Message For Miniature’. Given that the missive was clearly addressed by an adult to a child and that its signatory had already appeared as an ageing, eccentric ‘hero’ on the J.J. Light album, it is tempting to assume that Henry B. Glover was Bob Markley. As things were to turn out, the song might serve well as his epitaph.

by Tim Forster

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Gary Duncan 6/2019

Gary Duncan (72) – Quicksilver Messenger Service – was born on 4 September 1946 in San Diego, California as Eugene Duncan, Jr., but adopted at birth and named Gary Ray Grubb.

He grew up in Ceres, California, where (as Gary Grubb) he played guitar for the Ratz until they finished their performance itinerary as an opening act for the Byrds and the Rolling Stones at the War Memorial Auditorium in San Jose, California. It was in 1965 when, as Gary Cole, he joined the Brogues, in Merced, California, and met future Quicksilver Messenger Service drummer Greg Elmore. It was with the Brogues that he adopted the stage name Gary Duncan. He stayed with them until they broke up later that year.

In late 1965 Duncan received a call from John Cipollina offering an audition for himself and fellow Brogues member Greg Elmore to join Quicksilver Messenger Service. The group first performed in December 1965 at The Matrix. The complex guitar interplay between Duncan and John Cipollina had a big influence on the sound of psychedelic rock. In early 1969, after recording two albums “Quicksilver Messenger Service” and “Happy Trails”, Duncan left Quicksilver and as he describes it, “I left for a year and rode motorcycles and lived in New York City and Los Angeles and just kind of went crazy for about a year.”

By the beginning of 1970 Duncan rejoined Quicksilver Messenger Service along with singer/guitarist Dino Valenti which pushed the group toward a more folk rock sound. By 1971 the original group had splintered with Cipollina, David Freiberg and Nicky Hopkins all leaving while Duncan, Elmore and Valenti continued to perform as Quicksilver Messenger Service until the end of the 1970s.

In the mid-1980s Duncan revived the Quicksilver name and began touring with his own band even releasing an album, Peace by Piece. He released a few more albums into the 1990s with the Quicksilver name but was the only original member in the group (except David Freiberg who guested on some tracks). He began touring with a four-piece band up until 2001 when the World Trade Center was attacked. After that Duncan recalled there were no more shows to play and he tore down his home studio for financial reasons. He said: “I tore the Studio apart by myself… no help from any of my friends… in fact not even a word… they all came and got the stuff they had stored and left the stuff they didn’t want so I could haul it away and they just never spoke to me again…”

Duncan walked away from the music industry for the next few years until 2004, when he began releasing music from his Quicksilver band in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2006 Duncan reunited with Freiberg and began touring again as the Quicksilver Messenger Service. They were still performing up to his death. Freiberg now 86, is the last surviving member of the band.

On June 19, 2019, Gary Duncan fell and had a seizure, followed by multiple cardiac arrests. He fell into a coma, and died on June 29, 2019, in Woodland, California, having never regained consciousness. He was 72.

Following is a excerpt of an interview with Gary Duncan that gives an insight into Quicksilver Messenger Service’s name and the vibe of the time in San Francisco 1967/68:

Q – Quicksilver was offered record deals early on, but you turned them down. You or someone in the group felt you weren’t ready?

A – It wasn’t that we weren’t ready. We just didn’t aspire to do that. That wasn’t our motivation. Really all we cared about was having some place to live and enough to eat so we could go play. Getting involved in the music business wasn’t necessarily something any of us wanted to do, and when it did finally happen, it basically created the end of everything. That was about 1967 when everybody was signed to a label. Then the mystique of San Francisco sort of disappeared. It became commercialized.

Q – People on the East Coast thought the names of bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Zombies were rather strange. Then, we started hearing about groups with names like Country Joe And The Fish.

A – Yeah. (laughs)

Q – Big Brother And The Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service.

A – Everybody tried to come up with some sort of strange name for some reason. We had a bunch of different names and finally settled on Quicksilver Messenger Service because we’re all the same birth sign. We’re all Virgo, which is ruled by Mercury. Me and the drummer had the same birth date. David Freiberg and John Cipollina had the same birth date. So, between the four of us, there were only two birthdays. Virgo is ruled by Mercury, which is Quicksilver. Quicksilver is the winged messenger and Virgo is the sign of the selfless servant. So, that’s where the name Quicksilver Messenger Service name came from. It’s astrological.

Q – I got the Quicksilver and Messenger part, but where did the Service come from?

A – Virgo is the sign of the selfless servant and we called it Service.

and also……I don’t drink. I’m a Native American so I have what they call the Apache Syndrome, which is not being able to stop drinking. So, I just don’t drink.

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Lonnie Mack 4/2016

Lonnie Mack (74) was born Lonnie McIntosh on July 18, 1941 in Dearborn County, Indiana, shortly after his family had moved from Appalachian (eastern Kentucky). One of five children, he was raised on a series of nearby sharecropping farms.

Using a floor-model radio powered by a truck battery, his family routinely listened to the Grand Ole Opry country music show. Continuing to listen after the rest of the family had retired for the night, Mack became a fan of rhythm and blues and traditional black gospel music.
He began playing guitar at the age of seven, after trading his bicycle for a Lone Ranger model acoustic guitar. His mother taught him basic chords, and he was soon playing bluegrass guitar in the family band. Mack recalled that when he was “seven or eight years old” an uncle from Texas introduced him to blues guitar and that when he was about ten years of age, an “old black man” named Wayne Clark introduced him to “Robert Johnson style guitar”.

He soon taught himself to merge finger-picking country guitar with acoustic blues-picking, to produce a hybrid style which, Mack said, “sounded like rockabilly, but before rockabilly”.
His musical influences remained diverse as he refined his playing and singing styles. In his pre-teen years, Mack was mentored by blind singer-guitarist Ralph Trotto, a country-gospel performer. Mack would skip school to play music with Trotto at the latter’s house. Mack cited country picker Merle Travis, blues guitarist T-Bone Walker, R&B guitarist Robert Ward, and pop/jazz guitarist Les Paul as significant guitar influences. Significant vocal influences included R&B singers Jimmy Reed, Ray Charles, Bobby “Blue” Bland, and Hank Ballard, country singer George Jones, traditional black gospel singer Archie Brownlee, and soul music singer Wilson Pickett. Mack later recorded tunes associated with most of these artists.

In 1954, at age 13, Mack dropped out of school after a fight with a teacher. Large and mature-looking for his age, he obtained a counterfeit ID and began performing professionally in bars around Cincinnati with a band led by drummer Hoot Smith. As a 14-year-old professional electric guitarist in 1955, he “was earning $300 per week—more than most workers in the area’s casket and whiskey factories in a month.” At 15, he was performing on local TV with his band, the Twilighters. He played guitar on several low-circulation recordings in the late 1950s.
While still a child, Mack learned fleet-fingered bluegrass and country guitar styles while playing at home in his “family band”. By his late teens, Mack had expanded his six-string repertoire to include blues, rockabilly, and the percussive chordal riffing of early rock’s Chuck Berry.
In the early 1960s, using a bluegrass-style flatpicking technique, he innovated rock guitar solos with a then-perceived “peculiar running quality” at “a million notes per minute”.

In 1958, he bought the seventh Gibson Flying V guitar (#007) ever manufactured by Gibson in Michigan and played the roadhouse circuit around Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky.

In the early 1960s he became a session guitarist with Fraternity Records, a small Cincinnati label.
And then Mack emerged in 1963 with his breakthrough LP, The Wham of that Memphis Man. It earned him lasting renown as both a blue-eyed soul singer and a lead guitar innovator. In the album’s instrumental tracks, Mack added “edgy, aggressive, loud, and fast” melodies and runs to the standard chords-and-riffs pattern of early rock guitar. These tracks raised the bar for rock guitar proficiency, helped launch the electric guitar to the top of soloing instruments in rock, and became prototypes for the lead guitar styles of blues rock and, soon thereafter, Southern rock.
Unfortunately Mac’s popular recording career was shortcut by the British Invasion hitting the US shores and his career “withered on the vine”.

Although his recording career had stalled out, Mack stayed busy as a performer, criss-crossing the country with one-night stands.
The ’60s, man, we was full of piss and vinegar, nothing bothered us. We had bennies, like the truckers had [and] we just stayed on the road all the time.” During that time, “[we] performed with just about everybody, [from] Jimi Hendrix [to] The Everly Brothers, Chuck Berry, and Dick and Dee Dee.” He also took on session work with James Brown, Freddie King, Joe Simon, Albert Washington, and other R&B/soul artists.

In 1968, at the height of the blues-rock era, Elektra Records bought out Mack’s dormant Fraternity recording contract and moved him to Los Angeles to record three albums. In November 1968, the newly founded Rolling Stone magazine published a rave review of Mack’s discontinued 1963 debut album, persuading Elektra to re-issue it. He was soon performing in major rock venues, including the Fillmore East, the Fillmore West, and the Cow Palace. He opened for the Doors and Crosby, Stills & Nash and shared the stage with Johnny Winter, Elvin Bishop and other popular rock and blues artists of the time.

It was the hippie era, however, and Mack’s rustic, blue-collar persona made for a rough fit with commercial rock’s target demographic. John Morthland wrote: “All the superior chops in the world couldn’t hide the fact that chubby, country Mack probably had more in common with Kentucky truck drivers than he did with the new rock audience.” In addition, after two multi-genre Elektra albums (both recorded in 1969) that downplayed his blues-rock strengths, including his guitar, Mack himself was dissatisfied: “My music wasn’t working that good then. I ain’t really happy with a lot of the stuff I did there.”

Mack’s career-long pattern of switching and mixing within the entire range of white and black Southern roots music genres made him “as difficult to market as he was to describe.” He enjoyed periods of significant commercial success as a rock artist in the 1960s and 1980s, but was mostly absent from the rock spotlight for two long stretches of his career (1971–1984 and 1991–2004), during which he continued to perform, mostly in small venues, as a roots-rock “cult figure”. In the end, his “influence and standing among musicians far exceeded his (commercial) success.”

At that point in his career, Mack took a break from performing and recording. According to Robbie Krieger, lead guitarist of label-mate the Doors, Mack was seen during this period “selling Bibles out of the back of his car.” He also worked for Elektra’s A&R department, helping to recruit new talent. In 1971, with one album left to complete his contract with Elektra, Mack moved to Nashville. There, he recorded The Hills of Indiana, a multi-genre (but country-flavored) LP with a vocal emphasis. It included only one track showcasing his guitar virtuosity, “Asphalt Outlaw Hero”. The Hills of Indiana attracted little attention.

Mack had begun missing the fun of small-town performance venues early in his time with Elektra and soon soured on the fantasy of rock celebrity status.

“It had a lot to do with how much value you put on money as opposed to what makes you happy. I wasn’t happy. So one of the best-feeling moments I ever had was when that L.A. sign was in my rear-view mirror and I was free again.” On another occasion, Mack said: “Seems like every time I get close to really making it, to climbing to the top of the mountain, that’s when I pull out. I just pull up and run.”

For the next fourteen years he was a low-profile multi-genre recording artist, roadhouse performer, sideman, and music-venue proprietor. In 1977, Mack was shot during an altercation with an off-duty police officer. The experience inspired Mack’s tune, “Cincinnati Jail”, a rowdy, guitar-and-vocal rock number that he favored in live performances later in his career.

In 1983, Mack relocated to Austin, Texas, for a collaboration with his blues-rock disciple, super guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan. Vaughan persuaded Mack to return to the studio and move to Austin, Texas. With Vaughan in production and backup roles, Mack’s return was postponed by a lengthy illness that Mack attributed to “so much drinkin’ and carryin’ on”. In 1985, Mack staged a “full-fledged comeback” with the blues-rock album, Strike Like Lightning (co-produced by Vaughan and Mack), a tour featuring guest appearances by Vaughan, Ry Cooder, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones, and a concert at Carnegie Hall with Albert Collins and Roy Buchanan.

In 1986, Mack joined Roy Buchanan and Dickey Betts for the Great American Guitar Assault Tour. He released three more albums over the next four years, including his last, in 1990, a blues-rock LP entitled Lonnie Mack Live! – Attack of the Killer V!. Then, worn from the constant touring required to sell records, he ended his recording career. However, he continued to play the roadhouse and festival circuits at his own pace through 2004.

Lonnie Mack died on April 21, 2016 at the age of 74.

Tributes:

While largely unknown to mainstream audiences, Mack’s influence on an entire generation of rock guitarists is vital. Guitarists who have identified Mack as a major or significant influence include Stevie Ray Vaughan (blues rock), Jeff Beck (blues rock, jazz-rock), Neil Young (hard rock; country-tinged folk rock), Ted Nugent (hard rock), Dickey Betts (Southern rock), Warren Haynes (Southern rock), Ray Benson (Western swing), Bootsy Collins (funk), Adrian Belew (impressionist rock), Wayne Perkins (multi-genre), and Tyler Morris (multi-genre). According to a variety of sources, Mack similarly influenced guitarists Joe Bonamassa (blues rock), Eric Clapton (blues rock), Duane Allman (Southern rock), Gary Rossington (Southern rock), Steve Gaines (Southern rock), Dan Toler (Southern rock), Mike Bloomfield (blues rock), Jerry Garcia (psychedelic rock), Jimi Hendrix (psychedelic blues rock), Keith Richards (blues rock), Jimmy Page (blues rock), and Danny Gatton (blues rock; jazz rock).

Mack said: “It’s a great honor to be able to inspire other artists. What you do in this business, your whole thing is givin’ stuff away. But that makes you feel good, makes you feel like you’ve really done something.”

It is widely agreed that: Lonnie took rock guitar playing to a whole different level. You had to really know how to play now. Before Lonnie, the sax guys did all of the lead work. Lonnie made the guitar the preeminent lead instrument.
Mack’s early-1960s guitar tracks are said to have set the stage for blues-rock guitar and Southern rock guitar, styles that first enjoyed broad popularity a few years later. Real music fans realize that Lonnie Mack was the Jimi Hendrix of his time; the missing guitar link between the twangy, multi-string riffing of rockabilly and the bluesy, string-pushing players of the mid-sixties.

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Mike Pinder 4/2024

Mike Pinder (82) – The Moody Blues –  was born in Erdington, Birmingham on 27 December 1941. His father, Bert, was a coach driver and his mother, Gladys (née Lay), was a barmaid. As a child, he had an affinity for rocket ships and outer space which earned him the nickname “Mickey the Moon Boy”. These interests would be recurring themes throughout his career as a song writer. (Mickey the Moonboy. In 1995 Mike got a personal tour at NASA and a treasured memento.)

He was a member of several bands in Birmingham in his teenage years, among them the Checkers, who won first prize of £50 in a talent competition. In his first band, rock’n’roll combo El Riot and the Rebels, Pinder played support to the Beatles in 1963 in a show at Tenbury. As a member of the short-lived Krew Kats, he played for two months in clubs in Hamburg where the Beatles had played.

Between 1962–63, Pinder worked for 18 months as a development engineer, responsible for testing and quality control, at Streetly Electronics in Streetly, Birmingham, a factory manufacturing the first models of Mellotron in the UK. In May 1964 he left Streetly Electronics to co-found The Moody Blues with Ray Thomas, Denny Laine, Clint Warwick and Graeme Edge.

The band moved to London and signed with Decca Records. Their first single, a cover of Bobby Parker‘s “Steal Your Heart Away”, failed to chart. The breakthrough came with their second single, a cover of Bessie BanksGo Now“, which became a UK No. 1 and US Top 10 hit in 1965. In the US the band was signed to London Records. The band had further UK hits with a cover of The Drifters‘ “I Don’t Want to Go On Without You” and the Pinder/Laine original “From the Bottom of My Heart”. They released their first album, The Magnificent Moodies, in July 1965. Pinder took his first lead vocal on a cover of James Brown‘s “I Don’t Mind”. “Bye Bye Bird” from this album was also a hit for the band in France. In the US the album was titled Go Now.

Pinder and Laine began a songwriting partnership, providing most of the band’s 45 rpm B-sides from 1964–66, including “You Don’t (All The Time)”, “And My Baby’s Gone”, “This Is My House (But Nobody Calls)” and “He Can Win”. They progressed to writing A-sides with “From The Bottom of My Heart” and another UK chart hit, “Everyday”, in 1965. Two more Pinder/Laine originals, “Boulevard De La Madeline” (1966), and “Life’s Not Life” (issued in January 1967 but recorded much earlier in 1966), were recorded for single release before Laine and Warwick left the group in 1966.

A rare, non-UK Pinder/Laine song from this era was “People Gotta Go”, released on the France-only EP Boulevard De La Madeline and later included as a bonus track on a CD release of The Magnificent Moodies in 2006. The song is also known as “Send the People Away”.

Pinder was partly responsible for the choice of young Swindon guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Justin Hayward to replace Laine. It was Pinder who phoned Hayward and collected him from the railway station. Rod Clarke briefly replaced Warwick as bassist until John Lodge was recruited as bassist/vocalist, completing the ‘classic’ Moodies line-up.

Pinder acquired a second-hand Mellotron from Streetly Electronics, and after removing all the special effects tapes (train whistles, cock crowing, etc.) and doubling the string section tapes, used it on numerous Moody Blues recordings, beginning with their single “Love and Beauty”, a flower power song written and sung by Pinder, which was his only A-side after 1966. He introduced the Mellotron to his friend John Lennon, and the Beatles subsequently used one on “Strawberry Fields Forever.

His “Dawn (Is A Feeling)”, with lead vocals by Hayward and Pinder singing the bridge section, opened the Days of Future Passed album. Pinder also contributed “The Sunset” and narrated drummer Edge’s opening and closing poems, “Morning Glory” and “Late Lament”. Days of Future Passed had been planned as a stereo demonstration album for the Decca Deram label, combining rock and orchestral music. It sold more than a million copies in the US alone.

Pinder, Moody Blues recording engineer Derek Varnals and long-time producer Tony Clarke (a Decca staff producer assigned to them from “Fly Me High” onwards), devised an innovative way of playing and recording the unwieldy Mellotron to make its sound flow in symphonic waves, rather than with the instrument’s usual sharp cutoff. This symphonic sound provided the basis of the musical style of the band’s seven major albums between 1967 and 1972.

Pinder was one of the first musicians to use the Mellotron in live performance, and he had to rely on the mechanical skills he had gained from his time as an engineer with Streetly Electronics to keep the instrument functioning. In the band’s first US concert, the back of the Mellotron fell open and all of the tape strips fell out. Pinder got the instrument back into working order in 20 minutes while the lighting crew entertained the audience by projecting cartoons.

On Moody Blues recordings from 1967 onwards, in addition to the mellotron, organ and piano, Pinder also played harpsichord, Moog synthesizer, tablas, various forms of keyboards and percussion, autoharp, tanpura (tambura), cello, bass and acoustic and electric guitars. He sang vocal harmonies and lead vocals from 1964 to 1978, and was the group’s main musical arranger up to 1978.

Pinder wrote and sang several of the band’s more progressive, even mystic, numbers, including “The Best Way to Travel” and “Om” (both from 1968’s album In Search of the Lost Chord), plus the innovative symphonic rock piece “Have You Heard/The Voyage/Have You Heard (part two)” which concluded their 1969 album On the Threshold of a Dream.

In 1971, Pinder guested on John Lennon’s Imagine album on “I Don’t Wanna Be A Soldier (I Don’t Wanna Die)” and “Jealous Guy”. He played tambourine rather than the mellotron he had intended to use because, he said, the tapes in Lennon’s mellotron looked like “a bowl of spaghetti”.

In 1972 the Moody Blues, then at the height of their popularity, recorded the Seventh Sojourn album, which included two songs written and sung by Pinder: “Lost in a Lost World” and “When You’re A Free Man”, dedicated to Timothy Leary. For this album he played the similar-sounding but less troublesome tape-based Chamberlin keyboard.

The Moody Blues went on hiatus in 1974, largely because of tour fatigue and family considerations. By this time, Pinder had grown tired of the burgeoning crime and inclement weather in his homeland. This, along with an impending divorce, prompted him to re-locate to Malibu, California, where he recorded a solo album The Promise in 1976, released through the Moody Blues’ Threshold label.

In 1977 the band reformed and began work on the 1978 release Octave. Pinder’s only writing contribution to the album was “One Step Into the Light”, an unused song from The Promise. He also added some synthesizer and backing vocals to the album, notably the album intro to Lodge’s “Steppin’ in a Slide Zone” and the instrumental climax on Edge’s “I’ll Be Level with You”; he then stopped coming to the sessions when interpersonal conflicts (mostly with Edge) arose. During this time, Pinder was also in a new relationship resulting in marriage and children, thus he preferred not to tour with the band at the time. As a result, the band chose to continue without him, hiring Swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz, formerly of Yes, in his place.

Pinder took employment as a consultant to the Atari computer corporation (primarily working on music synthesis), remarried, and started a family in Grass Valley, California. He remained out of the public eye until the mid-1990s, when he began to grant interviews and work on new recording projects. The year 1994 saw the release of his second solo album, Among the Stars, on his own One Step label, to limited success. Another One Step release, A Planet With One Mind (1995), and “A People With One Heart ” (1996), capitalised on Pinder’s experience as chief reciter of Graeme Edge’s poetry on the Moody Blues albums; in this recording, Pinder reads seven children’s stories from different world cultures, accompanied by appropriate world music. As his first spoken word album, it was well received among its contemporaries in the genre – it was a finalist for the Benjamin Franklin Award for Excellence in Audio as an outstanding children’s recording.

Pinder continued to work in the studio on his own and others’ projects and in developing new artists and nurturing the creative process. During and after his stint with the band, he released three solo albums — 1976’s “The Promise”, 1994’s “Among the Stars” and 1995’s “A Planet With One Mind”.

Mike Pinder died at his home in northern California on 24 April 2024, at the age of 82. He had been suffering for some years from dementia.

Tribute:

The Heart and Soul of the Moody Blues, Mike Pinder, passed away on April 24, 2024. He was probably the most widespread influence on Music that many people had never heard of. His Sound: The Mellotron: He was the undisputed Master of that Instrument, and did more with it than any other Band or Musician. Bands such as Yes, King Crimson, The Beatles and Stones all used the Mellotron (many with Mike’s instruction), but none produced the widespread Huge Spacy Orchestral Sound that he played. All Popular Music today that features spacy orchestral sounds are a direct influence of Mike Pinder. The Moody Blues produced Seven Masterpieces with Pinder, starting with Days Of Future Passed. It was released in 1967, the same year as Sgt. Pepper, and had a more expansive creative sound. Many of the sections that we thought were the Orchestra were actually played by Mike Pinder – For the most part, the Orchestral Sections were recorded separate from the Band tracks. But the Band tracks sounded huge and orchestral due to Pinder’s Mellotron. All of the Classic Seven Masterpieces have the words on the cover: “All Instruments Played By The Moody Blues.” Their range of sonic expression and creativity seemed to be without boundaries or limits. The test of a good stereo can be done using Moody Blues albums. Their songs, in great part due to Pinder, are Deep, Intelligent, Emotional and hair-raising, and they Rock. Pinder’s songs on the Moodies albums are most often the Most Experimental, Moody, Deep, and are often Amazing Sonic Journeys into the Mind as well as Outer Space. As he sang, “You Gotta Make the Journey Out and In.” Tunes such as “My Song” are not to be believed. You just need to sit and listen to that Journey – He takes you deep into your Soul and out into Space and back. The Sounds are unworldly.

Justin Hayward said “Nights In White Satin” was just another song until Mike Pinder told him to run through it one more time. Pinder added that 7 – note phrase that transported the song. Then the powerful orchestral Mellotron on the chorus lifted it into Heaven.

That same 7 – note phrase has been repeated countless times on other songs: Those notes are the intro to “Layla,” played by Duane Allman and the ABB used that phrase constantly in their improvisations. Pinder first recorded it on “Nights” from Days Of Future Passed.

The Sounds played and Pioneered by Mike Pinder resonate through all Music through the decades and still are heard today. When you hear a Band that sounds deep, spacy, orchestral, and powerful – that’s the Influence of the Moody Blues and their Black Light Soul: Michael Pinder. 

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David Sanborn 5/2024

David Sanborn (78) was born in 1945 in Tampa, Florida where his father was stationed in the US Air Force.  David grew up in Kirkwood, Missouri, a western suburb of St. Louis. He contracted polio at the age of three. He “accepted his fate stoically” and endured a “miserable childhood”. He was confined to an iron lung for a year, and polio left him with impaired respiration and a left arm shorter than the right.

While confined to bed, David Sanborn was inspired by the “raw rock ‘n’ roll energy” of music he heard on the radio, particularly saxophone breaks in songs such as Fats Domino‘s “Ain’t That a Shame” and Little Richard‘s “Tutti Frutti”. He loved the sound of the saxophone and at the age of eleven was happy to change to saxophone from piano lessons when doctors recommended that he take up a wind instrument to improve his breathing and strengthen his chest muscles. When he was 14, he was competent enough playing saxophone to play with blues musicians in local clubs. Alto saxophonist Hank Crawford, who was a member of Ray Charles‘s band at the time, was an early and lasting influence on Sanborn.

Sanborn attended college at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois directly north of Chicago and studied music. He transferred to the University of Iowa in Iowa City east of Des Moines where he played and studied with saxophonist J. R. Monterose.

Sanborn performed with blues musicians Albert King and Little Milton at the age of 14. In 1967 Sanborn took a Greyhound bus to San Francisco to join the “Summer of Love.” While visiting recording studios he was invited to sit in on a session with The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. He made such an impression that he joined the band for five years. He recorded on four Butterfield albums as a horn section member and a soloist from 1967 to 1971. Early in the morning on August 18, 1969, he appeared with the band at the Woodstock Music Festival in Bethel, New York.

In 1972, Sanborn played on the track “Tuesday Heartbreak” on the Stevie Wonder album Talking Book. In 1975 he worked with David Bowie on Young Americans and on the James Taylor recording of “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)” on the album Gorilla. In the mid-1970s, Sanborn became active in the popular jazz fusion scene by joining the Brecker Brothers band, where he became influenced by Michael Brecker. With the Brecker brothers he recorded his first solo album, Taking Off, which became a jazz/funk classic. Sanborn’s solo release of Taking Off —still considered a classic—further solidified his career. His 1979 release of Hideaway became a popular hit and further propelled Dave’s ascent with the single, “Seduction” being featured in the movie, American Gigolo.

Veteran bassist and composer Marcus Miller joined Dave on the 1981 album, Voyeur. The single, “All I Need Is You” won Dave his first Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance. In 1983, Dave released the hit album Backstreet that included Luther Vandross as a featured guest vocalist. Later albums have included guest artists such as Jack DeJohnette, Bill Frisell, Charlie Hayden, Wallace Roney, Kenny Barron, Christian McBride, and Eric Clapton. In 1985, Sanborn and Al Jarreau played two sold-out concerts at Chastain Park in Atlanta. Although Sanborn was most associated with smooth jazz, he studied free jazz in his youth with saxophonists Roscoe Mitchell and Julius Hemphill.

He found life on the road increasingly difficult but continued to tour.  Moving onto television seemed to be the answer to that dilemma. Dave hosted the show, Night Music from 1988 to 1990. Produced by Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, the show featured films of jazz legends like Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck and Billie Holiday, as well as banter and memorable music jams by a remarkable list of musicians including Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Joe Sample, Pharoah Sanders, and many others. Additionally, Dave regularly hosted the “After New Year’s Eve” TV special on ABC. During the 1980s and 1990s, Dave hosted a syndicated radio program, The Jazz Show with David Sanborn. Dave has also recorded many shows’ theme songs as well as several other songs for The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder. 

In 1994, Sanborn appeared in A Celebration: The Music of Pete Townshend and The Who, also known as Daltrey Sings Townshend, a two-night concert at Carnegie Hall produced by Roger Daltrey of English rock band The Who in celebration of his fiftieth birthday. In 1994 a CD and a VHS video were issued, and in 1998 a DVD was released. In 1995 Sanborn performed in The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come True, a musical performance at Lincoln Center to benefit the Children’s Defense Fund. 

In 2006, he featured in Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band’s album The Phat Pack on the track “Play That Funky Music”, a remake of the Wild Cherry hit in a big band style. Sanborn often performed at Japan’s Blue Note venues in Nagoya, Osaka, and Tokyo. Sanborn played on the song “Your Party” on Ween’s 2007 release La Cucaracha. On April 8, 2007, he sat in with the Allman Brothers Band during their annual run at the Beacon Theatre in Manhattan, New York.

In 2010, Sanborn toured with a trio featuring jazz organist Joey DeFrancesco and Steve Gadd. They played the combination of blues and jazz from his album Only Everything. In 2011, Sanborn toured with keyboardist George Duke and bassist Marcus Miller as the group DMS. In 2013, Sanborn toured with keyboardist Brian Culbertson on “The Dream Tour” celebrating the 25th anniversary of the song “The Dream”. Besides playing alto saxophone as his main instrument, Sanborn also played baritone, soprano and sopranino saxophones; saxello; flute; and keyboards/piano on some recordings.

In 2017, Dave teamed up with his nephew and brother-in-law to create a new show called “Sanborn Sessions,” available on Youtube. In 2017, despite plans to reduce his workload to no more than 150 gigs a year, he embarked on a tour which included Istanbul and Nairobi, Kenya.

David Sanborn passed Sunday afternoon, May 12th, 2024 after an extended battle with prostate cancer with complications a disease he was diagnosed with in 2018. The six-time Grammy winner amassed eight gold albums and one platinum record in his career. He also played for others on dozens of albums. David won Grammy Awards for ‘Voyeur’ (1981), ‘Double Vision’ (1986) and ‘Close Up’ (1988). In 2004 he was inducted into the St Louis Walk of Fame.

Albums he has played on include:

George Benson ‘In Your Eyes’ (1983)
James Brown ‘Reality’ (1974)
David Bowie ‘David Live’ (1974)
Stevie Wonder ‘Talking Book’ (1972)
Paul Simon ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’ (1975)
Bruce Springsteen ‘Born To Run’ (1975)
Elton John ‘Blue Moves’ (1976)
Linda Ronstadt ‘Living In The USA’ (1978)
The Eagles ‘The Long Run’ (1979)
Steely Dan ‘Gaucho’ (1980)
Billy Joel ‘An Innocent Man’ (1983)
The Rolling Stones ‘Undercover’ (1983)
Eric Clapton ‘Journeyman’ (1989)
James Taylor ‘JT’ 1977)

Sanborn had a part in the Bill Murray movie ‘Scrooged’ (1988) and ‘Magnum PI’ (1986). He also composed music for the movies ‘Lethal Weapon 2, 3 and 4’.

David Sanborn was a seminal figure in contemporary pop and jazz music. It has been said that he “put the saxophone back into Rock ’n Roll.”

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Spencer Davis 10/2020

Spencer Davis (81) – Spencer Davis Group – was born in Swansea, South-West Wales, on 17 July 1939.
His father was a paratrooper during World War II. While his father was away, his uncle Herman was a musical influence on Davis, teaching him how to play the harmonica and accordion at age six. Davis lived through The Blitz: “The bombed city center was my playground. I watched the town being absolutely destroyed.” Davis’s mother continued to live in the West Cross area of Swansea until her death. He attended Dynevor Schoolin Swansea and became proficient speaking a few languages.

His early musical influences were skiffle, jazz, and blues. Musical artists who influenced Davis include Big Bill Broonzy, Huddy Ledbetter, Buddy Holly, Davey Graham, John Martyn, Alexis Korner, and Long John Baldry. By the time he was 16, Davis was hooked on the guitar and the American rhythm and blues music making its way across the Atlantic. With few opportunities to hear R&B in South Wales, Davis attended as many local gigs as practical. Continue reading Spencer Davis 10/2020

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David Lindley 3/2023

David Lindley (78) was born in San Marino, California, on March 21, 1944. Growing up in Los Angeles, his father had an extensive collection of 78 rpm records that included Korean folk and Indian sitar music, as well as Spanish classical guitarists Andrés Segovia and Carlos Montoya. Lindley took up the violin at age three, and kept at it despite breaking the fragile bridge. He then moved on to the baritone ukulele in his early teens. Next he learned the banjo. By his late teens, he had won the Topanga Banjo•Fiddle Contest five times. He played banjo with the Dry City Scat Band which included multi-instrumentalist Chris Darrow, and Richard Greene on fiddle. Lindley and his bandmates aspired to emulate multi-talented folk singer Mike Seeger.

Lindley began to frequent the Los Angeles–area folk music scene of the 1960s, primarily going to the Ash Grove club, and the Troubador in West Hollywood, encountering an eclectic assortment of music including flamenco, Russian folk music, and Indian sitar music. At Ash Grove, Lindley shared ideas with local musicians such as Ry Cooder and Chris Hillman. Lindley formed an especially close relationship with Cooder as the two shared a love of “exotic music”, and they both turned away from corporate mainstream music to focus on less popular idioms such as folk and world music. Lindley also learned from traveling blues and folk musicians the “right” way to play certain styles, and he learned violin methods from local star Don “Sugarcane” Harris.

From 1966 to 1970, Lindley was a founding member of the psychedelic rock band Kaleidoscope which released four albums on Epic Records during that period. After Kaleidoscope broke up, Lindley went to England and played in Terry Reid’s (former Yardbirds and Renaissance vocalist) band for a couple of years. In 1972, he teamed with Jackson Browne, playing in his band through 1980 and occasionally afterward. During the 1970s he also toured as a member of the bands of Crosby-Nash, Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor.

In 1981, Lindley formed his own band, El Rayo-X. Jackson Browne produced their first album. The band’s final show was December 31, 1989. 

Lindley was especially known for his work as a session musician. He contributed to years of recordings and live performances by Jackson Browne, and also supported Warren Zevon, Linda Ronstadt, Curtis Mayfield, James Taylor, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Terry Reid, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Toto, Rod Stewart, Joe Walsh and Dan Fogelberg. He collaborated with fellow guitarists Ry Cooder, Henry Kaiser and G. E. Smith. Ben Harper credited Lindley’s distinctive slide guitar style as a major influence on his own playing, and, in 2006, Lindley sat in on Harper’s album Both Sides of the Gun. He was known in the guitar community for his use of “cheap” instruments sold at Sears department stores and intended for amateurs. He used these for the unique sounds they produce, especially with a slide.

After that in the early 1990s, Lindley toured as a solo artist, first with Hani Naser accompanying on hand drums, then with reggae percussionist Wally Ingram. He also played on a multitude of studio sessions. Between his work in the studio as a session musician or on tour as a sideman or bandleader, Lindley learned new instruments. He was famous for having written the only song glorifying a brand of condoms, “Ram-a-Lamb-a-Man,” from his album Win this Record!. The media often commented on his colorful polyester clothing, with jarring contrasts between pants and shirt, earning him the nickname Prince of Polyester.

Lindley also toured extensively and recorded with reggae percussionist Wally Ingram.

Lindley’s voice may be heard in the version of “Stay” performed by Jackson Browne. Browne’s version is a continuation of “The Load Out”, and its refrain is sung in progressively higher vocal ranges. The refrain of “Oh won’t you stay, just a little bit longer” is sung first by Browne, then by Rosemary Butler, then by Lindley in falsetto.

Lindley joined Jackson Browne for a tour of Spain in 2006. Love Is Strange: En Vivo Con Tino, a 2-CD set of recordings from that tour, was released May 2010, with Browne and Lindley touring together starting in June of that year. They played together at Glastonbury Festival in 2010, and they won an Independent Music Award for Best Live Performance Album in 2011.

He mastered such a wide variety of instruments that Acoustic Guitar magazine referred to him not as a multi-instrumentalist but instead as a “maxi-instrumentalist. The majority of the instruments that Lindley played are string instruments, including violin, electric guitar, upright and electric bass, banjo, mandolin, dobro, hardingfele, bouzouki, cittern, bağlama, gumbus, charango, cümbüş, oud and zither. He was the unparalleled master of the lap steel guitar in the rock music sphere, and an expert in Hawaiian-style slide guitar blues.

Lindley had obviously a large collection of rare and unusual guitars and other instruments from the Middle East and various parts of the world. He listed and categorized many of them on his website but admitted that he had “absolutely no idea” how many instruments he owned and played, having gathered them since the 1960s. A journalist described his home in 1994 as containing a “tidal flood of instruments strewn all over the house. In every room. On the floor, balanced against the wall, lying atop cabinets and just literally occupying virtually every inch of available floor space.”

David Lindley died after a long illness on March 3, 2023, at the age of 78. He had had COVID-19 in 2020, which his family said developed into Long COVID, with chronic kidney damage.

David Lindley was the epitome of a musician’s musician, not only for his comprehensive skills but also for his infectious personality. Lindley was best known as the ultimate sidekick,

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Ron Bushy 8/2021

Ron Bushy (Iron Butterfly) was born on December 23, 1941 in Washington DC. Little is recorded on how he ended up on the west coast but, following the band’s relocation from San Diego to Los Angeles, replacing previous drummer Bruce Morse, who left due to a family emergency. Bushy became part of the group’s classic lineup, along with vocalist and keyboardist Doug Ingle, guitarist Erik Brann, and bassist Lee Dorman.

I started in San Diego and went to college. I studied biology and psychology. I was going to become a Marine Biologist and go to Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla. I got sidetracked into music part-time. I rented a drum set and learned to play drums to Booker T and the MG’s, “Green Onions.” From there, I started playing nightclubs as the Bushmen….then The Voxmen. We played Arts Roaring 20s in El Cajon. We ran into the Palace Pages who then became Jerry and the Geritones…we became friends later. Then they changed their name to Iron Butterfly. They later went to Hollywood to make it. I was now in The Voxmen and we said if they can do it, so can we.  

When we got to Hollywood we got a job at the Sea Witch on Sunset for $7 a night for the whole band. Iron Butterfly was playing at Bido Lidos on Cosmo Alley, so I went to see them. They asked me to sit in, and after the first song, they turned around and said, “We want you in Iron Butterfly.” I told them, “No, I’m loyal.” They pleaded with me to join, so we switched drummers. Their drummer liked The Voxmen better, and I became Iron Butterfly’s drummer.    

‘Heavy’ was the original lineup with Iron Butterfly; Doug Ingle, Darryl DeLoach, Danny Weis, Jerry Penrod and Ron Bushy. They started in San Diego, then moved to L.A. where the real action was. There were actually 2 groups, The Voxmen and Iron Butterfly. They both went to L.A. and ended up switching drummers and Bushy ended up in Iron Butterfly. They played 6 nights a week at Bido Lito’s club on the Sunset Strip, 5 sets a night for 6 weeks. We lived upstairs in the office and left our equipment set up on stage. Everyday we got up and wrote songs, and rehearse, then playing 5 sets. From there we went to the Whisky for 6 weeks as the opening band for all the famous groups. From there we went 2 doors up to Galaxy where we played 7 nights a week, 5 sets a night. This is where we wrote and put ‘Heavy’ together. We became tight and got signed to ATCO Records [a division of Atlantic Records]. We went in to Goldstar Studio and recorded ‘Heavy’, while still playing at the Galaxy. But after the album was finished, Danny Weis left the band. Daryl DeLoach and Jerry Penrod followed. Now it was just Doug Ingle and me…

Atco shelved the album because there was no band. We had no band, so we started auditions. After 2 months we found Rick Davis [Erik Braunn], guitar and Lee Dorman, bass. Now Erik was only 17 and still in high school, so his mother needed to give her consent. Lee Dorman was an old friend of mine from San Diego who played drums, but had switched to the bass. We were still living in Laurel Canyon, later we rented a house in Mission Hills where the whole band lived and set up our equipment in the living room. We rehearsed and wrote songs for our next album.

The epic ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ title track took up all of side two of the album and clocked in at 17 minutes and five seconds. At one stage ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ held the record for biggest selling album of all time. The album reached no 4 in the USA and no 14 in Australia in 1968. The iconic song, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” owed both its name and its length to Bushy: His drum solo took up a substantial part of its 17-minute run time, and he misheard singer Doug Ingle’s slurred words when he sang the words “In the Garden of Eden.” The misunderstanding stuck, and the song went on to become one of the formative influences on hard rock and heavy metal.

On recording “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” Bushy said:
“After many months and 3 months of opening for Jefferson Airplane the song got longer and longer, taking on a life of its own,” we went straight into Ultrasonic Studios in Hempstead, Long Island. Don Caselle was the engineer. We set up our equipment and Don says, ‘Guys, why don’t you just start playing and let me get some microphone levels.’ We decided let’s do ‘Vida…’ we played the entire song without stopping. To make a long story short, when we finished, he said, ‘Guys, come into the control room.’ We listened to it and were blown away.” —from a 2021 interview for Vinyl Writer Music

The third album ‘Ball’ was written in the house and rehearsal studios and on the road and finished in a NY studio. After touring with Erik Braunn, he became very closed minded and did not accept ideas or let’s try this. He was impossible to work with—so we decided to break the band up.

For ‘Metamorphosis’, we replaced Erik with Mike Pinera from Blues Image and Larry Rhino [Reinhardt] from the Allman Bros. Doug Ingle by then lived in a house in Calabasas where we would write and rehearse the songs on ‘Metamorphosis’. The rest was rehearsed and recorded in 2 weeks at American Studio on Ventura Blvd. with Ritchie Podolar and Bill Cooper. They were the first to have an all DC studio running on car batteries…no AC hum. It was an old Chinese restaurant converted with the walk in refrigerator as an amazing live chamber. ‘Metamorphosis’ is my favorite album. We got to spread our wings and be totally creative. My favorites are ‘Soldier’ and ‘Slower Than Guns’. After “Metamorphosis” the band broke up again, but Bushy rejoined the band when they regrouped in 1974, playing on their fifth and sixth albums, Scorching Beauty and Sun and Steel, which were both released in 1975.

Even after a second breakup of the band took place, Bushy continued to drum for Iron Butterfly when they reformed again, despite various other member changeups, which made Bushy the only one who played on all six Iron Butterfly albums including the 4x Platinum classic ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ released in 1968.

Bushy remained with Iron Butterfly through a series of breakups and reformations, and he continued to drum for them off and on for the rest of his life. After the break-up of Iron Butterfly in 1975, Bushy worked first with the band Magic (1977-1978) and then Gold (1978-1980). Throughout the 80s he took part in the occasional Iron Butterfly reunion tours.

Ron Bushy died at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica from esophageal cancer on Aug 29, 2021. He was the third member of the original band to pass away. Guitarist Eric Brann died in 2003. Bass player Lee Dorman died in 2012. Last surviving member Lead singer/keyboardist Doug Ingle died in 2024

Shortly before his death, Bushy agreed to donate his iconic clear drum kit to the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. The custom set, build by Bill Zickos in 1969, was well-traveled, hitting the road with the likes of The Doors, Cream, and The Who.

Ringo Starr, famous Beatles’ drummer, never played a drum solo on a Beatles record until he was badgered by Paul, John and George on the last song of the last album they ever recorded, called “The End” and who did he copy? Part of Ron Bushy’s famous drum solo in “In a Gadda da Vida”. Listen here if you don’t believe it!

Bushy’s primal drumming would go on to influence many of his peers. “Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney came to see us at Royal Albert Hall,” Bushy said once. “Ringo took me out to dinner and drinks and said to me, ‘I hope you don’t mind I stole a part of your drum solo’ in ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ for the Abbey Road track “The End.” I told him not at all. ‘I took it as a compliment coming from you.’”

Bushy reveled in his very personal individualistic style, that felt like the dark jungle at your feet. He once stated: “I am completely self-taught. I just play what I feel. I don’t read or write music. I am just me, my style.”

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Bill Withers 3/2020

Bill Withers was born in 1938 in a West Virginia coal miner’s town, the youngest of six children. His father died when he was a child and he was raised by his mother and grandmother.
His entry to the music world came late – at the age of 29 – after a nine-year stint in the Navy.
He taught himself to play guitar between shifts at his job making toilet seats for the Boeing aircraft company, and used his wages to pay for studio sessions in LA.
“I figured out that you didn’t need to be a virtuoso to accompany yourself,” he told Rolling Stone magazine in 2015.
He recorded his first album, Just As I Am, with Booker T Jones in 1970. It included the mournful ballad Ain’t No Sunshine, which earned him his first Grammy award the subsequent year. Continue reading Bill Withers 3/2020

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Duane Eddy 4/2024

Duane Eddy was born in Corning, New York, on April 26, 1938. His father, Lloyd, drove a bread truck. He began playing the guitar at the age of five after hearing the cowboy singer Gene Autry. In 1951, his family moved to Tucson, and then to Coolidge, Arizona. He formed a duo, Jimmy and Duane, with his friend Jimmy Delbridge, who later recorded as Jimmy Dell. Eddy left school at sixteen and played in local bars. 

In 1957, Eddy had a weekly showcase on radio station KCKY and then a slot on a weekly hit parade television show in Phoenix, where he met met Arizona-based disc jockey, songwriter and music publisher Lee Hazlewood. Hazlewood produced the duo’s single, “Soda Fountain Girl”, recorded and released in 1955 in Phoenix, Arizona. They performed and appeared on radio stations in Phoenix and joined Buddy Long’s Western Melody Boys, playing country music in and around the city.

Eddy was not happy with his singing voice, and he devised a technique of playing lead lines on his guitar’s bass strings to produce a low, reverberant “twangy” sound instead. At the age of 19, he had acquired a 1957 Chet Atkins model Gretsch 6120 guitar from Ziggie’s Music in Phoenix, and in November 1957, he recorded an instrumental piece, “Movin’ n’ Groovin'”, which he co-wrote with Hazlewood. His backing band included saxophonist Steve Douglas, pianist Larry Knechtel, and bassist Al Casey. As the Phoenix studio had no echo chamber, Hazlewood bought a 2,000-gallon water storage tank to use as an echo chamber to accentuate the “twangy” guitar sound. In 1958, Eddy signed a recording contract with Lester Sill and Hazlewood to record in Phoenix at the Audio Recorders studio. Sill and Hazlewood leased the tapes of all their singles and albums to the Philadelphia-based Jamie Records.

“Movin’ n’ Groovin'” reached number 72 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1958. The opening riff, borrowed from Chuck Berry’s “Brown Eyed Handsome Man”, was in turn copied a few years later by the Beach Boys on “Surfin’ U.S.A.” The follow-up, “Rebel-Rouser”, featured a saxophone overdubbed by Los Angeles session musician Gil Bernal, and yells and handclaps by doo-wop group the Rivingtons. This became Eddy’s breakthrough hit, reaching number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It sold over one million copies, earning him his first gold disc.

Eddy had a succession of hit records over the next few years. His band members, including saxophonists Steve Douglas and Jim Horn, and keyboard player Larry Knechtel, were later members of Phil Spector’s Wrecking Crew. According to writer Richie Unterberger, “The singles, of which ‘Peter Gunn’, ‘Cannonball’, ‘Shazam’, and ‘Forty Miles of Bad Road’ were probably the best, also did their part to help keep the raunchy spirit of rock and roll alive during a time in which it was in danger of being watered down.”

On January 9, 1958, Eddy’s debut album, Have ‘Twangy’ Guitar Will Travel, was released. It reached number five on the album chart and remained there for 82 weeks. Duane Eddy and the Rebels appeared six times on The Dick Clark Show between 1958 and 1960. On Eddy’s fourth album, Songs of Our Heritage (1960), each track featured him playing acoustic guitar or banjo. His biggest hit came with the theme of the movie Because They’re Young in 1960, which featured a string arrangement. It reached a chart peak of number four in America and number two in the UK in September 1960, and became his second million-selling disc. Eddy’s records were consistently more successful in the UK than they were in his native United States, and in 1960, readers of the UK’s NME voted him World’s Number One Musical Personality, ousting Elvis Presley.

In 1960, Eddy signed a contract directly with Jamie Records, bypassing Sill and Hazlewood, which caused a temporary rift between Eddy and Hazlewood. The result was that for the duration of his contract with Jamie, Eddy produced his own singles and albums.
In the 1960s, Eddy launched an acting career, appearing in such films as Because They’re Young, A Thunder of Drums, The Wild Westerners, Kona Coast, and The Savage Seven, with two appearances on the television series Have Gun – Will Travel. In 1961 he signed a three-year contract with Paul Anka’s production company, Camy, whose recordings were issued by RCA Victor. In the early days of recording in the RCA Victor studios, he renewed contact with Lee Hazlewood, who became involved in a number of his RCA Victor singles and albums.

Eddy’s 1962 single release, “(Dance With The) Guitar Man”, co-written with Hazlewood, sold a million copies and earned his third gold disc. He had sold 12 million records by 1963. In 1965 he released an album of instrumental versions of Bob Dylan songs.
In the 1970s, Eddy produced album projects for Phil Everly and Waylon Jennings. In 1972, he worked with Al Gorgoni, rhythm guitar, on BJ Thomas’s “Rock and Roll Lullaby”. In 1975 a collaboration with hit songwriter Tony Macaulay and former founding member of The Seekers, Keith Potger, led to another UK top 10 record, “Play Me Like You Play Your Guitar”. The single, “You Are My Sunshine”, featuring Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, appeared in the country charts in 1977.

In 1986, Eddy recorded with Art of Noise a remake of his 1960 version of Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn”. It was a top 10 hit around the world, ranking number one on Rolling Stone’s dance chart for six weeks that summer. “Peter Gunn” won the Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental of 1986. It also gave Eddy the distinction of being the only instrumentalist to have had top 10 hit singles in four different decades in the UK. His 1975 top-10 hit featured a female vocal group.

The following year, the album Duane Eddy was released on Capitol. Several of the tracks were produced by Paul McCartney, Jeff Lynne, Ry Cooder and Art of Noise. Guest artists and musicians included John Fogerty, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ry Cooder, James Burton, David Lindley, Phil Pickett, Steve Cropper, and original Rebels Larry Knechtel and Jim Horn. The album included a cover of Paul McCartney’s 1979 instrumental, “Rockestra Theme”.  

In 1992, Eddy recorded a duet with Hank Marvin for Marvin’s album Into the Light, a cover version of The Chantays’ 1963 hit “Pipeline”.
Eddy’s “Rebel Rouser” was featured in 1992 in the film Forrest Gump. Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers used “The Trembler”, a track written by Eddy and Ravi Shankar. In 1994, Eddy teamed up with Carl Perkins and The Mavericks to contribute “Matchbox” to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country, produced by the Red Hot Organization. Eddy was the lead guitarist on Foreigner’s 1995 hit “Until the end of Time”, which reached the top 10 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. In 1996, Eddy played guitar on Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack for the film Broken Arrow.

In October 2010, Eddy returned to the UK for a sold-out Royal Festival Hall concert in London. This success prompted an album, Road Trip, for Mad Monkey/EMI, produced by Richard Hawley in Sheffield, England. The album was released on June 20, 2011, and Mojo placed it at number 37 on its list of “Top 50 albums of 2011.” Eddy performed at the Glastonbury Festival on June 26, 2011.
For an 80th-birthday tour in 2018, Eddy returned to the UK in concerts with Liverpudlian singer-songwriter Robert Vincent, performing on October 23 at the London Palladium, and October 30 at Bridgewater Hall in Manchester.

Duane Eddy died of cancer in Franklin, Tennessee, on April 30, 2024, four days after his birthday, at the age of 86.

In 1994 Eddy was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2008.

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Steve Harley 3/2024

Steve Harley (Cockney Rebel) was born Stephen Malcolm Ronald Nice on 27 February 1951 in Deptford, London, the second of five children. His father Ronnie was a milkman and semi-professional footballer; his mother Joyce was a semi-professional jazz singer.

During the summer of 1953, aged two, Harley contracted a severe case of polio and the doctors told his father he was going to die. He survived, but spent four years in hospitals between the ages of three and 16. He underwent major surgery in 1963 and 1966. After recovering from the first operation, aged 12, Harley was introduced to the poetry of T. S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence, the prose of John Steinbeck, Virginia Woolf and Ernest Hemingway, and the music of Bob Dylan, which pointed him to future careers involving words and music.  While in hospital he wrote poetry, finding inspiration in Dylan’s ballads.

From the age of nine, Harley took classical violin lessons and he played in his grammar school orchestra. Aged 10, he began learning the guitar after his parents had given him a nylon-string Spanish guitar for Christmas, and he started to write his own songs.

Harley was a pupil at Edmund Waller Primary School in New Cross, London. He attended Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham Boys’ Grammar School until the age of 17. Aged 15, he took his O-level exams in his hospital bed. He left school without completing his A-level exams.

In 1968, at the age of 17, Harley began his first full-time job, working as a trainee accountant with the Daily Express, despite having gained only 24% in his mock O-level maths exam. From there he progressed to become a reporter, having wanted to be a journalist since the age of 12. After being interviewed by several newspaper editors, Harley signed to train with Essex County Newspapers. Over the next three years, Harley worked at the Essex County Standard, the Braintree and Witham Times, the Maldon and Burnham Standard and the Colchester Evening Gazette. He returned to London to work for the East London Advertiser , where he covered the story of the Kray murder at The Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel. At the age of 21, unwilling to write a story about a woman who had taken two tins of food from a shop, Harley determined to get sacked, an objective he achieved by not wearing a tie and growing his hair long. Among Harley’s peers who made successful careers in national journalism were John Blake and Richard Madeley, who took over Harley’s desk at the ELA in 1972.

Harley started his musical career in 1971 playing in bars and clubs, mainly at folk venues on open-mike nights. He sang at Les Cousins, Bunjies and The Troubadour in London on nights featuring John Martyn, Ralph McTell, Martin Carthy and Julie Felix, who were popular musicians in the London folk scene. In 1971, he joined the folk band Odin as rhythm guitarist and co-singer and there met Jean-Paul Crocker, who became the first Cockney Rebel violinist. He also recorded a number of his own songs as demos that year using his classical guitar at Venus Recording Studios in Whitechapel. Harley then began busking around London in 1972, including on the Underground and in Portobello Road, while also writing songs. He left the folk scene and formed the band Cockney Rebel in 1972, as a vehicle for his own work. The name was taken from an autobiographical poem he had written at school.

The original Cockney Rebel consisted of Harley, Crocker, drummer Stuart Elliott, bassist Paul Jeffreys and guitarist Nick Jones. Jones was replaced by Pete Newnham, but with the arrival of keyboardist Milton Reame-James, Harley felt the band did not need electric guitar and settled on the combination of Crocker’s electric violin and Reame-James’ Fender Rhodes piano.

In 1972, Mickie Most discovered the band at a London nightclub, The Speakeasy Club, and offered them their first contract with his RAK Publishing. This influenced the A&R department at EMI Records to offer the band a three-album deal. Cockney Rebel recorded their debut album, The Human Menagerie, with producer Neil Harrison in June and July 1973. Their debut single, “Sebastian”, became a hit across Europe but failed to chart in the UK. When released in November 1973, The Human Menagerie also failed to chart, although the album was well-received critically and quickly gained cult status.

The lack of UK success caused EMI to feel that the band had yet to record a potential hit single. In response, Harley re-worked the unrecorded song “Judy Teen”, which was released in March 1974 and peaked at number 5 on the UK singles chart. In February and March 1974 the band recorded their second album, The Psychomodo, which was produced by Harley and Alan Parsons. It was released in June and peaked at number 8 in the UK Albums Chart. Between May and July 1974, the band toured the UK to promote the album, but tensions developed as the tour progressed. They received a ‘Gold Award’ on 18 July for outstanding new act of 1974, but a week later, with the tour finished, several members left. Crocker, Reame-James and Jeffreys chose to quit after Harley refused their demands to write material for the group, despite the initial understanding that Harley was the band’s sole songwriter. Following the band’s split, “Mr. Soft”, taken from The Psychomodo, reached number 8 in the UK as a single.

Left without a permanent band, Harley soon began auditioning new musicians. Meanwhile, Harley and Parsons did some studio work with Dutch singer Yvonne Keeley, with whom Harley began a relationship, and EMI released her version of “Tumbling Down” as a single in August 1974, backed by another Cockney Rebel cover, “Loretta’s Tale”. Harley’s debut solo single “Big Big Deal” was released in November 1974. The song failed to enter the UK top 50; however, it did enter the unnumbered BMRB’s UK Breakers chart. By this time, a new line-up of Cockney Rebel had been finalized. With original drummer Stuart Elliott remaining in the band, the new line-up included guitarist Jim Cregan, keyboard player Duncan Mackay and bassist George Ford. Renamed Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, they recorded the album The Best Years of Our Lives in November and December 1974, with Harley and Parsons again producing.

The lead single from this album, “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)”, was released in January 1975. It became the band’s biggest hit, reaching the number one spot on the UK Chart and receiving a UK Silver certification in February. It was also Harley’s only Billboard chart entry in the US, reaching number 96 on the Hot 100 in 1976. In a 2002 television interview, Harley described how the song’s lyrics were directed at his former band members who, he felt, had abandoned him. As of 2015, the song has sold around 1.5 million copies in the UK. The Performing Rights Society have confirmed the song as one of the most played records in British broadcasting and over 120 cover versions of the song have been recorded by other artists.

The Best Years of Our Lives was released in March 1975 and reached number 5 in the UK. A second single from the album, “Mr. Raffles (Man, It Was Mean)”, was also a success, peaked at number 13. The band embarked on a UK and European tour to promote the album, and then recorded their fourth studio album, Timeless Flight, in the summer. During the same period Harley also produced Dutch singer Patricia Paay’s (Yvonne Keeley’s sister) album Beam of Light, with members of Cockney Rebel performing on many of the tracks. Later in the year, Harley and the band went on tour in the US as a support act to the Kinks. As the band had not achieved commercial success there, the compilation A Closer Look was released exclusively for the US market.

Timeless Flight was released in February 1976 and peaked at number 18 in the UK. Two singles from the album, “Black or White” and “White, White Dove”, both failed to enter the charts, although they did reach number 2 and number 6 respectively on the BMRB’s UK Breakers chart. Another UK and European tour followed the album’s release, then the band recorded their fifth album Love’s a Prima Donna between June and September 1976. In July they released a cover of George Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun”, which reached number 10 in the UK and became the band’s last top 40 single, discounting a later re-release of “Make Me Smile”. Love’s a Prima Donna was released in October 1976 and peaked at number 28, with a second single, “(I Believe) Love’s a Prima Donna”, reaching number 41. In the US, “(Love) Compared with You” was released as a single. For Mackay’s second solo album Score, recorded in August and September 1976, and released in 1977, Harley wrote the lyrics to four tracks and provided lead vocals on “Time is No Healer”.

In November 1976, Harley provided backing vocals on T. Rex’s song “Dandy in the Underworld”, which was released as a single from the album of the same name in 1977. In December 1976, the band embarked on an eight-date UK tour to promote Love’s a Prima Donna. During the early part of 1977, Harley provided lead vocals on The Alan Parsons Project’s song “The Voice” for their album I Robot. In July, Harley disbanded Cockney Rebel, the announcement of which was followed by the release of a live album, Face to Face: A Live Recording, which reached number 40 and spawned a single, “The Best Years of Our Lives”.

After Cockney Rebel’s split, Harley signed to EMI for a further three years. He began recording his debut solo album in London and then flew to Los Angeles in February 1978 to complete it. He subsequently decided to emigrate to the US and purchased a house in Beverly Hills. Harley stayed there for nearly a year to gain new experience and inspirations, but later admitted that during his time in America he was not inspired to write a single song. The album Hobo with a Grin was released in July 1978, but was not a commercial success, nor were its two singles, “Roll the Dice” and “Someone’s Coming”, although “Roll the Dice” was a radio hit. On the album, the tracks “Amerika the Brave” and “Someone’s Coming” featured Marc Bolan’s last studio performances, recorded shortly before his fatal car accident in September 1977.

Harley returned to London at the end of 1978 and recorded his second solo album, The Candidate, in February 1979. On 12 May, Harley and Peter Gabriel appeared as guest stars at one of Kate Bush’s Hammersmith Odeon concerts during her Tour of Life. The show was staged as a benefit concert for the family of lighting technician Bill Duffield, who had died after a tragic fall earlier on Bush’s tour. Duffield had previously worked for Harley and Gabriel. The concert was Harley’s first performance on stage in over two years. The Candidate was released in October 1979 and was another commercial failure, although its single “Freedom’s Prisoner” was moderately successful, peaking at number 58. In October, Harley performed a one-off show at the Hammersmith Odeon. Following the disappointing sales of The Candidate, EMI dropped Harley from their label.

During the 1980s, which he later described as his “wilderness years”, Harley took time off from the music business while his two children were growing up. In July 1980, he undertook a short UK tour with a new line-up of Cockney Rebel and this was followed by a UK Christmas tour. The latter tour followed the release of the EMI compilation The Best of Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel in November. During the same year, “Somebody Special” and “Gi’ Me Wings”, two songs co-written by Harley, were released by Rod Stewart on his album Foolish Behaviour. “Somebody Special”, as the album’s third single in 1981, reached number 71 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and “Gi’ Me Wings” reached number 45 on the Billboard Top Rock Tracks chart.

In 1981, Harley provided vocals on the song “No Name” for Rick Wakeman’s album 1984. He also made an appearance to perform the song at Wakeman’s concert at the Hammersmith Odeon. Harley and his band embarked on another small UK tour during Christmas 1981. In March 1982, the Midge Ure-produced single “I Can’t Even Touch You” was released under the band’s name. Despite expectations that it would become a hit, the single failed to reach the UK Singles Chart. In August 1982, Harley made his acting debut as the 16th-century playwright Christopher Marlowe in the rock musical Marlowe at the John Crawford Adams Playhouse at Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York. In June 1983, Cockney Rebel played a one-off concert in London and Harley released the single “Ballerina (Prima Donna)”, which was written and produced by Mike Batt. It was one of Harley’s most successful singles of the decade, peaking at number 51 in the UK. In July, the band performed at the Reading Festival, followed by a one-off concert at London’s Camden Palace in December 1984. It was the band’s last show until 1989 and was filmed for a special TV broadcast. In 1985, it was also released on VHS as Live from London.

In 1985, Harley signed a five-album recording contract with RAK Records. “Irresistible”, recorded with Mickie Most as producer, was released as his debut single for the label in June 1985 and reached number 81 in the UK. Harley originally offered the song to Rod Stewart, who encouraged Harley to record it in the hope that it would put him back in the charts. Later that year, Mike Batt recommended Harley to Andrew Lloyd Webber for the recording of the title track of the upcoming The Phantom of the Opera musical, which Webber intended to release as a single to promote it. Harley’s audition was successful and the song was recorded as a duet with Sarah Brightman. It was released in January 1986 and reached number 7 in the UK charts. Harley then successfully auditioned to play the title role on stage and spent five months working on the part, including rehearsal with producer Hal Prince. He was later surprised to be replaced by Michael Crawford.

While rehearsing for the musical, Harley released the non-album single “Heartbeat Like Thunder” in April 1986, though it was a commercial failure. In June 1986, a newly remixed version of “Irresistible” was issued as the lead single from Harley’s forthcoming solo album El Gran Senor, but it failed to chart. When RAK folded and was sold to EMI shortly after, the album was shelved. Later that year, Harley starred again as Marlowe when the musical of the same name ran in London and his performance was described by one leading critic as “a major and moving performance.” During the same period, Harley undertook an English ‘A’ level course, to which he devoted three hours of study each day. He passed in June 1987 with a ‘B’ grade.

In 1988, Harley provided vocals on Mike Batt’s song “Whatever You Believe”, alongside Jon Anderson

In 1989, Harley assembled a new line-up of Cockney Rebel and returned to touring in the UK and Europe. He would continue performing as both a solo artist and with various incarnations of Cockney Rebel until his death. To promote the band’s 1989 summer tour, Harley released the solo single “When I’m with You”, which was recorded in early 1989 with ex-Cockney Rebel members Duncan Mackay and Jim Cregan at London’s Point Studios. In October 1989, concert footage from the tour was released on VHS as The Come Back, All is Forgiven Tour: Live.

Throughout 1989 and 1990, Harley continued touring and recording material for a new album. By the early 1990s, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel had re-established themselves as a major live act across Europe. In 1992, EMI released a new compilation album, Make Me Smile – The Best of Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, along with a re-issue of “Make Me Smile” as a single, which reached number 46 in the UK. Harley’s solo album Yes You Can was released in Europe in 1992 and the UK in 1993. It featured older songs dating from the El Gran Senor period and some new tracks. “Irresistible” was released as a single from the album in Europe and “Star for a Week (Dino)” was released as a promotional single in the UK.

Harley released a new studio album, Poetic Justice, in 1996, which was a critical success. In 1997, Harley participated in the Granada Men & Motors TV music quiz show Elvis Has Just Left the Building, hosted by Mike Sweeney, with Noddy Holder and Clint Boon as team captains.[77]

In 1998, Harley embarked on his first acoustic tour “Stripped to the Bare Bones” with Cockney Rebel’s violinist and guitarist Nick Pynn accompanying him. The pair played over a hundred dates, including fifty-four concerts in the UK, and coincided with the release of a new compilation album, More Than Somewhat – The Very Best of Steve Harley, which reached number 82 in the charts. The live album Stripped to the Bare Bones, with tracks recorded at The Jazz Café in London during March 1998, was released in September 1999.

In 2000, Harley began working on a new studio album and opened talks with various record labels. Although no album materialised for a few years, the single “A Friend for Life” was released in April 2001 and reached number 125 in the UK. The song, co-written with Jim Cregan, was originally offered to Rod Stewart, who would record his own version for his 2015 album Another Country. In 2001, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel embarked on their first tour in four years, “Back with the Band”.

Harley was involved with the charity Mines Advisory Group from 2002. He became an ambassador for the charity and led two fundraising treks, one around Cambodia in 2002 and the other across Death Valley in 2007. In 2002, Harley was awarded a Gold Badge of Merit by the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters. In 2003, he released the live album Acoustic and Pure: Live, featuring recordings from various UK concerts played during the previous autumn with Cregan. Towards the end of the year, Harley travelled to Cologne to collaborate with German artist Guido Dossche on the song “Ich Bin Gott”, which was issued as a single in Germany in 2004.

In 2004, the live album Anytime! (A Live Set) was released under the name The Steve Harley Band. During June of that year, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel played at the Isle of Wight Festival and the full performance was released on DVD in 2005 as Live at the Isle of Wight Festival. In June 2005, a newly recorded version of “Make Me Smile” was released, dubbed the “30th Anniversary Re-mix”, and reached number 55 in the UK.

A new studio album, The Quality of Mercy, was released in 2005; it was Harley’s first studio album to be released under the Cockney Rebel name since 1976. The band embarked on their biggest UK and European tour since the 1970s to promote it, with over 50 dates set between September and December 2005. The album was a critical success and also charted at number 40 in Norway in early 2006. “The Last Goodbye“, released as a single from the album in 2006, peaked at number 186 in the UK Singles Chart and number 21 in the UK Independent Singles Chart.

In 2006, EMI released The Cockney Rebel – A Steve Harley Anthology, a CD box-set compilation album spanning the recording career of Cockney Rebel and Harley’s solo work. In 2007, Harley starred with Mike Bennett in the West End premiere of the Samuel Beckett plays Rough for Theatre I and Rough for Theatre II. The plays ran for a week in July at London’s Arts Theatre. In 2008, Harley released a book, The Impression of Being Relaxed, which is a collection of diary entries he had published on his website between 2000 and 2008. In 2009, Harley received a Special Award from Childline Rocks for his charity work at Classic Rock magazine’s award ceremony in London’s Park Lane Hotel. His efforts raising money for the Mines Advisory group and several schools for Disabled Children were cited in a speech delivered by blues guitarist/singer/songwriter Joe Bonamassa.

In May 2010, Harley released a new album, Stranger Comes to Town, which he described as a “protest album”. It peaked at number 187 in the UK and spawned two digital singles, “Faith & Virtue” and “For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn”. Earlier that year in February, Harley, a self-confessed technophobe, attributed poor literacy rates and the moral corrosion of British society to modern technology.

In April 2012, Harley embarked on a promotional tour of Australia, with Australian guitarist Joe Matera accompanying him. The pair made a number of appearances on radio and TV and performed live acoustic sessions. In October 2012, EMI released the remastered four-disc box-set anthology compilation Cavaliers: An Anthology 1973-1974, which chronicled the recording career of the original Cockney Rebel line-up.

In September 2015, Harley’s first new song of five years, “Ordinary People”, was released as a digital single. In November, Harley and the surviving members of the original second line-up of Cockney Rebel reunited for a 16-date UK tour to celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Best Years of Our Lives album. The band were also accompanied by the MonaLisa Twins.

