Podcasts about American Recordings

Sintonía: (una instrumental "escondida" al final del corte "Aerials") - System Of A Down"Suite Pee" - "Know" - "Sugar" - "Suggestions" - "Spiders" - "D Devil" - "Soil" - "War?" - "Prison Song". 9 canciones extraídas del primer disco de título homónimo (American Recordings, 1998)"Needles" - "X" - "Chop Suey!" - "Bounce" - "Science" - "Toxicity" - "Jet Pilot" - "Shimmy". 8 canciones extraídas del segundo, titulado "Toxicity" (American Recordings, 2001)  Todas las músicas compuestas e interpretadas por System Of A DownEscuchar audio

Show #1092 20th Century Revisited 01. Eddie Boyd - The Big Question (3:02) (Five Long Years, Fontana Records, 1965) 02. John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers - Someday After A While (Tou'll Be Sorry) (3:01) (A Hard Road, Decca Records, 1967) 03. Eric Clapton - Someday After A While (4:28) (From The Cradle, Reprise Records, 1994) 04. Fleetwood Mac - No PLace To Go (3:24) (Fleetwood Mac, Blue Horizon Records, 1968) 05. Buddy Guy - Stick Around [1963] (3:52) (Blues Rarities, Chess Records, 1984) 06. Dana Gillespie - Tongue In Cheek (4:54) (Blues It Up, Ace Records, 1990) 07. Red Devils - Quarter To Twelve (6:54) (King King, American Recordings, 1992) 08. Little Walter - Mellow Down Easy (2:40) (45 RPM Single B-side, Checker Records, 1954) 09. Tony Joe White - Did Somebody Make A Fool Out Of You (4:46) (Homemade Ice Cream, Warner Bros Records, 1973) 10. Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Blues With A Feeling (4:24) (The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Elektra Records, 1965) 11. Spencer Davis Group - Blues In F (3:24) (45 RPM Single B-side, Fontana Records, 1966) 12. Blood Sweat & Tears - I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know (5:54) (Child Is Father To The Man, CBS Records, 1968) 13. Johnny Winter - It's My Life Baby (4:12) (Guitar Slinger, Alligator Records, 1984) 14. David Bromberg - Suffer To Sing The Blues [1979] (5:43) (Long Way From Here, Fantasy Records, 1986) 15. Sonny Boy Williamson II - Fattening Frogs For Snakes (2:22) (Down And Out Blues, Checker Records, 1959) 16. Canned Heat - Help Me (3:06) (Canned Heat, Liberty Records, 1967) 17. Electric Flag - Texas (4:45) (A Long Time Comin', CBS Records, 1968) 18. Bonnie Raitt - Everybody's Cryin' Mercy (3:23) (Takin' My Time, Warner Bros Records, 1973) 19. Omar & the Howlers - Everybody Knows About My Good Thing (5:45) (Big Leg Beat, Amazing Records, 1980) 20. ZZ Hill - Everybody Knows About My Good Thing (4:53) (Down Home, Malaco Records, 1981) 21. Chicken Shack - San-Ho-Zay (3:05) (40 Blue Fingers Freshly Packed And Ready To Serve, Blue Horizon Records, 1968) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

Six String Hayride Record Review, Johnny Cash American Recordings 3. Solitary ManChris and Jim discuss Johnny Cash American III: Solitary Man , the sixty-sixth studio album by Johnny Cash. It was released on October 17, 2000, by American Recordings. It is the third album in Cash's American series,Between American II: Unchained and American III: Solitary Man, Cash's health declined due to various ailments, and he was even hospitalized for pneumonia. The illness forced him to curtail his touring. This album contained Cash's response to his illness, typified by a version of Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down". Of course we love this album, tune in and find out why.

Send us a message, so we know what you're thinking!In case you hadn't noticed, we love a good cover version! This episode, we're looking at covers - staples, covers from strange sources, and some songs that have had a LOT of covers, including a bunch of covers of Bowie's “Heroes”. Our Album You Must Hear before You Die is “Is This It?” by The Strokes. This punk/Britpop-influenced album got rave reviews on release in 2001 from Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, and New Musical Express.  We're not convinced.  In Knockin' on Heaven's Door, we mourn the loss of Wayne Osmond (of the Osmond Brothers), Chad Morgan, the Aussie country great, and Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul and Mary.  We hope they get to sing a rousing chorus of “Puff the Magic Dragon together.  As usual, there's heaps of fun.  Enjoy!! Playlist (all the songs and artists referenced in the episode) Playlist – “Heroes” covers  References:  Heroes, REM, Leonard Cohen, “Suzanne”, “Hallelujah", Bob Dylan, “All along the Watchtower”, "If Not for You”, Olivia Newton-John, Johnny Cash, American Recordings, “All the Young Dudes”, Mott the Hoople, Ian Hunter, XTC, White Music, “This is Pop”, Devo, “(I can't get no) Satisfaction”, Zoot, “Eleanor Rigby”, Rick Springfield, Howard Gable, Alison Durbin, 801, “Tomorrow Never Knows”, ” 801 Live, "You Really Got Me”, Ministry, “Lay Lady Lay”, Al Jourgenson, “Heartbreak Hotel”, Elvis Presley, John Cale, June 1, 1974, Slow Dazzle, Fragments of a Rainy Season, Nirvana, "The Man Who Sold The World", “Unplugged”, Mick Ronson, Linda Ronstadt, “Different Drum”, Stone Ponies, Mike Nesmith, “You're No Good”, “Poor Poor Pitiful Me”, Cowboy Junkies, “Sweet Jane”, Fine Young Cannibals, “Suspicious Minds”, Talking Heads, “Take Me to The River”, Elvis Costello, “(What's So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, And Understanding”, George Benson, “On Broadway”, Mia Dyson, “The Passenger”, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Sara Blasko, “Flame Trees”, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, Reg Livermore, “Celluloid Heroes”, The Kinks, Peter Gabriel, Scratch My Back, I'll Scratch Yours, Motorhead, David Hasselhoff, Blondie, Oasis, Nico, Moby (with Mindy Jones), Phillip Glass, “Superman”, Lifes Rich Pageant, “There She Goes Again”, “Pale Blue Eyes”, “First we take Manhattan”,  

Six String Hayride Record Review, Johnny Cash American Recordings 2. Unchained, 1996.Unchained, also known as American II: Unchained is the second album in Johnny Cash's American Recordings series (and his 82nd overall). It was released on November 5, 1996, by American Recordings. Chris and Jim discuss the American 2 , Unchained, Album from Johnny cash with a little help from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with producer Rick Rubin.

No matter where you are in your career, you'll benefit from listening to 3Q. 3Q provides a window into the careers of some of the best in the music business. Every episode is an insider's view of the realities of life as a music executive. Topics include issues of empowerment, uncertainty, trust, finances, etc; issues that will impact you both personally and professionally. The executives we interview represent every aspect of the industry including but not limited to A&R, Marketing, Music Supervision, Artist Management, Promotion, and more. About Jeff: Jeff started his career at Rick Rubin's American Recordings in 1996.  Later that year, he moved to Revolution Records, a rebrand of Giant Records, Irving Azoff's since-shuttered Warner-distributed label. In 1997, he began a seven-year A&R stint at Dreamworks Records. After the company was sold by Geffen to Interscope he worked as part of the IGA team. Over the next eight years, he worked with Wolfmother, TV On The Radio, Major Lazer, and The All-American Rejects. In his current role, he's signed and worked with critically acclaimed artists such as Mac Miller, Rufus Du Sol, Brandy Clark, Billy Strings, Nessa Barrett, Benson Boone and plenty of others.

American Recordings is the 81st album by musician Johnny Cash. It was released on April 26, 1994. In the early '90s, Johnny Cash signed with Rick Rubin's American label and began releasing the American Recordings series of albums. Chris and Jim discuss the American Recordings series first album and the 13 songs performed by Johnny Cash.

Send us a textThis is a short series counting down our favorite songs from Johnny Cash's American Recording series.Intro song: Wayfaring Stranger5. I've Been Everywhere4. The Man Comes Around3. Sam Hall2. If You Could Read My Mind1. In My LifeOutro song: Hurt

Send us a textThis is a short series counting down our favorite songs from Johnny Cash's American Recordings series.Intro song: One10. God's Gonna Cut You Down9. Ain't No Grave8. I Never Picked Cotton7. Further On Up the Road6. The Mercy SeatOutro song: Like a Soldier

El 12 de septiembre de 2003 murió Johnny Cash. Durante sus últimos años, de la mano del productor musical Rick Rubin, el legendario cantautor grabó “American Recordings”, una serie de discos que revitalizó su carrera conectándolo con nuevas audiencias. Entre esas grabaciones, destacó la versión de Cash para “Hurt”, una canción de Nine Inch Nails que adquirió un nuevo significado con un videoclip que denota la soledad y el recuerdo, en momentos en que la vida se apaga. 

Toxicity es el segundo álbum de estudio de la banda System of a Down. Publicado el 4 de septiembre de 2001 por American Recordings, este CD tuvo gran éxito internacional, al vender más de 12 millones de copias a nivel mundial, y dio a conocer a la banda en todo el mundo. Forma parte de la lista de los 100 discos que debes tener antes del fin del mundo, publicada en 2012 por Sony Music. 

Inside A&R: Michael Goldberg on Signing Artists at American Recordings Join us as we delve into the world of A&R with Michael Goldberg from American Recordings. In this insightful discussion, we explore how the criteria for signing artists has evolved over the last five years and what factors are crucial for him to sign an artist today. Michael also shares how his extensive experience as a manager and producer influences his signing decisions. We discuss his long-standing collaboration with Rick Rubin, who has run American Recordings since the 90s, and how it has shaped his perspective on signing artists. Additionally, Michael reveals his strategy of starting relationships with artists by signing them to publishing deals for development purposes before offering record deals. We also touch on how the definition of success in the music industry has changed over the past decade. #MusicIndustry #AmericanRecordings #MusicMarketing Our mission here at MUBUTV is to help independent artists and music business professionals of the future to educate, empower and engage their music career.

Welcome to "The Rumors Are True," the podcast where we dive deep into the stories behind the music and the artists who create it. Today we have an incredible guest joining us. He's a seasoned musician known for his work with the bands Noise Ratchet (The Militia Group, American Recordings) and The Life. We welcome Joel Hosler! We'll be exploring his journey through the music industry, the evolution of his sound, and the stories behind some of his most memorable tracks. Get ready for an insightful and inspiring conversation. https://open.spotify.com/artist/6ZSerBwvNggQtqqfGB8POQ https://music.apple.com/us/artist/noise-ratchet/7017147 https://www.youtube.com/@Noiseratchetchannel Production and Music by Brian Jerin @jerinkid Artwork by Jared Chase Bowser @jaredchasebowser --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/therumorsaretruecast/support

fWotD Episode 2624: Still Reigning Welcome to Featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia’s finest articles.The featured article for Thursday, 11 July 2024 is Still Reigning.Still Reigning is a live performance DVD by the thrash metal band Slayer, released in 2004 through American Recordings. Filmed at the Augusta Civic Center on July 11, 2004, the performance showcases Slayer's 1986 album, Reign in Blood, played in its entirety with the four original band members on a set resembling their 1986 "Reign in Pain" tour. Still Reigning was voted "best live DVD" by the readers of Revolver magazine, and received gold certification in 2005.The DVD is notable for the finale, which features Slayer covered in stage blood while performing the song "Raining Blood", leading to a demanding mixing process plagued by production and technical difficulties. The DVD's producer Kevin Shirley spent hours replacing cymbal and drum hits one-by-one. He publicly aired financial disagreements he had with the band and criticized the quality of the recording, and as a result was allegedly subjected to threats and insults from people associated with the band.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:07 UTC on Thursday, 11 July 2024.For the full current version of the article, see Still Reigning on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm standard Justin.

