Podcasts about Alice Echols

Episode 169 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Piece of My Heart" and the short, tragic life of Janis Joplin. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a half-hour bonus episode available, on "Spinning Wheel" by Blood, Sweat & Tears. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources There are two Mixcloud mixes this time. As there are so many songs by Big Brother and the Holding Company and Janis Joplin excerpted, and Mixcloud won't allow more than four songs by the same artist in any mix, I've had to post the songs not in quite the same order in which they appear in the podcast. But the mixes are here — one, two . For information on Janis Joplin I used three biographies -- Scars of Sweet Paradise by Alice Echols, Janis: Her Life and Music by Holly George-Warren, and Buried Alive by Myra Friedman. I also referred to the chapter '“Being Good Isn't Always Easy": Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Dusty Springfield, and the Color of Soul' in Just Around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination by Jack Hamilton. Some information on Bessie Smith came from Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay, a book I can't really recommend given the lack of fact-checking, and Bessie by Chris Albertson. I also referred to Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday by Angela Y. Davis And the best place to start with Joplin's music is this five-CD box, which contains both Big Brother and the Holding Company albums she was involved in, plus her two studio albums and bonus tracks. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I start, this episode contains discussion of drug addiction and overdose, alcoholism, mental illness, domestic abuse, child abandonment, and racism. If those subjects are likely to cause you upset, you may want to check the transcript or skip this one rather than listen. Also, a subject I should probably say a little more about in this intro because I know I have inadvertently caused upset to at least one listener with this in the past. When it comes to Janis Joplin, it is *impossible* to talk about her without discussing her issues with her weight and self-image. The way I write often involves me paraphrasing the opinions of the people I'm writing about, in a mode known as close third person, and sometimes that means it can look like I am stating those opinions as my own, and sometimes things I say in that mode which *I* think are obviously meant in context to be critiques of those attitudes can appear to others to be replicating them. At least once, I have seriously upset a fat listener when talking about issues related to weight in this manner. I'm going to try to be more careful here, but just in case, I'm going to say before I begin that I think fatphobia is a pernicious form of bigotry, as bad as any other form of bigotry. I'm fat myself and well aware of how systemic discrimination affects fat people. I also think more generally that the pressure put on women to look a particular way is pernicious and disgusting in ways I can't even begin to verbalise, and causes untold harm. If *ANYTHING* I say in this episode comes across as sounding otherwise, that's because I haven't expressed myself clearly enough. Like all people, Janis Joplin had negative characteristics, and at times I'm going to say things that are critical of those. But when it comes to anything to do with her weight or her appearance, if *anything* I say sounds critical of her, rather than of a society that makes women feel awful for their appearance, it isn't meant to. Anyway, on with the show. On January the nineteenth, 1943, Seth Joplin typed up a letter to his wife Dorothy, which read “I wish to tender my congratulations on the anniversary of your successful completion of your production quota for the nine months ending January 19, 1943. I realize that you passed through a period of inflation such as you had never before known—yet, in spite of this, you met your goal by your supreme effort during the early hours of January 19, a good three weeks ahead of schedule.” As you can probably tell from that message, the Joplin family were a strange mixture of ultraconformism and eccentricity, and those two opposing forces would dominate the personality of their firstborn daughter for the whole of her life.  Seth Joplin was a respected engineer at Texaco, where he worked for forty years, but he had actually dropped out of engineering school before completing his degree. His favourite pastime when he wasn't at work was to read -- he was a voracious reader -- and to listen to classical music, which would often move him to tears, but he had also taught himself to make bathtub gin during prohibition, and smoked cannabis. Dorothy, meanwhile, had had the possibility of a singing career before deciding to settle down and become a housewife, and was known for having a particularly beautiful soprano voice. Both were, by all accounts, fiercely intelligent people, but they were also as committed as anyone to the ideals of the middle-class family even as they chafed against its restrictions. Like her mother, young Janis had a beautiful soprano voice, and she became a soloist in her church choir, but after the age of six, she was not encouraged to sing much. Dorothy had had a thyroid operation which destroyed her singing voice, and the family got rid of their piano soon after (different sources say that this was either because Dorothy found her daughter's singing painful now that she couldn't sing herself, or because Seth was upset that his wife could no longer sing. Either seems plausible.) Janis was pushed to be a high-achiever -- she was given a library card as soon as she could write her name, and encouraged to use it, and she was soon advanced in school, skipping a couple of grades. She was also by all accounts a fiercely talented painter, and her parents paid for art lessons. From everything one reads about her pre-teen years, she was a child prodigy who was loved by everyone and who was clearly going to be a success of some kind. Things started to change when she reached her teenage years. Partly, this was just her getting into rock and roll music, which her father thought a fad -- though even there, she differed from her peers. She loved Elvis, but when she heard "Hound Dog", she loved it so much that she tracked down a copy of Big Mama Thornton's original, and told her friends she preferred that: [Excerpt: Big Mama Thornton, "Hound Dog"] Despite this, she was still also an exemplary student and overachiever. But by the time she turned fourteen, things started to go very wrong for her. Partly this was just down to her relationship with her father changing -- she adored him, but he became more distant from his daughters as they grew into women. But also, puberty had an almost wholly negative effect on her, at least by the standards of that time and place. She put on weight (which, again, I do not think is a negative thing, but she did, and so did everyone around her), she got a bad case of acne which didn't ever really go away, and she also didn't develop breasts particularly quickly -- which, given that she was a couple of years younger than the other people in the same classes at school, meant she stood out even more. In the mid-sixties, a doctor apparently diagnosed her as having a "hormone imbalance" -- something that got to her as a possible explanation for why she was, to quote from a letter she wrote then, "not really a woman or enough of one or something." She wondered if "maybe something as simple as a pill could have helped out or even changed that part of me I call ME and has been so messed up.” I'm not a doctor and even if I were, diagnosing historical figures is an unethical thing to do, but certainly the acne, weight gain, and mental health problems she had are all consistent with PCOS, the most common endocrine disorder among women, and it seems likely given what the doctor told her that this was the cause. But at the time all she knew was that she was different, and that in the eyes of her fellow students she had gone from being pretty to being ugly. She seems to have been a very trusting, naive, person who was often the brunt of jokes but who desperately needed to be accepted, and it became clear that her appearance wasn't going to let her fit into the conformist society she was being brought up in, while her high intelligence, low impulse control, and curiosity meant she couldn't even fade into the background. This left her one other option, and she decided that she would deliberately try to look and act as different from everyone else as possible. That way, it would be a conscious choice on her part to reject the standards of her fellow pupils, rather than her being rejected by them. She started to admire rebels. She became a big fan of Jerry Lee Lewis, whose music combined the country music she'd grown up hearing in Texas, the R&B she liked now, and the rebellious nature she was trying to cultivate: [Excerpt: Jerry Lee Lewis, "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On"] When Lewis' career was derailed by his marriage to his teenage cousin, Joplin wrote an angry letter to Time magazine complaining that they had mistreated him in their coverage. But as with so many people of her generation, her love of rock and roll music led her first to the blues and then to folk, and she soon found herself listening to Odetta: [Excerpt: Odetta, "Muleskinner Blues"] One of her first experiences of realising she could gain acceptance from her peers by singing was when she was hanging out with the small group of Bohemian teenagers she was friendly with, and sang an Odetta song, mimicking her voice exactly. But young Janis Joplin was listening to an eclectic range of folk music, and could mimic more than just Odetta. For all that her later vocal style was hugely influenced by Odetta and by other Black singers like Big Mama Thornton and Etta James, her friends in her late teens and early twenties remember her as a vocal chameleon with an achingly pure soprano, who would more often than Odetta be imitating the great Appalachian traditional folk singer Jean Ritchie: [Excerpt: Jean Ritchie, "Lord Randall"] She was, in short, trying her best to become a Beatnik, despite not having any experience of that subculture other than what she read in books -- though she *did* read about them in books, devouring things like Kerouac's On The Road. She came into conflict with her mother, who didn't understand what was happening to her daughter, and who tried to get family counselling to understand what was going on. Her father, who seemed to relate more to Janis, but who was more quietly eccentric, put an end to that, but Janis would still for the rest of her life talk about how her mother had taken her to doctors who thought she was going to end up "either in jail or an insane asylum" to use her words. From this point on, and for the rest of her life, she was torn between a need for approval from her family and her peers, and a knowledge that no matter what she did she couldn't fit in with normal societal expectations. In high school she was a member of the Future Nurses of America, the Future Teachers of America, the Art Club, and Slide Rule Club, but she also had a reputation as a wild girl, and as sexually active (even though by all accounts at this point she was far less so than most of the so-called "good girls" – but her later activity was in part because she felt that if she was going to have that reputation anyway she might as well earn it). She also was known to express radical opinions, like that segregation was wrong, an opinion that the other students in her segregated Texan school didn't even think was wrong, but possibly some sort of sign of mental illness. Her final High School yearbook didn't contain a single other student's signature. And her initial choice of university, Lamar State College of Technology, was not much better. In the next town over, and attended by many of the same students, it had much the same attitudes as the school she'd left. Almost the only long-term effect her initial attendance at university had on her was a negative one -- she found there was another student at the college who was better at painting. Deciding that if she wasn't going to be the best at something she didn't want to do it at all, she more or less gave up on painting at that point. But there was one positive. One of the lecturers at Lamar was Francis Edward "Ab" Abernethy, who would in the early seventies go on to become the Secretary and Editor of the Texas Folklore Society, and was also a passionate folk musician, playing double bass in string bands. Abernethy had a great collection of blues 78s. and it was through this collection that Janis first discovered classic blues, and in particular Bessie Smith: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Black Mountain Blues"] A couple of episodes ago, we had a long look at the history of the music that now gets called "the blues" -- the music that's based around guitars, and generally involves a solo male vocalist, usually Black during its classic period. At the time that music was being made though it wouldn't have been thought of as "the blues" with no modifiers by most people who were aware of it. At the start, even the songs they were playing weren't thought of as blues by the male vocalist/guitarists who played them -- they called the songs they played "reels". The music released by people like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Son House, Robert Johnson, Kokomo Arnold and so on was thought of as blues music, and people would understand and agree with a phrase like "Lonnie Johnson is a blues singer", but it wasn't the first thing people thought of when they talked about "the blues". Until relatively late -- probably some time in the 1960s -- if you wanted to talk about blues music made by Black men with guitars and only that music, you talked about "country blues". If you thought about "the blues", with no qualifiers, you thought about a rather different style of music, one that white record collectors started later to refer to as "classic blues" to differentiate it from what they were now calling "the blues". Nowadays of course if you say "classic blues", most people will think you mean Muddy Waters or John Lee Hooker, people who were contemporary at the time those white record collectors were coming up with their labels, and so that style of music gets referred to as "vaudeville blues", or as "classic female blues": [Excerpt: Mamie Smith, "Crazy Blues"] What we just heard was the first big blues hit performed by a Black person, from 1920, and as we discussed in the episode on "Crossroads" that revolutionised the whole record industry when it came out. The song was performed by Mamie Smith, a vaudeville performer, and was originally titled "Harlem Blues" by its writer, Perry Bradford, before he changed the title to "Crazy Blues" to get it to a wider audience. Bradford was an important figure in the vaudeville scene, though other than being the credited writer of "Keep A-Knockin'" he's little known these days. He was a Black musician and grew up playing in minstrel shows (the history of minstrelsy is a topic for another day, but it's more complicated than the simple image of blackface that we are aware of today -- though as with many "more complicated than that" things it is, also the simple image of blackface we're aware of). He was the person who persuaded OKeh records that there would be a market for music made by Black people that sounded Black (though as we're going to see in this episode, what "sounding Black" means is a rather loaded question). "Crazy Blues" was the result, and it was a massive hit, even though it was marketed specifically towards Black listeners: [Excerpt: Mamie Smith, "Crazy Blues"] The big stars of the early years of recorded blues were all making records in the shadow of "Crazy Blues", and in the case of its very biggest stars, they were working very much in the same mould. The two most important blues stars of the twenties both got their start in vaudeville, and were both women. Ma Rainey, like Mamie Smith, first performed in minstrel shows, but where Mamie Smith's early records had her largely backed by white musicians, Rainey was largely backed by Black musicians, including on several tracks Louis Armstrong: [Excerpt: Ma Rainey, "See See Rider"] Rainey's band was initially led by Thomas Dorsey, one of the most important men in American music, who we've talked about before in several episodes, including the last one. He was possibly the single most important figure in two different genres -- hokum music, when he, under the name "Georgia Tom" recorded "It's Tight Like That" with Tampa Red: [Excerpt: Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, "It's Tight Like That"] And of course gospel music, which to all intents and purposes he invented, and much of whose repertoire he wrote: [Excerpt: Mahalia Jackson, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord"] When Dorsey left Rainey's band, as we discussed right back in episode five, he was replaced by a female pianist, Lil Henderson. The blues was a woman's genre. And Ma Rainey was, by preference, a woman's woman, though she was married to a man: [Excerpt: Ma Rainey, "Prove it on Me"] So was the biggest star of the classic blues era, who was originally mentored by Rainey. Bessie Smith, like Rainey, was a queer woman who had relationships with men but was far more interested in other women.  There were stories that Bessie Smith actually got her start in the business by being kidnapped by Ma Rainey, and forced into performing on the same bills as her in the vaudeville show she was touring in, and that Rainey taught Smith to sing blues in the process. In truth, Rainey mentored Smith more in stagecraft and the ways of the road than in singing, and neither woman was only a blues singer, though both had huge success with their blues records.  Indeed, since Rainey was already in the show, Smith was initially hired as a dancer rather than a singer, and she also worked as a male impersonator. But Smith soon branched out on her own -- from the beginning she was obviously a star. The great jazz clarinettist Sidney Bechet later said of her "She had this trouble in her, this thing that would not let her rest sometimes, a meanness that came and took her over. But what she had was alive … Bessie, she just wouldn't let herself be; it seemed she couldn't let herself be." Bessie Smith was signed by Columbia Records in 1923, as part of the rush to find and record as many Black women blues singers as possible. Her first recording session produced "Downhearted Blues", which became, depending on which sources you read, either the biggest-selling blues record since "Crazy Blues" or the biggest-selling blues record ever, full stop, selling three quarters of a million copies in the six months after its release: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Downhearted Blues"] Smith didn't make royalties off record sales, only making a flat fee, but she became the most popular Black performer of the 1920s. Columbia signed her to an exclusive contract, and she became so rich that she would literally travel between gigs on her own private train. She lived an extravagant life in every way, giving lavishly to her friends and family, but also drinking extraordinary amounts of liquor, having regular affairs, and also often physically or verbally attacking those around her. By all accounts she was not a comfortable person to be around, and she seemed to be trying to fit an entire lifetime into every moment. From 1923 through 1929 she had a string of massive hits. She recorded material in a variety of styles, including the dirty blues: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Empty Bed Blues] And with accompanists like Louis Armstrong: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith with Louis Armstrong, "Cold in Hand Blues"] But the music for which she became best known, and which sold the best, was when she sang about being mistreated by men, as on one of her biggest hits, "'Tain't Nobody's Biz-Ness if I Do" -- and a warning here, I'm going to play a clip of the song, which treats domestic violence in a way that may be upsetting: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "'Tain't Nobody's Biz-Ness if I Do"] That kind of material can often seem horrifying to today's listeners -- and quite correctly so, as domestic violence is a horrifying thing -- and it sounds entirely too excusing of the man beating her up for anyone to find it comfortable listening. But the Black feminist scholar Angela Davis has made a convincing case that while these records, and others by Smith's contemporaries, can't reasonably be considered to be feminist, they *are* at the very least more progressive than they now seem, in that they were, even if excusing it, pointing to a real problem which was otherwise left unspoken. And that kind of domestic violence and abuse *was* a real problem, including in Smith's own life. By all accounts she was terrified of her husband, Jack Gee, who would frequently attack her because of her affairs with other people, mostly women. But she was still devastated when he left her for a younger woman, not only because he had left her, but also because he kidnapped their adopted son and had him put into a care home, falsely claiming she had abused him. Not only that, but before Jack left her closest friend had been Jack's niece Ruby and after the split she never saw Ruby again -- though after her death Ruby tried to have a blues career as "Ruby