In 2015, Harley pledged to help raise funds for a new memorial to his late friend Mick Ronson. He played for free at the Hull City Hall in April 2016 to help kick-start the appeal. In November 2016, Harley was one of a number of musicians who teamed up with British Members of Parliament and the Royal Opera House Thurrock Community Chorus to record a charity version of the Rolling Stones song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” in memory of Labour MP Jo Cox. The song was released as a single in December 2016, with all proceedings going to the Jo Cox Foundation, and reached number 136 in the UK Singles Chart, number 24 in the Singles Sales Chart and number 9 in the Independent Singles Chart.

Harley released Uncovered in February 2020, an album made up of two Harley originals and nine interpretations of songs he said he wished he had written. The planned UK and European tour to promote the album was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with only the first nine shows played as planned. Two shows were, however, played in September 2020, both in the acoustic trio format, though bassist Oli Hayhurst accompanied the trio on the second of these shows. In addition, Harley held an online question and answer session via Zoom in mid-December 2020. The success of this event led to further Zoom Q and A events: two in November 2021 and one in November 2022.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, Harley’s live shows resumed in August 2021, and the rescheduled 2020 tour took place between May and July 2022. In October 2023, after touring earlier in the year, Harley was forced to cancel all upcoming late 2023 and early 2024 shows, citing “a medical procedure followed by a period of recuperation”. Harley later revealed that he had cancer, and was forced to cancel or postpone all shows scheduled for 2024.

In December 2023, Steve Harley announced on his website that he had cancer. He died at his home in Suffolk on 17 March 2024, aged 73.

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Eric Carmen 3/2024

Eric Carmen (The Raspberries) was born August 11, 1949 in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up in Lyndhurst, Ohio. Carmen was born into a family of Russian Jewish immigrants, and was involved with music since early childhood. By the age of two, he was entertaining his parents with impressions of Jimmy Durante and Johnnie Ray. By age three, he was in the Dalcroze Eurhythmics program at the Cleveland Institute of Music. At six years old, he took violin lessons from his aunt Muriel Carmen, who was a violinist in the Cleveland Orchestra. By age 11, he was playing piano and dreaming about writing his own songs. The arrival of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones altered his dream slightly. By the time he was a sophomore at Charles F. Brush High School, Carmen was playing piano and singing in local rock bands including the Sounds of Silence.

Though classically trained in piano, at age fifteen, Carmen started to take guitar lessons, but when his teacher’s approach did not fit with what he wanted, he decided to teach himself. He bought a Beatles chord book and studied guitar for the next four months.

Carmen became real serious about being a musician while attending John Carroll University. He joined a band named Cyrus Erie, which recorded several commercially unsuccessful singles for Epic Records. Cyrus Erie guitarist Wally Bryson had been playing with friends Jim Bonfanti and Dave Smalley in one of Cleveland’s most popular bands, the Choir, which scored a minor national hit in 1967 with the single “It’s Cold Outside”.

When Cyrus Erie and the Choir disbanded at the end of the 1960s, Carmen, Bryson, Bonfanti, and Smalley teamed up to form the Raspberries, a rock and roll band that was among the chief exponents of the early 1970s power pop style. Carmen was the lead singer of the group, and wrote or co-wrote all their hit songs.

In 1975, after the breakup of the Raspberries, he started his solo career, de-emphasizing harder rock elements in favor of soft rock and power ballads.

Carmen’s first two solo singles were chart hits in 1976. Both were inspired and built around themes by Sergei Rachmaninoff. The first of these singles, “All by Myself” – based on Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 – hit number 2 in the United States, and number 12 in the United Kingdom where it was his only charting hit. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A. in April 1976. The follow-up single, “Never Gonna Fall in Love Again” – based on the main theme of the third movement of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 – reached number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100, and hit number one on the US Adult Contemporary Chart, as well as number nine on the Cash Box chart. The UK took it to number 31 and in Australia took it to number 13. Those two songs featured on his 1975 self-titled debut album, along with “That’s Rock and Roll”, a number 3 hit single for singer Shaun Cassidy. The album made number 21 on the Billboard album chart and was certified gold in 1977 for sales of more than 500,000 copies.

Carmen’s second album, Boats Against the Current, was released in the summer of 1977 to mixed reviews. It featured backup players such as Burton Cummings, Andrew Gold, Bruce Johnston and Nigel Olsson. The album spent 13 weeks on the Billboard album chart, peaking at number 45. It also produced the top 20 single “She Did It”, but the title track only managed to scrape the bottom of the chart. The title track was later covered by Olivia Newton-John on her album Totally Hot. A third single taken from the album, “Marathon Man”, became his first solo single not to hit the Billboard Hot 100 chart. However, Shaun Cassidy again made the top 10 in 1978 with Carmen’s “Hey Deanie”. For several weeks in the fall of 1977, Carmen had three compositions charting concurrently on the Billboard Hot 100; Cassidy’s two big hits and Carmen’s own “She Did It”.

Carmen followed up with two more albums. Despite declining chart fortunes, the single “Change of Heart” broke into the top 20, and reached number 6 on the AC chart in late 1978, with this hit also being covered by Samantha Sang on her Emotion LP. In 1980, he released the album Tonight You’re Mine with its lead single “It Hurts Too Much” (number 75 Billboard Hot 100).

In 1984, Carmen and Dean Pitchford co-wrote “Almost Paradise”, the love theme from the film Footloose. The song, performed by Ann Wilson and Mike Reno, peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In 1985, Carmen resurfaced on Geffen Records with a second self-titled album and a sizable comeback hit, “I Wanna Hear It from Your Lips”. The single hit the Adult Contemporary top 10 as well as the Pop top 40. The follow-up single, “I’m Through with Love”, also climbed the Billboard Hot 100 and reached the top 20 of the Adult Contemporary chart. Another track from the album, “Maybe My Baby”, later became a country hit for Louise Mandrell reaching number 8 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. “I Wanna Hear It from Your Lips” was also covered by Mandrell, but only managed to peak at No. 35 on the same chart.

In 1987, Carmen’s contribution to the hit film Dirty Dancing, “Hungry Eyes”, hit number 2 on the Adult Contemporary chart and also returned him to the Pop top 10. “Reason to Try”, a further contribution to the One Moment in Time compilation album of songs recorded for the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics, kept Carmen’s profile high in 1988, during which the nostalgic “Make Me Lose Control” also returned him to the number one position on the Adult Contemporary chart – where it stayed for three straight weeks – as well as number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Following a final minor chart hit in 1988 with “Reason to Try”, from an Olympics-themed compilation album, Carmen’s career was largely inactive for a decade.

The year 2000 saw the stateside release of I Was Born to Love You, which had been released in 1998 in Japan as Winter Dreams. Carmen eschewed the use of a band on the recording, playing most of the instruments and programming the drum parts himself. The album did not find a large audience, but Carmen continued to enjoy success placing songs with other artists over the years. In 2000, he toured with Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band.

On December 24, 2013, the first new recording in over 15 years by Carmen titled “Brand New Year” was released. The track, written and recorded in November and December 2013 in Ohio and Los Angeles, was issued as a free download by Legacy Recordings as a special “Christmas gift”, to herald the March 2014 arrival of a 30-track career retrospective entitled The Essential Eric Carmen.

On March 11, 2024, Eric Carmen’s wife Amy announced that he had died in his sleep over the previous weekend at the age of 74. No cause of death was given. 

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Jerry Jeff Walker 10/2020

Jerry Jeff Walker was born  Ronald Clyde Crosby on March 16, 1942, in Oneonta, N.Y.

A native of New York, Walker spent his early career as a folkie in Greenwich Village in NYC. It was there that he wrote and recorded “Mr. Bojangles,” in the mid-1960s after having spent a night in a New Orleans jail where he met a man who “danced a lick across the cell.” Walker released the song as the title track of a 1968 solo album, shortly after he left the New York band Circus Maximus. In 1971, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band took “Mr. Bojangles” to No. 9 on the pop charts. 

This is the tribute to a man who wrote only one true hit, that turned into a folk rock standard like Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”.

Walker was heading to California when he stopped in Austin and ended up staying. Along with Willie Nelson’s move here a couple of years later, Walker’s arrival helped to herald a prosperous time for Austin music, with terms such as “outlaw country” and “cosmic cowboy” used to describe the music Walker and others were making.

In Walker’s words:

“The mid-’70s in Austin were the busiest, the craziest, the most vivid and intense and productive period of my life. Greased by drugs and alcohol, I was also raising the pursuit of wildness and weirdness to a fine art. I didn’t just burn the candle at both ends, I was also finding new ends to light.”

Walker found a new adopted home in Austin, Texas, just as the city’s alternative country scene was being formed. He became one of the regular performers at Austin’s iconic Armadillo World Headquarters, playing with his Lost Gonzo Band on backup, and a member of the city’s legendary group of outlaw country stars. Walker sang backing vocals on bandmate Gary P. Nunn’s “London Homesick Blues,” which became the longtime theme song to the music performance TV show “Austin City Limits.

Walker’s 1973 live album “Viva Terlingua!” — recorded not in the West Texas town of Terlingua but in the hill country hamlet of Luckenbach — became a touchstone for that era. His influence looms large even today, as dozens of Texas country roadhouse bands and troubadours are essentially still following the same path that Walker blazed in the ’70s.

“Other than Willie, Jerry Jeff is the most important musician to happen to Austin, Texas, I would have to say,” Asleep at the Wheel leader Ray Benson. “He really brought that folksinger/songwriter form to its height in Texas. And for that, he’ll be eternal, because there’s all these kids today who write songs in that mode.

“But also, a la Willie, he wrote really giant hit songs. ‘Mr. Bojangles’ is a standard. His other songs are wonderful, but to write a standard, that’s something that’s very difficult in today’s day and age to do.” 100 other artists also recorded the song, including Bob Dylan, Sammy Davis Jr., Nina Simone and Neil Diamond.

Among Walker’s other better-known songs are “Little Bird,” “Sangria Wine,” “Charlie Dunn,” “Hill Country Rain” and “Pissin’ in the Wind,” which he wrote after doing just that on a roadside stop en route to Dallas for a Willie Nelson concert in the 1970s.

But Walker was equally known as an interpreter and champion of other writers’ songs. It was Walker who first brought Guy Clark to national attention when he recorded Clark’s “L.A. Freeway” for his 1972 self-titled album on major label Decca Records. “I remember telling him that I was going to record ‘L.A. Freeway’ and that he was on the verge of being a great songwriter,” Walker recalled after Clark’s death in 2016.

Walker cast a spotlight on a young Gary P. Nunn by not only including Nunn’s song “London Homesick Blues” on the “Viva Terlingua!” album, but having Nunn sing it.

“To him, it came down to the song, whether he wrote it or somebody else wrote it,” said Ray Wylie Hubbard, whose iconic song “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother” also appears on “Viva Terlingua!”

Walker’s recording of the song “gave me a career,” Hubbard says, but also a middle name. He was performing as Ray Hubbard until Walker’s Lost Gonzo Band member Bob Livingston identified him as Ray Wylie Hubbard in a spoken introduction to “Redneck Mother” that appears on the album.

Hubbard says Walker’s record label wanted to edit out that intro to avoid any confusion. “But Jerry Jeff said, ‘Nah, leave it on there.’ So because of him, I got a middle name. He was willing to acknowledge other songwriters; that was just such a gracious trait about him.”

In 2018, shortly after Walker donated a lifetime of artifacts to the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University in San Marcos, the collections’ exhibit space in the university’s Alkek Library featured an exhibit titled “Viva Jerry Jeff: The Origins and Wild Times of a Texas Icon.” It provided much detail about Walker’s pre-Texas years, including audio of early songs, rare photos and letters to family.

“I wanted to tell the story of the young man who had those dreams and that determination,” said Hector Saldana, Texas Music Curator for the Wittliff. “When you’re looking at the letters he was writing to his grandmother, thanking her for the few dollars she had sent him and mentioning just casually that he’d written this song called ‘Mr. Bojangles’ that he thought was good, you just can’t believe it.”

The exhibit also shed light on how Ronald Clyde Crosby became Jerry Jeff Walker. He’d been using an ID card from a friend he made in the New York Army National Guard named Jerry Ferris, and he had become a fan of Harlem jazz pianist Kirby Walker. He combined them to rename himself. (He added the middle name later; on the first Circus Maximus album in 1967, he was credited as Jerry Walker.)

Singer-songwriter Todd Snider, a longtime friend of Walker’s, has often told the story of walking through Santa Fe, N.M., with Walker one night when they happened upon an apparently homeless musician performing “Mr. Bojangles” on the street. 

In Snider’s 2014 book “I Never Met a Story I Didn’t Like,” he revisited the encounter:

“I was asking myself, ’Should I tell this guy that he’s playing Jerry Jeff’s song, and that Jerry Jeff is standing right here? But, no, I figured that if Jerry Jeff wanted to let this guy know who he was, he’d tell him. When the song was over, (Walker) said, ‘That sounded great,’ and then he put a (expletive)-load of cash — every bit of cash he had on him — into that guy’s hat.”

Austin keyboardist Chris Gage, who has been playing in Walker’s band since 2008, was among many who posted thoughts about Walker to social media Saturday. “I have my memories of countless plane, bus, train and van rides, green rooms with pizza and Arnold Palmers, packed theaters and showrooms, sunrise meals in Belize, scary car rides (if he was driving), passionate studio sessions and so much more,” Gage wrote.

Walker’s last appearance onstage in Austin was Feb. 22, 2020, to accept a Hall of Fame award from the Texas Heritage Songwriters Association. A star-studded cast — including Rodney Crowell, Michael Martin Murphey, Emmylou Harris, Joe Ely and the Dirt Band’s Jeff Hanna — performed Walker’s songs in his honor. Walker appeared at the end, with help from his wife and others to get on and offstage.

Jerry Jeff Walker ended his story on this planet on October 25, 2020. He was 79 years old.

Every couple of years Jerry Jeff Walker took a breather in the US Virgin Island of St. Thomas in the 1980s and played several venues. My time down in the islands co-existed with his for a couple of years and I had the pleasure of backing him up on several occasions. He was a man without air. A pure pleasure of a human being.

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Tommy DeVito 9-2020

Gaetano “Tommy” DeVito (The Four Seasons) was born on June 19, 1928, in Belleville,  New Jersey, the youngest of nine children. When he was still too small to hold a guitar, he borrowed an older brother’s and tried playing it while it was lying on the floor. His brother discovered him, he told The Star-Ledger of Newark in 2005, and gave him first a beating and then a counterintuitive warning. “Now that I’ve seen you doing it,” he recalled his brother saying, “every time I come home and I don’t see you practicing, that’s a beating.”  At eight years old, he taught himself to play his brother’s guitar by listening to country music on the radio. By the time he was 12, he was playing for tips in neighborhood taverns. He quit school after the eighth grade. (Belleville High made him an honorary graduate in 2007.) By 16, he had his own R&B band and was making $20 or $25 a night, getting into scrapes with the law from time to time.

The large DeVito family shared a flat with an uncle during the Depression, a difficult time. “You did anything to survive. You’d steal milk off of porches.”

Growing up in difficult circumstances in his native New Jersey, DeVito was, in his own words, “a hell-raiser” as a youth, but he found a purpose with music. He formed a band called the Variety Trio with one of his brothers and Nick Massi, who would become the fourth member of the Four Seasons when that group coalesced in about 1960. Massi died in 2000 at 73.

DeVito became a founding member, lead guitarist and vocalist with the Four Seasons, growing the close-harmony quartet that rocketed to fame  with “Sherry”, Rag Doll” and many other hits that earned new generations of rock and roll fans. The key component with the Four Seasons though, was Frankie Valli, with his falsetto vocals. In a 2008 interview with the music publication Goldmine, DeVito recalled that in the late 1940s his trio performed regularly at a bar in Belleville, N.J., when Frankie, a teenager six years younger than him, would sneak in to watch them play. He and the other band members knew Valli from the neighborhood and knew that he had magnificent pipes.

“I’d call him up to the stage and let him sing,” DeVito recalled. “He’d get off right away, because he wasn’t really supposed to be in there; he was underage.” Before long Frankie Valli was part of the group, which went through name and lineup changes before becoming the Four Seasons. “Sherry,” the group’s breakout hit, topped the charts in 1962, and a stream of hits followed, (27 top 40 hits and number-one hits “Sherry” (1962), “Big Girls Don’t Cry” (1962), “Walk Like a Man” (1963), “Rag Doll” (1964).

DeVito didn’t entirely shed his hell-raiser past; he ran up debts, for one thing, and caused tensions within the group. In 1970 he was either forced out, as some accounts say, or left because the pressures of touring had disagreed with him, as he explained it.

He quickly burned through whatever money he had from the group’s heyday and took jobs working in casinos and cleaning houses to get by.

The actor Joe Pesci, a friend since childhood (whose character in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” is named for Mr. DeVito), had lived with Mr. DeVito for a time before he was famous, and once Mr. Pesci broke through, he repaid the favor, helping Mr. DeVito out and getting him bit parts in movies, including “Casino” (1995), also directed by Mr. Scorsese. DeVito also had some success as a record producer and recorded an album of Italian folk songs.

Seeing a version of himself portrayed in “Jersey Boys” was startling, he said. But he was comfortable with the show, which he described as “about 85 percent true to life.”

“When you first see yourself being played, you look at the actor, who is Christian Hoff, and say: ‘Do I look like that? Did I talk like that? Was I really a bad guy?’” he told Goldmine. “And I was. I was pretty bad when I was a kid. There’s a lot of things I’d never do today that I did back then as a kid.”

“Jersey Boys” implies that he was somehow connected to organized crime, but that was an exaggeration, he said, done for the sake of the story.

“I was never part of the mob,” he said. “They might have asked me to play a private party or something, but they paid me for it. Mostly they asked me to do benefits.”

“Jersey Boys” opened on Broadway in November 2005 and ran until January 2017, one of the longest runs in Broadway history. (Clint Eastwood directed a film version in 2014.) The show won four Tony Awards, including best musical and best featured actor (Mr. Hoff).

If the musical massaged the truth a bit, Mr. DeVito generally complained about only one thing in the script: a crack about the cleanliness of his underwear. “I was the most cleanest guy in the whole group,” he said. “I’m clean. I’m very clean.”

Frankie Valli and Bob Gaudio, the two surviving original members of the group, announced Tommy DeVito’s death on Sept. 21, 2020. A spokeswoman for Valli said the cause was the Covid 19 coronavirus. 

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Steve Holland 8-2020

Steve Holland (Molly Hatchett) was born Feb. 22, 1954, in Dothan, Alabama. He began playing guitar at the age of 8, and moved to Jacksonville, Florida in the early 70’s.

He met Dave Hlubek, who had started the band in 1971 at a local record store in Jacksonville, FL. Holland joined in 1974 as the band was forming its classic six-piece lineup. The rest of the principal members of the original band were in place by 1976, eventually signing to Epic Records. But the band didn’t rise to national prominence until 1978, when the place crash involving fellow Jacksonville-based Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd left a void in the Southern rock space. Molly Hatchet stepped up with the release of their self-titled record and then in 1979 with the album Flirtin’ With Disaster is what put them on the national map. Steve played on the band’s first five albums, leaving after the release of 1983’s “No Guts … No Glory.” He is credited as a co-writer on some of the band’s biggest hits, including “Bounty Hunter,” “Whiskey Man” and “Gator Country.

The band released six studio albums on Epic Records between 1978 and 1984, including the platinum-selling hit records Molly Hatchet (1978), Flirtin’ with Disaster (1979) and Beatin’ the Odds (1980). They also had charting singles on the US Billboard charts, including “Flirtin’ with Disaster“.

Steve Holland recorded on 6 Molly Hatchet records and performed with the band through their heyday, leaving in 1983 after the band released the album No Guts…No Glory as the band was adopting a more hard rock sound. Holland chose to leave Molly Hatchet when it became more of a business than a band. “He decided he had enough of the cutthroat atmosphere and it wasn’t fun any more, so he retired,” long time friend John Pappas said. He was replaced by keyboardist John Gavin, reportedly telling John Galvin, the keyboardist in Danny Joe Brown’s solo band, “Wanna be in the band? You can take my place, I’ve had enough” during a show with Sammy Hagar in Detroit. Galvin accepted,
Holland never returned to Molly Hatchet, but there was a reunion of five of the original members — Roland was the exception — at a 1999 benefit after Brown had a stroke.

He later led the Steve Holland Band and played on and off with the Southern Rock Allstars. Holland later formed the band Gator Country in 2005 with former members of Molly Hatchet.

Molly Hatchet, named after a passionate female axe murderer, featured a triple-guitar lineup, with Holland sharing duties with Hlubek and Duane Roland. The classic lineup of the band also included singer Danny Joe Brown, bass player Banner Thomas and drummer Bruce Crump. All of them have now crossed the rainbow into Rock and Roll Paradise. Singer Danny Joe Brown passed away in 2005, guitarist Duane Roland died in 2006, drummer Bruce Crump passed in 2015, and guitarist Dave Hlubeck and bassist Banner Thomas died in 2017.

 He made his home on St. Simons Island, where he found sobriety in 2009 and became an every-Sunday church goer. He passed away on August 2, 2020 after a long illness at age 66.

Holland posted a video to fans several months earlier in which he said: “Hey, y’all. Thanks for all your wishes and prayers and stuff. Love you. Thanks for putting up with me all these years. Turn it up!”

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Ken Hensley – 11-2020

Ken Hensley, Uriah Heep, was born on August 24, 1945 in South-east London. He learned how to play guitar at the age of 12 from a Bert Weedon manual. His first gig was at The Mentmore Pen Factory, in Stevenage (September 1960). After that, he played with The Blue Notes, Ken and the Cousins and Kit and the Saracens (1962). In 1963, this band evolved into The Jimmy Brown Sound, and they recorded some now lost songs. At this time, Hensley’s first “professional” opportunity almost came about: they were to back Ben E. King on a British visit, but it never happened.

In early 1965, Hensley formed a band called The Gods, with the young guitarist Mick Taylor, well known later for his work with John Mayall and The Rolling Stones. Hensley wrote most of the material, sang and played the Hammond B3 organ as the band already had Taylor on guitar. The Gods’ line-up included, at one time or another, vocalist and guitar/bass player Greg Lake (later of King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer), bass player Paul Newton (later the first Uriah Heep bassist), drummer Lee Kerslake (later also of Heep), bassist John Glascock (later of Jethro Tull), and guitarist Joe Konas. In early 1968, they signed with Columbia Records and recorded two LPs and several singles.

Hensley also then played on a one-album side project of The Gods initially planned to become their third album, but was recorded and eventually released in 1969/1970 under the moniker Head Machine’s Orgasm. The album was produced by David Paramor (producer of “The Gods”) and both Hensley and Kerslake featured, along with John Glascock on bass, Brian Glascock on drums, and David Paramor on vocals, all under pseudonyms. Hensley played mostly guitar again, as in the beginning of his career. Although Paramor was credited as composer, the songs bear many of Hensley’s influences. The album was released before Hensley joined Toe Fat, and might almost be considered a prototype for the harder side of his future work in Uriah Heep.

The band eventually split but Cliff Bennett, from the Rebel Rousers, decided to move in a more “progressive” direction and asked The Gods to join him. Under the name Toe Fat they released two LPs, but only the first featured Hensley.

Paul Newton asked Hensley (Christmas 1969) to join forces in Spice, as they were looking for a keyboard player to make their sound less bluesy and more progressive, in keeping with the current trend. In January 1970, Spice changed its name into Uriah Heep.  Also in the line-up were guitarist Mick Box and vocalist David Byron. With Uriah Heep, Hensley found a place to develop and showcase his songwriting and lyrical abilities as well as his keyboard and guitar playing. 

The band’s “classic” line-up featured Hensley, Byron, Box, Kerslake and bassist Gary Thain. During his time with Heep (1970–1980), they recorded 13 studio albums, and the live album Uriah Heep Live – January 1973 along with many compilations and singles. Hensley also recorded his first two solo albums, Proud Words on a Dusty Shelf (1973) and Eager To Please (1975) during this time. He was supported mainly by Mark Clarke and Bugs Pemberton.

After the departure of bassist Gary Thain (who died in 1975) and vocalist David Byron, (who died in 1985) other musicians were brought into the Heep family: John Wetton (FamilyKing CrimsonRoxy Music, later of U.K. and Asia), Trevor Bolder (from Spiders From Mars, later of Wishbone Ash) and John Lawton (Lucifer’s Friend), among others.

In 1980 Hensley left the band, unhappy with the musical direction they had chosen. After trying to put a new band together in the UK (Shotgun), he later moved to the US and played a few gigs in North America as The Ken Hensley Band. Around this time he released his third solo LP, Free Spirit (1980).

In 1982, Hensley joined Blackfoot, a hard rock Jacksonville, Florida-based band. With them, he recorded two albums (1983’s Siogo and 1984’s Vertical Smiles). Although the group had achieved some success, Hensley left after he was informed him of Heep vocalist David Byron’s death in 1985.

After 1985, Hensley lived in semi-retirement in St Louis, Missouri, making a few appearances with W.A.S.P.Cinderella and others. W.A.S.P.’s frontman Blackie Lawless stated that “Ken Hensley wrote the rule book for heavy metal keyboards as far as I’m concerned.” Hensley also owned “The Attic” Recording studio in St. Louis.

In 1994, From Time To Time, a collection of lost recordings, was released featuring rare songs recorded by Hensley between 1971 and 1982, as well as some early versions of Heep’s classic songs, played by Hensley and his roommates at that time, namely guitarist Paul Kossoff and drummer Simon Kirke(both of Free). Other musicians on the songs were bassist Boz Burrell (King Crimson and Bad Company), guitarist Mick Ralphs (Mott the HoopleBad Company), drummers Ian Paice (Deep PurpleWhitesnake) and Kenney Jones(The Small FacesThe FacesThe Who), amongst others.

IIn 1997 Ken established The Upper Room Studios in St. Louis, Missouri where Ken was involved with several projects including A Glimpse of Glory, together with his band Visible Faith produced by Ken and engineered by chief engineer Bud Martin. In 1999, Hensley’s musical activities began to increase, besides his work with St Louis Music.

During the fourth Uriah Heep Annual Convention in London, May 2000, plans were made for a one-off concert by the so-called “Hensley/Lawton Band”. Hensley was joined by former Uriah Heep singer John Lawton, their first public collaboration since the latter’s departure from Uriah Heep in 1979. With them were Paul Newton (the band’s original bassist) and two members of Lawton’s band, Reuben Kane on lead guitar and Justin Shefford on drums. They played a set of old Uriah Heep classics and some of Hensley’s solo songs, and the concert was recorded for a CD release, followed by an extensive tour of Europe during Spring and Summer of 2001 culminating with a concert on 12 May in HamburgGermany, featuring a full orchestra and a new rendition of Heep’s old classic song “Salisbury”. After the tour, both Ken and John returned to their respective solo careers. 

On 7 December 2001, both John Lawton and Ken Hensley appeared on stage with Uriah Heep during the annual Magician’s Birthday Party at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London. This concert was recorded and released as a CD/DVD.

Running Blind, his first studio effort in 21 years, was released worldwide in 2002 and followed by a world tour with his band called “Free Spirit”, that included Dave Kilminster (guitar), Andy Pyle (bass) and Pete Riley (drums).

After moving to Spain, Hensley released The Last Dance (with new songs), The Wizard’s Diary (Uriah Heep classics re-recorded in 2004) and Cold Autumn Sunday (Hensley’s solo songs re-recorded in 2005).

Featuring a number of special guests, the rock opera Blood on the Highway was released in May 2007. The story portrays the rise and fall of a rock’n’roll star. Lead vocals role were split between Hensley and Glenn Hughes (ex-Deep PurpleTrapezeBlack Sabbath), Jørn Lande (ex-The SnakesMasterplan), John Lawton and Eve Gallagher.

In September 2008, Hensley went on stage again with former Heep bandmates Lawton, Kerslake and Newton along with ex-Focus guitarist Jan Dumée, for the “Heepvention 2008” fans meeting.

Hensley continued to write and record a series of new albums, beginning with a collection of songs under the title of Love & Other Mysteries, recorded near his home in Spain and followed in 2011 by Faster, his first studio recording of new songs with his live band, Live Fire. A CD of one of his solo concerts was released by Cherry Red Records in 2013, shortly followed by a live CD recorded with Live Fire during a September/October tour. Trouble, an album of 10 new songs recorded with a revised Live Fire line-up, was released, again by Cherry Red, in September the same year.

In later years, Hensley and his wife Monica lived in the village of Agost near Alicante in Spain.

Hensley died on 4 November 2020, at the age of 75 following a short illness. He had finished an album titled My Book of Answers before his death, that was released on 5 March 2021.Ken  Hensley wrote many of the Uriah Heep songs during his tenure from 1970 to 1980, performing guitar and lead vocals on a number of occasions.

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Mike Pinera

Mike Pinera (Captain Beyond/Iron Butterfly) (76) was born September 29, 1948 in Tampa, Florida. In his mid-teens Pinera played his parts in local bands like the Impalas, the Motions and the El Dorados, essentially teen garage bands.”

He co-founded Blues Image in Tampa in 1966 together with Mike Betematti (drums), Malcolm Jones (bass) and Joe Lala (percussion) when they met as students at Tampa’s Jefferson High School. Blues Image, thanks to the Cuba-born Lala, added Latin rhythms to its rock ‘n’ roll/blues mix. The band opened Tampa’s first “psychedelic” nightclub, Dino’s.

Two years after forming, the band relocated to Miami, where it became the house band at Miami’s ultra-hip Thee Image club, supporting international acts like Led Zeppelin. Zeppelin’s guitarist Jimmy Page had a years-long friendship with Pinera. Page called Blues Image, which by then included keyboard player Skip Conte, “the most dynamic sound in the country.”

The band then moved to Los Angeles and signed with Atco Records, releasing its self-titled debut album in 1969. Blues Image’s sophomore album, Open, included “Ride, Captain, Ride,” a song co-written by Pinera and keyboardist Frank “Skip” Conte. Pinera sang the lead on the recording and played the second guitar solo toward the end of the song; the single rose to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Years later Pinera recalled the recording sessions for Open. Their producer warned them he didn’t hear a hit.

“I went into the bathroom and locked the door,” Pinera said. “I was in there for 10 to 15 minutes and all the words and melody came to me for ‘Ride Captain Ride.’ “It came at a good time because my parents were financially strapped and challenged and I made enough money from that gold single to pay off my father and mother’s house.”

Blues Image was unable to follow with another hit and by the time “Ride Captain Ride” reached the top 10 Pinera had left anyway, accepting an offer to replace the departing guitarist Erik Brann in Iron Butterfly. That group had already made waves with its monster 1968 hit “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida,” but Pinera, who contributed to 1970’s Metamorphosis album, remained with them into 1972 and then rejoined periodically as various band members reunited in the ’70s-’90s. In 1972 he formed the band Ramatam with female monster guitarist April Lawton and Mitch Mitchell, previously drummer for the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Pinera left the band claiming that Lawton, who wanted both Pinera and Mitchell out, wanted to turn Ramatam into the “April Lawton Band.

In 1973, Pinera helped form The New Cactus Band. They recorded the album, Son of Cactus, on Atlantic Records. In 1975, he formed the band Thee Image and they recorded two albums on Manticore Records, Thee Image and Inside the Triangle, both produced by Pinera.

In 1977, Pinera’s first solo album, Isla, was released on Capricorn Records. It was followed by Forever in 1979 on Capitol Records. The songs were written and produced by Pinera. The Forever album contained the single “Goodnight My Love,” which spent eight weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 70 in February 1980. It was also a hit in Latin America featured in Tele-Novelas Latin TV Series. Pinera joined the Alice Cooper band and he played in the band from the late 1970s to the early 1980s.

He later worked with the video medium and in 1992 launched the Classic Rock All-Stars, a band that consisted of former members of ’60s-’70s rock bands of some renown like Rare Earth, War and others.

In 2012 Mike joined Rockzion and then completed an album called “Came To Believe” Composed of 7 songs. He worked with Rockzion’s players Ronnie Ciago (drums, percussion, vocal BU) and Dennis Renick (keyboards, vocals). Mike and Dennis produced the album together. Mike Pinera wrote 3 songs and Dennis Renick wrote 3 songs. The title song “Came To Believe” was a co-write. It was partially released in 2022 with 2 songs as a promo. The album is slated to be released in 2025.

This is the last original work of Mike Pinera before he passed on November 20, 2024 of liver failure at the age of 76.

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Marianne Faithfull 1/2025

Marianne Faithfull (78) 1/2025 was born 29 December 1946 in Hemstead, London. Just to sketch her aristocracy come down it should be noted that

Faithfull was born at the old Queen Mary’s Maternity House in Hampstead, London. Her father, Major Robert Glynn Faithfull, was a British intelligence officer and professor of Italian literature at Bedford College, London University. Her mother, Eva, was the daughter of Artur Wolfgang Ritter von Sacher-Masoch (1875–1953), an Austro-Hungarian nobleman of old Polonized Catholic Ruthenian nobility. Eva was born in Budapest and moved to Vienna in 1918; she chose to style herself as Eva von Sacher-Masoch, Baroness Erisso in adulthood. She had been a ballerina for the Max Reinhardt Company during her early years, and danced in productions of works by the German theatrical duo Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill.

Faithfull’s father met Eva through his intelligence work for the British Army, which brought him into contact with her family. Faithfull’s maternal grandfather had aristocratic roots in the Habsburg Dynasty, and Faithfull’s maternal grandmother was Jewish. Faithfull’s maternal great-great-uncle was Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose erotic novel Venus in Furs spawned the word “masochism“. Regarding her roots in the Austrian nobility, Faithfull appeared on the British television series Who Do You Think You Are?

Faithfull began her singing career in 1964. Her first gigs as a folk music performer were in coffeehouses and she soon began taking part in London’s exploding social scene. In early 1964 she attended a Rolling Stones launch party with artist John Dunbar and met Andrew Loog Oldham, who ‘discovered’ her. Imagine now that Faithfull was just a 17 year old teenager when the Rolling Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham discovered her at a Stones party and gave her “As Tears Go By,” one of the first songs written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. ‘As Tears Go By’ reached no 9 in the UK, no 22 in the USA and no 35 in Australia. The Stones recorded their version a year after Marianne’s version. Loog Oldham took over her career and launched her with albums ‘Marianne Faithfull’ and ‘Come My Way’ albums in 1965. They were a huge success and was followed by further albums on Decca Records. From 1966 to 1970 she had a highly publicized romantic relationship with Mick Jagger, a period of time she definitely functions as the Muse for Rolling Stones songs like Sympathy for the Devil, I got the Blues, Sister Morphine, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, Wild Horses and more. Graham Nash then of the Hollies and later of Crosby Still Nash and Young, wrote the hit song Carrie Ann about her. Her popularity was enhanced by roles in films, including I’ll Never Forget What’s’is name (1967), The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968) and Hamlet (1969).

“I thought I wanted to go to drama school or university, and that would have been a completely different life.” Before long, she had entered into a romantic relationship with Jagger. “I didn’t know anything about men, certainly nothing about drugs, and nothing about sex, none of that. I really didn’t know.” 

Marianne Faithfull married John Dunbar in 1965 and gave birth to son Nicholas later that year. 

In 1966 she befriended Stones guitarist Brian Jones and his girlfriend Anita Pallenberg. Pallenberg would later leave Jones for Keith Richards. Faithfull left her husband for Mick Jagger.

Marianne soon became one of London’s elite. She hung out with The Beatles and was a backing singer on ‘Yellow Submarine’. Jagger wrote ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ about her. She has a co-writing credit on the ‘Sticky Fingers’ track ‘Sister Morphine’.

Then in 1967, Faithfull was caught in a drug bust at Richards’ house. “The perception of me changed completely, but it was wrong,” she recalls. “I think I actually said, I wish I hadn’t, but I said that, ‘Might as well be hung as a sheep as a lamb.’”

Faithfull became a tabloid fixture, and fell into addiction, at one point living homeless on the streets of Soho. In 1969, she performed in Hamlet in London, taking heroin before performing Ophelia’s mad scene. “All this stuff isn’t relevant really now at all, and hasn’t been for years, and it’s that that lends the tragic element to my life,” she said years later in 2011. “I mean, I got off drugs and stopped being so tragic.”

The late sixties was not a good time for Marianne, she’d had a public relationship with Mick Jagger, got pregnant and got sent to Ireland to keep her away from Jagger whilst he was filming. She became distraught which led to depression. At eight months she miscarried which obviously played havoc with her mental state. She knew in her heart she should have left Jagger, but her own royalties were diminishing and she had got used to the money. By 1969 she was sinking into drug addiction and actually became a heroin addict. The shock of Brian Jones’ death in July devastated her.

In chapter seven of Marianne Faithfull: The Faerie Queene of the Sixties by R.E. Prindle he said, “Less than a week after Brian’s death Marianne and Mick arrived in Australia to begin their commitment. Psychologically all of Marianne’s misgivings were adding up to a heavy burden. While the reasonable approach may be that life goes on not everyone is so reasonable and I suspect Marianne was one of these. Perhaps, too, she realised that she and Mick were becoming estranged. Exhausted by the long flight she and Mick checked into their hotel. Mick promptly flopped down on the bed to doze off. Marianne, troubled in mind, picked up a bottle of Tuinals and perhaps in a hypnoid state of grief and confusion dropped 140 of them. That must have taken five or 10 minutes so it shows determination. Who would do that if they weren’t serious about suicide? For whatever reason Mick woke up and probably groggy himself scoped the situation. He rushed Marianne to the hospital for medical attention. But Marianne had overloaded her brain, she lay in a coma for six days.”

A change had to come. She finally realized that Mick and her were not to be so she renewed her acquaintance with her father at his sex shop who she says was a man Mick could never hope to be. She wasn’t recording and therefore not receiving much money, but Andrew Loog-Oldham had released a Greatest Hits package which brought some money in.

The years of abuse and severe laryngitis took its toll on her voice, it became rough and cracked and, to this day, is a permanently smoky rasp, a far cry from the soprano which saw her first enter the chart at the age of 17. When more recently asked about her strained voice, she replied, “I don’t know why that happened, but thank God for steroids! I used to blame it on really bad coke!”

Madonna, Kylie, Lulu, Tina Turner and Dusty, to name a few, have all famously re-invented themselves after varying lengths of chart absence. But there is another one, she even came back from near death and an illness that badly affected her voice. Yes it’s Marianne Faithfull. She’s often classed by lazy radio producers, presenters and journalists as a one hit wonder because they only seem to remember her debut hit, As Tears Goes By and it wasn’t even her biggest hit. That song reached number nine but her next two hits, Come Back And Stay and This Little Bird reached numbers four and six respectively. By the summer of 1965 the big hits dried up, even her cover of the Beatles’ Yesterday only reached number 36, but by the end of the seventies she was back.

Despite the odds she survived and attempted a comeback, firstly in 1976 which didn’t work and then again in 1979 which was far more successful. Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island records, heard some demo’s she’d done and believed there was potential and signed her to his label. The result was the biting album Broken English which was released towards the end of the decade. The only hit from it was a cover of the Shel Silverstein-penned, Dr Hook’s hit The Ballad of Lucy Jordan, which Marianne described as, “My life had it taken a different turn.” Arguably, the stand out track however was the album’s closer – Why D’ya Do It, an X-rated rant of the highest order about a cheating lover with explicit words delivered with the venom of a woman scorned. Such a delivery had not been heard since the heady days of punk. It was an un-ashamedly honest and passionate song that was banned in most places and was never likely to be heard unless you owned a copy. Only recently outlets like YouTube have allowed it to be upload. Her relationship with Jagger had long ended, she had lost custody of Nicholas, she had become addicted to heroin and at one point homeless. It all came out in the lyrics on the ‘Broken English’ album peaking with ‘Why D’Ya Do It’, a most gruesome verbal attack in song.

‘Why D’Ya Do It’

When I stole a twig from our little nest
And gave it to a bird with nothing in her beak
I had my balls and my brains put into a vice
And twisted around for a whole fucking week

“Why’d ya do it”, she said, why’d you let that trash
Get a hold of your cock, get stoned on my hash?

“Why’d ya do it”, she said, why’d you let her suck your cock?
Ah, do me a favour, don’t put me in the dock
“Why’d ya do it”, she said, They’re mine all your tools
You just tied me to the mast of the ship of fools

“Why’d ya do it”, she said, when you know it makes me sore
‘Cause she had cobwebs up her fanny and I believe in giving to the poor
“Why’d ya do it”, she said, Why’d you spit on my snatch?
Are we out of love now, is this just a bad patch?

“Why’d ya do it”, she said, Why’d you do what you did?
You drove my ego to a really bad skid

“Why’d you do it”, she said, ain’t nothing to laugh
You just tore all our kisses right in half!

“Why’d ya do it”, she screamed, after all we said
Every time I see your dick, I see her cunt in my bed
“Why’d ya do it”, she said, why’d you do what you did?
“Why’d ya do it”, she said, why’d you do what you did?
Betray my little oyster for such a low bid

The whole room was swirling
Her lips were still curling

“Why’d ya do it”, she said, why’d you do what you did?
“Why’d ya do it”, she said, why’d you do what you did
“Why’d ya do it”, she said, why’d you do what you did
“Why’d ya do it”, she said, “Why’d ya do it”, she said
Why’d you do what you did?

Oh, big grey mother, I love you forever
With your barbed wire pussy and your good and bad weather

The lyrics were originally written by Heathcote Williams with Marianne adding her own thoughts and feeling. Heathcote had apparently originally intended for Tina Turner, but even if Tina had heard it, it’s unlikely she would have recorded it. Marianne once called the song her ‘Frankenstein’ and because she’d recently been betrayed by a boyfriend and obviously seething with rage she poured every raw emotion into the recording so much so that you could almost feel her pain and anger. Most people at some time or another would have experienced what she did but no song delivers the message so emphatically. Williams’ words were so explicit (It’s hard to find any other song that uses the c-word) that it caused some of the female staff on the EMI production line to walk out.

The album, which features Steve Winwood on keyboards, was make or break for Faithfull and the positivity and rave reviews it received was a massive boost for her. It also brought some much needed money as she’d also written some of the tracks on it.  She was unexpectedly nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for the album in 1981. Her own description of the album was, “It’s a masterpiece,” – she was right.

Faithfull began living in New York City after the release of Dangerous Acquaintances in 1981. The same year, she appeared as a vocalist on the single “Misplaced Love” by Rupert Hine, which charted in Australia. Despite her comeback, in the mid-1980s she was battling with addiction and at one point tripped and broke her jaw on a flight of stairs while under the influence. Rich Kid Blues (1985) was another collection of her early work combined with new recordings, a double record showcasing both the pop and rock ‘n’ roll facets of her output to date. In 1985, Faithfull performed “Ballad of the Soldier’s Wife” on Hal Willner’s tribute album Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill.

When Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters assembled an all-star cast of musicians to perform the rock opera The Wall live in Berlin in July 1990, Faithfull played the part of Pink’s overprotective mother. Her musical career rebounded for the third time during the early 1990s with the live album Blazing Away.

Marianne continued to record right up until her last album ‘She Walks In Beauty’ in 2021. Of note is ‘Kissin Time’ in 2002 with appearances from Jeff Beck, Billy Corgan, Blur and Pulp.

Faithfull received the World Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 Women’s World Awards, and in 2011 she was made a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the government of France. In a 2013 interview with ABC News, Faithfull was asked how she reviewed her own life, she said, “I could have done without the heroin addiction, personally, but I wouldn’t leave anything else out.”

Marianne Faithfull, the quintessential 1960s muse, singer and actress crossed the rainbow on January 30, 2025 after several years of bad health (COPD, Covid). Over the course of her nearly 60-year career, Faithfull released 22 studio albums. But many know Faithfull for the various triumphs and trials in her personal life, particularly her early relationship with The Rolling Stones. 

In a statement Mick Jagger said, “I am so saddened to hear of the death of Marianne Faithfull. She was so much part of my life for so long. She was a wonderful friend, a beautiful singer and a great actress. She will always be remembered.”

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Emily Remler 5/1990

Emily Remler was born September 18, 1957 in Manhattan, New York and raised in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Remler began playing guitar at age ten. Her first guitar was her brother’s cherry-red Gibson ES-330, the guitar she would use for most of her professional career. She listened to pop and rock guitarists like Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Winter. She learned simple folk tunes, Beatles songs, and Johnny Winter solos note-for-note, but it was just a hobby. She wasn’t serious yet and had other interests, like sculpture and drawing. Remler was sent to a private boarding school in Massachusetts to finish high school. She graduated high school early, at 16, and applied to music and art schools. She got accepted to one of each: the Berklee College of Music and the Rhode Island School of Design. She had to decide: music or art?  She chose music. 
She told an interviewer for Down Beat magazine in 1985, “I was so frustrated with art. I couldn’t get it the way I wanted it. Music, at least you get more chances and a little more time and have the companionship of the other musicians.”
She wasn’t that good when she got to Berklee, and jazz was an alien art form to her. Miles Davis and John Coltrane were not on her radar. But Berklee was a diverse place, and jazz was more than Coltrane and Miles. She heard Paul Desmond, Pat Martino, and Wes Montgomery. That was more her speed—she loved it and became hooked.
Remler finished a two-year degree and graduated at age 18. She still wasn’t much of a guitarist (at least that’s what she said in interviews) but she’d learned a lot about music, including harmony, reading, and keeping time.
“My teacher told me that I had bad time. I rushed. I went home crying. Crying. But I bought a metronome. I worked with the metronome on two and four. I practiced with that thing and nothing else behind me,” she said in the same 1985 Down Beat interview. She worked hard at it, and eventually great time—her ability to swing—became a hallmark of her playing.
Her boyfriend at the time, guitarist Steve Masakowski, was from New Orleans, and they decided to move there. But she wanted to spend the summer practicing in New Jersey first, so she rented a room on Long Beach Island for eight weeks and worked on chord theory and soloing. She quit smoking. She lost weight. That’s where she learned how to play.
When Remler moved to New Orleans in the fall, she got to work. Reading music got her a lot of gigs: hotel shows, weddings, anniversary parties, rhythm and blues gigs, jazz gigs, and all-night jams with the old-timers on Bourbon Street. She gigged with Wynton Marsalis and Bobby McFerrin. She backed up singers. She played in blues and jazz clubs, working with bands such as Four Play and Little Queenie and the Percolators before beginning her recording career in 1981. She also supported big names when they came to town: Robert Goulet, Rosemary Clooney, Nancy Wilson. Wilson took her on the road and brought her to the Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. Remler was a big fish in a small pond, and because she could play and read, she was a first-call player in New Orleans.
She put together a quartet, and worked, but she only lasted another year there before moving back to New York, but she always valued her New Orleans time—it made her into a musician and helped her find her voice. “In New York, it’s very serious. In New Orleans everybody jumps up and down,” she told Down Beat in a 1982 interview. “There’s an R&B kind of feeling. I sort of stole that rich culture and applied it to my own music. If I had stayed in Boston, I’d be playing ‘Giant Steps’ like a madman—like everybody else.”
When Herb Ellis came to town, Remler had to meet him. She had guts and ambition and was able to finagle a meeting. 
“I asked her to play something for me, and when she did, I couldn’t believe what I heard,” Ellis said. A few years later Ellis told People Magazine, “I’ve been asked many times who I think is coming up on the guitar to carry on the tradition and my unqualified choice is Emily[Remler].” 
He got her an engagement at California’s Concord Jazz Festival, requesting that she join him on a bill called “Guitar Explosion” that also featured such virtuosos as Barney Kessel and Tal Farlow. For Remler it was the beginning of a promising career — one that New Orleans couldn’t contain. Within a year, she had amicably ended her relationship with Masakowski and gone back to New York.
Remler’s return to New York however became a struggle; in New Orleans she was a big fish in a small pond, but like so many aspiring players, here she was a small fish in a big pond. Yet it had an additional layer of difficulty for her. “There are so many bandleaders who have told me face to face that they couldn’t hire me because I was a woman,” she remarked. “So many instances where I wasn’t trusted musically and they handled me with kid gloves.” Remler used the adversity as motivation to get so good that they’d have to hire her.
She landed a job accompanying vocalist Brazilian Bossa nova phenomenon Astrud Gilberto, and began introducing herself to guitarists she heard around town. One was John Scofield, who in 1980 introduced Remler to Clayton, in town from L.A. They jammed together. “She knocked me out,” Clayton says. “I said, ‘Are you gonna be around in a couple months? Because we’re gonna do a Clayton Brothers recording, and it’d be great if you could join us!’ And her eyes widened, and she said, ‘Yeah!’” Remler flew out to California that June to play on the album It’s All in the Family. On the date she again met the president of Concord Jazz Records, Carl Jefferson, whom she’d impressed two years earlier at the Concord Jazz Festival. He signed her to record an album of her own for what was at the time a guitar-centric label. Back in New York she founded the Emily Remler Trio and recorded her first album as a band leader. Firefly gained positive reviews, as did Take Two and Catwalk. She participated in the Los Angeles version of Sophisticated Ladies from 1981 to 1982 and toured for 3 years with Brazilian jazz phenomenon Astrud Gilberto.
From there things moved quickly. The album, Firefly, placed her in the august company of pianist Hank Jones, along with bassist Bob Maize and drummer Jake Hanna. On the strength of Firefly, Jefferson extended her contract for three additional albums. Remler was a headliner at the Berlin and Newport Jazz Festivals, and on a Hawaiian jazz cruise. In a column for the Los Angeles Times, jazz critic Leonard Feather named her 1981’s “Woman of the Year. 
She was featured in the music trade magazines, and in the spring of 1982, Remler crossed over into People magazine, where she uttered her most famous quote: “I may look like a nice Jewish girl from New Jersey. But inside I’m a 50-year-old, heavyset black man with a big thumb, like Wes Montgomery.”
“The pieces are rapidly falling into place for Emily Remler,” Feather wrote, and this was true for her both professionally and personally: Remler met and married the Jamaican jazz pianist Monty Alexander in ’81.
In New York, she had been leading her own trio. When it came time to make her third record for Concord, she had enough clout and confidence to insist that the full quartet make the date. The result was 1983’s acclaimed Transition, which marked an increasing focus on her own compositions and a step away from bebop conservatism.
That progress continued with Catwalk, released in early 1985. It was Remler’s first collection of entirely original compositions, many of them flavored with Latin, Brazilian, Indian and African polyrhythms. “This is the best thing I’ve ever done,” she pronounced in an interview shortly after its release.
Critics agreed. So did guitar great Larry Coryell, who heard Catwalk upon its release. “I … was impressed,” Coryell wrote in his 2007 memoir, Improvising: My Life in Music. “Emily was creative, smart, swung like crazy and had a time feel that was just about the best I had ever heard from any guitarist, male or female.”
Coryell and Remler would soon record a duets album, Together. They hit the touring circuits, playing international festivals as well as clubs and guitar workshops. They also had a brief romance—a new partnership augmented by the dissolution of another. After two and a half years, her marriage to Monty Alexander had ended in divorce. It was, perhaps, a harbinger of more difficult times to come.
In 1985 she won Guitarist of the Year in Down Beat magazine’s international poll, and performed in that year’s guitar festival at Carnegie Hall.
When asked how she wanted to be remembered she remarked, “Good compositions, memorable guitar playing and my contributions as a woman in music…but the music is everything, and it has nothing to do with politics or the women’s liberation movement.”
But by the end of 1986, Remler had had enough. She quit New York and moved to Pittsburgh, becoming an artist-in-residence at Duquesne University and studying at the University of Pittsburgh with Bob Brookmeyer. At night she worked the local clubs. She continued playing festivals and freelancing on records. But as she kept honing her craft, she also went into drug rehab therapy, hoping to beat not only her addiction but the demons that hid behind it.
It seemed to be working. In the spring of 1988, she even moved back to New York, taking an apartment in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. She made a bebop record, East to Wes, with Hank Jones, bassist Buster Williams and drummer Marvin “Smitty” Smith, and took some straight-ahead gigs recording behind pianist David Benoit and vocalist Susannah McCorkle.
She had some less conventional ideas brewing as well. Remler began experimenting with the cutting-edge electronics of the day, including a guitar synth—less Montgomery than Metheny. In 1989, she signed a deal with Houston-based Justice Records to release her newly recorded This Is Me, an album that included her passions for the jazz-guitar tradition and for Brazilian and African rhythms, but pushed hard in the direction of crossover jazz-pop.
She never got to see where the new direction would take her. Remler was on a tour of Australia when she was found dead in her Sydney hotel room. The official cause of death was heart failure, with no mention of drug involvement. The jazz world knew better.
Remler bore the scars of her longstanding opioid use disorder, which is believed to have contributed to her death. On May 4, 1990, she died of heart failure at the age of 32 while on tour in Australia.
She took something with her besides her musical gift. “She always had a weakness for the party life, and maybe overdoing it with substances and things like that,” former boyfriend Masakowski said. “When we were first together, it was a very healthy lifestyle. I even got her to quit smoking. But then I think she started playing with the more party-oriented types of groups, and it started to deteriorate.”
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Roberta Flack 02/2025

Roberta Flack was born on February 10, 1937 in Black Mountain, North Carolina, to parents Laron Flack, a jazz pianist and U.S. Veterans Administration draftsman, and Irene Flack a cook and church organist. According to DNA analysis, Flack was of Cameroonian descent. Her family moved to Richmond, Virginia, before settling in Arlington, Virginia, when she was five years old.
 
Her first musical experiences were in church. She grew up in a large musical family and often provided piano accompaniment for the choir of Lomax African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church singing hymns and spirituals. She occasionally sings at the Macedonia Baptist Church in Arlington.  From time to time, she caught gospel stars like Mahalia Jackson and Sam Cooke performing there. Her father acquired a battered old piano for her, which she learned to play sitting on her mother’s lap and Flack took formal lessons in playing the piano when she was nine. She gravitated towards classical music and during her early teens excelled at classical piano, finishing second in a statewide competition for Black students aged 13 playing a Scarlatti sonata. 
 
In 1952 at the age of 15, preternaturally gifted and bookish, she won a full music scholarship to Howard University in Washington DC, and was one of the youngest students ever to enroll there. She eventually changed her major from piano to voice and became assistant conductor of the university choir.  Roberta Flack graduated while still a teenager. But her musical career blossomed slowly; by the time she found the spotlight, she was well into her 30s and had only recently quit teaching junior high school.
 
Flack became a student teacher at a school near Chevy Chase, Maryland. She graduated from Howard University at 19 and began graduate studies in music there, but after the sudden death of her father she had to find work to support herself. She took a job teaching music and English at a small, segregated high school in Farmville, North Carolina, for which she was paid $2,800 a year.
 
Before becoming a professional singer-songwriter, Flack returned to Washington, D.C., and taught at Banneker, Browne, and Rabaut Junior High Schools. She also taught private piano lessons out of her home on Euclid Street, NW, in the city. During that time, her music career began to take shape on evenings and weekends in nightclubs.
 
At the Tivoli Theater she accompanied opera singers at the piano. During intermissions, she would sing blues, folk, and pop standards in a back room, accompanying herself on the piano. Later she performed several nights a week at the 1520 Club, providing her own piano accompaniment. About this time her voice teacher, Frederick “Wilkie” Wilkerson, told her that he saw a brighter future for her in pop music than in the classics. Flack modified her repertoire accordingly and her reputation spread. In 1968, she began singing professionally after she was hired to perform regularly at Mr. Henry’s Restaurant, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. where she developed an eclectic repertoire of about 600 songs and a riveting, unpretentious stage presence. And from those early days performing at Mr. Henry’s, a gay-friendly cabaret, Ms. Flack was also a staunch advocate of gay rights. She sang “Ballad of the Sad Young Men” on her debut album, and in performance she often introduced it as a story of young gay barflies seeking belonging.
 
Her break came in the summer of 1968 when she performed at a benefit concert in Washington to raise funds for a children’s library in the city’s ghetto district, and was seen by soul and jazz singer Les McCann, who was signed to Atlantic Records. He was captivated by Flack’s voice and arranged an audition for her with Atlantic, in which she performed 42 songs from her nightclub repertoire in three hours for producer Joel Dorn. Dorn immediately told the label to sign her. In November 1968 she recorded 39 song demos in less than 10 hours. McCann later wrote in the liner notes of her first album, “Her voice touched, tapped, trapped, and kicked every emotion I’ve ever known. I laughed, cried, and screamed for more… she alone had the voice.” 
Three months later, Atlantic recorded Flack’s debut album, First Take, in 10 hours. The album was “an elegant fusion of folk, jazz and soul” and included her version of British folk singer Ewan McColl’s song “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”
 
After spending almost 10 years as a Washington, D.C., schoolteacher and performing nights downtown, Roberta Flack zoomed quickly to worldwide stardom. In 1972, after her entire 5 minute version of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” was featured in a Clint Eastwood film. The song went within weeks to No. 1 on the Billboard chart — a perch she would reclaim two more times, with “Killing Me Softly With His Song” (1973) and “Feel Like Makin’ Love” (1974).
 
  One day in 1972, Ms. Flack heard Lori Lieberman’s “Killing Me Softly” playing on an American Airlines flight. She immediately latched onto the tune’s spinning-wheel melody, delicately balanced between major and minor, and its mysterious lyrics. Ms. Lieberman had sent a demo of the song to Helen Reddy, a major pop star at the time, but she was turned off by the title and the tape languished on her desk.
On the airplane, Flack jotted down the melody as she played Ms. Lieberman’s version over and over on her headphones. When she first sang it at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, while opening for Marvin Gaye, the audience erupted at the end. Quincy Jones, who was there, counseled her to keep the song to herself until she’d recorded it.
A year later, she won in the pop vocal performance, female category for “Killing Me Softly”, a soft reference to Don McLean’s masterpiece “American Pie”. It was released in January 1973 as a single and became ubiquitous on AM radio stations across the country.
It would be Flack’s signature song for the rest of her life.-

 
In both 1973 and ’74, she won Grammy Awards for record of the year, and in both years the composers of her hits won for song of the year. In 1973, she and her partner Donny Hathaway shared the award for best pop vocal performance by a duo, group or chorus, for “Where Is the Love.” 
Flack’s steady, powerful voice could convey tenderness, pride, conviction or longing, but hardly ever despair. Most of her best-known albums included at least a few funk and soul tracks, driven by a slapping backbeat and rich with observational social commentary. But her biggest hits were always something else: slow folk ballads (“The First Time”) or mellifluous anthems (“Killing Me Softly”) or plush love songs (“Feel Like Makin’ Love”).
 
In 1975, the year she moved in next door to John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the Dakota building in New York City, Roberta Flack released “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” her first self-produced album and another smash hit. With its feathery, electrified sound and prowling beat, the title track came to be recognized as an early example of quiet storm, an R&B subgenre that conquered airwaves in the 1980s.
 
Her subsequent albums, “Blue Lights in the Basement” (1977), “Roberta Flack” (1978) and “Roberta Flack Featuring Donny Hathaway” (1979), tacked further toward the dance floor, with a smoother and bouncier style. Together with “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” this streak of self-produced or co-produced recordings put Ms. Flack’s talents as an arranger and bandleader on full display. (She used a pseudonym, Rubina Flake, for her production work.)
Ms. Flack recorded the soundtrack to the 1981 Richard Pryor film “Bustin’ Loose.”
 
She sang the theme song to “Making Love,” a 1982 film about a man grappling with his sexual identity. “I was so glad when that song charted,” Ms. Flack said in an interview with Hotspots magazine. “People who did not know that the song was about love between two men, loved that song. I would talk about it in my shows, and about how love is love. Between a man and a woman, between two men, between two women. Love is universal, like music. I always say, ‘Love is a song.’”

 
During these years, while battling intermittent bouts of tonsillitis, she pursued a doctorate in education at the University of Massachusetts, though she never completed it.
 “Oasis,” a later-career highlight from 1988, was also a Flack production. By the middle of the decade her recorded output had slowed, though she still performed often. She became a mentor to younger vocalists, including Luther Vandross and Peabo Bryson, both of whom sang alongside Ms. Flack before stepping straight into solo careers, largely thanks to her support.


She frequently worked benefit concerts into her touring schedule, and from 2006 to 2011 she funded and helped direct a program known as the Roberta Flack School of Music at the Hyde Leadership Charter School in the Bronx. 
She also served for many years as a spokesperson for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and allowed the organization to use “The First Time” royalty-free in TV commercials.
 
Throughout her life, Ms. Flack maintained an interest in spirituality and the occult, an orientation she credited to the influence of her grandmother, who had been a healer.

 
Ms. Flack was honored in 2018 with a lifetime achievement award from the Jazz Foundation of America, and two years later with a Grammy for lifetime achievement.
Into her latest years, Ms. Flack savored the memory of school-teaching days and club nights in Washington. When asked in 2017 if she ever went back to Mr. Henry’s, which still hosts live music, she didn’t miss a beat: “I was there recently. I love the crab cakes.”
 
Roberta Flack had an “amazing ability to get further inside a song than one thought humanly possible and to bring responses from places inside you that you never knew existed,” Rolling Stone Magazine wrote.
 
A virtuoso classical pianist who often sang from the piano bench, Ms. Flack described her approach as something like disrobing before the audience. “I want everybody to see me as I am,” she told The National Observer in 1970. “Your voice cracks? OK, darlin’, you go right on and keep giving it what you’ve got left, and the audience ignores it and goes right along with you. I’ve found out the way to get myself through to people is just to unzip myself and let everything hang out.”
“Perhaps no other mainstream musical artist of the 1970s more complexly brought Black nationalism into discourse with European classical aesthetics,” one scholar said.
 
Roberta Flack, the magnetic singer and pianist whose intimate blend of soul, jazz and folk made her one of the most popular artists of the 1970s, died on February 24, 2025 in Manhattan, New York. She was 88. The cause was cardiac arrest.
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Don Everly 8/2021

Don Everly (The Everly Brothers) was born in Brownie, Kentucky on February 1, 1937. He was of German, English and Cherokee descent. His formidable father, “Ike” Everly was a coal miner in Brownie, Ky., and Don was born in Brownie’s coal camp. Ike also was a guitar player, taught by Arnold Schultz, the Black musician who taught Bill Monroe. And when the coal was gone, Ike moved the family to Chicago in the late 1930s in search of a career in music. A second son, Phil, was born there, and the family moved to Shenandoah, Iowa, where Ike had a radio show in the mid-1940s. “Little Donnie” sang the theme, “Free as a Little Bird as I Can Be,” and then Phil was brought in, and with that the Everly Family was on the air. Don and Phil attended Longfellow elementary school in Waterloo. They sang on their father’s radio show and the family entertained and sang around the area.

In 1953, the Everlys moved to Knoxville and both boys attended West High School where Don graduated. While in Knoxville the two high school brothers performed on the Cas Walker Show on TV until they added some early rock and roll to their country music set list. At that point, Cas Walker fired them adding that “Rock and Roll don’t sell groceries.”

The teenage brothers were viewed as long-haired, leather-jacket-wearing toughs. Ike got a meeting for the boys with country music mogul Chet Atkins in Nashville, and Atkins was so impressed with Don’s songwriting that he placed one of his songs with Kitty Wells.

“Don said he was considering college but when Kitty Wells bought his song “Thou Shalt Not Steal” (which Don wrote at WHS) and recorded it, the check came in the mail and he was now a songwriter.” He confirmed the old Knoxville urban legend: seeing the check and knowing that Nashville would be the next step. “That check bought us four tires and we were heading to Nashville,” Everly  recalled.

In 1955, the family moved to Nashville and the boys auditioned for labels as a brother act. A single they made went nowhere. After one difficult session for Columbia, yielding the rare 1956 single Keep A’Lovin’ Me/The Sun Keeps Shining, they signed with the New York label Cadence, later switching to the newly formed Warner Bros Records. From 1957 to 1965 they had 28 hits in the British Top 30, and comparable success in the US.

When they signed with Cadence and were given a tune (Bye Bye Love) to kick around, written by two of the hottest songwriters in town, Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. “Bye Bye Love” topped the country chart and hit No. 2 on the pop chart right behind Elvis Presley’s “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear” and No. 5 on the rhythm and blues chart in 1957. It became the Everly Brothers’ first million-seller. They opened for Buddy Holly on the road for almost 2 years before another Bryant number, “Wake Up Little Susie,” topped the pop charts in 1957. When Chuck Berry was asked what song he most wished he’d written, he declared it was “Susie.” “All I Have to Do Is Dream” followed in 1958.

Rock ‘n’ roll was in ascendance, but if the music was mostly about revolt and rule-breaking, here was a style that felt both pre-rock and yet of the moment, built on family harmony and gentle sadness that seemed innocent even then. The music floated on the brothers’ harmonies, in effortless chromosomal alignment and held in place by the crisp playing of Nashville studio veterans.

The boys were seasoned professionals by the time they poured out their magic vocals on to a run of hits that married hillbilly harmonies and Nashville nous, their full-chorded acoustic guitars embracing Bo Diddley’s exotic rhythms to create the rock’n’roll end of country music’s rich, commercial sounds.

In a five-year span from 1957 to 1962, they had 15 top 10 hits, among them: “Bye Bye Love,” which launched them; “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” written by Boudleaux Bryant; and “Cathy’s Clown,” which was a No. 1 hit in 1960 and a No. 1 country hit for Reba McEntire in 1989. The hits continued: “Devoted to You” and “Bird Dog” in 1958; “(Til’) I Kissed You,” written by Don, in 1959; and “Let It Be Me,” and “When Will I Be Loved” in 1960. “Crying in the Rain” and then “That’s Old Fashioned (That’s the Way Love Should Be)” from 1962 were their final forays into the top 10.

The Everly Brothers were certainly pioneers in rock and folk music and inspired artists like the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, They influenced everyone from The Beach Boys to The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, Bee Gees, Buddy Holly and many others. In fact, the Everlys toured with Buddy Holly for two years before his untimely death. Fifteen years later their Appalachian roots inspired country rockers such as Gram Parsons and Linda Ronstadt, who had a hit covering their “When Will I Be Loved” in 1975.

Personal problems (including Don’s addiction to amphetamines) began wearing away on the pair, and in 1973 the Everlys broke up during a concert at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, California. Mutual dislike and differing temperaments caused Don and Phil Everly to retire and they both went solo. During that time Phil sang backing vocals in Warren Zevon’s debut album. He also recorded for Clint Eastwood’s ‘Every Which Way But Loose’ and ‘Any Which Way You Can’. Don recorded ‘Blue Kentucky Girl’ with Emmylou Harris.

Don found some success on the US country charts in the mid- to late-1970s, in Nashville with his band, Dead Cowboys, and playing with Albert Lee.

Don also performed solo at an annual country music festival in London in mid-1976. His appearance was well received, and he was given “thunderous applause”, even though critics noted that the performance was uneven. Don recorded “Everytime You Leave” with Emmylou Harris on her 1979 album Blue Kentucky Girl.

The Everly Brothers reunited in 1983 for a show at the Royal Albert Hall, London. The following year they released the album ‘EB84’, produced by Dave Edmunds. Paul McCartney wrote the first single ‘On The Wings of a Nightingale’.

Simon & Garfunkel took the Everly Brothers on tour in the 1980s but instead of the brothers opening for them, they appeared in the middle of the Simon & Garfunkel set.  The Everly Brothers also sang backing vocals for Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’.

Don and his younger brother, Phil, were in the first group to be inaugurated in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, alongside Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis. Their family harmonies set them apart from the rest, as did an out-of-time gentleness: the Everly Brothers’ well-crafted songs floated between country and city and moved with the rhythms of a dream.

In the time line of rock & roll they were the heroes of our heroes.

But that became also the reason why their hey days were cut short, way too short actually.

They had the gravitas to cover other artists’ crucial songs, from Little Richard’s Lucille, given a keening, slow-motion vocal fall, to the blues classics Trouble in Mind and Step It Up and Go, and Mickey & Sylvia’s Love Is Strange. Don, taken through the Maxwell Street market in Chicago as a young boy by his father, was ever after aware of gospel and blues. In an era of pretty pop, the Everlys sought a tougher sound on records such as The Price of Love (1965) and their extraordinary revival of the standard Temptation (1961), which pre-figured Phil Spector’s “wall of sound”. But, like Spector’s River Deep, Mountain High, the Everlys’ Temptation was (by their standards) a flop in the US, and The Price of Love a bigger one.

Then there were the Beatles, whose “new” harmonies made the Everlys old-fashioned overnight. Made redundant before they were 30, Don and Phil felt, wrongly, that the Beatles had stolen from them without acknowledgment – John and Paul ‘admitted’ that they had taken inspiration for the harmonies on Please Please Me from Cathy’s Clown.