This episode looks at Johnny Cash's “The American Recordings”, a series of 6 albums released on American Records between 1994 and 2010.  By 1994, when he signed to Rick Rubin's American Records, it looked like Cash's career was all but done. However, Rubin had other ideas and, over the next 10 years, worked with Cash to produce some of the most memorable work of his career. Part of this process involved Cash covering songs by some of the greatest artists of the late 20th Century - U2, Nine Inch Nails, Nick Cave, Tom Petty and Leonard Cohen.  He's not performing the songs in his usual country style, but simply as Johnny Cash.  It's a great story, with a fabulous playlist! Jeff's found 5 bands you would not believe exist, including Mac Sabbath, a parody of Black Sabbath with lyrics about fast food, and Shat, a band that is offensive in every possible way, whose lead singer's costumes are draped with dildoes!  Our "Album you must listen to before you die" is “Arrival” by Abba.  Reviewers weren't convinced.  Neither is Jeff.  Have a listen and see what Mick thought. References: Winny Puhh, The Residents, Mac Sabbath, Shat, TISM, Taylor Swift, Tortured Poets Department, Abba, Arrival, American Records, Rick Rubin, Def Jam, Shel Silverstein, “A Boy Named Sue”, “Solitary Man”, The Highwaymen, The Man in Black, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, June Carter Cash, “Bitter Tears”, “Ballad of Ira Hayes”, Bruce Springsteen, “Highway Patrolman”, U2, Zooropa, “The Wanderer”, “Personal Jesus”, “The Mercy Seat”,  “Streets of Laredo”, John Cale   Johnny Cash American Recordings – Full albums Johnny Cash – Our episode playlist Discogs' listing of all 6 covers Interview with Rick Rubin re “Hurt”  Ten Bands you Won't Believe Exist

Twitter: @podgaverockInsta: @podgaverockSpecial Guest Hosts: Chris BendtThe Jayhawks “Blue" from the 1995 album "Tomorrow The Green Grass" released on American Recordings. Written by Mark Olson and Gary Louris and produced by George Drakoulias.Personel:Mark Olson – vocals, guitarGary Louris – vocals, guitarMartin Barre – electric guitarMarc Perlman – bassAdditional:Don Heffington – drumsGreg Leisz – pedal steel guitarBenmont Tench (organ)Cover:Performed by Josh Bond and Neal MarshIntro Music:"Shithouse" 2010 release from "A Collection of Songs for the Kings". Written by Josh Bond. Produced by Frank Charlton.Other Artists Mentioned:The Beatles “Day In the Life”Led Zeppelin “Tangerine”

Twitter: @podgaverockInsta: @podgaverockSpecial Guest Hosts: Chris BendtThe Jayhawks “Blue" from the 1995 album "Tomorrow The Green Grass" released on American Recordings. Written by Mark Olson and Gary Louris and produced by George Drakoulias.Personel:Mark Olson – vocals, guitarGary Louris – vocals, guitarMartin Barre – electric guitarMarc Perlman – bassAdditional:Don Heffington – drumsGreg Leisz – pedal steel guitarBenmont Tench (organ)Cover:Performed by Josh Bond and Neal MarshIntro Music:"Shithouse" 2010 release from "A Collection of Songs for the Kings". Written by Josh Bond. Produced by Frank Charlton.Other Artists Mentioned:Pearl JamKings of Leon “Because of the Times”Green Day “American Idiot”The Black KeysRed Hot Chili PeppersPhishBlink-182RadioheadBen HarperTupac98 DegreesBackstreet BoysSisco “The Thong Song”Ryan Adams “Stars Go  Blue”David GreyWar on DrugsKiller MikeInsane Clown PosseMy Morning JacketIron and WineThe NationalGregory Allan IsikovDawson's CreekGarth BrooksGram ParsonsRyan AdamsWilcoGeorge StraitReba McEntyreToby KeithBon Iver “For Emma, Forever Ago”The BeatlesEmmylou HarrisThe Jayhawks “Rainy Day Music”The Black Crowes “Shake Your Moneymaker”Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers “The Last DJ”BeckBilly JoelKyle MooneySNLLeeann Rimes “Blue”Taylor Swift “1989”For the Kings “Love (A Revolution)”The Allman Brothers Band “Melissa”REMMarshall Tucker Band “Amy”David CrosbyThe Flying Burrito BrothersThe TurtlesThe Byrds “Tambourine Man”The ReplacementsUncle TupeloWilcoSun VoltDrivng and CryingFuturebirdsFruit BatsBonny Light HorsemanThe ThornsThe Wild FeathersKings of LeonFirst Aid Kit

From 1994-2010, with the help of Rick Rubin, Johnny Cash released 6 albums on Rubin's American record label. The albums consist largely of covers. On this week's episode, we pull our favorites from all 6 albums and discuss the impact they had on Johnny Cash's renewed, and lasting legacy. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/blanketingcovers/message

In this episode the Dads talk about the breakthrough hit for the current queen of country music, Lainey Wilson: "Things a Man Oughta Know". This song is a lot deeper than it first appears and affects you in more ways than you realize. The Dads break down how the song hits them and how their perceptions of this tune have evolved over time.   Mentioned in This Episode:  LA Dads Group Kansas City Dads Group Naja's Place Dogs playing Poker by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge “Things a Man Oughta Know” (Official Music Video) “How Lainey Wilson Took Over Country Music” by Grady Smith on YouTube Lainey Wilson Wins Female Artist of the Year – The 58th ACM Awards Show Notes: 1:18 Dad Life Sound Check: Dave Talks about the Importance of a DNO (Dad's Night Out) with the LA Dads Group, Naja's Place, Toby Keith and Kip Moore. Mick talks about being home with a sick kiddo, Johnny Cash's American Recordings and how "God's Gonna Cut You Down" has affected Major League Baseball.  15:27 The Hardy Report: What makes a small town? HARDY gives us some perspective via "Rednecker."   19:01 The Farm Boy Update: The chickens don't like the 55 degree Midwest weather fluctuations. 20:15: The Dads get into and break down the song that put Lainey Wilson on the path to becoming the hottest commodity in country music, "Things a Man Oughta Know." 29:40: Grady Smith and his feature of "How Lainey Wilson Took Over Country Music" on YouTube.   Sources:  Intro Music: ⁠“Dark Country Rock” by Moodmode HARDY Report Theme Music: ⁠“Frantic” by Lemon Music Studio Farm Boy Update Theme Music: ⁠“The Wheels on the Bus Rockabilly Style (instrumental)” by Mike Cole⁠ “I Love This Bar” by Toby Keith “Kinda Bar” by Kip Moore “God's Gonna Cut You Down” by Johnny Cash “Rednecker” by HARDY “Country Must Be Country Wide” by Brantley Gilbert “Things a Man Oughta Know” by Lainey Wilson Please subscribe to the show, rate it, and leave a review on ⁠Spotify⁠, ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠, ⁠Amazon⁠, ⁠OverCast⁠, Pandora, ⁠YouTube⁠, or wherever you get your podcasts! Follow us on Instagram ⁠@CountryMusicDads⁠ and Facebook ⁠@CountryMusicDads⁠ or visit us on the web at CountryMusicDads.com. And if you want to hear some of these songs in full, check out the Country Music Dads Playlist on Spotify.

On today's show, singer/songwriter Jonny Polonsky tells the story of his musical life spanning from his early work doing homemade mixtapes to his current and future projects, and plays a song: IN DEEPEST DARK. GUEST OVERVIEW: Singer/songwriter Jonny Polonsky first made a name for himself with his talent for writing smart pop melodies, but he later embraced a more eclectic style that also encompassed hard rock and roots rock. Jonny's first foray into making music began as a teenager, writing, recording, and self-releasing homemade cassettes under the name The Amazing Jonny Polonsky. His debut album - on which he produced, recorded, and performed everything himself - is titled “Hi My Name is Jonny”, and was released by American Recordings in 1996. It received positive critical acclaim from international news outlets, including The New York Times and MTV. Immediately after its release, Polonsky and his live band toured as the main support act for Frank Black for twelve weeks in North America. Polonsky has continued to make music, collaborate with other artists, and gather a cult following. He has performed as an opening act for Audioslave with and even becoming a member of Puscifer, and did a lot of studio work (Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond, The Chicks) https://www.jonnypolonsky.com/

Show Date: 3/7/24 Dan and Andy review the Johnny Cash album from 2010 titled, "American Recordings 6: Ain't No Grave" Sports and Songs Podcast Links: https://www.facebook.com/sportsandsongs1 https://twitter.com/SportsandSongs1 https://www.instagram.com/sportsandsongs/ https://www.sportsandsongspodcast.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sportsandsongs/message

Show Date: 2/29/24 Dan and Andy review the Johnny Cash album from 2006 titled, "American Recordings 5: A Hundred Highways" Sports and Songs Podcast Links: https://www.facebook.com/sportsandsongs1 https://twitter.com/SportsandSongs1 https://www.instagram.com/sportsandsongs/ https://www.sportsandsongspodcast.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sportsandsongs/message

Show Date: 2/22/24 Dan and Andy review the Johnny Cash album from 2002 titled, "American Recordings 4: The Man Comes Around" Sports and Songs Podcast Links: https://www.facebook.com/sportsandsongs1 https://twitter.com/SportsandSongs1 https://www.instagram.com/sportsandsongs/ https://www.sportsandsongspodcast.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sportsandsongs/message

Show Date: 2/15/24 Dan and Andy review the Johnny Cash album from 2000 titled, "American Recordings 2: Solitary Man" Sports and Songs Podcast Links: https://www.facebook.com/sportsandsongs1 https://twitter.com/SportsandSongs1 https://www.instagram.com/sportsandsongs/ https://www.sportsandsongspodcast.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sportsandsongs/message

Show Date: 2/8/24 Dan and Andy review the Johnny Cash album from 1996 titled, "American Recordings 2: Unchained" Sports and Songs Podcast Links: https://www.facebook.com/sportsandsongs1 https://twitter.com/SportsandSongs1 https://www.instagram.com/sportsandsongs/ https://www.sportsandsongspodcast.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sportsandsongs/message

Show Date: 2/1/24 Dan and Andy review the Johnny Cash album from 1994 titled, "American Recordings." Sports and Songs Podcast Links: https://www.facebook.com/sportsandsongs1 https://twitter.com/SportsandSongs1 https://www.instagram.com/sportsandsongs/ https://www.sportsandsongspodcast.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sportsandsongs/message

John Christ returns as Ace Von Johnson and I continue to explore the history of the band Danzig! This is part 5 of a multipart interview. All things John Christ - http://www.johnchrist.com/ All things Ace Von Johnson - https://linktr.ee/acevonjohnson Join this channel to get access to videos not available on the public channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6pX3ePQjr8TKBQqKRiobNQ/join FRUMESS is POWERED by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.riotstickers.com/frumess⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ GET 200 DIECUT STICKERS FOR $69  RIGHT HERE - NO PROMO CODE NEED JOIN THE PATREON FOR LESS THAN A $2 CUP OF COFFEE!! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/Frumess ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