Smith", taking her aunt's surname and recording a few tracks with Sammy Price, the piano player who worked with Sister Rosetta Tharpe: [Excerpt: Ruby Smith with Sammy Price, "Make Me Love You"] The same month, May 1929, that Gee left her, Smith recorded what was to become her last big hit, and most well-known song, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out": [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out"] And that could have been the theme for the rest of her life. A few months after that record came out, the Depression hit, pretty much killing the market for blues records. She carried on recording until 1931, but the records weren't selling any more. And at the same time, the talkies came in in the film industry, which along with the Depression ended up devastating the vaudeville audience. Her earnings were still higher than most, but only a quarter of what they had been a year or two earlier. She had one last recording session in 1933, produced by John Hammond for OKeh Records, where she showed that her style had developed over the years -- it was now incorporating the newer swing style, and featured future swing stars Benny Goodman and Jack Teagarden in the backing band: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Gimme a Pigfoot"] Hammond was not hugely impressed with the recordings, preferring her earlier records, and they would be the last she would ever make. She continued as a successful, though no longer record-breaking, live act until 1937, when she and her common-law husband, Lionel Hampton's uncle Richard Morgan, were in a car crash. Morgan escaped, but Smith died of her injuries and was buried on October the fourth 1937. Ten thousand people came to her funeral, but she was buried in an unmarked grave -- she was still legally married to Gee, even though they'd been separated for eight years, and while he supposedly later became rich from songwriting royalties from some of her songs (most of her songs were written by other people, but she wrote a few herself) he refused to pay for a headstone for her. Indeed on more than one occasion he embezzled money that had been raised by other people to provide a headstone. Bessie Smith soon became Joplin's favourite singer of all time, and she started trying to copy her vocals. But other than discovering Smith's music, Joplin seems to have had as terrible a time at university as at school, and soon dropped out and moved back in with her parents. She went to business school for a short while, where she learned some secretarial skills, and then she moved west, going to LA where two of her aunts lived, to see if she could thrive better in a big West Coast city than she did in small-town Texas. Soon she moved from LA to Venice Beach, and from there had a brief sojourn in San Francisco, where she tried to live out her beatnik fantasies at a time when the beatnik culture was starting to fall apart. She did, while she was there, start smoking cannabis, though she never got a taste for that drug, and took Benzedrine and started drinking much more heavily than she had before. She soon lost her job, moved back to Texas, and re-enrolled at the same college she'd been at before. But now she'd had a taste of real Bohemian life -- she'd been singing at coffee houses, and having affairs with both men and women -- and soon she decided to transfer to the University of Texas at Austin. At this point, Austin was very far from the cultural centre it has become in recent decades, and it was still a straitlaced Texan town, but it was far less so than Port Arthur, and she soon found herself in a folk group, the Waller Creek Boys. Janis would play autoharp and sing, sometimes Bessie Smith covers, but also the more commercial country and folk music that was popular at the time, like "Silver Threads and Golden Needles", a song that had originally been recorded by Wanda Jackson but at that time was a big hit for Dusty Springfield's group The Springfields: [Excerpt: The Waller Creek Boys, "Silver Threads and Golden Needles"] But even there, Joplin didn't fit in comfortably. The venue where the folk jams were taking place was a segregated venue, as everywhere around Austin was. And she was enough of a misfit that the campus newspaper did an article on her headlined "She Dares to Be Different!", which read in part "She goes barefooted when she feels like it, wears Levi's to class because they're more comfortable, and carries her Autoharp with her everywhere she goes so that in case she gets the urge to break out into song it will be handy." There was a small group of wannabe-Beatniks, including Chet Helms, who we've mentioned previously in the Grateful Dead episode, Gilbert Shelton, who went on to be a pioneer of alternative comics and create the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, and Shelton's partner in Rip-Off Press, Dave Moriarty, but for the most part the atmosphere in Austin was only slightly better for Janis than it had been in Port Arthur. The final straw for her came when in an annual charity fundraiser joke competition to find the ugliest man on campus, someone nominated her for the "award". She'd had enough of Texas. She wanted to go back to California. She and Chet Helms, who had dropped out of the university earlier and who, like her, had already spent some time on the West Coast, decided to hitch-hike together to San Francisco. Before leaving, she made a recording for her ex-girlfriend Julie Paul, a country and western musician, of a song she'd written herself. It's recorded in what many say was Janis' natural voice -- a voice she deliberately altered in performance in later years because, she would tell people, she didn't think there was room for her singing like that in an industry that already had Joan Baez and Judy Collins. In her early years she would alternate between singing like this and doing her imitations of Black women, but the character of Janis Joplin who would become famous never sang like this. It may well be the most honest thing that she ever recorded, and the most revealing of who she really was: [Excerpt: Janis Joplin, "So Sad to Be Alone"] Joplin and Helms made it to San Francisco, and she started performing at open-mic nights and folk clubs around the Bay Area, singing in her Bessie Smith and Odetta imitation voice, and sometimes making a great deal of money by sounding different from the wispier-voiced women who were the norm at those venues. The two friends parted ways, and she started performing with two other folk musicians, Larry Hanks and Roger Perkins, and she insisted that they would play at least one Bessie Smith song at every performance: [Excerpt: Janis Joplin, Larry Hanks, and Roger Perkins, "Black Mountain Blues (live in San Francisco)"] Often the trio would be joined by Billy Roberts, who at that time had just started performing the song that would make his name, "Hey Joe", and Joplin was soon part of the folk scene in the Bay Area, and admired by Dino Valenti, David Crosby, and Jerry Garcia among others. She also sang a lot with Jorma Kaukonnen, and recordings of the two of them together have circulated for years: [Excerpt: Janis Joplin and Jorma Kaukonnen, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out"] Through 1963, 1964, and early 1965 Joplin ping-ponged from coast to coast, spending time in the Bay Area, then Greenwich Village, dropping in on her parents then back to the Bay Area, and she started taking vast quantities of methamphetamine. Even before moving to San Francisco she had been an occasional user of amphetamines – at the time they were regularly prescribed to students as study aids during exam periods, and she had also been taking them to try to lose some of the weight she always hated. But while she was living in San Francisco she became dependent on the drug. At one point her father was worried enough about her health to visit her in San Francisco, where she managed to fool him that she was more or less OK. But she looked to him for reassurance that things would get better for her, and he couldn't give it to her. He told her about a concept that he called the "Saturday night swindle", the idea that you work all week so you can go out and have fun on Saturday in the hope that that will make up for everything else, but that it never does. She had occasional misses with what would have been lucky breaks -- at one point she was in a motorcycle accident just as record labels were interested in signing her, and by the time she got out of the hospital the chance had gone. She became engaged to another speed freak, one who claimed to be an engineer and from a well-off background, but she was becoming severely ill from what was by now a dangerous amphetamine habit, and in May 1965 she decided to move back in with her parents, get clean, and have a normal life. Her new fiance was going to do the same, and they were going to have the conformist life her parents had always wanted, and which she had always wanted to want. Surely with a husband who loved her she could find a way to fit in and just be normal. She kicked the addiction, and wrote her fiance long letters describing everything about her family and the new normal life they were going to have together, and they show her painfully trying to be optimistic about the future, like one where she described her family to him: "My mother—Dorothy—worries so and loves her children dearly. Republican and Methodist, very sincere, speaks in clichés which she really means and is very good to people. (She thinks you have a lovely voice and is terribly prepared to like you.) My father—richer than when I knew him and kind of embarrassed about it—very well read—history his passion—quiet and very excited to have me home because I'm bright and we can talk (about antimatter yet—that impressed him)! I keep telling him how smart you are and how proud I am of you.…" She went back to Lamar, her mother started sewing her a wedding dress, and for much of the year she believed her fiance was going to be her knight in shining armour. But as it happened, the fiance in question was described by everyone else who knew him as a compulsive liar and con man, who persuaded her father to give him money for supposed medical tests before the wedding, but in reality was apparently married to someone else and having a baby with a third woman. After the engagement was broken off, she started performing again around the coffeehouses in Austin and Houston, and she started to realise the possibilities of rock music for her kind of performance. The missing clue came from a group from Austin who she became very friendly with, the Thirteenth Floor Elevators, and the way their lead singer Roky Erickson would wail and yell: [Excerpt: The 13th Floor Elevators, "You're Gonna Miss Me (live)"] If, as now seemed inevitable, Janis was going to make a living as a performer, maybe she should start singing rock music, because it seemed like there was money in it. There was even some talk of her singing with the Elevators. But then an old friend came to Austin from San Francisco with word from Chet Helms. A blues band had formed, and were looking for a singer, and they remembered her from the coffee houses. Would she like to go back to San Francisco and sing with them? In the time she'd been away, Helms had become hugely prominent in the San Francisco music scene, which had changed radically. A band from the area called the Charlatans had been playing a fake-Victorian saloon called the Red Dog in nearby Nevada, and had become massive with the people who a few years earlier had been beatniks: [Excerpt: The Charlatans, "32-20"] When their residency at the Red Dog had finished, several of the crowd who had been regulars there had become a collective of sorts called the Family Dog, and Helms had become their unofficial leader. And there's actually a lot packed into that choice of name. As we'll see in a few future episodes, a lot of West Coast hippies eventually started calling their collectives and communes families. This started as a way to get round bureaucracy -- if a helpful welfare officer put down that the unrelated people living in a house together were a family, suddenly they could get food stamps. As with many things, of course, the label then affected how people thought about themselves, and one thing that's very notable about the San Francisco scene hippies in particular is that they are some of the first people to make a big deal about what we now  call "found family" or "family of choice". But it's also notable how often the hippie found families took their model from the only families these largely middle-class dropouts had ever known, and structured themselves around men going out and doing the work -- selling dope or panhandling or being rock musicians or shoplifting -- with the women staying at home doing the housework. The Family Dog started promoting shows, with the intention of turning San Francisco into "the American Liverpool", and soon Helms was rivalled only by Bill Graham as the major promoter of rock shows in the Bay Area. And now he wanted Janis to come back and join this new band. But Janis was worried. She was clean now. She drank far too much, but she wasn't doing any other drugs. She couldn't go back to San Francisco and risk getting back on methamphetamine. She needn't worry about that, she was told, nobody in San Francisco did speed any more, they were all on LSD -- a drug she hated and so wasn't in any danger from. Reassured, she made the trip back to San Francisco, to join Big Brother and the Holding Company. Big Brother and the Holding Company were the epitome of San Francisco acid rock at the time. They were the house band at the Avalon Ballroom, which Helms ran, and their first ever gig had been at the Trips Festival, which we talked about briefly in the Grateful Dead episode. They were known for being more imaginative than competent -- lead guitarist James Gurley was often described as playing parts that were influenced by John Cage, but was equally often, and equally accurately, described as not actually being able to keep his guitar in tune because he was too stoned. But they were drawing massive crowds with their instrumental freak-out rock music. Helms thought they needed a singer, and he had remembered Joplin, who a few of the group had seen playing the coffee houses. He decided she would be perfect for them, though Joplin wasn't so sure. She thought it was worth a shot, but as she wrote to her parents before meeting the group "Supposed to rehearse w/ the band this afternoon, after that I guess I'll know whether I want to stay & do that for awhile. Right now my position is ambivalent—I'm glad I came, nice to see the city, a few friends, but I'm not at all sold on the idea of becoming the poor man's Cher.” In that letter she also wrote "I'm awfully sorry to be such a disappointment to you. I understand your fears at my coming here & must admit I share them, but I really do think there's an awfully good chance I won't blow it this time." The band she met up with consisted of lead guitarist James Gurley, bass player Peter Albin, rhythm player Sam Andrew, and drummer David Getz.  To start with, Peter Albin sang lead on most songs, with Joplin adding yelps and screams modelled on those of Roky Erickson, but in her first gig with the band she bowled everyone over with her lead vocal on the traditional spiritual "Down on Me", which would remain a staple of their live act, as in this live recording from 1968: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Down on Me (Live 1968)"] After that first gig in June 1966, it was obvious that Joplin was going to be a star, and was going to be the group's main lead vocalist. She had developed a whole new stage persona a million miles away from her folk performances. As Chet Helms said “Suddenly this person who would stand upright with her fists clenched was all over the stage. Roky Erickson had modeled himself after the screaming style of Little Richard, and Janis's initial stage presence came from Roky, and ultimately Little Richard. It was a very different Janis.” Joplin would always claim to journalists that her stage persona was just her being herself and natural, but she worked hard on every aspect of her performance, and far from the untrained emotional outpouring she always suggested, her vocal performances were carefully calculated pastiches of her influences -- mostly Bessie Smith, but also Big Mama Thornton, Odetta, Etta James, Tina Turner, and Otis Redding. That's not to say that those performances weren't an authentic expression of part of herself -- they absolutely were. But the ethos that dominated San Francisco in the mid-sixties prized self-expression over technical craft, and so Joplin had to portray herself as a freak of nature who just had to let all her emotions out, a wild woman, rather than someone who carefully worked out every nuance of her performances. Joplin actually got the chance to meet one of her idols when she discovered that Willie Mae Thornton was now living and regularly performing in the Bay Area. She and some of her bandmates saw Big Mama play a small jazz club, where she performed a song she wouldn't release on a record for another two years: [Excerpt: Big Mama Thornton, "Ball 'n' Chain"] Janis loved the song and scribbled down the lyrics, then went backstage to ask Big Mama if Big Brother could cover the song. She gave them her blessing, but told them "don't" -- and here she used a word I can't use with a clean rating -- "it up". The group all moved in together, communally, with their partners -- those who had them. Janis was currently single, having dumped her most recent boyfriend after discovering him shooting speed, as she was still determined to stay clean. But she was rapidly discovering that the claim that San Franciscans no longer used much speed had perhaps not been entirely true, as for example Sam Andrew's girlfriend went by the nickname Speedfreak Rita. For now, Janis was still largely clean, but she did start drinking more. Partly this was because of a brief fling with Pigpen from the Grateful Dead, who lived nearby. Janis liked Pigpen as someone else on the scene who didn't much like psychedelics or cannabis -- she didn't like drugs that made her think more, but only drugs that made her able to *stop* thinking (her love of amphetamines doesn't seem to fit this pattern, but a small percentage of people have a different reaction to amphetamine-type stimulants, perhaps she was one of those). Pigpen was a big drinker of Southern Comfort -- so much so that it would kill him within a few years -- and Janis started joining him. Her relationship with Pigpen didn't last long, but the two would remain close, and she would often join the Grateful Dead on stage over the years to duet with him on "Turn On Your Lovelight": [Excerpt: Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead, "Turn on Your Lovelight"] But within two months of joining the band, Janis nearly left. Paul Rothchild of Elektra Records came to see the group live, and was impressed by their singer, but not by the rest of the band. This was something that would happen again and again over the group's career. The group were all imaginative and creative -- they worked together on their arrangements and their long instrumental jams and often brought in very good ideas -- but they were not the most disciplined or technically skilled of musicians, even when you factored in their heavy drug use, and often lacked the skill to pull off their better ideas. They were hugely popular among the crowds at the Avalon Ballroom, who were on the group's chemical wavelength, but Rothchild was not impressed -- as he was, in general, unimpressed with psychedelic freakouts. He was already of the belief in summer 1966 that the fashion for extended experimental freak-outs would soon come to an end and that there would be a pendulum swing back towards more structured and melodic music. As we saw in the episode on The Band, he would be proved right in a little over a year, but being ahead of the curve he wanted to put together a supergroup that would be able to ride that coming wave, a group that would play old-fashioned blues. He'd got together Stefan Grossman, Steve Mann, and Taj Mahal, and he wanted Joplin to be the female vocalist for the group, dueting with Mahal. She attended one rehearsal, and the new group sounded great. Elektra Records offered to sign them, pay their rent while they rehearsed, and have a major promotional campaign for their first release. Joplin was very, very, tempted, and brought the subject up to her bandmates in Big Brother. They were devastated. They were a family! You don't leave your family! She was meant to be with them forever! They eventually got her to agree to put off the decision at least until after a residency they'd been booked for in Chicago, and she decided to give them the chance, writing to her parents "I decided to stay w/the group but still like to think about the other thing. Trying to figure out which is musically more marketable because my being good isn't enough, I've got to be in a good vehicle.” The trip to Chicago was a disaster. They found that the people of Chicago weren't hugely interested in seeing a bunch of white Californians play the blues, and that the Midwest didn't have the same Bohemian crowds that the coastal cities they were used to had, and so their freak-outs didn't go down well either. After two weeks of their four-week residency, the club owner stopped paying them because they were so unpopular, and they had no money to get home. And then they were approached by Bob Shad. (For those who know the film Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, the