Sidelined further by prog rock, Don and Phil tried first to sound like Simon and Garfunkel, and then their influential 1968 album Roots which, with the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo, marked a step towards the emergence of “country rock”.

Don continued to write songs: Human Race (1970), the cri de coeur I’m Tired of Singing My Song in Las Vegas on the album Stories We Could Tell (1972), and most of the magnificent ignored solo album Don Everly (1971), a compelling collection that sings of human frailty with profound compassion (yet which, Phil told a biographer, he had felt as a betrayal, “like cheating on a marriage”).

These were perilous decades, especially for Don, the more temperamental and creative of the pair, whose drug adventures probably loosened an already shaky grip on reality. After a childhood paraded as a cute novelty item, dressed as if he were a twin, in cowboy clothes, his only sample of “normal life” was a spell in the Marines (of which he was proud) in the middle of being half of a pair of teen idols: one of the world’s most influential, well-loved and successful acts – and then, suddenly, one of the most passé.

The Everly Brothers split up in public acrimony, their last performance together on 14 July 1973, in Buena Park, California, at which Phil hurled down his guitar and stormed off stage, leaving Don to finish the concert alone.

On two other occasions Phil managed without Don. In 1962, on tour in Britain, a drug-fueled Don tried to throw himself from a hotel window and Phil had to perform solo on the remaining dates. And then, recording a solo album in 1983, right at the end of the brothers’ bleak 10 years of separation, Phil brought in Cliff Richard, and on one track they duetted as if Don could somehow be replaced. Phil and Cliff’s She Means Nothing to Me was a Top 10 UK hit, just to compound the enormity of the “betrayal”. Don saw it as nothing less, though it was he who had actually dissolved the brothers’ lifelong professional partnership.

It was a further trauma for both to discover that separately, no one cared that much about either of them. But in 1983 they staged a moving reunion concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

They still sang exquisitely, and a small segment of their shows offered songs learned from their father, whom they worshipped, and the Kentucky guitarist Mose Rager: authentic old-time country material. Don played loving, intense guitar, though sparingly in latterday performances. Singing lead, he lived in the spontaneity of the moment, his phrasing inspired, warm and free. He was an artist. But they hardly dared stray from their teenage hits. Besides, to have done so would have meant having to rehearse together, and that was not in the stars in those days.

Off-stage, Don was a glutton for life and a connoisseur. He had always seen the latest film; he read widely; he was interested in modern art and, on a modest scale, collected it. An avid explorer of restaurants, he loved to talk of food and to cook it. On tour, the Anglophile rock star would rise early and roam the towns he found himself in. These explorations made his professional duties tolerable, as he would deftly concede. At showtime in 90s Croydon, he realised he had forgotten to change into his stage clothes. Told he looked fine, he answered: “No, I better change. That suit knows the words.”

In later years the story of the Everly Brothers stranded in time. And when we, the audience, were paying attention again to their revival, they couldn’t get along. And if you were born in the forties and experienced their hits firsthand, this was probably gut-wrenching, much as the Beatles break up in 1969. But to the younger later generation, the Everlys were more cartoons than legends.

But then they had a late victory lap. They opened for Simon & Garfunkel on their 2003 reunion tour. It was a last hurrah for both Simon & Garfunkel and the Everlys. Garfunkel lost his voice and by time it came back Simon no longer wanted to go on the road. As for the Everlys? They still couldn’t get their relationship right.

Don Everly attended the Annual Music Masters as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame paid homage to the Everly Brothers on October 25, 2014, several months after Phil’s demise. Don took the State Theater stage and performed the Everlys’ classic hit “Bye Bye Love”.

Don stopped performing in 2018. His final performance was a guest appearance with Paul Simon on Simon’s 2018 farewell tour in Nashville. Don and Simon performed “Bye Bye Love”, with Simon on Phil Everly’s original tenor harmony.

In many ways the Everly Brothers were there first. They established the paradigm. I was maybe too young to be there, to be infected, but the people I was listening to ate up all those records. Even in Europe Phil & Don were gods, no matter what they did thereafter, those tracks were just that big and special. The Everlys are truly one of the building blocks of rock and roll. Which meant so much, that the Rock and Roll homage created a Rock and Roll hall of fame and built a museum to contain it, and the Everlys were installed in the first induction ceremony in 1986.

And now Don Everly has also been released from his earthly contract on August 21, 2021, aged 84. His brother Phil had died in 2014. The Everly family matriarch, mother Margaret Embry Everly, died four months later in December, aged 102. 

About their influence on superstars that followed, Paul McCarthy of the Beatles said it best: “They were one of the major influences on the Beatles. When John and I first started to write songs, I was Phil and he was Don.”

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Ginger Baker 10/2019

Peter ‘Ginger’ Baker – Cream/Blind Faith – was born on 19 August 1939 in Lewisham, South London. His mother, Ruby May worked in a tobacco shop. His father, Frederick Louvain Formidable Baker, was a bricklayer employed by his own father, who owned a construction  business and was a lance corporal in the Royal Corps of Signals in World War II; he died in the 1943 Dodecanese campaign. Baker went to Pope Street School, where he was considered “one of the better players” in the football team, and then to Shooter’s Hill Grammar School. Here he was nicknamed “Ginger” for his shock of flaming red hair.
While at school he joined Squadron 56 of the Air Training Corps, based at Woolwich and stayed with them for two or three years.

Ginger Baker began playing drums at around 15 years of age. In the early 1960s he took lessons from Phil Seamen, one of the leading British jazz drummers of the post-war era.
In the early 1960s he joined Blues Incorporated, where he met bassist Jack Bruce. The two clashed often, but would be rhythm section partners again in the Graham Bond Organization, a rhythm and blues group with strong jazz leanings. Their relationship was so volatile that Baker once attacked Bruce with a knife during a concert. Despite this volatile relationship, Baker and Bruce reunited in 1966 when they formed Cream with guitarist Eric Clapton, which became one of the first Supergroups of the 60s. He was the first guy we saw with two bass drums and the first guy to do an extended drum solo on record.

Cream played a fusion of blues, psychedelic rock and hard rock. The band released four albums in a little over two years before breaking up in late 1968.
“Disraeli Gears” was released in November ’67, the year underground FM radio began to burgeon, with KMPX in San Francisco joining the aforementioned WOR.
And then, during the summer of ’68, “Sunshine Of Your Love” crossed over to AM and the band and the scene exploded.

Now “Fresh Cream”‘s production was credited to Robert Stigwood, it’s unclear who really twisted the dials, who was really responsible for the sound, but it didn’t have the edge of what came after, it was almost like a blanket was thrown over the speakers.
But Felix Pappalardi produced “Disraeli Gears,” and it was a much better representation of the band’s sound. This was back when stereo was stereo, when instruments were in different channels, when we sat in front of the speakers, put on headphones to get the full effect. This was also when there was so much less on the records, you could hear all the instruments. You could hear Jack Bruce’s voice on “Sunshine Of You Love,” but the key to the track’s success, it’s infectiousness, was that guitar. It was the year we saw Jimi Hendrix‘s “Axis: Bold As Love” came out in January of ’68, so Cream was no longer alone, “Purple Haze” sat along “Sunshine Of Your Love” at the apex of riff-rock that started with the Stones’ “I can get no satisfaction. And then came “Piece Of My Heart,” by Big Brother and the Holding Company. Janis Joplin got a lot of ink, she was a dynamic performer, she could not be denied and when people purchased “Cheap Thrills,” with its R. Crumb cover, we were not in Kansas anymore, the screw had turned, it was a whole new world in music.

And “Wheels Of Fire” was released in August of that same year, double albums were not unknown, but this one came in silver foil and the second record was a live one.
The visual energy in Cream all came from the man behind the kit, Ginger Baker. Clapton just stood there being “Slowhand”. As did Jack Bruce, albeit a massive voice. You couldn’t help but focus on the drummer, who seemed on the verge of losing control as he stoked this freight train down the track. The sheer power impacted your gut.

And then “White Room” became a hit and the word got out. Suddenly everybody was talking about Cream. People you thought were decidedly unhip, out of the loop, got the message. And “Wheels Of Fire” started to explode. And on side four, there was a sixteen minute drum solo entitled “Toad.”
Yup, blame “Toad” for that execrable five to twenty minutes in every live show where everybody takes a pee break and the drummer flails on. They were all inspired by Ginger Baker, he was the progenitor, they all wanted to BE Ginger Baker, suddenly the drummer was no longer an afterthought, but a virtuoso who could express himself.
And then the band said it was breaking up and went on a final tour.

And the victory lap, “Goodbye Cream,” had a bigger impact in the public’s consciousness than anything that came before, it was the zeitgeist, people bought it after the band broke up, lamenting they’d never gotten to see the act. “Goodbye” resurrected “I’m So Glad” from the first LP. “Sitting On Top Of The World” was definitive. And “Badge” was a gift for those who’d been there all along.
It was like not only the band, but its members had died, there were posthumous live records, everybody wanted more of what they could never get again.
But they did get the short-lived “supergroup” Blind Faith, comprising of Eric Clapton, bassist Ric Grech from Family, and Steve Winwood from Traffic on keyboards and vocals and Ginger Baker on drums. They released only one album, Blind Faith, before breaking up.

Blind Faith was the first supergroup. That was the definition back then, they had to coin it for this concoction, an act made up of the stars of other acts, come together to make something new and triumphant.
But of course Blind Faith imploded, but the album gets short shrift, the first side is phenomenal, everyone knows the cuts, from the explosive opener “Had To Cry Today” to Clapton’s first shining solo moment, “Presence Of The Lord” and the cover of Buddy Holly’s “Well All Right” to Winwood’s piece-de-resistance, “Can’t Find My Way Home.”
The second side had Ginger Baker’s fifteen minute opus “Do What You Like.” Filler or a nod to Baker’s genius, who knows?
And when Blind Faith broke up, Winwood tried to go solo but got back together with Traffic. Clapton decided to play small, with Delaney & Bonnie, Ric Grech disappeared, and Ginger Baker formed his Air Force in 1970, yup, he was gonna continue to play for all the marbles.
Baker’s Air Force album sold, but then the act faded away, there was great playing but no songs.

After the demise of both groups Baker built a recording studio in Lagos, Nigeria. Paul McCartney & Wings recorded ‘Band On the Run’ at Baker’s Batakota Studios. The studio went bust not long after and its failure sent Baker to drugs.

Ginger Baker withdrew from the music industry throughout most of the 80s. He had developed a heroin addiction and withdrew to Italy where he lived on an olive farm until he overcame the addiction.

Eventually Baker played with the Masters Of Reality, in the nineties, which seemed a step down, but the truth was there was no band big enough to contain him. He had an edgy personality and still an original. He was the original Keith Richards, nothing could kill him. Everybody knew who Ginger Baker was, it’s just that we didn’t hear his playing that much. He was drunk, he was stoned, he played polo, he was involved in shenanigans, but the legend always exceeded the present.

And yes, there were the Cream reunion shows in 2005. A triumph in London’s Royal Albert Hall, an almost queasy afterthought in New York’s Madison Garden. He was still Ginger Baker, he could still do it, but this was nostalgia.

A decade later, living in South Africa, Baker revealed he had ‘serious heart issues.

Ginger Baker died 6 October, 2019 at the age 80.

But if you talk about legacy…
Ginger Baker is right up there. He was the first. He showed what could be done with the drumkit. He was a trailblazer, a true rocker, one who couldn’t be contained, there was nothing corporate about him. He was a beacon, may he continue to shine.

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Eddy Money 9/2019

Eddie Money was born Edward Joseph Mahoney in Manhattan, New York City on March 21, 1949, to a large family of Irish Catholic descent. His parents were Dorothy Elizabeth (née Keller), a homemaker, and Daniel Patrick Mahoney, a police officer. He grew up in Levittown, New York, but spent some teenage years in Woodhaven, Queens, New York City. Money was a street singer from the age of eleven. As a teenager, he played in rock bands, in part to get dates from cheerleaders. He was thrown out of one high school for forging a report card. In 1967, he graduated from Island Trees High School.

At the age of 18, he tried to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, father, and brother as a New York City Police Department trainee. However, after working as a clerk and typist, he left in 1968 to pursue a career in music, as the police did not allow him to grow his hair long. “I couldn’t see myself in a police uniform for 20 years of my life, with short hair,” he later said. His bandmates also fired him because they did not want a police officer in the group. His father was not happy with his decision to play music and tore Jimi Hendrix posters from his wall. He never lost sight of his blue-collar upbringing however and even at the height of his career with all the celebrity, millions of albums sold, and large sums of money he made, was one of the few artists who never changed. His ego was always in check, he remained a regular guy–someone you’d really have fun hanging out with. And he treated anyone he met, in any walk of life, exactly the same, with big respect.

‘Once he was traveling with a local music rep in New York–they were late for a radio interview and speeding on the Long Island Expressway. They were pulled over by the cops and it turns out one of the policemen was a guy who was a classmate of Eddie’s when they went through the Police Academy together. “Hey Eddie, you knucklehead, what are you doin’?!! Come on, I’ll give you guys a police escort!” That kind of fun luck used to happen a lot for Eddie.’

He began studying saxophone during a brief stint at junior college, inspired by rock musicians like David Bowie and Van Morrison who occasionally used the instrument.

In 1968, Money moved to Berkeley, California. There, he studied with vocal coach Judy Davis, and took on the stage name Eddie Money, dropping two letters from his last name and sarcastically referring to the fact that he was always broke.

Over the course of the next 8 years, Money became a regular performer at clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area. After gaining the attention of Bill Graham, he secured a recording contract with Columbia Records, releasing his debut album in 1977. He charted with singles such as “Baby Hold On” and “Two Tickets to Paradise”, about visiting his girlfriend despite not having money.

In 1978, Money opened for Santana at Boston’s Music Hall. The following year, he sang backing vocals on the bridge section on “I’m Alright”, a song written and performed by Kenny Loggins. In 2014, Money claimed that Loggins never gave him credit for his contribution.

His ascend started with “Baby Hold On.” The lyrics were not intellectual enough for the cognoscenti. But the music was undeniable, you heard it once and got it whereas so much vaunted stuff, then and now, you listen to over and over again and still don’t get.

Then came “Two Tickets To Paradise.”

Now that was a smash right out of the box. Great title, great track, great, emphatic chorus:

“I’ve got two tickets to paradise, Won’t you pack your bags, we’ll leave tonight”

This was 1978. When airline travel was still expensive. When you didn’t hop on a plane to go to a show or a game, you were stuck at home, dreaming, of what could possibly be, and Eddie Money was opening the top of your brain and filling you with hope

In 1982, Money took advantage of the MTV music video scene with his humorous narrative videos for “Think I’m in Love”, performed at The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa, and “Shakin'”. In the early 1980s, he appeared on The Midnight Special, Fridays, and Solid Gold. In 1978 and 1984, he appeared on American Bandstand.

Money’s career slumped temporarily following the commercially unsuccessful 1983 album Where’s the Party?. However, he made a comeback in 1986 with the album Can’t Hold Back, which received a music recording certification of platinum. “Take Me Home Tonight”, a single from the album, peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States. Money only agreed to perform the song—which included a line from “Be My Baby”, a song Ronnie Spector performed as part of The Ronettes—after Spector agreed to sing the line herself. In 1987, Money was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for “Take Me Home Tonight”. “I Wanna Go Back” and “Endless Nights”—two other singles from the Can’t Hold Back album—peaked at No. 14 and No. 21, respectively.

In 1988, Money released Nothing to Lose, which featured the Top 10 hit “Walk on Water” and the Top 40 hit “The Love in Your Eyes”.

It was 1992, “Unplugged” was flourishing on the now totally dominant MTV. Not that Eddie Money was cool enough to be featured, but he released his own acoustic live album, that positively ROCKED! “Unplug it in”.

“Gimme Some Water,” the opening cut. This was an album track from Money’s mostly hitless second LP “Life For The Taking.” Oh, “Maybe I’m A Fool” made it to number 22 on the singles chart, but at this point no one was listening to Top Forty, AOR ruled, and you didn’t need a pop hit to go platinum, as “Life For The Taking” did.

Also beginning in 1992, Money opened the summer concert season for the Pine Knob Music Theater in Clarkston, Michigan where he would return to open the venue for 27 consecutive years. In 1996, he wrote the theme music to Quack Pack, a Disney cartoon.

Money was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2008. In January 2010, he performed a medley of his hit singles during the halftime performance at the Liberty Bowl.

Eddie was a natural frontman and his original guitar player Jimmy Lyon played a role like Ronnie Wood did for Rod Stewart in the Faces – together they killed it onstage. Eddie was a very funny guy with quick wit and often the dumbest jokes.

In the beginning, he was a wild man like many rockers. On his first radio promotional tour he was going to be traveling with Warren Williams, a legendary Columbia rep for the western region. Eddie asked Warren to stop at a local liquor store, “Hey Warren, I just want to run in and get a pack of cigarettes.” About twenty minutes later Eddie emerged with a giant case full of Whiskey, Vodka, Tequila, and Gin – “OK, I’m ready now.”

In later years he toured as a classic rock act with his daughter and other family members in his band. He used to joke–“It’s like the Partridge Family, only with marijuana!”

Money wrote and performed original songs for the films Americathon (1979), Over the Top, Back to the Beach (both 1987), and Kuffs (1992), along with the television series Hardball (1989–1990).

Eddie Money died on Sep. 13, 2019. He was 70 years old.

In the three days following Money’s death, fans streamed “Take Me Home Tonight” more than 3.1 million times, which was an increase of 349 percent compared to the previous three-day period. Fans also streamed his other songs by 931 percent more than the three previous days.

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John Mayall 7/2024

John Mayall was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, on 29 November 1933 and grew up in Cheadle Hulme, a village not too far from Manchester, England. It was here as a teenager that he first became attracted to the jazz and blues 78s in his father’s record collection. Initially it was all about guitarists such as Big Bill Broonzy, Brownie McGhee, Josh White and Leadbelly. However once he heard the sounds of boogie woogie piano giants Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis, his desire to play in that style was all he could think of. 

He was the son of Murray Mayall, a guitarist who played in local pubs.

At the age of 14, when he went to Manchester’s Junior School of Art, he had access to a piano for the first time and he began to learn the basics of this exciting music. He also found time to continue learning the guitar and, a couple of years later, the harmonica, inspired by Sonny Terry, Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Walter.

After his two years at art school, he joined the art department of a major department store while starting to build up his own record collection that was to be his source of inspiration. At age eighteen, when he was due for National Service, he spent three years in the Royal Engineers as an office clerk in the south of England and in Korea all the time playing whenever he got a chance. As no one seemed to be interested in this type of music, John felt pretty much of an outsider throughout his twenties up until 1962 when the news broke in the British music magazine Melody Maker that Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies had opened a club in Ealing devoted to blues music. After Britain’s ten year traditional jazz boom had about run its course, a new generation was ready for something new. Out came the amplifiers, guitars and harmonicas and out came young enthusiasts from all over the country eager to form their own groups.

This was all the encouragement thirty-year old John needed and, giving up his graphic design job, he moved from Manchester to London and began putting musicians together under the banner of the Bluesbreakers. Although things were rough at first, the music quickly took off thanks to the popularity of the Rolling Stones, Georgie Fame, Manfred Mann, The Animals and Spencer Davis with a young Steve Winwood. John also backed blues greats, John Lee Hooker, T-Bone Walker, Eddie Boyd and Sonny Boy Williamson on their first English club tours.

After a couple of years and many personnel changes, Eric Clapton quit the Yardbirds and John quickly offered him the job as his new guitarist. Although John had previously released a couple of singles and a live LP for Decca, the now classic collaboration between Eric and John resulted in the all-time best-selling classic album, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers featuring Eric Clapton. However, by the time it was entering the charts, Clapton and bassist Jack Bruce had left to form Cream. So began a succession of future stars who would define their roots under John’s leadership before leaving to form their own groups. Peter Green, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood became Fleetwood Mac. Andy Fraser formed Free, and Mick Taylor joined the Rolling Stones.

In late 1963, with his band, which was now called the Bluesbreakers, Mayall started playing at the Marquee Club. The line-up was Mayall, Ward, John McVie on bass and guitarist Bernie Watson, formerly of Cyril Davies and the R&B All-Stars. The next spring Mayall obtained his first recording date with producer Ian Samwell. The band, with Martin Hart at the drums, recorded two tracks: “Crawling Up a Hill” and “Mr. James”. Shortly after, Hughie Flint replaced Hart and Roger Dean took the guitar from Bernie Watson. This line-up backed John Lee Hooker on his British tour in 1964.

Mayall was offered a recording contract by Decca records and, on 7 December 1964, a live performance of the band was recorded at the Klooks Kleek. A later studio-recorded single, “Crocodile Walk”, was released along with the album, but both failed to achieve any success and the contract was terminated.

In April 1965, former Yardbirds guitarist Eric Clapton replaced Roger Dean and John Mayall’s career entered a decisive phase.

With Eric Clapton as their new guitar player, the Bluesbreakers began attracting considerable attention. That summer the band cut a couple of tracks for a single, “I’m Your Witchdoctor” b/w “Telephone Blues” (released in October). In August, however, Clapton left for a jaunt to Greece with a bunch of relative musical amateurs calling themselves the ‘Glands’. John Weider, John Slaughter, and Geoff Krivit attempted to fill in as Bluesbreaker guitarist but, finally, Peter Green took charge. John McVie was dismissed, and during the next few months Jack Bruce, from the Graham Bond Organisation, played bass.

In November 1965, Clapton returned, and Green departed as Mayall had guaranteed Clapton his spot back in the Bluesbreakers whenever he tired of the Glands. McVie was allowed back, and Bruce left to join Manfred Mann, but not before a live date by the Mayall-Clapton-Bruce-Flint line-up was recorded on Mayall’s two-track tape recorder at London’s The Flamingo Club in November. The rough recording provided tracks that later appeared on the 1969 compilation Looking Back and the 1977 Primal Solos. The same line-up also entered the studio to record a planned single, “On Top of the World”, which was not released at that time. Mayall and Clapton cut a couple of tracks without the others (although some sources give this as occurring back in the summer): “Lonely Years” b/w “Bernard Jenkins” was released as a single the next August on producer Mike Vernon’s Purdah Records label (both tracks appeared again two decades later in Clapton’s Crossroads box set). In a November 1965 session, blues pianist-singer Champion Jack Dupree (originally from New Orleans but in the 1960s living in Europe) got Mayall and Clapton to play on a few tracks.

In April 1966, the Bluesbreakers returned to Decca Studios to record a second LP with producer Vernon. Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton was released in the UK on 22 July 1966. Mayall wrote or arranged five (such as “Double Crossing Time”, a slow blues with a solo by co-writer Clapton); and Clapton debuted as lead vocalist, and began his practice of paying tribute to Robert Johnson, with “Ramblin’ on My Mind”. The album was Mayall’s commercial breakthrough, rising to No. 6 on the UK Albums Chart, and has since gained classic status, largely for the audacious aggressiveness and molten fluidity of Clapton’s guitar playing. “It’s Eric Clapton who steals the limelight,” reported music mag Beat Instrumental, adding with unintended understatement, “and no doubt several copies of the album will be sold on the strength of his name.”

In the meantime, on 11 June, the formation of Cream—Clapton, bassist Jack Bruce, and drummer Ginger Baker—had been revealed in the music press, much to the embarrassment of Clapton, who had not said anything about this to Mayall. (After a May Bluesbreakers gig at which Baker had sat in, he and Clapton had first discussed forming their own band, and surreptitious rehearsal jams with Bruce soon commenced.) Clapton’s last scheduled gig with the Bluesbreakers was 17 July in Bexley, south-east of London; Cream made a warmup club debut 29 July in Manchester and its “official” live debut two days later at the Sixth National Jazz and Blues Festival, Windsor.

Mayall had to replace Clapton, and he succeeded in persuading Peter Green to come back. During the following year, with Green on guitar and various other sidemen, some 40 tracks were recorded. The album A Hard Road was released in February 1967. In early 1967, Mayall released an EP recorded with American blues harpist Paul Butterfield.

But Peter Green gave notice and soon started his own project, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, which eventually was to include all three of Mayall’s Bluesbreakers at this time: Green, McVie, and drummer Mick Fleetwood, who was a Bluesbreaker for only a few weeks. Two live albums, Live in 1967 Volumes I and II, featuring this line-up were released on Forty Below Records in 2015 and 2016.

Mayall’s first choice to replace Green was 18-year-old David O’List, guitarist from The Attack. O’List declined, however, and went on to form the Nice with organist Keith Emerson. Through both a “musicians wanted” ad in Melody Maker on 10 June and his own search, Mayall found three other potential guitarists for his Bluesbreakers, a musician named Terry Edmonds, John Moorshead, and 18-year-old Mick Taylor. The last made the band quickly, but Mayall also decided to hire Edmonds as a rhythm guitarist for a few days.

In the meantime, on a single day in May 1967, Mayall had assembled a studio album to showcase his own abilities. Former Artwoods drummer Keef Hartley appeared on only half of the tracks, and everything else was played by Mayall. The album was released in November titled The Blues Alone.

A six-piece line-up—consisting of Mayall, Mick Taylor as lead guitarist, John McVie still on bass, Hughie Flint or Hartley on drums, and Rip Kant and Chris Mercer on saxophones—recorded the album Crusade on 11 and 12 July 1967. These Bluesbreakers spent most of the year touring abroad, and Mayall taped the shows on a portable recorder. At the end of the tour, he had over sixty hours of tapes, which he edited into an album in two volumes: Diary of a Band, Vols. 1 & 2, released in February 1968. Meanwhile, a few line-up changes had occurred: McVie had departed and was replaced by Paul Williams, who himself soon quit to join Alan Price and was replaced by Keith Tillman; Dick Heckstall-Smith had taken the sax spot.

Following a US tour, there were more line-up changes, starting with the troublesome bass position. First Mayall replaced bassist Tillman with 15-year-old Andy Fraser. Within six weeks, though, Fraser left to join Free and was replaced by Tony Reeves, previously a member of the New Jazz Orchestra. Hartley was required to leave, and he was replaced by New Jazz Orchestra drummer Jon Hiseman (who had also played with the Graham Bond Organisation). Henry Lowther, who played violin and cornet, joined in February 1968. Two months later the Bluesbreakers recorded Bare Wires, co-produced by Mayall and Mike Vernon, which came up to UK No. 6.

Hiseman, Reeves, and Heckstall-Smith then moved on to form Colosseum. The Mayall line-up retained Mick Taylor and added drummer Colin Allen (formerly of Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band / Dantalian’s Chariot, and Georgie Fame) and a young bassist named Stephen Thompson. In August 1968 the new quartet recorded Blues from Laurel Canyon.

On 13 June 1969, after nearly two years with Mayall, Taylor left and joined the Rolling Stones.

Chas Crane filled in briefly on guitar. Drummer Allen departed to join Stone the Crows. This left as the only holdover bassist Thompson who would also eventually join Stone the Crows.

In that same year 1969, with his popularity blossoming in the USA, John caused somewhat of a stir with the release of a drummer-less acoustic live album entitled The Turning Point, from which his song, “Room To Move” was destined to become a rock classic. Attracted by the West Coast climate and culture, John then made his permanent move from England to Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles and began forming bands with American musicians. Mayall tried this new format with lower volume, acoustic instruments, and no drummer. He recruited acoustic fingerstyle guitarist Jon Mark and flautist-saxophonist Johnny Almond. Mark was best known as Marianne Faithfull’s accompanist for three years and for having been a member of the band Sweet Thursday (which included pianist Nicky Hopkins and future Cat Stevens collaborator Alun Davies, also a guitarist). Almond had played with Zoot Money and Alan Price and was no stranger to Mayall’s music—he had played baritone sax on four cuts of Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton and some of A Hard Road. This new band was markedly different from previous Mayall projects, and its making is well documented both on the 1999 double CD The Masters and on the 2004 DVD The Godfather of British Blues/The Turning Point.

Along with a move to Los Angeles, Mayall decided on a big change in sound as well. The new band made its US debut at the Newport Jazz Festival on 5 July, whilst the performance of 12 July at the Fillmore East provided the tracks for the live album The Turning Point. A studio album, Empty Rooms, was recorded with the same personnel, with Mayall’s next bassist, former Canned Heat member Larry Taylor, playing bass in a duet with Thompson on “To a Princess”.

Mayall continued the experiment of formations without drummers on two more albums, although he took on a new electric blues-rock-R&B band in guitarist Harvey Mandel and bassist Larry Taylor, both plucked from Canned Heat, and wailing violinist Don “Sugarcane” Harris, lately of the Johnny Otis Show and formerly with The Mothers of Invention. On USA Union, though, Mandel was compelled to make do without his remarkable sustain and usage of feedback as musical, even melodic, technique; and on Memories the band was stripped down to a trio with Taylor and Ventures guitarist Gerry McGee.

In November 1970, Mayall launched a recording project involving many of the most notable musicians with whom he had played during the previous several years. The double album Back to the Roots features Clapton, Mick Taylor, Gerry McGee and Harvey Mandel on guitar; Sugarcane Harris on violin; Almond on woodwinds; Thompson and Larry Taylor on bass; and Hartley on drums. Paul Lagos was with Sugarcane and ended up drumming on five. Mayall wrote all the songs and sang all the vocals, as usual by now, plus played harmonica, guitar, keyboards, drums, and percussion. The London sessions took place in January 1971 and as such represent some of Clapton’s last work before Derek and the Dominos attempted “Layla” follow-up sessions and band disintegration that spring.

Back to the Roots did not promote new names, and USA Union and Memories had been recorded with American musicians. Mayall had exhausted his catalytic role on the British blues-rock scene and was living in Los Angeles. Yet, the list of musicians who benefited from association with him, starting with ruling the London blues scene, remains impressive.

A live album Jazz Blues Fusion was released in the following year, with Mayall on harmonica, guitar and piano, Blue Mitchell on trumpet, Clifford Solomon and Ernie Watts on saxophones, Larry Taylor on bass, Ron Selico on drums and Freddy Robinson on guitar. A few personnel changes are noted at the release of a similar album in 1973, the live Moving On.

In 1974, Mayall recorded The Latest Edition, produced by Tom Wilson for the Polydor label. The group featured jazz saxophonist Red Holloway, drummer Soko Richardson, bassist Larry Taylor, and two guitarists, Randy Resnick and Hightide Harris. The band toured Europe and Asia that year. During the next decade Mayall continued shifting musicians and switching labels and released a score of albums. Tom Wilson, Don Nix and Allen Toussaint occasionally served as producers. At this stage of his career most of Mayall’s music was rather different from electric blues played by rock musicians, incorporating jazz, funk or pop elements and even adding female vocals. A notable exception is The Last of the British Blues (1978), a live album excused apparently by its title for the brief return to this type of music.

In 1982, motivated by nostalgia and fond memories, John decided to re-form the original Bluesbreakers. Mick Fleetwood was unavailable at the time so John hired drummer Colin Allen to join with John McVie and Mick Taylor for a couple of tours and a video concert film entitled Blues Alive. Featured greats were Albert King, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells and Etta James. By the time Mick and John had returned to their respective careers, public reaction had convinced John that he should honor his driving blues roots. In Los Angeles, he selected his choices for a new incarnation of the Bluesbreakers. Officially launched in 1984, it included future stars in their own right, guitarists Coco Montoya and Walter Trout.

In 1984, Mayall restored the name Bluesbreakers for a line-up comprising the two lead guitars of Walter Trout and Coco Montoya, bassist Bobby Haynes and drummer Joe Yuele. 

In 1993, Texas guitarist Buddy Whittington joined the Bluesbreakers and, for the next ten years, energized the band with his unique and fiery ideas. Making his recording debut on John’s Spinning Coin album, he proved to be more than equal to following in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessors. Other modern classics followed; Blues For the Lost Days and Padlock On The Blues, the latter featuring a rare collaboration with his close friend, John Lee Hooker. In 2001 On Along For The Ride, published as a 40th anniversary album, John re-teamed with a number of his former mates, including Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, as well as ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Steve Miller, Billy Preston, Steve Cropper, Otis Rush, Gary Moore and Jeff Healey. The younger generation was well represented by teenage guitar sensations Shannon Curfman and Jonny Lang. In 2002, Stories debuted the Billboard blues charts at #1.

At a 70th Birthday celebration in aid of UNICEF in Liverpool a concert was filmed, recorded and released as a DVD and double CD in December 2003. Along with the Bluesbreakers, it featured old friends Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor and Chris Barber. The BBC also aired an hour-long documentary on John’s life and career entitled The Godfather of British Blues to coincide with the release of Road Dogs. In 2005, John was awarded an OBE on The Queen’s Honours list. In the Spring of 2007, John Mayall’s 56th album release, In The Palace Of The King, was an entire studio album that honored and paid tribute to the music of John’s long-time hero of the blues, Freddie King. All garnered great reviews, critical and popular acclaim and represented Mayall’s ongoing mastery of the Blues and his continuing importance in contemporary music.

In November 2008, Mayall announced on his website he was disbanding the Bluesbreakers, to cut back on his heavy workload and give himself freedom to work with other musicians. Three months later a solo world tour was announced, with Rocky Athas on guitar, Greg Rzab on bass, and Jay Davenport on drums. Tom Canning, on organ, joined the band for the tour which started in March 2009.​

A few years before, guitarist Whittington had introduced John to a fellow Texas guitarist, Rocky Athas and he recalled how impressed he’d been at the time. Luckily he answered John ‘s call and was eager to come on board for the proposed album. With the need for a rhythm section of dynamic strength, Mayall turned to bassist Greg Rzab who recommended his fellow Chicagoan Jay Davenport on drums. Finally, the three guys were put together with keyboardist Tom Canning and within two days of meeting up in Los Angeles, the album Tough was in the can. It had taken all of three days in the studio and ever since its release, and a growing schedule of world tours, a new era was born. Soon after its release Canning left to pursue other projects.

This leaner four-piece line-up gave John more room to stretch out as an instrumentalist and the band’s chemistry hit new heights. For the next seven years, John and the band continued to tour extensively throughout the world, and racked up their usual target of over a hundred shows per year.  An album was released in September 2009. Since then, Mayall continued to tour with the same backing band, minus Canning, who left due to other priorities.

After being invited to do a guest spot on Walter Trout’s The Blues Came Calling album, John re-connected with engineer/producer Eric Corne  and was impressed enough that he asked him to record his next album, A Special Life. The album was released on Corne’s Forty Below Records in 2014 to rave reviews, followed by an extensive tour of North America, Europe, and The UK to celebrate John’s 80th birthday.

In 2015, Dinu Logos published John Mayall: The Blues Crusader, the first biography of Mayall to include exhaustive details of every band he put together and every recording he made. 

Well into his eighties, John continued evolving with his performances and recordings and collecting well deserved accolades.  In 2016, he was inducted into the Blues Hall Of Fame.  That same year, he debuted his trio format with Rzab and Davenport, and recorded a live album – “Three For The Road” – during a European tour.  His next “first” was selecting Carolyn Wonderland to man the guitar chair in 2018.  This was the lineup on his final studio recording, “The Sun Is Shining Down”, which was nominated for Best Traditional Blues Album at the 2022 Grammy Awards.

​Mayall’s autobiography, Blues From Laurel Canyon: My Life As A Bluesman, co-written with author Joel McIver, was published by Omnibus Press in August 2019.

In 2022, John announced the end of his “epic road dog days”.  But even in retirement, John continues to inspire fans with his lifetime of wonderful music.  A third volume of his “Live in 1967” series, featuring Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie was released in late 2023.

John Mayall died at his home in California on 22 July 2024, at the age of 90.

John Mayall has often been referred to as the “godfather of the British blues”, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the musical influence category in 2024. His musical life reads like a Who’s Who in blues and rock and roll.

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Ron Morgan – 11/1989

Ron Morgan – Electric Prunes/Westcoast Popart Experimental Band/Three Dog Night – was born on June 8, 1945 in Colby, Kansas. His father, an accomplished Jazz Guitarist, brought Ron and his brother Robert into the musical fold early on. They were born with music over their heads. Ron was born to be a guitarist – he breathed, lived, walked and talked it. Yet never did he use his talents in arrogance or displayed himself as a superior player, or as a gifted artist. But he stays criminally underrated.

A contemporary musician once wrote this about him:
I was rehearsing with a group in Golden, CO sometime around 1970, when one afternoon a quiet, almost “shy” dude dropped over to sit in and jam with us.
Hooking up into a Marshall with one cabinet, he proceeded to blow away and amaze everyone within hearing range.
His superior level of competency playing was only matched by the feeling & spirit with which he played. Everyone knew there was a world-class musician in the room.
We jammed for about 2-3 hours until our ears were ringing.
When we finally stopped, I asked our drummer “who was THAT?” They told me his name was Ron Morgan, and that he had recently left 3 Dog Night.
My first thought was: “Boy, that’s THEIR loss.” I played and jammed with lots of guitarists from 1966 thru 1982, but I think it is possible that Ron was likely the best, most inspirational & exciting of all of them.
 
Ron and Robert were tight brothers who had many freedoms that some have only read about – like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Besides practically running wild, they did a lot of Fishing, swimming in lakes, catching – skinning rattle snake [selling skins] and trying to deal with self reliance (yes, motherless children have a hard time) – all was a big part of our younger years.
 
“Ron and Roger Liston co-founded Denver’s The Wild Ones in 1962, when they were only 16. While it is a given that Ron achieved stratospheric levels of excellence, what few people know is how far down he and Roger were talent-wise when they started our garage band ‘Morgan’s Marauders’ back in 1961. Since he and Roger had been kicked out of every band they were in, in that time, they made a solemn pact not to fire each other from their new band, no matter what! 
This first band “Morgan’s Marauders” was simply terrible. So bad that they got fired from almost every bar in the greater Denver area – sometimes during the first set! Worse yet, after they had “played through” every night club around, owners  remembered way too well how bad they were and would not think of taking a chance on hiring them again.
 
Apparently they learned from their failures and then they did something fairly inspired; it happened to be a bold and impressive move. They completely repackaged their “act”, renamed the band, got new suits, took new pictures, learned new songs and sent in a new face to sell the club owners the “new band”. This marketing plan worked and since they were a whole lot better, they were able to keep and even thrive.
 
Ron started performing full time in 1963, just 18 years old.
 
For two years, six nights a week, four hours a night, the Wild Ones played at two great Colorado clubs; Sam’s on Lookout Mountain and Clancy’s in Fort Collins. Even playing this often, Ron put in another 2-4 hours of practicing every day. And after only a few thousand hours of practicing, he “overnight” became master of the instrument and perhaps the genre.
The Wild Ones took every opportunity to showcase Ron. For instance, they arranged a medley of Freddy King classics to feature him. As for a side note, white folks of that era had not even heard of Freddy King, and would not for another ten years, However Ron knew every lick of every Freddy King song even in 1965; talk about being ahead of his time!
Ron would establish this medley by first playing the songs just as Freddy would, then, in the subsequent bridges and turnarounds, Ron would take us to a new level of musical experience, with the medley lasting for 12-15 minutes. Typically several hundred or so patrons of the club would move to the foot of the stage to better watch him perform his magic. What they saw was simply unprecedented; They were watching a world-class guitarist performing songs that mainstream America would not hear for another ten years in a small town Colorado night club. He was simply stellar–the rest of the band would just try to keep up with him and stay “out of the way”.
In 1965 The Wild Ones with Ron opened for British Invasion band Herman’s Hermits at the DU Stadium.
 
A little later, Ron’s musical talents were beginning to emerge beyond the local and regional scenes. He was uniquely gifted, even though Colorado didn’t realize it at the time. However, even accomplished guitarists in other bands were quick to take notice of Ron and were increasingly amazed at what they were hearing. Two years later, even the great Frank Zappa focused his complete attention on Ron when he took center stage.
Zappa first met Ron when the Wild Ones shared the stage with his band, the Mothers of Invention – for two weeks at L.A.’s Whisky A Go Go, where they alternated hourly sets. Zappa did his best to look uninterested when they were playing, but whenever Ron cut loose with a killer lead, Frank stopped moving – not breathing, blinking or drinking (Coors, of course), until Ron finished his lead. Every member of the Wild Ones has said that performing with Ron was truly the best time of their lives.
 
As author of this website, I learned about Ron Morgan during his year stint with the incredible West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. It’s a long way across the ocean from California to a little town in the Dutch hillsides, but when I first heard this band in a tiny listening room in our local record store, I was blown away. The closing lead in “Tracy had a hard day Sunday” was beyond my reach as guitarist for many years.
 
Here it states how Ron Morgan became part of the West Coast Popart Experimental Band.
 
When Ron Morgan was in California he was a member of Moby Grape, and a couple of other bands.  He also did the studio work for Three Dog Night with Jimmy Greenspoon, the red headed organ player. Jimmy and Ron also did the studio work for an attorney named Bob Markley who called his album The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. Ron had come back to Denver broke and when I saw him he asked if I could use him in The Leather Souls.  I helped him out.
Ron asked if the band wanted to tour as the West Coast Pop Experimental Art Band. Bob Markley had called and was looking for a group to learn the album and do the Teenage Fair Tour. Ron Morgan would come into the band via Hollywood contacts and provide them with some of the finest and most innovative lead guitar work being put forth in southern California. The liner notes of the band’s long plays often give the impression that Ron wasn’t involved with the recordings. But his guitar work was present on all of their LP’s.
Ron was working around the industry in California and had just finished some work with the Standells of “Dirty Water” fame when he was brought into the WCPAEB. Ron would not only provide the lead guitar, complete with all the special effects he could muster, but he would often contribute songs and could provide vocal support.
Morgan was brought in to replace Michael Lloyd who clashed badly with Markley. Ron lasted a little over a year and 3 albums.
 
In 1968 Ron became a very instrumental part and founding member of Three Dog Night. Their musical direction was quite contrary to his and Ron’s preference to the recording studio, rather than live performances was only one example of why he didn’t stay with Three Dog Night. Ron was then developing into a very versatile, progressive and experimental hard rocking Guitarist.
In 1968, TDN openend for Electric Flag at Hollywoods’ top bill venue The Kaleidoscope. The audience was a blues/rock crowd and seemed not too fond of an almost “lounge singer” sound. Shortly after, Ron returned home with a binding contract before he was to go into the studio with Three Dog Night – a Family Lawyer advised Ron not to sign, which he did not due to a clause that defined the band (musicians) as secondary. Upon his return to LA he was no longer in the band.
He never mentioned any regret for leaving. After all, TDN then was a cover band and Ron wanted to create, not recreate.
 
Almost immediately another opportunity arose in the form of established Reprise act, the Electric Prunes, but unfortunately for Ron the group was about to hit the buffers. According to Dick Whetstone, drummer and vocalist with the final Prunes line-up, Ron became involved after John Herron quit unexpectedly during the sessions for the ‘Just Good Old Rock And Roll’ LP: “We knew Ron from a Denver band called Superband that included Jimmy Greenspoon on keyboards.
The two of them had landed a gig with the original version of Three Dog Night prior to the first album release. Ron however was anxious to play in a less structured band – he wanted more solos! He was a world-class guitar player. He joined the Prunes in time to help finish the last tracks on the album and began touring with us, along with his Harley. Ron lived to play music, but the lifestyle contributed greatly to his death.” After Three Dog Night and the Electric Prunes Ron moved back to Denver. 
 
Ron never seemed unreasonable, just true to his mission. Early in his career, Ron ran in to Dick Clark while doing a bit on the hip show “Where The Action Is”. Ron declined an offer to join Paul Revere & the Raiders before Doug Heath joined – Ron thought the “Minuteman” garb was silly, quite uncomfortably warm and The Raiders to Ron was a commercially driven hype machine.
Later in the early 70′s, Ron declined Tommy Bolin’s request to join him in L.A. for one of his solo mid-seventy albums. Although Ron revered Tommy as an awesome Guitar Player/ Singer/ Songwriter – Ron commented, “two powerful lead guitarists might clutter things up”. Ron at that time had fallen onto some hard financial times as well and didn’t seem to warm up to an excursion to LA for a session. Ron and Tommy jammed together in Tommy’s Boulder Colorado based “Zephyr” band. Ron and Tommy on the same stage, was almost scary. Ron added later that it seemed more like a contest than an exchange of giving each other room to lay down a groove. This may explain the “clutter part” Ron had reluctance to work with Tommy, but always spoke of Tommy with utmost admiration.
 
According to his brother “He was disenchanted, but he wasn’t going to sell out. He did drive a cab for a while – he loved the freedom of it, there were no pressures and he was his own boss – but Ron got in a bad way. He was strung out on ‘reds’ – addictive sleeping pills – which he had been popping with Three Dog Night and he ended up on the street. He had no skills apart from music, but after he got married in ’76 he sorted his life out for a while and became a janitor. He still played and we used to jam a lot.
 
Then life had another tragedy in store for him when he had a motorcycle accident and things went down hill quick. He got put in a psychiatric ward for a time. His wife divorced him and kicked him out of the house. It was while he was in hospital that he was diagnosed with Hepatitis C. The worst thing you can do with that is drink, but he had a strong constitution – he could always put away the drugs and alcohol. Unfortunately he didn’t know until it was too late. 
Ron Morgan died in his sleep in 1989 at 44. 
 
Ron was a perfectionist and a bit of a loner. It was difficult for him to fit in to the California music industry way of doing things. He longed to create great music but was often shackled by over-bearing controllers.

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Bo Winberg 1/2020

Bo Winberg – The Spotnicks – was born 27 March 1939 in, Göthenborg, Sweden.
The Spotnicks originated from a duo, “The Rebels” (1956), formed by Bo Starander (later known as Bob Lander) and bassist Björn Thelin. Winberg was soon invited to join the group, and became “Rock-Teddy and the Blue Caps” in 1957. In 1958 they added Ove Johansson on drums, and changed their name to “The Frazers”. They signed a recording contract in 1961, and changed their name to “The Spotnicks”, a play on the Russian satellite Sputnik as suggested by their manager, Roland Ferneborg.

They became the first Swedish group to have international success with their czar sharp Bo Winberg inspired instrumentals. Like the Shadows in the UK and the Ventures in the US, the Spotnicks were instrument driven rockers.
One of their early records, “Orange Blossom Special”, became their first big international hit, making the Top 30 in the UK Singles Chart in 1962 and reaching No. 1 in Australia. Around this time they began wearing their trademark space suits on stage. They recorded their first album, The Spotnicks in London, Out-a Space, in 1962.

Further hits included “Rocket Man” (based on the Soviet/Russian folk march “Polyushko-polye”), and “Hava Nagila”.

This group of outstanding musicians faced the upcoming changes in musical flavors with the Beatles and Stones, The British Invasion, the later sixties Psychedelic rock and classic rock with many personnel changes, but split up in 1970 after releasing their fifteenth album: The Spotnicks Back in the Race; an album with a live feeling, lacking the perfection of their previous works, but still very good!

In spite of their breakup, the band was still popular in Japan, and they soon reformed under Winberg’s control in 1971 at the request of a Japanese record label. Bo Winberg takes part in the band for the Swedish production of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar.
Winberg continued to lead versions of The Spotnicks, occasionally including Lander and/or Björn Thelin, on tour and in recordings. They kept producing albums year after year and found an audience for their work and toured Germany and Japan numerous times.

In 2013, Winberg and Lander announced that they would be undertaking a final tour, finishing in May 2014.

Bo Winberg died in Sweden on 3 January 2020 aged 80.

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Bunny Wailer – 3/2021

Bunny Wailer

Bunny Wailer (Bob Marley and the Wailers) was born 10 April 1947 in Kingston Jamaica. He was born Neville Livingston, and it was not until much later that he would take the sobriquet of Bunny Wailer, largely as a marketing device for his clear, ringing tenor voice and percussive arranging. 

Bunny was brought up by his father, Thaddeus “Toddy” Livingston, who took him to Nine Mile, where he was preaching. Bunny took with him some experience of music – in Kingston he had been a champion child dancer. At the Revivalist church in Nine Mile where Toddy preached, he banged the drum during hymns.

Although Toddy opened a store, he was more attracted to the area’s fertile land, perfect for marijuana growing. He financed his assorted businesses through being a “herbsman”, as ganja sellers are termed in Jamaica. After a time Toddy returned to Kingston, taking his son with him, and opened a rum bar.

Bob Marley’s mother, Cedella, had begun working in Kingston, returning to Nine Mile each weekend. One Sunday, she found herself traveling with Toddy Livingston, and they began dating. 

Cedella’s son Bob practiced singing with Bunny and another boy, Desmond Dacre (later Desmond Dekker); Curtis Mayfield and gospel music were particular influences. The pair soon encountered another youth wanting to try his musical chances – the gangly Peter McIntosh, or Peter Tosh, as he became known. 

Toddy Livingston employed Cedella Marley at his bar; she became pregnant and their daughter, Pearl, was born early in 1962, meaning that Marley and Bunny Wailer shared a half-sister. But Cedella Marley decided that her relationship with the womanizing Toddy was hopeless and she moved to the United States.

Bunny first met Marley in the village of Nine Mile, Marley’s birthplace; Bunny was aged eight, Marley two years older.

In 1962, Bob Marley recorded Judge Not, his first tune for producer Leslie Kong. Bunny Livingston had been booked in at the studio the same afternoon, intending to sing his first composition, Pass It On, but had been kept in school after class. A few months later, however, he formed the Wailing Wailers with Marley and Tosh.

They auditioned for the leading producer Coxsone Dodd, and Bunny suggested they play Simmer Down, a song written by Bob Marley a couple of years previously. By November 1964 the song was No 1 in Jamaica.

Though the Wailers were a runaway success, there was a hitch in June 1967 when Livingston was jailed for 18 months for possessing marijuana.

When he was released, he was noted as being more difficult than previously. In 1970 the Wailers recorded an album for Kong; when Livingston discovered that Kong wanted to call it The Best of the Wailers he was furious. Only at the end of one’s existence could an individual’s work be judged, he insisted; such a decision, he declared, must mean that it was Kong who was near the end of his life.

Laughing at what he considered typical Rasta doublethink, Kong put out the record with his intended title but soon after died of a heart attack – cementing Wailer’s reputation as an “obeahman”, someone who employs Jamaican voodoo-like practices.

Soon after, in a Kingston nightclub, Livingston attacked Lee “Scratch” Perry, who had produced the Wailers’ Soul Rebels and Soul Revolution albums. Perry had sold the records for UK distribution for £18,000 but the Wailers had seen none of the money.

The trio signed to Island Records, whose boss, Chris Blackwell, marketed their albums Catch a Fire and Burnin’ as though they were a rock act. For the second LP a set of US shows had been booked, but Livingston announced that he would not be taking part.

He was the most combative of all the Wailers in terms of black militancy. With his girlfriend Jean Watt he moved to live in a bamboo hut among the Rasta beach community at Bull Bay, outside Kingston. Squatting on a piece of land, he built his home himself, adding a touch of luxury with a polished wood floor.

When it came to his finances Livingston was on wobbly ground. He had established his own Solomonic label, but it was hardly a money-spinner. Towards the end of the Wailers’ career, he was so broke he was going to sea to catch fish.

As a settlement from Island Records, Livingston and Tosh were each offered $45,000; Livingston insisted on cash. With the banknotes stashed, he drove around Jamaica searching for land to buy. Finally, he discovered a plot in the hilly St Thomas countryside, 60 miles from Kingston, where he built a house.

″I think I love the country actually a little bit more than the city,″ Wailer finally told The Associated Press in 1989. ″It has more to do with life, health and strength. The city takes that away sometimes. The country is good for meditation. It has fresh food and fresh atmosphere – that keeps you going.

At first Livingston seemed to have vanished into this hilltop eyrie, but in the summer of 1976 he released his first solo LP, Blackheart Man, which brimmed with vitality, on Island: he had been saving up songs for some time. He was sensibly remarketed as “Bunny Wailer”, but refused to play dates to push his record. Despite that, his Protest album, released the next year, proved equally strong.

For the 1980 disc Bunny Wailer Sings the Wailers he reworked many of the band’s songs with the backing of the leading Jamaican rhythm section, Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare. He experimented with disco on his 1982 album Hook Line & Sinker, and during the 1990s he won three Grammy Best Reggae Album awards, for Time Will Tell: A Tribute to Bob Marley, Crucial! Roots Classics and Hall of Fame: A Tribute to Bob Marley’s 50th Anniversary.

In 1987 he had resumed playing live shows, to large audiences in Europe and the United States, and continued to perform for much of the rest of his career.

In 1988, he had chartered a jet and flew to Jamaica with food to help those affected by Hurricane Gilbert. ″Sometimes people pay less attention to those things (food), but they turn out to be the most important things. I am a farmer,″ he told the AP.

But the Wailers dominated. When Kevin Macdonald released his acclaimed Marley! documentary in 2012, Bunny’s voice was conspicuous (he had demanded $1 million to be interviewed, and though he did not get quite that, he was reported to have been paid a substantial sum). His appearance in the film cemented his position as the elder statesman of reggae – though still linked irrevocably to Bob Marley, his schoolboy friend.

In 2017 Bunny Wailer, who suffered two strokes in later life, was awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit. He was married to Jean Watt, known as Sister Jean, who was suffering from dementia; she went missing in 2020 and remained so by the time of his death. He is believed to have had 12 daughters and a son.

He died on March 2, 2021 in Jamaica

He was the third and last original Wailer. Marley died in 1981 of a brain tumor at 36 years old and Tosh was fatally shot in Jamaica in 1987 at 42 years old, leaving Wailer as the music’s elder statesman.

Tributes: 

“The passing of Bunny Wailer, the last of the original Wailers, brings to a close the most vibrant period of Jamaica’s musical experience,” wrote Jamaica politician Peter Phillips in a Facebook post. “Bunny was a good, conscious Jamaican brethren.”

His solo records include 1976’s Black heart Man, and 1981’s Rock ‘n’ Groove, with “Cool Runnings”, “Crucial” and “Bald Head Jesus” among his best-known songs.

In 2017, Wailer was awarded Jamaica’s fourth highest honor, the Order of Merit, and was recognized with a Reggae Gold Award in February 2019.

Wailer won three Grammy awards during his career, for Time Will Tell: A Tribute to Bob Marley in 1991, Crucial! Roots Classics in 1995 and Hall of Fame: A Tribute to Bob Marley’s 50th Anniversary in 1997. All were in the category of Best Reggae Album.

It was his friendship and work with Bob Marley, and later with Peter Tosh, that led to them forming the Wailers, an intensely creative and varied trio who gave reggae an immense international reach. Though it is hard to pull Livingston from out of Bob Marley’s shadow he remained a commanding musical figure.

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Anita Pointer 12/2022

Anita Pointer (The Pointer Sisters) was born on January 23, 1948 in Oakland, California, the fourth of six children to Sarah Elizabeth and Reverend Elton Pointer. Though she was born in California, Pointer’s parents were natives of Arkansas. As a result, her family traveled by car almost yearly from California to Arkansas to visit Pointer’s grandparents who lived in Prescott.

At one point in time, her mother allowed her to stay with her grandparents to attend fifth grade at McRae Elementary, seventh grade at McRae Jr. High, and tenth grade at McRae High School. While in Prescott, she played alto sax as a member of the McRae High School band. In 1969, Pointer quit her job as a secretary to join her younger sisters Bonnie and June to form The Pointer Sisters.

The Pointer Sisters group was initially two sisters, June and Bonnie, who performed as a duo in the late 1960s. Anita, the second oldest, and Ruth, the youngest, subsequently joined. They worked for awhile as backup singers for Taj Mahal, Boz Scaggs, Elvin Bishop and others before releasing their self-titled debut album in 1973, and the Anita-led song “Yes We Can Can,” a funky anthem calling for unity and tolerance, became their breakout hit with another 11 spot on Billboard Hot 100.

They followed up with “That’s A Plenty,” which featured an eclectic mix of musical styles ranging from jazz to gospel to pop. The quartet brought a unique fusion of funk, soul and 1940s-style jazz, scat and pop to their act, often dressing in a retro style that resembled their forerunners the Andrews Sisters.

In 1974, Anita Pointer’s writing talents helped the group make music history when “Fairytale” became a hit on the country music charts (a Grammy Nomination for the Best Country Song of the year in 1975) and enabled The Pointer Sisters to become the first black female group to perform at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. 

Bonnie Pointer left the group in 1977, signing a solo deal with Motown Records. Her three sisters, Anita, June and Ruth, nearly disbanded when she quit, but instead regrouped, shed their retro image for a modern pop sound, and became one of the biggest acts of the 1980s with huge hits including “He’s So Shy,” “Jump (For My Love)” and “Neutron Dance.” They not only kept on but then reached stratospheric commercial success in the 1980s with top 10 hits that also included I’m so excited, Slow Hand, He’s So Shy and Fire, the last one written by Bruce Springsteen.

In 1983, the trio’s album Break Out reached multi-platinum status and won the group two more Grammy Awards. Their song Neutron Dance became even better known when it was used in the Eddie Murphy film Beverly Hills Cop to the opening and spectacularly crash-filled chase sequence.

Returning to country in 1987, Pointer found chart success with country superstar Earl Thomas Conley on the song “Too Many Times“, which reached no. 2 on the country chart. Though she continued to sing with the Pointer Sisters until her retirement in 2015 due to health reasons, she released her first solo album Love for What It Is in 1987. Her album’s first single “Overnight Success” reached no. 41 on the Billboard R&B chart.

A second single from the album, More Than a Memory, also charted, reaching No. 73 R&B in 1988. In 1994, Pointer and her sisters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 1998, Anita Pointer was singularly inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.

The Pointer Sisters won three total Grammy Awards and had 13 US Top 20 hits between 1973 and 1985.

In February 2020, Anita released the book, Fairytale: The Pointer Sisters’ Family Story” which was co-written with her brother, Fritz Pointer. The book chronicles the Pointer family origins and history as well as finding themselves as young black women in the San Francisco Bay Area during the Civil Rights and Black Power movement of the late 1960s. As well, it describes the difficulties and successes they encountered throughout their career and shares their chart history, discography and other surprises along the way.

Anita Pointer died from cancer at her home in Los Angeles on December 31, 2022, at the age of 74.

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Wayne Kramer 2/2024


Wayne Kramer 2/2024 (75) was born Wayne Stanley Kambes in Detroit on April 30, 1948. He had a typically nomadic post-World War II upbringing. His parents divorced when he was young, and Kramer’s father, Stanley, effectively disappeared from his life. Raised by his mother and stepfather, the young Wayne sought solace in the seismic sounds of 50s rock’n’roll, apparently as a reaction to being abused by his stepfather and as a result turned to music as an outlet. 

In the music of the era there was one pioneering figure in particular shaping the course of his future.

“Quite simply, Chuck Berry was the reason I played guitar,” Karmer enthused in the sleevenotes for Rhino’s The Big Bang! The Best Of The MC5. “When I heard that sound when I was nine years old, that was it. That was the sound of liberation, the sound of release and of power. And I mean the electric guitar. The sound of the amplifier was a huge part of it for me. That visceral spirit formed me and got me into bands.”

While in his early teens, Wayne found a fellow disciple in childhood neighbour and friend Fred Smith. Obsessed with their instruments, the two young guitarists played with a variety of local acts and sought out the hardest and most dynamic rock’n’roll records they could find (they took their cues from The Rolling Stones as well as Chuck Berry) before forming their own band in Lincoln Park-Michigan, christened MC5. Short for “Motor City 5”, the name reflected urban Detroit’s primary industry – the manufacture of automobiles.

By 1965, MC5’s classic line-up had solidified, with Kramer and Smith joined by bassist Michael Davis, drummer Dennis Tomich and vocalist Bobby Derminer. The latter was responsible for doling out more fitting stage names to his bandmates. Having rechristened himself Rob Tyner (after John Coltrane’s pianist McCoy Tyner), the afro-sporting singer invented Fred “Sonic” Smith for Smith, Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson for Tomich and suggested Wayne adopt the surname “Kramer” instead of Kambes. Wayne did so, legally changing his name in 1965.

During the early years, MC5 gigged constantly in and around the US Midwest. In the same way that punk later connected with the disenfranchised, the group established a solid fanbase among North America’s working-class communities.

“In Detroit, we ruled,” Kramer later asserted. “Our fans were the blue-collar shop rats and factory kids, and they connected with the energy and release in the MC5’s live shows. But our band was generally despised outside of the industrial Midwest power-base cities of Cleveland, Chicago and Cincinnati – and the hundreds of small towns across Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.”

Prior to signing with Elektra, MC5 released a couple of singles – the first a crunching cover of Them’s I Can Only Give You Everything, issued on AMG Records in 1967, with the follow-up pairing two self-penned songs, Borderline and Looking At You, for the small A-Squared imprint. However, while the records sold well locally, MC5’s attitude didn’t go down well with the era’s studio personnel – with Kramer in particular butting heads with the technicians attempting to tame the group’s sound for record.

In The Big Bang sleevenotes, Kramer wrote, “I’d start working on my guitar tone and the engineer would say, ‘Turn that down, it’s distorted!’ I said, ‘That’s what I want!’, that the Motown sound is not what I do. I wasn’t looking for a tight sound, I have my own ideas. So we had an adversarial relationship with the recording process from the beginning.”

In another future portent of punk music, MC5’s radical socio-political stance also concerned the powers that be. Until he was controversially jailed for the possession of a minimal amount of marijuana in 1969, poet, visionary free-thinker and activist John Sinclair, managed the band, whose collective world view was influenced by the Marxism of the Black Panther Party and Beat Generation poets such as Allen Ginsberg. Black Panther founder Huey Newton inspired Sinclair, who died exactly two months after Wayne Kramer, to found the White Panther Party, whose ideas seemed radical to the era’s establishment, but now chime with modern-day beliefs surrounding ecology and human rights.

“The White Panther Party was an anti-racist, cultural revolutionary group,” Kramer wrote in his book The Hard Stuff. “It was a logical extension of our reefer-fuelled political ideas and it was done in the spirit of agitprop theatre. John [Sinclair] wrote up a ‘Ten-Point Programme’ to fight for a cleaner planet and for the freeing of all political prisoners.”

Fortunately, Elektra Records weren’t put off by MC5’s revolutionary spirit. After John Sinclair told the label’s director of publicity (and future Ramones co-manager) Danny Fields about the band on a US radio show, an intrigued Fields went to see MC5 play in Detroit and was impressed enough to sign the band to Elektra in the late summer of 1968. With thoughts turning to the group’s debut album, the two parties bucked industry trends by deciding that their first record, Kick Out The Jams, should be a recording of one of their concerts. “The live show was the central experience [of the MC5],” Kramer explained later. “That was who we were. We wanted to present that on record.”

Featuring several of the best MC5 songs, including Come Together, the Kramer-sung Ramblin’ Rose and the ferocious title track, the charged, raucous and aggressive Kick Out The Jams was taped at one of the band’s many rapturously received gigs at Detroit’s Grande Ballroom, on 31 October 1968. Now widely regarded as a landmark proto-punk record, the album captured MC5’s garage-rock blitz in all its glory, and it even cracked the Top 30 of the US Billboard 200, staying on the chart for an impressive 23-week run. Rolling Stone Magazine considers the album one of the 500 albums that defined Rock and Roll.

However, because of the title song’s infamously controversial opening exclamation – “Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!” – influential Detroit chain store JL Hudson’s banned the record and went on to remove all Elektra product from its shelves. In a series of events that seemed to presage the scenario which unfolded when EMI sacked Sex Pistols following their notorious Bill Grundy incident just seven years later, Elektra then decided to drop the MC5 – only for the band to immediately find a new home with Atlantic Records.

Though still featuring songs with socio-political content such as The American Ruse and the anti-war Human Being Lawnmower, MC5’s Atlantic debut, 1970’s Back In The USA, largely dialled back the polemics and concentrated on sharp, smart garage-pop anthems such as Tonight, Teenage Lust and High School. Overseen by producer and future Bruce Springsteen manager Jon Landau, the record had the mainstream in its sights, yet it only hit the outer reaches of the Billboard 200.

“Kramer was one half of the explosive twin-guitar attack that drove the Detroit band’s incendiary live performances, helping to set the stage and template for punk rock. They were at the heart of the band’s sound and the centerpiece of its notoriously loud and frenetic live performances. Wayne Kramer and Fred (Sonic) Smith teamed to provide the twin-guitar attack 
In ranking Kramer and Smith, together and separately, were of world class among the 250 greatest guitarists of all time. Rolling Stone said the two “worked together like the pistons of a powerful engine” to “kick their band’s legendarily high-energy jams deep into space while simultaneously keeping one foot in the groove.”

MC5 self-produced their third and final studio album, 1971’s High Time, with help from engineer Geoffrey Haslam. At least in the creative sense, the band were still hitting new peaks, as Kramer asserted in The Hard Stuff.

“We had enough excellent new material, and good ideas for how to go about recording it,” he wrote. “We finally had enough experience to know how to be creative in the recording studio. We could now combine the raw energy of Kick Out The Jams with the studio chops of Back In The USA, and have it sound like the MC5 on record.”

High Time undoubtedly contained some of MC5’s most imperious music. Sister Anne, Over And Over and Kramer’s Miss X all rank among the band’s finest work, while the brilliant, brass-enhanced Skunk (Sonicly Speaking) adroitly married high-octane proto-punk with the free jazz music both Kramer and Fred Smith admired so much. “We loved Sun Ra and Archie Shepp,” Kramer noted in The Big Bang’s booklet. “We didn’t see any other rock bands trying to work them in. Skunk pointed to the future of what the MC5 would look like. The problem was the MC5 was a band that didn’t have a future.”

Despite High Time’s quality and a burgeoning European following which took the band across the Atlantic for half a dozen tours, MC5 were consumed by a combination of personal issues and drug-related problems. They split after an ignominious final performance at their old stomping ground, Detroit’s Grande Ballroom, at the end of 1972, but by then Kramer – who was now gripped by a sizeable heroin habit – had other priorities.

The next few years were the worst of the guitarist’s life. Though he somehow kept performing with different musicians on Detroit’s club circuit, most of Kramer’s energies went into feeding his habit, which he maintained through drug-dealing and petty larceny until – after one deal too many – he ended up in prison in Lexington, Kentucky, where he did a three-year stretch starting in 1975.

Upon his release from jail, Kramer moved to New York City and restarted his career, touring with post-punk pop act Was (Not Was) and playing on the group’s first two albums, and forming the ill-fated Gang War with fellow heroin user Johnny Thunders. Keen to quit drugs for good, Kramer temporarily eschewed music, working as a carpenter in Manhattan before moving to the Florida Keys in the late 80s, where he continued woodworking and also built custom homes.

During the guitarist’s wilderness years, however, MC5’s music was repeatedly cited as an influence by younger generations of musicians. The process had started with the UK punk firebrands (“In England, they really liked Back In The USA – you can hear what The Clash, Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe got out of it,” Kramer noted in The Big Bang booklet) and it eventually led to Kramer’s stock rising in the US – so much so that Epitaph Records (home to Bad Religion, Rancid and The Offspring) offered him a solo deal. Relocating to Los Angeles, Kramer released three well-received albums for Epitaph, The Hard Stuff, Dangerous Madness and Citizen Wayne, and toured extensively during the mid-to-late 90s.

Succeeding in his quest to also quit alcohol in 1999, Kramer went on to enjoy distinctions in a variety of fields. He embarked upon a highly successful career scoring music for TV and film, with commissions ranging from HBO’s comedy series Eastbound & Down to Will Ferrell’s Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby. For the ITVS/PBS documentary The Narcotics Farm, Kramer provided narration in addition to a separate soundtrack album, Lexington.

In 2009, after he returned to performing and recording as a solo artist, he established Jail Guitar Doors U.S.A., a nonprofit that donates musical instruments to inmates and offers songwriting workshops in prisons, in partnership with his wife, Margaret, and the British singer-songwriter Billy Bragg.
The name comes from “Jail Guitar Doors,” a song by the Clash that opens with a line about Wayne Kramer’s struggles with substance abuse and the law: “Let me tell you about Wayne and his deals of cocaine.”
“The guitar can be the key that unlocks the cell,” Kramer told High Times in 2015. “It can be the key that unlocks the prison gate, and it could be the key that unlocks the rest of your life to give you an alternative way to deal with things.”

Kramer had a fruitful solo career with several album releases and movie credits. In 2018, he released his memoir “The Hard Stuff: Dope, Crime, the MC5, and My Life of Impossibilities,” which won him a Michigan’s Notable Book Award.

Kramer and the MC5’s Fred “Sonic” Smith, who died in 1994, were both among Rolling Stone’s 2010 list of all-time top 100 guitarists. They “funneled Sun Ra’s sci-fi jazz through twin howitzers. Together they staked out a vision for hard rock that felt ecstatic, giddy, boundless,” the outlet’s David Fricke wrote.