John Christ returns as Ace Von Johnson and I continue to explore the history of the band Danzig! This is part 4 of a multipart interview. All things John Christ - http://www.johnchrist.com/ All things Ace Von Johnson - https://linktr.ee/acevonjohnson FRUMESS is POWERED by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.riotstickers.com/frumess⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ GET 1000 STICKERS FOR $79  RIGHT HERE - NO PROMO CODE NEED! JOIN THE PATREON FOR LESS THAN A $2 CUP OF COFFEE!! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/Frumess ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

In the intricate realm of music recording, small labels are not merely entities; they are hubs of ingenuity and resilience. Running an independent music recording label can be both challenging and rewarding. Building a strong brand, nurturing relationships, and staying innovative are keys to success for smaller music recording labels. In this episode, we sit down with Daniel Hall, Founder of RidingEasy Records, to discuss the formation of the company through the lens of his experiences in the industry. RidingEasy Records is more than a label; it's a passion-turned-phenomenon. Their catalog compasses heavy psych, doom, metal, and rock but also serves as a haven for classic rock enthusiasts. Their tracks have found homes in commercials, films, TV shows, and online content, making them an indomitable force in the industry. Daniel is more than a seasoned professional in music marketing; he's a trailblazer in the industry. From artist to promoter, his journey through the music world has been a tapestry woven with relationships and a profound understanding of what drives success.In our conversation, we unpack the roots of RidingEasy Records and how a low-key band ignited its formation. We discuss what shaped his belief in the power of music, the role of a strong graphic as the backbone of a marketing campaign, and how the music landscape has evolved. We delve into the album art and labels that ignited Daniel's passion during his formative years, his contemporary marketing approach, how his DJ background helped shape his career, the difference between working for a big and independent label, and much more. Tune in and get your backstage pass to the intricate workings of an independent record label with Daniel Hall!Key Points From This Episode:Reminiscing about Slayer and their impact on the metal and rock scene.RidingEasy Records and how the band Salem's Pot led to its formation.The record labels and art that inspired Daniel when he was growing up.His refreshing approach to creating album art, branding, and marketing.How the marketing aspect for record labels has changed over time.Thinking out of the box and building trust with consumers.Challenges of marketing and selling as a smaller record label.He shares his experience working for American Recordings.An overview of his career journey into the world of record labels.Why he decided not to pursue a career at a big record label.Discover the difference between working for a major label and an indie label.Learn about his background working as a DJ and how it influenced his career.Insights into the nuts and bolts of running an independent record label.Details about Sabbath by the Sea and how it started.Links Mentioned in Today's Episode:Daniel Hall on LinkedInRidingEasy RecordsRidingEasy Records on InstagramSabbath by the Sea SlayerSalem's Pot on InstagramInterscope RecordsRolling Heavy Magazine

Eric Branstrom, Travis's cohost from their movie podcast Cinema 9, is back on '93-'94 to discuss his deep appreciation for the luminary Johnny Cash and his 1994 revival album American Recordings!

Date: October 11, 2023Name of podcast: Backstage Pass RadioEpisode title and number:  S5: E8 - Dave Roe (Johnny Cash, Dwight Yoakum, John Mellencamp, Jerry Reed, Chet Atkins) - The Legacy Lives OnBIO:Born David Roe Rorick, bassist/vocalist/songwriter Dave Roe grew up in Hawaii and started playing bass in funk and R&B bands in the late '60s and '70s. After moving to Nashville in the early '80s, he joined Jerry Reed's band.  Over the next several years Dave toured the world with several country artists including Mel Tillis, Vern Gosdin, Charlie Louvin, Dottie West, Chet Atkins, Vince Gill, and others.In the early '90s,  Johnny Cash hired Dave to play in his band the Tennessee Three.  Dave has said ‘That started my love affair with the upright bass, and slap bass in particular, that lingers till this day.'  Dave worked with Cash for eleven years, and toward the end, he played bass on most of the American Recordings sessions produced by Rick Rubin.After Cash passed away,  Dave toured and recorded for five years with Dwight Yoakam. He got off the road after that, since his recording session work had picked up substantially. Coinciding with this, he was a member of the Don Kelley Band for 13 years, considered one of America's best honky-tonk bands.With over 500 album credits, including numerous platinum, gold, and Grammy-winning records, over the years Dave has worked with such diverse artists as John Mellencamp, Sturgill Simpson, Chrissie Hynde, Taj Majal, Loretta Lynn,  Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson, Ian Hunter, Brian Setzer, Dan Auerbach, CeeLo Green, Kurt Vile, Yola, John Anderson, Carrie Underwood, Marcus King, Malcolm Holcombe, Brandy Clark, Joe Ely, Gretchen Peters, Ray LaMontagne, Jake Bugg, Richard Lloyd, Don Schlitz, Faith Hill, Duane Eddy, Kathy Mattea, Rodney Crowell and others.These days, Dave continues to work sessions and play live regionally with a few artists.  He has his own band, the SloBeats, formed with guitar great from Marty Stuart's band Kenny Vaughan, and drummer Pete Abbott from the Average White Band. Dave also regularly books sessions in his own studio, Seven Deadly Sins, located right outside Nashville in Goodlettsville, TN. He is a life member of AFM Local 257 in Nashville, TN.Sponsor Link:WWW.ECOTRIC.COMWWW.SIGNAD.COMWWW.RUNWAYAUDIO.COMBackstage Pass Radio Social Media Handles:Facebook - @backstagepassradiopodcast @randyhulseymusicInstagram - @Backstagepassradio @randyhulseymusicTwitter - @backstagepassPC @rhulseymusicWebsite - backstagepassradio.com and randyhulsey.comArtist(s) Web Pagewww.daveroe.comCall to actionWe ask our listeners to like, share, and subscribe to the show and the artist's social media pages. This enables us to continue pushing great content to the consumer. Thank you for being a part of Backstage Pass RadioYour Host,Randy Hulsey 

Brian Koppelman makes his living as the showrunner, co-creator and writer for the Showtime series Billions. Jim and Greg revisit their conversation with Koppelman about how he innovatively uses music in the critically acclaimed show. They'll also review new albums from Mitski, Low Cut Connie and Jaimie Branch. Join our Facebook Group: https://bit.ly/3sivr9T Become a member on Patreon: https://bit.ly/3slWZvc Sign up for our newsletter: https://bit.ly/3eEvRnG Make a donation via PayPal: https://bit.ly/3dmt9lU Send us a Voice Memo: Desktop: bit.ly/2RyD5Ah  Mobile: sayhi.chat/soundops   Featured Songs: The Beatles, "With A Little Help From My Friends," Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Parlophone, 1967Mitski, "Bug Like An Angel," The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, Dead Oceans, 2023Mitski, "Buffalo Replaced," The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, Dead Oceans, 2023Mitski, "I Love Me After You," The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, Dead Oceans, 2023Mitski, "The Deal," The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, Dead Oceans, 2023Low Cut Connie, "Tell Me Something I Don't Know," Art Dealers, Contender, 2023Low Cut Connie, "Art Dealers," Art Dealers, Contender, 2023Low Cut Connie, "King of the Jews," Art Dealers, Contender, 2023Low Cut Connie, "The Party's Over," Art Dealers, Contender, 2023Low Cut Connie, "Sleaze Me On," Art Dealers, Contender, 2023Mitski, "I'm Your Man," The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, Dead Oceans, 2023Jaimie Branch, "Baba Louie," Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)), International Anthem, 2023Jaimie Branch, "Burning Grey," Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)), International Anthem, 2023Jaimie Branch, "Take Over the World," Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)), International Anthem, 2023Jaimie Branch, "The Mountain (feat. Jason Ajemian)," Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)), International Anthem, 2023Tracy Chapman, "Talkin' Bout a Revolution," Tracy Chapman, Elektra, 1988Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, "Even the Losers," Damn the Torpedoes, MCA, 1979Mink DeVille, "Spanish Stroll," Cabretta, Capitol, 1977Garrett T. Capps, "Born in San Antone," Y Los Lonely Hipsters, Suburban Haste, 2016Bob Dylan, "Visions of Johanna," Blonde on Blonde, Columbia, 1966Mott the Hoople, "I Wish I Was Your Mother," Mott, Columbia, 1973Johnny Cash, "Solitary Man," American III: Solitary Man, American Recordings, 2000Andrew Bird, "Oh No," Noble Beast, Fat Possum, 2009Echo & the Bunnymen, "The Killing Moon," Ocean Rain, Sire, 1984Sammy Davis Jr., "Mr. Bojangles," Mr. Bojangles (Single), MGM, 1972The Dictators, "The Next Big Thing," Go Girl Crazy!, Epic, 1975Eskmo, "Billions Title & Recap," Billions Original Series Soundtrack, Milan, 2017Mary Ocher, "Is Life Possible? (feat. Les Trucs)," Is Life Possible? (feat. Les Trucs) (Single), Copyright Control, 2023Support The Show: https://www.patreon.com/soundopinionsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today, we hear from legendary record producer Rick Rubin.Rubin is a co-founder of Def Jam Recordings, founder of American Recordings, and former co-president of Columbia Records. Rubin helped popularize hip hop by producing records for acts such as the Beastie Boys, Geto Boys, Run-DMC, Public Enemy, and LL Cool J. He has also produced hit records for acts from a variety of other genres, predominantly heavy metal (Metallica and Slayer), alternative rock (Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Strokes), hard rock (Audioslave and Aerosmith), nu-metal (Linkin Park and Rage Against the Machine), and country (Johnny Cash and the Chicks). In 2007, Rubin was called "the most important producer of the last 20 years" by MTV and was named on Time's list of the "100 Most Influential People in the World". His first book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, was recently published in January 2023.   5x #1 Bestselling Author and Motivational Speaker Erik Qualman has performed in over 55 countries and reached over 50 million people this past decade. He was voted the 2nd Most Likable Author in the World behind Harry Potter's J.K. Rowling.   Have Erik speak at your conference: eq@equalman.com   Motivational Speaker | Erik Qualman has inspired audiences at FedEx, Chase, ADP, Huawei, Starbucks, Godiva, FBI, Google, and many more on Focus and Digital Leadership.   Learn more at https://equalman.com

Johnny Cash was a living legend who had been forgotten after a very difficult personal time, relapsing in the 80s. Famed producer Rick Rubin invited Johnny Cash to come be a part of Rubin's American Recordings series. This week we are looking at Cash's American III and IV, featuring mostly covers, some re-recordings, and one return-to-form new song. Releasing a year before his death in 2003, American IV features the iconic cover of Nine Inch Nail's Hurt, which Trent Reznor would later say belonged to Cash going forward. Some of these covers make sense, some seem like they shouldn't but work anyway, and some are absolute flops. But there is some vital work here.