Bob Shad in that film is named after this one -- Judd Apatow, the film's director, is Shad's grandson) This Shad was a record producer, who had worked with people like Big Bill Broonzy, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, and Billy Eckstine over an eighteen-year career, and had recently set up a new label, Mainstream Records. He wanted to sign Big Brother and the Holding Company. They needed money and... well, it was a record contract! It was a contract that took half their publishing, paid them a five percent royalty on sales, and gave them no advance, but it was still a contract, and they'd get union scale for the first session. In that first session in Chicago, they recorded four songs, and strangely only one, "Down on Me", had a solo Janis vocal. Of the other three songs, Sam Andrew and Janis dueted on Sam's song "Call on Me", Albin sang lead on the group composition "Blindman", and Gurley and Janis sang a cover of "All Is Loneliness", a song originally by the avant-garde street musician Moondog: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "All is Loneliness"] The group weren't happy with the four songs they recorded -- they had to keep the songs to the length of a single, and the engineers made sure that the needles never went into the red, so their guitars sounded far more polite and less distorted than they were used to. Janis was fascinated by the overdubbing process, though, especially double-tracking, which she'd never tried before but which she turned out to be remarkably good at. And they were now signed to a contract, which meant that Janis wouldn't be leaving the group to go solo any time soon. The family were going to stay together. But on the group's return to San Francisco, Janis started doing speed again, encouraged by the people around the group, particularly Gurley's wife. By the time the group's first single, "Blindman" backed with "All is Loneliness", came out, she was an addict again. That initial single did nothing, but the group were fast becoming one of the most popular in the Bay Area, and almost entirely down to Janis' vocals and on-stage persona. Bob Shad had already decided in the initial session that while various band members had taken lead, Janis was the one who should be focused on as the star, and when they drove to LA for their second recording session it was songs with Janis leads that they focused on. At that second session, in which they recorded ten tracks in two days, the group recorded a mix of material including one of Janis' own songs, the blues track "Women is Losers", and a version of the old folk song "the Cuckoo Bird" rearranged by Albin. Again they had to keep the arrangements to two and a half minutes a track, with no extended soloing and a pop arrangement style, and the results sound a lot more like the other San Francisco bands, notably Jefferson Airplane, than like the version of the band that shows itself in their live performances: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Coo Coo"] After returning to San Francisco after the sessions, Janis went to see Otis Redding at the Fillmore, turning up several hours before the show started on all three nights to make sure she could be right at the front. One of the other audience members later recalled “It was more fascinating for me, almost, to watch Janis watching Otis, because you could tell that she wasn't just listening to him, she was studying something. There was some kind of educational thing going on there. I was jumping around like the little hippie girl I was, thinking This is so great! and it just stopped me in my tracks—because all of a sudden Janis drew you very deeply into what the performance was all about. Watching her watch Otis Redding was an education in itself.” Joplin would, for the rest of her life, always say that Otis Redding was her all-time favourite singer, and would say “I started singing rhythmically, and now I'm learning from Otis Redding to push a song instead of just sliding over it.” [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "I Can't Turn You Loose (live)"] At the start of 1967, the group moved out of the rural house they'd been sharing and into separate apartments around Haight-Ashbury, and they brought the new year in by playing a free show organised by the Hell's Angels, the violent motorcycle gang who at the time were very close with the proto-hippies in the Bay Area. Janis in particular always got on well with the Angels, whose drugs of choice, like hers, were speed and alcohol more than cannabis and psychedelics. Janis also started what would be the longest on-again off-again relationship she would ever have, with a woman named Peggy Caserta. Caserta had a primary partner, but that if anything added to her appeal for Joplin -- Caserta's partner Kimmie had previously been in a relationship with Joan Baez, and Joplin, who had an intense insecurity that made her jealous of any other female singer who had any success, saw this as in some way a validation both of her sexuality and, transitively, of her talent. If she was dating Baez's ex's lover, that in some way put her on a par with Baez, and when she told friends about Peggy, Janis would always slip that fact in. Joplin and Caserta would see each other off and on for the rest of Joplin's life, but they were never in a monogamous relationship, and Joplin had many other lovers over the years. The next of these was Country Joe McDonald of Country Joe and the Fish, who were just in the process of recording their first album Electric Music for the Mind and Body, when McDonald and Joplin first got together: [Excerpt: Country Joe and the Fish, "Grace"] McDonald would later reminisce about lying with Joplin, listening to one of the first underground FM radio stations, KMPX, and them playing a Fish track and a Big Brother track back to back. Big Brother's second single, the other two songs recorded in the Chicago session, had been released in early 1967, and the B-side, "Down on Me", was getting a bit of airplay in San Francisco and made the local charts, though it did nothing outside the Bay Area: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Down on Me"] Janis was unhappy with the record, though, writing to her parents and saying, “Our new record is out. We seem to be pretty dissatisfied w/it. I think we're going to try & get out of the record contract if we can. We don't feel that they know how to promote or engineer a record & every time we recorded for them, they get all our songs, which means we can't do them for another record company. But then if our new record does something, we'd change our mind. But somehow, I don't think it's going to." The band apparently saw a lawyer to see if they could get out of the contract with Mainstream, but they were told it was airtight. They were tied to Bob Shad no matter what for the next five years. Janis and McDonald didn't stay together for long -- they clashed about his politics and her greater fame -- but after they split, she asked him to write a song for her before they became too distant, and he obliged and recorded it on the Fish's next album: [Excerpt: Country Joe and the Fish, "Janis"] The group were becoming so popular by late spring 1967 that when Richard Lester, the director of the Beatles' films among many other classics, came to San Francisco to film Petulia, his follow-up to How I Won The War, he chose them, along with the Grateful Dead, to appear in performance segments in the film. But it would be another filmmaker that would change the course of the group's career irrevocably: [Excerpt: Scott McKenzie, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)"] When Big Brother and the Holding Company played the Monterey Pop Festival, nobody had any great expectations. They were second on the bill on the Saturday, the day that had been put aside for the San Francisco acts, and they were playing in the early afternoon, after a largely unimpressive night before. They had a reputation among the San Francisco crowd, of course, but they weren't even as big as the Grateful Dead, Moby Grape or Country Joe and the Fish, let alone Jefferson Airplane. Monterey launched four careers to new heights, but three of the superstars it made -- Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, and the Who -- already had successful careers. Hendrix and the Who had had hits in the UK but not yet broken the US market, while Redding was massively popular with Black people but hadn't yet crossed over to a white audience. Big Brother and the Holding Company, on the other hand, were so unimportant that D.A. Pennebaker didn't even film their set -- their manager at the time had not wanted to sign over the rights to film their performance, something that several of the other acts had also refused -- and nobody had been bothered enough to make an issue of it. Pennebaker just took some crowd shots and didn't bother filming the band. The main thing he caught was Cass Elliot's open-mouthed astonishment at Big Brother's performance -- or rather at Janis Joplin's performance. The members of the group would later complain, not entirely inaccurately, that in the reviews of their performance at Monterey, Joplin's left nipple (the outline of which was apparently visible through her shirt, at least to the male reviewers who took an inordinate interest in such things) got more attention than her four bandmates combined. As Pennebaker later said “She came out and sang, and my hair stood on end. We were told we weren't allowed to shoot it, but I knew if we didn't have Janis in the film, the film would be a wash. Afterward, I said to Albert Grossman, ‘Talk to her manager or break his leg or whatever you have to do, because we've got to have her in this film. I can't imagine this film without this woman who I just saw perform.” Grossman had a talk with the organisers of the festival, Lou Adler and John Phillips, and they offered Big Brother a second spot, the next day, if they would allow their performance to be used in the film. The group agreed, after much discussion between Janis and Grossman, and against the wishes of their manager: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Ball and Chain (live at Monterey)"] They were now on Albert Grossman's radar. Or at least, Janis Joplin was. Joplin had always been more of a careerist than the other members of the group. They were in music to have a good time and to avoid working a straight job, and while some of them were more accomplished musicians than their later reputations would suggest -- Sam Andrew, in particular, was a skilled player and serious student of music -- they were fundamentally content with playing the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore and making five hundred dollars or so a week between them. Very good money for 1967, but nothing else. Joplin, on the other hand, was someone who absolutely craved success. She wanted to prove to her family that she wasn't a failure and that her eccentricity shouldn't stop them being proud of her; she was always, even at the depths of her addictions, fiscally prudent and concerned about her finances; and she had a deep craving for love. Everyone who talks about her talks about how she had an aching need at all times for approval, connection, and validation, which she got on stage more than she got anywhere else. The bigger the audience, the more they must love her. She'd made all her decisions thus far based on how to balance making music that she loved with commercial success, and this would continue to be the pattern for her in future. And so when journalists started to want to talk to her, even though up to that point Albin, who did most of the on-stage announcements, and Gurley, the lead guitarist, had considered themselves joint leaders of the band, she was eager. And she was also eager to get rid of their manager, who continued the awkward streak that had prevented their first performance at the Monterey Pop Festival from being filmed. The group had the chance to play the Hollywood Bowl -- Bill Graham was putting on a "San Francisco Sound" showcase there, featuring Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, and got their verbal agreement to play, but after Graham had the posters printed up, their manager refused to sign the contracts unless they were given more time on stage. The next day after that, they played Monterey again -- this time the Monterey Jazz Festival. A very different crowd to the Pop Festival still fell for Janis' performance -- and once again, the film being made of the event didn't include Big Brother's set because of their manager. While all this was going on, the group's recordings from the previous year were rushed out by Mainstream Records as an album, to poor reviews which complained it was nothing like the group's set at Monterey: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Bye Bye Baby"] They were going to need to get out of that contract and sign with somewhere better -- Clive Davis at Columbia Records was already encouraging them to sign with him -- but to do that, they needed a better manager. They needed Albert Grossman. Grossman was one of the best negotiators in the business at that point, but he was also someone who had a genuine love for the music his clients made.  And he had good taste -- he managed Odetta, who Janis idolised as a singer, and Bob Dylan, who she'd been a fan of since his first album came out. He was going to be the perfect manager for the group. But he had one condition though. His first wife had been a heroin addict, and he'd just been dealing with Mike Bloomfield's heroin habit. He had one absolutely ironclad rule, a dealbreaker that would stop him signing them -- they didn't use heroin, did they? Both Gurley and Joplin had used heroin on occasion -- Joplin had only just started, introduced to the drug by Gurley -- but they were only dabblers. They could give it up any time they wanted, right? Of course they could. They told him, in perfect sincerity, that the band didn't use heroin and it wouldn't be a problem. But other than that, Grossman was extremely flexible. He explained to the group at their first meeting that he took a higher percentage than other managers, but that he would also make them more money than other managers -- if money was what they wanted. He told them that they needed to figure out where they wanted their career to be, and what they were willing to do to get there -- would they be happy just playing the same kind of venues they were now, maybe for a little more money, or did they want to be as big as Dylan or Peter, Paul, and Mary? He could get them to whatever level they wanted, and he was happy with working with clients at every level, what did they actually want? The group were agreed -- they wanted to be rich. They decided to test him. They were making twenty-five thousand dollars a year between them at that time, so they got ridiculously ambitious. They told him they wanted to make a *lot* of money. Indeed, they wanted a clause in their contract saying the contract would be void if in the first year they didn't make... thinking of a ridiculous amount, they came up with seventy-five thousand dollars. Grossman's response was to shrug and say "Make it a hundred thousand." The group were now famous and mixing with superstars -- Peter Tork of the Monkees had become a close friend of Janis', and when they played a residency in LA they were invited to John and Michelle Phillips' house to see a rough cut of Monterey Pop. But the group, other than Janis, were horrified -- the film barely showed the other band members at all, just Janis. Dave Getz said later "We assumed we'd appear in the movie as a band, but seeing it was a shock. It was all Janis. They saw her as a superstar in the making. I realized that though we were finally going to be making money and go to another level, it also meant our little family was being separated—there was Janis, and there was the band.” [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Bye Bye Baby"] If the group were going to make that hundred thousand dollars a year, they couldn't remain on Mainstream Records, but Bob Shad was not about to give up his rights to what could potentially be the biggest group in America without a fight. But luckily for the group, Clive Davis at Columbia had seen their Monterey performance, and he was also trying to pivot the label towards the new rock music. He was basically willing to do anything to get them. Eventually Columbia agreed to pay Shad two hundred thousand dollars for the group's contract -- Davis and Grossman negotiated so half that was an advance on the group's future earnings, but the other half was just an expense for the label. On top of that the group got an advance payment of fifty thousand dollars for their first album for Columbia, making a total investment by Columbia of a quarter of a million dollars -- in return for which they got to sign the band, and got the rights to the material they'd recorded for Mainstream, though Shad would get a two percent royalty on their first two albums for Columbia. Janis was intimidated by signing for Columbia, because that had been Aretha Franklin's label before she signed to Atlantic, and she regarded Franklin as the greatest performer in music at that time.  Which may have had something to do with the choice of a new song the group added to their setlist in early 1968 -- one which was a current hit for Aretha's sister Erma: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Piece of My Heart"] We talked a little in the last episode about the song "Piece of My Heart" itself, though mostly from the perspective of its performer, Erma Franklin. But the song was, as we mentioned, co-written by Bert Berns. He's someone we've talked about a little bit in previous episodes, notably the ones on "Here Comes the Night" and "Twist and Shout", but those were a couple of years ago, and he's about to become a major figure in the next episode, so we might as well take a moment here to remind listeners (or tell those who haven't heard those episodes) of the basics and explain where "Piece of My Heart" comes in Berns' work as a whole. Bert Berns was a latecomer to the music industry, not getting properly started until he was thirty-one, after trying a variety of other occupations. But when he did get started, he wasted no time making his mark -- he knew he had no time to waste. He had a weak heart and knew the likelihood was he was going to die young. He started an association with Wand records as a songwriter and performer, writing songs for some of Phil Spector's pre-fame recordings, and he also started producing records for Atlantic, where for a long while he was almost the equal of Jerry Wexler or Leiber and Stoller in terms of number of massive hits created. His records with Solomon Burke were the records that first got the R&B genre renamed soul (previously the word "soul" mostly referred to a kind of R&Bish jazz, rather than a kind of gospel-ish R&B). He'd also been one of the few American music industry professionals to work with British bands before the Beatles made it big in the USA, after he became alerted to the Beatles' success with his song "Twist and Shout", which he'd co-written with Phil Medley, and which had been a hit in a version Berns produced for the Isley Brothers: [Excerpt: The Isley Brothers, "Twist and Shout"] That song shows the two elements that existed in nearly every single Bert Berns song or production. The first is the Afro-Caribbean rhythm, a feel he picked up during a stint in Cuba in his twenties. Other people in the Atlantic records team were also partial to those rhythms -- Leiber and Stoller loved what they called the baion rhythm -- but Berns more than anyone else made it his signature. He also very specifically loved the song "La Bamba", especially Ritchie Valens' version of it: [Excerpt: Ritchie Valens, "La Bamba"] He basically seemed to think that was the greatest record ever made, and he certainly loved that three-chord trick I-IV-V-IV chord sequence -- almost but not quite the same as the "Louie Louie" one.  He used it in nearly every song he wrote from that point on -- usually using a bassline that went something like this: [plays I-IV-V-IV bassline] He used it in "Twist and Shout" of course: [Excerpt: The Isley Brothers, "Twist and Shout"] He used it in "Hang on Sloopy": [Excerpt: The McCoys, "Hang on Sloopy"] He *could* get more harmonically sophisticated on occasion, but the vast majority of Berns' songs show the power of simplicity. They're usually based around three chords, and often they're actually only two chords, like "I Want Candy": [Excerpt: The Strangeloves, "I Want Candy"] Or the chorus to "Here Comes the Night" by Them, which is two chords for most of it and only introduces a third right at the end: [Excerpt: Them, "Here Comes the Night"] And even in that song you can hear the "Twist and Shout"/"La Bamba" feel, even if it's not exactly the same chords. Berns' whole career was essentially a way of wringing *every last possible drop* out of all the implications of Ritchie Valens' record. And so even when he did a more harmonically complex song, like "Piece of My Heart", which actually has some minor chords in the bridge, the "La Bamba" chord sequence is used in both the verse: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Piece of My Heart"] And the chorus: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Piece of My Heart"] Berns co-wrote “Piece of My Heart” with Jerry Ragavoy. Berns and Ragavoy had also written "Cry Baby" for Garnet Mimms, which was another Joplin favourite: [Excerpt: Garnet Mimms, "Cry Baby"] And Ragavoy, with other collaborators