Even though MC5 did not achieve great commercial success, their influence lives on through generations of musicians who were inspired by the group’s attitude and sound. Led Zeppelin, The Clash and Rage Against the Machine are among bands influenced by the MC5.

Wayne Kramer.

When MC5 guitarist and co-founder Wayne Kramer passed away from cancer, aged 75, on 2 February 2024, the rock world was quick to pay tribute to one of modern music’s genuine trailblazers. Iconic figures ranging from Alice Cooper through to Slash from Guns N’ Roses weighed in with well-chosen words, while in an especially heartfelt testimonial, Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello even said that Kramer and MC5 “basically invented punk rock music.”

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Olivia Newton-John 8/2022

Olivia Newton-John 8/2022 (73), was born on 26 September 1948 in Cambridge, England. In early 1954 the family moved to Melbourne, Australia where she was schooled and grew up, the granddaughter of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Born. As a matter of fact, her family tree, especially on her mother’s side, showed quite some prominence all the way back to Protestant theologian Martin Luther, the founder of Lutheranism. Newton-John’s father was an MI5 officer on the Enigma project at Bletchley Park who took German war architect Rudolf Hess into custody during World War II.

Newton-John went to primary school with Daryl Braithwaite, who also followed a singing career as lead singer for the Australian rock band Sherbet. At age 14, with three classmates, Newton-John formed a short-lived, all-girl group called Sol Four which often performed at a coffee shop owned by her brother-in-law.

Newton-John originally wanted to become a veterinarian but then chose to focus on performance after doubting her ability to pass science exams.

In 1964, Newton-John’s acting talent was first recognised portraying Lady Mary Lasenby in her University High School’s production of The Admirable Crichton as she became the Young Sun’s Drama Award best schoolgirl actress runner-up. She then became a regular on local Australian television shows, including Time for Terry and The Happy Show, where she performed as “Lovely Livvy”. She also appeared on The Go!! Show, where she met her future duet partner, singer Pat Carroll, and her future music producer, John Farrar. (Carroll and Farrar later married.) Continue reading Olivia Newton-John 8/2022

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Dickey Betts 4/2024

Dickey Betts 4/2024 (80) was born in West Palm Beach on December 12, 1943, and raised in Bradenton/Sarasota, Florida. He grew up in a musical family listening to traditional bluegrass, country music and Western swing. He started playing ukulele at the age of five and, as his hands got bigger, moved on to mandolin, banjo, and guitar.

At sixteen, feeling the need for something “a little faster”, he played in a series of rock bands on the Florida circuit, up the East Coast and into the Midwest, before forming Second Coming with Berry Oakley in 1967.

According to Rick Derringer, the “group called the Jokers” referenced in “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” was one of Betts’ early groups. In  February 1969, Betts and Oakley joined members of two other Sunshine State groups — guitarist Duane Allman and his keyboard-playing brother Gregg of the Hour Glass and drummer Butch Trucks – and Mississippi-born drummer Jai Johanny “Jaimoe” Johanson in a new unit that ultimately based itself in Macon, Ga.

Betts collaborated with Duane Allman, introducing melodic twin guitar harmony and counterpoint which “rewrote the rules for how two rock guitarists can work together, completely scrapping the traditional rhythm/lead roles to stand toe to toe”. Duane Allman, already a successful session player (Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin a.o.), gained a contract with Southern soul impresario Phil Walden, who planned to back a power trio featuring Allman. The ensuing Allman Brothers Band eventually grew to six members, including Duane’s brother Gregg, Betts, and Oakley. Duane, who had worked with Eric Clapton on Layla, once said, “I’m the famous guitar player, but Dickey is the good one.” 

After Duane Allman’s untimely death from a motorcycle crash in October 1971, Betts became the band’s sole guitarist and took on a greater singing and leadership role. In the course of one night’s traveling, he practiced slide guitar intensively in order to be able to cover the majority of Duane’s parts.

He wrote “Jessica” (inspired by his daughter of the same name and the Allmans’ biggest commercial hit, “Ramblin’ Man“.  He also gained renown for composing instrumentals, with one appearing on most of the group’s albums, including “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” and “Jessica” (which was later used as the theme to Top Gear). 

The band went through a 3 year hiatus starting in 1976 (Gregg Allman’s marriage to Cher), during which time Betts, like many of the other band members, pursued a solo career and side projects under such names as Great Southern and The Dickey Betts Band. Betts’s first solo album, Highway Call, was released in 1974 and featured fiddle player Vassar Clements. Betts released  2 more albums, starting with Dickey Betts & Great Southern in 1977, which included the song “Bougainvillea”, co-written with future Hollywood star Don Johnson and in 1978 he released an album, Atlanta’s Burning Down.

The Allman Brothers reformed in 1979, with Dan Toler taking the second guitar role alongside Betts. But in 1982, they broke up a second time, during which time .

The Allman Brothers reformed in 1979 for the album Enlightened Rogues, with two members of Great Southern replacing Allman Brothers members who were unwilling to participate in the reunion: guitar player Dan Toler for pianist Chuck Leavell, and bassist David “Rook” Goldflies for bassist Lamar Williams. Several albums and personnel changes followed, until declining record and concert ticket sales and management problems led the group to disband again in 1982 when Betts formed his own band, Betts, Hall, Leavell and Trucks, where he was co-frontman along with former Wet Willie singer, saxophone, and harmonica player Jimmy Hall. Despite earning good notices, the group was unable to secure a recording contract and disbanded in 1984.

Betts returned to his solo career performing live at smaller venues, and released the album Pattern Disruptive in 1989. When a one-off reunion tour was proposed in support of the Allman Brothers’ 20th anniversay Dreams box set, a third reformation occurred with Warren Haynes now joining Betts on guitar.  Betts’s solo band again supplied the Allman Brothers’ other guitarist. The success of the one-off tour resulted in a permanent reunion, which absorbed Betts’s energies for the remainder of the 1990s. This band line-up release three studio albums between 1990 and 1994 and won the praise of the critics.

While remaining active as a touring band, the Allman Brothers did not release another album of studio material after 1994’s Where It All Begins for nine years, until Hittin’ the Note in 2003.

In 1994, Haynes and Allman’s bassist Allen Woody formed Gov’t Mule with former Dickey Betts Band drummer Matt Abts as a side project, and left the Allman Brothers for Gov’t Mule full-time in 1997. Betts was replaced on numerous Allman Brothers tour dates throughout the mid-to-late 1990s, for what were reported in the media as “personal reasons”.  A breaking point was reached in 2000 when the remaining original Allman Brothers members – Gregg Allman, Butch Trucks, and Jaimoe – suspended Betts (reportedly via fax) before the launch of the band’s Summer Campaign Tour. According to Betts, the band told him in the fax to “get clean” (presumably from alcohol and/or drugs). Betts was subsequently ordered out of the band after the dispute went to arbitration. Betts’ last show with the Allman Brothers was at the Music Midtown Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 7, 2000.

Betts was ousted from the band in 2000 over a conflict regarding his continued drug and alcohol use; he never played with them again, nor would he appear with other former band members for reunions or side projects.Haynes rejoined in the early 2000s with Derek Trucks and stayed with ABB until their final concert on October 28, 2014 at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.

He was first replaced for the 2000 tour by Jimmy Herring, formerly of the Aquarium Rescue Unit. who in turn was replaced by returning Warren Hays and Derek Trucks who had joined ABB a year earlier. When Betts filed suit against the other three original ABB’ers, the separation turned into a permanent divorce. Betts re-formed the Dickey Betts Band in 2000 and toured that summer. The band reassumed the name Dickey Betts & Great Southern and added Betts’ son Duane (named after Duane Allman) on lead guitar.  In 2005, Betts released the DVD Live from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Betts’ final album release was Dickey Betts & Great Southern Official Bootleg Vol. 1 (2021), a two-CD live album of performances from the 2000s. Although they were separated personally and as musical bandmates for over 15 years, Betts and Gregg Allman became reconciled before Allman’s death in 2017. 

In August 2018, Dickey Betts suffered a mild stroke and had to cancel tour dates with his Dickey Betts Band. He was taken to hospital and was in a critical but stable condition, following an accident at his home in Osprey, Florida. On September 20, 2018, he successfully underwent surgery to relieve swelling on his brain. Betts died from cancer and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease at his home in Osprey, Florida, on April 18, 2024, at the age of 80. 

He was inducted with the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 and also won a best rock performance Grammy Award with the band for “Jessica” in 1996. Betts was ranked No. 58 on Rolling Stone‘s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time list in 2003, and No. 61 on the list published in 2011.

After his death, drummer Jaimoe (Jai Johanny Johanson), became the last surviving original member of the Allman Brothers Band.

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Sister Rosetta Tharpe 10/1973

sister Rosetta Tharpe, the first heroine of rock and rollSister Rosetta Tharpe 10/1973 (58) was born Rosetta Nubin, on March 20, 1915 in Cotton Plant, Arkansas from parents who were cotton pickers. Little is known of her father except that he was a singer. Tharpe’s mother Katie was also a singer and a mandolin player, deaconess-missionary, and women’s speaker for the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), which was founded in 1897 by Charles Harrison Mason, a black Pentecostal bishop, who encouraged rhythmic musical expression, dancing in praise and allowing women to sing and teach in church. Encouraged by her mother, Tharpe began singing and playing the guitar as Little Rosetta Nubin at the age of six and was soon cited as a musical prodigy.Tharpe’s father was not involved in her life; even so, her mother’s influence alone set Tharpe on the path of becoming a performer. Tharpe and her mother continued to perform together throughout the 1930s.

About 1921, at age six, Tharpe had joined her mother as a regular performer in a traveling evangelical troupe. Billed as a “singing and guitar playing miracle,” she accompanied her mother in performances that were part sermon and part gospel concert before audiences across the American South. In the mid-1920s, Tharpe and her mother settled in Chicago, Illinois, where they performed religious concerts at the Roberts Temple COGIC on 40th Street, occasionally traveling to perform at church conventions throughout the country. Tharpe developed considerable fame as a musical prodigy, standing out in an era when prominent black female guitarists were rare. At age 19, she married Thomas Thorpe, a preacher, who accompanied her and her mother on many of their tours. The marriage lasted only a few years, but she decided to adopt a version of her husband’s surname as her stage name, Sister Rosetta Tharpe. In 1938, she left her husband and moved with her mother to New York City. Although she married several times, she performed as Rosetta Tharpe for the rest of her life. Continue reading Sister Rosetta Tharpe 10/1973

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Melanie Safka 1/2024

Melanie, hippie singer-songwriterMelanie Safka 1/2024 (76) professionally known as Melanie was born on Feb. 3, 1947 and raised in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, New York City. Her father, Fred, was of Ukrainian ancestry and her mother, jazz singer Pauline “Polly” Altomare, was of Italian heritage. Melanie made her first public singing appearance at age four on the radio show Live Like A Millionaire, performing the song “Gimme a Little Kiss”. She moved with her family to Long Branch, New Jersey, and attended Long Branch High School, but disturbed that she was rejected by her schoolmates as a “beatnik”, she ran away to California. After her return to New Jersey, she transferred to Red Bank High School. She graduated in 1966, although she was prevented from attending her graduation ceremony because of an overdue library book. (different times!!!). Yet, she was inducted into the school’s hall of fame in 2014.

In the 1960s while still in high school, Melanie started performing at The Inkwell, a coffee house in the West End section of Long Branch. After high school, her parents insisted that she attend college, so she studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. At that time she began singing in the folk clubs of Greenwich Village, such as The Bitter End, and soon after signed her first recording contract with Columbia Records. Melanie released two singles on the label in the U.S. She subsequently signed with Buddah Records and found her first chart success in Europe in 1969 with “Bobo’s Party”, which reached No. 1 in France. Her growing popularity in Europe resulted in performances on European television programs such as Beat-Club in West Germany. Her debut album received positive reviews from Billboard, which described her husky voice as “wise beyond her years” and said her “non-conformist approach to the selections on this LP make her a new talent to be reckoned with”.

Later in 1969, Melanie had a hit in the Netherlands with “Beautiful People” (which is how I got to know about her). She was one of only two solo female artists who performed at the Woodstock festival in 1969, and her first hit song, “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)”, was inspired by the Woodstock audience lighting candles during her set. The record became a hit in Europe, Australia, Canada, and the United States in 1970. The B-side of the single featured Melanie’s spoken-word track, “Candles in the Rain”. Her following hits included “Peace Will Come (According To Plan)” and a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday”.

In 1970, Melanie was the only artist to ignore a court injunction banning the Powder Ridge Rock Festival, which was scheduled to be held on July 31, August 1 and 2, 1970. She played for the crowd on a homemade stage powered by Mister Softee trucks. Not long after this performance, she played at the Strawberry Fields Festival held in August 1970, at Mosport Park in Ontario. She also performed at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970, at Afton Down. At the festival, she was introduced by Keith Moon, drummer of the Who and received four standing ovations. She appeared again at the Isle of Wight Festival in 2010. In June 1971, she was the artist who sang to herald in the summer solstice at Glastonbury Fayre (later the Glastonbury Festival) in England. She performed again at Glastonbury in 2011, the 40th anniversary of the original festival.

Melanie left Buddah Records when they insisted that she produce albums on demand. In 1971, she formed her own label, Neighborhood Records, with Peter Schekeryk, who was also her producer and husband. She had her biggest American hit on the Neighborhood label, the novelty-sounding 1972 No. 1 hit “Brand New Key” (often referred to as “The Roller Skate Song”). “Brand New Key” sold over three million copies worldwide and was featured in the 1997 movie Boogie Nights.

A vegetarian at the time, Melanie had just been through a cleansing fast in which she consumed nothing but distilled water for 27 days. She was so weakened by hunger that she was almost hallucinating, and a doctor recommended that she eat meat to build strength. One day, on a trip to a flea market with her husband, she found herself unable to resist the lure of the Golden Arches of a McDonalds.

“No sooner than had I finished the last bite of burger,” she told the newspaper, “I wrote ‘Brand New Key.’ It just came into my head. I had one of those little practice guitars in the van with me, and when my husband, who was a record producer, heard me singing, he said, ‘What’s that?’ And I said, ‘Oh, some silly song. I’m just playing around.’ He said, ‘No, no — do that part again!’ And I did, and he said, ‘Melanie, that’s a hit!’”

He was not wrong. With its sunny vocals and a percolating beat, “Brand New Key” set heads bobbing around the country. The song was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks starting on Christmas Day, 1971. Billboard later ranked the infectious ditty the No. 9 song of 1972. But not everything about the song was rainbow happy.

“Brand New Key,” seemingly written from the point of view of a girl hoping to win the favor of an elusive boy, includes the freighted line “I’m OK alone, but you’ve got something I need,” and then takes an apparent Freudian turn, with many listeners gleaning a sexual undertone in these lyrics:

Well, I’ve got a brand-new pair of roller skates
You’ve got a brand-new key
I think that we should get together
And try them on to see

In a time when the guardians of mainstream popular culture fought to keep radio and television output squeaky-clean, controversy soon followed. “I guess I can see why it was banned by some radio stations all across America,” she said in an interview with the website Where Music Meets the Soul.

The clamor recalled other “hidden meaning” kerfuffles, including speculation over the Beatles’ Technicolor odyssey “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” which John Lennon always denied was a song about LSD.

“It was a time when people were reading things into lyrics,” Melanie said in the website interview. “Some said it was sexual innuendo or that it related to drugs, and ‘key’ a code for kilo.” But, she added, “I was just having a romp through my memory of learning how to ride my bike and roller skating,” along with the thrill of first love.

 I thought it was cute; a kind of old thirties tune. I guess a key and a lock have always been Freudian symbols, and pretty obvious ones at that. There was no deep serious expression behind the song, but people read things into it. They made up incredible stories as to what the lyrics said and what the song meant. In some places, it was even banned from the radio … My idea about songs is that once you write them, you have very little say in their life afterward … People will take it any way they want to take it.

In a 2013 interview with music journalist Ray Shasho, Melanie elaborated on the origin of “Brand New Key”.

 The aroma brought back memories of roller skating and learning to ride a bike and the vision of my dad holding the back fender of the tire. And me saying to my dad … “You’re holding, you’re holding, you’re holding, right?” Then I’d look back and he wasn’t holding and I’d fall. So that whole thing came back to me and came out in this song. So it was not a deliberate or intentional sexual innuendo.

The follow-up single to “Brand New Key” was “Ring the Living Bell”. To compete with this release, Melanie’s former record company released “The Nickel Song”, which she had recorded while still signed to Buddah Records. Both songs were simultaneous top 40 hits while “Brand New Key” was still on the charts, setting a record for the first female performer to have three top 40 hits at the same time.

Melanie won Billboard’s No. 1 Top Female Vocalist award for 1972 and was awarded two gold albums, and a gold single for “Brand New Key”. Three of her compositions were hits for the New Seekers. She is also known for her musical adaptations of children’s songs, including “Alexander Beetle” and “Christopher Robin”. When she became an official UNICEF ambassador in 1972, she agreed to forego a world tour in favor of raising money for the organization. She also took time to raise her daughter.

Melanie had another top 40 hit single in 1973 with “Bitter Bad”, a song that marked a slight departure from the hippie sentiments of her earlier hits, with lyrics such as “If you do me wrong I’ll put your first and last name in my rock n’ roll song”. Melanie’s other chart hits during this period were the self-penned “Together Alone” and a cover of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”, which reached No 37 in the UK Singles Chart in March 1974.

In 1976, Melanie released an album on Atlantic Records, Photograph, which was produced by Ahmet Ertegun. The album was praised by The New York Times as one of the year’s best, although it was largely ignored by the public. It was re-issued on compact disc in 2005 with an additional disc of unreleased material.

Also in 1976, Melanie appeared at the tribute concert for Phil Ochs, who had committed suicide on April 9 that year. Held on May 28 at New York City’s Felt Forum, Melanie performed an emotional version of Ochs’s songs “Chords of Fame” and “Miranda”. She had appeared with Ochs on stage in 1974 at his “Evening with Salvador Allende” concert (also held at the Felt Forum), along with Dave Van Ronk, Arlo Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and others.

In 1983, Melanie wrote the music and lyrics for a theatrical musical, Ace of Diamonds, with a book by Ed Kelleher and Seymour Vall based on a series of letters written by Annie Oakley. Though never fully produced, several staged readings were performed at the Lincoln Center, with Melanie as the narrator and pop singer and actress Annie Golden as Oakley.

One of Melanie’s later albums, Paled By Dimmer Light (2004), was co-produced by Peter and Beau-Jarred Schekeryk and includes the songs “To Be The One”, “Extraordinary”, “Make It Work”, and “I Tried To Die Young”.

In 2007, Melanie Safka was invited by Jarvis Cocker to perform at the Meltdown festival at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Her sold-out performance was critically acclaimed, with The Independent saying, “It was hard to disagree that Melanie has earned her place alongside Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Nico, and Marianne Faithfull in the pantheon of iconic female singers. Meltdown was all the better for her presence.” The concert was filmed for a DVD, Melanie: For One Night Only, which was released in October 2007. She recorded “Psychotherapy”, sung to the tune of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, which parodied aspects of Freudian psychoanalysis. The song has been played on The Dr. Demento Show. Melanie won an Emmy Award for writing the lyrics to the theme song for the television series Beauty and the Beast. With one exception, her albums were produced by her husband, Peter Schekeryk, who died suddenly in 2010. Her three children — Leilah, Jeordie, and Beau-Jarred — are also musicians. Beau-Jarred is a guitarist and accompanied his mother on tour. In July 2012, Melanie headlined along with Arlo Guthrie and Judy Collins at the 15th annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, which is held to celebrate Woody Guthrie’s life and music.

In October 2012, Melanie collaborated with John Haldoupis, artistic and managing director of Blackfriars Theatre in Rochester, New York, to create an original musical about her love story with her late husband. Melanie and the Record Man made its premiere on October 19, with performances scheduled until October 28. The musical, conceived and designed by Haldoupis, featured Melanie’s music and told the story of meeting Peter, falling in love, and working together to produce her music. Melanie performed during the musical and was also the narrator. In June 2014, she toured Australia for the first time since 1977.

In April 2015, Melanie Safka was inducted into Red Bank Regional’s “Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame”. She received the Sandy Hosey Lifetime Achievement Award at the Artists Music Guild’s 2015 AMG Heritage Awards on November 14, 2015, in Monroe, North Carolina. On New Year’s Eve 2019, she performed on the BBC’s Jools’ Annual Hootenanny. 

Melanie resided in the Nashville metropolitan area in later years, where she died unexpectedly from an undisclosed illness on January 23, 2024, at the age of 76. At the time of her death Melanie was working on a covers album titled Second Hand Smoke.

Despite her success during a period of singer-songwriter ascendence, Melanie was rarely mentioned in the same breath as Woodstock-era contemporaries like Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell. “It wasn’t the age of smiling women,” she said in a 2021 interview with The Guardian. “It had to be much more broody, and I was way too cherubic.”

She also seemed weary of her famous song celebrating steel-wheeled locomotion, and perhaps joys more libidinous; she had even expressed reservations about the success of the song when it was at its peak.

“I had already been battling this beatific image of, ‘Isn’t she ever so precious, every bit of Woodstock fluff person?’” Melanie told The Tennessean. “I wanted to be perceived as someone with some social commentary and relevance.”

She was even more pointed in her interview with Where Music Meets the Soul, saying, “It was the song that doomed me to be cute for the rest of my life.”

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Stevie Ray Vaughan 8/1990

Stevie Ray Vaughan 8/1990 (35) (known as SRV) was born October 3, 1954 in Dallas Texas and playing music gave an almost instant meaning to his life. He was real close to brother Jimmie, possibly as a result of his father’s alcohol induced mood swings and him being the primary recipient of his father’s violence.

For his seventh birthday, Vaughan received his first guitar, a 3 string toy guitar from Sears with a Western motif. After short dabbles in drums and the saxophone, initially inspired by his elder brother, Jimmie, Stevie took up guitar playing. Learning by ear he diligently committed himself, following along to songs by the Nightcaps, particularly “Wine, Wine, Wine” and “Thunderbird”. Later he listened to blues artists such as Albert KingOtis Rush, and Muddy Waters, and rock guitarists including Lonnie Mack, as well as jazz guitarists such as Kenny Burrell. In 1963, he received his first electric guitar, a Gibson ES-125T, as a hand-me-down from brother Jimmie and subsequently turned into a force of nature on the instrument.

He honed his chops starting in 1965 at the age of 12 with the Chantones. Their first show was at a talent contest held in Dallas’ Hill Theatre, but after realizing that they could not perform a Jimmy Reed song in its entirety, Vaughan left the band and briefly joined the Eclectic Marshmellows. When his bother Jimmy left home in 1967, Stevie found little support from his parents for his guitar obsession and decided to take a job out of the home at a burger joint where he cleaned dishes and threw out the garbage for $.70 an hour. When he landed in a barrel of grease one day, he quit and decided to commit his life to music and the guitar.

Here is a possibly shortened version of his apprentice years in the music business.  In 1967, only 14 years old he joined the Brooklyn Underground, playing professionally at local bars and clubs. Then in May 1969 he joined the Southern Distributors for an 8 months period after which he moved on to Texas Storm, which also featured his brother Jimmy and Doyle Bramhall. This turned out to be only 2 months. By the spring of 1970 he joined Liberation, a 12 piece band. But by fall that same year he moved on to Lincoln while also doing session gigs for an outfit called Cast of Thousands. In late January 1971, feeling confined by playing pop hits with Liberation, Vaughan formed his own band, Blackbird. After growing tired of the Dallas music scene, he dropped out of school and moved with the band to Austin, Texas, which had more liberal and tolerant audiences. There, Vaughan initially took residence at the Rolling Hills Club, a local blues venue that would later become the Soap Creek Saloon. Blackbird played at several clubs in Austin and opened shows for bands such as Sugarloaf, Wishbone Ash, and Zephyr, but could not maintain a consistent lineup. Late in the fall of that year it was time to move on to join a band called Pecos. But by the time the summer came along he had moved on to Deryk Jones Party. The summer of 1972 was set aside for another Blackbird episode while occasionally guesting for an outfit called Orchrist. Blackbird #3 crossed his road for the first time with later bass player of Double Trouble, Tommy Shannon. Krackerjack was the next outfit on his roster for the fall of 1972. Stump lasted only about a month, before Stevie Ray joined Marc Benno and the Nightcrawlers. Marc Benno left and Stevie Ray gave the band another shot through parts of 1974. A band called Doug Sahm honed Stevie’s technique until the spring of 1975, when Paul Ray and the Cobras got a chance to enjoy his guitar playing. A bit more challenged Stevie Ray stayed until September 1977. In addition to playing with the Cobras, Vaughan jammed with many of his influences at Antone’s, including Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin, Jimmy Rogers, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Albert King. In the fall of 78, when  he formed Triple Threat Revue, which became his “home” until spring 1978. Southern blues sensation Lou Ann Barton fronted the outfit on vocals. In June 1978 the time had arrived for Stevie Ray Vaughan to rename the band to Double Trouble from an Otis Rush song, later to become Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble.

Stevie played with over 20 bands during his career, starting as early as 11 years old. The first known live recording of him was in 1969, when he sat in with Marc Benno’s band “Jomo”. His first studio recording came with Cast of Thousands,in 1971, when they recorded 2 tracks for the A New-Hi compilation album.

In early October 1978, Vaughan and Double Trouble earned a frequent residency performing at one of Austin’s most popular nightspots, the Rome Inn.

During a performance, Edi Johnson, an accountant at Manor Downs, noticed Vaughan. She remembered: “I’m not an authority on music—it’s whatever turns me on—but this did.” She recommended him to Manor Downs owner Frances Carr and GM Chesley Millikin, who was interested in managing artists and saw Vaughan’s musical potential. After Barton quit Double Trouble in mid-November 1979, Millikin signed Vaughan to a management contract. Vaughan also hired Robert “Cutter” Brandenburg as road manager, whom he had met in 1969. Addressing him as “Stevie Ray”, Brandenburg convinced Vaughan to use his middle name on stage.

On December 5, 1979, while Vaughan was in a dressing room before a performance in Houston, an off-duty police officer arrested him after witnessing him using cocaine near an open window. He was formally charged with cocaine possession and subsequently released on $1,000 bail. Double Trouble was the opening act for Muddy Waters, who said about Vaughan’s drug abuse: “Stevie could perhaps be the greatest guitar player that ever lived, but he won’t live to get 40 years old if he doesn’t leave that white powder alone.” Vaughan was sentenced with two years’ probation and was prohibited from leaving Texas. Along with a stipulation of entering treatment for drug abuse, he was required to “avoid persons or places of known disreputable or harmful character”; he refused to comply with both of these orders. After  a lawyer was hired, his probation officer had the sentence revised to allow him to work outside the state. But the incident later caused him to refuse maid service while staying in hotels during concert tours.

In October 1980, bassist Tommy Shannon attended a Double Trouble performance at Rockefeller’s in Houston. Shannon, who had played with Stevie Ray in Blackbird, was playing with Alan Haynes at the time, participated in a jam session with Vaughan and Layton halfway through their set. Shannon later commented: “I went down there that night, and I’ll never forget this: it was like, when I walked in the door and I heard them playing, it was like a revelation. ‘That’s where I want to be; that’s where I belong, right there.’ During the break, I went up to Stevie and told him that. I didn’t try to sneak around and hide it from the bass player Jackie Newhouse—I didn’t know if he was listening or not. I just really wanted to be in that band. I sat in that night and it sounded great.”  Almost three months later, when Vaughan offered Shannon the position, he readily accepted.

Although popular in Texas at the time, Double Trouble failed to gain national attention, partly because of Vaughan’s inability to travel beyond Texas at that time. The group’s visibility improved when record producer Jerry Wexler recommended them to Claude Nobs, organizer of the Montreux Jazz Festival. He insisted the festival’s blues night would be great with Vaughan, whom he called “a jewel, one of those rarities who comes along once in a lifetime”, and Nobs agreed to book Double Trouble.

Vaughan opened his first day performance with a medley arrangement of Freddie King’s song “Hide Away” and his own fast instrumental composition, “Rude Mood”. Double Trouble went on to perform renditions of Larry Davis’ “Texas Flood”, Hound Dog Taylor’s “Give Me Back My Wig”, and Albert Collins‘ “Collins Shuffle”, as well as three original compositions: “Pride and Joy”, “Love Struck Baby”, and “Dirty Pool”. The set ended with a mixture of boos and  from the audience.

People‘s James McBride wrote about his performance:

He seemed to come out of nowhere, a Zorro-type figure in a riverboat gambler’s hat, roaring into the ’82 Montreux festival with a ’59 Stratocaster at his hip and two flame-throwing sidekicks he called Double Trouble. He had no album, no record contract, no name, but he reduced the stage to a pile of smoking cinders and, afterward, everyone wanted to know who he was.”

According to road manager Don Opperman: “the way I remember it, the ‘ooos’ and the ‘boos’ were mixed together, but Stevie was pretty disappointed. Stevie just handed me his guitar and walked off stage, and I’m like, ‘are you coming back?’ There was a doorway back there; the audience couldn’t see the guys, but I could. He went back to the dressing room with his head in his hands. I went back there finally, and that was the end of the show.” According to Vaughan: “it wasn’t the whole crowd [that booed]. It was just a few people sitting right up front. The room there was built for acoustic jazz. When five or six people boo, wow, it sounds like the whole world hates you. They thought we were too loud, but shoot, I had four army blankets folded over my amp, and the volume level was on 2. I’m used to playin’ on 10!” The performance was filmed and later released on DVD in September 2004.

On the following 2 nights, Double Trouble was booked in the lounge of the Montreux Casino, with David Bowie in attendance on the first night and Jackson Browne on the second. Browne jammed with Double Trouble until the early morning hours and offered them free use of his personal recording studio in downtown Los Angeles. In late November the band accepted his offer and recorded ten songs in two days. While they were in the studio, Vaughan received a telephone call from David Bowie, who had met him after the Montreux performance, and he invited him to participate in a recording session for his next studio album, Let’s Dance. In January 1983, Vaughan recorded guitar on six of the album’s eight songs, including the title track and “China Girl”. The album was released on April 14, 1983, and sold over three times as many copies as Bowie’s previous album. Double Trouble did an encore at the Montreux Jazz Festival 1985, this time as headliners.

Now that Europe had experienced Stevie Ray Vaughan, just like with Jimi Hendrix (England), Joe Bonamassa (NorthSea Jazz Festival) and several other guitar slingers, the doors also opened in America.  After Montreux Epic Records signed the band to a record contract and Bowie asked Stevie Ray to join him for his Serious Moonlight Tour, as he realized how essential Stevie Ray’s contribution to the album was. After some back and forth, Stevie Ray however turned the proposition down and said: “I couldn’t gear everything on something I didn’t really care a whole lot about. It was kind of risky (reputation-wise, but I really didn’t need all the headaches. Besides, they only offered union rates.” Although contributing factors were widely disputed, Vaughan soon gained major publicity for quitting the tour. The following May he demolished the stage of the Bottom Line in New York City, opening for Canadian rocker Brian Adams. The New York Post claimed that the stage had been “rendered to cinders by the most explosively original showmanship to grace the New York stage in some time.”

Still as Double Trouble, the band recorded its debut album in less than a week at Jackson Browne’s studio. Texas Flood, was released in the summer of 1983, a few months after Bowie’s Let’s Dance appeared. On its own, Let’s Dance earned Stevie quite a bit of attention, but Texas Flood was a blockbuster blues success; receiving positive reviews in both blues and rock publications, reaching number 38 on the charts and crossing over to album rock radio stations. Stevie and Double Trouble set off on a successful tour and quickly recorded their second album, Couldn’t Stand the Weather, which was released in May of 1984. The album was more successful than its predecessor, reaching number 31 on the charts; by the end of 1985, the album went gold. Double Trouble added keyboardist Reese Wynans in 1985, before they recorded their third album, Soul to Soul. The record was released in August 1985 and was also quite successful, reaching number 34 on the charts.

Although his professional career was soaring, Stevie was sinking deep into alcoholism and drug addiction. Despite his declining health, he continued to push himself, releasing the double live album Live Alive in October of 1986 and touring extensively.

Late in 1986 Stevie collapsed whilst on tour in Germany and was rushed to hospital, where he was warned, that if he didn’t clean up, he would be dead very soon. The rest of the tour was cancelled and then followed time in rehab, before emerging clean and sober, and ready to work again.

The band undertook a US tour in 1987, completing 65 gigs, a somewhat mediocre total by his normal standards.

Stevie performed a number of concerts in 1988, including a headlining gig at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, and wrote his fourth album. The resulting record, In Step, appeared in June of 1989 and became his most successful album, peaking at number 33 on the charts, earning a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Recording, and going gold just over six months after its release.

In the spring of 1990, Stevie recorded the album Family Style with his brother Jimmie, which was scheduled for release in the autumn of that year.

In the late summer of 1990, Stevie and Double Trouble set out on an American headlining tour, with Joe Cocker. The highlight of the tour was two nights with Eric Clapton, Jimmy Vaughan, Buddy Guy and Robert Cray at Alpine Valley, East Troy, Wisconsin on 25th and 26th August 1990.

After the second show, which climaxed with an encore of Sweet Home Chicago, with everybody on stage, most of the entourage headed to board four chartered helicopters to take them back to the Windy City and a good night’s rest. Clapton later recalled how foggy the early morning of August 27 was.
“I didn’t want to fly at all. I was wiping condensation off the windows and thinking: ‘We’re all gonna die.’ Then they took off and above the weather was clear sky and starlight.”

Stevie was on a flight with three of Clapton’s crew. In the early hours it was reported they never landed in Chicago. In fact their pilot had taken off and crashed into a ski run on the side of a mountain after 42 seconds. Stevie Ray Vaughan was dead at 35.

When his brother Jimmie went to identify Stevie’s body, he had to so by recognizing his distinctive silver jewelry.” Shannon and Layton sat in their hotel room and wept. They’d gone into Stevie’s room hoping he’d be there, but the bed was still made with chocolates on the counterpane and the alarm radio was playing The Eagles’ Peaceful, Easy Feeling.

At Stevie’s funeral the mourners included Stevie Wonder and Dr. John, who sang “Amazing Grace” and “Ave Maria” while Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Nile Rodgers, Eric Clapton and ZZ Top wept in the Laurel Land Memorial chapel. Stevie’s marble and bronze headstone simply gave his dates, his name and the inscription that says ‘Thank you… For all the love you passed our way.’  

But a strange thing happened at that last gig. Those who knew Stevie said he played with a halo of light around him. His guitar tech Rene Martinez remembered him giving everyone a huge hug and telling them how much he loved them. He had an aura about him, like a premonition.

Stevie Ray Vaughan brought physicality and soul to guitar playing, and he brought it in spades. The soul came through the speaker. The physicality was there for all to see. To watch him play, there were occasions in which SRV would throttle the guitar as though it were an arm wrestling contest at last orders in a Nantucket alehouse. His strings were the stuff of legend – Gauge 13s? No, 14s; 17s! Heck, some might argue he used piano wire. Either way, he went down the heavy-gauge route and had the dexterity to manipulate them as though they were dental floss. This, the fire in his belly, and the tone-gussying Tube Screamer playing mediator between Fender Strat and amp give him a range of dynamics that few, if any, players could match.

And yet, there was a tenderness to his playing. There are many who argue that his cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing eclipses the original. Opinions like that are always up for debate. What is not-up-to-debate is that Vaughan, left an over-sized impression on guitar culture in a short space of time. Just like Hendrix. – Total Guitar, chosing Stevie Ray Vaughan as the Number 1 Blues guitarist of all time

As a guitarist myself I feel that Stevie Ray brought more to the table than virtuosity. His whole being was music, which resulted in an endless flow of ideas, executed to perfection on his guitar. He could go on and on creating tasty licks, riff, melodies and raw mind blowing arpeggios, while seemingly never having to think about it. Ask any good or great guitarist about their fear of soloing and you’ll get always the same answer: Running out of ideas! Stevie Ray never ran out of ideas. they just floated into each other, channeled by his charismatic persona and fingers that instinctively knew where to go on the fretboard, far beyond just muscle memory.

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Rodriguez 8/2023

Sixto Rodriguez 8/2023 (81) was born on July 10, 1942, in Detroit, Michigan. He was the sixth child of Mexican immigrant working-class parents Ramon and Maria Rodriguez.  They had joined an influx of Mexicans who came to the Midwest to work in Detroit’s industries. Mexican immigrants at that time faced both intense alienation and marginalization.  In most of his songs, Rodriguez takes a socio-political stance on the difficulties that faced the inner-city poor. His mother died when he was three years old. Growing up in a single parent, working class environment, Rodriguez first got turned onto music after hearing his father play Mexican folk songs. They often moved him to tears. “My father’s night would usually end with a couple of drinks, and a few songs. I would always listen to his heart-breaking songs. He loved music, and I picked it up through him.”

Growing up in a single parent, working class environment, Rodriguez first got turned onto music after hearing his father play Mexican folk songs. They often moved him to tears. “My father’s evenings would usually end with a couple of drinks, and a few songs. I would always listen to his heart-breaking songs. He loved music, and I picked it up through him.”
 
Turned on by music’s emotional power, he taught himself how to play guitar, imitating the chops of Jimmy Reed and Ray Charles. Dropping out of school as soon as he turned sixteen, Rodriguez was refused entry to the army and found himself drawn to Detroit’s Wayne State University campus, mingling amongst Vietnam draft dodgers and artists.


In 1967, using the name “Rod Riguez” (given by his record label), he released a single, “I’ll Slip Away”, on the small Impact label. 

“My early career happened through introductions,” he says with an easy laugh. “Someone introduced me here, someone took me there. I eventually met Harry Walsh who ran a label called Impact Records. He wanted to record me and sign me up for a sixty-year contract. That was fine. I knew I could out live that.”
In April 1967 they cut his debut single, “I’ll Slip Away” b/w “You’d Like to Admit It”. Credited to Rod Riguez to avoid any potential racial stereotyping, it disappeared without fanfare. The label folded after just one more release. He did not record again for three years, until he signed with Sussex Records, then an offshoot of Buddah Records.
 
Surviving by playing gigs at local gay bar The In-Between, Rodriguez customised his classical guitar with an electric pick up and played it through an Ampeg bass amp. He wanted his music to echo the fuzzy wall of confusion, unemployment and racial tension that characterised Detroit. Eyes closed, with his back to audience, he debuted “Crucify Your Mind”, a song that would re-emerge on Cold Fact.

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Gordon Lightfoot 5/2023

Gordon Lightfoot 5/2023 (83) was born on Nov. 17, 1938, in Orillia, Ontario, where his father managed a dry-cleaning plant. He was of Scottish descent. His mother recognized Lightfoot’s musical talent early on and schooled him to become a successful child performer. He first performed publicly in grade four, singing the Irish-American lullaby “Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral”, which was broadcast over his school’s public address system during a parents’ day event.

As a youth, he sang in the choir of Orillia’s St. Paul’s United Church under the direction of choirmaster Ray Williams. According to Lightfoot, Williams taught him how to sing with emotion and how to have confidence in his voice. Lightfoot was a boy soprano; he appeared periodically on local Orillia radio, performed in local operettas and oratorios, and gained exposure through various Kiwanis music festivals. At the age of twelve, after winning a competition for boys whose voices had not yet changed, he made his first appearance at Massey Hall in Toronto, a venue he would ultimately play over 170 more times throughout his career.

As a teenager, Lightfoot learned piano and taught himself to play drums and percussion. He held concerts in Muskoka, a resort area north of Orillia, singing “for a couple of beers”. Lightfoot performed extensively throughout high school, Orillia District Collegiate & Vocational Institute (ODCVI), and taught himself to play folk guitar. A formative influence on his music at this time was 19th-century master American songwriter Stephen Foster. “Man, I did the whole bit: oratorio work, Kiwanis contests, operettas, barbershop quartets,” he told Time magazine in 1968.
He played piano, drums and guitar as a teenager, and while still in high school wrote his first song, a topical number about the Hula Hoop craze with a catchy last line: “I guess I’m just a slob and I’m gonna lose my job, ’cause I’m Hula-Hula-Hoopin’ all the time.” He was also an accomplished high school track-and-field competitor, setting school records for shot-put and pole vault.
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Leslie West – 12/2020

Leslie West 12/2020 – (75) West was born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York City on October 22, 1945, to Jewish parents. He grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey, and in East Meadow, Forest Hills, and Lawrence, New York. His mother was a hair model, his father the vice president of a rug shampoo company. He grew up in the suburbs. When Leslie was 8, his mother bought him his first instrument, a ukulele, but he became entranced with the guitar after seeing Elvis Presley play one on television. He bought his first guitar with the money given to him for his bar mitzvah. After his parents divorced, he changed his surname to West. 

His professional career began in a band he formed in the mid-1960s with his brother Larry, who played bass. The band, the Vagrants, was a blue-eyed soul group inspired by a hit act from Long Island, the Rascals, one of the few teenage garage rock acts to come out of the New York metropolitan area itself (as opposed to the Bohemian Greenwich Village scene of artists, poets, and affiliates of the Beat Generation, which produced bands like the Fugs and the Velvet Underground) The two bands played the same local clubs, as did Billy Joel’s early group, the Hassles.

Improbably, Vanguard Records, better known for folk, jazz and classical artists, signed the Vagrants. Their first single, “I Can’t Make a Friend,” a garage rocker, became a minor hit in 1966. Felix Pappalardi, who produced some of the Vagrants’ songs, helped them obtain a new contract with Atco Records, a subsidiary of Atlantic, for which they cut a cover of Otis Redding’s “Respect” that earned East Coast airplay in 1967.  Continue reading Leslie West – 12/2020

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Micheal Rhodes 3/2023

Micheal Rhodes 3/2023 (69) was born on September 16, 1953 in Monroe, Louisiana and taught himself to play the guitar by age 13 and the bass soon after. In the early 1970s, Rhodes moved to Austin, Texas, where he performed with local bands. Four years later, Rhodes moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he performed with Charlie Rich’s son Alan. Honing his chops he became a sought after session and touring musician. In 1977, Rhodes moved to Nashville, and he joined local band The Nerve with Ricky Rector and Danny Rhodes. He worked as a demo musician for Tree Publishing Company, and then as a session player.
Rhodes joined Rodney Crowell, Steuart Smith, Eddie Bayers, and Vince Santoro in the Cicadas. They recorded one album in 1997, but had been playing together for more than a decade. Rhodes was also a member of The Notorious Cherry Bombs, with Crowell, Bayers, Vince Gill, Hank DeVito, and Richard Bennett.

Rhodes has contributed to the recordings of numerous Nashville Royalty artists, including Neal McCoy, Chely Wright, Pat McLaughlin, Doug Stone, Wynonna Judd, Steve Winwood, the Dixie Chicks, Reba McEntire, Tanya Tucker, Hank Williams, Jr., Rosanne Cash, Vince Gill, J.J. Cale, Dolly Parton, Randy Travis, Faith Hill, Toby Keith, and Kenny Chesney.

And, while many of his recording credits involve country music, his work with Elton John, Larry Carlton, Peter Cetera, Mark Knopfler, Shawn Colvin, and Joe Bonnamassa prove that his talents on the bass transcended any single genre.

In 2013 he became an active sideman in recordings and touring of guitar virtuoso blues rocker Joe Bonamassa.
 
Besides session work, Michael Rhodes was a member of several local bands who play frequently in Nashville-area venues.
•The Fortunate Sons, with Gary Nicholson, Kenny Greenberg, Chad Cromwell, and Reese Winans.
•The Players, with Eddie Bayers (drums), John Hobbs (keyboards), Paul Franklin (steel guitar), and Brent Mason (guitar).They often perform with other artists, such as Vince Gill. 
•The Vinyl Kings, playing original Beatles style music, with Jim Photoglo, Vince Melamed (keyboards), Larry Byrom (keyboards), Larry Lee (percussion), Josh Leo (guitar), and Harry Stinson (drums).
•TAR (Trapp, Abbott, and Rhodes), a power trio with Guthrie Trapp (guitar), and Pete Abbott (drums).
•The World Famous Headliners, led by Al Anderson, and featuring Shawn Camp, Pat McLaughlin, and Greg Morrow.
In 2016, Rhodes won the Bass Player of the Year Award by the Academy of Country Music and was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2019. 

Michael Rhodes died on March 4, 2023, at the age of 69 of pancreatic cancer in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.

He skillfully integrates chord inversions, reaching for melodic lines that move from 3rd to 5th rather than root to root. His knack for sneaking in high fifth or dominant 7th chords is uncanny, as is the phrasing and placement of many of his fills. While his approach is often varied and surprising, it rarely catches the listener off guard, thereby enhancing instead of overplaying. He exudes the confidence of a master, the musical lexicon of a seasoned linguist, and the humility that comes from recognizing the power of a song.

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Doug Ingle 5/2024

Doug Ingle 5/2024 (78), was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on September 9, 1945. His father Lloyd, a church organist and accountant, introduced him to music at an early age. The Ingles moved within three months of his birth to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and later, when he was 11,  the family moved to San Diego, CA.

With the timing right in the mid-sixties and California becoming the hotbed for love-ins and psychedelic rock, Ingle formed the original line up for Iron Butterfly with Ron Bushy on drums. As soon as Iron Butterfly formed, they moved to Hollywood Hills and started an excruciating practice and performing schedule.

Of the four musicians in the In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida lineup, Ingle was the only one who was a founding member, having formed Iron Butterfly in San Diego in 1966. After a handful of lineup changes, a five-piece Iron Butterfly including Ingle and Bushy put out the band’s debut Heavy in 1968; soon after release, the other three members left and were replaced by Brann and Dornan, resulting in the lineup that would create the 17-minute psych-rock epic “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.” Released less than six months after Heavy and the lineup shuffle, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida would sell a reported 30 million copies worldwide, and a three-minute version of the title track — whose title was based on Bushy’s mishearing of “In the Garden of Eden” — became a Top 5 hit on the Hot 100 and a classic rock staple. Continue reading Doug Ingle 5/2024

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David Crosby 1/2023

David Crosby was born August 14, 1941 in Los Angeles, California, second son of Wall Street banker turned Academy Award-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby and Aliph Van Cortlandt Whitehead, a salesperson at Macy’s department store. His father was related to the famous Van Rensselaer family, a fiercely prominent family of Dutch descent during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries in the greater New York area. Members of this family played a critical role in the formation of the United States and served as leaders in business, politics and society. His mother—granddaughter of Bishop of Pittsburgh Cortlandt Whitehead—descended from the equally prominent Dutch descent New York Van Cortlandt family. For those of you interested in his ancestry, David Crosby could never have been anything else than what he became in life: freak, outspoken asshole and forever musical icon.

In all of Rock and Roll, this man was probably my very personal hero.  

David Crosby lived one of the wildest lives in rock and roll, flying the freak flag high through decades of global fame and several fortunes won and lost, a white knuckle outlaw ride crammed with drugs, sex, death and a stint in prison. But that’s not why I celebrate him or mourn his passing. Because he also participated in some of the most beautiful music heard in our times, writing gorgeous, complex songs of cosmic folk jazz, gilding the air with blissful harmonies and playing impossibly complex chords he seemed to pluck out of the ether. With his walrus moustache and a perpetual twinkle in his eye, he was a fantastic musician and a richly complex human being whose spirit became infused in the rock culture of the 1960s, seventies and beyond. Crosby always yearned for greater musical adventures. He was one of the great hippies, one of the great band members in a couple of the greatest bands, and just really one of the few absolute greats of rock and roll.

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Tina Turner 5/2023

Tina Turner, proud queen of rockTina Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock on Nov. 26, 1939, in Brownsville, Tenn., northeast of Memphis, and spent her earliest years on the Poindexter farm in Nutbush, an unincorporated area nearby, where she sang in the choir of the Spring Hill Baptist Church, along with her parents and two sisters. Her father, Floyd, known by his middle name, Richard, worked as the farm’s overseer — “We were well-to-do farmers,”  — and had a difficult relationship with his wife, Zelma (Currie) Bullock.

Her parents left Anna and her older sister, Alline, with relatives when they went to work at a military installation in Knoxville, TN during World War II. The family reunited after the war, but Zelma left her husband in the early 1950s and Anna went to live with her maternal grandmother in Brownsville.
After her grandmother died, she moved to St. Louis, Missouri, rejoining her mother as she attended Sumner High School there. She and sister Alline began frequenting the Manhattan Club in East St. Louis to hear Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm.

At one time she requested to sing with a band led by a handsome, dapper guitarist who would soon become the profoundly dominant influence in her life. At first Ike Turner refused to entertain her pleas to be allowed to sing with his Kings Of Rhythm – until she grabbed a microphone during a band break, and belted out B B King’s ‘You Know I Love You’. Ike asked her if that was the extent of her repertoire. On finding out that it wasn’t, he let her sing a few more. By the end of the night she was the band’s newest ‘chick singer’. Continue reading Tina Turner 5/2023

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Robbie Robertson – 8/2023

Robbie Robertson (80)the Band was born in Toronto, Canada on 5 July, 1943. His mother, Rosemary Dolly Chrysler, was a Cayuga/Mohawk Indian who had been raised on the Six Nations Reserve near Toronto. The man whom he believed to be his father and who raised him until he was in his early teens, James Robertson, was a factory worker.

When he was a child, his mother often took him to the Six Nations Reserve, where it seemed that everyone played a musical instrument or sang or danced. He thought “I’ve got to get into this club. I think the guitar looks pretty cool.” His mother bought him one, his older cousin Herb Myke taught him how to play.

“Rock ’n’ roll suddenly hit me when I was 13 years old,” Robertson told Classic Rock magazine in 2019. “That was it for me. Within weeks I was in my first band, Little Caesar and the Consuls,” with whom he performed covers of the then current rock and roll and r&b hits. In 1957 he formed Robbie and the Rhythm Chords with his friend Pete “Thumper” Traynor (who later founded Traynor Amplifiers). They changed the name to Robbie and the Robots after they watched the film Forbidden Planet and took a liking to the film’s character Robby the Robot. Traynor customized Robertson’s guitar for the Robots, fitting it with antennae and wires to give it a space age look. Traynor and Robertson joined with pianist Scott Cushnie and became The Suedes

His parents separated around that time, and his mother told him that his biological father was a Jewish professional gambler named Alexander David Klegerman, who had been killed in a hit-and-run accident before she met James Robertson. Years later In his memoir, “Testimony”, he wryly commented on his Indian and Jewish heritage: “You could say I’m an expert when it comes to persecution.”

In 1959, the Suedes, got a crucial break when they were seen by the Arkansas-based rockabilly star Ronnie Hawkins.

Hawkins saw enough in Mr. Robertson to write two songs with him, ‘Hey Baba Lou’ and ‘Someone Like You’, which he recorded, and he later invited that teenage guitarist to join his band, the Hawks, initially on bass. Roy Buchanan, a few years older than Robertson, was briefly a member of the Hawks and became an important influence on Robertson’s guitar style: “Standing next to Buchanan on stage for several months, Robertson was able to absorb Buchanan’s deft manipulations with his volume speed dial, his tendency to bend multiple strings for steel guitar-like effect, his rapid sweep picking, and his passion for bending past the root and fifth notes during solo flights.” Robertson soon developed into a veritable guitar virtuoso.

The Hawks also included Levon Helm on drums; by 1961, the other future members of the Band were also in the fold. They toured with Hawkins for two more years and recorded for Roulette Records. By 1964, they had gone off on their own as Levon and the Hawks.

The Hawks recorded a few singles for Atco, all written by Robertson, and in 1965 he was contacted by Bob Dylan’s management and invited to be part of his backing group. While he initially refused, he did perform with Dylan in New York and Los Angeles, bringing along Levon Helm for those gigs. At Robertson’s insistence, Dylan wound up hiring all the other future members of the Band (Garth Hudson, Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson and Rick Danko) for the full tour. Three of his fellow members — the drummer Levon Helm, the pianist Richard Manuel and the bassist Rick Danko — expressed those characters in distinctly aching vocals. Robertson rarely sang lead, instead finding his voice in the guitar.

Dylan also invited Robertson to perform in 1966 on a session for his album “Blonde on Blonde.” The next year, he asked the Hawks to move to his new base in the Woodstock area, and they rented a house in nearby Saugerties that was later known as Big Pink. It was there that they recorded the music released as “The Basement Tapes” and worked on the songs that would be included on “Music From Big Pink.”

“It was like a clubhouse where we could shut out the outside world,” Robertson wrote in his memoir. “It was my belief something magical would happen. And some true magic did happen.”

When “Music From Big Pink” was released in the summer of 1968, it boasted seminal songs written by Robertson like “The Weight” and “Chest Fever,”along with strong pieces composed by other members of the Band as well as by Dylan. “This album was recorded in approximately two weeks,” according to another close Dylan associate, Al Kooper. “There are people who will work their lives away in vain and not touch it.”

For the Band’s follow-up album, “The Band,” released in 1969, Robertson either wrote or co-wrote every song, including some of his most enduring creations, among them “Up On Cripple Creek,” “Rag Mama Rag,” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” which became a Top Five Billboard hit in a version recorded by Joan Baez. The album reached No. 9 on the magazine’s chart.

The Band’s next effort, “Stage Fright,” released in 1970, shot even higher, peaking at No. 5, buoyed by Robertson compositions like the title track and “The Shape I’m In.” Those songs, like many on the album, expressed deep anxiety and doubt, a theme that carried over to “Cahoots,” released in 1971. And while that album broke Billboard’s Top 20, it wasn’t as rapturously received as its predecessors. Possibly because time were changing fast in those year. Three of his fellow members — drummer Levon Helm, pianist Richard Manuel and bassist Rick Danko — expressed his anxiety and doubt in distinctly aching vocals. Mr. Robertson rarely sang lead, instead finding his voice in the guitar.

In its day, the Band’s music stood out as well by inverting the increasing volume and mania of psychedelic rock and by sidestepping its accent on youthful rebellion. “We just went completely left when everyone else went right,” Robertson said. The ripple effect of that sound and image went wide on impact, landing the group on the cover of Time magazine in 1970 and inspiring a host of major artists to create their own homespun amalgams, from the Grateful Dead’s album “American Beauty” (1970) to Elton John’s “Tumbleweed Connection,” released the same year. The Band’s music so affected fellow guitarist Eric Clapton that he actually lobbied for entry into their ranks. (The offer was politely declined.)

Robertson produced an album for Jesse Winchester in 1970 and played on Ringo’s ‘Ringo’ (1973) and ‘Goodnight Vienna’ (1974). He is heard on Joni Mitchell’s ‘Court and Spark’ and played guitar on ‘Mockingbird’ for James Taylor and Carly Simon. He was now one of the most sought after session musicians, working with Eric Clapton on ‘No Reason To Cry’ and producing Neil Diamond’s ‘Beautiful Noise’.

A collection of blues and R&B covers, “Moondog Matinee,” was released in 1973, and Robertson’s muse fully returned in 1975 on the album “Northern Lights — Southern Cross,” which included “Acadian Driftwood,” his first composition with a Canadian theme. The original group’s final release, “Islands” (1977), consisted of leftover pieces and was issued mainly to fulfill the group’s contract with its label, Capitol Records.

In 1976, Robertson made the decision that The Band would stop touring. It caused the break-up of the group but they went out with one final concert, called ‘The Last Waltz’. The Band was booked to perform at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco on 25 November, 1976. Robbie asked film director Martin Scorsese to film the event. The Band would perform with famous friends including included Ronnie Hawkins, Muddy Waters, Paul Butterfield, Dr. John, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Neil Diamond, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Emmylou Harris.

After the Band’s demise in 1977, Robertson released five solo albums, but devoted most of his artistic effort to movies, as a music producer or score composer.

The same year as “The Last Waltz,” Robertson produced a Top Five platinum album for Neil Diamond, “Beautiful Noise,” and a double live album by Mr. Diamond, “Love at the Greek,” which made Billboard’s Top 10 and sold more than two million copies.

Robertson told Musician magazine that he broke up the Band because “we had done it for 16 years and there was really nothing else to learn from it.” Another strong factor was Mr. Robertson’s frustration over hard drug use by most of the other members.

Without Robbie Robertson, the other members of the Band released three albums in the 1990s; the last, “Jubilation,” in 1998, was without Richard Manuel, who had died by suicide 12 years earlier at 42. Rick Danko died of heart failure in 1999 at 56, Levon Helm of throat cancer in 2012 at 71. 

Over the years, other members of the Band accused Robertson of taking more songwriting credits than he deserved. To them, it was a cooperative effort, with the other members adding important arrangements and contributing elements that helped define the essential character of the recordings. Levon Helm was particularly vociferous in his condemnation, amplified by his furious 1993 memoir, “This Wheel’s on Fire.”

In his own memoir, Robbie Robertson wrote of Levon Helm, “it was like some demon had crawled into my friend’s soul and pushed a crazy, angry button.”

The collaborations with Scorsese continued. Robbie scored Martin’s 1980 movies ‘Carney’ and ‘Raging Bull’ then later ‘The King of Comedy’ and ‘The Color of Money’. For ‘The Color of Money’, Robbie co-wrote the hit song for Eric Clapton ‘Its In The Way That You Use It’. Robertson also collaborated on film and TV soundtracks such as Casino (1995), Gangs of New York (2002), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), Silence (2016), The Irishman (2019), and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).

With his history it was remarkable that Robbie Robertson didn’t release a solo album until 1986. ‘Robbie Robertson’ was produced by Daniel Lanois and featured appearances from all members of U2, Peter Gabriel and his former Band mates Rick Danko and Garth Hudson.

Robbie Robertson’s fifth and final solo album appeared in 2019 with a title, “Sinematic,” that underscored his devotion to film work in his last four decades. He recently completed the score for his 14th film project, Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which is scheduled to be released in the fall of 2023.

At the age of 80 years old Robbie Robertson took his marvelous talents elsewhere when he departed this world on August 9, 2023 after a lengthy battle with prostrate cancer.

Marveling over where life had taken him, Mr. Robertson once told Classic Rock magazine: “People used to say to me, ‘You’re just a dreamer. You’re gonna end up working down the street, just like me.’ Part of that was crushing, and the other part is, ‘Oh yeah? I’m on a mission. I’m moving on. And if you look for me, there’s only going to be dust.’”

Robbie Robertson was inducted into the Canadian Juno Hall of Hall in 1989. In 1994, The Band were inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Robbie was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2003. In 2005, he received a doctorate from York University and in 2006 the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award. In 2008 Robbie was given a Lifetime Grammy Achievement Award. In 2011, he was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and in 2011 made Officer of the Order of Canada. Robbie is also on Canada’s Walk of Fame, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Native American Music Awards in 2017 and was given the keys to the city of Toronto in 2019.

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Randy Meisner – 7/2023

Randy Meisner (the Eagles) was born on March 8, 1946, in Scottsbluff, Nebraska to a farming family.  He got his first acoustic guitar when he was around 12 or 13 and, shortly after, formed a high school band. “We did pretty good, but we didn’t win anything,” according to Meisner.
“We couldn’t find any work because there were a million bands out here,” he said.
Meisner moved to California in 1964/65 and played with the likes of Rick Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band and Poco, before co-founding the Eagles in 1971 alongside Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Bernie Leadon. 

They went on to define the country-tinged, laid-back West Coast pop-rock sound that ruled the US radio waves in the early 1970s, before later moving in a hard rock direction, essentially because of James Gang guitarist Joe Walsh being added to the line-up when Bernie Leadon left.

Once dubbed “the sweetest man in the music business” by former bandmate Don Felder, bass player Meisner stepped out of the shadows on the mournful, lovelorn waltz-time ballad Take It to the Limit – a song later covered by the likes of Etta James, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. He was with the band when they recorded the albums “Eagles,” “Desperado,” “On the Border,” “One of These Nights” and “Hotel California.”
“Hotel California,” with its mysterious, allegorical lyrics, became the band’s best-known recordings. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1977 and won a Grammy Award for record of the year in 1978. Continue reading Randy Meisner – 7/2023

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Sinéad O’Connor – 7/2023

Sinéad O’Connor (56) was born on 8 December 1966 in Dublin, Ireland at the Cascia House Nursing Home on Baggot Street in Dublin.  She was named Sinéad after Sinéad de Valera, the mother of the doctor who presided over her delivery (Éamon de Valera, Jnr.), and Bernadette in honor of Saint Bernadette of Lourdes. She was the third of five children; an older brother is the novelist Joseph O’Connor. Her parents were John Oliver “Seán” O’Connor, a structural engineer later turned barrister and chairperson of the Divorce Action Group and Johanna Marie O’Grady (1939–1985). She attended Dominican College Sion Hill school in Blackrock, County Dublin. Abused by an obsessively religious mother during her childhood, growing up in a politically charged environment of the Irish clashes and terrorist actions, she created a willingness to take a stand that made her powerful — and threatening, at the same time. Her mother also taught her to steal from the collection plate at Mass and from charity tins. In 1979, at age 13, O’Connor went to live with her father, who had recently returned to Ireland after re-marrying in the United States, in 1976.

At the age of 15, following her acts of shoplifting and truancy, O’Connor was placed for 18 months in a Magdalene asylum, the Grianán Training Centre in Drumcondra, which was run by the Order of Our Lady of Charity. She thrived in certain aspects, particularly in the development of her writing and music, but she chafed under the imposed conformity of the asylum, despite being given freedoms not granted to the other girls, such as attending an outside school and being allowed to listen to music, write songs, etc. For punishment, O’Connor described how “if you were bad, they sent you upstairs to sleep in the old folks’ home. You’re in there in the pitch black, you can smell the shit and the puke and everything, and these old women are moaning in their sleep … I have never—and probably will never—experience such panic and terror and agony over anything.” 

One of the volunteers at the Grianán centre was the sister of Paul Byrne, drummer for the band In Tua Nua, who heard O’Connor singing “Evergreen” by Barbra Streisand. She recorded a song with them called “Take My Hand” but they felt that at 15, she was too young to join the band. Through an ad she placed in Hot Press in mid-1984, she met Colm Farrelly. Together they recruited a few other members and formed a band named Ton Ton Macoute, the Haitian mythological bogeyman, Tonton Macoute (“Uncle Gunnysack”), who kidnaps and punishes unruly children by snaring them in a gunny sack (macoute) before carrying them off to be consumed for breakfast. The band moved to Waterford briefly while O’Connor attended Newtown School, but she soon dropped out of school and followed them to Dublin, where their performances received positive reviews. Their sound was inspired by Farrelly’s interest in world music, though most observers thought O’Connor’s singing and stage presence were the band’s strongest features.

O’Connor’s time with Ton Ton Macoute brought her to the attention of the music industry, and she was eventually signed by Ensign Records. She also acquired an experienced manager, Fachtna Ó Ceallaigh, former head of U2‘s Mother Records. Soon after she was signed, she embarked on her first major assignment, providing the vocals for the song “Heroine”, which she co-wrote with the U2 guitarist the Edge for the soundtrack to the film Captive. Ó Ceallaigh, who had been fired by U2 for complaining about them in an interview, was outspoken with his views on music and politics, and O’Connor adopted the same habits.

With Fachtna Ó Ceallaigh as her manager, O’Connor made her recorded debut with “Heroine,” a song she wrote and performed with the Edge that appeared on the soundtrack to the film Captive. While working on her debut album, she scrapped the initial tapes on the grounds that the production was too Celtic. Taking over the production duties herself, she re-recorded the album with a sound that emphasized her alternative rock and hip-hop influences. The result was November 1987’s The Lion and the Cobra, one of the year’s most acclaimed debut records. The album performed strongly throughout the world, reaching number 27 on the U.K. Albums chart, number 36 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart in the U.S., and charting in several other countries. The Lion and the Cobra was certified gold in the U.K., U.S., and Netherlands; in Canada, it was certified platinum. It spawned the hits “Mandinka,” “Troy,” and “I Want Your (Hands on Me),” and O’Connor’s accolades included a Grammy nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. While promoting the album, she had another brush with controversy when she defended the actions of the provisional IRA (she later retracted these comments).

Following The Lion and the Cobra’s success, O’Connor appeared on The The’s 1989 album Mind Bomb and made her film debut in that year’s Hush-a-Bye-Baby, for which she also wrote the music. But she delivered a harrowing masterpiece with her next album, March 1990’s I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. Sparked by the dissolution of her marriage to drummer John Reynolds, the album was boosted by the global chart-topping single and video “Nothing Compares 2 U” (originally penned by Prince in 1984 for one of his side projects) and established her as a major star. Reaching number one in eighteen countries, the album went double platinum in the U.S. and U.K., quintuple platinum in Canada, and platinum in six other nations.

In her memoire Sinéad had a few choice words to say about Prince: Prince had composed the song in 1984, deciding to give it to the Family, a side project featuring the singers Susannah Melvoin and Paul Peterson. But the track never gained much recognition when the band released its self-titled album in 1985.
The response was considerably different when O’Connor, working with the Japanese jazz musician Gota Yashiki and the producer Nellee Hooper, recorded a stripped-down version for her 1990 album “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got.”
“Nothing Compares 2 U” became a No. 1 hit in 17 countries, topped the Billboard Hot 100 for four straight weeks and helped win O’Connor a Grammy (which she later refused to accept). The track’s popular music video, featuring a close-up of O’Connor’s shaved head and piercing gaze, was itself nominated for a Grammy.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s my song,” O’Connor told The New York Times in 2021.
Prince was pleased to see O’Connor’s version become so popular, Melvoin said in an interview this week.
“When it hit and it was doing remarkably well, he had a big smile on his face about it.” Melvoin said. “He loved it. At one point later in his life, he was known to say, ‘Thank you for all the beautiful houses, Sinead.’”
Peterson said he was so shocked when he first heard O’Connor’s cover over the car radio that he had to pull over.
“I didn’t know who she was, and I felt like I had ownership in that song even though I didn’t write it,” he said in an interview. “So I think I was a little disappointed that our version didn’t get out there at the incredible rate that hers did.”
At the same time, Peterson said, he feels thrilled that O’Connor’s cover has been so influential. “It’s incredible the amount of people’s lives that song has touched,” he said. “I was just thrilled to be a small part of that.”
Melvoin said Prince wrote the song both about herself and his housekeeper, Sandy Scipioni, who left the role after her father died. Melvoin and Prince had been intimately involved for years, she said, but were encountering difficulties in their relationship when he wrote “Nothing Compares 2 U.”
It took only a short time for Prince to draft the song at his Eden Prairie warehouse studio, Susan Rogers, Prince’s sound engineer, said in Duane Tudahl’s book “Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions.”
“I was amazed how beautiful it was,” Rogers told Tudahl. “He took his notebook and he went off to the bedroom, wrote the lyrics very quickly, came back out and sang it.”
O’Connor wrote in her memoir, “Rememberings,” that she felt a particular resonance with the lines, “All the flowers that you planted Mama/In the backyard/All died when you went away.”
“Every time I perform it, I feel it’s the only time I get to spend with my mother and that I’m talking with her again,” wrote O’Connor, who was 18 when her mother died in a car crash. “There’s a belief that she’s there, that she can hear me and I can connect to her.”
Although “Nothing Compares 2 U” was vital to O’Connor’s career, she grew conflicted about Prince, writing in her memoir about a distressing encounter at his Los Angeles residence.
They had first met at a club around the time of O’Connor’s debut album in 1987, she wrote, but did not interact again until after her version of “Nothing Compares 2 U” became a hit in America.
When O’Connor arrived at Prince’s residence, she wrote, the singer criticized her for swearing in interviews. Prince then suggested the two engage in a pillow fight, she wrote, and began hitting her with a pillowcase containing a pillow and some hard object.
O’Connor fled and Prince pursued her in his car, she wrote, until she escaped to a nearby home. (A spokeswoman for Prince’s estate did not respond to requests for comment.)
“I never wanted to see that devil again,” O’Connor wrote.

Though I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got was nominated for four Grammy Awards and won the award for Best Alternative Music Performance, Sinead O’Connor refused to accept them; similarly, she did not attend the Brit Awards ceremony when she won the award for International Female Solo Artist. Later in 1990, she performed in Roger Waters’ Berlin performance of The Wall and appeared on the Red Hot Organization’s AIDS fundraising and Cole Porter tribute album Red Hot + Blue: A Tribute to Cole Porter with a cover of “You Do Something to Me.”