[REBROADCAST FROM January 20, 2023] Much has been made of Rick Rubin's efforts in the early days of hip-hop in 1980s New York. Alongside Russell Simmons, he co-created Def Jam, and shaped the early albums of artists like LL Cool J, The Beastie Boys, Run DMC, and Public Enemy. But ever since moving to California and founding American Recordings, he's worked with pretty much every musician you can imagine, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Adele, Tom Petty, and more, to the point that the legend around his creative process has grown and grown. Now, Rubin has written a new book, called The Creative Act: A Way of Being, with his thoughts on creativity, and how he unlocks creativity in the artists he works with. Rick Rubin joins to tell us more.

Welcome to the latest Q&A episode of The Russell Moore Show, which addresses a question we all want answered: is every question submitted to the show theological or political? As it turns out, the answer is no! Our first question today is about none other than Johnny Cash, which leads to a discussion of Merle Haggard and even Nine Inch Nails.  If you came for the heavier stuff, though, never fear. This episode also includes producer Ashley Hales and Russell talking about Christian Nationalism, the Democratic Party, and the MAGA movement. Their conversation covers pastoring, witnessing in the digital environment, and delineating between moralism and Scripture application.  Questions addressed during this episode include: What are Russell's thoughts on Johnny Cash's American Recordings? What concrete steps does Russell recommend for pastors, lay leaders, and churchgoers who love their churches but see them as having been co-opted by individualism, consumerism, and Christian Nationalism?  Does Russell ever wonder if he's being used as a pawn by Democratic Party supporters? How can a pastor address the far-right MAGA movement that's taken hold in his congregation?  What does it look like to witness to coworkers in our new digital environment? Especially when it comes to teaching children, how can we delineate between moralism and Scripture application? How can the dignity of youth ministry be restored? What introductory apologetics books does Russell recommend? What should a church member do when new leadership holds a differing position on sexuality and marriage?  How can we reconcile two opposing views, such as conflicting opinions on baptism, in one church? Did Paul sin by not asking Philemon to emancipate Onesimus? Resources mentioned in this episode include: American Recordings by Johnny Cash Hurt by Nine Inch Nails (cover) Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture by Lesslie Newbigin Jonathan Rauch Christ and the Bible by John Wenham  The writings of Richard Bauckham The writings of Peter J. Williams George F. Will The Letter to Philemon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary by Joseph A. Fitzmyer Colossians and Philemon: An Introduction and Commentary by N.T. Wright Pre-order Russell's new title, Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America, here! Do you have a question for Russell Moore? Send it to questions@russellmoore.com. Click here for a trial membership at Christianity Today. The Russell Moore Show” is a production of Christianity Today Executive Producers: Erik Petrik, Russell Moore, and Mike Cosper Host: Russell Moore Producer: Ashley Hales Associate Producers: Abby Perry and Azurae Phelps CT Administration: Christine Kolb Social Media: Kate Lucky Director of Operations for CT Media: Matt Stevens Audio engineering by Dan Phelps Video producer: Abby Egan Theme Song: “Dusty Delta Day” by Lennon Hutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

El disco homónimo de System Of A Down, editado en 1998, mostró de forma brutal y primitiva los cimientos de una banda que, mezclando diferentes géneros del rock con sonidos de la tradición armenia, ha dejado huella. Conversamos sobre la producción de Rick Rubin, la connotación política de las canciones, el valor del orden del tracklist y más elementos sobre este disco, el primer batatazo de SOAD.

On this episode of THE HEAVY GALAXY SHOW, John and Matt sit down with UNIDA & HOUSE OF BROKEN PROMISES guitarist ARTHUR SEAY. The guys start things off with a discussion on UNIDA's origins and the impetus of Seay to relaunch the band without the services of legendary lead vocalist John Garcia while RIOT GOD vocalist Mark Sunshine fills in for the time being. Seay goes in-depth in regards to the infamous backstory of the bands sophomore LP that is still unreleased to this day due to the internal workings of the music business by the bands previous label American Recordings, while the record continues to be shelved twenty years since its completion. The desert-based guitarist also talks about his professional career as a stagehand working with established bands such as Slipknot, Godsmack, Limp Bizkit and more. Seay talks about the recent passing of artist and Mans Ruin Records founder Frank Kozik and his importance to rock in the 90's as well as the launching of Unida's career, the current state of HOUSE OF BROKEN PROMISES, Unida's upcoming summer European tour and more. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cmspn/message

Today's guest, for many, requires no introduction. Rick Rubin is an American record executive and producer with one of the best beards in the business. He's the co-founder of Def Jam Recordings, founder of American Recordings, and former co-president of Columbia Records.  He's worked with a laundry list of hugely successful bands and artists from various genres, including The Beastie Boys, Run DMC, Metallica, The Cult, Weezer, Rage Against the Machine, Johnny Cash to name a few. He has a podcast on the craft of music called Broken Record, and an epic, brand new podcast called Tetragrammaton. This year, he also released his first book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being. Rick's perspective on life and creativity is truly inspiring and instructive. We recorded this episode at Rick's house in Malibu. It was a blast catching up and distilling his wisdom on life, creativity, and of course, music. We get into all sorts of fun in this episode, including Rick's experience practicing transcendental meditation from a young age, why it took eight years to complete his new book, and why he wasn't interested in writing a book about his career in music.  Let's get our creative juices flowing with the wisdom of Rick Rubin. Enjoy the ride and as always, share it with some friends. DISCLAIMER: This podcast is presented for educational and exploratory purposes only. Published content is not intended to be used for diagnosing or treating any illness. Those responsible for this show disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information presented by Luke or his guests. Please consult with your healthcare provider before using any products referenced. This podcast may contain paid endorsements for products or services. 00:06:09 — Rick Rubin's Approach to Vitality & Iconic Role in Music Rick's health regimen lately and latest approach to vitality The Source Family Starman Meditation Documentary: The Source Family Podcast: Tetragrammaton Podcast: The Broken Record  Giving flowers to The Stooges and Iggy Pop Rick's role in producing the Electric album by The Cult 00:22:16 — The Purpose Behind Rick's Book: The Creative Act Rick's mystical approach to creativity How Rick dealt with his house burning down in the Malibu fire  Learnings from Ram Dass and other spiritual teachers Read: The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin  Read: A Swim In The Pond In The Rain by George Saunders The goal of this book and why it's different than what you'd expect Refinement and formulas for editing work 00:45:02 — The Essence of Art: Tapping into the Subconscious & Removing Ego Rick's unique writing process  Tapping into the subconscious for ideas  The role of the ego and intellect in creative projects  Byron Katie: thework.com  How art can easily become overproduced  The sensitivity of artists and prevalence of addiction 01:08:47 — Cultivating a Creative Way of Being & Reframing Self-Doubt The invitation for us all to be creators The impact of meditation on Rick's life How to reframe self-doubt Marshall Rosenberg's work with a non-violent communication: cnvc.org Rick's experience working with Johnny Cash and other timeless artists Rick Rubin's biggest influence in music More about this episode. Watch on YouTube. THIS SHOW IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY: BON CHARGE. Enjoy the amazing benefits of infrared sauna in the comfort of your home at an affordable price. Burn calories, recover faster from aches and pains and calm your mind, body, and soul. Use the code LIFESTYLIST for 15% off at boncharge.com/lifestylist. AND... MAGNESIUM BREAKTHROUGH. According to the American Psychological Association, chronic stress is linked to the six leading causes of death. When most people think of stress, they think of their job, traffic, tense relationships, current events, things like that. But the root of so much of the stress we experience comes down to a deficiency in one overlooked nutrient — magnesium. So, if you're ready to help your body deal with stress, instead of putting a band-aid on it after the fact, you're going to want some Magnesium Breakthrough. You can use the code “luke10” for 10% off at magbreakthrough.com/luke. AND… APOLLO NEURO. Don't let stress hold you back from being your best. The Apollo™️ wearable was designed for anyone who wants to improve their sleep, focus, and mood in an easy, safe and effective way. Apollo's soothing touch therapy is proven to rebalance the nervous system, helping users get 19% more time in deep sleep, 40% less stress and anxiety, and a 25% increase in focus, on average. Start sleeping more and stressing less with 15% off Apollo.  AND… BIOCHARGED. This proprietary charged adaptogenic blend supports the body's response to everyday stressors and the ongoing effects of aging. The unique combination of shilajit, nmn, resveratrol, and niacinamide create a powerhouse that helps support endurance, longevity, cellular repair, a balanced inflammatory response, skin health, and nad+ production. You can use code LUKE for 15% off at biocharged.co Resources: Instagram: @rickrubin  Twitter: @rickrubin Podcast: Tetragrammaton Podcast: The Broken Record  Read: The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin Free Webinar on 6/2: lukestorey.com/goldandsilver Are you ready to block harmful blue light, and look great at the same time? Check out Gilded By Luke Storey. Where fashion meets function: gildedbylukestorey.com Join me on Telegram for the uncensored content big tech won't allow me to post. It's free speech and free content: www.lukestorey.com/telegram Related: From Hip Hop Mogul To Yoga Master With Russell Simmons #66 Dr. Christiane Northrup: Medical Freedom, Injection Protection + How To Save Yourself & Your Sanity #435  The Life Stylist is produced by Crate Media.

Hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot share favorite songs about the end of the world from artists ranging from Johnny Cash to Fishbone. They're also joined by their production staff with their picks for songs that creatively deal with the apocalypse. Then recent feedback from listeners is played.   Join our Facebook Group: https://bit.ly/3sivr9T Become a member on Patreon: https://bit.ly/3slWZvc Sign up for our newsletter: https://bit.ly/3eEvRnG Make a donation via PayPal: https://bit.ly/3dmt9lU Send us a Voice Memo: Desktop: bit.ly/2RyD5Ah  Mobile: sayhi.chat/soundops   Featured Songs: The Doors, "The End," The Doors, Elektra, 1967The Beatles, "I Get By (With a Little Help From My Friends)," Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Parlophone, 1967Sharon Van Etten, "The End of the World," Resistance Radio: The Man in the High Castle Album, Columbia, 2017R.E.M., "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," Document, I.R.S., 1987David Bowie, "Five Years," The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, RCA, 1972Barry McGuire, "Eve of Destruction," Eve of Destruction, Geffen, 1965Matt Maltese, "As the World Caves In," Bad Contestant, Atlantic UK, 2018Postal Service, "We Will Become Silhouettes," Give Up, Sub Pop, 2005Randy Newman, "Political Science," Sail Away, Rhino/Warner, 1972Nico, "The End," The End..., Island, 1974Phoebe Bridgers, "I Know the End," Punisher, Dead Oceans, 2020The Verve, "Bitter Sweet Symphony," Urban Hymns, Hut, 1997Fishbone, "Party At Ground Zero," Fishbone, Columbia, 1985Madonna, "4 Minutes (feat. Justin Timberlake & Timbaland)," Hard Candy, Warner Bros., 2008Method Man, "Judgement Day," Tical 2000: Judgement Day, Def Jam, 1998Johnny Cash, "The Man Comes Around," American IV: The Man Comes Around, American Recordings, Universal, 2002Xixa, "May They Call Us Home," Genesis, Julian, 2020Reckling, "Spitter," Reckling, Reckling, 2018Cam Cool, "Everyone Texts and Drives," Everyone Texts and Drives (Single), Cam Cool, 2023Syl Johnson, "Concrete Reservation," Is It Because I'm Black (Deluxe 50th Anniversary Edition), Numero, 2019Support The Show: https://www.patreon.com/soundopinionsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rick Rubin (The Creative Act: A Way of Being, American Recordings) is an 8x Grammy Award-winning music producer, record executive, and author. Rick joins the Armchair Expert to discusshis creative process for producing music, why he is interested in many different genres of music, and how important it is to be true to yourself. Rick and Dax talk about their relationships with spirituality, what happens when artists have that magic moment in the recording studio, and how important it is to pay attention to your signals. Rick explains how discipline can bring you more freedom, how the beginner's mind allows for innovation through ignorance, and the importance of embracing creativity in a creative world. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the second of a two-part interview, Ryan speaks with Rick Rubin about his new book The Creative Act: A Way of Being, respecting everyone's unique approach to the creative process during collaboration, his new podcast Tetragrammaton, the importance of studying art created long ago, and more.Rick Rubin is a renowned American record producer and the co-founder of Def Jam Recordings, founder of American Recordings, and former co-president of Columbia Records. He has produced albums for a wide range of acclaimed artists, including the Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, Public Enemy, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Audioslave, Rage Against the Machine, and Johnny Cash. He has won nine Grammys and has been nominated for 12 more. He has been called "the most important producer of the last 20 years" by MTV and was named on Time's list of the "100 Most Influential People in the World".You can hear part one of Ryan's interview with Rick here.