Jenny Brown is an organizer with National Women's Liberation, the author of Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now, and a former collaborator with the Redstockings. We talk about the how radical feminism/women's liberation went from a splinter of the New Left to shaping the course of women's struggles around the world, how their politics are misunderstood today, how their demands for repealing all laws on abortion was recuperated by a supreme court in need of legitimacy, and why the political class today strips those rights. Jenny Brown in Jacobin: https://jacobin.com/2022/08/capitalism-low-birth-rate-labor-abortion-contraceptives-childcare Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America by Alice Echols: https://archive.org/details/daringtobebadrad0000echo Shout Your Abortion Pledge to Aid and Abet abortion Song: Janis Ian - Too Old to Go Away Little Girl

Welcome back to Where Love Lives, with me, Lulu Le Vay. Sorry I haven't been here for a while as I've been away galavanting across Europe, but never fear, I'm back in time to share with you this final episode of this first series, going out with a bang with super special guest, Ana Matronic. Ana barely needs an introduction, but for those who need a quick reminder, Ana was co-lead vocalist in gender-defying, mega glam rock-disco outfit, the Scissor Sisters, her show Disco Devotion aired on Radio 2 for 5 years. She is also a prolific DJ, electrifying dance-floors far and wide, from Fire Island to Bristol Pride. She loves robots, to the point where she has bionic circuitry tattooed on her right shoulder and is a passionate supporter of queer and trans rights. I am delighted to have her on today's show, talking about the things she loves, from queer communities and disco history, through to her very sociable cat, Bootsy, who joins us mid-interview. One thing this podcast has done over the last 12 episodes is champion women across a range of creative platforms, so this is a very special episode to conclude this series. Enjoy the show. Check out the book Hot Stuff by Alice Echols and keep an ear out for Ana's new podcast which is coming soon… Remember, if you like this podcast do please leave a review on whichever platform you use and share with your friends. Do follow me @drlululevay and remember, I love you.