O’Connor became the target of derision in the US for refusing to perform in New Jersey if “The Star Spangled Banner” was played prior to her appearance, a move that brought public criticism from no less than mob asshole Frank Sinatra. She also made headlines for pulling out of an appearance on the NBC program Saturday Night Live in response to the misogynist persona of guest host Andrew Dice Clay.

O’Connor continued to defy expectations with her third album, September 1992’s Am I Not Your Girl?. A collection of mid-20th century pop standards and torch songs that sparked her desire to be a singer when she was young, its radically different sound and style led to mixed reviews and produced only a fraction of the commercial success she had with I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. Nevertheless, the album was a Top Ten hit in the U.K. and achieved gold status there and in three other European countries. O’Connor followed the album’s release with her most controversial action yet: She ended her October 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live by ripping up a photo of Pope John Paul II to protest the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church. The resulting condemnation was unlike any she’d previously encountered. Two weeks after the SNL performance, she was booed off the stage at a Bob Dylan tribute concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

Kris Kristofferson comforted Sinéad when she was booed off the stage at this concert.
Sinéad O’Connor, just 25 years old at the time.
He later wrote this for her. May we all have her courage. May we all tell the truth.
—-
“I’m singing this song for my sister Sinéad
Concerning the god awful mess that she made
When she told them her truth just as hard as she could
Her message profoundly was misunderstood
There’s humans entrusted with guarding our gold
And humans in charge of the saving of souls
And humans responded all over the world
Condemning that bald headed brave little girl
And maybe she’s crazy and maybe she ain’t
But so was Picasso and so were the saints
And she’s never been partial to shackles or chains
She’s too old for breaking and too young to tame
It’s askin’ for trouble to stick out your neck
In terms of a target a big silhouette
But some candles flicker and some candles fade
And some burn as true as my sister Sinéad
And maybe she’s crazy and maybe she ain’t
But so was Picasso and so were the saints
And she’s never been partial to shackles or chains
She’s too old for breaking and too young to tame

In the wake of the controversy, O’Connor stepped back from the public eye. For several months, she studied bel canto singing at Dublin’s Parnell School of Music, then joined Peter Gabriel’s Secret World tour in 1993 (she also contributed vocals to Gabriel’s 1992 album Us). That year, her song “You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart” appeared on the soundtrack to the film In the Name of the Father. Inspired by her bel canto lessons, O’Connor took a confessional approach on her next album, September 1994’s Universal Mother. A stripped-down set of songs featuring the single “Fire on Babylon” and a cover of Nirvana’s “All Apologies,” it reached number 19 in the U.K. and number 36 in the U.S., and was certified gold in the U.K., Austria, and Canada. The videos for “Fire on Babylon” and “Famine” were nominated for the Best Short Form Music Video Grammy Award. Also in 1994, O’Connor appeared in A Celebration: The Music of Pete Townshend and The Who, a pair of Carnegie Hall concerts produced by Roger Daltrey to celebrate his fiftieth birthday. The following year, she appeared on the Lollapalooza bill, and in 1996 she sang on Pink Floyd’s Richard Wright’s album Broken China. A year later, she played the Virgin Mary in Neil Jordan’s film The Butcher Boy and issued The Gospel Oak EP, a tender collection of songs about motherhood. O’Connor teamed up with the Red Hot Organization once more for 1998’s Red Hot + Rhapsody: The Gershwin Groove, on which she performed “Someone to Watch Over Me.”

After moving to Atlantic Records, she delivered her first full-length release in six years with June 2000’s Faith and Courage album. Tackling themes of survival and catharsis, the album featured collaborators including Wyclef Jean and Brian Eno. Charting throughout Europe and reaching number 55 in the U.S., Faith and Courage earned O’Connor some of her strongest reviews in some time. For her next album, October 2002’s Sean-Nós Nua, she reinterpreted traditional Irish songs in her own style. Along with reaching number three on the Irish charts, the album peaked at number one on the Top World Albums chart in the U.S. Health issues led O’Connor to take a break from intensive recording and performing for a few years. During this time, she covered Dolly Parton’s “Dagger Through the Heart” on the 2003 tribute album Just Because I’m a Woman: The Songs of Dolly Parton, appeared on Massive Attack’s 100th Window, and issued She Who Dwells in the Secret Place of the Most High Shall Abide Under the Shadow of the Almighty, a compilation of demos, unreleased tracks, and a late 2002 Dublin concert. Collaborations followed in 2005, gathering appearances on other artists’ records throughout her long career.

Sinéad O’Connor returned in October 2005 with Throw Down Your Arms, a collection of classic reggae songs from the likes of Burning Spear, Peter Tosh, and Bob Marley. Recorded at Kingston, Jamaica’s Tuff Gong and Anchor Studios with Sly & Robbie and released on O’Connor’s own That’s Why There’s Chocolate and Vanilla imprint, the album reached the number four spot on Billboard’s Top Reggae Albums chart. In 2006, she returned to the studio to begin work on her next album. Inspired by the complexities of the world post-9/11, June 2007’s double album Theology featured covers of spiritually minded songs as well as originals given acoustic and full-band interpretations. The album appeared on the charts of several European countries and reached number 15 on the Independent Albums chart in both the U.K. and the U.S. That year, O’Connor also lent her vocals to Ian Brown’s anti-war single “Illegal Attacks” as well as another song on his album The World Is Yours. In 2010, she collaborated with Mary J. Blige on a version of the Gospel Oak song “This Is to Mother You.” Produced by A Tribe Called Quest’s Ali Shaheed Muhammad, the song’s proceeds were donated to Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS). Two years later, O’Connor earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song for “Lay Your Head Down,” which appeared on the soundtrack to the film Albert Nobbs.

O’Connor’s ninth album, How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?, appeared in February 2012, offering raw yet often optimistic songs about sexuality, religion, hope, and despair that were seen as a return to form by some critics. The album was one of her more popular later releases, appearing on the charts of many European countries, reaching number 33 in the U.K., and number 115 in the U.S. A limited edition of How About I Be Me (And You Be You)? included excerpts of shows in Dublin, London, and Reykjavík. Her next album, August 2014’s I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss, took inspiration from Lean In’s female empowerment campaign “Ban Bossy. As heard on the lead single “Take Me to the Church,” the album was a rock-oriented and melodious affair. Building on How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?’s popularity, I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss topped the Irish charts, peaked at number 22 in the U.K. and at number 83 in the U.S. That November, O’Connor took part in Band Aid 30’s updated version of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?,” which raised funds to combat the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa.

In September 2019, O’Connor closed out the 2010s with her first live performance in five years, singing “Nothing Compares 2 U” with the Irish Chamber Orchestra on Irish radio. The following October, she issued a cover of Mahalia Jackson’s “Trouble of the World” to raise money for Black Lives Matter charities. Her 2021 memoir, Rememberings, was acclaimed as one of the year’s best books and praised for its wit and candor. The following year, a feature length documentary about her life and career, Nothing Compares, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival; it was named Best Feature Documentary at the 2023 Irish Film & Television Awards. Though O’Connor was working on a new album, her grief over the death of her son Shane in 2022 led her to cancel its release and her upcoming performances. After she released a version of the traditional tune “The Skye Boat Song” in February 2023, Irish broadcaster RTE honored O’Connor by giving I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got the inaugural award for Classic Irish Album at the RTE Choice Music Awards, which she dedicated to the Irish refugee community.

In July 2023, O’Connor, who a couple of months earlier had retreated to her London apartment to step away from the loneliness, died some time around July 25 at age 56. She still died alone!

This stunningly beautiful woman Sinéad O’Connor once said she’d cut her hair off in response to male record executives who’d been trying to goad her into wearing miniskirts, into appearing more traditionally feminine. She’d grown up believing that it was treacherous to be a woman, she said. To be recognized as beautiful was only ever a liability: “I always had that sense that it was quite important to protect myself, make myself as unattractive as I possibly could.”

It is thoroughly sad that in this country called America, Sinéad O’Connor is still better known a the woman who tore up a picture of the Pope to defy how the Catholic Church approached the tragedy of child abuse, than for hurtingly beautiful songs as “Nothing Compares to You” or “Sacrifice”. Just unbelievable!

America was never ready to meet Sinéad O’Connor

February 22, 1989, the 31st annual Grammy Awards. Among the nominees for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female are Tina Turner, Pat Benatar, Melissa Etheridge, Toni Childs, and Sinéad O’Connor. O’Connor has performed once on Late Night with David Letterman, but she has yet to appear on primetime American television. Tuxedo-clad host Billy Crystal introduces her to the tens of millions watching at home, explaining that O’Connor is a 21-year-old singer from Ireland and that “with her very first album, The Lion and the Cobra, she has served notice that this is no ordinary talent.”

Most people point to O’Connor’s destruction of a photo of Pope John Paul II, during her October 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live, as the reason for her exile from the pop world. But it was on this night in Los Angeles, three years prior, that revealed from the outset what the rest of the rest of the world would learn soon enough: her willingness to take a stand made her powerful — and threatening.

As the first few notes of O’Connor’s runaway college radio hit “Mandinka” kick in, the curtain rises on a darkened stage. She steps forward as if entering from a void, her hair shorn nearly to the scalp, her midriff exposed by a black halter top, her baggy, low-slung blue jeans ripped and torn. She touches her face almost like she can’t believe she’s there. O’Connor’s voice is clear and cutting, alternating between a whisper and a dare. If you look closely you might notice that she is wearing an infant’s sleepsuit tied behind her waist as she rocks back and forth in her Doc Martens, wailing, “I don’t know no shame/I feel no pain/I can’t see the flame!” Even from a distance, you can’t miss the massive man in the crosshairs of a gun that’s been painted onto the side of her shaved head, an arresting image even if you don’t immediately catch the reference.

After she was done, reporters from the L.A. Times described O’Connor as looking nervous backstage. Although they commended her performance, and her outfit, they quoted her remarking on what had just transpired, as though she were crashing the party. “I thought it was a little odd that they asked me to perform, because of the way I look,” she told them, “But I find it encouraging that they asked, because it’s an acknowledgment that they are prepared not to be so safe about the music and push forward with people slightly off the wall.”

If only that were true. ”Mandinka” was a fearless battle cry, but it was only her opening act. The onesie O’Connor wore was her son Jake’s, a middle finger to the executives at her record label who had warned her that motherhood and a career were incompatible. The man in the crosshairs was Public Enemy’s logo, which Chuck D described as symbolizing the Black man in America. She wore it as a badge of solidarity with the band, and by extension, all rappers who had been erased from the program. For years, the powerful white men who controlled the Recording Academy had dismissed rap as a passing fad or considered it dangerously subversive. Yet by 1989 the genre had become too popular to simply ignore. So they decided to confer the first-ever award for Best Rap Performance, but not to televise it. The trophy went to DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince for their G-rated pop crossover single “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” but they weren’t on hand that night, having led a boycott that also included fellow nominees Salt-N-Pepa and LL Cool J.

O’Connor was in fact no ordinary talent, and she had served notice, using music’s biggest night to put herself on the map and set the terms of her agenda. Despite not winning the Grammy, she subverted the record label’s hot-girl marketing strategy at a time when starlets like Tiffany and Debbie Gibson were burning up the pop charts. Despite the Recording Academy’s attempts to suppress rap, she managed to foil those plans too. O’Connor showed us a fierceness that made her great, but also foreshadowed how it would all come crashing down, sooner rather than later.

Kathryn Ferguson’s new documentary Nothing Compares, now in theaters and streaming on Showtime, traces that arc, starting with O’Connor’s early life in theocratic Ireland, where she suffered severe abuse at the hands of her devoutly religious mother, then became a rebellious teen who found her voice at a Catholic girls reformatory school. After signing her first recording contract at 18, and concluding that the producer assigned to mold her debut was zapping the life out of her songs, O’Connor took over the reins herself, pouring all of her intensity into The Lion and the Cobra. But her record company still tried to soften her appearance, switching out the photo on the album cover because the original would make her look too “angry” to American audiences.

Despite being decidedly anti-pop, her piercing musical memoir became a surprise commercial hit, ultimately going gold. O’Connor then topped that with her multi-platinum follow up, 1990’s I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. Thanks in large part to non-stop MTV airplay of the music video for the Prince-penned lead single “Nothing Compares 2 U,” O’Connor became a global celebrity, her expressive face a meme before memes. But as her star rose even higher, so did the scrutiny. When O’Connor withdrew from a 1990 appearance on SNL after learning that the comedian Andrew Dice Clay was scheduled to host, The Diceman, known for his misogynistic and homophobic routines, performed a skit poking fun at the “bald chick.” After O’Connor declined to have the national anthem played before a show at New Jersey’s Garden State Arts Center, Frank Sinatra said she must be “one stupid broad” and threatened to “kick her ass.”

Politicians organized protests against O’Connor. DJs refused to play her records. O’Connor was widely accused of censorship when it was she who was being censored. She was also criticized for being “anti-American” and ungrateful for the success she had achieved. Still, that fall she swept the MTV Video Music Awards with wins for Best Female Music Video and Best Post-Modern Music Video, and even bested Madonna for Video of the Year.

O’Connor seemed a little shocked. Aside from saying thanks when she was presented with the first two trophies, she said almost nothing. But with the third, she doubled down, using her speech to connect her experience with the industry’s censorship of Black artists. Explaining her reasons for not wanting the national anthem played before her shows, O’Connor told the global audience, “It’s the American system I have disrespect for, which imposes censorship on people, which as far as I’m concerned is racism.” O’Connor then dug in even deeper. Referencing rap trio 2 Live Crew’s recent banning in Florida on obscenity grounds, she called attention to how MTV also used “obscenity” as an excuse not to play rap videos, stating that “censorship in any form is bad, but when it’s racism disguised as censorship, it’s even worse.”

When the Grammys came around again a few months later, O’Connor was nominated in four categories, but by then she’d had enough of the pop life, and the silence and complicity it demanded. She refused to attend the 1991 awards ceremony or accept her eventual win for Best Alternative Music Performance. Ahead of the event, O’Connor wrote an open letter to the Recording Academy in which she criticized the music industry for promoting false and materialistic values rather than rewarding artistic merit.

Photo: Recording Academy/GRAMMYs/YouTube

The award presentation for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group was still not to be televised, so when nominee Public Enemy learned of O’Connor’s letter, the band decided to boycott too, making its own statement and returning the solidarity she had offered in ‘89. When Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid accepted his Grammy that night for Best Hard Rock Performance, he appeared onstage with a giant photo of O’Connor on his T-shirt. When reporters asked Reid about it, he re-centered the conversation on representation, reminding them that the Recording Academy doesn’t dictate his dress code.

Hindsight has shown us that O’Connor was right to call out the music industry’s commercialism, and its racial and gender bias, as early as 1989 — issues that the Grammys are only beginning to seriously grapple with in the face of waning influence and relevance. Rather than asking about whether her decision to speak out was self-sabotage, better questions would be: What kinds of sacrifices would O’Connor have had to make to sustain her status as a pop star? What kinds of sacrifices have we made not to see or hear what she was trying to tell us?

Sinéad O’Connor, you were the original truth sayer who wouldn’t go easy into the night. The original “difficult” woman who didn’t make it easy. Because easy wasn’t the right thing to do and it wasn’t the truth. Gone too soon. “Nothing compares to you.”

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John Giblin – 5/2023

John Giblin was born on 26 February 1952, in Bellshill, a suburb of Glasgow in Scotland.

Little is known about John Giblin’s early years, but he must have picked up a guitar at an early age, considering how he became one of those musicians that gave rock and roll a foundation for others to shine on.

He worked as an acoustic and electric bass player spanning jazz, classical, rock, folk, and avant-garde music. Best known as a studio musician, recording film scores and contemporary music, Giblin also performed live and recorded with Peter Gabriel, John Martyn, Elkie Brooks, Annie Lennox, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, Phil Collins, Empire with Peter Banks, Fish, rock/pop band Simple Minds,and has been closely associated with artists ranging from Kate Bush, Jon Anderson (Yes), to jazz fusion group Brand X, and with the avant-garde recordings by Scott Walker (including the album Tilt).
Later in life, Giblin moved further into the direction of acoustic bass, with projects involving drummer Peter Erskine (of Weather Report), and pianist Alan Pasqua (of Tony Williams Lifetime).

To get a feel for John Giblin’s work with the top of the crop, check out his oeuvre on AllMusic

Following his death, Kate Bush released a statement, saying: ” I loved John so very much. He was one of my very dearest and closest friends for over forty years. We were always there for each other. He was very special. I loved working with him, not just because he was such an extraordinary musician but because he was always huge amounts of fun. We would often laugh so much that we had to just give in to it and sit and roar with laughter for a while. He loved to be pushed in a musical context, and it was really exciting to feel him cross that line and find incredibly gorgeous musical phrases that were only there for him. He would really sing. It was such a joy and an inspiration to see where he could take it. We’ve all lost a great man, an unmatchable musician and I’ve lost my very special friend. My world will never be the same again without him.”

Giblin died from sepsis on 14 May 2023, at the age of 71.

 

 

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David LaFlamme – 8/2023

Violin for It's a Beautiful DayDavid LaFlamme (It’s a Beautiful Day) was born in New Britain, Connecticut, on May 4, 1941, the first of six children of Adelard and Norma (Winther) LaFlamme. His mother was from a Mormon family in Salt Lake City, and when he was eight years old, the family moved to Utah to be near her family. He spent his early years in Los Angeles, where his father was a Hollywood stunt double, before settling in Salt Lake City, where his father became a copper miner. David was about 5 when he got his first violin, a hand-me-down from an aunt back in Connecticut, whose daughter never took to the violin.

“I began fooling around with it on my own and taught myself to play ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,’” he said in a 1998 interview. Formal training followed and in Salt Lake City in later years, he won a competition to perform as soloist with the Utah Symphony Orchestra.

After joining the Army — he was stationed at Fort Ord, near Monterey, Calif. — he suffered hearing damage from the firing of deafening ordnance. He ended up in Letterman military hospital in San Francisco, and from there put down roots in the city after his discharge in 1962. He found lodging in the same house as his future wife, Linda Rudman. “By the second day that I was there, she and I had already written a song together,” he said.

During the ensuing years he performed with a wide variety of notable San Francisco acts, such as Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, Dino Valente (Love). In 1967, Mr. LaFlamme formed a band called Electric Chamber Orkustra, also known as the Orkustra, with Bobby Beausoleil, a young musician who played bouzouki and would later be convicted of murder as a follower of Charles Manson. He also created an early version of Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks.

But the times were the times, and in 1967, the year of the Summer of Love, he and his wife Linda, a keyboardist, formed It’s a Beautiful Day. The band bubbled up from the acid-rock cauldron of the Haight-Ashbury district, which also produced the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and other groups.

The band got its break in October 1968, when the promoter Bill Graham had them open for Cream in Oakland. It’s a Beautiful Day signed with Columbia Records soon after and the group’s eponymous LP was released by Columbia Records in 1969, containing their biggest hit, “White Bird”. The album was produced by David LaFlamme, who infused the psychedelic rock of the 1960s with the plaintive sounds of an electric violin. “White Bird,” encapsulated the hippie-era longing for freedom.

The LaFlammes wrote the song in 1967, when they were living in the attic of a Victorian house during a brief gig relocation to Seattle. The lyrics took shape on a drizzly winter day as they peered out a window at leaves blowing on the street below.

White bird – In a golden cage – On a winter’s day  – In the rain

“We were like caged birds in that attic,” LaFlamme recalled. “We had no money, no transportation, the weather was miserable.” He later said the song, with its references to darkened skies and rage, was about the struggle between freedom and conformity. In an email, Linda LaFlamme said that she considered it a song of hope, and that the only rage they had felt was about the Seattle weather.

Still, the song, with its pleading chorus, “White bird must fly, or she will die,” seemed to echo the mounting disillusionment of 1969, as marmalade skies turned into storm clouds with the realities of drug addiction and social turmoil, as epitomized by the bloodshed at the Altamont rock festival that year.

“It was a very solemn period of music on that first album,” Mr. LaFlamme said in a 2003 interview published on the music website Exposé. “If I would have kept going that way,” he added, “I would have ended up like Jim Morrison, getting more and more into that personal torture trip.”

My personal favorite on that album  was “Bombay Calling” and I didn’t realize until later that Deep Purple’s “Child in Time” was directly influenced by “Bombay Calling”. “Child in Time” was my favorite cover song to play in the band in those days. Here is Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan explaining how “Child in Time” came about. 

Ian Gillan said in an interview in 2002: “There are two sides to that song – the musical side and the lyrical side. On the musical side, there used to be this song ‘Bombay Calling’ by a band called It’s A Beautiful Day. It was fresh and original, when Jon was one day playing it on his keyboard. It sounded good, and we thought we’d play around with it, change it a bit and do something new keeping that as a base. But then, I had never heard the original ‘Bombay Calling.’ So we created this song using the Cold War as the theme, and wrote the lines ‘Sweet child in time, you’ll see the line.’ That’s how the lyrical side came in. Then, Jon had the keyboard parts ready and Ritchie had the guitar parts ready. The song basically reflected the mood of the moment, and that’s why it became so popular.”

Ironically enough David LaFlamme later on admitted that he got the idea for the song during one of his house jams when saxophone player Vince Wallace started out the tune.

It’s a Beautiful Day’s second album, Marrying Maiden, was released the following year. It was their most successful showing on the charts, reaching number 28 in the U.S. and number 45 in the U.K. Funny enough their opening track Don & Dewey featured clearly the riff  from Deep Purple’s 1968 release “Wring that Neck” on the album The Book of Taliesyn. Great humor in my opinion and also a strong indicator of how life has changed since those early days. Think how many times Zeppelin was taken to court for the opening riff on Stairway to Heaven. Randy California, the creator wouldn’t have cared a bit.

After two additional albums, Choice Quality Stuff/Anytime and Live at Carnegie Hall, LaFlamme left the group in 1972 over disputes regarding the direction and management of the band.
For a time he performed with the groups Edge City and Love Gun in the Bay Area before going solo.

In 1976, he released the album White Bird on Amherst Records. His remake of the song “White Bird” cracked the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 89 that same year. This was followed by the album Inside Out in 1978, also on Amherst Records. Both project releases were co-produced by David LaFlamme and Mitchell Froom.
After years of legal wrangling over ownership of the band’s name, LaFlamme resumed formal use of It’s a Beautiful Day when former mis-manager/leech Matthew Katz let the trademark of the name go un-renewed. From 2000, he performed with the reconstituted band, which included his second wife Linda LaFlamme (not the same person as his previous wife Linda LaFlamme) and original drummer Val Fuentes.

LaFlamme also appeared on the television shows Frasier, Ellen, and Wings, as a strolling violinist who stands right at the table in a restaurant, playing loudly or annoyingly.
It’s a Beautiful Day was included in the documentary film Fillmore, which covered the final days of the famed San Francisco music venue Fillmore West in 1971. The group split in 1973, but later re-formed with new membership, David LaFlamme remaining the only constant into the present era. He occasionally recorded under the group’s name for various labels, and also maintained a solo career, releasing several solo albums and working with other bands.

The band never found the commercial success of its hallowed San Francisco contemporaries. Its debut album, called simply “It’s a Beautiful Day” and released in 1969, climbed to No. 47 on the Billboard chart. “White Bird,” sung by David LaFlamme and Pattie Santos, did not manage to crack the Hot 100 singles chart, largely perhaps because of its running time: more than six minutes, twice the length of most AM radio hits. Even so, the song became an FM radio staple, and an artifact of its cultural moment.

LaFlamme released several albums over the years, including a solo album in the mid-1970s called “White Bird,” which included a disco-ready version of the original single. It actually outperformed the original, peaking at No. 89 on the Billboard Hot 100. LaFlamme said in 1998, “It was a very difficult period musically, because during that period disco music ruled the earth.” “It was really the day the music died,” he said.

David LaFlamme died on Aug. 6, 2023 in Santa Rosa, Calif. Shortly after his friend Dan Hickman. He was 82. His daughter Kira LaFlamme said the cause of his death, at a health care facility, was complications of Parkinson’s disease. In addition to his daughter Kira, from his first marriage, Mr. LaFlamme is survived by his third wife, Linda (Baker) LaFlamme, whom he married in 1982; his sisters, Gloria LaFlamme, Michelle Haag and Diane Petersen; his brothers, Lon and Dorian; another daughter, Alisha LaFlamme, from his marriage to Sharon Wilson, which ended in divorce in 1973; and six grandchildren.

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Gary Wright – 9/2023

Mr. Dream WeaverGary Wright was born on April 26, 1943 in Cresskill, New Jersey, to Ann (nee Belvedere) and Louis Wright. His father was a construction engineer, and his mother was a singer, as were his two sisters. His older sister, Beverly, enjoyed some success as a pop and folk singer in the 60s, while his younger sister, Lorna, released the album Circle of Love (1978) and several singles.

His mother encouraged Gary to take an interest in music and acting. He appeared in the TV sci-fi series Captain Video and His Video Rangers, and when he was 12 he was hired as an understudy for a Broadway musical, Fanny. This resulted in him going on stage in the role of Cesario, son of the titular Fanny, played by Florence Henderson, and in 1955, appearing with Henderson on The Ed Sullivan Show.

His enthusiasm subsequently switched to music, and while at Tenafly high school in New Jersey, he played in several rock’n’roll groups. He would cite the R&B artists Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and James Brown among his musical idols, along with Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Beatles.

Having attended William & Mary College in Virginia and then focused on medicine at New York University, Wright was studying psychology at the Free University of Germany in West Berlin when he abandoned his academic plans and formed a group called the New York Times. They supported Steve Winwood’s Traffic at a gig in Oslo, Norway, where he met the Island Records boss Chris Blackwell. Blackwell introduced Wright to four of the five members of the now-defunct band Art, and Spooky Tooth was formed. Traffic’s producer Jimmy Miller worked on their first two albums, It’s All About and Spooky Two (1969).

Distinguished by the standout tracks Evil Woman and Better By You, Better Than Me, the latter was widely regarded as the band’s finest hour. It cracked the American Top 50, but this was the highest Spooky Tooth ever climbed, though they made four subsequent visits to the bottom end of the US Top 100. They pulled enthusiastic audiences, not least on sold-out US tours with Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones, delivered some powerful and inventive music, and garnered generous accolades from the press, but somehow the stars never aligned in their favor.

Wright identified their third album, Ceremony (subtitled An Electronic Mass and also released in 1969), as the moment where it all went wrong. It was a collaboration with the French electronic composer Pierre Henry, and, as Wright described it, was supposed to be a Henry album rather than being billed as the latest Spooky Tooth offering. “We said … ‘it will ruin our career’, and that’s exactly what happened.”

So at that time in the early 1970’s Wright took a hiatus from Spooky Tooth to produce records for Traffic and Rolling Stones producer Jimmy Miller’s production company. He quickly became a part of London’s elite session musicians, playing keyboards on George Harrison’s classic “All Things Must Pass,” which also featured Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Phil Collins and other greats. Thus began a continuing musical relationship with Harrison that embraced playing keyboards, as well as, co-writing several songs on George’s subsequent albums.

To the outside world I was strange that Gary Wright was allowed toput out solo albums? This was nearly unfathomable, a guy from a stiff group gets to put out his own music? We saw his 1970 album “Extraction,” with its pencil drawing cover, and thinking it was almost amateurish, like they didn’t have the money for color. As for the follow-up, 1971’s “Footprint”… It’s like it almost didn’t come out, that one many shops didn’t even stock.

Although Wright had left the band, in 1972 he got back together with another original member, Mike Harrison, and rebuilt it with a new lineup with the help of Mick Jones, who later joined Foreigner.. They recorded You Broke My Heart So … I Busted Your Jaw (1973), Witness (1973) and The Mirror (1974), but lack of commercial success prompted Wright to quit to pursue a solo career.

Gary then signed a solo deal with Warner Bros. Records in 1974. His ground-breaking 1975 release “The Dream Weaver” streatched the pop music envelope by featuring the first-ever all keyboard/synthesizer band, and by pioneering technologies in cut down versions of synthesizers and drum machines that revolutionized the musical instrument business and changed the sound of pop, rock and r&b forever.  It initially sold over 2 million and 2 million singles in the USA. The title track reached on 2 in America and no 24 in Australia. It was later used in the movie Wayne’s World. Wright also had a second hit off the record in the USA with ‘Love Is Alive’ (also no 2, USA, 1976).

But it didn’t work out for Gary Wright. There were numerous TV appearances, with a keyboard around his neck, a novelty at the time. He capitalized on his success, he wrung out every note. And then it was done. Two years later Gary put out another album, but the world had changed, synthesizer driven tracks were no longer a novelty, rock was becoming corporate, he never had another hit.

But for that one moment in time, that year of ’75, Gary Wright was as big as anybody on the radio, anybody in rock.

In a business where even the biggest success is often written in the wind, the popular appeal of Wright’s songwriting genius has endured. In 1991, Warner Bros. Records asked Gary to remake “Dream Weaver” for the “Wayne’s World” movie soundtrack — which went on to become Billboard’s #1 soundtrack album, selling over 2 million copies, “Dream Weaver” was also featured in the Golden Globe winner “The people vs Larry Flynt.”

The year 2001 brought 2 new versions of “Love is Alive” — one by Anastacia, whose International sales topped 3.5 million — the other by Joan Osborne whose version became the first single for the Michael Douglas/Matt Dylan film, “One Night at McCools.” In addition, “Dream Weaver” and “Love is Alive” were featured in the films “Daddy Day Care” and “Coyote Ugly” respectively. Eminem recorded one of Gary’s songs and re-titled it “Spend some Time” on his “Encore” album, and DJ Armand Van Helden sampled “Comin’ Apary” from “The Right Place” album and renamed it “mymymy.” The track became a huge hit in Europe and Asia selling over 4 million copies.

Gary Wright’s creative output was also extended to film scoring, with music for the Alan Rudolph thriller “Endangered Species,” the Sylvester Stallone-directed “Stayin’ Alive,” the Oscar-winning German film “Fire and Ice” and the 2000 Imax release “Ski to the Max” — both directed by Willie Bogner. It included Gary’s 1995 world music album, “First Signs of Life,” which incorporated music and percussion from Brazil and Nigeria, and featured guest appearances by George Harrison and Terry Bozzio. It continued with his solo effort “Human Love,” a studio album on which Gary is joined by guest artists Jeff Lynne, L. Shankar and Steve Farris.

The year 2007 marked the 40th anniversary of Spooky Tooth and ushered in the release of Nomad Poets live DVD featuring Gary and original members Mike Harrison and Mike Kellie. The band followed it up with sold out European tours in 2008 and 2009. During this stretch, Spooky Tooth was invited by Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records, to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Island, by performing at a concert in London in May 2009 along such artists as U2, Grace Jones, Amy Winehouse, Keane, Sly and Robbie and Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens).

In 2008, Gary became the newest touring member of Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band before releasing an instrumental album of ambient music called Waiting To Catch the Light and an EP called The Light of a Million Suns that featured a duet with his son, Dorian, on a re-record of his hit song “Love is Alive.”

As Gary Wright began another new decade as a musical pioneer, this one was immediately highlighted by the June 8, 2010 release of Connected, his first pop-rock album in over twenty years and a brilliant culmination of Wright’s vast life experiences, songwriting ability and production know-how. Connected also continued a life-long tradition of embracing esteemed musical camaradarie as the album’s first single “Satisfied” includes performances by Ringo Starr on drums, along with Joe Walsh and Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter on guitar.

In addition to shows throughout 2010 with his own band to support his new album, Gary once again traversed the U.S. during that summer, touring as a member of Ringo’s band, as well as, doing a European and South American tour in 2011 with Ringo. “Dream Weaver” was also prominently featured in Disney’s Toy Story 3 movie, as well as, in an episode of “Glee” and the series of “Once Upon a Time.”

Gary also appeared in Martin Scorcese’s highly-anticipated George Harrison biopic “Living in the Material World,” and Jay Z and Kanye West recently used a sample from Gary’s first release with Spooky Toothy, “Sunshine Help Me” on their latest album. The track, “No Church in the Wild also appears in the new Denzyl Washington film “Safe House” as well as in “The Great Gatsby.” Gary was writing a new book titled “The Dream Weaver” which is his autobiography. The book contains stories of the years he spent with George Harrison and their spiritual journey together. It will also be released as an E book with rare photos and unreleased music.

Gary Wright was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia in 2018. He died on 4 September, 2023.

So I was sitting in my living room last night and my wife comes in and says: “Gary Wright is dead”. I already had received the message earlier, but It was still a dagger to my heart. Not as much as the news about Jimmy Buffett, who I had known personally or David Crosby, who was my all time shining hero singer/songwriter. But still, I remember 1975/1976. Vietnam was finally over; the first oil crisis was freshly in our hindsight (and future), the Club of Rome had just predicted a devastating climate crisis and we kept ignoring it. The generational cohesiveness of the late 1960s was slowly fading into corporate greed, Music was still peaking until way after the arrival of MTV, and Gary Wright was there telling us about Weaving Dreams.  It just wasn’t music, it was life.

I have to admit that it sometimes makes me crazy when people younger than baby boomers say it’s the same as it ever was, that every generation has its own popular music, and it’s just as good. It’s not. That’s patently untrue. Rock Music was Michelangelo, The Sistine Chapel, The Mona Lisa. Music was mostly peaks, and sometimes valleys, but it was everything, it rode shotgun, it drove the culture, and Gary Wright was right there, even if it was only for a short flash in 1975.

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Jimmy Buffett – 9/2023

Jimmy BuffettJimmy Buffett was born on December 25, 1946, in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and spent part of his childhood in Mobile and Fairhope, Alabama. He was the son of Mary Lorraine (née Peets) and James Delaney Buffett Jr, who worked for the Army Corps of Engineers. During his grade school years, he attended St. Ignatius School, where he played the trombone in the school band. As a child, he was exposed to sailing through his grandfather who was a steamship captain and these experiences influenced his later music. He graduated from McGill Institute for Boys, a Catholic high school in Mobile, in 1964. He began playing the guitar during his first year at Auburn University after seeing a fraternity brother playing while surrounded by a group of girls. Buffett left Auburn after a year due to his grades and continued his college years at Pearl River Community College and the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, where he received a bachelor’s degree in history in 1969. From 1969 to 1970, Buffett worked for Billboard as a Nashville correspondent, and in 1969, he was the first writer to report that the bluegrass duo Flatt and Scruggs had disbanded.

Buffett began his musical career in Nashville, Tennessee, where during the late 1960s he was recognized as a country artist and recorded his first album, the country-tinged folk rock record Down to Earth, in 1970. During this time, Buffett could be frequently found busking for tourists in New Orleans. In the fall of 1971 after an impromptu audition, Buffett was hired by a Nashville club called the Exit/In to open for recording artist Dianne Davidson. Fellow country singer Jerry Jeff Walker took him to Key West on a busking expedition in November 1971. Key West in the 1970s was not the tourist-friendly town it is today – it was the last outpost of smugglers, con-men, artists and free-spirits who simply couldn’t run any further south in the mainland United States. It was there that  the 25 year old musician thrown into the midst of this eclectic mix found his true voice as a songwriter – telling the stories of the wanderers, the adventurers and the forlorn.

As a result of this experience Buffett then moved to Key West and began establishing the easy-going beach-bum persona he became known for. He started out playing for drinks at the Chart Room Bar in the Pier House Motel. Following this move, Buffett combined country, rock, folk, calypso and pop music with coastal as well as tropical lyrical themes for a sound sometimes called “gulf and western” (or tropical rock). He was a regular visitor to the Caribbean island of Saint Barts and neighboring St.Martin where he got the inspiration for many of his songs and later some of the characters in his books.
With the untimely death of friend and mentor Jim Croce in September 1973, ABC/Dunhill Records tapped Buffett to fill his space. Earlier, Buffett had visited Croce’s farm in Pennsylvania and met with Croce in Florida.
Buffett’s second release was 1973’s A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. Albums Living & Dying in 3/4 Time and A1A both followed in 1974, Havana Daydreamin’ appeared in 1976, and Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes followed in 1977, which featured the breakthrough hit song “Margaritaville”. That year he also married to Jane Volslag, who became his wife for the rest of his life.

Later he offered the story of how he came to write his biggest hit: “I started writing it on a napkin in a Mexican restaurant in Austin, Texas, with a friend who was driving me to the airport, to fly home to Key West. On the drive down the Keys, there was a fender bender on the Seven Mile Bridge, west of Marathon, and I was stuck, overlooking Pigeon Key. I sat on the bridge for about an hour and finished the song there. That night, I played it for the first time at my job at Crazy Ophelia’s on Duval Street. The small crowd in the bar asked me to play it again. And I did. So, I guess it is a pretty good three-minute song that has stood the test of time.”

During the 1980s, Buffett made far more money from his tours than his albums and became known as a popular concert draw. He released a series of albums during the following 20 years, primarily to his devoted audience, and also branched into writing and merchandising. In 1985, Buffett opened a “Margaritaville” retail store in Key West, and in 1987, he opened the Margaritaville Cafe.
In 1994, Buffett dueted with Frank Sinatra on a cover of “Mack the Knife” on Sinatra’s final studio album, “Duets II”. In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk to create a musical based on Wouk’s novel, Don’t Stop the Carnival, a MUST READ for everyone ever planning to move to a Caribbean Island. Broadway showed little interest in the play (following the failure of Paul Simon’s The Capeman), and it ran only for six weeks in Miami. He released an album of songs from the musical in 1998.

In January 1996, Buffett’s Grumman HU-16 airplane named Hemisphere Dancer was shot at by Jamaican police, who believed the craft to be smuggling marijuana. The aircraft sustained minimal damage. The plane was carrying Buffett, as well as U2’s Bono, his wife and two children, and Island Records producer Chris Blackwell, and co-pilot Bill Dindy. The Jamaican government acknowledged the mistake and apologized to Buffett, who penned the song “Jamaica Mistaica” for his Banana Wind album based on the experience.

Buffett’s 1999 song “Math Suks” caused a brief media frenzy in our exceedingly intolerant society. The song was in fact promptly condemned by the US National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Education Association for its alleged negative effect on children’s education. Comedian Jon Stewart also ‘criticized’ the song on The Daily Show during a segment called “Math Is Quite Pleasant”.

On February 4, 2001, he was ejected from the American Airlines Arena in Miami during a basketball game between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks for cursing. After the game, referee Joe Forte said that he ordered him moved during the fourth quarter because “there was a little boy sitting next to him and a lady sitting by him. He used some words he knows he shouldn’t have used.” Forte apparently did not know who Buffett was, and censured Heat coach Pat Riley because he thought Riley—who was trying to explain to him who Buffett was—was insulting him by asking if he had ever been a “Parrothead”, the nickname for Buffett fans. Buffett did not comment immediately after the incident, but discussed it on The Today Show three days later.

In 2003, going back to his country roots, he partnered in a partial duet with Alan Jackson for the song “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere”, which spent a then record eight weeks atop the country charts. This song won the 2003 Country Music Association Award for Vocal Event of the Year. This was Buffett’s first award in his 30-year recording career.
Buffett’s album License to Chill, released on July 13, 2004, sold 238,600 copies in its first week of release according to Nielsen Soundscan. With this, Buffett topped the U.S. pop albums chart for the first time in his career.

Buffett continued to tour regularly until shortly before his death, although later in his career, he shifted to a more relaxed schedule of around 20–30 dates, with infrequent back-to-back nights, preferring to play only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. This schedule provided the title of his 1999 live album.
In the summer of 2005, Buffett teamed up with Sirius Satellite Radio and introduced Radio Margaritaville. Until this point, Radio Margaritaville was solely an online channel. Radio Margaritaville has remained on the service through Sirius’ merger with XM Radio and currently appears as XM 24. The channel broadcasts from the Margaritaville Resort Orlando in Kissimmee, Florida.
In August 2006, he released the album Take the Weather with You. The song “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On” on this album is in honor of the survivors of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. Buffett’s rendition of “Silver Wings” on the same album was made as a tribute to Merle Haggard. On August 30, 2007, he received his star on the Mohegan Sun Walk of Fame.
On October 6, 2006, it was reported that Buffett had been detained by French customs officials in Saint Tropez for allegedly carrying over 100 pills of ecstasy. Buffett’s luggage was searched after his Dassault Falcon 900 private jet landed at Toulon-Hyères International Airport. He paid a fine of $300 and was released. A spokesperson for Buffett stated the pills in question were prescription drugs, but declined to name the drug or the health problem for which he was being treated. Buffett released a statement that the “ecstasy” was in fact a B-vitamin supplement known as Foltx.[40]
On April 20, 2010, a double CD of performances recorded during the 2008 and 2009 tours called Encores was released exclusively at Walmart, Walmart.com, and Margaritaville.com.
Buffett partnered in a duet with the Zac Brown Band on the song “Knee Deep”; released on Brown’s 2010 album You Get What You Give, it became a hit country and pop single in 2011. Also in 2011, Buffett voiced Huckleberry Finn on Mark Twain: Words & Music, which was released on Mailboat Records. The project is a benefit for the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum and includes Clint Eastwood as Mark Twain, Garrison Keillor as the narrator, and songs by Brad Paisley, Sheryl Crow, Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, and others.
Of the over 30 albums Jimmy Buffett released, eight became Gold albums and nine are Platinum or Multiplatinum. In 2007, Buffett was nominated for the CMA Event of the Year Award for his song “Hey Good Lookin'” which featured Alan Jackson and George Strait.
In 2020, Buffett released Songs You Don’t Know by Heart, a fan-curated collection of his lesser-known songs rerecorded on his collection of notable guitars.
During a performance in Nashville, Tennessee on April 11, 2023, Buffett said he had recorded an album entitled Equal Strain on All Parts. Buffett got the idea for the album title from his grandfather’s description of a nap. The album has yet to be released.
Buffett performed his final full concert at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego on May 6, 2023. He made two further concert appearances, as an unannounced guest at concerts by Coral Reefer Band members, in Amagansett, New York on June 11 and Portsmouth, Rhode Island on July 2.

Giving in to the societal need of pigeon-holing genres, Buffett began calling his music “drunken Caribbean rock ‘n’ roll” as he said on his 1978 live album You Had To Be There. Earlier, Buffett himself and others had used the term “gulf and western” to describe his musical style and that of other similar-sounding performers. The name derives from elements in Buffett’s early music including musical influence from country, along with lyrical themes from the Gulf Coast. A music critic described Buffett’s music as a combination of “tropical languor with country funkiness into what some [have] called the Key West sound, or Gulf-and-western.” The term is a play on the form of “Country & Western” and the name of the former conglomerate and Paramount Pictures parent Gulf+Western. In 2020, The Associated Press described Buffett’s sound as a “special Gulf Coast blend of country, pop, folk and rock, topped by Buffett’s swaying voice. Few can mix steelpans, trombones and pedal steel guitar so effortlessly.” The DC Metro Theatre Arts magazine, in a review for Buffett’s musical Escape to Margaritaville, described Buffett’s music as “blend[ing] Caribbean, country, rock, folk, and pop music into a good-natured concoction variously classified as “trop rock” or “gulf and western”.
Other performers identified as gulf and western are often deliberately derivative of Buffett’s musical style and some are tribute bands, or in the case of Greg “Fingers” Taylor, a former member of Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band. They can be heard on Buffett’s online Radio Margaritaville and on the compilation album series Thongs in the Key of Life. Gulf and western performers include Norman “the Caribbean Cowboy” Lee, Jim Bowley, Kenny Chesney and Jim Morris.

Jimmy’s Rise to Superstardom

Through his ‘80s tenure at MCA, Buffett’s albums languished in the middle reaches of the U.S. pop charts, but he remained a top concert attraction. During that decade he began his deep move into personal branding and ancillary marketing, establishing the first Margaritaville retail store in Key West in 1987 and the first Margaritaville Café in 1987.
His fortunes rose in the ‘90s with the founding of his Margaritaville imprint, distributed successively by MCA and Island Records; four of his five studio albums during that decade – “Fruitcakes,” “Barometer Soup,” “Banana Wind” and “Beach House on the Moon” – reached the pop top 10 and went either gold or platinum. A pair of ‘90s concert shots, “Feeding Frenzy” (1990) and “Buffett Live: Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays” (1999) were certified gold; the latter album was the first release on a new personal imprint, Mailboat Records.
After the turn of the millennium, marking his first appearances at the apex of the American pop charts, Buffett belatedly launched a pair of studio albums, “License to Chill” (2004) and “Take the Weather With You” (2006) to No. 1 on the pop album charts.
His biggest latter-day singles were collaborations that found success on the country singles charts. A duet with Alan Jackson, “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere,” was No. 1 nationally in 2003, garnering a CMA Award as vocal event of the year. A 2004 version of Hank Williams’ “Hey Good Lookin’,” cut with Jackson, Clint Black, Kenny Chesney, Toby Keith, George Strait, rose to No. 8. In 2011, he reached No. 1 again alongside the Zac Brown Band on “Knee Deep.”

Buffett’s highly palatable variety of party-hearty music translated into a host of products, making him one of the most successful and wealthiest performers in the world. In 2016, his personal worth was estimated at $500 million.
Writing about “Margaritaville” on the 40th anniversary of the song’s release in 2017, Forbes stated that it “morphed into a global lifestyle brand that currently has more than $4.8 billion in the development pipeline and sees $1.5 billion in annual system-wide sales. This year, Margaritaville Holdings announced a partnership with Minto Communities to develop Latitude Margaritaville, new active adult communities for those ‘55 and better,’ including the $1 billion Daytona Beach, Florida location and a second in Hilton Head, South Carolina.”
The business magazine noted that the performer’s licensed brands included apparel and footwear, retail stores, restaurants, resort destinations, gaming rooms, restaurants and even a Margaritaville-branded line of beer, LandShark Lager, which was projected to shift an estimated 3.6 million cases during its first year of availability.
Buffett also found success as a writer: His novels “Tales from Margaritaville” and “Where is Joe Merchant?” and memoir “A Pirate Looks at Fifty” all reached No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. He was also active in film and TV work, writing soundtracks and appearing as a cameo player, most recently in Harmony Korine’s 2019 comedy “The Beach Bum.”
His lone shot at musical theater, an adaptation of Herman Wouk’s “Don’t Stop the Carnival” written with the novelist, was an out-of-town flop in 1997.
An unflagging stage performer, Buffett toured annually with his Coral Reefer Band and remained a top concert draw late in his career – in 2018, he appeared co-billed on a national tour with the Eagles. Endlessly reprised in concert, his songs like “A Pirate Looks at Forty” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise” were perennial sing-along favorites for a legion of parrotheads garbed in Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops.
Analyzing the enduring appeal of Buffett’s music, Christopher Ashley, director of the 2017 jukebox musical “Escape to Margaritaville,” said, “There is a celebratory bacchanalian quality but also a real strain of sadness in those songs. I think his songs have a real philosophical commitment to finding joy now, being as now is the only moment… Don’t postpone joy. Embrace it. Grab it. I think that’s profound and a great message to send in a world as joy-challenged as this one.”

Next to his pals Elton John and Paul McCartney, Jimmy Buffett amassed more that a $1 billion in his lifetime. Elton John and Paul McCartney are among the many stars who paid tribute to Jimmy Buffett after the American singer’s death on Friday, September 1, 2023.

Buffett passed away aged 76, at his home in Sag Harbor, New York due to complications from merkel-cell carcinoma, a rare and aggressive form of skin cancer. Buffett left behind his second wife Jane, their two daughters, Sarah and Savannah, and son Cameron.

Elton John remembered Buffett as: “Jimmy Buffett was a unique and treasured entertainer. His fans adored him and he never let them down. This is the saddest of news. A lovely man gone way too soon. Condolences to (his wife) Jane and the family from (my husband) David (Furnish) and me.”

McCartney meanwhile, reminisced about going on holiday with the late rocker, who restringed his guitar so the former Beatle could play it left-handed, before gifting him a specially made instrument.
“It seems that so many wonderful people are leaving this world, and now Jimmy Buffett is one of them,” the British star wrote before describing Buffett’s act of kindness. “I’ve known Jimmy for some time and found him to be one of the kindest and most generous people.” He added: “He had a most amazing lust for life and a beautiful sense of humour. When we swapped tales about the past his were so exotic and lush and involved sailing trips and surfing and so many exciting stories that it was hard for me to keep up with him. Right up to the last minute his eyes still twinkled with a humour that said, ‘I love this world and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it’. So many of us will miss Jimmy and his tremendous personality. His love for us all, and for mankind as a whole.”

The Beach Boys star Brian Wilson also paid tribute to his fellow musician, as did U.S. President Joe Biden.
In a statement, America’s leader said, “A poet of paradise, Jimmy Buffett was an American music icon who inspired generations to step back and find the joy in life and in one another,” before praising his “witty, wistful songs”. US president Joe Biden honored the singer as “an American music icon” and “a poet of paradise”, while expressing his and First Lady Jill Biden’s condolences to Mr Buffett’s family. “His witty, wistful songs celebrate a uniquely American cast of characters and seaside folkways, weaving together an unforgettable musical mix of country, folk, rock, pop, and calypso into something uniquely his own,” the White House statement read.
“We had the honor to meet and get to know Jimmy over the years, and he was in life as he was performing on stage – full of goodwill and joy, using his gift to bring people together.
“Jimmy reminded us how much the simple things in life matter – the people we love, the places we’re from, the hopes we have on the horizon.
“Jill and I send our love to his wife of 46 years, Jane; to their children, Savannah, Sarah, and Cameron; to their grandchildren; and to the millions of fans who will continue to love him even as his ship now sails for new shores.”

Jimmy, contrary to so many of his contemporaries liked reporters because he started as a journalist, writing for Billboard magazine. He thought of himself as a writer — not only of songs but also of best-selling books; he was one of just a few to scale both the fiction and nonfiction lists at The Times. It was more than that, though. He was blessed with an irresistible Southern, devil-may-care charm. Usually, joie de vivre is a sign you’re not paying attention. But with Jimmy, it was ensorcelling. He sang for wounded Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. He was able to transport them to a beach with no cares. During the Covid years, he did “cabin fever Zooms” with health care workers from across the country who were Parrotheads.
He loved pirates, mermaids, jukeboxes and the glamorous era of Pan Am flight attendants. In one sense, he was a model for how to live: Build your life around what you love.

In the end, having packed a thousand lifetimes into one, he was a model for how to die.
“Well, I have learned one thing from my latest in a series of the ever-appearing speed bumps of life — 75 is NOT the new 50,” he emailed me. “Thinking younger doesn’t quite do it. You still have to do the hard work of, as the Toby Keith song says, ‘Don’t let the old man in.’ And that is my job now, the way I see it.” Sadly he made it only until September 1, when he handed the towel in. He was one of a kind.

The titles of new songs he was working on that were so Jimmy: “Conch Fritters and Red Wine,” “Fish Porn” and “My Gummy Just Kicked In,” which featured a turn by his Hamptons pal Paul McCartney.
Jimmy urged all of us to keep after the bad guys. “Keep trolling out there; as a longtime fisherman, I can say with some authority, you never know what is going to wind up on the end of your rod. Fins up and see you soon.”

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Dan Hicks – 2/2016

Dan Hicks (Hot Licks) was born in Little Rock, Arkansas on December 9, 1941, the only child of Ivan L. Hicks (a career United States Army and United States Air Force non-commissioned officer) and the former Evelyn Kehl. At age five, Hicks moved with his family to California. Following brief stints in Lomita, Cambria, and Vallejo, the family settled in Santa Rosa, the largest city in the North Bay subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area, where he was a drummer in grade school and played the snare drum in his school marching band.

At 14, he was performing with area dance bands. While in high school, he had a rotating spot on Time Out for Teens, a daily 15-minute local radio program. After receiving an A.A. in general education from Santa Rosa Junior College, he went on to earn a B.A. in broadcasting from San Francisco State College in 1965. Taking up the guitar in 1959, he became part of the American folk music revival scene during his undergraduate studies, often dropping out intermittently to perform at venues across the United States. Strongly influenced by the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, he would cultivate friendships with several of the group’s members (most notably Maria Muldaur) later in life.

Although he maintained an equivocal stance toward rock music (lauding the early recordings of Elvis Presley and The Byrds while retrospectively maintaining that “rock has never really been my thing”), Hicks joined seminal San Francisco psychedelic rock band The Charlatans on drums in 1965.

In this capacity, he participated in the group’s celebrated summer 1965 engagement at the Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City, Nevada. After the band failed to secure a long-term recording contract, he switched to rhythm guitar in 1967 and briefly performed his original material as the group’s frontman before leaving in 1968.

When Hicks reformed the band circa 1972, Page and Leopold remained, and vocalists Naomi Ruth Eisenberg and Maryann Price joined, followed later by guitarist John Girton. This group recorded three albums, culminating in 1973’s Last Train to Hicksville on which the group first added a sparingly used drummer, Bob Scott. Last Train to Hicksville was so good that Rolling Stone magazine put Hicks’ mustachioed mug on its highly coveted cover.

Though he disbanded the Hot Licks in 1974 at the peak of its popularity. Of this move, Hicks said, “I didn’t want to be a bandleader anymore. It was a load and a load I didn’t want. I’m basically a loner.”

For the next fifteen years, Hicks chose a lower profile, playing solo acoustic shows; writing commercial jingles for products such as Levi’s, Bic Lighters, and Ball Park Franks; and composing scores for films and television programs—most notably the score for the animated Ralph Bakshi film Hey Good Lookin’ (1982). Hicks’s songs were featured in the popular television shows The Sopranos and The Osbournes,and Hicks appeared in the Gene Hackman legal drama Class Action(1991), performing two songs in the film. During this period, Hicks was involved in only musical two projects that resulted in commercially released music; both were relatively obscure and remain somewhat rare.

In 1998, Hicks poised himself for a return to the mainstream when he signed a deal with Surfdog Records. This resulted in Beatin’ the Heat (2000), which became his first release with the newly re-formed Hot Licks since 1973. After that, he released a number of studio albums and collaborated with artists such as Jim Keltner, Gibby Haynes, Elvis Costello, Rickie Lee Jones, Van Dyke Parks, Willie Nelson, and Jimmy Buffett. Hicks’s music is featured regularly on the Buffett-affiliated Sirius/XM satellite radio station Radio Margaritaville. In 2009, Hicks released Tangled Tales, his fifth album with Surfdog Records. Hicks and his band also released a Christmas album in 2010.

On tour in 2007, Dan Hicks’ Hot Licks included Paul Smith, Dave Bell, Richard Chon, and the two “Lickettes,” Roberta Donnay and the mono-monikered Daria. The combo paid homage to jazz greats such as Django Reinhardt with “Topsy” and Fats Waller with “Honeysuckle Rose.” Hicks sang Tom Waits’ infamous anthem to alcohol, “The Piano Has Been Drinking,” while the ladies were featured on “I’m an Old Cowhand,” a big hit for Bing Crosby back in 1936.

“My music is kind of a blending,” Hicks told a Colorado concert audience that year. “We have acoustic instruments. It starts out with kind of a folk music sound, and we add a jazz beat and solos and singing. We have the two girls that sing, and jazz violin, and all that, so it’s kind of light in nature. It’s not loud, and it’s sort of, in a way, kinda carefree. Most of the songs are, I wouldn’t say funny, but kinda maybe a little humorous. We all like jazz, so we like to play in a jazzy way, with a swing sound you know, so I call it ‘folk swing.’ There are a lot of original tunes that I’ve been writing through the years, so that has its personal touch on it.”

Discs released in 2009 and 2013 show Hicks still dabbling in early jazz and swing. The CD Tangled Tales has Hicks crooning “The Blues My Naughty Baby Gave to Me” from 1919 and “Ragtime Cowboy Joe” from 1912. On 2013’s Live at Davies, Hicks handled “Hummin’ to Myself” by the Washboard Rhythm Kings and Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train.” “Dan was one of contemporary music’s true innovators,” said Patricia Lockwood-Blais, poet, novelist, and essayist, who booked him in 2007 to play the Earlville Opera House in Upstate New York. “And his wit was irresistible.” In fact, humor has always been an important part of the Hot Licks’ act.

Dan Hicks died Feb. 6, 2016 at his home in Mill Valley, Ca, after a lengthy bout with throat and liver cancer. He was 74.

In a report on his death, the New York Times called Hicks “defiantly unfashionable, proudly eccentric and foot-tappingly catchy.”

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Eddie van Halen 10/2020

Tapping virtuoso Eddie van HalenEddie van Halen 10/2020 (65) Born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on January 26, 1955 Eddie van Halen was the son of Jan van Halen and Eugenia (née van Beers). Jan was a Dutch jazz pianist, clarinetist and saxophonist and Eugenia was born Indonesian from Indonesian and Italian parents in the town of Rangkasbitung on the island of Java in what was then called the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Jan and Eugenie married in August 1950 and re-emigrated on March 4th 1953 on board of the ship “Sibajak” to Holland, where they settled in Amsterdam. Shortly after the birth of Eddie, the family moved to Nijmegen, where they lived at 59 Rozemarijnstraat. On February 22nd 1962 the Van Halen’s moved again, this time by boat across the Atlantic to New York. After which they proceeded on a continent-crossing journey by train to finally settle in California, where they lived in Pasadena at 1881 Las Lunas Street for two decades. It was here that the two Dutch born Indo-Americans started to write music history and the swirling Van Halen story began.

After experiencing mistreatment for their mixed-race relationship in the 1950s, the parents moved the family to the U.S. in 1962. They settled near other family members in Pasadena, California, where Eddie and his brother Alex attended a segregated elementary school. Since the boys did not speak English as a first language, they were considered “minority” students and experienced bullying by white students. 

Eddie and his older brother, Alex Van Halen, later became naturalized U.S. citizens. The brothers learned to play the piano as children starting at the age of six. They commuted weekly between Pasadena and San Pedro to study with an elderly piano teacher, Stasys Kalvaitis. Continue reading Eddie van Halen 10/2020

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Jeff Beck – 1/2023

Jeff Beck 1/2023 (78) Geoffrey Arnold “Jeff” Beck was born on 24 June 1944 in Wallington, South London to Arnold and Ethel Beck. Before Beck discovered guitar, his mother had wanted him to play the piano. But once his parents saw how Beck took to the guitar, they allowed it.  They probably thought, ‘If he’s got the guitar, he’s not going out stealing.’ The only friends he had were pretty low-life; most of them were one step away from jail.

Beck said that he first heard an electric guitar when he was six-years-old and heard Les Paul playing “How High the Moon” on the radio. He asked his mother what it was. After she replied it was an electric guitar and was all tricks, he said, “That’s for me”. As a ten-year-old, Beck sang in a church choir and his original musical direction was essential formed by the music his older sister, Annetta, brought home.  As a pre-teenager he learned to play on a borrowed guitar and made several attempts to build his own instrument, first by gluing and bolting together cigar boxes for the body and an un-sanded fence post for the neck with model aircraft control lines as strings and frets simply painted on it.

“The guy next door said, ‘I’ll build you a solid body guitar for five pounds’,” he later told Rock Cellar Magazine. “Five pounds, which to me was 500 back then so I went ahead and did it myself.
“The first one I built was in 1956, because Elvis was out, and everything that you heard about pop music was guitar. And then I got fascinated. I’m sure the same goes for lots of people.”

Beck’s sister Annetta introduced him to Jimmy Page when both were teenagers. Eventually, Beck bonded with another boy who was a budding guitarist in his neighborhood, Jimmy Page. The two musicians shared a passion for rockabilly music (Beck credited his older sister with buying the records that shaped his taste) and would try to impress each other with their skills. After leaving school, he attended Wimbledon College of Art. Then he was briefly employed as a painter and decorator, a groundsman on a golf course, and a car paint sprayer. In his early years he spent time in bands such as The Nightshift, the Tridents and then the Yardbirds, which he joined in 1965 to replace Eric Clapton.

The legacy of The Yardbirds three iconic guitar heroes Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page is a little bit convoluted, but Page did his best in later years to explain it in a video for Fender taped in connection to his signature Fender Telecaster, which is based on the guitar Jeff had gifted him and he used in the Yardbirds and in the early days of Led Zeppelin.

Page says he and Jeff initially connected due to their mutual interest in the guitar. Electric guitarists were a rare breed in rock and roll’s early days, he noted. “There weren’t many guitarists in the area at that point,” Page recalled. “You’d hear of other guitarists, you’d meet other guitarists, but nobody was in really close proximity to me. There was an art college at Epsom that Jeff Beck’s sister Annetta was attending.”

 Somehow Annetta heard about Page and got the idea that she should introduce her brother to the other local guitarist Page. One day, Jeff and Annetta just showed up at Page’s house. “There was a knock on the door, and there was Jeff’s sister, and there was Jeff holding his homemade guitar,” Page recalled. “We just bonded immediately.” Jeff eventually upgraded from his homemade guitar to a 1959 Fender Telecaster. Page came to possess the Tele after scoring Jeff a big break playing for the Yardbirds.

Page says he was a studio musician, working his way up to being a record producer, when he was approached about joining the Yardbirds. But he wasn’t ready to give up working in the studio, and he suspected Clapton was unaware of the conversation, so he recommended Jeff for the job. Jeff got the gig and soon bought himself a new guitar. But rather than keep his Tele as a backup, he gifted it to Page as a thank you. The Yardbirds were one of the U.K.’s biggest blues bands at that point.

Continue reading Jeff Beck – 1/2023

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John Cipollina 5/1989

May 29, 1989 (aged 45) John Cipollina and his twin sister Manuela were born in Berkeley, California, on August 24, 1943. Cipollina attended Tamalpais High School, in Mill Valley, California, as did his brother, Mario(born 1954), and sister, Antonia (born 1952). Their father, Gino, was of Italian ancestry. He was a realtor, and his mother, Evelyn, and godfather, José Iturbi, were concert pianists. John showed great promise as a classical pianist in his youth, but his father gave him a guitar when he was 12 and this quickly became his primary instrument.

Trained as a classical pianist, John Cipollina however didn’t just play the usual pentatonic rock and blues riffs; he meandered about the fretboard, producing a plethora of melodic and evocative notes, inflected with plenty of whammy bar, his signature, particularly during the psychedelic era. Simply stated, nobody played lead guitar like John Cipollina!

One of the forerunners of the San Francisco Bay Area sound in the middle 1960s, Cipollina played lead guitar for the fabulous Quicksilver Messenger Service, until the band went “poppy” in the early 1970s. Man do I remember playing Who do you love and Mona. Epic.

Cipollina had a unique guitar sound, mixing solid state and valve amplifiers as early as 1965. He is considered one of the fathers of the San Francisco sound, a form of psychedelic rock.

I like the rapid punch of solid-state for the bottom, and the rodent-gnawing distortion of the tubes on top.

To create his distinctive guitar sound, Cipollina developed a one-of-a-kind amplifier stack. His Gibson SG guitars had two pickups, one for bass and one for treble. The bass pickup fed into two Standel bass amps on the bottom of the stack, each equipped with two 15-inch speakers. The treble pickups fed two Fender amps: a Fender Twin Reverb and a Fender Dual Showman that drove six Wurlitzer horns.

After leaving Quicksilver in 1971, Cipollina formed the band Copperhead with early Quicksilver member Jim Murray (who was soon to leave for Maui, Hawaii), former Stained Glass member Jim McPherson, drummer David Weber, Gary Phillipet (AKA Gary Phillips (keyboardist), later a member of Bay Area bands Earthquake and The Greg Kihn Band), and Pete Sears. Sears was shortly thereafter replaced by current and longtime Bonnie Raitt bassist James “Hutch” Hutchinson who played on the Copperhead LP and stayed with the band for its duration. Copperhead disbanded in mid 1974 after becoming a staple in the SF Bay Area and touring the West Coast, Hawaii (Sunshine Crater Fest on New Years Day of 1973 with Santana), the South (opening dates for Steely Dan) and the Midwest.

In May 1974 Cipollina and Link Wray, whose playing and style had influenced John as a young musician and who he had met through bassist Hutch Hutchinson, performed a series of shows together along the West Coast (with Copperhead rhythm section Hutchinson & Weber and keyboardist David Bloom) culminating at The Whiskey in LA where they performed for four nights (May 15–19) on a bill with Lighthouse (band). Cipollina continued to occasionally perform with Wray for the next couple of years.

In 1975, the Welsh psychedelic band Man toured the United States, towards the end of which, they played two gigs at the San Francisco Winterland (March 21 and 22), which were such a success that promoter Bill Graham paid them a bonus and rebooked them. While waiting for the additional gigs, the band met and rehearsed with John Cipollina, who played with them at Winterland in April 1975. After this, Cipollina agreed to play a UK tour which took place in May 1975, during which their “Roundhouse gig” was recorded.

Rumors that Micky Jones had to overdub Cipollina’s parts, as his guitar was out of tune, before their Maximum Darkness album could be released are exaggerated; only one track, “Bananas”, was to have his track replaced, per Deke Leonard. “Everything … which sounds like Cipollina is Cipollina.”

During the 1980s, Cipollina performed with a number of bands, including Fish & Chips, Thunder and Lightning, the Dinosaurs and Problem Child. He was a founding member of Zero and its rhythm guitarist until his death. Most often these bands played club gigs in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Cipollina was well-known

Cipollina died on May 29, 1989, at age 45. His cause of death was alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, a lung disease, which he suffered from most of his life and which is exacerbated by smoking.

Quicksilver Messenger Service fans paid tribute to him the following month in San Francisco at an all-star concert at the Fillmore Auditorium which featured Nicky Hopkins, Pete Sears, David Freiberg, and John’s brother Mario, an original member of Huey Lewis and the News. Cipollina’s one of a kind massive amplifier stack was donated, along with one of his customized Gibson SG guitars, and effects pedals, for display in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in 1995.

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Gary Rossington 3/2023

Garry Rossington (Lynyrd Skynyrd) was born in West Jacksonville Florida on December 4, 1951. Anybody familiar with the area knows, that West Jacksonville was considered the tough part of town where things were different. It’s the area where Lynyrd Skynyrd was born.  And now every original member of Lynyrd Skynyrd is dead. A Southern Rock band of musicians that passed before their time. The kind that used “to rape and pillage” across the country, who got drunk, did drugs, got laid… That was Lynyrd Skynyrd or at least that was the band’s reputation.

I know I can’t say “rape and pillage” anymore. But that’s how we described the rock star lifestyle back in the seventies, and Lynyrd Skynyrd were part of the firmament of the seventies, even after the plane crash.

Rossington had a strong childhood interest in baseball and aspired as a child to one day play for the New York Yankees. Rossington recalled that he was a “good ball player” but upon hearing the Rolling Stones in his early teens he became interested in music and ultimately gave up on his baseball aspirations.

It was Rossington’s love of baseball that indirectly led to the formation of Lynyrd Skynyrd in the summer of 1964 when he was not yet 13 years old. He became acquainted with Ronnie Van Zant and Bob Burns while playing on rival Jacksonville baseball teams and the trio decided to jam together one afternoon after Burns was injured by a ball hit by Van Zant. They set up their equipment in the carport of Burns’ parents’ house and played The Rolling Stones’ then-current hit “Time Is on My Side”. Liking what they heard, they immediately decided to form a band. Naming themselves The Noble Five, with the additions of guitarist Allen Collins and bassist Larry Junstrom, they later changed the name of the band to The One Percent before eventually settling on the name Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1969.

Rossington grew up in a single-parent household and said that early in their relationship, Ronnie van Zant became something of a father figure to him. He credited Van Zant, who was three years his senior, with teaching him and his bandmates how to drive a car, as well as introducing them to “all that stuff you learn when you’re 14, 15, 16”.

According to a New York Times article, Lacy Van Zant, patriarch of the Van Zant family, once went to West Jacksonville’s Robert E. Lee High School to plead Rossington’s case to school administrators after the fatherless Rossington was suspended for having long hair. Lacy Van Zant explained to the assistant principal that Rossington’s father, who died shortly after Rossington was born, had died in the Army and that Rossington’s mother needed the money Rossington made playing in his band. Lacy Van Zant further explained that, like his own sons, they were working men and long hair was part of the job. It is not known if the elder Van Zant’s efforts were successful, but Rossington later dropped out of high school to focus on Lynyrd Skynyrd full-time.

Rossington’s instrument of choice was a 1959 Gibson Les Paul which he had purchased from a woman whose boyfriend had left her and left behind his guitar. He named it “Berniece” in honor of his mother, whom he was extremely close to after the death of his father. Rossington played lead guitar on “Tuesday’s Gone” and the slide guitar for “Free Bird”. Along with Collins, Rossington also provided the guitar work for “Simple Man”. Besides the Les Paul, he used various other Gibson Guitars including Gibson SGs. Gibson later released a Gary Rossington SG/Les Paul in their Custom Shop. For most of his career, he played through Marshall and Peavey amplifiers.