In the first of a two-part interview, Ryan speaks with Rick Rubin about his new book The Creative Act: A Way of Being, the importance of allowing creativity to happen rather than willing it into existence, working with the unique facets of the artist's ego, the importance of changing up the way that you do things, the phases of the creative process, and more.Rick Rubin is a renowned American record producer and the co-founder of Def Jam Recordings, founder of American Recordings, and former co-president of Columbia Records. He has produced albums for a wide range of acclaimed artists, including the Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, Public Enemy, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Audioslave, Rage Against the Machine, and Johnny Cash. He has won nine Grammys and has been nominated for 12 more. He has been called "the most important producer of the last 20 years" by MTV and was named on Time's list of the "100 Most Influential People in the World".Part two of Ryan's interview with Rick will air on February 22nd for subscribers, and March 1st for non-subscribers.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail

Much has been made of Rick Rubin's efforts in the early days of hip-hop in 1980s New York. Alongside Russell Simmons, he co-created Def Jam, and shaped the early albums of artists like LL Cool J, The Beastie Boys, Run DMC, and Public Enemy. But ever since moving to California and founding American Recordings, he's worked with pretty much every musician you can imagine, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Adele, Tom Petty, and more, to the point that the legend around his creative process has grown and grown. Now, Rubin has written a new book, called The Creative Act: A Way of Being, with his thoughts on creativity, and how he unlocks creativity in the artists he works with. Rick Rubin joins to tell us more.  

Welcome DAN CHARNAS! His latest book - Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, The Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm (2022) - is a New York Times Bestseller. Award-winning music and business journalist, author of four books, producer of records and television. Associate Arts Professor at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at NYU. In the 1980's, Dan was part of the opening team at The Source magazine, in the 1990's he worked A&R for Rick Rubin at American Recordings. 3:00 - The Upful Update 9:30 - introducing DAN CHARNAS & Dilla Time 17:45 - INTERVIEW (102min) The product of four years of research and nearly 200 interviews, Dilla Time emerged from a course on J Dilla developed by Charnas at NYU in 2017, but its roots go back to Charnas's time in the record business, when he first made the trip to Detroit to work with the producer then known as Jay Dee.  A huge fan of both Dilla & this expansive book, I'd been waiting since Feb.2022 to speak with Dan about this project, his process, & the Church of Dilla. I've been through the 430-page tome twice, listened to him on numerous podcasts in preparation for this conversation, still Dan was kind enough to give me nearly 100 minutes of his time and thoughtfully answered each inquiry with intention. This topic was so wide-ranging and engrossing that we didn't have the time to get into his long, colorful career path, we stuck exclusively to Mr. Yancey. As a music journalist and lifetime hip-hop head, Dan Charnas is nothing short of a North Star to me; as such it was an honor, privilege, and educational exercise to host him on Episode 062 of The Upful LIFE Podcast. Funk It's Dilla Time Mixtape 2022   33-hour J Dilla Anthology courtesy of Mista Vee   Vibe Junkie JAM Oblighetto - Brother Jack McDuff (J Dilla remix)   EMAIL the SHOW!  PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW on Apple Podcasts! Listen on Spotify ! Theme Song: "Mazel Tov"- CALVIN VALENTINE

Rick Rubin is a multiple Grammy-winning record producer who has worked with a wide range of artists including Adele, the Beastie Boys and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He also reinvigorated the career of Johnny Cash in the 1990s, with a series of acclaimed stripped-back albums, introducing the legendary Man in Black to a new audience. Rick was born on Long Island in New York in 1963. As a teenager, his first love was punk, but he soon became entranced by New York's emerging rap scene and started hanging out in hip hop clubs to discover more about what was then considered to be an underground form of music. In 1984 he co-founded Def Jam Recordings from his dorm room at university and produced rap records for T La Rock and LL Cool J. Together with his business partner, promoter Russell Simmons, Rick took rap into the mainstream by putting rappers Run-DMC and rock band Aerosmith together to cover Aerosmith's Walk This Way. It enjoyed international success and became hip hop's first crossover hit. In 1993 Rick approached the country singer Johnny Cash about working together. By that time Johnny, who was in his sixties, had been dropped by his record label and was performing at dinner theatres to small audiences. In his mind his career was over. Rick persuaded him to record again and released the album American Recordings in 1994. Lauded by the critics, the album led to a creative collaboration that lasted until Johnny's death in 2003. Rick's more recent work includes the album The New Abnormal by the Strokes, which won the band their first ever Grammy last year. DISC ONE: Across the Universe by The Beatles DISC TWO: …And at the Hour of Death by Víkingur Ólafsson DISC THREE: Rockaway Beach by The Ramones DISC FOUR: Us V Them by LCD Sound System DISC FIVE: I Believe in You by Neil Young DISC SIX: Holy Affirming, Holy Denying, Holy Reconciling by Thomas De Hartmann DISC SEVEN: The Dangling Conversation by Simon & Garfunkel DISC EIGHT: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Roberta Flack BOOK CHOICE: The Red Book by Carl Jung LUXURY ITEM: Tarot cards CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Holy Affirming, Holy Denying, Holy Reconciling by Thomas De Hartmann Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley

Intro/Outro: Time Marches On by Trace LawrenceAlbum 12: American Recordings by Johnny CashSong 1: The Man Who Couldn't FlySong 2: Delia's GoneSong 3: RedemptionAlbum 11: Ropin' the Wind by Garth BrooksSong 1: RodeoSong 2: Papa Loved MamaSong 3: What's She's Doing NowDecade Update:70s - 280s - 490s - 4Gender Update:Male - 6Female - 4Coin Flip Update:Andrew - 6Barrett - 4

Today my friend Marcus King stops by the show to talk all about his new album Young Blood coming out Aug 26th on American Recordings. I have loved this mans music from the first day I heard him and can not stop telling people about him. Marcus and I dive into whats been going on with him over the last couple of years including working with Dan Auerbach again in the studio, co-writing with Desmond Child and our Rock and Comedy tour that is about to start in Sept.   King has been an outlier from the very beginning. A fourth generation musician from Greenville, SC, who learned guitar at age 3 from his blues rock musician father Marvin King. He navigated troublesome school years to quickly become known as one of the most promising young artists of our time. He followed breakout success with The Marcus King Band, with his Auerbach produced 2020 solo album debut, El Dorado. It garnered a GRAMMY® Award nomination in the category of “Best Americana Album” and critical praise from The New York Times to NPR's Weekend Edition. With unparalleled performance prowess and a dynamic live show, King has sold out historic venues from The Beacon to The Filmore. He has opened for Chris Stapleton, Greta Van Fleet and Nathaniel Rateliff and graced the bills of Stagecoach, Fuji Rock, Rock Werchter and more. He also recently launched his own custom Gibson guitar and signature Orange guitar amplifier, the MK Ultra, which sold out before it even hit the stores.   King recently announced a massive headline US tour, with dates through September and October 2022 supporting the release of his forthcoming solo album, Young Blood. He will be taking his stadium sized sound to esteemed venues across the U.S, including two nights at venues such as New York's Beacon Theatre and Nashville's Ryman Auditorium. Neal Francis and Ashland Craft support select dates, and the tour features comedy by Dean Del Ray. Tickets on sale now.