Welcome back to Where Love Lives, with me, Lulu Le Vay. Sorry I haven't been here for a while as I've been away galavanting across Europe, but never fear, I'm back in time to share with you this final episode of this first series, going out with a bang with super special guest, Ana Matronic. Ana barely needs an introduction, but for those who need a quick reminder, Ana was co-lead vocalist in gender-defying, mega glam rock-disco outfit, the Scissor Sisters, her show Disco Devotion aired on Radio 2 for 5 years. She is also a prolific DJ, electrifying dance-floors far and wide, from Fire Island to Bristol Pride. She loves robots, to the point where she has bionic circuitry tattooed on her right shoulder and is a passionate supporter of queer and trans rights. I am delighted to have her on today's show, talking about the things she loves, from queer communities and disco history, through to her very sociable cat, Bootsy, who joins us mid-interview. One thing this podcast has done over the last 12 episodes is champion women across a range of creative platforms, so this is a very special episode to conclude this series. Enjoy the show. Check out the book Hot Stuff by Alice Echols and keep an ear out for Ana's new podcast which is coming soon… Remember, if you like this podcast do please leave a review on whichever platform you use and share with your friends. Do follow me @drlululevay and remember, I love you.

This is another intense, long one! A lot of similarities to the Andy Wood story, too. Only he didn't get totally dragged by the film industry twice between '79 and '84. But I came through it all a huge fan of Bette Midler now! What??? Buy me a Book(or coffee, or pants)    Alice Echols on Amazon https://pressroom.usc.edu/alice-echols/

Episode 65...A new book from within the Rock Under Fire camp. Mike and Pat talk about AUTUMN AND EVERYTHING AFTER: The Murder of John Lennon, Evolution of Bruce Springsteen & the Birth of the Reagan Era...a book examining the fateful events of the consequential last months of 1980, how they changed music and politics, and inadvertently set the tone for today's toxic climate in America...a story about rock & roll, murder and the ongoing culture war. Mike Derrico and Pat Ivanitski are your hosts.   AUTUMN AND EVERYTHING AFTER: The Murder of John Lennon, Evolution of Bruce Springsteen & the Birth of the Reagan Era is available in eBook and paperback editions.  https://www.amazon.com/Autumn-Everyth... https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781735476704   As a rock and roll podcast, Rock Under Fire makes it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that the show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history leaves an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone.   In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg, original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood, author Robert Duncan, P.J. Farley of Trixter and Judas Priest legend KK Downing. https://derricountitled.com/ http://rockunderfire.com/ https://www.facebook.com/njcardsharks/ https://twitter.com/Mike__Derrico "Bad News" is written and performed by Live Animals of NJ

Episode 64 is a blank canvas episode filled in with discussions about Eddie Van Halen, H.E.R., music streaming, Sean Connery, James Bond movies, Bruce Springsteen and the political right’s growing vitriol against artists voicing their opinions and using their platforms for social justice causes. Politics folks...yes we go there.     As a rock and roll podcast, Rock Under Fire makes it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that the show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history leaves an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone.   In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg, original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood, author Robert Duncan, P.J. Farley of Trixter and Judas Priest legend KK Downing. https://derricountitled.com/ http://rockunderfire.com/ https://www.facebook.com/njcardsharks/   "Bad News" is written and performed by Live Animals of NJ

In Episode 63, Badfinger’s Joey Molland talks to Mike Derrico about his new solo album Be True to Yourself. Molland is the lead guitarist and vocalist in the classic lineup of Badfinger that rose to the top of the pop charts in the late 1960s and early 70s with hits like “Come and Get It,” “Baby Blue,” “No Matter What,” and “Day After Day.” Molland has stayed musically active over the decades and discusses various records and periods in his career as well as various projects he has been involved with, including recording with George Harrison, John Lennon, Leon Russell, and Badfinger’s role in the Concert for Bangladesh.   As a rock and roll podcast, Rock Under Fire makes it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that the show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history leaves an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone.   In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg, original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood, author Robert Duncan, P.J. Farley of Trixter and Judas Priest legend KK Downing. https://derricountitled.com/ http://rockunderfire.com/ https://www.facebook.com/njcardsharks/ "Bad News" is written and performed by Live Animals of NJ

PJ FARLEY of Trixter talks to Mike Derrico about his brand new solo album ACCENT THE CHANGE. Aside from Trixter, PJ FARLEY is also a member of the band Ra, has played with Lita Ford, toured with Stained, Seether and Sevendust, and is currently active with Eric Martin of Mr. Big, Fozzy and Kuarantine, the new remote Kiss cover project with Chris Jericho, Luke Bryan drummer Kent Slucher, Joe McGinnes of Klassik ’78 and Bruce Kulick. Going into the recording of this episode, the sad news of Eddie Van Halen’s passing had just broken, which is discussed at the outset.   As a rock and roll podcast, Rock Under Fire makes it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that the show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history leaves an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone.   In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg, original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood, author Robert Duncan and Judas Priest legend KK Downing.     https://derricountitled.com/   http://rockunderfire.com/   https://www.facebook.com/njcardsharks/   "Bad News" is written and performed by Live Animals of NJ     SHOW LESS      

In the early days of independent record stores, if you grew up in New Jersey's Middlesex, Union or Essex counties during the 1970s, 80s or 90s, chances are you shopped at Little Joe Records, Dot Records or J&J Records where you could find all of those good things you couldn't get at your local boring and predictable Sam Goody. Childhood friend Joe Gerulski joins the show for Episode 61 to share some great music-related stories and talk about growing up in the family-run business selling records in an age when records were still the biggest-selling musical format and rock music was still at peak popularity. We also get into the inevitable discussion that never really goes away for too long on our show...80s metal. A fun blast through the past that moves along much too quickly. Mike Derrico and Pat Ivanitski are your hosts.   As a rock and roll podcast, Rock Under Fire makes it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that the show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history leaves an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone.   In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg, original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood, author Robert Duncan and Judas Priest legend KK Downing.   https://derricountitled.com/ http://rockunderfire.com/ https://www.facebook.com/njcardsharks/ "Bad News" is written and performed by Live Animals of NJ

n Episode 60, the always-interesting Aaron Novak finally joins the conversation. Aaron is one of the hosts of MEMPHIS, EGYPT w/AARON & TODD, a long-running weekly indie/new music radio show on WDCE 90.1 FM in Richmond, Virginia. A gathering that has been long-planned and talked about for years gets slightly marred by some annoying sound problems throughout, but that does not take away from the one of the best discussions that Rock Under Fire has ever seen.   https://memphisegypt.podbean.com/   As a rock and roll podcast, Rock Under Fire makes it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that the show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history leaves an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone.   In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg, original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood, author Robert Duncan and Judas Priest legend KK Downing. https://derricountitled.com/ http://rockunderfire.com/ https://www.facebook.com/ Rockunderfire/ https://www.facebook.com/njcardsharks/ "Bad News" is written and performed by Live Animals of NJ

In Episode 59, random discussions touch on the Black Crowes, Allman Betts Band, Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa, stage show technology of the 1970s, a review of the Rolling Stones Deluxe Edition of Goats Head Soup, and our very own Pat Ivanitski talks about his new project N.J. CARD SHARKS. https://www.facebook.com/njcardsharks/   As a rock and roll podcast, Rock Under Fire makes it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that the show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history leaves an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone.   In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg, original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood, author Robert Duncan and Judas Priest legend KK Downing. ROCK UNDER FIRE ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/  http://rockunderfire.com/ https://derricountitled.com/ https://www.instagram.com/mike__derrico/?hl=en https://twitter.com/Mike__Derrico "Bad News" is written and performed by Live Animals of NJ

In Episode 58, Mike Derrico talks to director and author Michael Lee Nirenberg who returns to the show to discuss his new book EARTH A.D. THE POISONING OF THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE AND THE COMMUNITIES THAT FOUGHT BACK.  Nirenberg has directed several music videos and the award-winning documentary, Back Issues: The Hustler Magazine Story. https://bookshop.org/books/earth-a-d-the-poisoning-of-the-american-landscape-and-the-communities-that-fought-back/9781934170786?aid=1663 https://www.amazon.com/Poisoning-Amer...   As a rock and roll podcast, Rock Under Fire makes it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that the show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history leaves an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone.   In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg, original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood, author Robert Duncan and Judas Priest legend KK Downing.   ROCK UNDER FIRE ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/ Rockunderfire/ http://rockunderfire.com/ https://derricountitled.com/ "Bad News" is written and performed by Live Animals of NJ

In Episode 57, Mike Derrico talks to Robert Duncan, former managing editor of Creem Magazine and lifelong rock and roll obsessive. Duncan, a musician himself, has been in and around the rock and roll world through some pivotal years, perhaps through rock’s most hedonistic period of all, the 1970s. Aside from Creem, he has contributed to notable publications such as Rolling Stone, Circus, Life and is the author of books such as The Noise: Notes from a Rock and Roll Era, Only the Good Die Young: The Rock and Roll Book of the Dead, the very first book ever written on Kiss, and has now, after decades written his first novel, Loudmouth. https://www.amazon.com/Loudmouth-Nove... https://www.duncanwrites.com/   As a rock and roll podcast, Rock Under Fire makes it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that the show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history leaves an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone.   In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg, original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood, and Judas Priest legend KK Downing.   ROCK UNDER FIRE ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/ Rockunderfire/ http://rockunderfire.com/ https://derricountitled.com/ "Bad News" is written and performed by Live Animals of NJ

In Episode 56, it’s Pat’s birthday!  Discussions include Pat’s birthday, Ticketmaster, Bon Jovi’s tour cancellation, the Prince Tribute, Clive Davis, new Stones song, and reviews of new albums from Pearl Jam, Fiona Apple, and the Strokes, and a rant on the NFL draft.  Mike Derrico and Pat Ivanitski are your hosts.         As a rock and roll podcast, Rock Under Fire makes it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that the show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history leaves an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone.   In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg, original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood, and Judas Priest legend KK Downing.   ROCK UNDER FIRE ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/ Rockunderfire/ http://rockunderfire.com/ https://derricountitled.wordpress.com/ "Bad News" is written and performed by Live Animals of NJ

In Episode 55, Rock Under Fire continues The Lockdown Series, a special run of shows for listeners who can use some distraction away from the 24-hour news cycle of the pandemic situation. The obvious is not ignored, but as always, discussion is kept to music and the performing arts. This week, Pat and Mike address the passing of Bill Withers and then go back to their favorite “this or that’ game…Gun to the Head, pairing classic rock albums against each other. Discussions also include Billy Joel, Van Halen, David Lee Roth, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Iron Maiden Eddie toys, Tiger King, and the monkey.      As a rock and roll podcast, Rock Under Fire makes it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that the show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history leaves an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone. In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg, original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood, and Judas Priest legend KK Downing. ROCK UNDER FIRE ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/ Rockunderfire/ http://rockunderfire.com/ https://derricountitled.wordpress.com/ "Bad News" is written and performed by Live Animals of NJ

In Episode 54, Mike and Pat return from an extended break to catch up and address the current status of the Rock Under Fire podcast as well as the on-going global pandemic.     As a rock and roll podcast, Rock Under Fire makes it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that the show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history leaves an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone. In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg, original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood, and Judas Priest legend KK Downing. http://rockunderfire.com/ ROCK UNDER FIRE ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/ Rockunderfire/ http://rockunderfire.com/ https://derricountitled.wordpress.com/ "Bad News" is written and performed by Live Animals of NJ

In this episode I focus on five important LGBTQ+ organizations that formed post-stonewall!Useful Links: The Orange Groves Network Life Magainze 12/31/1971 Pages 62-73 Join Our New Discord!Contact Us: LGBTimeMachine's Twitter Theo's TwitterSources Used In this Episode: Faderman, Lillian. The Gay Revolution. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2016. Bronski, Michael. A Queer History of the United States (ReVisioning American History). Boston, MA: Beacon Press Books, 2011. GLF’s Statement of Purpose, Printed in Rat, 8/12/1969 http://www.glbtqarchive.com/ssh/gayactivistsalliance_S.pdf https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-gay-activists-challenged-politics-civility-180969579/ https://books.google.com/books?id=8z8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA62&source=gbstocr&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false http://www.glbtqarchive.com/ssh/gayactivistsalliance_S.pdf Clendinen, Dudley, and Adam Nagourney. Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement inAmerica. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999. Kissack, Terence. "Gay Activists Alliance (GAA)." Gay Histories and Cultures: An Encyclopedia. George E.Haggerty, ed. New York: Garland, 2000. 363-64. McGarry, Molly, and Fred Wasserman. Becoming Visible: An Illustrated History of Lesbian and Gay Life inTwentieth-Century America. New York: Penguin Studio, 199 https://www.workers.org/2006/us/lavender-red-73/ Cohen, Stephan L. (2007). The Gay Youth Liberation Movement in New York: 'An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail'. New York: Routledge. pp. 89–163. Rivera, Sylvia (2002). Queens in Exile, the Forgotten Ones. Voices Beyond the Sexual Binary. Los Angeles: Alyson Books. Jay, Karla Tales of the Lavender Menace: A Memoir of Liberation. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. E. M. Ettore. Lesbians, Women and Society. (London, UK: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982,) 146. Betty Friedan. Life So Far. (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 222. Alice Echols. Daring to be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989): 213. Radicalesbians. "The Woman-Identified Woman." 1970. MS Wlmms01011, Digital Collection. Duke University. Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance Archives. Web. http://www.glbtqarchive.com/ssh/radicalesbians_S.pdf https://www.thetaskforce.org/about/mission-history.html https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/94/hr5452 https://www.thetaskforce.org/about.html

