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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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