Episode 149 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Respect", and the journey of Aretha Franklin from teenage gospel singer to the Queen of Soul. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a fifteen-minute bonus episode available, on "I'm Just a Mops" by the Mops. 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/ Also, people may be interested in a Facebook discussion group for the podcast, run by a friend of mine (I'm not on FB myself) which can be found at https://www.facebook.com/groups/293630102611672/ Errata I say "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby to a Dixie Melody" instead of "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody". Also I say Spooner Oldham co-wrote "Do Right Woman". I meant Chips Moman. Resources No Mixcloud this week, as there are too many songs by Aretha Franklin. My main biographical source for Aretha Franklin is Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin by David Ritz, and this is where most of the quotes from musicians come from. I also relied heavily on I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You by Matt Dobkin. Information on C.L. Franklin came from Singing in a Strange Land: C. L. Franklin, the Black Church, and the Transformation of America by Nick Salvatore. Rick Hall's The Man From Muscle Shoals: My Journey from Shame to Fame contains his side of the story. Country Soul by Charles L Hughes is a great overview of the soul music made in Muscle Shoals, Memphis, and Nashville in the sixties. Peter Guralnick's Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm And Blues And The Southern Dream Of Freedom is possibly less essential, but still definitely worth reading. And the I Never Loved a Man album is available in this five-album box set for a ludicrously cheap price. But it's actually worth getting this nineteen-CD set with her first sixteen Atlantic albums and a couple of bonus discs of demos and outtakes. There's barely a duff track in the whole nineteen discs. 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,  I have to say that there are some things people may want to be aware of before listening to this. This episode has to deal, at least in passing, with subjects including child sexual abuse, intimate partner abuse, racism, and misogyny. I will of course try to deal with those subjects as tactfully as possible, but those of you who may be upset by those topics may want to check the episode transcript before or instead of listening. Those of you who leave comments or send me messages saying "why can't you just talk about the music instead of all this woke virtue-signalling?" may also want to skip this episode. You can go ahead and skip all the future ones as well, I won't mind. And one more thing to say before I get into the meat of the episode -- this episode puts me in a more difficult position than most other episodes of the podcast have. When I've talked about awful things that have happened in the course of this podcast previously, I have either been talking about perpetrators -- people like Phil Spector or Jerry Lee Lewis who did truly reprehensible things -- or about victims who have talked very publicly about the abuse they've suffered, people like Ronnie Spector or Tina Turner, who said very clearly "this is what happened to me and I want it on the public record". In the case of Aretha Franklin, she has been portrayed as a victim *by others*, and there are things that have been said about her life and her relationships which suggest that she suffered in some very terrible ways. But she herself apparently never saw herself as a victim, and didn't want some aspects of her private life talking about. At the start of David Ritz's biography of her, which is one of my main sources here, he recounts a conversation he had with her: "When I mentioned the possibility of my writing an independent biography, she said, “As long as I can approve it before it's published.” “Then it wouldn't be independent,” I said. “Why should it be independent?” “So I can tell the story from my point of view.” “But it's not your story, it's mine.” “You're an important historical figure, Aretha. Others will inevitably come along to tell your story. That's the blessing and burden of being a public figure.” “More burden than blessing,” she said." Now, Aretha Franklin is sadly dead, but I think that she still deserves the basic respect of being allowed privacy. So I will talk here about public matters, things she acknowledged in her own autobiography, and things that she and the people around her did in public situations like recording studios and concert venues. But there are aspects to the story of Aretha Franklin as that story is commonly told, which may well be true, but are of mostly prurient interest, don't add much to the story of how the music came to be made, and which she herself didn't want people talking about. So there will be things people might expect me to talk about in this episode, incidents where people in her life, usually men, treated her badly, that I'm going to leave out. That information is out there if people want to look for it, but I don't see myself as under any obligation to share it. That's not me making excuses for people who did inexcusable things, that's me showing some respect to one of the towering artistic figures of the latter half of the twentieth century. Because, of course, respect is what this is all about: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Respect"] One name that's come up a few times in this podcast, but who we haven't really talked about that much, is Bobby "Blue" Bland. We mentioned him as the single biggest influence on the style of Van Morrison, but Bland was an important figure in the Memphis music scene of the early fifties, which we talked about in several early episodes. He was one of the Beale Streeters, the loose aggregation of musicians that also included B.B. King and Johnny Ace, he worked with Ike Turner, and was one of the key links between blues and soul in the fifties and early sixties, with records like "Turn on Your Love Light": [Excerpt: Bobby "Blue" Bland, "Turn on Your Love Light"] But while Bland was influenced by many musicians we've talked about, his biggest influence wasn't a singer at all. It was a preacher he saw give a sermon in the early 1940s. As he said decades later: "Wasn't his words that got me—I couldn't tell you what he talked on that day, couldn't tell you what any of it meant, but it was the way he talked. He talked like he was singing. He talked music. The thing that really got me, though, was this squall-like sound he made to emphasize a certain word. He'd catch the word in his mouth, let it roll around and squeeze it with his tongue. When it popped on out, it exploded, and the ladies started waving and shouting. I liked all that. I started popping and shouting too. That next week I asked Mama when we were going back to Memphis to church. “‘Since when you so keen on church?' Mama asked. “‘I like that preacher,' I said. “‘Reverend Franklin?' she asked. “‘Well, if he's the one who sings when he preaches, that's the one I like.'" Bland was impressed by C.L. Franklin, and so were other Memphis musicians. Long after Franklin had moved to Detroit, they remembered him, and Bland and B.B. King would go to Franklin's church to see him preach whenever they were in the city. And Bland studied Franklin's records. He said later "I liked whatever was on the radio, especially those first things Nat Cole did with his trio. Naturally I liked the blues singers like Roy Brown, the jump singers like Louis Jordan, and the ballad singers like Billy Eckstine, but, brother, the man who really shaped me was Reverend Franklin." Bland would study Franklin's records, and would take the style that Franklin used in recorded sermons like "The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest": [Excerpt: C.L. Franklin, "The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest"] And you can definitely hear that preaching style on records like Bland's "I Pity the Fool": [Excerpt: Bobby "Blue" Bland, "I Pity the Fool"] But of course, that wasn't the only influence the Reverend C.L. Franklin had on the course of soul music. C.L. Franklin had grown up poor, on a Mississippi farm, and had not even finished grade school because he was needed to work behind the mule, ploughing the farm for his stepfather. But he had a fierce intelligence and became an autodidact, travelling regularly to the nearest library, thirty miles away, on a horse-drawn wagon, and reading everything he could get his hands on. At the age of sixteen he received what he believed to be a message from God, and decided to become an itinerant preacher. He would travel between many small country churches and build up audiences there -- and he would also study everyone else preaching there, analysing their sermons, seeing if he could anticipate their line of argument and get ahead of them, figuring out the structure. But unlike many people in the conservative Black Baptist churches of the time, he never saw the spiritual and secular worlds as incompatible. He saw blues music and Black church sermons as both being part of the same thing -- a Black culture and folklore that was worthy of respect in both its spiritual and secular aspects. He soon built up a small circuit of local churches where he would preach occasionally, but wasn't the main pastor at any of them. He got married aged twenty, though that marriage didn't last, and he seems to have been ambitious for a greater respectability. When that marriage failed, in June 1936, he married Barbara Siggers, a very intelligent, cultured, young single mother who had attended Booker T Washington High School, the best Black school in Memphis, and he adopted her son Vaughn. While he was mostly still doing churches in Mississippi, he took on one in Memphis as well, in an extremely poor area, but it gave him a foot in the door to the biggest Black city in the US. Barbara would later be called "one of the really great gospel singers" by no less than Mahalia Jackson. We don't have any recordings of Barbara singing, but Mahalia Jackson certainly knew what she was talking about when it came to great gospel singers: [Excerpt: Mahalia Jackson, "Precious Lord, Take My Hand"] Rev. Franklin was hugely personally ambitious, and he also wanted to get out of rural Mississippi, where the Klan were very active at this time, especially after his daughter Erma was born in 1938. They moved to Memphis in 1939, where he got a full-time position at New Salem Baptist Church, where for the first time he was able to earn a steady living from just one church and not have to tour round multiple churches. He soon became so popular that if you wanted to get a seat for the service at noon, you had to turn up for the 8AM Sunday School or you'd be forced to stand. He also enrolled for college courses at LeMoyne College. He didn't get a degree, but spent three years as a part-time student studying theology, literature, and sociology, and soon developed a liberal theology that was very different from the conservative fundamentalism he'd grown up in, though still very much part of the Baptist church. Where he'd grown up with a literalism that said the Bible was literally true, he started to accept things like evolution, and to see much of the Bible as metaphor. Now, we talked in the last episode about how impossible it is to get an accurate picture of the lives of religious leaders, because their life stories are told by those who admire them, and that's very much the case for C.L. Franklin. Franklin was a man who had many, many, admirable qualities -- he was fiercely intelligent, well-read, a superb public speaker, a man who was by all accounts genuinely compassionate towards those in need, and he became one of the leaders of the civil rights movement and inspired tens of thousands, maybe even millions, of people, directly and indirectly, to change the world for the better. He also raised several children who loved and admired him and were protective of his memory. And as such, there is an inevitable bias in the sources on Franklin's life. And so there's a tendency to soften the very worst things he did, some of which were very, very bad. For example in Nick Salvatore's biography of him, he talks about Franklin, in 1940, fathering a daughter with someone who is described as "a teenager" and "quite young". No details of her age other than that are given, and a few paragraphs later the age of a girl who was then sixteen *is* given, talking about having known the girl in question, and so the impression is given that the girl he impregnated was also probably in her late teens. Which would still be bad, but a man in his early twenties fathering a child with a girl in her late teens is something that can perhaps be forgiven as being a different time. But while the girl in question may have been a teenager when she gave birth, she was *twelve years old* when she became pregnant, by C.L. Franklin, the pastor of her church, who was in a position of power over her in multiple ways. Twelve years old. And this is not the only awful thing that Franklin did -- he was also known to regularly beat up women he was having affairs with, in public. I mention this now because everything else I say about him in this episode is filtered through sources who saw these things as forgivable character flaws in an otherwise admirable human being, and I can't correct for those biases because I don't know the truth. So it's going to sound like he was a truly great man. But bear those facts in mind. Barbara stayed with Franklin for the present, after discovering what he had done, but their marriage was a difficult one, and they split up and reconciled a handful of times. They had three more children together -- Cecil, Aretha, and Carolyn -- and remained together as Franklin moved on first to a church in Buffalo, New York, and then to New Bethel Church, in Detroit, on Hastings Street, a street which was the centre of Black nightlife in the city, as immortalised in John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillun": [Excerpt: John Lee Hooker, "Boogie Chillen"] Before moving to Detroit, Franklin had already started to get more political, as his congregation in Buffalo had largely been union members, and being free from the worst excesses of segregation allowed him to talk more openly about civil rights, but that only accelerated when he moved to Detroit, which had been torn apart just a couple of years earlier by police violence against Black protestors. Franklin had started building a reputation when in Memphis using radio broadcasts, and by the time he moved to Detroit he was able to command a very high salary, and not only that, his family were given a mansion by the church, in a rich part of town far away from most of his congregation. Smokey Robinson, who was Cecil Franklin's best friend and a frequent visitor to the mansion through most of his childhood, described it later, saying "Once inside, I'm awestruck -- oil paintings, velvet tapestries, silk curtains, mahogany cabinets filled with ornate objects of silver and gold. Man, I've never seen nothing like that before!" He made a lot of money, but he also increased church attendance so much that he earned that money. He had already been broadcasting on the radio, but when he started his Sunday night broadcasts in Detroit, he came up with a trick of having his sermons run long, so the show would end before the climax. People listening decided that they would have to start turning up in person to hear the end of the sermons, and soon he became so popular that the church would be so full that crowds would have to form on the street outside to listen. Other churches rescheduled their services so they wouldn't clash with Franklin's, and most of the other Black Baptist ministers in the city would go along to watch him preach. In 1948 though, a couple of years after moving to Detroit, Barbara finally left her husband. She took Vaughn with her and moved back to Buffalo, leaving the four biological children she'd had with C.L. with their father.  