Two-time Grammy nominee and the award-winning author — Holly George-Warren has written 16 books including the New York Times bestseller The Road to Woodstock and the new biography Janis: Her Life and Music about rock icon Janis Joplin. Holly is also working with Petrine Day Mitchum on a new documentary called Rhinestone Cowboy about the story of Nudie, the Rodeo Tailor. Find out more about Holly George-Warren. Read more about The Passionistas Project. FULL TRANSCRIPT: Passionistas: Hi and welcome to the Passionistas Project Podcast. We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and today we're talking with two-time Grammy nominee and the award winning author Holly George-Warren. To date, Holly has written 16 books, including the New York times bestseller, “The Road to Woodstock” and the forthcoming biography, “Janice: Her Life and Music” about rock icon Janice Joplin. Holly is also working with Patrine Day Mitchell on a new documentary called “Rhinestone Cowboy” about the story of Nudie, the rodeo tailor. So please welcome to the show Holly George-Warren. Holly: Great to be here. Thanks so much for having me. Passionistas: What's the one thing you're most passionate about? Holly: Wow, gosh, what time is it? Every time it changes on the hour it seems like, but of course right now I'm most passionate about, I guess both Janis Joplin and Nudie. As far as my work life goes, my head is wrapped around both of those people. And interestingly enough, Nudie actually did make some outfits for Janice in 1970 so there's a connection with everything. And of course my other passion in my personal life is my family, my husband Robert Brook Warren and my son Jack Warren, who fill my life with joy and excitement and share, uh, my love for the arts, film, music, the outdoors, etc. So I'm very blessed. Passionistas: So tell us a little bit about what first inspired you to become a writer. Holly: I think music really did first inspire me beginning at a very, very young age. I grew up in a small town in North Carolina and literally I'm old enough to have discovered music back in the days of am radio. And in my town it was so tiny. We had very, you know, little radio, just some gospel, I think country and Western. This was in the ‘60s. But I discovered at night after like say nine o'clock on my little clock radio that I could tune into w ABC in New York and WCFL in Chicago. And that just blew my mind. It opened up this whole world for me of all these different sounds and styles of music. Cause that was in the day of very eclectic radio. Playing a DJs, they, they didn't go by strict playlists or anything like that. And I literally started just kind of writing, I think inspired by the music I was hearing. I started writing a little bit about music and I of course started reading biographies also at the same time. So that was the other major I would say inspiration for me. I started reading in elementary school these biographies of all kinds, everyone, you know, from like George Washington Carver to Florence Nightingale to Abraham Lincoln biographies and became kind of obsessed with reading those books. And you know, I just love to read from a young age. So I think those interests kind of combined that. Um, by the time I got to college I was writing quite a bit and uh, always did quite well with my writing assignments in school and then found myself writing more and more about music, going out and seeing bands performing live. And then that's what I did when I moved to New York city in 1979 I started writing for all kinds of fanzines and underground magazines that existed at that time in the East village. About then, it was kind of the post punk scene I guess, but I had been inspired by the original punk rockers, you know. I got to see the Ramones and bands like that in North Carolina before I moved to New York. So I've just started writing about the scene, which was not that well covered at the time. Talk a little bit more about the scene at that point. Back in those days, in the late seventies in New York city, there were only a couple of clubs where you could go out and see bands that had, were kind of either following in the footsteps of the original punk scene in New York and London. And a few of those people were still around New York and playing. So there was this great resurgence of kind of DIY homemade magazines, sort of called fanzines that all kinds of people that were into the scene started writing articles for. And it didn't have as many gatekeepers as say the big glossy magazines of the day, you know, even Cream magazine, which was kind of an upstart as compared to say Rolling Stone was pretty restrictive as far as who could write for those magazines. And I would send out queries and tried to get assignments and never hear back anything. But in the meantime, just people out on the scene who were playing in bands, booking bands, going out to see shows every night we're putting out these music magazines that pretty much anyone through, you know, string a sentence together and had a little bit of knowledge about writing. But a lot of passion basically. Again, passion was very much the key word of I would say the music scene, the people on stage and then also people writing about the music. So that's really what got me started and I started getting published in some, again very small run underground, a little music magazines. Passionistas: Then you did eventually start to write for Rolling Stone and you became an editor of the Rolling Stone press in '93. So tell us about the road to that and your experience working there. Holly: It was quite the fun road. It was circuitous because I did get swept up in the whole band scene and actually started playing in bands very early. I played, I used to call it lead rhythm guitar. So again, playing in different bands over pretty much throughout the 1980s and while I was doing that, I didn't write quite as much, but I felt like it was a huge tool for being able to write about music to actually be in a band. You know, we went on the road, we toured around some of my different bands, I did several recordings. So I learned what it was like to work in a recording studio. And just the whole life of being a musician became a real thing for me. So I felt like I could write about musicians with much more authority. I never considered myself a real musician. I still was a fan, but I, I could play a mean bar chord. And I started out with a fender Mustang and then I moved up to a fender Jazzmaster of the vintage one from the late fifties so I was pretty hip. Let me tell you. In the meantime, I did start getting some real jobs to pay the bills, including, believe it or not, I became an editor at American Baby magazine, which funnily enough, almost everyone that worked there was childless. And that was really my first nationally published articles was for this magazine. Um, how to know when your child is old enough for a pet or, you know, I did a research article where I went out and interviewed parents of quintuplets and quadruplets and triplets, you know, um, but I, you know, really kinda cut my teeth writing for that magazine. I learned how to be a journalist, you know, a real journalist. And then gradually through meeting people and also being a total rock and roll geeky nerd who was constantly reading every rock biography that would come out. And also I was really into, it was weirdly enough through punk rock, I got totally into old timey country music, like the Carter family. And honkytonk music like Hank Williams and I loved, uh, Patsy Cline, Wanda Jackson, the queen of rockabilly. So I got into that kind of music pretty much while I was a full-fledged punk rocker. And again, I think passion is the line between those two, the thread that connects them that, you know, both of those kinds of music, that earlier country that were raw primitive kind of country music as well as punk rock had that passion was very obvious in the music and that I loved it. I was totally into all that kind of music. And in fact, I saw George Jones at the Bottom Line in 1980 which blew my mind. So anyway, so I started learning more about that kind of music by just reading books all the time and eventually heard about a job as a fact checker at Rolling Stone press in the 1980s they were doing this big rock and roll encyclopedia and needed someone to double check everything. You know, these established writers who I'd been reading for years, Rolling Stone, like people like Dave Marsh had written. And so that was my first, you know, I was getting to call up Question Mark of Question Mark and the Mysterians and asking him, you know, was it true that he came from another planet and called up, you know, all these people. In fact, funnily enough, I handsome Dick Manitoba, the singer, the Dictators, I called him up to check some facts about this notorious horrible fight on stage, basically abroad between him and Jayne County at CBGBs. And then literally when I was playing in my band, we were rehearsing and this music building famously where Madonna once lived before she got an apartment near times square I was in, had gotten a taxi to get home with my equipment and there was, who was driving me, but you know, Richard, Manitoba, handsome Dick himself, who I had just caught up and asked him about his career as a fact checker. So anyway, that kind of got my foot in the door at Rolling Stone, which led to me over the years doing freelance projects for them. And till finally in 1993, well actually ‘91, they hired me as the editor to do a couple of their Landmark books, had deals with Random House to do new additions, “The Rolling Stone Album Guide” and “The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll.” And so they hired me to kind of be the editor to work with uh, Anthony DeCurtis and Jim Hinky at the magazine to guide these books, which are these massive, massive researched, you know, a lot of people involved, you know, a lot of moving parts to do these new, uh, additions. So that went really well. So in 1993 they decided to start up a new book division, which had kind of fallen by the wayside and they hired me to come on board and run that book division. And that was a great experience and that's what led me to start writing for the magazine. I started doing assignments for the magazine, record reviews and things like that while running the book division. I learned so much from working on those kinds of big reference books. You know, and again, we had amazing writers that I got to interface with and on “The Illustrated History of Rock and Roll,” too, I got to work with everyone from Peter [inaudible] to Mark Marcus to the late great Robert Palmer. Again, Dave Marsh, you know, many, many writers. And then I got to assign a lot of new chapters and in fact I wrote a chapter, Anthony DeCurtis became a real mentor to me. He was an editor at Rolling Stone that was in the trenches with me on these book projects and he assigned me as the writer to do a big piece on the changing role of women and rock, you know, beginning with Patty Smith, et cetera. Up to that current time. I think, you know, I covered, I think Sinead O'Connor at that point was maybe one of the newer artists that was, uh, the focus of my chapter. But that was a real huge, exciting thing to get to be part of. And then I got to do another very cool book with a wonderful writer editor named Barbara Odair, who came to my office. She was working at Rolling Stone and then at US magazine back in the day when it was owned by Winter media and said, “Let's do a whole book on women in music with every chapter written by women and every, as much as possible, all the photography done by women.” So we did this really cool book called “Trouble Girls: The Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock.” And funnily enough, one of the chapters I did for that one was this big piece on Nico, who was my first ever famous person I ever interviewed when I was, you know, living in New York city. I was still waitressing at the time. And Nico, of course from the velvet underground fame was kind of down at the heels. Editorials at the time, but having to go to a methadone clinic across from where I was working and would come in every day afterwards and have an amaretto on the rocks and cheesecake. So I got up my courage and asked her if I could interview her and I didn't even have a platform for my interview, but she said yes and got to spend some time with her and interview her and use part of the interview and a little fanzine back in the day. But then I got to really expand and write this whole chapter on Nico and use this interview I'd done 10 years earlier or even earlier than me, I guess 12 years earlier for this book “Trouble Girl.” So that was really exciting. Yeah. Passionistas: So you were writing about women, you're interviewing women, but what was it like for you as a woman starting in those early days in the punk rock scene through this time where you've becoming a more established rock journalist? What were your experiences like both as a musician and a journalist, as a woman in the music industry? Holly: Well, when I met people face to face and worked with them, say for example, Anthony DeCurtis and Jim Hinky, who sadly just passed away just a few weeks ago or a month, a month or so ago. They were very, very encouraging and very supportive. They really encouraged me to write and gave me assignments, et cetera. But before that I really found, and maybe it's true whether you're male or female or whatever gender, you know, but if I just blindly sent out queries or blindly tried to get gigs writing, when I first moved to New York City, it was a disaster. I mean, people either ignored me or just blew me off or said no or you know, it was really hard to get the foot in the door without actually working with people and for them to see what my work was like. Now, I did have the good fortune early on to meet some people that had worked with punk magazine and part of, there was this whole cool kind of resurgence of comics. This really great artists. Peter Bag had joined forces with John Holmstrom who had done punk magazine. And Peter and I, a Peter's wife and I work together, you know, at this restaurant. So Peter knew that I, you know, at this time I was just going out and writing about stuff on my own and pitching it to a few people I knew actually from North Carolina had moved to New York, but then they started giving me assignments for this. These magazines they started, one was called Stop and when it was called comical funny. So they, you know, they really encouraged me. So, you know, I can't say that I experienced gender bias or anything like that. Once I knew the people, I think maybe I was just, it's hard to know. I mean I did definitely get a lot of rejection. A lot of people that I pitched didn't really take me seriously and whether it's they didn't really know my work or because I was a woman, I don't know. I mean I, I did frequently find myself being the only music geek, you know, blabbing away on all this arcane kind of Trainspotting rock and roll history trivia with, you know, I'd be the only gal in the room blabbing away about that, you know, with some guys and stuff like that. There weren't a lot of women doing it and there weren't that many women around Lee for me that I crossed paths with to kind of support my endeavors at that part of my career. However, I very fortunately met a couple of women when I was a fact checker at Rolling Stone Press who were very, very encouraging and really I would not be talking to you right now if not for them. And one was Patti Romanowski who was the editor of Rolling Stone Press at the time, who hired me as a fact checker back in the ‘80s. She went on to write many as told two books with everyone from Mary Wilson to Otis Williams at the temptations. And that book has recently been the basis for this very successful Broadway show right now. So Patty was fantastic. And then her boss, the woman who ran rolling stone press with Sarah Layson who became, you know, really made my career because after she left Rolling Stone Press, she started a book packaging company and became a literary agent and hired me continuously for her book company. And then she became my literary agent when I left Rolling Stone. No, actually before I even started at Rolling Stone, my first ever book, which I uh, got my first book deal around 1990. So it was even before I went to Rolling Stone actually, she became my literary agent and my first ever book, she connected me with my coauthor Jenny Boyd, who had been married to make Fleetwood and her sister Patty Boyd, you might know the name was married to George Harrison, Eric Clapton. And Patty was a really interesting person who had kind of dug out a new life for herself. After her marriage with Mick Fleetwood ended, went back to school, became a psychologist, got a PhD and wanted to do a book on creativity and in musicians. So she hired me to be her co-author and we did this book called, well, it's available now. It got repackaged again and republished in England called, “It's Not Only Rock and Roll,” but it was basically about the creative process of musicians based on interviews with 75 musicians. So that really started me on my path as an author. That was my first book and that came out and a ‘91 Simon Schuster, a Fireside Division. So Sarah did that and then she became my, you know, agent. I wrote a few other books, a couple while I was at Rolling Stone and then when I left there in 2001 I've been writing books ever since. And Sarah has been my agent for all of them up to this my Janice Joplin book. And she definitely is one of my, you know, if not for her, I would, you know, like I said, I would not be talking to you right now. Passionistas: You're listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with award winning author Holly George-Warren. To find out more about her latest book, “Janice: Her Life and Music” visit HollyGeorgeWarren.com. Now here's more of our interview with Holly. So clearly you have an extreme in depth knowledge of the history of women in the music industry. So how do you think the music industry has evolved over the years in terms of opportunities for women? Holly: When I first moved to New York as far as women performing in bands, that was just starting to really happen thanks to the whole, you know, punk explosion with bands from England, like the Slits and the Raincoats, the Modettes, you know, I saw all those bands, that little tiny clubs and it just was a much more welcoming atmosphere for women to pick up instruments and play in pants. And like I said, I started playing guitar in bands. Then of course, you know people like Tina Weymouth and Chrissy Hynde, I mean Patty Smith of course. So as far as getting the courage to get up on stage and play and then just, um, to have other like-minded souls