“Free Bird” was not an immediate hit. After all, Skynyrd was on Al Kooper’s Sounds of the South label, distributed by MCA, and you remember Skynyrd’s song about MCA, right? And just a sidenote re Al… He produced the first three LPs, the band’s best work… Better than the iconic Tom Dowd’s stuff thereafter.

So… Skynyrd penetrated the populace kind of slowly with their first album “Pronounced ….. This was not “Led Zeppelin IV,” where “Stairway to Heaven” was immediately added to playlists. In truth, Skynyrd didn’t really break through nationwide or globally until the second album, “Second Helping,” with “Sweet Home Alabama.”

It’s when their tracks started to permeate FM radio…

God, if today’s youngsters lived through the days of AOR in the seventies. EVERYBODY listened, the FM rock station was the heartbeat of America. If you tuned in, you learned everything you needed to survive. And you never missed a show because you were unaware of it, when a band came to town…

So as the decade wore on, and they had the Memorial 500 and other holiday countdowns, number one was always “Stairway to Heaven.” Number two was “Free Bird.” And eventually “Kashmir” was number three. Always, year after year.

You see Lynyrd Skynyrd had three lead guitarists. We’d seen two drummers, but three lead guitarists? It pushed the music over the line, made it special, magical. It was called a Guitar Army…Not Navy or Air Force, but Army, because that’s where most Southern Boys ended up in real life.

In 1976, Rossington and fellow Skynyrd guitarist Allen Collins were both involved in separate car accidents in their hometown of Jacksonville. Rossington had just bought a new Ford Torino and hit an oak tree while under the influence of alcohol and other drugs. The band was forced to postpone a tour scheduled to begin a few days later, and Rossington was fined US$5,000 for the delay his actions caused to the band’s schedule. The song “That Smell”, written by Van Zant and Collins, was based on the wreck and Rossington’s state of influence from drugs and alcohol that caused it.

“Sweet Home Alabama” was one of those one listen records. Looped you right in. I asked Al Kooper the backstory. Just after the first LP was released, the band called and asked to come up to Hot Lanta to record a new song. That wasn’t released for another year. I asked Al if he knew it was a hit. He said…IT WAS SWEET HOME ALABAMA!

Though in time Rossington fully recovered from the severe injuries sustained in the plane crash, and later played on stage again, with steel rods in his right arm and right leg, he battled serious drug addiction for several years, largely the result of his heavy dependence on pain medication taken during his recovery. Rossington co-founded the Rossington Collins Band with Collins in 1980. The band released two albums, but disbanded in 1982 after the death of Collins’ wife, Kathy.

One important thing you’ve got to know is Ronnie Van Zant was the frontman and the band leader, and not a reluctant one like Gregg Allman. Ronnie had a large personality, he was full of quotes, and he didn’t give a fuck, he’d say whatever he wanted. Point being, the rest of the band stayed relatively faceless. You only knew the rest of the players from the album covers. But the key songwriters were Van Zant, Allen Collins, occasionally Ed King and Gary Rossington. Rossington had his hands all over the hits.

Even though no one could replace Ronnie, the Skynyrd legend could not be kept down. Ultimately, around 1987, the band was reformed with Ronnie’s brother Johnny as lead vocalist, and over time the original players came and went, and then they ultimately passed away. For the next 30 or so years they kept touring with limited interruptions and no…It’s not like Gary Rossington’s death is a shock. He had so many health problems, it seemed inevitable. He  suffered a heart attack on October 8, 2015, after which two Lynyrd Skynyrd concerts had to be canceled; he underwent emergency heart surgery in July 2021…and then he finally gave out on March 5, 2023. 

Even if every original member of Lynyrd Skynyrd is dead…the music of Lynyrd Skynyrd is still young. Doesn’t sound dated. Sounds as fresh as the seventies, when rock ruled the world, when we thought it could never die.

Skynyrd was not background. It wasn’t the soundtrack to a video game. The band and its music stood alone. That was enough. No brand extensions were necessary. Ronnie Van Zant’s identity, the band’s image was enough. Long after all the perfumes and other chozzerai the “musicians” of today are purveying is gone, they’ll still be playing Skynyrd music.

You see our music wasn’t momentary, it was FOREVER! And a good portion still is.

But you can only really get the hit by listening to the records. And no one else could be Ronnie Van Zant and Gary Rossington. Without them, without either of them, it’s not Skynyrd. A band. Self-contained. Living the life we all wanted to. The dream was to go on the road, at least go backstage, just to touch, to be in the presence of these giants.

So it’s the end of an era, and those of us still here are left with this empty feeling. 

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Hilton Valentine 1/2021

Hilton Valentine – The Animals, was born on 21 May 1943 in North Shields, Northumberland, England, and was influenced by the 1950s skiffle craze – a kind of fusion of American folk, country, jazz and blues-. His mother bought him his first guitar in 1956 when he was 13, he taught himself some chords from a book called “Teach Yourself a Thousand Chords“. He continued to develop his musical talent at Tynemouth High School and formed his own skiffle group called the Heppers. They played local gigs and a newspaper described them at the time as, “A young but promising skiffle group”. The Heppers eventually evolved into a rock and roll band, the Wildcats in c. 1959. The Wildcats became a popular band in the Tyneside area, getting a lot of bookings for dance halls, working men’s clubs, church halls etc., and it was during this period that they decided to record a 10″ acetate LP titled Sounds of the Wild Cats. 

But then came the Animals! The group was formed in 1963 when Eric Burdon joined the Alan Price Rhythm and Blues Combo, which already included the other original members of The Animals. There are different versions of the origin of the name of the band. Some say they were nicknamed that way because of their “animal” attitude on stage and because they were sticky. Others say it was in honor of a friend of Eric Burdon’s who was nicknamed “animal”. They soon began to get noticed and in 1964, they moved to London to play at various well-known clubs in the capital.

Their style drew elements from blues, creating a style of psychedelic rock and hard rock that was unique for its time and influenced many later bands and artists. The Animals’ best-known song is “The House of The Rising Sun”, which reached number one on the popularity charts in both the UK and the United States.

Now the Animals were hobbled by being on MGM Records, which was never cool. We knew that back then, we saw the labels on the 45s, we knew the orange and yellow of Capitol, the red of Columbia…MGM was a lame label, without the infrastructure of its big time competitors. But the Animals were giants.

It was the summer of ’64. The summer of “A Hard Day’s Night.” The British Invasion was in full swing, our minds had expanded to encompass the work of seemingly everything from the U.K., assuming it was good. And the Animals were.

At that point most people had no idea “House of the Rising Sun” was a Dave Van Ronk staple, never mind being on Bob Dylan’s first LP, it was the rock sound that put the Animals’ version over the top. Of course you had Eric Burdon’s vocal, but there is not a boomer alive, that’s how ubiquitous hit songs were back then, who doesn’t know the opening guitar lick to “House of the Rising Sun.” That arpeggio lick was played by Hilton Valentine.

Now the original incarnation of the Animals only lasted until 1966. Sure, their hit-making era was only three years, from ’64-’66, but they’d paid dues before that, beginning in ’62, in Newcastle upon Tyne, an industrial area without the hipness of Liverpool, never mind London. The Animals had a dark name and they were perceived as dark. But they had a slew of hits.

“House of the Rising Sun”, of course was their breakthrough, and went to #1, but “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” which only went to #13 in the U.S., was a bigger song, probably better remembered. Barry Mann and Cynthia Well wrote it, but the Animals made it their own, and it did not have the legacy of a standard, it was fresh, brand new.

As for “It’s My Life”…Eric Burdon was gonna ride that serpent, he was gonna break loose, because..

“It’s my life and I’ll do what I want
It’s my mind and I’ll think what I want”

This was the ethos of the sixties, it’s not the ethos of today. Our parents were not fighting us for attention, there was no question of them being our best friends, we were throwing off the chains of society, of expectations, we were gonna forge our own path.

It’s a great song, Burdon delivers it, but never underestimate the importance of Hilton Valentine’s twelve string guitar. And the Animals had other hits, but “Don’t Bring Me Down” is probably my favorite.

“When you complain and criticize
I feel I’m nothing in your eyes
It makes me feel like giving up
Because my best just ain’t good enough”

The hormones had awoken. Puberty was in full swing. What you wanted was too often unattainable. You had crushes. But to them you barely existed, if at all. But to you, they were everything. The only thing you had to soothe yourself was this music.

“Oh, oh no
Don’t bring me down”

Now in the case of “Don’t Bring Me Down” one cannot underestimate the importance of Dave Rowberry’s organ, and Eric Burdon sings with nuance, something absent from too much of today’s music, and it’s a great Gerry Goffin/Carole King song, but what truly makes “Don’t Bring Me Down” a hit is Hilton Valentine’s fuzz guitar. It’s a bedrock element of rock history. And you probably had no idea who Hilton Valentine was. He’s that guy!

Valentine left The Animals for a solo career after the original line-up split in 1966. He was very close with Eric Burdon and while there was no touring, Hilton lived in the downstairs basement apartment of Eric’s Laurel Canyon home and when Burdon became frontman for War, he took Hilton Valentine with him on tour as their guitar tech. Valentine went on to take part in several reunions and toured with Burdon in 2007. He never left the music.
Based in Connecticut with his wife Germaine in recent years, he also released music with his band Skiffledog.

Hilton Valentine died 29 January 2021 at the age of 77.

Our heroes no longer die before their time, they don’t O.D., their bodies give out and they’re gone, and there are so many of them these days that their deaths are less shocking and get less attention, after all, nobody lives forever.

Eric Burdon paid tribute to Valentine on Instagram, writing: “The opening opus of Rising Sun will never sound the same!… You didn’t just play it, you lived it! Heartbroken by the sudden news of Hilton’s passing.
“We had great times together, Geordie lad. From the North Shields to the entire world…Rock In Peace.”

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Tim Bogert – 1/2021

Tim Bogert, bassist for Vanilla Fudge

Tim Bogert – (Vanilla Fudge)  Born John Voorhis Bogert III on Aug. 27, 1944 in New York City, he grew up playing multiple instruments. When Tim was eight years old, he was already riding his bicycle to piano lessons. The piano lessons, however, were soon replaced by Little League. Music was in him, though and at thirteen, Little League was then replaced by a clarinet. Soon thereafter, Tim picked up the saxophone and played in his high school marching band. Time was living in New Jersey by now and he met a friend named Dale. They formed a band called The Belltones with Tim playing sax and made good money playing gigs around New Jersey at high school dances and VFW halls. This band evolved into The Chessmen. 

The Chessmen were introduced by WADO disk jockey Allen Fredericks, who helped them get gigs backing up doowop groups such as The Shirelles, The Crest, The Earl, and The Doves. The Chessmen were now playing New York City. With the advent of surf music which didn’t have much sax, Tim Bogert then picked up the electric bass.
After Tim left high school, he was in and out of a number of bands in the NYC area. In 1965, he went on a lounge tour of the Eastern Seaboard with Rick Martin and the Showmen, where he met Mark Stein, the keyboardist and vocalist. The two of them hit it off, and they soon left to join with drummer Joey Brennan and guitarist Vince Martell to form their own band, The Pigeons. After recording an album called “While the World was Eating”, they replaced drummer Joe Brennan with Carmine Appice and changed the name of the band to Vanilla Fudge.

“We had just gotten a recording contract from Atlantic Records, and the name Pigeons was taken, so in a couple of hours we had to think of a new name,” Bogert told For Bass Players Only in 2010. “Mark’s cousin’s nickname was ‘Vanilla Fudge’ — no, I don’t know why — and this name was picked and agreed to by everyone. It had nothing to do with blue-eyed soul!”

The band, known for fusing strains of psychedelia and proto-metal, mingled originals with cover songs on their early albums, including heavy takes on the Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride” and Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready.” Their 1967 take on the Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” served as the soundtrack to the climatic scene of Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

The song that took them to the top was a cover of the Supremes, titled “You keep me hanging on. According to Mark Stein, he and Tim were “hanging out” one day in early 1967 when You Keep Me Hanging On by The Supremes came on the radio. They both agreed that the words were very soulful and that the song was too fast. Tim replies that they took the idea to slow it down back to Vince and Carmine. They performed it that night and refined the arrangement over the next few weeks and the rest is history. It was recorded in one take and that’s the version we’ve been listening to for fifty years! The album soared to number 3 on the national charts behind The Beatles and The Supremes. It stayed on the charts for over 200 weeks! The first notes Tim plays in the intro to this symphonic rock piece indicate his incredible speed and his unique ability take you on a “bass trip” while continuously doing what a bass player is supposed to do; holding down the bottom and completing the rhythm section. This was the emerging Tim Bogert style.

Tim recorded five albums with Vanilla Fudge between 1967 and 1969. As Vanilla Fudge matured, so did his style, on both the melodic and rhythmic sides. His “bass trips” became even more imaginative, utilizing more effects and greater speed, yet his rhythmic grooves were just as awesome. These techniques are prevalent on the Some Velvet Morning and Break Song cuts on the Near the Beginning album. Tim and drummer Carmine Appice became undoubtedly the tightest rhythm section in rock.

The quartet released five studio albums during their ’60s run, all of which cracked the top 40 of the Billboard 200: 1967’s gold-selling Vanilla Fudge, 1968’s The Beat Goes On and Renaissance; and 1969’s Near the Beginning and Rock & Roll.

Following the breakup of Vanilla Fudge in March of 1970, Tim went on with Carmine to form Cactus with guitarist Jim McCarty (Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels), and vocalist Rusty Day(Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes). About the name says Tim, “Carmine and I were lying in the back of a limo on the way home from a gig in Arizona. We were talking about leaving the Fudge. We passed under a sign that read ‘ The Cactus Drive-In’ . It was the easiest band name we ever thought of. “

This high energy rockin’ blues band gave Tim the opportunity to further prove his ability to fill the gaps in what was essentially an instrumental trio, while maintaining his meaty, melodic style. After three studio albums, Jim McCarty left the band and was replaced by an unknown guitarist, Werner Friching, from Germany that they met in New York. Carmine once said that he and Tim had trouble with many guitarists because the two of them were “crazy musicians from New York” and were too high energy. Well, so much the loss for the guitar players! With the addition of keyboardist Duane Hitchings, from the original Buddy Miles Express and a new vocalist, Pete French, from Atomic Rooster, they recorded a fourth album ‘Ot ‘n Sweaty in 1972. This Cactus version, lasted only another seven months before breaking up completely.

The Bogert/Appice rhythm section then teamed up once again. This time with the legendary Jeff Beck. Beck, Bogert, and Appice was the new supergroup. Tim and Carmine had wanted to team up with Beck for a long time. Jeff had called them up to do a session with Stevie Wonder and were asked to join the Jeff Beck Group. They left Cactus and did a national tour with Beck.

Their rendition of Stevie Wonder’s Superstition was an instant hit. Vanilla Fudge harmonies, provided by Tim and Carmine, were evident in Lady. BBA’s live album from Japan, which was coincidentally only released in Japan and is now a collectors item, displayed the intense energy they became known for. Ray Manzerek of The Doors described BBA as “one of the great power trios of all time.”

Ultimately, Tim dissolved his partnership with Beck and moved from New York to Los Angeles.

“I did nothing for six months. Just rode my motorcycle. Then I teamed up with Steve Perry for two years.” Tim met Steve at a rehearsal studio and they put a band together called Pieces.”

After that, Tim went to England to do one session and wound up staying for three and a half years. While there, he joined a band with Chris Stainton called Boxer. They recorded one album and toured England. 1979 found Tim back in California mainly living the life of a freelance musician working local clubs on a casual basis and doing his share of studio dates with the likes of Rod Stewart on his “Foolish Behaviour” album and Bo Diddley on his “20th Anniversary of Rock ‘N’ Roll album.

“After that I went back to Europe to live in Italy for seven months to do session work and tour.” Upon his return to Los Angeles, Tim joined Bobby and the Midnights with Billy Cobham and Bob Weir. That took him on another tour of the U.S. for a year and a half. The following year, Tim toured nationally with Rick Derringer.

Bogert then joined Bobby and the Midnites, a side project formed by Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. Though he toured with the group, Bogert left before their debut album was released, joining the U.K. group Boxer in 1977. In 1981, Bogert became a faculty member at the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles, but continued to record, releasing his second album, “Master’s Brew,” in 1983 and releasing “Mystery” with Vanilla Fudge in 1984.

Over the years, Bogert contributed to multiple projects and tours, including stints with Rick Derringer, Steve Perry, Rod Stewart and others. He also participated in reunions with Vanilla Fudge and Cactus, including the former band’s 2007 record, Out Through the In Door, and the latter group’s 2006 LP, Cactus V.

In 1999, Bogert was recognized by the Hollywood Rock Walk of Fame for his contributions to the genre. Bogert continued to tour with various groups until he retired.  In August of 2005, Tim was involved in a serious motorcycle accident which left him unable to perform for a couple of years.

In August 2007, the all original Vanilla Fudge reunited again for a concert at Radio City Music Hall in New York City with Deep Purple, and continued to tour into 2008.

In 2009, resulting problems from the motorcycle accident forced Tim to reluctantly retire from touring. He was still doing session work locally in Simi Valley, California and over the Internet.

According to Bogert’s official biography, he “reluctantly” retired from touring in 2010 due to “resulting problems” from a motorcycle accident. He did, however, continue to do local session work. In 2020, Vanilla Fudge recorded “Stop In The Name Of Love”. At their invitation, Tim rejoined his buddies for this track, which would be his last recording as he was fighting cancer.

After a long battle with cancer Tim Bogert died on January 13, 2021.

“I loved Tim like a brother. He will be missed very much in my life. I will miss calling him, cracking jokes together, talking music, and remembering the great times we had together, and how we created kick-ass music together,” Carmine Appice wrote . “Perhaps the only good thing about knowing someone close to you is suffering a serious illness, is you have an opportunity to tell them that you love them, and why you love them. I did that, a lot. I was touched to hear it said back to me. Nothing was left unsaid between us and I’m grateful for that. I highly recommend it. Rest in peace, my partner. I love you. See you on the other side.”

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Dino Danelli – 12/2022

Dino Danelli – (The Young Rascals) was born July 23, 1944 into an Italian American family in Jersey City, New Jersey. Danelli trained as a jazz drummer in his early years. Barely a teenager he played with Lionel Hampton and (by 1961) was playing R&B in New Orleans. He returned to New York in 1962 with a band called Ronnie Speeks & the Elrods. Later he also worked at times with such legendary performers as Little Willie John.

Dino was a prodigy from the Jersey City-Hoboken area, making the scene in his early teens, learning from the jazz greats like Krupa and Buddy Rich who played regularly at the Metropole, a very adult Club in New York City where the management took a shine to the young star-in-the-making and set him up with a cot in a dressing room years before he made it big. “They had vision, knew something was going to happen for me.” Young Dino held a daytime gig at the Metropole with a rock and roll band, travelled to New Jersey sometimes at night with his drum kit, performed with Lionel Hampton when he was fifteen years of age. “I was watching these people like a sponge, absorbing it all. I was into music, women, the normal rock and roll vibe, watching the jazz players at night, going down to the Village. Agents would call up say ‘I need three guys, four sets, $25 a man.’ I would pick up guys—we all knew the same songs, people weren’t writing a lot back then—we were playing top 40 and R & B obscurities. One of the guitarists was Jimmy James. He went to England and became Jimi Hendrix.” After a while, Dino went to New Orleans, came back to New York, met Felix Cavaliere, joined him for a gig in Las Vegas, returned to New York and with Gene and Eddie, the Young Rascals were born.-

A clearing house for local Italian musicians in northern New Jersey at the time, was the rock group Joey Dee and the Starliters (global hits with ‘Shout’, where Cornish, Cavaliere and Brigati did ‘internships’.
Danelli first met Eddie Brigati (a pickup singer on the local R&B circuit) and Felix Cavaliere (a classically trained pianist) in 1963. Later that year, Danelli and Cavaliere traveled to Las Vegas to try their luck with a casino house band the Scotties and backed up singer Sandu Scott and her Scottys. Sandu Scott was a singer who was going to Las Vegas and coming through New York looking for a back-up band. As Dino recalled, “well Vegas is happening, there’s money in it, let’s go. So, we got aboard and went out there. Right at that time, the Beatles had just broke. We heard that and said we’ve got to do what those guys are doing. This is fabulous.”

“Felix and I had met in New York in late ’63 or ’64. We wanted to work with each other, ’cause we’d heard about each other’s playing. Around those days, word traveled really quick about happening musicians. The circle was quite small. So, he had come to see me play and we hit it off.”

They remained in Vegas until February 1964, but then ventured back to New York City where later in 1964, Danelli teamed with Cavaliere, Brigati and a Canadian-born guitarist named Gene Cornish to form the Young Rascals.

They debuted as the Young Rascals at the Choo Choo Club in Garfield, New Jersey.
Before Cavaliere and Brigati began composing original music), Danelli and Cavaliere often scouted new repertory that the group could perform. In a 1988 interview, he cited their trips to record stores as yielding such songs as “Mustang Sally” and “Good Lovin’.” Dino Danelli was with the Young Rascals, later changing their name to Rascals for seven years (1965–1972).

In the beginning we were doing covers. At the time, we weren’t writing at all. We had no originals. “I Ain’t Gonna Eat My Heart Out Anymore” was written by Pam Sawyer and Laurie Burton. They were writing for Motava at that point, I think. They were just freelancing and we found that song. We had thought of trying to start to write, but there were so many things going on. We didn’t sit down and go into studios, like we did later on. Myself and Felix used to go into little record shops, that’s where we found “Good Lovin”. We found 2 or 3 other songs in record shops – “Mustang Sally”, “Temptation Out To Get Me”, all strong songs in our show. Then, after “Good Lovin”, we got into the studio and started writing heavily. It all started to happen then.”

The songwriting partnership between Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati began to flourish. Cavaliere wrote the music and themes, and Brigati, the verses with the former’s help. Their second album, Collections, had four Cavaliere/Brigati songs and two Cornish originals in its eleven tracks.

Between 1966 and 1968 the act embraced soul music, reaching the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 with nine singles, including the #1s “Good Lovin'” (1966), “Groovin'” (1967), and “People Got to Be Free” (1968), as well as big radio hits such as the much-covered “How Can I Be Sure?” (#4 1967) and “A Beautiful Morning” (#3 1968), plus another critical favorite “A Girl Like You” (#10 1967), becoming one of the best known examples of the blue-eyed soul genre, along with the Righteous Brothers.
The Young Rascals officially became the Rascals with the release of their third long player, the concept album ‘Once Upon A Dream‘ in 1967 which also launched Dino Danelli as a visual artist.

His visual artistic talent came about in a kind of metaphysical fashion. While Dino was ensconced in his apartment creating, quite literally boxes of dreams, Felix and Eddie were writing songs for the album, the Rascals answer to Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The band stayed popular for another couple of years, especially in Canada, but as their musical direction turned more R&B and Jazz, the music world turned to hard rock and metal.
During the years the Rascals sold some 40 million records, accumulating 13 Gold and 2 Platinum albums in the process and an induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

By early 1972 it was all over and along with Cornish, Danelli formed the group Bulldog who produced two albums before disbanding in 1975. Danelli joined the Leslie West Band (West) for a short time along with bassist Busta Jones. Danelli and Cornish then joined the group Fotomaker in 1978 (initially with ex-Raspberries member Wally Bryson). By 1980, Danelli joined Steven Van Zandt as a member of Little Steven & The Disciples of Soul. Van Zandt and Springsteen were early fans of the Young Rascals.

“1980 was actually the beginning with Steven. And we didn’t go out and start working ’till the end of 1981. I’m still with Steven actually. We’ve gone to Europe a lot in the last six years. I’m his art director. I do all his graphic work, his album covers, mostly in Europe, ’cause he doesn’t get released here like he gets released in Europe.”

After performing with Cavaliere and Cornish at the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert on 14 May 1988, there was a short-lived Rascals reunion tour later that year without Brigati, apparently because of some disagreements between Brigati and Cavaliere. But all four original members came together to perform at their induction by Steven van Zandt,into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 and then once again on 24 April 2010, for the Kristen Ann Carr Fund dinner at the Tribeca Grill in Tribeca, New York City.
He reunited once again with his bandmates. The Rascals appeared at the Capital Theater in Port Chester, New York for six shows in December 2012 and for fifteen dates at the Richard Rogers Theatre on Broadway (15 April – 5 May 2013). Their production, entitled ‘Once Upon A Dream’, toured North America (Toronto, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Chicago, Detroit, Rochester, and New York City). It was produced by long-time Rascals fans, Steven Van Zandt and his wife Maureen.

Danelli was also a visual artist, based at DinoDanelliArt.com, and designed album covers for The Rascals and Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul.

Dino Danelli, the first real rock drummer, died from congestive heart failure and other heart related disease on December 15, 2022.
Danelli’s friend and band archivist Joe Russo shared the news on the drummer’s official Facebook page, sharing an extensive message about his health issues and “primary challenges” of coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure.

“To know Dino, you must understand that art was his life,” Russo wrote. “Art, music and film consumed his mind and his heart. He was an insomniac, sometimes staying awake for days, because he was always writing, reading, painting, drawing, watching films. He was beyond private and for someone who many consider one of the greatest drummers of all time, humble to a fault.”

He has been called “one of the great unappreciated rock drummers in history”. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 with the (Young) Rascals.

The End of an Era

Dino Danelli totally changed rock n’ roll drumming. Before him it was the paradiddle musings on guys like Ron Wilson of The Surfaris or Sandy Nelson. Both great, but mainly driven by the snare heavy prominence of high school marching bands. Dino’s twirling was great but his KICK changed everything.  Suddenly the ballsy kick heavy drummers from NJ, the Bronx and Long Island followed in his wake. Guys like Carmine Appice, John Barbata and Tom Scarpinato. If you were at any concerts at the NY State World’s Fair in 1964-65 you saw the change. This time around the Brits followed us with heavy kick players like Bonham, Baker and the vastly underrated B.J. Wilson. Every week it seems we are calling it the “end of an era”, but Dino’s passing truly is one. After Dino came Ginger Baker, the drum solo. But Ginger’s dead too. So many of them are already gone, with more on the way. If you didn’t see them, you never will.
Rock and roll is a hard mistress. What seems like forever is really just a few years long. When you’re young you think these bands will last forever. But few do. Except for the superstars, the rest go on to straight jobs, or die prematurely. It’s weird, without education or experience so many end up doing manual labor. They were our heroes, and now…

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Kim Simmonds – 12/2022

Kim Simmonds (Savoy Brown) was born Kim Maiden Simmonds on Dec. 5, 1947 in Caerphilly, Wales, to Henry Simmonds, an electrician, and Phyllis (Davies) Simmonds, a homemaker. As a child, he was drawn to the early rock ’n’ roll albums owned by his older brother, Harry, who later worked for Bill Haley’s British fan club.
“My brother took me to see all the rock ’n’ roll movies,I grew up with all that: Little Richard, Bill Haley and, of course, Elvis.”
By age 10 he had moved with his family to London, where his brother took him to jazz record stores that also sold blues albums. The singer and pianist Memphis Slim — one of the sophisticated blues guys that could keep one foot in the jazz world and one foot in the blues world became a favorite.
Simmonds bought his first guitar at 13 and began imitating the blues licks on the records he loved. So intent was he on a music career that he never completed high school.

A chance meeting at a record shop in 1965 with the harmonica player John O’Leary led to the formation of what was initially called the Savoy Brown Blues Band. (The first word in the name echoed the name of an important American jazz and R&B label) The group’s initial lineup featured six players, two of them Black — the singer Brice Portius and the drummer Leo Manning — making them one of the few multiracial bands on the British rock scene of the 1960s. Continue reading Kim Simmonds – 12/2022

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Wilko Johnson – 11/2022

Wilko Johnson (Dr. Feelgood) was born John Andrew Wilkinson on 12 July 1947 in Canvey Island, Essex, UK. One of his earliest memories was of the 1953 floods, which hit low-lying Canvey badly and caused many deaths. His father, a gas-fitter, was “a stupid and uneducated and violent person”, according to his son, and died when Wilko was a teenager. Canvey became a romantic place in Johnson’s mind, with its lonely views of the Thames estuary overshadowed by the towers and blazing fires of the nearby Shell Haven oil refinery. Johnson and his contemporaries dubbed the area the Thames Delta, in homage to the Mississippi Delta, which spawned the blues musicians they admired.
He first began playing the guitar after watching the Shadows on television, then later was inspired by Mick Green, guitarist with Johnny Kidd & the Pirates. Green’s knack for mixing up lead and rhythm guitar parts had a clear influence on Johnson’s technique. Wilko instinctively began to play left-handed, but forced himself to switch to right-handed. When he found that playing right-handed meant he could not hold a plectrum, he perfected a way of flicking his fingernails across the strings, which helped him to play the speedy, slashing rhythms that became his stock-in-trade. Continue reading Wilko Johnson – 11/2022

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Jeff LaBar 7/2021

jeff labar, lead guitar for cinderellaJeff LaBar (lead guitarist for Cinderella), born March 18, 1963 in Darby, Pennsylvania, he was of American and Japanese ancestry through his mother, June. He grew up in Upper Darby, , where he received primary education. Jeff had a particularly close relationship with his mother, June, who was his biggest inspiration in life. Young Jeff picked up guitar playing as a teenager, inspired by his older brother Jack, and he joined the local rock band Cinderella, replacing Cinderella’s original guitarist, Michael Schermick in 1985. The band was formed 3 years earlier and developed a following in the region, but with the arrival of LaBar, the band sparked into international stardom, with a string of platinum selling albums.

Jeff’s biggest musical influences though his early career were 1970s British rock bands, such as Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, while he also enjoyed the psychedelic music of Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull and Genesis. In later years, he grew a liking to a heavier style of rock, particularly played by Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath.

Cinderella received first major recognition from the Kiss bass guitarist Gene Simmons, who tried to get them a deal with Kiss’ record label PolyGram, which the members of Cinderella ended up declining. However, after watching them perform in 1984, Jon Bon Jovi convinced the Mercury/Polygram Records executive Derek Shulman to sign Cinderella to his label, after extensive negotiations.
Cinderella released their debut album, “Night Songs” in August 1986, which became a huge success, launching the band into international stardom. Continue reading Jeff LaBar 7/2021

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Spencer Davis – 10/2020

Spencer Davis was born Spencer David Nelson Davies on 17 July 1939 in Swansea. He later changed his name to Davis because he disliked being called “Daveys”. A musical child, he took up the harmonica and accordion and although he passed seven O-levels at Dynevor School, Swansea, he left at 16 and moved to London where he landed a job with HM Customs and Excise. He did not take to it. “We always wrote in red ink,” he remembered, “it was like writing in my own blood. I thought I was writing my life away.” After 18 months he returned to school to study for A-levels, became head boy and in 1960 enrolled at Birmingham University.

By then he was an enthusiastic amateur musician, keen on skiffle, jazz and blues, and an accomplished guitarist, influenced by the rhythm and blues he heard on the radio and on records imported from America. As a student he often performed on stage in the evenings, playing in folk clubs in and around Birmingham. In music circles, Davis was later known as “Professor”.

His early musical influences were skiffle, jazz and blues. Musical artists who influenced Davis include Big Bill Broonzy, Huddy Ledbetter, Buddy Holly, Davey Graham, John Martyn, Alexis Korner and Long John Baldry. By the time he was 16, Davis was hooked on the guitar and the American rhythm and blues music making its way across the Atlantic. With few opportunities to hear R&B in South Wales, Davis attended as many local gigs as practically possible. Continue reading Spencer Davis – 10/2020

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Peter Green – 7/2020

Peter Green – July 25, 2020.  Born Peter Allen Greenbaum, Peter was born into a Jewish family, the youngest of Joe and Ann Greenbaum’s four children, on Oct. 29, 1946, in Bethnal Green, London’s East End. His grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Poland and Ukraine. Fascism and anti-Semitism were on the rise in England as well as Germany in the years before WWII — thugs threw bricks and bottles through the windows of Jewish homes in London’s East End. After the war, Peter’s father officially changed the family name to Green.
The gift of a cheap guitar by his older brother Len, who had lost interest in learning how to play, put the 10-year-old Green on a musical path.
His other brother, Michael, taught him his first guitar chords and by the age of 11 Green was teaching himself. He began playing professionally by the age of 15, while working for a number of east London shipping companies. He first played bass guitar in a band called Bobby Dennis and the Dominoes, which performed pop chart covers and rock ‘n’ roll standards, including instrumentals from the Shadows (Cliff Richards’ backing band at the time). He later stated that Hank Marvin, lead guitarist for the Shadows was one of his guitar heroes and he played the Shadows’ song “Midnight” on the 1996 tribute album Twang.

He went on to join a rhythm and blues outfit, the Muskrats, then a band called the Tridents in which he also played bass. His reputation as a genuine blues guitarist grew rapidly and it was right around his 20th birthday when he got his first big exposure break, replacing Eric Clapton in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers — initially for just 4 gigs in October 1965, after Clapton abruptly took off for a Greek holiday. Continue reading Peter Green – 7/2020

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Christine McVie – 11/2022

Christine McVieChristine McVie was born Christine Anne Perfect on July 12, 1943, in the Lake District of England to Cyril Perfect, a classical violinist and college music professor and Beatrice (Reece) Perfect, a psychic.
Her father encouraged her to start taking classical piano lessons when she was 11. Her focus changed radically four years later when she came across some sheet music for Fats Domino songs. At that moment “It was goodbye Chopin.”
“I started playing the boogie bass. I got hooked on the blues. And the songs I write use that left hand. It’s rooted in the blues.”

Christine Perfect studied sculpture at Birmingham Art College and for a while considered becoming an art teacher. At the same time, she briefly played in a duo and had a personal relationship with Welsh guitarist Spencer Davis, who, along with a teenage Steve Winwood, would later find fame in the Spencer Davis Group. She also helped form a band named Shades of Blue with several future members of Chicken Shack.

After graduating from college in 1966, she moved to London and became a window dresser for a department store.
As the sixties started swinging, she started performing with bands, eventually falling in with blues group Chicken Shack. Later, she was asked to join Chicken Shack as keyboardist and sometime singer. She wrote two songs for the band’s debut album, “40 Blue Fingers, Freshly Packed and Ready to Serve.” Even though her style never totally fitted with the group’s more raucous sound, the subtler songs she fronted ended up finding the greatest commercial success. She scored a No. 14 British hit with Chicken Shack on a cover of Etta James’s “I’d Rather Go Blind” for which she sang lead and Melody Maker readers voted her best female vocalist in both 1969 and 70. While Chicken Shack supported Fleetwood Mac on tour, Christine Perfect fell in love with Mac’s bassist John McVie and they married in 1968. Christine McVie served in Fleetwood Mac during several incarnations that dated to 1971, but she also had uncredited roles playing keyboards and singing backup as far back as the band’s second album, released in 1968. Continue reading Christine McVie – 11/2022

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The Famous Grace Slick Salute

The famous Grace Slick Salute was giving the middle finger. In 1965 Grace Slick, a 26 year old San Francisco department store model, and her cinematographer husband Jerry had become bored with their conventional marriage. They decided to liven things up a bit. First, they would embrace free love and polyamory (in the common vernacular they became swingers). Second, they would begin experimenting with LSD. Third, after seeing The Jefferson Airplane perform Grace and Jerry decided that the embryonic San Francisco rock scene looked like a whole lot of fun and formed a band.

Grace had been playing piano and organ since childhood. Jerry was a drummer, his brother Darby played guitar and their friend David Miner was a bass player. They formed The Great Society, a band with an eastern modal approach to psychedelic rock. The Great Society was soon sharing the bill with bands like The Grateful Dead, Big Brother and The Holding Company and Jefferson Airplane.

In 1966 Jefferson Airplane’s female vocalist Signe Toly Anderson left the band when her pregnancy made it uncomfortable to tour. Grace Slick was asked to join. She hit the ground running, contributing two songs she had recorded with The Great Society: “Somebody To Love” and “White Rabbit”. Both songs were hits and Surrealistic Pillow was one of the albums that provided the soundtrack for The Summer of Love (1967).

Grace Slick was now a rockstar. She embraced all of the excesses of a life centered in Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll. When it came to sex Grace’s trophies include everyone in Jefferson Airplane except Marty Balin and a roster of 60’s rockstars that includes Jim Morrison. When it came to drugs Grace Slick was not only the acid queen but very few of men could keep up with her drinking. Grace Slick used every 60’s and 70’s drug with the exception of heroin. (The decision to abstain from that drug is what kept her off the drug casualty list.) As a rocker Grace Slick played Monterey, Woodstock and Altamont, the three most important rock festivals of the 1960’s.

Grace Slick’s rap sheet is longer than Keith Richards. Here are a few of the highlights.

Drunk Mouth Arrests “Up against the wall, motherfucker!” More than one cop has been given the finger by Grace Slick.

Most of Grace Slick’s arrests have been misdemeanor drunk and disorderlies. Basically, when Grace gets drunk and sees cops she will start baiting them. It can be at a party, a concert or hotel lobby. She did it several times from the stage. If no microphone is available she will deliver one of her iconic one finger salutes. To say that Grace Slick has a problem with authority would be an understatement She had more balls than most sixties radicals..

Attempted to Dose President Richard Nixon with LSD

In 1970 outside The White House with hippie radical Abbie Hoffman.

In 1970, unbeknownst to the Nixon Administration, The Acid Queen received an invitation to a tea party at The White House. One of the colleges Grace Slick attended was Finch College in New York. Another Finch graduate was Tricia Nixon whose father had recently taken office. Invitations went out to all Finch alumni to a reunion at The White House. Grace decided she could end the Vietnam War by dosing Richard Nixon with acid. She brought 60’s radical hippie Abbie Hoffman as her plus one and enough LSD to spike the tea. The Secret Service recognized Hoffman and denied the couple entry.

Racing In The Streets

Jorma Kaukonen racing a mini-bike. In 1971 he pulled Grace Slick from her burning Aston Martin after she challenged him to a street race.

Jefferson Airplane lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen had a passion for speed. He would race anything from go carts to sports cars. He even spent a winter in Finland learning how to speed skate.

In 1971, after a recording session that went into the wee wee hours, Grace Slick decided to challenge Jorma to a street race on the streets of San Francisco. On Doyle Drive Grace Slick spun out and hit a bridge abutment. The Aston Martin was totaled. Grace walked away with a few scratches and made the recording session the next evening.

 

The Acid Queen Declares War On Germany

Between 1974 and 1978 Grace Slick, Paul Kantner and Marty Balin had a string of four hit albums as Jefferson Starship. In 1978 they were headlining a festival in Hamburg. Grace Slick was too drunk to perform. The fans rioted and set the band’s equipment on fire. Grace Slick, the erstwhile 60’s radical anti-war activist, declared war on Germany.

The band (including singer Grace Slick) was on tour in Europe to promote the recently released Earth album when a stop in Germany deteriorated into a confusing mess. “She’d always had a thing about Germany,” Jeff Tamarkin wrote in the band bio Got a Revolution! “All things Deutsche brought out the worst in her.”

During the tour of Europe, Slick fell ill. At first, everyone thought her stomach virus was a result of food poisoning. But a doctor diagnosed appendicitis and told Slick she was well enough to perform. A show in Wiesbaden was canceled, but the next night’s concert in Hamburg was still on.

As showtime neared, Slick tore into an alcohol-fueled tantrum, throwing bottles, refusing to get ready for the concert and demanding more booze from room service. By the time the band got onstage, she was in no condition to perform. The show was filmed for the German music program Rockpalast, but never aired – maybe because Slick began taunting the audience, repeatedly asking, “Who won the war?” She also called them Nazis and gave the “Heil Hitler!” salute onstage.

“I’m in Germany and I’m gonna get back at them for Dachau, or some dumb drunken decision,” Slick recalled in Tamarkin’s book. “That’s what that night was about: dumb, drunken decisions. So, they started walking out, but they kept coming back, like: ‘Maybe she’ll do something really hideous and we will have missed it.’ A freak show.”

She stepped in front of the camera and gave the viewers at home a close up of the famous Grace Slick one finger salute. Then she lept from the stage and stuck her middle finger up the nose of some poor concert goer who scored tickets for the front row. The fallout? Marty Balin quit the band and Grace was fired. Grace went to rehab and returned to the band three years later.

Armed Standoff With Police

After a late 1980’s reunion tour with Jefferson Airplane Grace Slick retired from music. She didn’t believe that people over the age of fifty should be performing as rock musicians. She took up painting and lived off her royalties. Retirement, however, did not slow down Grace Slick.

On March 4,1994 Grace Slick started chasing her boyfriend around her house and property with a shotgun, firing it several times. When the Tiburon California Police showed up she stood on her porch and pointed the shotgun at the cops demanding that they leave her property. During a moment’s distraction the cops wrestled the shotgun from her. Grace Slick was arrested and changed with several felonies. A plea bargain allowed her to get away with a fine, probation and a stint in rehab.

Rock’s Ultimate Survivors?

Grace Slick is now in her eighties. She survived several health scares. She lives in Malibu, California and sells paintings. Grace Slick is one of rock’s ultimate survivors and deserves to be included in the same group of badasses as Keith Richards, Ozzy Osborne, Iggy Pop and Lemmy.

Grace Slick with the other two surviving members of Jefferson Airplane, Jack Casady (l) and Jorma Kaukonen(r).

“Hello you fools You got Rembrandts on the mantle and a Rolls in the garage but your old man wouldn’t know a clitoris from a junk bond even if you had the guts to show him your twat in the first place.”Grace Slick speaking to an audience of wealthy patrons at The Whitney Museum of Art.

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Not So Random Selection of Top Acts of the first British Music Invasion

About  60 years ago, the invasion of British Pop and Rock music was spearheaded by the Beatles appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. As a result, in a short period of time the thermometer in the American music scene, the Billboard Top 100, changed dramatically. Here are the major top British acts considered as game changers.

The Beatles: Beatlemania didn’t happen for nothing. They weren’t an average boyband. Lennon and McCartney were divinely touched, possessing the ability to write pop songs that were pretty and not sappy. Harrison was truly an innovator on the guitar, finding the strange notes to use rather than the obvious ones. He also never overstayed his welcome, with solos short and concise, making every second count. How four men could transform several times between 1962 and 1965 is amazing. Moving from pop classics like “Please Please Me”  and “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” to mature songs like “In My Life” and “Nowhere Man” in such little time is evidence enough as to why they resonate so many decades later. The Beatles as a band called it quits in 1969, after which time all four members started solo careers, with Paul McCarthy gaining most success. He is still doing 3 hour sold out shows at age 80 in 2022. Sadly John Lennon was murdered in New York City in December 1980 and George Harrison died of cancer in 2001, while Ringo still tours strong at the age of 82.

The Rolling Stones: Always showing off a hard edge, the Stones kept the blues alive and well in their early days. Pushed by their manager Andrew Loog Oldham, Jagger and Richards started writing their own compositions and quickly learned how to make a tune that was rough around the edges without succumbing to cheap shock-value. The Beatles were masters of gorgeous love songs, but the Stones were the masters of fury and blue collar disgust. “Satisfaction,” “The Last Time,” “19th Nervous Breakdown,” and “Play With Fire” all show these boys, some of the top musicians of their day, in gleeful rage. Today the Stones are considered the world’s best rock and roll band, as they still fill up stadium venues in 2024, even though drummer Charly Watts is no longer with us. He passed away at age 80 in 2022.

The Kinks: Before singer/songwriter Ray Davies started reflecting on the beauty and futility of English culture, The Kinks were pioneers of hard rock. “You Really Got Me”  and “All Day and All of the Night” was the testament of four wild men.However, it wasn’t long before they began letting Indian influences into their songs, as in “See My Friends.” Their best Invasion period tracks, “A Well-Respected Man,” and “Lola” showed off Ray’s wit, an attack on the upper classes and a preview of the satirical nature of their future songs.

 

The Who: Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, Keith Moon, and John Entwistle were only in the British Invasion era for its last year (1965), but they stuck out immediately. One didn’t need to see them live to feel their energy. “My Generation” and “I Can’t Explain”, “Substitute”, created the dawn of a new direction in rock (even if The Kinks probably deserve more credit for the sound than they received). “The Kids Are Alright” was clearly influenced by The Beatles, but included that energy that was purely that of The Who. Few bands, to this day, put such vigor into their work. Everyone was pulling their weight. The band’s talent was clear progressive as they managed to change their musical directions when they introduced the rock operas Quadrophenia and Tommy in the late 1960s.

The Zombies: Led by Rod Argent’s glorious keyboard and Colin Blunstone’s pristine vocals, the Zombies still seem an oddity in the British Invasion canon. There weren’t really any other bands that based their songs off of keyboard riffs. “Tell Her No” and “Is This The Dream?” showed off a Motown vibe by a band that was all about capturing a cool atmosphere. Sadly, they were quickly forgotten after the height of the Invasion even though they recorded two lasting evergreens with “She’s Not There” and the incredible “Time of the Season”. When they parted ways Blunstone and Argent found successful careers.

The Yardbirds: Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton were leading this group, one that gave garage rock a perfect start, before they became household names. Working off of the Chicago blues, as the Stones loved, the Yardbirds combined it with a raucous, experimental feel, much because of the prowess and talent of the lead guitar players and the harmonica talent of singer Keith Relf. “Heart Full of Soul,”Shapes of Things,” and particularly “For Your Love” stood out because they had a raw intensity that no one else was really trying at the time. Relf later founded the prog rock band Renaissance with his sister Jane.

The Animals: Eric Burdon has one of the most soulful voices of all-time and, together with Alan Price’s mastery on keyboards, it was the glue that kept the Animals together. They were also one of the most socially conscious acts across the pond. Whether it was their take on “House of the Rising Sun,” “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” or “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” The Animals spoke for the working class with no apologies. “House of the Rising Sun” became the starter song for every kid wanting to learn to play the guitar, simply because of Hilton Valentine’s repetitive picking and chord progression. Alan Price on keyboards founded the Alan Price Set after the Animals broke up and Chas Chandler started managing Jimi Hendrix..

Herman’s Hermits: A band that prided themselves in light pop songs, Peter Noone led Herman’s Hermits. “I’m Henry The Eighth,” “There’s A Kind of Hush,” and “I’m Into Something Good” had staying power because they don’t take themselves too seriously. The hit song “No Milk Today” is a prime example of this. The arrangements are lovely, but their best track is the stripped down “Listen People,” based on a descending chord progression, that is utterly beautiful.

The Hollies: Before Graham Nash teamed with David Crosby and Stephen Stills to form the supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash, he took part in a group that became big on covers and light pop songs. The result was one of the most accessible bands of their time. Being able to churn out hits like “Bus Stop”, “I’m Alive” and “Look Out Any Window,” the Hollies would hit their peak just at the end of what is referred to as the British Invasion, but still earned their names among the greats. Other great songs that came from Graham Nash’s pen were: “Carrie Ann”, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s my Brother”, and his parting gift to the Hollies “On a Carousel”.

 

Dave Clark 5: “Glad All Over,” “Bits and Pieces”,“Because,” and “Put A Little Love In Your Heart” are among the best songs of their time because they showed off an ease. Some of the best songs are based on sadness and anger, but there is something appealing about the Dave Clark 5’s ability to create breezy tunes that didn’t carry much weight. They were the second group of the British Invasion to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show in the United States (for two weeks in March 1964 following the Beatles’ three weeks the previous month). They would ultimately have 18 appearances on the show. The DC5 were one of the most commercially successful acts of the British Invasion, releasing seventeen top 40 hits in the US between 1964 and 1967.

Manfred Mann: Supported by the sound of double keyboards, Manfred Mann was primarily a blues/jazz based often changing line up of great London musicians that turned into a pop-r&b monster for a few years. They also became the first southern-England-based group to top the US Billboard Hot 100 during the British Invasion with a cover of the Exciter’s “Doo Wah Diddy Diddy”. The track reached the top of the UK, Canadian, and US charts. With the success of “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” the sound of the group’s singles moved away from the jazzy, blues-based music of their early years to a pop hybrid that continued to make hit singles from cover material. They hit No. 3 in the UK with another girl-group cover, “Sha La La” (originally by the Shirelles), which also reached No. 12 in the US and Canada, and followed it with the sentimental “Come Tomorrow” (originally by Marie Knight). Another hit during the British Invasion period was “Pretty Flamingo”. After singer Paul Jones left in 1966 to go back to the blues, he was replaced by Mike d’Abo who managed to take the band to another height in 1968 with the Dylan-penned “Mighty Quin”. The band called it quits in 1969.

The British Invasion years into the US Music scene started the essence of what happened to Rock and Roll in the decades that followed. The essence of the invasion was that British bands took most American blues and R&B sounds and songs and gave them their own innovations, rhythm changes and instrument adjustments. Some other notable examples of this era are The Fortunes, the Small Faces and lesser known Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Troggs a.o.

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Dan McCafferty 11-2022

William Daniel McCafferty (14 October 1946 – 8 November 2022) was born in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland where he attended St Margaret’s school. He had no formal musical training, but in 1965 he joined the Shadettes, who dressed in matching yellow suits and played cover versions of Top 30 pop hits in local venues such as the Belleville Hotel and Kinema Ballroom. Every week the band had to add three new songs from the charts to their repertoire, learning them on Sunday afternoon to perform that night.

The Shadettes had been in existence since 1961, and when McCafferty joined, its members included bassist Pete Agnew and drummer Darrell Sweet. In 1968 Manny Charlton, who passed away earlier in May of this year (2022), joined as lead guitarist, and in December that year the foursome changed their name to Nazareth, inspired by the Band’s song The Weight and its line about pulling into Nazareth “feelin’ ’bout half past dead”. The reference was to the Pennsylvania town, rather than any Biblical connotation.

With financial backing and management from a local bingo-halls millionaire, Bill Fehilly, the band moved to London in 1970. Continue reading Dan McCafferty 11-2022

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Jerry Lee Lewis – 10/2022

Jerry Lee Lewis was born on Sept. 29, 1935, in Ferriday, Louisiana, to Elmo Lewis, a carpenter, and Mamie (Herron) Lewis. When he was a boy, he and two of his cousins, the future evangelist Jimmy Swaggart and the future country singer Mickey Gilley (who died this year), liked to sneak into a local dance hall, Haney’s Big House, to hear top blues acts perform.

He showed an aptitude for the piano, and his father borrowed money to buy him one. “The more he practiced, the surer the left hand and wilder the right hand became,” Mr. Tosches wrote in “Hellfire.”

At 14, he was invited to sit in with a band performing at a local Ford dealership, which was celebrating the arrival of the 1950 models. He played “Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee” — the tune, a hit for Sticks McGhee in 1949, would be a minor pop hit for Mr. Lewis in 1973 — and he took home nearly $15 when someone passed the hat.

He soon became a regular at clubs in Natchez, just across the Mississippi River, and on the radio station KWKH in Shreveport, La. His deeply worried mother, a Pentecostal Christian, enrolled him in the Southwestern Bible Institute in Waxahachie, Texas.

“I didn’t graduate,” he told The New York Times in 2006. “I was kind of quit-uated. I was asked to leave for playing ‘My God Is Real’ boogie-woogie style, rock ’n’ roll style. I figured that’s the way it needed to be played.” Continue reading Jerry Lee Lewis – 10/2022

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Judith Durham – 8/2022

Judith Durham, born Judith Mavis Cock in Melbourne, Australia (3 July 1943 – 5 August 2022) would for most rock and roll aficionados not belong on a tribute website for rock heroes. But when I learned of her passing last week, I realized that many of her early songs with the Seekers played an important part in my early rock and roll involvement – from learning to play guitar to appreciation for soft melodic rock during the early years of my teenage awareness. Also, Judith had a voice that mastered and actually stood out in almost every category of 60’s modern music. She could sweet voice you into folksy romance, belt it out in jazz rock, make you inconspicuously suffer the blues or lead the pack in a pop song. She could even sing the classics.

Early in life Judith believed her future would be as a pianist. She went on to gain her Associate In Music, Australia (A.Mus.A.) in classical piano as a student of world-renowned concert pianist Professor Ronald Farren-Price at the Melbourne University Conservatorium, with her first professional engagement in the arts playing piano for a ballet school.

Still in her teens, although excelling on piano, little Judy Cock dreamed of fame singing opera or musical comedy and in 1961, aged 18, she was ready to begin classical vocal training.  One night, just for fun, she ‘sat in’ with a trad jazz band at a local dance called “Memphis”, and found instant success performing blues, gospels, and jazz standards of the 1920s and 1930s, also developing as a serious ragtime pianist. She began using her mother’s maiden name, and at 19 she made her first record, an EP for W&G “Judy Durham” with Frank Traynor’s Jazz Preachers.

Meanwhile, by day since leaving school, Judy’s first job was as Secretary to the Pathologist at the Royal Victorian Eye & Ear Hospital, but on taking a new secretarial job at J Walter Thompson Advertising, on her first day she met account executive Athol Guy.  Athol played acoustic bass and also sang bass in a trio called The Seekers and invited her that very night to come and join him and the two guitarists Keith Potger and Bruce Woodley, to sing acoustic four-part harmony folk and gospel at a Melbourne coffee lounge “Treble Clef”.  Still singing regularly with various jazz bands nearly every other night, she then became a regular every Monday with The Seekers.  Adopting her birth name Judith, she recorded an album with The Seekers for W&G, appeared on local TV, then set sail for London in 1964 on “SS Fairsky” for a 10-week stay, singing for their supper on board.

On the advice of Australian entertainer Horrie Dargie, the group sent the album and TV footage ahead to a big theatrical agency, The Grade Organisation, and on their arrival in ‘swinging London’, agent Eddie Jarrett booked them extensively in clubs, TV, and variety theatre.  He asked Tom Springfield (Dusty’s brother) to write and produce a single, resulting in the surprise chart-topper “I’ll Never Find Another You” which made The Seekers the first Australian group ever to hit No.1 internationally, made Judith Australia’s very first international pop princess and pin-up girl, and unexpectedly cemented her in the group as a full-time Seeker.

The next few years brought The Seekers worldwide adulation, with tours, more albums, and a succession of huge and lasting hits including “A World Of Our Own”, “The Carnival Is Over” and “Morningtown Ride”, which rivalled all the top groups like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones for the No.1 spot.  The Seekers’ biggest international seller was “Georgy Girl”, originally written (music by Tom Springfield, words by Jim Dale) and recorded as the title song for the movie starring Lynn Redgrave, James Mason, Charlotte Rampling and Alan Bates.  The song was nominated for an Academy Award® and the single made history when the group became the first Australians ever to reach the No.1 spot in the USA.

In 1967, The Seekers set an official all-time record when more than 200,000 people (nearly one tenth of the city’s entire population at that time!) flocked to their performance at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne.  Their TV special ‘The Seekers Down Under’ scored the biggest TV audience ever (with a 67 rating), and early in 1968 they were all awarded the nation’s top honour as “Australians Of The Year 1967”.

But 24 year old Judith wanted to spread her wings, and without any notion of the lasting universal grief to be suffered by shocked Seekers fans worldwide, she plucked up courage to give ‘the boys’ six months’ notice.  She was to leave the group in July 1968 to return to Australia … possibly to pursue a career as a solo singer in opera or musical theater … and she hoped to find ‘Mr. Right’.

The surprise for Judith was to receive offers as a solo artist, so she asked a London-based freelance musician, Ron Edgeworth, to be her musical director, pianist and arranger and a couple of years later her Mr. Right.  In big demand as a London-based freelance musician, Ron had worked with all the big names, and had earlier toured and recorded with the legendary Alexis Korner’s All Stars.

From there on Judith started her solo career, with an occasional Seekers reunion over the years, and also focused on composing and writing music. Her one-woman shows stunned audiences and critics with her unique gift for singing in all styles – from folk to country, jazz to pop, blues to gospel, original songs, ragtime piano and even classical.

An indelible mark was made with Judith’s transition into her now classic mid-70s trad jazz recordings with bands she formed with Ron in San Francisco and London.  “The Hottest Band In Town Collection” is now available though Universal.  They also released a legendary album of their piano and voice performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1978 (“The Hot Jazz Duo”).

Through the 80s Judith Durham and Ron Edgeworth based themselves on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, and for the first time Judith concentrated totally on writing and performing her own compositions, even completing a full scale musical “Gotta Be Rainbows” with book written by eminent playwright Ian Austin.  Having experienced her very first songwriting success in 1967 with co-writer David Reilly on The Seekers classic “Colours Of My Life”, by the 80s Judith had developed through the decades as a remarkably talented and prolific composer of both lyrics and music, writing more than 300 works.

After the untimely passing of her husband in 1994,  51 year old Judith, went back into recording albums and touring. In 1996 Judith again toured the UK as a solo artist with the release of “Mona Lisas” (later repackaged as “Always There” in Australia), her Abbey Road album of legendary 60s and 70s covers produced by the late Gus Dudgeon.

To welcome in the new millennium with delighted Seekers fans around the world, she embarked on The Seekers ‘Carnival Of Hits Tour 2000’, and in 2001 Judith celebrated her own remarkable life-long musical journey in her “40th Anniversary” Australian concert tour.

In the same year, as an unexpected treat for loyal Seekers fans, Judith recorded with ‘the boys’ the album “Morningtown Ride To Christmas”, and late in 2002 a double album “Night Of Nights … Live!” was released after The Seekers’ Australian tour, in conjunction with The Seekers’ Australia Post Souvenir Stamp Sheet commemorating 40 years of musical magic from Australia’s first-ever international pop icons.

2003 was one of Judith’s busiest and most artistically satisfying years ever. In March she toured Australia with ‘the boys’ on The Seekers` `Never Say Never Again! Tour` which was received joyfully by fans all over the country – and with barely a month to get ready, she flew to the UK for her massive solo tour. Highlight after highlight followed, leading up to the Magic Date of December 3, 2013, the 50th Birthday of the Seekers.

Judith was thrilled to embark on a whole year of celebration – marking half a century of Seekers music. Judith found herself back in the studio with the group recording and filming two standout tracks for ‘The Golden Jubilee Album: 50 Tracks For 50 Years’.  “Silver Threads and Golden Needles” and the visual feast of “In My Life” were destined to be standout moments in ‘The Golden Jubilee Tour’, when The Seekers hit the road in May/June 2013.

Following the media frenzy of their 50th Birthday Party in Melbourne came yet another accolade for The Seekers – the presentation of a 24-carat gold ‘stamp’ by Australia Post as part of their ‘Legends of Australian Music’ series – and the official handover of the portrait of the group to the National Portrait Gallery, painted by Helen Edwards, “The Seekers Reunite 50 Years On”.

The group announced and then sold-out a ‘Golden Jubilee Tour’ of Australia, which was abruptly halted when Judith suffered a brain hemorrhage after the first of four sold-out nights in Melbourne.  Six months of hospitalisation and rehabilitation followed – during which time Judith’s commemorative ‘Platinum Album’ was released to mark her 70th birthday – before she was given the green light for the Australian tour to resume. Another sold-out tour of New Zealand followed, before The Seekers toured the United Kingdom, performing 18 sold-out show culminating in two packed houses at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Just prior to the return to Australia, The Seekers were advised that they had individually been awarded the Order of Australia (AO) – one of the highest honours that can be bestowed on Australian citizens.  Judith would add yet another honour to her tally by being named Victorian of the Year 2015 the following year.

Also, in 2015, Georgy Girl: The Seekers Musical opened to packed house in Melbourne, before moving on to successful seasons in Sydney and Perth.  Among the production’s many musical numbers were Judith’s “Mama’s Got the Blues” and “I Remember”, and “Colours of my Life”, which she co-wrote with David Reilly.

Judith undertook a solo ‘farewell’ tour of New Zealand, playing 18 sold-out concerts as her Colours of my Life compilation CD soared to No. 2 on the charts there.

And in 2018, Ambition Entertainment packaged The Seekers’ three record-breaking 60s TV spectacular into one magnificent collector’s edition set, The Seekers: The Legendary Television Specials.  Proving again that the music of The Seekers is timeless and much loved, the DVD set reached No. 1 on the ARIA chart!

Another highlight of 2018 is the release of Judith’s first solo studio album in six years.  Timed to mark Judith’s 75th birthday, So Much More is a collection of beautiful songs that Judith Durham has composed with some immensely talented writers and musicians from around the world – all lovingly crafted, and superbly sung.

These never-before-released tracks tell of hope and courage, pain and loss, all-consuming devotion, uplifting spirituality, friendship, and a profound love of Australia and its indigenous heritage.

Durham was born with asthma and at age four she caught measles, which left her with a life-long chronic lung disease, bronchiectasis. Durham died from bronchiectasis on 5 August 2022, at age 79. She definitely avoided the “Rock and Roll lifestyle” during her life, without smoking, little to no alcohol, a vegetarian since 1968 and a vegan in later life.

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Vangelis 5/2022

17 May 2022  – Vangelis (Greek film composer and keyboards-synthesizer for Aphrodite’s Child). Vangelis was born Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou on March 29, 1943 in the Greek town of Agria. He was a self-taught musician who became a young piano prodigy. Then he moved to Paris and co-founded with Demis Roussos, the popular prog-rock group Aphrodite’s Child. After several global mega hits the band eventually split and Vangelis got a solo record deal with RCA Records, while still collaborating often with Roussos.

In 1981 he composed the score for Chariots of Fire. Its opening theme, with its uplifting inspirational swell and ornate arrangement, was released as a single and reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100. His efforts earned him a win for best original score at the Academy Awards.

The success led him to other film work. Notably, he composed the soundtrack for the original Blade Runner, as well as Carl Sagan’s PBS documentary series Cosmos. Outside of composing scores, Vangelis was prolific in his solo career, regularly releasing albums up until 2021’s Juno to Jupiter.

While he was most associated with the synthesizer, the instrument was also a source of frustration for him. “I’ve been using synthesizers for so many years, but they’ve never been designed properly. They create a lot of problems.” he told NPR in 2016. “The computers have completely different logic than the human logic.” So for his 2016 record Rosetta, dedicated to the space probe of the same name, he built his own synthesizer.

Vangelis had a lifelong interest in space which was reflected in his music — in its breadth and atmosphere. He believed that there was something inherent in humans to want to discover — whether that meant up in the sky or in a studio. For Vangelis, becoming a musician was never a conscious decision. “It’s very difficult not to make music,” Vangelis told NPR in 1977. “It’s as natural as I eat, as I make love. Music is the same.”

Vangelis, who gave the movie Chariots of Fire its signature synth-driven sound, died on the May 17, 2022 in a hospital in Paris, due to heart failure.. He was 79 years old.

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Ronnie Hawkins 5/2022

Born in Huntsville, Arkansas  on January 10, 1935 Ronnie Hawkins made quite the career for himself in Canada (where he became a permanent resident in 1964). A road warrior, he made his rounds across North America and launched the careers of many musicians, including the Band (who backed him as the Hawks from 1961 to 1964), Roy Buchanan, Pat Travers and others.

Musicianship ran in Hawkins’s family; Hawkins’s father, uncles, and cousins had toured the honky-tonk circuit in Arkansas and Oklahoma in the 1930s and 1940s. His uncle Delmar “Skipper” Hawkins, a road musician, had moved to California about 1940 and joined cowboy singing star Roy Rogers’s band, the Sons of the Pioneers. Hawkins’s cousin Delmar Allen “Dale” Hawkins, the earliest white performer to sing at the Apollo Theater in Harlem and the Regal Theater in Chicago, recorded the rhythm and blues song “Suzie Q” in 1957. Beginning at age eleven, Ronnie Hawkins sang at local fairs and before he was a teenager shared a stage with Hank Williams. He recalled that Williams was too drunk to perform, and his band, the Drifting Cowboys invited members of the audience to get on the stage and sing. Hawkins accepted the invitation and sang some Burl Ives songs he knew.

As a teenager Hawkins ran bootleg liquor from Missouri to the dry counties of Oklahoma in his modified Model A Ford, sometimes making three hundred dollars a day. He claimed in later years that he continued the activity until he was nineteen or twenty, and that it was how he made the money to buy into nightclubs. He had already formed his first band, the Hawks, when he graduated from high school in 1952, following which he studied physical education at the University of Arkansas, where in 1956 he dropped out just a few credits short of graduation.

Hawkins then enlisted in the United States Army, but he was required to serve only six months, having already completed ROTC training. Soon after his arrival at Fort Sill in Oklahoma for Army Basic Combat Training, he was having a drink at the Amvets club when an African American quartet began to play their music. Hearing the first notes so stirred him that he jumped onto the stage and started singing. “It sounded like something between the blues and rockabilly… me being a hayseed and those guys playing a lot funkier.” The experience caused Hawkins to realize what kind of music he really wanted to play, and he joined the four black musicians, who renamed themselves the Blackhawks.

The group had been performing a sort of jazz/blues something like Cab Calloway’s music of the 1940s, and Hawkins sought to introduce contemporary influences to their repertoire. With another new member, blues saxophonist A.C. Reed, they created some of the South’s most dynamic music sounds. “Instead of doing a kind of rockabilly that was closer to country music, I was doing rockabilly that was closer to soul music, which was exactly what I liked.” The band encountered prejudice, as many white people in the American South of the 1950s could not accept an integrated band and considered rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm and blues the devil’s music.

The Blackhawks disbanded when his enlistment ended. Hawkins went back to Fayetteville, and two days later he got a call from Sun Records, who wanted him to front the house session band. By the time he got to Memphis, though, the group had already broken up. Nevertheless, he took advantage of the opportunity to cut two demos, Lloyd Price’s “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” and Hank Williams’s “A Mansion on the Hill”, but the recordings attracted no attention. The demo session guitarist, Jimmy Ray “Luke” Paulman, suggested that Hawkins join him at his home in Helena, Arkansas, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta region, a hotbed of blues, rhythm and blues, and country music, an offer which he eagerly accepted.

Immediately upon arriving in Helena, Hawkins and Paulman found Paulman’s brother George (standup bass) and their cousin Willard “Pop” Jones (piano) and formed a band they named The Hawks. Drummer Levon Helm, who had grown up in nearby Turkey Scratch, Arkansas, first played with the group at the Delta Supper Club in early 1957 when George Paulman invited him to sit in with them for their closing set. Helm reminisced years later how Hawkins, accompanied by Luke Paulman, drove his Model A out to the Helm’s cotton farm, arriving in a cloud of dust to talk to Helm’s parents. Helm remembered him as “a big ol’ boy in tight pants, sharp shoes and a pompadour hanging down his forehead.” Helm listened to Hawkins negotiate an agreement with his parents, who insisted that he graduate high school before he could join the Hawks and go to Canada. Helm practiced diligently on a makeshift drum kit to improve his skills, and when he graduated in May, he was good enough to play drum in the band.

Hawkins’s live act included back flips and a “camel walk” that preceded Michael Jackson’s similar moonwalk by three decades. His stage persona gained him the monikers “Rompin’ Ronnie” and “Mr. Dynamo”. Hawkins also owned and operated the Rockwood Club in Fayetteville, where some of rock and roll’s earliest pioneers came to play, including Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and Conway Twitty.

With Helm’s graduation from high school, he joined The Hawks and they went to Canada, where the group met success. On April 13, 1959, they auditioned for Morris Levy, owner of Roulette Records in New York. Only four hours later, they entered the studio and recorded their first record tracks. Their first single, “Forty Days”, was a barely disguised knockoff of Chuck Berry’s “Thirty Days” with the song “Mary Lou” by Young Jessie on the B-side; it reached number 26 on the US pop charts, becoming Hawkins’s biggest hit.

After spending nearly three months in Canada, the band returned to the South, with their base in Hawkin’s home town of Fayetteville. The band’s gigs in the southern states were mostly one-nighters or short run performances in Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. Helm loved to drive, and would drive the band two or three hundred miles to the next show in Hawkin’s old Chevy, which Hawkins eventually replaced with a Cadillac towing a trailer containing their equipment.

Hawkins and the group had begun touring Canada in 1958 as the Ron Hawkins Quartet on the recommendation of Conway Twitty, who told him Canadian audiences wanted to hear rockabilly. Their bassist George Paulman was abusing liquor and pills, so Hawkins left him behind, and they played without a bass on their first tour of Ontario. Their first gig was at the Golden Rail Tavern in Hamilton, Ontario, where, according to booking agent Harold Kudlets, all the bartenders quit when they heard the band’s sound and saw Hawkins’s stunts on stage. In 1959 he performed a number of live shows in the country and signed a five-year contract with Roulette Records. Working out of Toronto, Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks cut the LP Ronnie Hawkins in 1959, and with Fred Carter, Jr. taking Jimmy Ray “Luke” Paulman’s place on lead guitar, they cut another LP, Mr. Dynamo, the next year, both of them recorded on the Roulette label.