But it's important to note that she didn't leave her children -- they would visit her on a regular basis, and stay with her over school holidays. Aretha later said "Despite the fact that it has been written innumerable times, it is an absolute lie that my mother abandoned us. In no way, shape, form, or fashion did our mother desert us." Barbara's place in the home was filled by many women -- C.L. Franklin's mother moved up from Mississippi to help him take care of the children, the ladies from the church would often help out, and even stars like Mahalia Jackson would turn up and cook meals for the children. There were also the women with whom Franklin carried on affairs, including Anna Gordy, Ruth Brown, and Dinah Washington, the most important female jazz and blues singer of the fifties, who had major R&B hits with records like her version of "Cold Cold Heart": [Excerpt: Dinah Washington, "Cold Cold Heart"] Although my own favourite record of hers is "Big Long Slidin' Thing", which she made with arranger Quincy Jones: [Excerpt: Dinah Washington, "Big Long Slidin' Thing"] It's about a trombone. Get your minds out of the gutter. Washington was one of the biggest vocal influences on young Aretha, but the single biggest influence was Clara Ward, another of C.L. Franklin's many girlfriends. Ward was the longest-lasting of these, and there seems to have been a lot of hope on both her part and Aretha's that she and Rev. Franklin would marry, though Franklin always made it very clear that monogamy wouldn't suit him. Ward was one of the three major female gospel singers of the middle part of the century, and possibly even more technically impressive as a vocalist than the other two, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Mahalia Jackson. Where Jackson was an austere performer, who refused to perform in secular contexts at all for most of her life, and took herself and her music very seriously, and Tharpe was a raunchier, funnier, more down-to-earth performer who was happy to play for blues audiences and even to play secular music on occasion, Ward was a *glamorous* performer, who wore sequined dresses and piled her hair high on her head. Ward had become a singer in 1931 when her mother had what she later talked about as a religious epiphany, and decided she wasn't going to be a labourer any more, she was going to devote her life to gospel music. Ward's mother had formed a vocal group with her two daughters, and Clara quickly became the star and her mother's meal ticket -- and her mother was very possessive of that ticket, to the extent that Ward, who was a bisexual woman who mostly preferred men, had more relationships with women, because her mother wouldn't let her be alone with the men she was attracted to. But Ward did manage to keep a relationship going with C.L. Franklin, and Aretha Franklin talked about the moment she decided to become a singer, when she saw Ward singing "Peace in the Valley" at a funeral: [Excerpt: Clara Ward, "Peace in the Valley"] As well as looking towards Ward as a vocal influence, Aretha was also influenced by her as a person -- she became a mother figure to Aretha, who would talk later about watching Ward eat, and noting her taking little delicate bites, and getting an idea of what it meant to be ladylike from her. After Ward's death in 1973, a notebook was found in which she had written her opinions of other singers. For Aretha she wrote “My baby Aretha, she doesn't know how good she is. Doubts self. Some day—to the moon. I love that girl.” Ward's influence became especially important to Aretha and her siblings after their mother died of a heart attack a few years after leaving her husband, when Aretha was ten, and Aretha, already a very introverted child, became even more so. Everyone who knew Aretha said that her later diva-ish reputation came out of a deep sense of insecurity and introversion -- that she was a desperately private, closed-off, person who would rarely express her emotions at all, and who would look away from you rather than make eye contact. The only time she let herself express emotions was when she performed music. And music was hugely important in the Franklin household. Most preachers in the Black church at that time were a bit dismissive of gospel music, because they thought the music took away from their prestige -- they saw it as a necessary evil, and resented it taking up space when their congregations could have been listening to them. But Rev. Franklin was himself a rather good singer, and even made a few gospel records himself in 1950, recording for Joe Von Battle, who owned a record shop on Hastings Street and also put out records by blues singers: [Excerpt: C.L. Franklin, "I Am Climbing Higher Mountains" ] The church's musical director was James Cleveland, one of the most important gospel artists of the fifties and sixties, who sang with groups like the Caravans: [Excerpt: The Caravans, "What Kind of Man is This?" ] Cleveland, who had started out in the choir run by Thomas Dorsey, the writer of “Take My Hand Precious Lord” and “Peace in the Valley”, moved in with the Franklin family for a while, and he gave the girls tips on playing the piano -- much later he would play piano on Aretha's album Amazing Grace, and she said of him “He showed me some real nice chords, and I liked his deep, deep sound”. Other than Clara Ward, he was probably the single biggest musical influence on Aretha. And all the touring gospel musicians would make appearances at New Bethel Church, not least of them Sam Cooke, who first appeared there with the Highway QCs and would continue to do so after joining the Soul Stirrers: [Excerpt: The Soul Stirrers, "Touch the Hem of his Garment"] Young Aretha and her older sister Erma both had massive crushes on Cooke, and there were rumours that he had an affair with one or both of them when they were in their teens, though both denied it. Aretha later said "When I first saw him, all I could do was sigh... Sam was love on first hearing, love at first sight." But it wasn't just gospel music that filled the house. One of the major ways that C.L. Franklin's liberalism showed was in his love of secular music, especially jazz and blues, which he regarded as just as important in Black cultural life as gospel music. We already talked about Dinah Washington being a regular visitor to the house, but every major Black entertainer would visit the Franklin residence when they were in Detroit. Both Aretha and Cecil Franklin vividly remembered visits from Art Tatum, who would sit at the piano and play for the family and their guests: [Excerpt: Art Tatum, "Tiger Rag"] Tatum was such a spectacular pianist that there's now a musicological term, the tatum, named after him, for the smallest possible discernible rhythmic interval between two notes. Young Aretha was thrilled by his technique, and by that of Oscar Peterson, who also regularly came to the Franklin home, sometimes along with Ella Fitzgerald. Nat "King" Cole was another regular visitor. The Franklin children all absorbed the music these people -- the most important musicians of the time -- were playing in their home, and young Aretha in particular became an astonishing singer and also an accomplished pianist. Smokey Robinson later said: “The other thing that knocked us out about Aretha was her piano playing. There was a grand piano in the Franklin living room, and we all liked to mess around. We'd pick out little melodies with one finger. But when Aretha sat down, even as a seven-year-old, she started playing chords—big chords. Later I'd recognize them as complex church chords, the kind used to accompany the preacher and the solo singer. At the time, though, all I could do was view Aretha as a wonder child. Mind you, this was Detroit, where musical talent ran strong and free. Everyone was singing and harmonizing; everyone was playing piano and guitar. Aretha came out of this world, but she also came out of another far-off magical world none of us really understood. She came from a distant musical planet where children are born with their gifts fully formed.” C.L. Franklin became more involved in the music business still when Joe Von Battle started releasing records of his sermons, which had become steadily more politically aware: [Excerpt: C.L. Franklin, "Dry Bones in the Valley"] Franklin was not a Marxist -- he was a liberal, but like many liberals was willing to stand with Marxists where they had shared interests, even when it was dangerous. For example in 1954, at the height of McCarthyism, he had James and Grace Lee Boggs, two Marxist revolutionaries, come to the pulpit and talk about their support for the anti-colonial revolution in Kenya, and they sold four hundred copies of their pamphlet after their talk, because he saw that the struggle of Black Africans to get out from white colonial rule was the same struggle as that of Black Americans. And Franklin's powerful sermons started getting broadcast on the radio in areas further out from Detroit, as Chess Records picked up the distribution for them and people started playing the records on other stations. People like future Congressman John Lewis and the Reverend Jesse Jackson would later talk about listening to C.L. Franklin's records on the radio and being inspired -- a whole generation of Black Civil Rights leaders took their cues from him, and as the 1950s and 60s went on he became closer and closer to Martin Luther King in particular. But C.L. Franklin was always as much an ambitious showman as an activist, and he started putting together gospel tours, consisting mostly of music but with himself giving a sermon as the headline act. And he became very, very wealthy from these tours. On one trip in the south, his car broke down, and he couldn't find a mechanic willing to work on it. A group of white men started mocking him with racist terms, trying to provoke him, as he was dressed well and driving a nice car (albeit one that had broken down). Rather than arguing with them, he walked to a car dealership, and bought a new car with the cash that he had on him. By 1956 he was getting around $4000 per appearance, roughly equivalent to $43,000 today, and he was making a *lot* of appearances. He also sold half a million records that year. Various gospel singers, including the Clara Ward Singers, would perform on the tours he organised, and one of those performers was Franklin's middle daughter Aretha. Aretha had become pregnant when she was twelve, and after giving birth to the child she dropped out of school, but her grandmother did most of the child-rearing for her, while she accompanied her father on tour. Aretha's first recordings, made when she was just fourteen, show what an astonishing talent she already was at that young age. She would grow as an artist, of course, as she aged and gained experience, but those early gospel records already show an astounding maturity and ability. It's jaw-dropping to listen to these records of a fourteen-year-old, and immediately recognise them as a fully-formed Aretha Franklin. [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "There is a Fountain Filled With Blood"] Smokey Robinson's assessment that she was born with her gifts fully formed doesn't seem like an exaggeration when you hear that. For the latter half of the fifties, Aretha toured with her father, performing on the gospel circuit and becoming known there. But the Franklin sisters were starting to get ideas about moving into secular music. This was largely because their family friend Sam Cooke had done just that, with "You Send Me": [Excerpt: Sam Cooke, "You Send Me"] Aretha and Erma still worshipped Cooke, and Aretha would later talk about getting dressed up just to watch Cooke appear on the TV. Their brother Cecil later said "I remember the night Sam came to sing at the Flame Show Bar in Detroit. Erma and Ree said they weren't going because they were so heartbroken that Sam had recently married. I didn't believe them. And I knew I was right when they started getting dressed about noon for the nine o'clock show. Because they were underage, they put on a ton of makeup to look older. It didn't matter 'cause Berry Gordy's sisters, Anna and Gwen, worked the photo concession down there, taking pictures of the party people. Anna was tight with Daddy and was sure to let my sisters in. She did, and they came home with stars in their eyes.” Moving from gospel to secular music still had a stigma against it in the gospel world, but Rev. Franklin had never seen secular music as sinful, and he encouraged his daughters in their ambitions. Erma was the first to go secular, forming a girl group, the Cleo-Patrettes, at the suggestion of the Four Tops, who were family friends, and recording a single for Joe Von Battle's J-V-B label, "No Other Love": [Excerpt: The Cleo-Patrettes, "No Other Love"] But the group didn't go any further, as Rev. Franklin insisted that his eldest daughter had to finish school and go to university before she could become a professional singer. Erma missed other opportunities for different reasons, though -- Berry Gordy, at this time still a jobbing songwriter, offered her a song he'd written with his sister and Roquel Davis, but Erma thought of herself as a jazz singer and didn't want to do R&B, and so "All I Could Do Was Cry" was given to Etta James instead, who had a top forty pop hit with it: [Excerpt: Etta James, "All I Could Do Was Cry"] While Erma's move into secular music was slowed by her father wanting her to have an education, there was no such pressure on Aretha, as she had already dropped out. But Aretha had a different problem -- she was very insecure, and said that church audiences "weren't critics, but worshippers", but she was worried that nightclub audiences in particular were just the kind of people who would just be looking for flaws, rather than wanting to support the performer as church audiences did. But eventually she got up the nerve to make the move. There was the possibility of her getting signed to Motown -- her brother was still best friends with Smokey Robinson, while the Gordy family were close to her father -- but Rev. Franklin had his eye on bigger things. He wanted her to be signed to Columbia, which in 1960 was the most prestigious of all the major labels. As Aretha's brother Cecil later said "He wanted Ree on Columbia, the label that recorded Mahalia Jackson, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mathis, Tony Bennett, Percy Faith, and Doris Day. Daddy said that Columbia was the biggest and best record company in the world. Leonard Bernstein recorded for Columbia." They went out to New York to see Phil Moore, a legendary vocal coach and arranger who had helped make Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge into stars, but Moore actually refused to take her on as a client, saying "She does not require my services. Her style has already been developed. Her style is in place. It is a unique style that, in my professional opinion, requires no alteration. It simply requires the right material. Her stage presentation is not of immediate concern. All that will come later. The immediate concern