out there that wanted to be in bands with you was very, uh, it was a great time to be in New York and gradually there became more and more venues, places to play. I got to play at all of them from, you know, CBS to Max's Kansas city, peppermint lounge, Danceteria, you know, all these great classic clubs in New York, you know, late seventies, early eighties. And as far as the music business, I mean, you know, at that time we were like screw the music, but you know, we were punk rockers, man. We were underground. We didn't want anything to do with that. In fact, when I started even working for Rolling Stone in ‘93, I would tell people like, yeah, I'm working for Rolling Stone so I can afford now to write about the bands I really love. For it cause I was still writing for this really cool magazine called Option, which, and I'll if you remember that magazine, but very cool magazine based on the West Coast. And so I'd still write about people that would never ever get covered in Rolling Stone, but all different types of music. And again started writing about some of the early country music pioneers and rockabilly people like Wanda and people like that. So I didn't really interface that much with the mainstream music business at that time. You know, I basically had good experiences on that very low level. Again, this was the time of the Go-Go's had come around and the Bangles, my band Dos Furlines, went on a tour of Canada with a couple of other all women bands and it was, you know, it was a male promoter and everything went really great. Once I started moving up the food chain, once I was at Rolling Stone, I started working on producing some CD packages with labels. And again, everybody I worked with were male, but they were very supportive. They were really into what, you know, my ideas were. So I didn't really have any problem with that. And you know, gradually I started meeting some very cool women that a lot of women I discovered had been really behind the scenes. So I started meeting some of those women who had been working at labels for years. Some of them had left, it started their own publicity companies, some of them were in management, et cetera. So, and then I, you know, finally got to meet a few of the women who had been pioneering women, female journalists. But again, there weren't that many. It was very cool to see. And then, you know, like I said, Barbeau Dara and I did a whole book with lots of great, great women writers. The scene I think helped, um, a lot of women find their, you know, their niche a lot. You know, a lot of women were total big into music just the way I was. But you know, finally, all these channels that opened up for them to pursue it as either a writer or you know, an A& R person manager, publicist, a photographer, lots of great women photographers. And again, I was, I loved meeting women who started in the business in the ‘60s into the ‘70s. So I loved getting to meet them in the ‘90s and just, I wish I would've known them or could've somehow met them when I first started out in the ‘70s, late seventies, even early eighties to get encouragement from them. But you know, they, they were really kind of behind the scenes. They weren't that obvious. And some of them became very good friends like Jan new house ski, uh, fabulous, wonderful. A writer who was one of the early women writers for Cream magazine. And, uh, I got to know her and work with her and you know, Daisy McLean, who had written for Rolling Stone, um, back in the glory days of rock journalism where they were all these junkets and you were flown all over and wined and dined by the labels and all that kind of stuff. And she had some amazing stories to tell about being in the trenches. And Ellen sand or another wonderful writer who her great book called, I think it's called trips, was just reissued last year. And she was a very early writer. And when out on the road with, you know like LEDs up one and covered a Woodstock and a lot of Janis Joplin gigs, Forest Hills tennis stadium wrote about that. And so again, just these great writers who were hard to find when I started out. Passionistas: You have an interest in all these genres. And you've written about such a wide range of music from country to punk. What makes a topic or an artist compelling enough for you to dedicate a book to the subject? Holly: I guess if there's a complexity to the person and arguably perhaps all artists are a complex people, who knows cause I don't know about all of them, but I've been really attracted to writing about people that have had to really struggle, who've had to break down barriers to be heard, who have, you know, a lot of facets to their personality. And Janice is my third biography. My first one was Gene Autry, the singing cowboy who was a very complex man and very much a groundbreaking artist going way back to the beginning in the late 1920s broke through in the early thirties. And then Alex Chilton, who of course a lot of people know from big star, but it started out as this pop star at age 16 and the Box Tops and just had this incredible career in life. I become passionate about them, their music, their lives. I never lose that passion. I mean I still get excited if some crazy, you know, online radio station plays, you know, a Gene Autry song. Same thing without, I was so thrilled. I went to see once upon a time at time in Hollywood and to hear a very deep cut box top song on the soundtrack of a, of the new Quintin Tarantino films. So two to train. By the way, I never lose the passion for the people that I like. Literally moving in with one of my biography subjects, you know, for several years. And you never forget your roommates, right? Most of them. Passionistas: Tell us about why you chose to write a book about Janis Joplin and what you learned about her that you found most fascinating from writing the book. Holly: I have to say part of it, I mean, I really believe that my subjects also choose me somehow. Again, following my passion, I ended up in a place where it just kind of comes together and with Janice for years, of course I had loved her music. She was definitely an inspiration for me growing up again in this tiny town in North Carolina, that didn't have a lot going on for me as far as the kind of things I was interested in. And now again, I might be like one of my biography subjects, but I think I saw her on the Dick Cavett show and just her whole look and attitude and sensibility and not to mention her incredible voice. I'm like, what's that? I want to be that. She was probably actually a little did I know at the time wearing this outfit that Nudie made for her. Of course. I was one of those people that was devastated when she died in 1970 and in 1971 I had joined the Columbia Record Blub and got Pearl. I still have my original copy. So just a fan and then once I was working at Rolling Stone and started doing projects with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Hall of Fame did a really cool symposium on Janis back in the nineties, I think it was ‘97. And Bob Santoli, the head of education, VP of education and programming at the time invited me to be part of it and I'm, I got to go to Cleveland and give a talk about Janice's influence on contemporary women musicians, but the best part was I got to meet Janice's brother and sister Michael and Laura. I got to meet Sam Andrew, her a guitar player, Chet Holmes, who was the manager for Big brother and the Holding Company and started the Avalon Ballroom dances there back in the ‘60s some other people to her, John Cook, her road manager. So I got to meet all these people. Then lo and behold, they did an American masters, American Music masters panel on Janice or weekend symposium on Janice again in 2009 I believe it was. And once again this time, um, and powers and I were asked to give talks about, Janis kind of a keynote thing with Lucy O'Brien, a grade a woman, rock journalists who's based in London. So the three of us kind of gave a joint keynote and again got to meet all these amazing people. So I just kind of got to learn more and more and more about Janice and about her music. The thing that really got me was I was asked to write liner notes for this two CD set called the Pearl sessions that Sony was doing in the early teens. And for the first time they had gone into the vaults and pulled out all this talk back between Janice and Paul Rothchild, her producer, who was known for being a very authoritarian producer. Like he worked with Joni Mitchell and one of her first or I think or second album. And she's like, no, I can't work with him. He's too bossy. He tells me what to, you know, so she wouldn't work with him. He famously produced most of the Door's albums and he would make Jim Morrison like redo his vocal like 10 times or whatever. But he listening to them in the studio together, I'm like, Oh my gosh, this woman is calling the shots. Janis Joplin is telling Paul Rothchild like, Oh wait, let's slow it down here. Wait, let's try a different arrangement on this. Let's have this guitar part here. I mean, she was basically producing the record with him. She's never gotten credit really for being this very thoughtful orchestrator of music and hardworking musician. She created a very different image of herself in order to sell herself as a persona, this rock persona. And she was very successful at that and I think I, and almost everybody else bought it, but I realized from listening to these recordings that there was a whole other side to her, this musician side, that she wasn't just blessed born with this incredible voice that she just came out of the box singing. She worked, she really worked. And that very much intrigued me and that made me more interested in wanting to spend four and a half, five years working on Janice's life story and trying to make a write a book about her that shows her trajectory as a musician because you know, there had been some other books, some very well researched. I'm Alice Echols wrote a great book about Janis with a lot of research, but I felt still that somehow or musicianship and had not ever been acknowledged the extent that it should have been. So that was kind of my goal for this book to really find out who her musical influences were. What did she do to improve her craft, or how did she discover her voice? What were the obstacles she had to overcome, all those kinds of things. So that really fired me up. And again, my wonderful agent, Sara Liaison, who had actually been the agent for Laura Joplin's book that she wrote called “Love Janice,” which told her story of growing up with Janice as her sister and used a lot of letters that Janice had written home. She reproduced a lot of the letters in the book and my agent told Laura about me and I had met her back in the nineties and so I was able to come to an agreement that, again, similar to the Autry book, they would allow me to go into Janice's personal files or scrapbooks or letters, and I could use all that in my book, but without any controls over what I wrote, they would not have any editorial approvals or anything like that. So again, that's, that's how that came about. Passionistas: And your other current passion, you've touched on it a couple times, but tell us a little bit more about “Rhinestone Cowboy,” the story of Nudie. Holly: I think there's kind of a pattern here. You can see that none of these, I'm no one overnights and station or whatever. All of my projects really, they come from years of passionately pursuing something just really for the love of it, more than with any sort of goal in mind. And that's kind of the same story with Nudie. As I mentioned, I was a collector of Western where I worked on the, “How the West Was Worn” book and that's when I really learned about Nudie, who was this very showman, like couturier the Dior of the sagebrush or whatever they used to call him, who catered to early on cellular Lloyd Cowboys, people like gene Autry. And Roy Rogers was a huge client and then all the stars like Hank Williams making their incredible embroidered outfits. Then he started putting rhinestones on the outfits. I'm for a country in Western singers. And then in the late sixties people like Graham Parsons, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Janice, the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones, Elton John all started going there, getting these really outrageous over the top and bordered and rhinestone suits. So I learned about him gradually and then it turns out through doing “How the West Was Worn,” I met Patrine Day Mitchum, who herself had actually hung out at Nudie's back in the ‘70s, knew him and he had tapped her to write his memoir with him. So she has hours and hours and hours of taped, uh, recordings with him telling his fascinating story about being an immigrant as a young boy from the Ukraine to New York, all these ups and downs. He went through very colorful stories that finally landed him in Los Angeles in the late forties and started his shop and started making outfits for all these Western swing performers. Tex Williams was his first. So we teamed up and started talking literally back in 2002 about, Oh, we should do a project together about Nudie. Should we do a book, because should we do a film? And so literally, all these years later now, we've actually started working on our documentary. In the meantime, I had worked on several documentaries over the years as a consulting producer and producer on lots of music documentaries that have been on PBS, etc. So I had that experience. And then Trina has worked in the film industry over the years as well. So we were able to kind of combine our passion for Nudie and his incredible clothing and some of the other outfits were made by some other great, also immigrants from Eastern Europe. This guy named Turk who was out on the end. VanNess was the first one. His shop opened in 1923 and then back in Philadelphia on the East coast rodeo. Ben had a shop beginning in 1930 all three of them in Nudie where they came from. Eastern Europe was young boys, young men, and then also the whole story of the immigrants from Mexico. Manuel who still at age 86 is designing these incredible outfits in Nashville. He worked with Nudie and Heimaey Castenada who is still right there in North Hollywood, making incredible outfits for Chris Isaac and Billy Gibbons and Dwight Yoakam. So it's a bigger story. Even then I realized as far as it's a story of immigrants coming to this country and creating the iconic American look, the rhinestone cowboy outfit. Right. So go figure. Passionistas: Looking back on your journey so far, is there one decision you've made that you consider the most courageous? That sort of changed your trajectory? Holly: Oh, I guess it was just picking up and moving to New York city with, I had a little audio cassette player. You remember those? It was even pre Walkman. I had that. If you could set mix tapes or suitcase and that was it. 500 bucks, maybe 700 I don't know. Just kind of moved to New York and I mean, I think, I guess that was the smartest thing I ever did because basically in New York I made lifelong friends. I met my husband, he was playing in a band, the flesh tones. Um, we were on a double bill. My band does for line. So that's how we met in the 80s all these passions, some of which I had as a young girl growing up in North Carolina, I was literally able to materialize into projects, into a lifestyle and into a livelihood. I mean, gosh, I mean, how lucky am I that that happened? Things that could have just been a hobby actually became a way of life and an occasional paycheck here and there. So I feel very, very lucky. And I think moving to New York city, almost at a whim, I went to school at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. So I had two sides of my personality, the former hippie Janice wannabe, and the punk rocker. So when I was going to leave Chapel Hill, I'm like, well, I'm either gonna move to New York City or Key West. So I think it's a good thing. I moved to New York city. Passionistas: What's your secret to a rewarding life? Holly: Again, and I teach, I tell my students this, whatever you do, if you can pursue it with passion. You guys nailed it with the name of your podcast. Because if you can approach even, you know, path things with passion, you know, with anger or … of one with passion, I think, you know, whatever it is, if you can just engage and be passionate about things that's going to enrich your life. I mean it can maybe take its toll on you too. But I think how that kind of feeling and motivation that you're driven by the passion of whatever it is that you're thinking about or wanting to learn about or whatever, you're going to do a much better job with whatever it is you're pursuing. Passionistas: What's your definition of success? Holly: I guess success is not only attaining a goal that you had for yourself, but within that goal also having happiness and a good state of mind about it. Because I think horribly, you know, in our culture, a lot of people that find certain success, you know, material success or even career success, there's other aspects of their life that is not working out too well. So that's not really success is that I think you have to put all the parts of the puzzle together so that they're all kind of working out together to really be successful. It's tricky. It's difficult because life has a way of throwing lots of curve balls at ya. Passionistas: So what advice would you give to a young woman who wants to be a journalist or an author? Holly: First off, subscribe to your podcast. And seriously, I think surrounding yourself or finding out about or listening to other people who are passionate about things that you're interested in doing or even if it's something different, but people that their passion is driven them to be successful or to work towards attaining success, that that can be very inspirational and motivational for them. And then also not just do things through rote or whatever. You have to really find something that energizes you and does and passion you to want to pursue it, and I think that's really important and not do something just because you're supposed to or someone tells you you should do this, but you have to really find things that are going to bring you fulfillment. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast and our interview with Holly George-Warren to find out more about her latest book, “Janice: Her Life and Music,” visit HollyGeorgeWarren.com. And don't forget, our quarterly subscription box The Passionistas Project Pack goes on sale October 30th. Each box is filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire you to follow your passions. Sign up for our mailing list@thepassionistasproject.com to get 10% off your first purchase. And be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests.