He subsequently moved to Canada and in 1964 became a permanent resident. In 2017, he moved from Stoney Lake Manor in Douro-Dummer, where he had resided since 1970, to Peterborough, Ontario. Hawkins was an institution of the Ontario music scene for over 40 years. When he first came to Ontario he played gigs at places like the Grange Tavern in Hamilton, where Conway Twitty got his start, and made it his home base. In Toronto, where the Hawks dominated the local scene, Hawkins opened his own night club, the Hawk’s Nest, on the second floor of the Coq d’or Tavern on Yonge street, playing there for months at a time.

After the move to Canada, The Hawks, with the exception of Hawkins and drummer Levon Helm, dropped out of the band. Their vacancies were filled by Southwest Ontarians Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson. Young David Clayton-Thomas, a Canadian and future lead vocalist of the American group Blood, Sweat, and Tears, said he heard the Hawks when he got out of prison in 1962: “We young musicians would sit there by the bar at the Le Coq d’Or and just hang on every note.” This version of the Hawks, wearing mohair suits and razor-cut hair, were the top group among those who played the Le Coq d’Or, a rowdy establishment at the center of the action on the Yonge Street strip in Toronto. They were able to stay out of most of the bar fights that broke out there almost every night.

Along with Helm, they all left Hawkins in 1964 to form a group which came to be named The Band. They went to work for Bob Dylan in 1965, touring with him for a year, and were his backup band on The Basement Tapes. Hawkins continued to perform and record, and did a few tours in Europe.

In December 1969, Hawkins hosted John Lennon and Yoko Ono for a stay at his home in Mississauga, Ontario, during the couple’s campaign to promote world peace. Lennon signed his erotic “Bag One” lithographs during his stay there. Lennon also did a radio promo for a Hawkins single, a version of The Clovers song,”Down in the Alley”. When their visit ended, Lennon and Ono, with Hawkins and his wife Wanda as part of their entourage, took the CNR Rapido train to Montreal, where they engaged in their Bed-in for Peace at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Hawkins later rode with them on a train to Ottawa to see then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Lennon also enlisted Hawkins as a peace ambassador, and Hawkins traveled to the border of China and Hong Kong with journalist Ritchie Yorke bearing an anti-war message.

In the early 1970s, Hawkins noticed guitarist Pat Travers performing in Ontario nightclubs and was so impressed by the young musician that he invited him to play in his band. Travers joined the group, but balked when Hawkins told him he wanted him to play “old ’50s and ’60s rockabilly tunes”. Years later, Travers told an interviewer, “… he wanted me to play them exactly the same, same sound, same picking, same everything. For a 19-, 20-year-old kid, that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do. But he said, ‘You can do this, son, and you’ll be better than a hundred guitar players, because this is where it all comes from. You need to know this stuff. It’s like fundamental.’ And he was right”. Travers later had a successful recording career and became an influential guitarist in the 1970s hard rock genre.

In 1975, Bob Dylan cast Hawkins to play the role of “Bob Dylan” in the movie, Renaldo and Clara. The following year, he was a featured performer at the Band’s Thanksgiving Day farewell concert at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, which was documented in the 1978 film The Last Waltz. Robbie Robertson said of it in 2020, “If there was anything wrong that night, it was that the cocaine wasn’t very good.” Hawkins sampled some of the powder and told the other performers that there was so much flour and sugar in it that they would be “sneezing biscuits” for three months afterward. Hawkin’s 1984 LP, Making It Again, garnered him a Juno Award as Canada’s best Country Male Vocalist. In addition to his career as a musician, he become an accomplished actor, hosting his own television show Honky Tonk in the early 1980s and appearing in such films as Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate alongside his friend Kris Kristofferson, and in the action/adventure film Snake Eater. His version of the song “Mary Lou” was used in the 1989 slasher film, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II.

On January 10, 1995, Hawkins celebrated his 60th birthday by sponsoring a concert at Massey Hall in Toronto, which was documented on the album Let It Rock. The concert featured performances by Hawkins, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Band and Larry Gowan. Canadian musician Jeff Healey sat in on guitar as well. Hawkins’s band, the Hawks, or permutations of it, backed the performers. All of the musicians performing that night were collectively dubbed “the Rock ‘n’ Roll Orchestra”.

In 2003, Hawkins was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and went into remission, which he attributed to everything from psychic healers to native herbal medicine. His remarkable remission was featured in the 2012 film Ronnie Hawkins: Still Alive and Kicking.

Hawkins died in the early morning of May 29, 2022, at the age of 87, after the cancer returned. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Wanda, their two sons, Ronnie Hawkins Jr. and country singer Robin Hawkins, who had served as his guitarist since the 1980s, and daughter Leah Hawkins, an aspiring songwriter who had been his backup singer.

A man with an extraordinary sense of humor, he is considered highly influential in the establishment and evolution of rock music in Canada. Also known as “Rompin’ Ronnie”, “Mr. Dynamo” or “The Hawk”, he was one of the key players in the 1960s rock scene in Toronto. He performed all across North America and recorded more than 25 albums. His hit songs include covers of Chuck Berry’s “Thirty Days” (retitled “Forty Days”) and Young Jessie’s “Mary Lou”, a song about a gold digger. Other well-known recordings are a cover of Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?” (without the question mark), “Hey! Bo Diddley”, and “Susie Q”, which was written by his cousin, rockabilly artist Dale Hawkins.
Hawkins was a talent scout and mentor of the musicians he recruited for his band, The Hawks. Roy Buchanan was an early Hawks guitarist on the song “Who Do You Love”. The most successful of his students were those who left to form The Band. Robbie Lane and the Disciples made their name opening for Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks at the Yonge Street bars in Toronto and eventually became his backing band. Others he had recruited later formed Janis Joplin’s Full Tilt Boogie Band, Crowbar, Bearfoot, and Skylark.
Hawkins was still playing 150 engagements a year in his 60s.

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Gary Brooker 2/2022

February 19, 2022 – Gary Brooker founding lead singer of the late 1960’s musical sensation Procol Harum was born on May 29, 1945, in London’s Metropolitan Borough of Hackney. His father was a professional musician and Gary followed in his footsteps learning to play piano, cornet and trombone as a child. But his most awesome instrument over the years became his voice.

After high school, he went on to Southend Municipal College to study zoology and botany but dropped out to become a professional musician.In 1962 he founded the Paramounts with his guitarist friend Robin Trower. The band gained respect within the burgeoning 1960s British R&B scene, which yielded the Beatles, the Animals, the Spencer Davis Group, the Rolling Stones, and many others. The Rolling Stones, in particular, were Paramounts fans, giving them guest billing on several shows in the early 1960s.

The group found little success with their studio recordings outside of a 1964 cover of “Poison Ivy” that became a minor hit in England. The Paramounts split in 1966, and while Brooker originally planned to retire from performing to work as a songwriter, he met lyricist Keith Reid and forged such a tight working relationship that the pair started a new group: Procol Harum. Guided by an immense musicality of Brooker, Fisher, Trower and Reid their worldhit “A Whiter Shade of Pale” became one of the anthems of 1967’s Summer of Love. “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” was inspired by Brooker’s love of classical musicians like Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. 

“About that time, the Jacques Louissier Trio — which had a pianist, bass player and drummer — made an album called Play Bach,” Brooker told Songwriter Universe in 2020. “They were a jazz trio, and they’d start off with a piece of Bach, and they would improvise around it. Louissier had done a fabulous version of what was called ‘Air On a G String’ which was also used in a set of good adverts in Britain. And all those things came together one morning [on ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’] … a bit of Bach and ‘Air On a G String’ going through my head.”

Once he added in Reid’s lyrics, Brooker had a masterpiece on his hands that would reach Number One all over the world and turn Procol Harum in a major band almost overnight. Although the band never managed to land another hit of that magnitude, they maintained a large cult audience and worked steadily throughout the Sixties and Seventies, scoring occasional hits like “Conquistador” and “A Salty Dog.” In 1972, they cut the live album Procol Harum Live: In Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra that helped bring the band back into the public eye.

While Procol Harum was often referred to as a progressive rock band, Brooker never felt comfortable with that label. “I’ve always rejected the idea of labeling groups or types of music,” he told Vintage Rock in 2019. “I don’t think Procol has ever fit into a particular pigeonhole, as we call them here, you know, in the filing cabinet. You don’t really know what to put them under. They come under ‘P’ — ‘Progressive?’ ‘Psychedelic?’ — and I say, ‘They come under ‘P’ and ‘P’ is for ‘Procol’.”

A Whiter Shade of Pale was issued as their debut record on 12 May 1967. and became one of the most commercially successful singles in history, having sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. In the years since, “A Whiter Shade of Pale” has become an enduring classic, with more than 1000 known cover versions by other artists, none of them ever matching Brooker’s version. With its Bach-derived instrumental melody, soulful vocals, and unusual lyrics, the music of “A Whiter Shade of Pale” was composed by Gary Brooker and Matthew Fisher, while the lyrics were written by Keith Reid.

Brooker’s melancholic vocals and emotive, eclectic piano playing were a key part of Procol’s musical mix for the entire course of the band’s career. In the early years Brooker, Hammond organist Matthew Fisher and Trower were the guiding musical forces behind the band, but after disparities in style became too much and Fisher and Trower left, Brooker was the clear leader until the band broke up in 1977. Brooker started a solo career and released the album No More Fear of Flying in 1979.

Gifted with a voice that stood out in a massive crowd, it is interesting to realize that Gary Brooker became essential a journeyman, who occasionally came “home” to his roots.  After Procol Harum broke up, Brooker first launched his solo career but then began touring and recording with his longtime buddy Eric Clapton. His work can be heard on Clapton’s 1981 LP Another Ticket. Clapton fired the entire band in 1981, but he and Brooker remained good friends afterwards, and were for many years neighbours in the Surrey Hills. Brooker joined Clapton for several one-off benefit gigs over the years. Brooker sang lead vocal on the Alan Parsons Project song “Limelight”, on their 1985 album, Stereotomy. Brooker sang the lead vocal of the song “No News from the Western Frontier”, a single taken from the album Hi-Tec Heroes by the Dutch performer Ad Visser.

A new version of Procol Harum was assembled in 1991 that recorded and toured up until 2019, though they took a pause in 1997 and 1999 so Brooker could tour with Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band. He also toured as a member of Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings on three of their albums.

On 28 September 1996, as the Gary Brooker Ensemble, he organized a charity concert to raise funds for his local church, St Mary and All Saints, in Surrey. The resulting live CD of the concert, Within Our House, originally released on a fan club CD in a limited run of 1000 units, later became a collectable recording. His guests and supporting artists included Dave Bronze, Michael Bywater, Mark Brzezicki and Robbie McIntosh.

Also in 1996, Brooker appeared in the Alan Parker film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s Evita starring Madonna, Jonathan Pryce and Antonio Banderas. Playing the part of Juan Atilio Bramuglia, he sang the song “Rainbow Tour” with Peter Polycarpou and Antonio Banderas. Brooker said that his greatest single earning in his career was from his appearance in the film.

On 29 November 2002, he was among musicians and singers participating in the George Harrison tribute concert, Concert for George, at which he sang lead vocals on their version of “Old Brown Shoe”. Brooker contributed to Harrison’s albums All Things Must Pass, Somewhere in England and Gone Troppo.

In April 2005, as the Gary Brooker Ensemble, he played a sell-out charity concert at Guildford Cathedral in aid of the tsunami appeal, playing a mixture of Procol Harum and solo songs and arrangements of classical and spiritual songs. His guests and supporting artists included Andy Fairweather Low and Paul Jones (ex-Manfred Mann).

A new incarnation of Procol Harum, led by Brooker, continued touring the world, celebrating its 40th anniversary in July 2007 with two days of musical revels at St John’s, Smith Square in London.

On 28 October 2009, Brooker was presented with a BASCA in recognition of his unique contribution to music.

In May 2012, Procol Harum were forced to cancel the remainder of their dates in South Africa after Brooker fractured his skull following a fall in his hotel room in Cape Town. The fall came on Brooker’s 67th birthday. The band was part of the British Invasion Tour of South Africa along with the Moody Blues and 10cc. However, they continued touring until 2019, playing their final gig in Switzerland.

Shine on brightly, Gary, you made us quite insane, AND WE LOVED IT! RIP February 19, 2022

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Michael Nesmith 12/2021

December 30, 1942 – Robert Michael Nesmith was the only child of Warren and Bette Nesmith, who divorced when he was four. Bette remarried and relocated to Dallas where, as executive secretary at Texas Bank and Trust, she developed her own typewriter correction fluid. In 1979, a few months before her death, she sold her Liquid Paper Corporation to Gillette for $48m. Her son and heir finally acquired financial freedom.
Rewind 20 years to find a teenage Nesmith dabbling in music and drama at school before enlisting in the US Air Force in 1960. Two years later he was honorably discharged at his own request, swapping mechanics for music. Cutting his teeth in touring folk, country and rock’n’roll bands, he moved to Los Angeles.

A publishing and recording deal followed, yielding a handful of underperforming solo singles. Nesmith joined the queue of 437 hopefuls to audition for a part in a new TV show, inspired by The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, about a co-habiting pop band. The producers wanted Nesmith and his hat for their Prefab Four, The Monkees.

Admiring Jimi Hendrix chops in a shared bedroom

Monkeemania ensued but Nesmith was quick to push back against the bubblegum material selected by the show’s musical director Don Kirshner. Nesmith negotiated alongside his bandmates for greater control of their output and image. Their subsequent psychedelic film and soundtrack, Head, was a flop (though later lauded as a cult favourite). Still the piece of the puzzle that didn’t fit, he bought his way out of his contract several years early, forfeiting future royalties.

Robert Michael Nesmith was raised by his mother, Bette, who supported him by working as a secretary. Frustrated creating mistakes on her electric typewriter, she developed a typewriter correction fluid. The invention later became Liquid Paper. Bette Nesmith sold the Liquid Paper Corporation to Gillette in 1979 for $48 million. She died a few months later, at age 56, with Michael inheriting the fortune.

Mike Nesmith, the beanie-hatted quiet man of The Monkees, was an accidental trailblazer from a family of accidental trailblazers. He came late to music-making, only picking up a guitar in his early twenties. Yet in a matter of years he was a (somewhat ambivalent) pop star and TV celebrity, then an unsung country rock pioneer and then the man who invented MTV for the guys who invented MTV. Not bad, and maybe not surprising, for the son of an imprecise typist who created Tipp-Ex to cover her errors.
Nesmith never quite made a commercial killing from his almost clairvoyant creativity. While his own songs were hits for the likes of Linda Ronstadt, Run DMC, Frankie Laine and Lynn Anderson, he struggled with fame in a fictional band whose best-loved tunes flowed from the pens of other writers.
The Monkees’ TV show ran for two series from 1966-68 but acquired pop immortality through school holiday repeats. The band members – Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork and Nesmith – played fictionalised versions of themselves. The Monkees struck popular music with hit songs like “Last Train to Clarksville”, “Daydream Believer” and “I’m A Believer.” The group was created for television, starring in their popular TV sitcom and later spin off motion picture “Head.”
The Monkees broke up in 1969, after which Nesmith formed his First National Band. He also wrote the song Different Drum, which became a major hit for singer Linda Ronstadt.

Nesmith founded Pacific Arts, a multimedia production and distribution company, in 1974. Pacific Arts pioneered the home video market, but collapsed in a dispute with PBS over licensing rights. A federal jury eventually awarded Nesmith $47m in 1999. After filming a music video for his 1977 single Rio, Nesmith came up with the idea of a TV program consisting entirely of music videos. Nesmith called his idea PopClips, which aired on Nickelodeon in 1980. He later sold the PopClips intellectual property to Time Warner, who used it to develop and launch MTV. Intrigued by the promotional possibilities of the embryonic format, Time Warner bought the rights and used it as a template for MTV. 

In 1981, Nesmith won the first Grammy Award for Video of the Year for his hour-long television show, Elephant Parts. He was also an executive producer of the film Repo Man (1984).

Nesmith’s involvement in various Monkees reunions was sporadic, however, he did rejoin his three amigos in 1996, marking the band’s 30th anniversary with the Justus album and accompanying TV special ‘Hey, Hey, It’s the Monkees’, before contributing to the 50th anniversary album Good Times!
The Monkees continued with occasional reunion tours despite the loss of original members Peter Tork and Davy Jones. Remaining members Nesmith and Micky Dolenz ended a tour just weeks before Nesmith’s death. The final date of the tour was held on November 14, 2021, at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.

Michael Nesmith crossed the rainbow on December 10, 2021

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Graeme Edge 11-2021

Life long drummer for the Moody Blues

Graeme Edge (80) – The Moody Blues – was born on March 30, 1941 in Rochester, Staffordshire. Edge co-founded The Moody Blues in 1964 in Birmingham, England, along with original band members Denny Laine, Clint Warwick, Mike Pinder and Ray Thomas.

His mother worked in silent movies as a pianist whilst his father, grandfather and great-grandfather all worked as musical hall singers.

He first moved into the music industry himself as the manager of the Blue Rhythm Band and whilst he did try his hand at the drums from time to time, he only started playing the instrument professionally when he was forced to step in for the drummer, who had quit the group.

In 1964 he formed the original blues-rock band the Moody Blues with Mike Pinder, Ray Thomas, Denny Laine, and Clint Warwick who in January 1965 produced the smash cover hit “Go Now”. (Bessie Banks original)

In the years following, Edge’s influence as a poet who happened to be a drummer as well, moved the band towards the prog rock genre, which they defined as no other group, giving direction to later outfits such as Yes, Barclay James Harvest, Electric Light Orchestra and others. Justin Hayward, who joined with John Lodge in 1966, credits Edge as the one who kept it all together for so may years.

“Graeme and his parents were very kind to me when I first joined the group, and for the first two years he and I either lived together or next door to each other,” Mr Hayward said. “We had fun and laughs all the way, as well as making what was probably the best music of our lives.”

“In the late 1960’s we became the group that Graeme always wanted it to be, and he was called upon to be a poet as well as a drummer,” said Hayward; “He delivered that beautifully and brilliantly, while creating an atmosphere and setting that the music would never have achieved without his words. I asked Jeremy Irons to recreate them for our last tours together and it was absolutely magical.”

Edge’s drumming and spoken word poetry was instrumental to the band’s biggest hits in their “classic” era of the ’60s and into the ’70s, including “Nights in White Satin,” “Tuesday Afternoon,” and “I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band).”

When The Moody Blues went on hiatus from 1974 to 1977, Edge traveled around the world on his yacht and also recorded two solo albums, “Kick Off Your Muddy Boots” (1975) and “Paradise Ballroom” (1978), inspired by his visit to the Caribbean.

In 1978, the band reunited for the album “Octave,” after which they pivoted from prog-rock to a more synth-pop sound in the earlier ’80s. Around this time, Edge linked with a jazz-combo group formed of various musicians from London’s club scene, called Loud, Confident and Rong.  In my opinion, he was one of the most consistently solid British ‘60’s music drummers who continued to perform and record original music right up until late 2017 when The Moody Blues performed a special “Days of Future Passed” concert in Toronto, Ontario, Canada , which was recorded at The Sony Centre Theatre for the Performing Arts.

Graeme composed many of the songs and wrote poetry for The Moody Blues albums along with his fellow band mates Justin Hayward, John Lodge, Mike Pinder, Ray Thomas and Denny Laine and along with Adrian Gurvitz (Baker-Gurvitz Army), Graeme wrote the songs, recorded the music and performed with his own band..”The Graeme Edge Band”.

After suffering a stroke in 2016, Edge retired from touring in 2019. Yet he remained an official member of The Moody Blues until his death, nearly 60 years after its founding.

“When Graeme told me he was retiring I knew that without him it couldn’t be the Moody Blues anymore,” said Hayward in his statement. “And that’s what happened. It’s true to say that he kept the group together throughout all the years, because he loved it.”

In 2018, The Moody Blues was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Their last album was released in 2003. They have sold more than 70 million albums to date. Overall, Edge recorded 16 studio albums with The Mood Blues, ending with 2003’s Christmas-themed “December.”

Graeme passed away from metastatic cancer on November 11th, 2021 at the age of 80 at his home in Bradenton Florida. He had been living there for more than 20 years as he called the area, the last hold out of hippiedom.

Edge, who has married and divorced twice, is survived by his wife, as well as his daughter, Samantha Edge; his son, Matthew; and five grandchildren.

Several fans, musicians and musical institutions paid tribute in the wake of Edge’s passing.

“Graeme was one of the great characters of the music business and there will never be his like again,” Hayward concluded. “My sincerest condolences to his family.”

“Edge’s mystical poetry on the Moodies records created flights of fantasy and otherworldly journeys for generations of fans,” the The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame posted on their official Facebook page with a video of Edge’s speech at The Moody Blues’ induction ceremony.

Rod Argent of The Zombies, The Moody Blues’ rock contemporaries, also shared a statement on the “very sad” news. “Way back in the mid sixties we were invited to a couple of the legendary Moody Blues parties in Roehampton – where the original band had a house – and we particularly remembered how much Graeme, along with the rest of the band, was just so welcoming and hospitable,” he reminisced. “That quality was something Graeme never lost.”

Kiss frontman Paul Stanley tweeted “RIP Graeme Edge” and shared a memory of an “EPIC” performance he attended in 1970. “Sounded just like their recordings. NOBODY could touch them at what they created and to this day you know them as soon as you hear them.”

Bassist John Lodge posted a statement of his own on the band’s official website. “To me he was the White Eagle of the North with his beautiful poetry,” he wrote. “His friendship, his love of life and his ‘unique’ style of drumming that was the engine room of the Moody Blues. … I will miss you Graeme.”

I was fortunate enough as a young kid, to see the original Moody Blues perform Go Now live in the studio in 1965 and was totally blown away. Seven years later I witnessed their genre metamorphosis with an unbelievable concert at Hammersmith-Odeon in London where they performed their perennial hits Just a Singer in a Rock and Roll Band, Tuesday Afternoon, Nights in White Satin, The Story in your Eyes and all the rest. And even though in my deepest heart I am a blues-rocker, I have always kept a soft spot for the Moody Blues, Supertramp and several of the progressive rock and underground formations.

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Charlie Watts 8/2021

charlie watts, lifelong drummer for the Rolling StonesDrummer Charlie Watts, who has died at 80, provided the foundation which underpinned the music of the Rolling Stones for 58 years.

A jazz aficionado, Watts vied with Bill Wyman for the title of least charismatic member of the band; he eschewed the limelight and rarely gave interviews. And he famously described life with the Stones as five years of playing, 20 years of hanging around. 

Charles Robert Watts was born on 2 June 1941 at the University College Hospital in London and raised in Kingsbury, now part of the London Borough of Brent.

He came from a working-class background. His father was a lorry driver and Watts was brought up in a pre-fabricated house to which the family had moved after German bombs destroyed hundreds of houses in the area.

A childhood friend once described how Watts had an early interest in jazz and recalled listening to 78s in Charlie’s bedroom by artists such as Jelly Roll Morton and Charlie Parker.He first played with the Jo Jones Seven on the North London pub circuit

At school he developed an interest in and a talent for art and he went on to study at Harrow Art School before finding a job as a graphic designer with a local advertising agency.

But his love of music continued to be the dominating force in his life. His parents bought him a drum kit when he was 13 and he played along to his collection of jazz records.

He began drumming in local clubs and pubs and, in 1961 was heard by Alexis Korner who offered him a job in his band, Blues Incorporated, an outfit that became a vital part of the development of British rock music.

Also playing with Blues Incorporated was a guitarist named Brian Jones who introduced Watts to the fledgling Rolling Stones whose original drummer, Tony Chapman, had quit the band. The result of that meeting according to Watts was “four decades of seeing Mick’s bum running around in front of me.”

Watt’s skill and experience was invaluable. Together with Bill Wyman he provided a counterpoint to the guitars of Richards and Jones and the preening performance of Mick Jagger.

Early Stone’s concerts often descended into mayhem as eager female fans climbed onto the stage to embrace their heroes. Watts often found himself trying to maintain a beat with a couple of girls hanging on to his arms

As well as his musical ability, his graphic design experience also proved useful. He came up with the sleeve for the 1967 album, Between the Buttons, and helped create the stage sets which became an increasingly important feature of the band’s tours.

Watts also came up with the idea of promoting their 1975 tour of the US by having the band play Brown Sugar on the back of a lorry as it drove down the street in Manhattan. He had remembered New Orleans jazz bands using the same technique and it was later copied by other groups including AC/DC and U2.

His lifestyle while on the road was in direct contrast to that of other band members. He famously rejected the charms of the hordes of groupies that dogged the band on all their tours, remaining faithful to his wife Shirley, who he had married in 1964. 

However in the mid-1980s, during what he put down to a mid-life crisis, Watts went off the rails with drink and drugs, leading to heroin addiction.

“It got so bad,” he later quipped, ” that even Keith Richards, bless him, told me to get it together.” 

At the same time his wife was battling her own alcoholism. and his daughter, Seraphina, had became something of a “wild child” and was expelled from the prestigious Millfield public school for smoking cannabis.

Getty ImagesHe maintained his love of jazz with The Charlie Watts Orchestra

Watts’s relations with Mick Jagger, too, had reached an all-time low.

On one famous occasion, in an Amsterdam hotel in 1984, a drunken Mick Jagger reportedly woke Watts up by bellowing down the phone “Where’s my drummer?”

Watts responded by going round to the singer’s room, hitting him with a left hook, saying “Don’t ever call me ‘your drummer’ again, you’re my f***ing singer.”

The crisis lasted two years and it was Shirley, above all, who helped him get through it. 

Estimated to have been worth £80 million, as a result of the enduring popularity of the Stones, Charlie Watts lived with his wife on a farm in Devon where they bred Arabian horses. 

He also became something of an expert on antique silver and collected everything from American Civil War memorabilia to old classic cars. The last was curious since he didn’t drive.

Between his regular Stones tours, Charlie Watts indulged his love of jazz. Though he always enjoyed drumming with a rock band and loved his work with the Stones, jazz gave him, as he put it, “more freedom to move around”. 

Back in art college, he’d completed an illustrated biography of jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, entitled Ode To A High Flying Bird.

In 1990, he used the book as the basis for a musical tribute to the man they called the Bird on an album by the Charlie Watts Quintet. It featured several of his jazz musician friends, including saxophonist Pete King. 

Watts played and recorded with various incarnations of big bands. At one gig, at Ronnie Scott’s, he had a 25-piece on stage including three drummers.

Always well turned out – he had featured in several lists of best dressed men – Watts kept his feet firmly on the ground throughout his career with one of the world’s most enduring bands.

The Rolling Stones became a by-word for rock and roll excess, but for Watts, playing with the Stones did not become the ego trip that drove Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Said Charlie about his outlook on life, “I’m not really a rockstar,” he explained, pointing out how he only truly cared about making music.

“I don’t have all the trappings of that. I’ve never been interested in doing interviews or being seen,” Charlie continued, jokingly adding, “Having said that, I do have four vintage cars and can’t drive the bloody things.”

Rest In Peace Charlie. Heaven admits another legend

 

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Bonnie Pointer 6/20

June 8, 2020Bonnie Pointer, a Founding member of The Pointer Sisters, was born July 11, 1950 as Patricia Eva Pointer in Oakland California.  All six siblings including the four sisters grew up in Oakland, Calif., where their parents, Elton and Sarah (Salis) Pointer, were pastor and minister and where the sisters honed their vocal skills at the West Oakland Church of God.

Bonnie and June, the two youngest sisters, began performing in 1969 under the name The Pointers — A Pair. Anita Pointer later said she quit her job as a legal secretary after seeing Bonnie and June onstage in San Francisco. “I saw them at the Fillmore West, and I lost my mind,” she said, adding that Bonnie was “the catalyst” in starting their musical career.

Renamed the Pointer Sisters, the three began working as backup singers. Mingling with the San Francisco-area rock scene, they sang with acts like Boz Scaggs, Grace Slick and the gender-bending pioneer Sylvester, and they were briefly signed to Atlantic Records. Their singles for that label failed to chart, although one 1972 B-side, “Send Him Back,” has over time come to be considered a minor funk classic. Continue reading Bonnie Pointer 6/20

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Moon Martin 5/20

May 11, 2020 – John David “Moon” Martin was born on October 31, 1945 (some report 1950 but not true) in Altus, Oklahoma.

If you go to Moon’s Wikipedia page, it says he was born in 1950. But if you read some of the obits, he was born in 1945. Which makes complete sense. If for no other reason than his hair was prematurely gray nearly instantly. And there’s no way he could have played with Hendrix and Joplin if he was only 20, they died in 1970. But Martin did.

His first band, The Disciples, later renamed Southwind, formed in Norman while he was a student at the University of Oklahoma and then relocated to Los Angeles where they attained some success and even toured with Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix before calling it quits in 1972. After a brief stint playing with Linda Rondstadt, John focused on session work and songwriting, penning the hit track “Cadillac Walk” which was recorded by Mink DeVille on his debut album.

And then came “Bad Case of Loving You.”

By this time we’d already moved on to the second album, “Escape From Domination,” “Rolene” was heard on KROQ, back when that was a free form station, before the ROQ of the 80s, before the death of rock and the decimation of the station this year. But at this point, Moon Martin was not famous for the Robert Palmer cover, but the Willy DeVille covers.

By 1978 he was recording under the moniker “Moon” Martin due to his multiple song lyrics referring to the moon. He began his solo career with his Victim of Romance EP that included his most successful song “Bad Case of Loving You.” Robert Palmer – Singer would later cover the song, making it a Top 20 hit a year later. Moon’s first solo album, Shots From a Cold Nightmare, remains a Power Pop classic.

Moon Martin sold his soul to rock and roll. He followed the music to the very last note. He died with his guitar strap on, coming out of the studio after a full day’s work on a new album. It wasn’t a fling, something Moon did before law school. He had no desire to work at the bank. (Although let’s not forget Harry Nilsson was a teller!) It was all music, all the time.

It is said they he had lived comfortably off his song royalties, until the day he died. A true exception i rock-n-roll.

He was 74 years old, and he had become a little frail over the last few years…He went to sleep in a big easy chair in his living room with a book in his hand, a blanket in his lap, and a little glass of Coke on the nightstand next to him. He left this world as peacefully as anybody could ever hope to

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Little Richard 5/2020

Little Richard in performance at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in New York in 2007. “He was crucial,” one historian said, “in upping the voltage from high-powered R&B into the similar, yet different, guise of rock ’n’ roll.”

Little Richard, was born Richard Wayne Penniman on December 5, 1932. At an early age he already delved deeply into the wellsprings of gospel music and the blues, and screaming as if for his very life, he created something new, thrilling and dangerous, called rock and roll. Richard Penniman, better known as Little Richard, who combined the sacred shouts of the black church and the profane sounds of the blues to create some of the world’s first and most influential rock ’n’ roll records.

Little Richard did not invent rock ’n’ roll. Other musicians had already been mining a similar vein by the time he recorded his first hit, “Tutti Frutti” — a raucous song about sex, its lyrics cleaned up but its meaning hard to miss — in a New Orleans recording studio in September 1955. Chuck Berry and Fats Domino had reached the pop Top 10, Bo Diddley had topped the rhythm-and-blues charts, and Elvis Presley had been making records for a year.

But Little Richard, delving deeply into the wellsprings of gospel music and the blues, pounding the piano furiously and screaming as if for his very life, raised the energy level several notches and created something not quite like any music that had been heard before — something new, thrilling and more than a little dangerous. As the rock historian Richie Unterberger put it, “He was crucial in upping the voltage from high-powered R&B into the similar, yet different, guise of rock ’n’ roll.”

Art Rupe of Specialty Records, the label for which he recorded his biggest hits, called Little Richard “dynamic, completely uninhibited, unpredictable, wild.”

“Tutti Frutti” rocketed up the charts and was quickly followed by “Long Tall Sally” and other records now acknowledged as classics. His live performances were electrifying.

“He’d just burst onto the stage from anywhere, and you wouldn’t be able to hear anything but the roar of the audience,” the record producer and arranger H.B. Barnum, who played saxophone with Little Richard early in his career, recalled in “The Life and Times of Little Richard” (1984), an authorized biography by Charles White. “He’d be on the stage, he’d be off the stage, he’d be jumping and yelling, screaming, whipping the audience on.”

An Immeasurable Influence

Rock ’n’ roll was an unabashedly macho music in its early days, but Little Richard, who had performed in drag as a teenager, presented a very different picture onstage: gaudily dressed, his hair piled six inches high, his face aglow with cinematic makeup. He was fond of saying in later years that if Elvis was the king of rock ’n’ roll, he was the queen. Offstage, he characterized himself variously as gay, bisexual and “omnisexual.”

His influence as a performer was immeasurable. It could be seen and heard in the flamboyant showmanship of James Brown, who idolized him (and used some of his musicians when Little Richard began a long hiatus from performing in 1957), and of Prince, whose ambisexual image owed a major debt to his.

Presley recorded his songs. The Beatles adopted his trademark sound, an octave-leaping exultation: “Woooo!” (Paul McCartney said that the first song he ever sang in public was “Long Tall Sally,” which he later recorded with the Beatles.) Bob Dylan wrote in his high school yearbook that his ambition was “to join Little Richard.”

Little Richard’s impact was social as well.

Little Richard in the mid-1950s, around the time his first hit record, “Tutti Frutti,” was released.
Little Richard in the mid-1950s, around the time his first hit record, “Tutti Frutti,” was released.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

“I’ve always thought that rock ’n’ roll brought the races together,” Mr. White quoted him as saying. “Especially being from the South, where you see the barriers, having all these people who we thought hated us showing all this love.”

Mr. Barnum told Mr. White that “they still had the audiences segregated” at concerts in the South in those days, but that when Little Richard performed, “most times, before the end of the night, they would all be mixed together.”

If uniting black and white audiences was a point of pride for Little Richard, it was a cause of concern for others, especially in the South. The White Citizens Council of North Alabama issued a denunciation of rock ’n’ roll largely because it brought “people of both races together.” And with many radio stations under pressure to keep black music off the air, Pat Boone’s cleaned-up, toned-down version of “Tutti Frutti” was a bigger hit than Little Richard’s original. (He also had a hit with “Long Tall Sally.”)

Still, it seemed that nothing could stop Little Richard’s drive to the top — until he stopped it himself.

He was at the height of his fame when he left the United States in late September 1957 to begin a tour in Australia. As he told the story, he was exhausted, under intense pressure from the Internal Revenue Service and furious at the low royalty rate he was receiving from Specialty. Without anyone to advise him, he had signed a contract that gave him half a cent for every record he sold. “Tutti Frutti” had sold half a million copies but had netted him only $25,000.

One night in early October, before 40,000 fans at an outdoor arena in Sydney, he had an epiphany.

“That night Russia sent off that very first Sputnik,” he told Mr. White, referring to the first satellite sent into space. “It looked as though the big ball of fire came directly over the stadium about two or three hundred feet above our heads. It shook my mind. It really shook my mind. I got up from the piano and said, ‘This is it. I am through. I am leaving show business to go back to God.’”

He had one last Top 10 hit: “Good Golly Miss Molly,” recorded in 1956 but not released until early 1958. By then, he had left rock ’n’ roll behind.

He became a traveling evangelist. He entered Oakwood College (now Oakwood University) in Huntsville, Ala., a Seventh-day Adventist school, to study for the ministry. He cut his hair, got married and began recording gospel music.

For the rest of his life, he would be torn between the gravity of the pulpit and the pull of the stage.

“Although I sing rock ’n’ roll, God still loves me,” he said in 2009. “I’m a rock ’n’ roll singer, but I’m still a Christian.”

He was lured back to the stage in 1962, and over the next two years he played to wild acclaim in England, Germany and France. Among his opening acts were the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, then at the start of their careers.

He went on to tour relentlessly in the United States, with a band that at one time included Jimi Hendrix on guitar. By the end of the 1960s, sold-out performances in Las Vegas and triumphant appearances at rock festivals in Atlantic City and Toronto were sending a clear message: Little Richard was back to stay. But he wasn’t.

‘I Lost My Reasoning’

By his own account, alcohol and cocaine began to sap his soul (“I lost my reasoning,” he would later say), and in 1977, he once again turned from rock ’n’ roll to God. He became a Bible salesman, began recording religious songs again and, for the second time, disappeared from the spotlight.

He did not stay away forever. The publication of his biography in 1984 signaled his return to the public eye, and he began performing again.

By now, he was as much a personality as a musician. In 1986 he played a prominent role as a record producer in Paul Mazursky’s hit movie “Down and Out in Beverly Hills.” On television, he appeared on talk, variety, comedy and awards shows. He officiated at celebrity weddings and preached at celebrity funerals.

He could still raise the roof in concert. In December 1992, he stole the show at a rock ’n’ roll revival concert at Wembley Arena in London. “I’m 60 years old today,” he told the audience, “and I still look remarkable.”

He continued to look remarkable — with the help of wigs and thick pancake makeup — as he toured intermittently into the 21st century. But age eventually took its toll.

By 2007, he was walking onstage with the aid of two canes. In 2012, he abruptly ended a performance at the Howard Theater in Washington, telling the crowd, “I can’t hardly breathe.” A year later, he told Rolling Stone magazine that he was retiring.

“I am done, in a sense,” he said. “I don’t feel like doing anything right now.”

Little Richard onstage at Wembley Stadium in London in 1972, on a bill that also included his fellow rock ’n’ roll pioneers Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry

Richard Wayne Penniman was born in Macon, Ga., on Dec. 5, 1932, the third of 12 children born to Charles and Leva Mae (Stewart) Penniman. His father was a brick mason who sold moonshine on the side. An uncle, a cousin and a grandfather were preachers, and as a boy he attended Seventh-day Adventist, Baptist and Holiness churches and aspired to be a singing evangelist. An early influence was the gospel singer and guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe, one of the first performers to combine a religious message with the urgency of R&B.

By the time he was in his teens, Richard’s ambition had taken a detour. He left home and began performing with traveling medicine and minstrel shows, part of a 19th-century tradition that was dying out. By 1948, billed as Little Richard — the name was a reference to his youth and not his physical stature — he was a cross-dressing performer with a minstrel troupe called Sugarfoot Sam From Alabam, which had been touring for decades.

In 1951, while singing alongside strippers, comics and drag queens on the Decataur Street strip in Atlanta, he recorded his first songs. The records were generic R&B, with no distinct style, and attracted almost no attention.

Around this time, he met two performers whose look and sound would have a profound impact on his own: Billy Wright and S.Q. Reeder, who performed and recorded as Esquerita. They were both accomplished pianists, flashy dressers, flamboyant entertainers and as openly gay as it was possible to be in the South in the 1950s.

Little Richard acknowledged his debt to Esquerita, who he said gave him some piano-playing tips, and Mr. Wright, whom he once called “the most fantastic entertainer I had ever seen.” But however much he borrowed from either man, the music and persona that emerged were his own.

His break came in 1955, when Mr. Rupe signed him to Specialty and arranged for him to record with local musicians in New Orleans. During a break at that session, he began singing a raucous but obscene song that Mr. Rupe thought had the potential to capture the nascent teenage record-buying audience. Mr. Rupe enlisted a New Orleans songwriter, Dorothy LaBostrie, to clean up the lyrics; the song became “Tutti Frutti”; and a rock ’n’ roll star was born.

By the time he stopped performing, Little Richard was in both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (he was inducted in the Hall’s first year) and the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the recipient of lifetime achievement awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. “Tutti Frutti” was added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 2010.

If Little Richard ever doubted that he deserved all the honors he received, he never admitted it. “A lot of people call me the architect of rock ’n’ roll,” he once said. “I don’t call myself that, but I believe it’s true.”

Little Richard died on Saturday morning May 9, 2020 in Tullahoma, Tennessee. He was 87. The cause was bone cancer. 

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John Prine 4/2020

John Prine (73) was born on October 10, 1946 and raised in Maywood, Illinois. Prine was the son of William Mason Prine, a tool-and-die maker, and Verna Valentine (Hamm), a homemaker, both originally from Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. In summers, they would go back to visit family near Paradise, Kentucky. Prine started playing guitar at age 14, taught by his brother, David. He attended classes at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music, and graduated from Proviso East High School in Maywood, Illinois.

He was drafted into the United States Army during the Vietnam War, serving as a vehicle mechanic in West Germany, before becoming a U.S. Postal Service mailman for five years leading up to  beginning his musical career in Chicago.

“I likened the mail route to being in a library without any books. You just had time to be quiet and think, and that’s where I would come up with a lot of songs,” Prine said later.

While Prine was delivering mail, he began to sing his songs (often first written in his head on the mail route) at open mic nights at the Fifth Peg on Armitage Avenue in Chicago. The bar was a gathering spot for nearby Old Town School of Folk Music teachers and students. Prine was initially a spectator, reluctant to perform, but eventually did so in response to a “You think you can do better?” comment made to him by another performer. After his first open mic, he was offered paying gigs. In 1970, Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert heard Prine by chance at the Fifth Peg and wrote his first printed review, “Singing Mailman Who Delivers A Powerful Message In A Few Words”

Roger Ebert Review:

Through no wisdom of my own but out of sheer blind luck, I walked into the Fifth Peg, a folk club on West Armitage, one night in 1970 and heard a mailman from Westchester singing. This was John Prine.  He sang his own songs. That night I heard “Sam Stone,” one of the great songs of the century. And “Angel from Montgomery.” And others. I wasn’t the music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, but I went to the office and wrote an article. And that, as fate decreed, was the first review Prine ever received.

While “digesting Reader’s Digest” in a dirty book store, John Prine tells us in one of his songs, a patriotic citizen came across one of those little American flag decals. He stuck it on his windshield and liked it so much he added flags from the gas station, the bank and the supermarket, until one day he blindly drove off the road and killed himself. St. Peter broke the news: “Your flag decal won’t get you into heaven anymore; It’s already overcrowded from your dirty little war.”

Lyrics like this are earning John Prine one of the hottest underground reputations in Chicago these days. He’s only been performing professionally since July, he sings at the out-of-the-way Fifth Peg, 858 W. Armitage, and country-folk singers aren’t exactly putting rock out of business. But Prine is good.

He appears on stage with such modesty he almost seems to be backing into the spotlight. He sings rather quietly, and his guitar work is good, but he doesn’t show off. He starts slow. But after a song or two, even the drunks in the room begin to listen to his lyrics. And then he has you.

He does a song called “The Great Society Conflict Veteran’s Blues,” for example, that says more about the last 20 years in America than any dozen adolescent acid-rock peace dirges. It’s about a guy named Sam Stone who fought in Korea and got some shrapnel in his knee. But the morphine eased the pain, and Sam Stone came home “with a Purple Heart and a monkey on his back.” That’s Sam Stone’s story, but the tragedy doesn’t end there. In the chorus, Prine reverses the point of view with an image of stunning power:

“There’s a hole in Daddy’s arm Where all the money goes…”

You hear lyrics like these, perfectly fitted to Priine’s quietly confident style and his ghost of a Kentucky accent, and you wonder how anyone could have so much empathy and still be looking forward to his 24th birthday on Saturday.

So you talk to him, and you find out that Prine has been carrying mail in Westchester since he got out of the Army three years ago. That he was born in Maywood, and that his parents come from Paradise, Ky. That his grandfather was a miner, a part-time preacher, and used to play guitar with Merle Travis and Ike Everly (the Everly brothers’ father). And that his brother Dave plays banjo, guitar and fiddle, and got John started on the guitar about 10 years ago.

Prine’s songs are all original, and he only sings his own. They’re nothing like the work of most young composers these days, who seem to specialize in narcissistic tributes to themselves. He’s closer to Hank Williams than to Roger Williams, closer to Dylan than to Ochs. “In my songs,” he says, “I try to look through someone else’s eyes, and I want to give the audience a feeling more than a message.”

That’s what happens in Prine’s “Old folks,” one of the most moving songs I’ve heard. It’s about an elderly retired couple sitting at home alone all day, looking out the screen door on the back porch, marking time until death. They lost a son in Korea: “Don’t know what for; guess it doesn’t matter anymore.” The chorus asks you, the next time you see a pair of “ancient empty eyes,” to say “hello in there…hello.”

Prine’s lyrics work with poetic economy to sketch a character in just a few words. In “Angel from Montgomery,” for example, he tells of a few minutes in the thoughts of a woman who is doing the housework and thinking of her husband: “How the hell can a person go to work in the morning, come back in the evening, and have nothing to say?”

Prine can be funny, too, and about half his songs are. He does one about getting up in the morning. A bowl of oatmeal tried to stare him down, and won. But “if you see me tonight with an illegal smile – It don’t cost very much, and it lasts a long while. – Won’t you please tell the Man I didn’t kill anyone – Just trying to have me some fun.

”There’s another insightful one, for example, called “The Great Compromise,” about a girl he once dated who was named America. One night at the drive-in movie, while he was going for popcorn, she jumped into a foreign sports car and he began to suspect his girl was no lady. “I could have beat up that fellow,” he reflects in his song, “but it was her that hopped into his car.”

Roger Ebert’s laudatory review set the stage for this remarkable singer/songwriter. Quirky fact aside: “Ebert was being paid to watch and write a review of a film; but as he tells it the film was so bad that he walked out on it half way through, and went looking for a beer to cut the taste of the popcorn. If the film had been any better, Prine’s career might have been entirely different or started a little later”.

Singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson heard Prine at Steve Goodman’s (City of New Orleans) insistence, and Kristofferson invited Prine to be his opening act. Prine released his eponymous debut album in 1971, featuring such songs as “Paradise”, “Sam Stone” and Angel from Montgomery, giving bittersweet tragic-comic snapshots of American society and also fed into the anti-war movement. The album has been hailed as one of the greatest albums of all time.

The acclaim Prine earned from his debut led to three more albums for Atlantic Records. Common Sense (1975) was his first to chart on the Billboard U.S. Top 100. He then recorded three albums with Asylum Records. In 1981, he co-founded Oh Boy Records, an independent label which released all of his music up until his death. His final album, 2018’s The Tree of Forgiveness, debuted at #5 on the Billboard 200, his highest ranking on the charts.

Indeed, Prine was a rare songwriter with a gift for both melodic and lyrical incisiveness. He didn’t need to pull any verbal sorcery to make you gasp and think “Did he just do that?” The magic was all in how profoundly and bluntly he observed the most mundane details of life and death, even for characters living on the fringe. His melancholic tales were economical and precise in their gut-punches.

Prine’s lyrics work with poetic economy to sketch a character in just a few words. In “Angel from Montgomery,” for example, he tells of a few minutes in the thoughts of a woman who is doing the housework and thinking of her husband: “How the hell can a person go to work in the morning, come back in the evening, and have nothing to say?”

Prine can be funny, too, and about half his songs are. He does one about getting up in the morning. A bowl of oatmeal tried to stare him down, and won. But “if you see me tonight with an illegal smile – It don’t cost very much, and it lasts a long while. – Won’t you please tell the Man I didn’t kill anyone – Just trying to have me some fun.”

At the time John Prine was all over the magazines, but he was nowhere on the radio. But without a radio hit, Prine remained a cult item. Actually, he remained a cult item for his entire career. But it’s funny, cult can supersede major success if you hang in there and do it right.

But after the debut, Prine’s notoriety, his “fame,” the attention he got, seemed to go in the wrong direction, you knew who he was, but most people did not. He had fans who purchased his records, but only fans purchased his records and went to see him live.

Eventually Prine switched labels from Atlantic to Asylum, he worked with his old cohort Steve Goodman, but “Bruised Orange” did not live up to its commercial expectations. It was everywhere in print, I purchased it, but after its initial launch, that’s the last you heard of it. Eventually, after three LPs with the definitive singer-songwriter label, Prine took off on his own, with his Oh Boy Records, partnering with his manager Al Bunetta and their buddy Dan Einstein. It worked. His fans, supporting the project, sent him enough money to cover the costs, in advance, of his next album. Prine continued writing and recording albums throughout the 1980s. His songs continued to be covered by other artists; the country supergroup The Highwaymen recorded “The 20th Century Is Almost Over”, written by Prine and Goodman. Steve Goodman died of leukemia in 1984 and Prine contributed four tracks to A Tribute to Steve Goodman, including a cover version of Goodman’s “My Old Man”.

“How the hell can a person go to work in the morning, And come home in the evening and have nothing to say”

Everybody knew “Angel From Montgomery.” It was never a single, never a radio hit. They knew John Prine had written “Angel From Montgomery.” And the great thing about famous songs is they carry their writers along. So when Bonnie Raitt entered the music scene full force with a number of Grammy Awards in the 1990s, the original recorded version from “Streetlights” was superseded by her live performances, if the song got any airplay, it ended up being the live take from her 1995 double album “Road Tested.”

And as a result of this, suddenly the winds were at John Prine’s back, he was a known quantity, his impact increased, his career rose, and it was all because of this one song.

Of course Prine had songs covered by other famous artists, some of them you could even call hits, but I’m not sure fans of David Allan Coe really cared who’d written his numbers. And it wasn’t only Bonnie Raitt. Over the years other people had covered “Angel From Montgomery,” and Raitt’s success lifted all boats, suddenly “Angel From Montgomery” was part of the American fabric. And this is strange. This is akin to Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” a song everybody knows that was not featured on the hit parade, but contains the essence of America more than the tracks that are.

Now “Angel From Montgomery” reaches you on the very first listen.

“If dreams were thunder, and lightning were desire

This old house would have burnt down a long time ago”

That kernel, that inner mounting flame, if it goes out, you die.

“Just give me one thing that I can hold on to

To believe in this living is just a hard way to go”

But you wake up one day and you discover this is your life, that you’re trapped, that your dreams didn’t come true, and you’re not only frustrated, you’re angry.

So then there’s someone like John Prine, telling your story. That’s what you resonate with, you’re looking for understanding, someone who gets you. And America discovered this singer/songwriter en masse.

In 1991, Prine released the Grammy-winning The Missing Years, his first collaboration with producer and Heartbreakers bassist Howie Epstein. The title song records Prine’s humorous take on what Jesus did in the unrecorded years between his childhood and ministry. In 1995, Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings was released, another collaboration with Epstein. On this album is the long track “Lake Marie”, a partly spoken word song interweaving tales over decades centered on themes of “goodbye”. Bob Dylan later cited it as perhaps his favorite Prine song. Prine followed it up in 1999 with In Spite of Ourselves, which was unusual for him in that it contained only one original song (the title track); the rest were covers of classic country songs. All of the tracks are duets with well-known female country vocalists, including Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Patty Loveless, Dolores Keane, Trisha Yearwood, and Iris DeMent.

In 2001 Prine appeared in a supporting role in the Billy Bob Thornton movie Daddy & Them. “In Spite of Ourselves” is played during the end credits.

Prine recorded a version of Stephen Foster‘s “My Old Kentucky Home” in 2004 for the compilation album Beautiful Dreamer, which won the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album.

In 2005, Prine released his first all-new offering since Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings, the album Fair & Square, which tended toward a more laid-back, acoustic approach. The album contains songs such as “Safety Joe”, about a man who has never taken any risks in his life, and also “Some Humans Ain’t Human”, Prine’s protest piece on the album, which talks about the ugly side of human nature and includes a quick shot at President George W. Bush. Fair & Squarewon the 2005 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album.

On June 22, 2010, Oh Boy Records released a tribute album titled Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine.

In 2016, Prine was named winner of the PEN/Song Lyrics Award, given to two songwriters every other year by the PENNew England chapter. Prine also released For Better, or Worse, a follow-up to In Spite of Ourselves. The album features country music covers spotlighting some of the most prominent female voices in the genre, including; Alison Krauss, Kacey Musgraves, and Lee Ann Womack, as well as Iris DeMent, the only guest artist to appear on both compilation albums

On February 8, 2018, Prine announced his first new album of original material in 13 years, titled The Tree of Forgiveness. The album features guest artists Jason Isbell, Amanda Shires, Dan Auerbach, and Brandi Carlile. Alongside the announcement, Prine released the track “Summer’s End”. The album became Prine’s highest-charting album on the Billboard 200.

In 2019, he recorded several tracks including “Please Let Me Go ‘Round Again”—a song which warmly confronts the end of life—with longtime friend and compatriot Swamp Dogg in his final recording session.

Most of today’s music doesn’t even have any melody, they’re based on beats. And pop numbers are cotton candy, they could be written by school kids, they’ve got no depth, despite the industry hyping them. And then there’s someone like John Prine. Who was always about the songs, who never wavered, who grew by being small, by nailing the experience of the average person, struggling to get by, at least emotionally, if not monetarily. And isn’t it funny how Prine’s music survives. Will it be heard forty or fifty years from now? I don’t know, but the odds are greater than those of the songs on the hit parade.

Prine never sold out, he was the genuine article. And he might not have been in the mainstream, but he was always in the landscape. He even survived cancer. He seemed unkillable. And now he’s gone.

Prine underwent cancer surgery on his throat in 2008 – and on his lungs in 2013 – but joked that it had actually improved his singing voice. Grammy-winning singer/songwriter John Prine died on March, 2020, aged 73, due to Covid-19 complications.

Tributes:

Throughout his five-decade career, Prine was often labeled the “songwriter’s songwriter,” not just because his only chart-toppers were scored by other great writers recording his music, but because few songwriters were as universally beloved, admired, and envied by their peers as Prine was.

• Speaking to the Huffington Post in 2009, Dylan – who performed with Prine – described his music as “pure Proustian existentialism”.

• “Midwestern mind trips to the nth degree. And he writes beautiful songs.”

• Robbie Robertson, from The Band – who used to back Dylan – described Prine as “a genius”.

• “His work… a beacon of clear white light cutting through the dark days,” added former Led Zeppelin frontman and solo star Robert Plant. “His charm, humour and irony we shall miss greatly.”

• He won his first of four Grammy Awards in 1991, for The Missing Years, which bagged best contemporary folk album. It was a category he would top again in 2005 for Fair and Square.

“We join the world in mourning the passing of revered country and folk singer/songwriter John Prine,” the Recording Academy wrote in a statement.

• “Widely lauded as one of the most influential songwriters of his generation, John’s impact will continue to inspire musicians for years to come. We send our deepest condolences to his loved ones.”

• “If I can make myself laugh about something I should be crying about, that’s pretty good,” he said.

• “If God’s got a favorite songwriter, I think it’s John Prine,” Kristofferson said at Prine’s 2003 Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame induction.

• “He’s just one of the greats, and an old, old soul,” his friend Rosanne Cash once said of him. Roger Waters declared in 2008 that he prefers the “extra-ordinarily eloquent music” of Prine to the modern bands influenced by Pink Floyd’s work, like Radiohead. Prine’s music, the Floyd bassist/vocalist said, lives on the same plane as icons like John Lennon and Neil Young.

• And the reigning American bard-in-chief Bob Dylan was effusive in one 2009 interview, naming Prine as among his favorite writers, adding: “Prine’s stuff is pure Proustian existentialism. Midwestern mindtrips to the nth degree. And he writes beautiful songs… Nobody but Prine could write like that.”

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Paul Barrere 10/19

October 26, 2019 Paul Barrere was born on July 3, 1948, the son of Hollywood actors Paul Bryar and Claudia Bryar. He joined celebrated cult band Little Feat in 1973, before the band recorded their third full-length LP, the gold-certified ‘Dixie Chicken’. For the recording of its fourth album, Feats Don’t Fail Me Now (1974), he wrote the title track. As Barrere stayed with the group, he took, along with keyboard player Bill Payne, an increasing role in singing, playing, and writing, as bandleader/founder Lowell George slowly retreated. When the group fragmented following George’s death in 1979, Paul led the group Chicken Legs.

Barrere then did sessions and recorded solo in the 1980s until the re-formation of Little Feat in 1988.

Barrere contracted Hepatitis C in 1994, but had managed to keep it under control, after he took a brief leave of absence. In 2015, he was diagnosed with liver cancer. Earlier this month, Barrere announced he was taking a medical leave of absence, but planned to be back on stage this upcoming January 2020, for the band’s headlining performance at Jamaica’s Ramble on the Island.

In a statement the members of Little feat announced:

It is with great sorrow that Little Feat must announce the passing of our brother guitarist, Paul Barrere, this morning at UCLA Hospital. We ask for your kindest thoughts and best wishes to go out especially to his widow Pam and children Gabriel, Genevieve, and Gillian, and to all the fans who were his extended family.

Paul auditioned for Little Feat as a bassist when it was first being put together—in his words, “as a bassist I make an excellent guitarist”—and three years later joined the band in his proper role on guitar. Forty-seven years later, he was forced to miss the current tour, which will end tomorrow, due to side effects from his ongoing treatment for liver disease.

He promised to follow his doctor’s orders, get back in shape, and rock on the beach at the band’s annual gathering in Jamaica in January 2020. “Until then,” he wrote, “keep your sailin’ shoes close by…if I have my way, you’re going to need them!”

As the song he sang so many times put it, he was always “Willin’,” but it was not meant to be. Paul, sail on to the next place in your journey with our abiding love for a life always dedicated to the muse and the music. We are grateful for the time we have shared.

Yours in music,

Little Feat: Bill Payne, Sam Clayton, Fred Tackett, Kenny Gradney, and Gabe Ford.

Little Feat released 16 studio albums over a span of 41 years, the last being ‘Rooster Rag’, in 2012. Barrere released three solo albums: ‘On My Own Two Feet’ (1983), ‘Real Lies’ (1984) and ‘If the Phone Don’t Ring’ (1986).

He also worked with Robert Palmer, Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, Jack Bruce, Carly Simon and Nicolette Larson. That is his guitar work on Nicolette’s cover of Neil Young’s ‘Lotta Love’.

Barrere was a swing man as a guitarist who played a wide variety of styles of music including blues, rock, jazz, and cajun music and was proficient as a slide guitarist.
Barrere also recorded and toured as an acoustic duo with fellow Little Feat member Fred Tackett.
Barrere played several concerts with Phil Lesh and Friends in October 1999 and from March to June 2000. He also toured with Bob Dylan, and had most recently been writing and recording with Roger Cole.

Paul wrote Little Feat’s ‘Feats Don’t Fail Me Now’, ‘All That You Dream’, ‘Time Loves A Hero’ and ‘Down On The Farm’. He joined the band for their third album ‘Dixie Chicken’ was had been a member ever since.

Little Feat guitarist Paul Barrere passed away at the age of 71 on October 26, 2019

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Art Neville 7/2019

art neville, keyboard in the neville brothersJuly 22, 2019 – Art Neville was born on 17 December 1937 the oldest son in the famous New Orleans blues/funk family that created the Neville Bothers. Art was born in New Orleans to Arthur Neville and his wife, Amelia (nee Landry). His father was a station porter fond of singing tunes by Nat King Cole and the Texan bluesman Charles Brown. His mother was part of a dance act with her brother, George “Big Chief Jolly” Landry.

The oldest of four brothers, his interest in playing keyboards was triggered at the age of three, when his grandmother took him to a New Orleans church where he spotted the organ. “I turned the little switch and hit one of the low keys,” he recalled. “It scared the daylights out of me, but that was the first keyboard I played.”
He later began playing the piano and performing with his brothers, and in high school joined (and subsequently led) his first band, the Hawketts. He was the lead singer on their version of Mardi Gras Mambo, a regional hit in 1954. It became a regular fixture at New Orleans’s annual Mardi Gras celebrations.
In 1958 he joined the US Navy, emerging in 1962 to continue his musical career. He formed Art Neville and the Neville Sounds, which included Aaron and Cyril before they quit to form their own group. Now a four-piece completed by guitarist Leo Nocentelli, bass player George Porter Jr and drummer Joseph “Zigaboo” Modeliste, they played regularly at New Orleans clubs, backing artists such as the Pointer Sisters and Lee Dorsey.

The Meters Era

In 1965 he was a founder not only of the Meters, whose music in the late 1960s and early 70s helped to define the genre of New Orleans funk, but of the Neville Brothers, who were masters of various soul, blues and gospel styles and were distinguished by their intricate vocal harmonies.
The Meters provided the musical backup for innumerable soul and funk artists, including on big-selling classics such as Lee Dorsey’s Working in the Coal Mine (1966) and Labelle’s Lady Marmalade (1974). But they also had hits in their own right, notably in 1969 with Cissy Strut (1969) and Look-Ka Py Py.

The Meters refined the loping, syncopated rhythm called the “second line” which became emblematic of New Orleans funk. Prime examples included the group’s hits Cissy Strut, Look-Ka Py Py, Chicken Strut (1970) and Hey Pocky A-Way (1974). Cissy Strut, which reached No 23 on the mainstream Billboard chart, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011.
The Meters made countless recordings as the house band for the songwriter and producer Allen Toussaint, with highlights including Working in the Coal Mine, which reached No 8 in the UK and the US, Dr John’s album In the Right Place (1973), and Labelle’s US chart-topper Lady Marmalade, a song about a prostitute in the French quarter of New Orleans with the famous line “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?”
In 1974 the Meters backed Robert Palmer on his album Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley, and in 1975 Paul McCartney invited them aboard the Queen Mary ocean liner in Long Beach, California, to play at the launch party of the Wings album Venus and Mars. Also present was Mick Jagger, who invited the Meters to support the Rolling Stones on their tours of the US and Europe in 1975-76. The group now included Cyril, who joined for their album Fire on the Bayou (1975).

Forming the Neville Brothers

Art and Cyril quit the Meters in 1977 and formed the Neville Brothers with Aaron and Charles. The brothers had already gathered the previous year to back their uncle George Landry on the album The Wild Tchoupitoulas. At first the Neville Brothers were slow to gain recognition. Art recalled how when they used to play at Tipitina’s in New Orleans “you could have blown it up and not hurt anyone but the Neville Brothers”. Though Keith Richards hailed their 1981 album Fiyo on the Bayou as the finest of the year, sales were poor. They failed to release another studio album until Uptown (1987), a conscious effort to find a more mainstream sound (with Richards and Carlos Santana guesting) that prompted accusations of a sellout.

Outside the Neville Brothers Art began playing concerts with his former Meters bandmates, following a reunion at the 1989 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage festival.
They subsequently formed a new version of the band called the Funky Meters, and Art continued to perform with both outfits.
A change of fortune came with Yellow Moon, sympathetically produced by Daniel Lanois, which successfully moulded the group’s collective skills into a coherent whole. In that year the group won a Grammy for best pop instrumental performance for the Yellow Moon track Healing Chant, while the album also contained several landmark tracks including the title song, a version of Dylan’s With God on Our Side, and Sister Rosa, their ode to the civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks. 

Art won another Grammy in 1996 with various artists for best rock instrumental performance for SRV Shuffle, a tribute to the guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan. Their musical groove influenced artists as varied as Little Feat, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Public Enemy and the Grateful Dead.
Art Neville, who was nicknamed Poppa Funk, toured as part of the Neville Brothers and the Meters with major artists, including the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead and Tina Turner, and were traditionally the closing act on the final Sunday night of New Orleans’s annual Jazz & Heritage festival.

The Neville Brothers disbanded in 2012, but reunited for a farewell concert in New Orleans in 2015. Three years after Art announced his retirement after more than six decades in the music business.

Art Neville crossed the rainbow to rock and roll paradise on July 22, 2019 at the age of 81.

 

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Danny Kirwan – 6/2018

Daniel David Kirwan (guitarist for Fleetwood Mac) was born on May 13, 1950 as Daniel David Langran and grew up in Brixton, South London. His parents separated when he was young. His mother, Phyllis Rose Langran then married Aloysious J. Kirwan in 1958 when Danny was eight. Kirwan left school in 1967 with six O-levels and worked for a year as an insurance clerk in Fenchurch Street in the City of London.

His mother was a singer and as a consequence he grew up listening to the music of jazz musicians such as Eddie Lang, Joe Venuti, Belgian gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt and 1930s–40s groups such as the Ink Spots. He began learning guitar at the relative late age of 15 and quickly became an accomplished self-taught guitarist and musician, influenced by guitarists such as Hank Marvin of the Shadows, Django Reinhardt, Jimi Hendrix, and particularly by Eric Clapton’s playing in the Bluesbreakers. Kirwan was 17 when he came to the attention of the newly formed blues band Fleetwood Mac in London while fronting his first band Boilerhouse, a blues three-piece with Trevor Stevens on bass guitar and Dave Terrey on drums. Boilerhouse played support slots for Fleetwood Mac at London venues such as the Nag’s Head in Battersea and John Gee’s Marquee Club in Wardour Street.

Danny Kirwan was a natural guitarist, much in the same vein as Peter Green, who could make a string sing and a note come alive without any pedal support, just his fingers. Officially the story is that Peter Green in search for a more melodic blues direction for the band, saw Danny as his perfect counterpart and Mick Fleetwood later said: “Danny was a huge force in our early years … Danny’s true legacy, in my mind, will forever live on in the music he wrote and played so beautifully as a part of the foundation of Fleetwood Mac, that has now endured for over fifty years. Danny was a quantum leap ahead of us creatively … He is the lost component. In many ways, Danny is a forgotten hero.”

Danny Kirwan himself however downplayed his contributions to Fleetwood Mac’s sound and ethos. “I was lucky to have played for the band at all,” Kirwan told the British paper. “I just started off following them around, but I could play the guitar a bit and Mick felt sorry for me and put me in. I did it for about four years, to about 1972, but … I couldn’t handle the lifestyle and the women and the traveling.”

Danny’s guitar playing was very melodic, much in the style of the Incredible Stringband and some California Commune bands like Mad River and Love in the late sixties, which was styled as psychedelic underground. Danny did vibrato bends and pull-offs that were until then hardly ever heard.
Danny had joined the band in 1968, barely 18 years old. He appeared on five of Fleetwood Mac’s albums: 1969’s Then Play On and Blues Jam at Chess; 1970’s Kiln House; 1971’s Future Games; and finally on 1972’s Bare Trees. His compositions clearly made an impact on everyone of those albums. But Danny became the second “victim” of Fleetwood Mac after his buddy Peter Green left the band in 1970. You see in those early days, the members in Fleetwood Mac were hard partying rockers. They had fun and were living the high-life. Peter Green out of a growing mental illness pushed by drug abuse was the first one to leave and young Danny Kirwan had lost his mentor and music partner.
When American westcoast guitarist Bob Welch was brought in to replace Peter Green, Danny entered a vacuum, as band victim #3, slide guitarist Jeremy Spencer was already translating their hard charging life style into a religious obsession. (He was supposed to tour North America with the band in early 1971, but he went missing shortly before Fleetwood Mac was to play a concert in Los Angeles. Spencer supposedly left the hotel he and the group were staying at to get some groceries, but he never returned.)

left to right: John McVie, Danny Kirwan, Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer

In 1999 Welch said Kirwan had been “a talented, gifted musician, almost equal to Peter Green in his beautiful guitar playing and faultless string bends,” but commented in a later interview: “Danny wasn’t a very lighthearted person, to say the least. He probably shouldn’t have been drinking as much as he did, even at his young age. He was always very intense about his work, as I was, but he didn’t seem to ever be able to distance himself from it and laugh about it.”
Before a concert on a US tour in August 1972, a backstage argument between a drunken Kirwan and Welch resulted in Kirwan smashing his guitar, trashing the dressing room and refusing to go on stage. Having reportedly smashed his head bloody on a wall, Kirwan watched the band struggle through the set without him, with Welch trying to cover his guitar parts. Welch remembered, “I was extremely pissed off, and the set seemed to drag on forever.” The band fired Kirwan, and the artistic direction of Fleetwood Mac was left in the hands of Welch and Christine McVie. Fleetwood said later that the pressure had become too much for Kirwan, and he had suffered a breakdown.

Danny Kirwin released three albums as a solo artist from 1975 to 1979, during which years he also recorded albums with Otis Spann, Chris Youlden, and Tramp, as well as worked with his former Fleetwood Mac colleagues Jeremy Spencer and Christine McVie on some of their solo projects. As a member of Fleetwood Mac, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, even though he did not come to the induction.

For most of the 1980s and 90s he battled mental illness, alcoholism and homelessness. It emerged that he had been living in basements and shelters, making ends meet through social security and small royalty payments.

In 1993, after Mick Fleetwood made inquiries about his well-being, the London paper The Independent and the U.K.’s Missing Persons Bureau tracked him down in a homeless shelter in London’s West End, where Kirwan had been living for the past four years in reasonable comfort, arranged for by his family.

Danny Kirwan died Friday June 8, 2018 in London at the age of 68, presumably according to his ex-wife from pro-longed pneumonia.

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Dr. John 6/2019

June 6, 2019 – Dr. John was born Malcolm John Rebennack in New Orleans on November 20, 1941, and early on got the nickname “Mac.”