In Episode 52, we talk about the current wave of farewell tours, the future of the concert industry, and sidetrack ourselves with White Lion, Def Leppard, Creed, Stryper, Kidd Gloves Seton Hall's WSOU, hypotheticals on The Beatles, and the longtime feud between Roger Waters and David Gilmour. We're all over the place on this particularly loose and funny conversation. Mike Derrico, Pat Ivanitski, and Marisa Baldasarro are your hosts.   As a rock and roll podcast, Rock Under Fire makes it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that the show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history leaves an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone. In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg, original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood, and Judas Priest legend KK Downing. ROCK UNDER FIRE ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/ Rockunderfire/ http://rockunderfire.com/ https://derricountitled.wordpress.com/ "Bad News" is written and performed by Live Animals of NJ

In Episode 51, we return for our first show of 2019 and the beginning of Season 4. At the outset, we introduce Marisa, a longtime friend and new voice to the Rock Under Fire podcast. Topics include The Dirt, the new Motley Crue biopic, the artsy-fartsy cinephile history of Marisa and Mike, and Marisa's censored encounter with Donald Fagan of Steely Dan. We also read some listener comments and topic requests.   As a rock and roll podcast, Rock Under Fire makes it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that the show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history leaves an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone. In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg, original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood, and Judas Priest legend KK Downing.   ROCK UNDER FIRE ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com   /Rockunderfire/ http://rockunderfire.com/ https://derricountitled.wordpress.com/ "Bad News" is written and performed by Live Animals of NJ

In ROCK UNDER FIRE Episode 49, we present Mike Derrico's full conversation with original MTV VJ NINA BLACKWOOD. Portions of the interview were featured in "The Rise & Fall of MTV," an episode of RUF's sister podcast, RETROSPEAK, where Mike and Pat Ivanitski discuss the early years of MTV, the channel's influence on pop culture and the music industry, as well as its fall from relevance. NINA BLACKWOOD is one of the five original VJs on MTV from the channel's launch in 1981 through 1986. She went on to host Solid Gold, the Rock Report segment of Entertainment Tonight, and nationally syndicated radio shows, Nina BlackWood's Absolutely 80s and Nina Blackwood's New Wave Nation. Blackwood can be heard today on the 80s on 8, available on SiriusXM.   As a rock and roll podcast, Rock Under Fire makes it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that the show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history leaves an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone.   In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg, and Judas Priest legend KK Downing. ROCK UNDER FIRE ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Rockunderfire/ ROCK UNDER FIRE ON iTUNES: https://itun.es/us/dm3Qdb.c https://twitter.com/rock_under_fire http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/ https://derricountitled.wordpress.com/ Special Thanks to Aaron Novak for saving our ass early on in the day. Visit his site and check out his radio show MEMPHIS EGYPT WITH AARON & TODD https://memphisegypt.podbean.com/ "Bad News" written and performed by Live Animals

Mike and Pat hit the RUF mics for the first time in five months to catch up on recent events in rock. In Episode 48, they discuss the upcoming KISS End of the Road Tour, the current Fleetwood Mac tour, Nirvana reunion this past Saturday, Mark Eglinton, co-writer of KK Downing's HEAVY DUTY: DAYS & NIGHTS IN JUDAS PRIEST, and a rant about the below-tabloid tactics of Blabbermouth. As a rock and roll podcast, Rock Under Fire makes it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that the show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history leaves an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone. In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg, and Judas Priest legend KK Downing. Purchase KK Downing's book, HEAVY DUTY: DAYS & NIGHTS IN JUDAS PRIEST, co-written by Mark Eglinton https://www.amazon.com/Heavy-Duty-Nig... ROCK UNDER FIRE ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Rockunderfire/ Like and follow RETROSPEAK on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/Retrospeak-2... ROCK UNDER FIRE ON iTUNES: https://itun.es/us/dm3Qdb.c https://twitter.com/rock_under_fire http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/ Special Thanks to Aaron Novak for saving our ass early on in the day. Visit his site and check out his radio show MEMPHIS EGYPT WITH AARON & TODD https://memphisegypt.podbean.com/ "Bad News" written and performed by Live Animals

In Episode 47, Mike Derrico talks to Judas Priest legend KK Downing about his new book, HEAVY DUTY: DAYS AND NIGHTS IN JUDAS PRIEST, out this week on Da Capo Press.   Derrico and Rock Under Fire co-host Pat Ivanitski have spent the summer putting together their sister podcast called RETROSPEAK, which begins on October 1, 2018. Subscribe to the Retrospeak Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5vw...   Derrico's review of Downing's book as well as a partial transcript of this conversation can be found at pleasekillme.com https://pleasekillme.com/kk-downing-j...   As a rock and roll podcast, Rock Under Fire makes it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that the show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history leaves an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone.   In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, and writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg. Go to https://pleasekillme.com/ ...Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain's place where all things cool reside Purchase KK' book! https://www.amazon.com/Heavy-Duty-Nig... ROCK UNDER FIRE ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Rockunderfire/ Like and follow RETROSPEAK on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/Retrospeak-2... ROCK UNDER FIRE ON iTUNES: https://itun.es/us/dm3Qdb.c https://twitter.com/rock_under_fire http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/ Special Thanks to Aaron Novak for saving our ass early on in the day. Visit his site and check out his radio show MEMPHIS EGYPT WITH AARON & TODD https://memphisegypt.podbean.com/ "Breaching the Gates" music by TeknoAXE: http://teknoaxe.com/Link_Code_3.php?q... "Bad News" written and performed by Live Animals

In this episode, Marybeth Hamilton speaks to Alice Echols, author of the ground-breaking book Daring to Be Bad, about the rise and fall of radical feminism in the pivotal year of 1968. How did demands for the liberation of women emerge from the tumult of radical protest? What tensions and conflicts did the early movement contain? How do its demands and its methods resonate fifty years later? Echols reflects: "What people don't understand about the late 1960s, and what they don't understand about the women's movement, is that there is a very different logic at work, and it is not a logic of intersectionality. It is a logical of organizing around your own oppression. Anything else is seen as liberal. And liberal is understood as compromised, tainted, and to be avoided." Listen now, and subscribe to the History Workshop Podcast on Soundcloud, iTunes and Stitcher.

We address the issues leading to our recent extended break, talk about the future of the show, and introduce Retrospeak, our sister podcast that begins in September. Mike Derrico and Pat Ivanitski are your hosts. We thank all of you who continue to support Rock Under Fire, and we welcome any new listeners to the show. As a rock and roll podcast, we make it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that our show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history gives us an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone.   In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and our most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Joe Long of the Four Seasons, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, and writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg.   Like and follow RETROSPEAK on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/Retrospeak-2...   VISIT OUR WEBSITE: https://rockunderfire.com/ PLEASE RATE AND REVIEW OUR PODCAST ON iTUNES...WE APPRECIATE YOUR SUPPORT! Special thanks to Aaron Novak https://memphisegypt.podbean.com/ https://itun.es/us/dm3Qdb.c http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/ https://www.facebook.com/Rockunderfire/ https://twitter.com/rock_under_fire https://derricountitled.wordpress.com/ "Bad News" performed by Live Animals

Joe Long, born Joseph LaBracio in Elizabeth, New Jersey, spent ten years as a member of The Four Seasons, playing a vital role in the group's most prolific decade from 1965-1975. Long played bass, sang, contributed to onstage musical arrangements, served as co-producer, onstage emcee, and was a longtime fan favorite. In 2014, he was honored with a street-naming in his hometown of Elizabeth, and is now joining the canon of New Jersey history and immortality with an induction to the New Jersey Hall of Fame. We are honored to have him on our podcast.   In Episode 45, Mike Derrico talks to the Four Seasons legend about his early musical roots, his ten year run with the group, and his recent induction into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. Co-hosts Pat Ivanitski and Stick Nixon have the week off. (Interview begins at 12:00 mark)   We thank all of you who continue to support Rock Under Fire, and we welcome any new listeners to the show. As a rock and roll podcast, we make it a point not to focus on any one particular artist, band, or genre of music, but with that comes the reality that our show may not always appeal to everyone at the same time. The seven decades of rock and roll music along with its even longer history gives us an extremely broad canvas to create discussions on, drawing from different areas with each episode. So there is still always something for everyone.   In past episodes we've discussed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Prince, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, Doo Wop, The Beach Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Steely Dan, The Strokes, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, The Doors, Patti Smith, The Ramones, Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, The Velvet Underground, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Cars, Cheap Trick, Heart, Dave Grohl, Jack White, digital streaming, the state of the music industry and record labels, the effect of rap and hip hop on rock, Neil Young, Talking Heads, Counting Crows, Boston, The Temptations, Bon Jovi, AC/DC, the Smithereens, Suzanne Vega, Van Halen, Rick Rubin, The Gun Club, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, The Mekons, UFO, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chuck Klosterman, John Philip Sousa, Billy Joel, The Wipers, Iron Maiden, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Waits, Thin Lizzy, the Bee Gees, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Bob Marley, 5 Seconds of Summer, Twenty One Pilots, Ed Sheeran, J Geils Band, Billy Miller, Chris Cornell, Turn Me On Dead Man, the Desert Trip concerts, aging rock stars, our favorite debut albums, soundtracks, music licensing, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, disco vs. rock, Ticketmaster, Tom Petty, and our most overrated and underrated artists. We've also been joined by special guests such as, author and photographers Bob Gruen, STARZ guitarist Richie Ranno, Lydia Criss, author and pop culture critic Alice Echols, and writer and director Michael Lee Nirenberg. VISIT OUR WEBSITE: https://rockunderfire.com/ PLEASE RATE AND REVIEW OUR PODCAST ON iTUNES...WE APPRECIATE YOUR SUPPORT! Special thanks to Aaron Novak https://memphisegypt.podbean.com/ https://itun.es/us/dm3Qdb.c http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/ https://www.facebook.com/Rockunderfire/ https://twitter.com/rock_under_fire https://derricountitled.wordpress.com/ "Bad News" performed by Live Animals "Stringed Disco" by Kevin MacLeod A Change of Seasons, 1980, 20th Century Fox, TV spot