When he was about 13 years old, Rebennack met blues pianist Professor Longhair (Roy Byrd) and soon began performing with him. At age 16, Rebennack quit high school to focus on playing music. He performed with several local New Orleans bands including Mac Rebennack and the Skyliners, Frankie Ford and the Thunderbirds, and Jerry Byrne and the Loafers. He had a regional hit with a Bo Diddley-influenced instrumental called “Storm Warning” on Rex Records in 1959.

Rebennack became involved in illegal activities in New Orleans in the early sixties, using and selling narcotics and running a brothel. He was arrested on drug charges and sentenced to two years in a federal prison at Fort Worth, Texas. When his sentence ended in 1965, he moved to Los Angeles, adopted the stage name of Dr. John, and collaborated with other New Orleans transplants. He became a “Wrecking Crew” session piano player appearing on works for a variety of artists including Sonny & Cher, Canned Heat on their albums Living the Blues (1968) and Future Blues (1970), and Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention on Freak Out! (1966).

Dr. John solo recordings include his debut LP, Gris-Gris (1968), Babylon (1969), Remedies (1970) and The Sun, Moon, and Herbs (1971) and Gumbo (1972). His 1973 release, In the Right Place, produced by Allen Toussaint, included his Top Ten hit “Right Place, Wrong Time.”

For the next three decades, Mac, as friends called him, collaborated with about everyone in rock and blues. Jagger and Richards, Springsteen, John Fogerty, Doc Pomus, Jason Isbell, Irma Thomas and so many more.

In the Movies, Dr. John appears in the Band’s opus, The Last Waltz and the sequel Blues Brothers 2000. Dr. John appears as himself in the second season of NCIS: New Orleans, playing his hit “Right Place, Wrong Time”.

He was the inspiration for Jim Henson’s Muppet character, Dr. Teeth and won 6 Grammy Awards and became a member of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.

Dr. John, legendary New Orleans musician, died from a heart attack on June 6, 2019 at age 77.

 

 

 

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Bernie Tormé 3/19

Bernie Tormé - guitaristMarch 17, 2019 – Bernie Tormé (guitarist for Ozzy, Gillan, Dee Snider and others) was born in Dublin on March 18, 1952, where he learned to play guitar. In 1974 he moved to London, joining bassist John McCoy in heavy rockers Scrapyard. After forming the Bernie Tormé Band two years later, he re-joined McCoy as a member of former Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan’s new solo project, playing on four Gillan albums: Mr. Universe, Glory Road, Future Shock and Double Trouble.

In 1981 Tormé left Gillan, and joined Atomic Rooster as a session guitarist. The following year briefly joined Ozzy Osbourne’s band, stepping in for Randy Rhoads in the aftermath of the guitarist’s tragic death. Ozzy Osbourne told Total Guitar that if it wasn’t for Bernie Tormé he “might never have got back on a stage”.

He then formed Bernie Tormé And The Electric Gypsies, and in 1988 joined Desperado, the band formed by Dee Snider after Twisted Sister were disbanded, playing on their only album, Bloodied, but Unbowed.

Tormé later later reunited with ex-Gillan colleague, John McCoy and drummer Robin Guy in GMT, and returned to solo work in 2013, releasing three acclaimed albums; Flowers & Dirt (2014), Blackheart (2015) and the 3CD set Dublin Cowboy. All three were successfully crowd-funded releases.

Tormé released his latest studio album Shadowland in November last year, but his family reported that PledgeMusic – who say they’re working on a solution to address late payments to artists – still owed the guitarist £16,000, which was due to be sent to him in December. 

Bernie Tormé passed away peacefully on March 17, 2019 , one day short of his 67th birthday, surrounded by his family. He had been on life support for the previous four weeks at a London hospital following post-flu complications and suffering from virulent pneumonia in both lungs. 

Snider tweeted, “Woke up to find out my friend Bernie Tormé has died. He was a guitar god who played with OzzyOsbourne & Ian Gillan. We worked together for 3 years, writing over 100 songs for the ill-fated Desperado. I loved that man & today my heart is broken. RIP Bernie. Your guitar weeps.”

 

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Scott Walker 3/2019

Scott Walker of the Walker BothersMarch 22, 2019 – Scott Walker (the Walker Brothers) was born January 9, 1943 in Hamilton, Ohio, despite the fact that he was perceived as British. One of the more enigmatic figures in rock history, Scott Walker was known as Scotty Engel when he cut obscure flop records in the late ’50s and early ’60s in the teen idol vein.

He initially found work in Los Angeles as a bass player, but rose to fame in the United Kingdom, after he hooked up with John Maus and Gary Leeds to form the Walker Brothers. They weren’t named Walker, they weren’t brothers, and they weren’t English, but they nevertheless became a part of the British Invasion after moving to the U.K. in 1965. They enjoyed a couple of years of massive success there (and a couple of hits in the U.S.) The Walker Brothers was a well-groomed trio famous for their British Invasion renditions of Brill Building pop. With the help of Scott Walker’s booming baritone, the act topped the British charts with covers of “Make It Easy On Yourself” (1965) and “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore)” (1966), but in the US, the trio never achieved the superstardom that they enjoyed overseas. As their full-throated lead singer and principal songwriter, Walker was the dominant artistic force in the group, who split in 1967. 

While remaining virtually unknown in his homeland, Walker launched a hugely successful solo career in Britain with a unique blend of orchestrated, almost MOR arrangements with idiosyncratic and morose lyrics. At the height of psychedelia, Walker openly looked to crooners like Sinatra, Jack Jones, and Tony Bennett for inspiration, and to Jacques Brel for much of his material. None of those balladeers, however, would have sung about the oddball subjects — prostitutes, transvestites, suicidal brooders, plagues, and Joseph Stalin — that populated Walker’s songs. His first four albums hit the Top Ten in the U.K. — his second, in fact, reached number one in 1968, in the midst of the hippie era. By the time of 1969’s Scott 4, the singer was writing all of his material. Although this was perhaps his finest album, it was a commercial disappointment, and unfortunately discouraged him from relying entirely upon his own material on subsequent releases.

The ’70s were a frustrating period for Walker, pocked with increasingly sporadic releases and a largely unsuccessful reunion with his “brothers” in the middle of the decade. His work on the Walkers’ final album in 1978 prompted admiration from David Bowie and Brian Eno. After a long period of hibernation, he emerged in 1984 with an album, Climate of Hunter, that drew critical raves for a minimalist, trance-like ambience that showed him keeping abreast of cutting-edge ’80s rock trends.

It would 11 more years before Walker completed his metamorphosis from pop crooner to avant-garde godfather. That would come on 1995’s Tilt, a shocking post-apocalyptic work of art that matched dark, enigmatic songwriting and dissonant orchestral production. Tying it all together was Walker’s inimitable voice, which he pushed to awkward, operatic heights. Tilt was a harrowing listen, but its uncompromising singularity attracted experimental music fans of all types.

Again, it would be 11 years before Walker would release new music, but this time the lag was to no one’s surprise. He had developed a reputation as a perfectionist who operated on his own schedule. When 2006’s The Drift was released on 4AD, Walker again sent shockwaves through the avant-garde community. While Tilt was, in part, adored for its misdirection, The Drift was celebrated for its execution. As the second part of Walker’s late-career trilogy, it took his ornate orchestration to new depths; every second of its nearly 70-minute runtime felt intentional and intricate.

During the next several years, he contributed to soundtracks (To Have and to Hold, The World Is Not Enough, Pola X) and assisted with recordings by Ute Lemper and Pulp. He didn’t release another album until 2006. That year, Walker also contributed the track “Darkness” to Plague Songs for the Margate Exodus project, curated by the British arts organization Artangel. The concept centered around the retelling of the ten plagues of Egypt as recorded in the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament. In early 2007, the documentary film Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, premiered. Later that year, Walker released the limited-edition EP And Who Shall Go to the Ball? And What Shall Go to the Ball? Commissioned as a work for ballet by the Candoco Dance Company, it was comprised of a single piece of instrumental music, 24 minutes in length, performed by the London Sinfonietta and cellist Philip Sheppard.

In November of 2008, the musical theater work Drifting and Tilting: The Songs of Scott Walker was staged at London’s Barbican over three evenings. It was comprised of songs from Tilt and The Drift. Walker did not perform, but directed the work from conception to execution including staging, lighting, and orchestra. The vocals were performed by various singers, including Damon Albarn, Dot Allison, and Jarvis Cocker. In 2009, the album Music Inspired by Scott Walker: 30 Century Man appeared, featuring songs inspired by the film sung by Laurie Anderson and other female Walker devotees. Also in 2009, Walker dueted with British singer Natasha Khan on her Bat for Lashes album Two Suns. In 2012, he released Bish Bosch. He regarded it as the third and final part of the trilogy that began with Tilt and continued on The Drift and then surprised many fans with Soused, a collaboration with doom-metal droners Sunn O))), in 2014. The last recording released during his lifetime was the 2018 score to the Brady Corbet-directed film Vox Lux.

Scott Walker died from cancer at age 76 on March 22, 2019. He influenced everyone from Jarvis Cocker (Pulp) to Thom Yorke (Radiohead), and even newer artists like Bat for Lashes. 

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Dick Dale 3/2019

Dick Dale, king of the surf guitarMarch 16, 2019 – Dick Dale was born Richard Monsour in Boston on May 4, 1937 1937; his father was Lebanese, his mother Polish. As a child, he was exposed to folk music from both cultures, which had an impact on his sense of melody and the ways string instruments could be picked. He also heard lots of big band swing, and found his first musical hero in drummer Gene Krupa, who later wound up influencing a percussive approach to guitar so intense that Dale regularly broke the heaviest-gauge strings available and ground his picks down to nothing several times in the same song.

He taught himself to play country songs on the ukulele, and soon graduated to guitar, where he was also self-taught. His father encouraged him and offered career guidance, and in 1954, the family moved to Southern California.
At the suggestion of a country DJ, Monsour adopted the stage name Dick Dale, and he began performing in local talent shows, where his budding interest in rockabilly made him a popular act. He recorded a demo song, “Ooh-Whee Marie,” for the local Del-Fi label, which was later released as a single on his father’s new Deltone imprint and distributed locally. During the late ’50s, Dale also became an avid surfer, and soon set about finding ways to mimic the surging sounds and feelings of the sport and the ocean on his guitar. He quickly developed a highly distinctive instrumental sound and found an enthusiastic, ready-made audience in his surfer friends. Dale began playing regular gigs at the Rendezvous Ballroom, a once-defunct concert venue near Newport Beach, with his backing band the Del-Tones; as word spread and gigs at other local halls followed, Dale became a wildly popular attraction, drawing thousands of fans to every performance. In September 1961, Deltone released Dale’s single “Let’s Go Trippin’,” which is generally acknowledged to be the very first recorded surf instrumental.

In the space of a few short years, the Boston-born, Southern California transplant had merged the laid-back, sun-blasted lifestyle of the surf scene with a blistering rhythm of rockabilly and early rock-and-roll. As the mad scientist behind what was dubbed surf rock, Dale was, in the words of a 1963 Life magazine profile, a thumping teenage idol who is part evangelist, part Pied Piper and all success. The music Dale and his band the Del-Tones made poured out of radios, sound-tracked popular beach movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, and lit inspirational fires in other musicians like the Beach Boys. Fans crowned him The King of the Surf Guitar.
Dick Dale wasn’t nicknamed “King of the Surf Guitar” for nothing: he pretty much invented the style single-handedly, and no matter who copied or expanded upon his blueprint, he remained the fieriest, most technically gifted musician the genre ever produced. Dale’s pioneering use of Middle Eastern and Eastern European melodies (learned organically through his familial heritage) was among the first in any genre of American popular music, and predated the teaching of such “exotic” scales in guitar-shredder academies by two decades. The breakneck speed of his single-note staccato picking technique was unrivaled until it entered the repertoires of metal virtuosos like Eddie Van Halen, and his wild showmanship made an enormous impression on the young Jimi Hendrix. But those aren’t the only reasons Dale was once called the father of heavy metal. Working closely with the Fender company, Dale continually pushed the limits of electric amplification technology, helping to develop new equipment that was capable of producing the thick, clearly defined tones he heard in his head, at the previously undreamed-of volumes he demanded. He also pioneered the use of portable reverb effects, creating a signature sonic texture for surf instrumentals. And, if all that weren’t enough, Dale managed to redefine his instrument while essentially playing it upside-down and backwards — he switched sides in order to play left-handed, but without re-stringing it (as Hendrix later did).
“I once made a million dollars a year with my career,” Dale reminisced to the Los Angeles Times magazine in 2001. “I made $10,000 for three minutes work on the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ in 1963.”

Dale’s signature guitar style was the result of a happy accident. Most guitars are strung for a right-handed player. Dale, a lefty, originally picked up the guitar upside down so he could play naturally without restringing the instrument, leaving the thicker strings on the bottom of the fret board. “Nobody told me I was holding it wrong,” Dale explained to the Orange County Register in 2009. “I just taught myself to play it like that. It was hard at first.”

“Let’s Go Trippin'” was a huge local hit, and even charted nationally. Dale released a few more local singles, including “Jungle Fever,” “Miserlou,” and “Surf Beat,” and in 1962 issued his (and surf music’s) first album, the groundbreaking Surfer’s Choice, on Deltone. Surfer’s Choice sold like hotcakes around Southern California, which earned Dale a contract with Capitol Records and national distribution for the album. Dale was featured in Life magazine in 1963, which led to appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and the Frankie/Annette film Beach Party. Surf music became a national fad, with groups like the Beach Boys and Jan & Dean offering a vocal variant to complement the wave of instrumental groups, all of which were indebted in some way to Dale, who released the follow-up LP King of the Surf Guitar and went on to issue three more albums on Capitol through 1965.  But the British Invasion began to steal much of surf’s thunder, and soon Dale was dropped by Capitol in 1965. He remained a wildly popular local act, but in that same year he was diagnosed with rectal cancer, which forced him to temporarily retire from music.

Doctors told the guitarist that without aggressive surgery, he could be dead in a matter of months. He survived, but the cancer bout whittled Dale from 158 pounds to 98 pounds, and also drained his bank account of his pop star proceeds. He moved to Hawaii and stayed away from music for a number of years. He beat the disease, however, and soon began pursuing other interests: owning and caring for a variety of endangered animals, studying martial arts, designing his parents’ dream house, and learning to pilot planes. In 1979, a puncture wound suffered while surfing off Newport Beach led to a pollution-related infection that nearly cost him his leg; Dick Dale soon added environmental activist to his resume. In addition to all of that, he performed occasionally around Southern California throughout the ’70s and ’80s.
In 1986, Dale attempted to mount a comeback. He first recorded a benefit single for the UC-Irvine Medical Center’s burn unit (which had helped him recuperate from potentially serious injuries), and the following year appeared in the beach movie Back to the Beach. The soundtrack featured a duet between Dale and Stevie Ray Vaughan on, which was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental. In 1991, Dale did a guest spot on an album by the San Francisco-based Psychefunkapus, and a successful Bay Area gig got him signed with Hightone Records.

The album Tribal Thunder was released in 1993, but Dale’s comeback didn’t get into full swing until “Miserlou” was chosen as the opening theme to Quentin Tarantino’s blockbuster 1994 film ‘Pulp Fiction’. “Miserlou” became synonymous with Pulp Fiction’s ultra-hip sense of style, and was soon licensed in countless commercials (as were several other Daletracks). As a result, Tribal Thunder and its 1994 follow-up, Unknown Territory, attracted lots of attention, earning positive reviews and surprisingly strong sales. In 1996, he supported the Beggars Banquet album Calling Up Spirits by joining the normally punk- and ska-oriented Warped Tour.
Adding his wife and young drum-playing son to his band, Dale refocused on touring over the next few years. He finally returned with a new CD in 2001,’ Spacial Disorientation’, issued on the small Sin-Drome label. Dale stepped away from his recording career after that release, but he continued to play out frequently, even as he struggled with myriad health problems, including diabetes, rectal cancer, and heart and kidney disease. Dale still had a busy schedule of concert dates on his schedule when he died on March 16, 2019, at the age of 81.

Tributes have begun popping up online, with many celebrating his distinctive sound. But the musician’s life story was also a constant struggle against health problems — and to pay medical bills. After his first cancer diagnosis in 1965, Dale continued to battle the disease. Up until the end of his life, Dale was explicit that he toured to fund his treatment.

“I can’t stop touring because I will die. Physically and literally, I will die,” he told the Pittsburgh City Paper in 2015. “Sure, I’d love to stay home and build ships in a bottle and spend time with my wife in Hawaii, but I have to perform to save my life.”

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Peter Tork 2/2019

Peter Tork, bass player for the Monkees

Peter Tork, bass player for the MonkeesPeter Tork (The Monkees) was born Peter Halsten Thorkelson on February 13, 1942 in Washington DC. His father John taught economics at the University of Connecticut. He began studying piano at the age of nine, showing an aptitude for music by learning to play several different instruments, including the banjo, French horn and both acoustic bass and guitars. Tork attended Windham High School in Willimantic, Connecticut, and was a member of the first graduating class at E. O. Smith High School in Storrs, Connecticut. He attended Carleton College in Minnesota but, after flunking out, moved to New York City, where he became part of the folk music scene in Greenwich Village and with his guitar and five-string banjo he began playing small folk clubs. He billed himself as Tork, a nickname handed down by his father, and reportedly played with members of the soon-to-be formed band Lovin’ Spoonful (Summer in the City). While there, he befriended other up-and-coming musicians such as Stephen Stills (Crosby, Stills Nash and Young).When Tork “failed to break open the folk circuit,” as he later phrased it, he moved to Long Beach, California in mid-1965. Later that summer, he fielded two calls from his friend Stephen Stills (Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young), who had auditioned with more than 400 others for the Monkees. Stills urged Tork to try out. “They told Steve, ‘Your hair and teeth aren’t photogenic, but do you know anyone who looks like you that can sing?’ And Steve told them about me,” Tork told the Washington Post in 1983.

Continue reading Peter Tork 2/2019

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Glenn Schwartz 11/2018

Glenn Schwartz, torn between rock and religionNovember 3, 2018 – Glenn Schwartz (the James Gang) was born on March 20, 1940 in Cleveland Ohio. While in Los Angeles on tour with the James Gang in 1967, Schwartz strolled onto the infamous Sunset Strip and stopped next to a small group of people listening to street preacher Arthur Blessitt, according to Stevenson’s book. Some time later he professed conversion to Christianity, saying “I was finally blessed by mercy for I heard the Gospel of Christ.”

Following his conversion, his zealous, new-found faith was not accepted well by the band, his family or his friends. As per Stevenson, Schwartz said: “I had some Christian friends who had some round stickers that read ‘Real Peace Is In Jesus’ and we stuck those all over our clothes … We put some on Janis Joplin but she didn’t like it and took them off. I remember she got pretty upset. Continue reading Glenn Schwartz 11/2018

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Tony Joe White 10/2018

Tony Joe White – October 24, 2018 was born on July 23, 1943, in Oak Grove, Louisiana as the youngest of seven children who grew up on a cotton farm. He first began performing music at school dances, and after graduating from high school he performed in night clubs in Texas and Louisiana.

As a singer-songwriter and guitarist, he became best known for his 1969 hit “Polk Salad Annie” and for “Rainy Night in Georgia”, which he wrote but was first made popular by Brook Benton in 1970. He also wrote “Steamy Windows” and “Undercover Agent for the Blues”, both hits for Tina Turner in 1989; those two songs came by way of Turner’s producer at the time, Mark Knopfler, who was a friend of White. “Polk Salad Annie” was also recorded by Elvis Presley and Tom Jones.

In 1967, White signed with Monument Records, which operated from a recording studio in the Nashville suburb of Hendersonville, Tennessee, and produced a variety of sounds, including rock and roll, country and western, and rhythm and blues. Billy Swan was his producer.

Over the next three years, White released four singles with no commercial success in the U.S., although “Soul Francisco” was a hit in France. “Polk Salad Annie” had been released for nine months and written off as a failure by his record label, when it finally entered the U.S. charts in July 1969. It climbed to the Top Ten by early August, and eventually reached No. 8, becoming White’s biggest hit.

White’s first album, 1969’s Black and White, was recorded with Muscle Shoals/Nashville musicians David Briggs, Norbert Putnam, and Jerry Carrigan, and featured “Willie and Laura Mae Jones” and “Polk Salad Annie”, along with a cover of Jimmy Webb’s “Wichita Lineman”. “Willie and Laura Mae Jones” was covered by Dusty Springfield and released as a single, later added to reissues of her 1969 album Dusty in Memphis.

Three more singles quickly followed, all minor hits, and White toured with Steppenwolf, Anne Murray, Sly & the Family Stone, Creedence Clearwater Revival and other major rock acts of the 1970s, playing in France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden and England.

In 1973, White appeared in the film Catch My Soul, a rock-opera adaption of Shakespeare’s Othello. White played and sang four and composed seven songs for the musical.

In late September 1973, White was recruited by record producer Huey Meaux to sit in on the legendary Memphis sessions that became Jerry Lee Lewis’s landmark Southern Roots album. By all accounts, these sessions were a three-day, around-the-clock party, which not only reunited the original MGs (Steve Cropper, Donald “Duck” Dunn and Al Jackson, Jr. of Booker T. and the MGs fame) for the first time in three years, but also featured Carl Perkins, Mark Lindsay (of Paul Revere & the Raiders), and Wayne Jackson plus The Memphis Horns.

From 1976 to 1983, White released three more albums, each on a different label. Trying to combine his own swamp-rock sound with the popular disco music at the time, the results were not met with success and White gave up his career as a singer and concentrated on writing songs. During this time frame, he collaborated with American expat Joe Dassin on his only English-language album, Home Made Ice Cream, and its French-language counterpart Blue Country.

In 1989, White produced one non-single track on Tina Turner’s Foreign Affair album, the rest of the album was produced by Dan Hartman. Playing a variety of instruments on the album, he also wrote four songs, including the title song and the hit single “Steamy Windows”. As a result of this he became managed by Roger Davies, who was Turner’s manager at the time, and he obtained a new contract with Polydor.

The resulting album, 1991’s Closer to the Truth, was a commercial success and put White back in the spotlight. He released two more albums for Polydor; The Path of a Decent Groove and Lake Placid Blues which was co-produced by Roger Davies.

In the 1990s, White toured Germany and France with Joe Cocker and Eric Clapton, and in 1992 he played the Montreux Festival.

In 1996, Tina Turner released the song “On Silent Wings” written by White.

In 2000, Hip-O Records released One Hot July in the U.S., giving White his first new major-label domestic release in 17 years. The critically acclaimed The Beginningappeared on Swamp Records in 2001, followed by Heroines, featuring several duets with female vocalists including Jessi Colter, Shelby Lynne, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, and Michelle White, on Sanctuary in 2004, and a live Austin City Limits concert, Live from Austin, TX, on New West Records in 2006. In 2004, White was the featured guest artist in an episode of the Legends Rock TV Show and Concert Series, produced by Megabien Entertainment.

In 2007, White released another live recording, Take Home the Swamp, as well as the compilation Introduction to Tony Joe White. Elkie Brooks recorded one of White’s songs, “Out of The Rain”, on her 2005 Electric Lady album. On July 14, 2006, in Magny-Cours, France, White performed as a warm-up act for Roger Waters’ The Dark Side of the Moon concert. White’s album, entitled Uncovered, was released in September 2006 and featured collaborations with Mark Knopfler, Michael McDonald, Eric Clapton, and J.J. Cale.

The song “Elements and Things” from the 1969 album …Continued features prominently during the horse-racing scenes in the 2012 HBO television series “Luck”.

In 2013, White signed to Yep Roc Records and released Hoodoo. Mother Jones called the album “Steamy, Irresistible” and No Depression noted Tony Joe White is “the real king of the swamp.” He also made his Live…with Jools Holland debut in London, playing songs from Hoodoo.

On October 15, 2014, White appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman alongside the Foo Fighters to perform “Polk Salad Annie”. Pointing to White, Letterman told his TV audience, “Holy cow! … If I was this guy, you could all kiss my ass. And I mean that.”

In May 2016, Tony Joe White released Rain Crow on Yep Roc Records. The lead track “Hoochie Woman” was co-written with his wife, Leann. The track “Conjure Child” is a follow up to an earlier song, “Conjure Woman.

The album Bad Mouthin’ was released in September 2018 again on Yep Roc Records. The album contains six self-penned songs and five blues standards written by, amongst others, Charley Patton and John Lee Hooker. On the album White also performs a cover of the Elvis Presley song “Heartbreak Hotel”. White plays acoustic and electric guitar on the album which was produced by his son Jody White and has a signature Tony Joe White laid back sound.

White died of a heart attack on October 24, 2018, at the age of 75

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Marty Balin 9/2018

Marty Balin (76) – Jefferson Airplane – was born Martyn Buchwald in Cincinnati, Ohio, on January 30, 1942. He was the son of Catherine Eugenia “Jean” (née Talbot) and Joseph Buchwald. His paternal grandparents had emigrated from Eastern Europe. His father was Jewish and his mother was Episcopalian. Buchwald attended Washington High School in San Francisco, California. As a child, Balin was diagnosed with what is now called autism.

In 1962, Buchwald changed his name to Marty Balin and began recording with Challenge Records in Los Angeles, releasing the singles “Nobody but You” and “I Specialize in Love”. By 1964, Balin was leading a folk music quartet named The Town Criers and along with the late guitarist Paul Kantner, co-founded Jefferson Airplane in 1965, recruiting vocalist Signe Anderson, who when left was replaced by Grace Slick.

Balin was the primary founder of Jefferson Airplane, which he “launched” from a restaurant-turned-club he created and named The Matrix and was also one of its lead vocalists and songwriters from 1965 to 1971. Balin was one of four Jewish members of the band, including bass player Jack Casady, drummer Spencer Dryden and guitarist Jorma Kaukonen. In the group’s 1966–1971 iteration, Balin served as co-lead vocalist alongside Grace Slick. Balin’s songwriting output diminished after Surrealistic Pillow (1967) as Slick, Paul Kantner, and Kaukonen matured as songwriters, a process compounded by personality clashes. 

Balin’s most enduring songwriting contributions were often imbued with a romantic, pop-oriented lilt that was atypical of the band’s characteristic forays into psychedelic rock. Among Balin’s most notable songs were “Comin’ Back to Me” (a folk rock ballad later covered by Ritchie Havens and Rickie Lee Jones), “Today” (a collaboration with Kantner initially written on spec for Tony Bennett that was prominently covered by Tom Scott), and, again with Kantner, the topical 1969 top-100 hit “Volunteers”. Although uncharacteristic of his oeuvre, the uptempo “3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds” and “Plastic Fantastic Lover” (both written for Surrealistic Pillow) remained integral components of the Airplane’s live set throughout the late 1960s.

Balin played with Jefferson Airplane at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and at the Woodstock Festival in 1969. In December 1969, Balin was knocked unconscious by members of the Hells Angels motorcycle club while performing during the infamous Altamont Free Concert, as seen in the 1970 documentary film Gimme Shelter. 

In April 1971, he formally departed Jefferson Airplane after breaking off all communication with his bandmates following the completion of their autumn 1970 American tour. He elaborated upon this decision in a 1993 interview with Jeff Tamarkin of Relix.

I don’t know, just Janis’s death. That struck me. It was dark times. Everybody was doing so much drugs and I couldn’t even talk to the band. I was into yoga at the time. I’d given up drinking and I was into totally different area, health foods and getting back to the streets, working with the American Indians. It was getting strange for me. Cocaine was a big deal in those days and I wasn’t a cokie and I couldn’t talk with everybody who had an answer for every goddamn thing, rationalizing everything that happened. I thought it made the music really tight and constrictive and ruined it. So after Janis died, I thought, I’m not gonna go onstage and play that kind of music; I don’t like cocaine.

Balin remained active in the San Francisco Bay Area rock scene, managing and producing an album for the Berkeley-based sextet Grootna before briefly joining funk-inflected hard rock ensemble Bodacious DF as lead vocalist on their eponymous 1973 debut album. The following year, Kantner asked Balin to write a song for his new Airplane offshoot group, Jefferson Starship. Together, they wrote the early power ballad “Caroline”, which appeared on the album Dragon Fly with Balin as guest lead vocalist.

Rejoining the band he had helped to establish, Balin became a permanent member of Jefferson Starship in 1975; over the next three years, he contributed to and sang lead on four top-20 hits, including “Miracles” (No. 3, a Balin original), “With Your Love” (No. 12, a collaboration between Balin, former Jefferson Airplane drummer Joey Covington, and former Grootna/Bodacious DF lead guitarist Vic Smith), Jesse Barish’s “Count on Me” (No. 8), and N. Q. Dewey’s “Runaway” (No. 12). Ultimately, Balin’s relationship with the band was beleaguered by interpersonal problems and his own reluctance toward live performances. He abruptly left the group in October 1978 shortly after Slick’s departure from the band.

In 1979, Balin produced a rock opera titled Rock Justice, about a rock star who was put in jail for failing to produce a hit for his record company, based on his experiences with the lawsuits fought for years with former Jefferson Airplane manager Matthew Katz. The cast recording was produced by Balin, but it did not feature him in performance.

In 1981, he released his first solo album, Balin, and in 1983 a second solo album, Lucky, along with a Japanese-only EP produced by EMI called There’s No Shoulder.

In 1985, he teamed with former Jefferson Airplane members Paul Kantner and Jack Casady to form the KBC Band. After the breakup of the KBC band, a 1989 reunion album and tour with Jefferson Airplane followed.

In 1989, he participated in a short-lived Jefferson Airplane reunion tour and returned four years later to Jefferson Starship, finally leaving for good in 2008.

Jefferson Airplane was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 and was presented with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.

While on tour in March 2016, Balin was taken to Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital in New York City after complaining of chest pains. After undergoing open-heart surgery, he was transferred to an intensive-care unit to spend time recovering. In a subsequent lawsuit, Balin alleged that neglect and inadequate care facilities on the hospital’s part had resulted in a paralyzed vocal cord, loss of his left thumb and half of his tongue, bedsores, and kidney damage.

Balin died at his home in Tampa, Florida on September 27, 2018, at the age of 76.

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Otis Rush 9/2018

Otis Rush was born near Philadelphia, Mississippi on April 29, 1934 during the Great Depression, the son of sharecroppers Julia Campbell Boyd and Otis C. Rush. He was one of seven children and worked on the farm throughout his childhood. His mother regularly took him out of school so that he could add to the family income when the cotton was high and white landowners wanted extra labor.

Music was young Otis solace. He sang in gospel choirs and taught himself to play guitar and harmonica, playing on street corners. “This is where my soul came from. This is where my faith started.” He said of Neshoba County.

Determined not to spend his life in the cotton fields, he moved north to Chicago in 1949 at the age of 14, working in stockyards and steel mills and driving a horse drawn coal wagon, hanging out in the city’s blues clubs at night. Continue reading Otis Rush 9/2018

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Ed King 8/2018

Ed King, guitarist for Lynyrd SkynyrdEd King, ( Lynyrd Skynyrd/Strawberry Alarm Clock) – September 14, 1949 – August 22, 2018 was born in Glendale California and a guitar prodigy from early on in his life. Not even 18 years old, he became a founding member of the Los Angeles band Strawberry Alarm Clock, remembered for their 1967 #1 single “Incense and Peppermints.”

King met members of the future Lynyrd Skynyrd when they were opening for Strawberry Alarm Clock in early 1968. When Strawberry Alarm Clock disbanded, he became an official member of Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1972, replacing Leon Wilkeson on bass when Leon had left the band briefly. When Wilkeson rejoined the band King switched to lead guitar turning Skynyrd into the “guitar army” band, famous for its guitar fireworks.

He helped write “Sweet Home Alabama” in 1974; the song became one of Skynyrd’s strongest hits and a staple of rock guitarists everywhere. It is King’s voice heard counting off 1-2-3 at the beginning of “Sweet Home Alabama.” Other songs that King wrote or co-wrote include “Poison Whiskey”, “Saturday Night Special”, “Whiskey Rock-a-Roller” and “Workin’ For MCA”. He appeared on the band’s first three albums, Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd, Second Helping, and Nuthin’ Fancy.

Ed King quit Lynyrd Skynyrd pretty much at the peak of their fame, mainly because he finally got fed up with Ronnie Van Zant’s mercurial ways.

Skynyrd had three guitarists — at that point, King and founding members Gary Rossington and Allen Collins — but King was an outsider from the start. All of the other band members had grown up in the same part of Jacksonville, Florida, while King wasn’t even a Southerner, but a native of Glendale, California. He was marvelously talented — that riff in “Sweet Home Alabama”? That was King’s creation — and he was valued for his abilities as both a musician and a songwriter, but he was never really “one of the gang”.

Of writing the song with bandmate Ronnie Van Zant, King claimed, “we wrote that song in half an hour, but it took us about a half a day to put it together. The song came real quick. I started off with that riff and Ronnie was sitting on the edge of the couch, making this signal to me to just keep rolling it over and over.”

In an interview shortly before his death from cancer in 2018, King pointed to the below photo as being illustrative of his place in the band — all by himself to the left, with the other guys all standing side by side:

In March of 1975, during a show in Ann Arbor, Michigan, King snapped two guitar strings while playing “Free Bird”, throwing off his performance. According to King, his guitar tech had not been around to change his strings because he had been thrown in jail, along with Van Zant, following an altercation with police.

Ronnie didn’t care why King’s strings broke; all he knew was that Ed had fucked up. He unleashed a torrent of verbal abuse on King, including such colorful pronouncements as “you don’t amount to a pimple on Allen’s ass”.

Following the incident, King said he returned to his hotel room, thinking “what the hell am I doing here?”, packed his belongings, and left without a word, leaving his bandmates to wake up the next morning to find out he was gone (and Rossington and Collins to scramble to rearrange the songs to make up for King’s absence).

About the decision to leave the band, King said “well, I was out of my mind for quitting. But it was the best thing I ever did. It just got a little too nutty for me. So, in the middle of the night, I just walked out. It had been a bad night the night before. I had gotten fed up with frankly all the violence. I had good reason to leave.”

King was ultimately replaced by Steve Gaines in 1976; Gaines would die in the 1977 plane crash that also killed his sister Cassie and Van Zant. King said he visited the cemetery after the crash to pay his respects, and it was then that he discovered that he and Steve had been born on exactly the same day: September 14, 1949. He felt he had dodged a huge bullet by quitting when he did.

King would later reconcile with the other band members, and rejoined them when they reformed Skynyrd in 1987, but had to leave the band due to to congestive heart failure problems in 1996. He had a heart transplant surgery in 2011. Both he and Gaines were among the band members inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.

He died, presumably from cancer at his Nashville home on August 22, 2018.

Founding member of Lynyrd Skynyrd Gary Rossington released a message on Twitter: ” I’ve just found out about Ed’s passing and I’m shocked and saddened. Ed was our brother, and a great Songwriter and Guitar player. I know he will be reunited with the rest of the boys in Rock & Roll Heaven.”

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Aretha Franklin 8/2018

Aretha Franklin 8/2018 (76) was born on March 25, 1942 in Memphis, TN. Her father was a Baptist minister and circuit preacher originally from Shelby, Mississippi, while her mother was an accomplished piano player and vocalist. By age five she had moved with her family to Motor City Detroit.  As a child, young Aretha Franklin was noticed for her gospel singing at New Bethel Baptist Church, where her father was a minister.
Shortly after her mother’s death from a heart attack, Franklin at age 10 began singing solos at New Bethel Baptist Church. When Franklin was 12, shortly after giving birth to her first son, her father, a notorious womanizer, began managing her; he would take her on the road with him, during his “gospel caravan” tours for her to perform in various churches. He also helped her sign her first recording deal with J.V.B. Records. Franklin was featured on vocals and piano. In 1956, J.V.B. released Franklin’s first single, “Never Grow Old”, backed with “You Grow Closer”. “Precious Lord (Part One)” backed with “Precious Lord (Part Two)” followed in 1959.

These four tracks, with the addition of “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood”, were released on side one of the 1956 album, Spirituals. This was reissued by Battle Records in 1962, under the same title. In 1965, Checker Records released Songs of Faith, featuring the five tracks from the 1956 Spirituals album, with the addition of four previously unreleased recordings. Aretha was only 14 when Songs of Faith was recorded.

During this time, Franklin would occasionally travel with the Soul Stirrers. As a young gospel singer, Franklin spent summers on the gospel circuit in Chicago and stayed with Mavis Staples’ family. According to music producer Quincy Jones, while Franklin was still young, Dinah Washington let him know that “Aretha was the ‘next one'”.  Franklin and her father traveled to California, where she met singer Sam Cooke. At the age of 16, Franklin went on tour with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and she would ultimately sing at his funeral in 1968. Other influences in her youth included Marvin Gaye (who was a boyfriend of her sister), as well as Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, “two of Franklin’s greatest influences”. Also important was James Cleveland, known as the King of Gospel music, “who helped to focus her early career as a gospel singer”; Cleveland had been recruited by her father as a pianist for the Southern California Community Choir.

After turning 18, Franklin confided to her father that she aspired to follow Sam Cooke in recording pop music, and moved to New York. Serving as her manager, C. L. Franklin agreed to the move and helped to produce a two-song demo that soon was brought to the attention of Columbia Records, who agreed to sign her in 1960, as a “five-percent” artist (meaning she would receive 5% over all records sold!). Sam Cooke tried to persuade Franklin’s father to sign her with his label, RCA Victor, but she had already decided to go with Columbia. Berry Gordy had also asked Franklin and her elder sister Erma to sign with his Tamla label (Motown), but C.L. Franklin turned Gordy down, as he felt Tamla was not yet an established label. Franklin’s first Columbia single, “Today I Sing the Blues“, was issued in September 1960 and reached the top 10 of the Hot Rhythm & Blues Sellers chart.

But, as her Detroit friends on the Motown label enjoyed hit after hit, Franklin struggled to achieve crossover success. Columbia placed her with a variety of producers who marketed her to both adults (“If Ever You Should Leave Me,” 1963) and teens (“Soulville,” 1964). Without targeting any particular genre, she sang everything from Broadway ballads to youth-oriented rhythm and blues. Critics recognized her talent, but the public remained lukewarm until 1966, when she switched to Atlantic Records, where producer Jerry Wexler helped her to sculpt her own musical identity.

At Atlantic, Franklin returned to her gospel-blues roots, and the results were sensational. “I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)” (1967), recorded at Fame Studios in Florence, Alabama, was her first million-seller. Surrounded by sympathetic musicians, including a young Duane Allman) playing spontaneous arrangements and devising the background vocals herself, Franklin refined a style associated with Ray Charles—a rousing mixture of gospel and rhythm and blues—and raised it to new heights. As a civil-rights-minded nation lent greater support to black urban music, Franklin was crowned the “Queen of Soul.” Respect,” her 1967 cover of Otis Redding’s spirited composition, became an anthem operating on personal, sexual, and racial levels. “Think” (1968), which Franklin wrote herself, also had more than one meaning. For the next half-dozen years, she became a hit maker of unprecedented proportions; she was “Lady Soul.”
In the early 1970s she triumphed at the Fillmore West in San Francisco before an audience of flower children and on whirlwind tours of Europe and Latin America. Amazing Grace (1972), a live recording of her performance with a choir at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, is considered one of the great gospel albums of any era. By the late 1970s disco cramped Franklin’s style and eroded her popularity. But in 1982, with help from singer-songwriter-producer Luther Vandross, she was back on top with a new label, Arista, and a new dance hit, “Jump to It,” followed by “Freeway of Love” (1985). A reluctant interviewee, Franklin kept her private life private, claiming that the popular perception associating her with the unhappiness of singers Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday was misinformed.
In 1987 Franklin became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition, she received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1994, a National Medal of Arts in 1999, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005. While her album sales in the 1990s and 2000s failed to approach the numbers of previous decades, Franklin remained the Queen of Soul. In 2009 she electrified a crowd of more than one million with her performance of “My Country ’Tis of Thee” at the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama, and her rendition of Carole King’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” during the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony in 2015 was no less breathtaking. The documentary Amazing Grace, which chronicles her recording of the 1972 album, premiered in 2018.

Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul” died August 16th, 2018, the same day that Elvis Presley “The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll” died 41 years earlier.

It is said that Aretha sang the soul from her experiences of becoming a mother at age 12 and then again 14. It is also known that she lived in violent marriages and as a result became alcohol dependent. Her life was often compared to Tina Turner’s life with Ike. A story published in Vanity Fair exposes this wonderful woman.

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Fast Eddie Clarke 1/2018

Fast Eddie Clarke (Motorhead/Fastway) was born on 5 October, 1950 in Twickenham, Middlesex, England. He got his first guitar in 1965 when his father had “a win on the horses”.

And a little later in that year when he turned fifteen years old, he had already been through several local bands, one of which was called The Bitter End. Of his “Fast” moniker, Clarke has said “I didn’t get the name Fast Eddie because of any sex thing, and it wasn’t even because I could play fast. It was just that I could play one note in a solo really fast,” referring to his skillful tremolo picking. He became a proficient guitarist, honing his chops with various other bands, playing local gigs until 1973, when he turned professional by joining Curtis Knight’s blues prog rock band, Zeus, as lead guitarist.

In 1974, the band recorded an album called The Second Coming at Olympic Studios. Clarke wrote the music to Knight’s lyrics on a track entitled “The Confession”.
Clarke also recorded the album Sea of Time with Zeus. Later, with guitarist friend Allan Callan, keyboard player Nicky Hogarth, and drummer Chris Perry, Clarke attended a recorded jam session at Command Studios in Piccadilly. As a result of the tracks from this session, the quartet secured a deal with Anchor Records, and called the band Blue Goose. With a recording contract secured, Clarke, Hogarth and Perry left Zeus to focus on their own project with Callan.
But Clarke soon formed another band with Be-Bop Deluxe bassist Charlie Tumahai, vocalist Ann McCluskie and drummer Jim Thompson. Called Continuous Performance, this line up lasted until early 1975, when their demo tracks failed to secure them a record deal and the band split up. Still out to secure a record deal, Clarke then formed a group with Nicky Hogarth from Blue Goose, bass player Tony Cussons and drummer Terry Slater. Their efforts to get a deal were also unsuccessful, and Clarke temporarily gave up the music industry.

While re-fitting a houseboat, he met drummer Phil Taylor, who had recently joined Motörhead. However, according to Lemmy Kilmister‘s authorized biography, it appears that Clarke was introduced to Lemmy by a receptionist at the rehearsal studio, Gertie, who was romantically involved with Clarke at the time.

So the threesome (Lemmy, Clarke, Taylor) are considered the classic Motörhead line-up and have the Motörhead, Overkill, Ace of Spades, Bomber, No Sleep ’til Hammersmith and Iron Fist albums plus a string of hit singles to their credit.

Eddie was a member of Motörhead for the most successful five years of their career following the release of the Chiswick album.

And then in 1982, whilst on tour in the US he was unexpectedly kicked out of the band over musical differences with Lemmy and Phil Taylor. Clarke himself later said:

“[Philthy] was the main instigator in my being excluded from the band. Notice I do not call it leaving, as it was not my choice. I had imagined dying onstage with Motörhead, so it was a blow when they didn’t want me in the band any longer.”

But soon after, Eddie got together with UFO bass player Pete Way to form Fastway, an amalgamation of their own two names. Added by ex-Humble Pie drummer Jerry Shirley and vocalist Dave King. Just as the band signed a deal with CBS Records, Way left the band to be replaced by former Taste bassist Charlie McCracken. CBS however had faith in Fastway and decided to sign them despite this setback. Fastway went on to record a total of nine albums over 25 years with Eddie Clarke the only permanent member of the band and with numerous contributions from amateurs and professional musicians.

Just like during the excessive rock and roll lifestyle during the Motorhead years, the candle kept burning on both sides and there was a price to pay.
By 1993 Clarke was being admitted to a hospital for quite a while. After a slow recovery, Clarke released a solo album, It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over, which blends Motörhead and Fastway styles. Lemmy also helped out on the album by writing and singing the track “Laugh at the Devil”. The double CD release, Fast Eddie Clarke Anthology, on Sanctuary Records showcased a collection of Clarke’s music spanning his career before and after Motörhead. It also marked a return to live performances with a re-formed Fastway, including an appearance in the UK at the Download Festival in summer 2007.

Eddie’s inspirational driving guitar-playing kept fans interested and Fastway toured and played festivals all over the world, but gradually sales spiraled down and “Dog Eat Dog” for the German Steamhammer label in 2011 was the band’s final album.

Eddie had a home studio and continued playing guitar and his final album was “Make My Day – Back To Blues” in 2014; a collaboration between Clarke and the keyboardist from Shakatak, Bill Sharpe. Clarke reunited with Lemmy on 6 November 2014 at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham to play the Motörhead track “Ace of Spades”.

Fast Eddie Clarke died on 10 January 2018, aged 67, in a hospital where he was being treated for pneumonia. He suffered from emphysema.

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Edwin Hawkins 1/2018

Edwin Hawkins was born in Oakland, California, on August 19, 1943. he began singing in his church youth choir while still a toddler, and by age five was playing piano; just two years later, he assumed full-time piano accompaniment duties for the family gospel group, making their recorded debut in 1957.
In May 1967, together with Betty Watson, he founded the Northern California State Youth Choir of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), which included almost fifty members.  This ensemble recorded its first album Let Us Go into the House of the Lord at the Ephesian Church of God in Christ in Berkeley, California privately (on the Century 70 custom label), hoping to sell 500 copies. “Oh Happy Day” was just one of the eight songs on the album. The choir used this LP to raise funds to travel to the 1968 Youth Congress for COGIC in Washington, D.C. to compete in the Congress’ annual choir competition, representing the Northern California region. The choir finished in second place at the contest, and that was the first of many surprises coming their way. Upon their return to California, their LP found its way into the hands of a KSAN underground rock DJ in San Francisco who happened to pick “Oh Happy Day” to play on his station; the song became an instant hit.
Once “Oh Happy Day” received radio airplay in other parts of the U.S. and the ensemble learned of the song’s rising success, they began to contact people in the recording industry who helped them obtain a major contract. The ensemble signed with the newly created Pavilion label (distributed by Buddah), and released a second LP, entitled He’s A Friend of Mine, in 1969. But it was “Oh Happy Day” that rocketed to sales of more than a million copies within two months. The song crossed over to the pop charts, making U.S. No. 4, UK No. 2, Canada No. 2, No. 2 on the Irish Singles Chart, and No. 1 on the French Singles Charts, the Netherlands and the German Singles Charts in 1969.

It became an international success, selling more than 7 million copies worldwide, and Hawkins was awarded his first Grammy for the recording. His arrangement of the song was eventually covered by The Four Seasons on their 1970 album Half & Half. At this time the choir was rechristened the Edwin Hawkins Singers, although the featured voice on “Oh Happy Day” belonged to singer Dorothy Combs Morrison, who soon exited in pursuit of a solo career. Her loss proved devastating to Hawkins’ long-term commercial fortunes.

The choir’s second LP Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 charts was the 1970 Melanie single “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain),” on which the label listed the performers as “Melanie with The Edwin Hawkins Singers”. The song peaked at No. 6 in the U.S. and Top 10 in a host of other countries.

Hawkins remained a critical favorite, and in 1972 the Singers won a second Grammy for Every Man Wants to Be Free. Recording prolifically throughout the remainder of the decade, in 1980 they won a third Grammy for Wonderful; a fourth, for If You Love Me, followed three years later. In 1982, Hawkins also founded the Edwin Hawkins Music and Arts Seminar, an annual weeklong convention that offered workshops exploring all facets of the gospel industry and culminating each year with a live performance by the assembled mass choir. Although Hawkins recorded less and less frequently in the years to follow, he continued touring regularly. In 1990, Hawkins, credited as a solo performer, had a number 89 hit on the R&B chart with “If at First You Don’t Succeed (Try Again)”.
In the 1992 movie Leap of Faith, Hawkins is the choir master for the gospel songs. In 1995 he toured extensively with the Swedish choir Svart Pa Vitt. His Music and Arts Seminar continued to grow as well, with the 2002 choir including members from the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Hawkins also recorded throughout the 2000s, releasing All the Angels in 2004 and Have Mercy four years later.

Edwin Hawkins was one of the originators of the urban contemporary gospel sound.  His arrangement of “Oh Happy Day”, which was included on the Songs of the Century list.

Hawkins died of pancreatic cancer on January 15, 2018, in Pleasanton, California, at the age of 74.

Altogether Hawkins has won four Grammy Awards and In 2007, Hawkins was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame and attended the formal awards show in 2009.

The Edwin Hawkins Singers performance of “Oh Happy Day” at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival appears in the 2021 music documentary, Summer of Soul.
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Preston Shannon 1/2018

Preston Shannon was born October 23, 1947 in Olive Branch, Miss., Shannon moved to Memphis at the age of 8. While his family was steeped in the culture and music of the Pentecostal church, it was blues and R&B that fired Shannon’s imagination.

Shannon first gained notice in the 1980s as a member of local group Amnesty while still working as a hardware salesman. His big break came after being discovered by soul singer Shirley Brown. Shannon’s distinctive vocals, often described as “a cross between Bobby Womack and Otis Redding”  and supple guitar playing, set him on the path professionally.

In the early-’90s, Shannon stepped out on his own, launching a long run as one of the featured acts on Beale Street. Over the next three decades, Shannon would cut a familiar figure in the clubs on Beale, serving as a kind of musical ambassador to the hundreds of thousands of tourists who would visit each year. His efforts would earn Shannon the nickname “The King of Beale Street.”

In the ’90s, Shannon also began his solo recording career. Signing with indie label Rounder Records in 1994, he released his critically acclaimed debut, “Break the Ice,” featuring contributions from the Memphis Horns.

In 1993, his own Preston Shannon Band played at the Long Beach Blues Festival in Long Beach, California. After being spotted leading his own band in Memphis’ Beale Street clubs, he signed to Rounder Records subsidiary, Bullseye Blues, and released his debut solo effort, Break the Ice in 1994.

After this followed the Willie Mitchell produced efforts, Midnight in Memphis (1996) and All in Time (1999). However, with no immediate follow-up available, Preston lost momentum.Shannon’s next effort, 1996’s “Midnight in Memphis,” was produced by Hi Records legend Willie Mitchell, who would prove a frequent collaborator. The pair reunited for Shannon’s 1999’s record “All in Time.” Shannon would release a number of lauded albums over the years, including his 2014 tribute to Chicago bluesman Elmore James, titled “Dust My Broom.”

Among the songs he wrote are “Beale Street Boogaloo” and “Midnight in Memphis“.He was born in Olive Branch, Mississippi and relocated with his family to nearby Memphis, Tennessee at the age of eight.

After moving to Title Tunes, he released Be with Me Tonight (2006).

Shannon played at Memphis in May in both 2008 and 2011. In February 2012, Shannon appeared on season two of The Voice, singing “In the Midnight Hour”.

He was a regular performer at B.B. King’s Blues Club in Memphis. Shannon’s most recent album release was Dust My Broom (2014).

Preston died of cancer on January 22, 2018 in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 70.

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Dolores O’Riordan 1/2018

January 15, 2018 – Dolores O’Riordan (The Cranberries) was born Dolores Mary Eileen O’Riordan on September 6, 1971 brought up in Ballybricken, a town in County Limerick, Ireland. She was the daughter of Terence and Eileen O’Riordan and the youngest of seven children. She attended Laurel Hill Coláiste FCJ school in Limerick.

In 1990 O’Riordan auditioned for and won the role of lead singer for a band called the Cranberry Saw Us (later changed to the Cranberries). The band became a sensation as it released five albums: Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? (1993), No Need to Argue (1994), To the Faithful Departed (1996), Bury the Hatchet (1999) and Wake Up and Smell the Coffee (2001) and a greatest-hits compilation entitled Stars: The Best of 1992–2002 (2002), before they went on hiatus in 2003.

In 2004, she appeared with the Italian artist Zucchero on the album Zu & Co., with the song “Pure Love”. The album also featured other artists such as Sting, Sheryl Crow, Luciano Pavarotti, Miles Davis, John Lee Hooker, Macy Gray and Eric Clapton. The same year she worked with composer Angelo Badalamenti on the Evilenko soundtrack, providing vocals on several tracks, including “Angels Go to Heaven”, the movie theme.

In 2005, she appeared on the Jam & Spoon’s album Tripomatic Fairytales 3003 as a guest vocalist on the track “Mirror Lover”. O’Riordan also made a cameo appearance in the Adam Sandler comedy Click, released on 23 June 2006, as a wedding singer performing an alternate version of The Cranberries’ song “Linger”, set to strings. Her first single, “Ordinary Day”, was produced by BRIT Awards winner, Youth, whose previous credits include The Verve, Embrace, Primal Scream, U2 and Paul McCartney. O’Riordan made an appearance live on The Late Late Show on 20 April 2007.

Are You Listening? , her first solo album was released in Ireland in 4 May 2007, in Europe on 7 May, and in North America on 15 May. “Ordinary Day” was its first single, released in late April. The video for “Ordinary Day” was shot in Prague. In August “When We Were Young” was released as the second single from the album.

On 19 November 2007, she cancelled the remainder of her European Tour (Lille, Paris, Luxembourg, Warsaw and Prague) due to illness. In December she performed in a few small American clubs, including Des Moines, Nashville, and a well-received free show in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In 2008, O’Riordan won an EBBA Award. Every year the European Border Breakers Awards recognise the success of ten emerging artists or groups who reached audiences outside their own countries with their first internationally released album in the past year.

Dolores O’Riordan was known for her lilting mezzo-soprano voice, her emphasized use of yodeling and for her strong Limerick accent. In January 2009, the University Philosophical Society (Trinity College, Dublin) invited The Cranberries to reunite for a concert celebrating O’Riordan’s appointment as an honorary member of the Society, which led the band members to consider reuniting for a tour and a recording session. On 25 August 2009, while promoting her solo album No Baggage in New York City on 101.9 RXP radio, O’Riordan announced the reunion of the Cranberries for a world tour. The tour began in North America in mid-November, followed by South America in mid-January 2010 and Europe in March 2010. Also touring with the original members of The Cranberries was Denny DeMarchi, who played the keyboard for O’Riordan’s solo albums.

The band played songs from O’Riordan’s solo albums, many of the Cranberries’ classics, as well as new songs the band had been working on. On 9 June 2010 The Cranberries performed at the Special Olympics opening ceremony at Thomond Park in Limerick. This was the first time the band had performed in their native city in over 15 years.

She appeared as a judge on RTÉ’s The Voice of Ireland during the 2013–14 season. Dolores O’Riordan began recording new material with JETLAG, a collaboration between Andy Rourke of The Smiths and Ole Koretsky, in April 2014. They then formed a trio under the name D.A.R.K. Their first album, Science Agrees, was released in September 2016.

On 26 May 2016, the band announced that they planned to start a tour in Europe. The first show was held on 3 June.

On the Personal Note:

On 18 July 1994, O’Riordan married Don Burton, the former tour manager of Duran Duran. The couple had three children. In 1998, the couple bought a 61-hectare (150-acre) stud farm, called Riversfield Stud, located in Kilmallock, County Limerick, selling it in 2004. They then moved to Howth, County Dublin, and spent summers in a log cabin in Buckhorn, Ontario, Canada. In 2009, the family moved full-time to Buckhorn.

In August 2013, she returned to live in Ireland. She and Burton split up in 2014 after 20 years together, and subsequently divorced. She was raised as a Roman Catholic. Her mother was a devout Catholic who chose her daughter’s name in reference to the Lady of the Seven Dolours. Dolores admired Pope John Paul II, whom she met twice, in 2001 and 2002. She performed at the invitation of Pope Francis in 2013 at the Vatican’s annual Christmas concert.

In November 2014, O’Riordan was arrested and charged in connection with air rage on an Aer Lingus flight from New York to Shannon. During the flight she grew verbally and physically abusive with the crew. When police were arresting her after landing, she resisted, reminding them her taxes paid their wages and shouting “I’m the Queen of Limerick! I’m an icon!”, headbutting one Garda officer and spitting at another. Later she told the media that she had been stressed from living in New York hotels following the end of her 20-year marriage. The judge hearing her case agreed to dismiss all charges if she apologised in writing to those she injured and contributed €6,000 to the court poor box.

In May 2017, she publicly discussed her bipolar disorder, which she said had been diagnosed two years earlier. That same month, the Cranberries cited her back problems as the reason for cancelling the second part of the group’s European tour. In late 2017, O’Riordan said she was recovering and performed at a private event.

On 15 January 2018, at the age of 46, while in London for a recording session, Dolores O’Riordan died unexpectedly at the London Hilton on Park Lane hotel in Mayfair. The cause of death was accidental drowning in a bathtub, following sedation by alcohol intoxication.

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Eddie Shaw 1/2018

Eddie Shaw was born on March 20, 1937 in Stringtown, Mississippi. In his teenage years, Shaw played tenor saxophone with local blues musicians, such as Little Milton and Willie Love. At the age of 14, he played in a jam session in Greenville, Mississippi, with Ike Turner’s band. At a gig in Itta Bena, Mississippi, when the then 20-year-old Shaw performed, Muddy Waters invited him to join his Chicago-based band.

In Waters’s band, Shaw divided the tenor saxophone position with A.C. Reed. In 1972 he joined Howlin’ Wolf, leading his band, the Wolf Gang, and writing half the songs on The Back Door Wolf (1973). After the singer’s death in 1976 he took over the band and its residency at the 1815 Club, renamed Eddie’s Place. Shaw led the band on Living Chicago Blues Vol. 1 and Have Blues – Will Travel (1980) and recorded albums with different backing for Isabel Records, Rooster Blues, and Wolf Records.

Shaw’s own recording career started in the late 1970s, with an appearance on the Alligator Records anthology Living Chicago Blues (1978) and his own LPs for Evidence and Rooster Blues, and more recent discs for Rooster Blues (In the Land of the Crossroads) and Wolf (Home Alone).

Shaw’s many contributions to the blues included arranging tracks for The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions (which featured Eric Clapton, Bill Wyman, Ringo Starr and others) and performing with blues notables, including Hound Dog Taylor, Freddie King, Otis Rush and Magic Sam (on his Black Magic album).

In 2013 and 2014, Shaw won the Blues Music Award in the category Instrumentalist – Horn. May 3 is Eddie Shaw Day in Chicago, by proclamation of Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Shaw died on January 29, 2018, at the age of 80.
One of his sons, Eddie “Vaan” Shaw Jr. (born November 6, 1955), joined the Wolf Gang and played on some of his father’s recordings. A disciple of Wolf’s protégé Hubert Sumlin who passed away on December 4, 2011, he has recorded two albums of his own – Morning Rain and The Trail of Tears.

Another son, Stan Shaw (born 1952), is a character actor based in Hollywood, California. (this made him father at the age of 15!)

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Ray Thomas 1/2018

January 4, 2018 – Ray Thomas (the Moody Blues) was born on December 29, 1941 in Stourport-on-Severn, England, of Welsh descent.
In the 1960s Thomas joined the Birmingham Youth Choir then began singing with various Birmingham blues and soul groups including The Saints and Sinners and The Ramblers. Taking up the harmonica he started a band, El Riot and the Rebels, with bass guitarist John Lodge. After a couple of years their friend Mike Pinder joined as keyboardist. El Riot and the Rebels once opened for The Beatles in Tenbury Wells; Thomas and Pinder were later in a band called Krew Cats, formed in 1963, who played in Hamburg and other places in northern Germany.Thomas and Pinder then recruited guitarist Denny Laine, drummer Graeme Edge, and bassist Clint Warwick to form a new, blues-based band, The Moody Blues. Signed to Decca Records, their first album, The Magnificent Moodies, yielded a No. 1 UK hit (No. 10 in the US) with “Go Now”. Thomas sang lead vocals on George and Ira Gershwin’s “It Ain’t Necessarily So” from the musical Porgy and Bess.

When Warwick left the band (followed by Laine a few months later) he was briefly replaced by Rod Clark. Thomas then suggested his and Pinder’s old bandmate John Lodge as a permanent replacement and also recruited Justin Hayward to replace Laine. Hayward had actually given his demo tape to Eric Burden and the Animals, and Burden passed the tape on to the Moodies, as he had already hired a guitarist. With this line-up the band released seven successful albums between 1967 and 1972 and became known for their pioneering orchestral sound.

Although they initially tried to continue singing R&B covers and novelty tunes, they were confronted over this by an audience member, and with their finances deteriorating they made a conscious decision to focus only on their own original material.

Following the lead of Pinder, Hayward, and Lodge, Thomas also started writing songs. The first he contributed to the group’s repertoire were “Another Morning” and “Twilight Time” on the album Days of Future Passed. His flute had featured on three songs on the debut album—”Something You Got”, “I’ve Got a Dream”, and “Let Me Go”—as well as the single “From the Bottom of My Heart”, but it would become an integral part of the band’s music, even as Pinder started to use the Mellotron keyboard. Thomas has stated that a number of his compositions on the band’s earlier albums were made in a studio broom closet, with Thomas writing songs on a glockenspiel. Hayward has spoken of Thomas’s learning transcendental meditation in 1967, along with other members of the group.

Thomas and Pinder both acted as the band’s onstage emcees, as heard on the live album Caught Live + 5 and seen in the Live at the Isle of Wight Festival DVD. Thomas started to become a more prolific writer for the group, penning songs such as “Legend of a Mind”—an ode to LSD guru and friend of the band, Timothy Leary, and a popular live favorite—and “Dr. Livingstone, I Presume” for In Search of the Lost Chord, “Dear Diary” and “Lazy Day” for On the Threshold of a Dream as well as co-writing “Are You Sitting Comfortably?” with Hayward.

The Moody Blues formed their own record label Threshold Records, distributed by Decca in the UK and London in the US, and their first album on the Threshold imprint was To Our Children’s Children’s Children, a concept album about eternal life. Thomas wrote and sang “Floating” and “Eternity Road”.

When the band began to realize that their method of heavy overdubbing in the studio made most of the songs very difficult to reproduce in concert, they decided to use a more stripped-down sound on their next album A Question of Balance, to be able to play as many songs live as possible. It was their second UK No. 1 album. Thomas wrote and sang “And the Tide Rushes In”, reportedly written after having a fight with his wife, and was credited with co-writing the album’s final track “The Balance” with Edge, while Pinder recited the story.

The Moodies went back to their symphonic sound and heavy overdubbing with Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, their third UK No. 1 album, and Thomas wrote and sang “Our Guessing Game” and “Nice to Be Here”, also singing a co-lead vocal with Pinder, Hayward and Lodge on Edge’s “After You Came”. All five members wrote “Procession”.

The final album of the ‘core seven’ was Seventh Sojourn, their first album to reach No. 1 in the USA. By this time, Pinder had replaced his mellotron with the chamberlin, which produced orchestral sounds more realistically and easily than the mellotron. Thomas wrote and sang “For My Lady”.

Thomas released the albums From Mighty Oaks (1975) and Hopes Wishes and Dreams (1976) after the band temporarily broke up in 1974. During this period he earned his nickname ‘The Flute’. Within the band he was also known as ‘Tomo’ (pronounced tOm-O). The band reformed in 1977 for Octave, which was released in 1978. Thomas provided the songs “Under Moonshine” and “I’m Your Man”, and the group continued to release albums throughout the 1980s, with Thomas’s “Veteran Cosmic Rocker” and “Painted Smile” being featured on the album Long Distance Voyager. The former song has often been regarded as a theme song for the band itself as a whole and for Thomas in particular, and it again features his use of the harmonica. After contributing “Sorry” and “I Am” (both on the 1983 album The Present), Thomas temporarily stopped writing new songs for the band, for reasons unknown. He took featured lead vocal on Graeme Edge‘s song “Going Nowhere” (on The Present).

During the group’s synth-pop era, Thomas’s role in the recording studio began increasingly to diminish, partially due to the band’s synth-pop music being unsuitable for his flute and partially because he was also unwell during this period, meaning that his involvement in recording sessions was further limited. Despite contributing backing vocals on The Other Side of Life and Sur la Mer, he took no lead vocal role and it is unclear how much, if any, instrumentation he recorded for these two albums; but in any case, none of his instrumentation or vocals ended up on Sur la Mer. Although he is included in the childhood photos depicted on the album’s inner sleeve and is given an overall ‘group credit’, significantly (unlike the others) he is then not given an actual performing band credit at all. Patrick Moraz, who had replaced Pinder as the band’s keyboardist, objected to Thomas’s exclusion from the album and pushed for the band to return to the deeper sound that they had achieved with Pinder. It is possible that during the sessions for The Other Side of Life Thomas contributed tambourine, harmonica or saxophone, but it is unknown how many, if any, instrumental contributions of his ended up on the released version of the album, and at this point he was largely relegated to the role of a backup singer.

On The Moody Blues’ 1991 release Keys of the Kingdom, Thomas played a substantial role in the studio for the first time since 1983, writing “Celtic Sonant” and co-writing “Never Blame the Rainbows for the Rain” with Justin Hayward. He contributed his first ambient flute piece in eight years; however, his health declined and his last album with the group was Strange Times to which he contributed his final compositions for the group. He also provided a co-lead vocal with Hayward and Lodge on their song “Sooner or Later (Walking On Air)”.

Thomas permanently retired at the end of 2002. In a 2014 interview with Pollstar.com, drummer Graeme Edge stated that Thomas had retired due to illness. The Moody Blues – consisting only of Hayward, Lodge and Edge (Edge being the only remaining original member) plus four long-serving touring band members, including Gordon Marshall on percussion and Norda Mullen who took over Thomas’ flute parts – have released one studio album, December, since his departure from the band.

In July 2009 it became known that Thomas had written at least two of his songs– “Adam and I” and “My Little Lovely”– for his son and his grandson Robert, respectively. It was also revealed that he had married again, to his longtime girlfriend Lee Lightle, in a ceremony at the Church of the Holy Cross in Mwnt, Wales, on 9 July 2009.

Thomas released his two solo albums, remastered, in a boxset on 24 September 2010. The set includes, with the two albums, a remastered quad version of “From Mighty Oaks”, a new song “The Trouble With Memories”, a previously unseen promo video of “High Above My Head” and an interview conducted by fellow Moody Blues founder Mike Pinder. The boxset was released through Esoteric Recordings/Cherry Red Records.

In October 2014, Thomas posted this statement on his website:”After the tragic death of Alvin Stardust and the brave response to Prostate Awareness by his widow, Julie, in following up on what Alvin had intended to say about the disease, I have decided to help in some small way. I was diagnosed in September 2013 with prostate cancer. My cancer was in-operable but I have a fantastic doctor who immediately started me on a new treatment that has had 90% success rate. The cancer is being held in remission but I’ll be receiving this treatment for the rest of my life. I have four close friends who have all endured some kind of surgery or treatment for this cancer and all are doing well. While I don’t like to talk publicly about my health problems, after Alvin’s death, I decided it was time I spoke out. A cancer diagnosis can shake your world and your family’s but if caught in time it can be cured or held in remission. I urge all males to get tested NOW. Don’t put it off by thinking it won’t happen to me. It needs to be caught early. It’s only a blood test – a few minutes out your day to save yourself from this disease. Love and God Bless, Ray.”

Thomas died on 4 January 2018 of prostate cancer, at his home in Surrey, at the age of 76.

Although he most commonly played flute, Thomas was a multi-instrumentalist, who also played piccolo, oboe, harmonica, saxophone, and, on the album In Search of the Lost Chord, the French horn. He frequently played tambourine and also shook maracas during the group’s R&B phase. The 1972 video for “I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)” features Thomas playing the baritone saxophone, although Mike Pinder says on his website that this was just for effect in the video and that Thomas did not play saxophone on the recording.

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Lord Luther McDaniels 12/2017

December 30, 2017 – Lord Luther McDaniels, lead singer of vocal group the 4 Deuces, was born in Panola County, Texas in 1938. He never knew his father, who was killed in an accident soon after Luther was born. Mostly raised by his grandmother, he joined the Mitchell Brothers gospel group when he was about 11 or 12. While Luther had no musical training, he still traveled with the group all over East Texas, appearing in many gospel group “battles.” Around the end of World War 2, his mother remarried and moved to Salinas, California, about a hundred miles south of San Francisco (his new stepfather was stationed at Fort Ord in Monterey, only a few miles away). Luther went to California, decided he didn’t like it, went back to Texas, decided California wasn’t that bad, and returned to California to stay, settling in the fertile Salinas Valley south of the Bay Area, a region often referred to as America’s Salad Bowl. Continue reading Lord Luther McDaniels 12/2017