is the material that will suit her best. And the reason that concern will not be easily addressed is because I can't imagine any material that will not suit her." That last would become a problem for the next few years, but the immediate issue was to get someone at Columbia to listen to her, and Moore could help with that -- he was friends with John Hammond. Hammond is a name that's come up several times in the podcast already -- we mentioned him in the very earliest episodes, and also in episode ninety-eight, where we looked at his signing of Bob Dylan. But Hammond was a legend in the music business. He had produced sessions for Bessie Smith, had discovered Count Basie and Billie Holiday, had convinced Benny Goodman to hire Charlie Christian and Lionel Hampton, had signed Pete Seeger and the Weavers to Columbia, had organised the Spirituals to Swing concerts which we talked about in the first few episodes of this podcast, and was about to put out the first album of Robert Johnson's recordings. Of all the executives at Columbia, he was the one who had the greatest eye for talent, and the greatest understanding of Black musical culture. Moore suggested that the Franklins get Major Holley to produce a demo recording that he could get Hammond to listen to. Major Holley was a family friend, and a jazz bassist who had played with Oscar Peterson and Coleman Hawkins among others, and he put together a set of songs for Aretha that would emphasise the jazz side of her abilities, pitching her as a Dinah Washington style bluesy jazz singer. The highlight of the demo was a version of "Today I Sing the Blues", a song that had originally been recorded by Helen Humes, the singer who we last heard of recording “Be Baba Leba” with Bill Doggett: [Excerpt: Helen Humes, "Today I Sing the Blues"] That original version had been produced by Hammond, but the song had also recently been covered by Aretha's idol, Sam Cooke: [Excerpt: Sam Cooke, "Today I Sing the Blues"] Hammond was hugely impressed by the demo, and signed Aretha straight away, and got to work producing her first album. But he and Rev. Franklin had different ideas about what Aretha should do. Hammond wanted to make a fairly raw-sounding bluesy jazz album, the kind of recording he had produced with Bessie Smith or Billie Holiday, but Rev. Franklin wanted his daughter to make music that would cross over to the white pop market -- he was aiming for the same kind of audience that Nat "King" Cole or Harry Belafonte had, and he wanted her recording standards like "Over the Rainbow". This showed a lack of understanding on Rev. Franklin's part of how such crossovers actually worked at this point. As Etta James later said, "If you wanna have Black hits, you gotta understand the Black streets, you gotta work those streets and work those DJs to get airplay on Black stations... Or looking at it another way, in those days you had to get the Black audience to love the hell outta you and then hope the love would cross over to the white side. Columbia didn't know nothing 'bout crossing over.” But Hammond knew they had to make a record quickly, because Sam Cooke had been working on RCA Records, trying to get them to sign Aretha, and Rev. Franklin wanted an album out so they could start booking club dates for her, and was saying that if they didn't get one done quickly he'd take up that offer, and so they came up with a compromise set of songs which satisfied nobody, but did produce two R&B top ten hits, "Won't Be Long" and Aretha's version of "Today I Sing the Blues": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Today I Sing the Blues"] This is not to say that Aretha herself saw this as a compromise -- she later said "I have never compromised my material. Even then, I knew a good song from a bad one. And if Hammond, one of the legends of the business, didn't know how to produce a record, who does? No, the fault was with promotion." And this is something important to bear in mind as we talk about her Columbia records. Many, *many* people have presented those records as Aretha being told what to do by producers who didn't understand her art and were making her record songs that didn't fit her style. That's not what's happening with the Columbia records. Everyone actually involved said that Aretha was very involved in the choices made -- and there are some genuinely great tracks on those albums. The problem is that they're *unfocused*. Aretha was only eighteen when she signed to the label, and she loved all sorts of music -- blues, jazz, soul, standards, gospel, middle-of-the-road pop music -- and wanted to sing all those kinds of music. And she *could* sing all those kinds of music, and sing them well. But it meant the records weren't coherent. You didn't know what you were getting, and there was no artistic personality that dominated them, it was just what Aretha felt like recording. Around this time, Aretha started to think that maybe her father didn't know what he was talking about when it came to popular music success, even though she idolised him in most areas, and she turned to another figure, who would soon become both her husband and manager. Ted White. Her sister Erma, who was at that time touring with Lloyd Price, had introduced them, but in fact Aretha had first seen White years earlier, in her own house -- he had been Dinah Washington's boyfriend in the fifties, and her first sight of him had been carrying a drunk Washington out of the house after a party. In interviews with David Ritz, who wrote biographies of many major soul stars including both Aretha Franklin and Etta James, James had a lot to say about White, saying “Ted White was famous even before he got with Aretha. My boyfriend at the time, Harvey Fuqua, used to talk about him. Ted was supposed to be the slickest pimp in Detroit. When I learned that Aretha married him, I wasn't surprised. A lot of the big-time singers who we idolized as girls—like Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan—had pimps for boyfriends and managers. That was standard operating procedure. My own mother had made a living turning tricks. When we were getting started, that way of life was part of the music business. It was in our genes. Part of the lure of pimps was that they got us paid." She compared White to Ike Turner, saying "Ike made Tina, no doubt about it. He developed her talent. He showed her what it meant to be a performer. He got her famous. Of course, Ted White was not a performer, but he was savvy about the world. When Harvey Fuqua introduced me to him—this was the fifties, before he was with Aretha—I saw him as a super-hip extra-smooth cat. I liked him. He knew music. He knew songwriters who were writing hit songs. He had manners. Later, when I ran into him and Aretha—this was the sixties—I saw that she wasn't as shy as she used to be." White was a pimp, but he was also someone with music business experience -- he owned an unsuccessful publishing company, and also ran a chain of jukeboxes. He was also thirty, while Aretha was only eighteen. But White didn't like the people in Aretha's life at the time -- he didn't get on well with her father, and he also clashed with John Hammond. And Aretha was also annoyed at Hammond, because her sister Erma had signed to Epic, a Columbia subsidiary, and was releasing her own singles: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Hello Again"] Aretha was certain that Hammond had signed Erma, even though Hammond had nothing to do with Epic Records, and Erma had actually been recommended by Lloyd Price. And Aretha, while for much of her career she would support her sister, was also terrified that her sister might have a big hit before her and leave Aretha in her shadow. Hammond was still the credited producer on Aretha's second album, The Electrifying Aretha Franklin, but his lack of say in the sessions can be shown in the choice of lead-off single. "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody" was originally recorded by Al Jolson in 1918: [Excerpt: Al Jolson, "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody"] Rev. Franklin pushed for the song, as he was a fan of Jolson -- Jolson, oddly, had a large Black fanbase, despite his having been a blackface performer, because he had *also* been a strong advocate of Black musicians like Cab Calloway, and the level of racism in the media of the twenties through forties was so astonishingly high that even a blackface performer could seem comparatively OK. Aretha's performance was good, but it was hardly the kind of thing that audiences were clamouring for in 1961: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody"] That single came out the month after _Down Beat_ magazine gave Aretha the "new-star female vocalist award", and it oddly made the pop top forty, her first record to do so, and the B-side made the R&B top ten, but for the next few years both chart success and critical acclaim eluded her. None of her next nine singles would make higher than number eighty-six on the Hot One Hundred, and none would make the R&B charts at all. After that transitional second album, she was paired with producer Bob Mersey, who was precisely the kind of white pop producer that one would expect for someone who hoped for crossover success. Mersey was the producer for many of Columbia's biggest stars at the time -- people like Barbra Streisand, Andy Williams, Julie Andrews, Patti Page, and Mel Tormé -- and it was that kind of audience that Aretha wanted to go for at this point. To give an example of the kind of thing that Mersey was doing, just the month before he started work on his first collaboration with Aretha, _The Tender, the Moving, the Swinging Aretha Franklin_, his production of Andy Williams singing "Moon River" was released: [Excerpt: Andy Williams, "Moon River"] This was the kind of audience Aretha was going for when it came to record sales – the person she compared herself to most frequently at this point was Barbra Streisand – though in live performances she was playing with a small jazz group in jazz venues, and going for the same kind of jazz-soul crossover audience as Dinah Washington or Ray Charles. The strategy seems to have been to get something like the success of her idol Sam Cooke, who could play to soul audiences but also play the Copacabana, but the problem was that Cooke had built an audience before doing that -- she hadn't. But even though she hadn't built up an audience, musicians were starting to pay attention. Ted White, who was still in touch with Dinah Washington, later said “Women are very catty. They'll see a girl who's dressed very well and they'll say, Yeah, but look at those shoes, or look at that hairdo. Aretha was the only singer I've ever known that Dinah had no negative comments about. She just stood with her mouth open when she heard Aretha sing.” The great jazz vocalist Carmen McRea went to see Aretha at the Village Vanguard in New York around this time, having heard the comparisons to Dinah Washington, and met her afterwards. She later said "Given how emotionally she sang, I expected her to have a supercharged emotional personality like Dinah. Instead, she was the shyest thing I've ever met. Would hardly look me in the eye. Didn't say more than two words. I mean, this bitch gave bashful a new meaning. Anyway, I didn't give her any advice because she didn't ask for any, but I knew goddamn well that, no matter how good she was—and she was absolutely wonderful—she'd have to make up her mind whether she wanted to be Della Reese, Dinah Washington, or Sarah Vaughan. I also had a feeling she wouldn't have minded being Leslie Uggams or Diahann Carroll. I remember thinking that if she didn't figure out who she was—and quick—she was gonna get lost in the weeds of the music biz." So musicians were listening to Aretha, even if everyone else wasn't. The Tender, the Moving, the Swinging Aretha Franklin, for example, was full of old standards like "Try a Little Tenderness": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Try a Little Tenderness"] That performance inspired Otis Redding to cut his own version of that song a few years later: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "Try a Little Tenderness"] And it might also have inspired Aretha's friend and idol Sam Cooke to include the song in his own lounge sets. The Tender, the Moving, the Swinging Aretha Franklin also included Aretha's first original composition, but in general it wasn't a very well-received album. In 1963, the first cracks started to develop in Aretha's relationship with Ted White. According to her siblings, part of the strain was because Aretha's increasing commitment to the civil rights movement was costing her professional opportunities. Her brother Cecil later said "Ted White had complete sway over her when it came to what engagements to accept and what songs to sing. But if Daddy called and said, ‘Ree, I want you to sing for Dr. King,' she'd drop everything and do just that. I don't think Ted had objections to her support of Dr. King's cause, and he realized it would raise her visibility. But I do remember the time that there was a conflict between a big club gig and doing a benefit for Dr. King. Ted said, ‘Take the club gig. We need the money.' But Ree said, ‘Dr. King needs me more.' She defied her husband. Maybe that was the start of their marital trouble. Their thing was always troubled because it was based on each of them using the other. Whatever the case, my sister proved to be a strong soldier in the civil rights fight. That made me proud of her and it kept her relationship with Daddy from collapsing entirely." In part her increasing activism was because of her father's own increase in activity. The benefit that Cecil is talking about there is probably one in Chicago organised by Mahalia Jackson, where Aretha headlined on a bill that also included Jackson, Eartha Kitt, and the comedian Dick Gregory. That was less than a month before her father organised the Detroit Walk to Freedom, a trial run for the more famous March on Washington a few weeks later. The Detroit Walk to Freedom was run by the Detroit Council for Human Rights, which was formed by Rev. Franklin and Rev. Albert Cleage, a much more radical Black nationalist who often differed with Franklin's more moderate integrationist stance. They both worked together to organise the Walk to Freedom, but Franklin's stance predominated, as several white liberal politicians, like the Mayor of Detroit, Jerome Cavanagh, were included in the largely-Black March. It drew crowds of 125,000 people, and Dr. King called it "one of the most wonderful things that has happened in America", and it was the largest civil rights demonstration in American history up to that point. King's speech in Detroit was recorded and released on Motown Records: [Excerpt: Martin Luther King, "Original 'I Have a Dream' Speech”] He later returned to the same ideas in his more famous speech in Washington. During that civil rights spring and summer of 1963, Aretha also recorded what many think of as the best of her Columbia albums, a collection of jazz standards  called Laughing on the Outside, which included songs like "Solitude", "Ol' Man River" and "I Wanna Be Around": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Wanna Be Around"] The opening track, "Skylark", was Etta James' favourite ever Aretha Franklin performance, and is regarded by many as the definitive take on the song: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Skylark"] Etta James later talked about discussing the track with the great jazz singer Sarah Vaughan, one of Aretha's early influences, who had recorded her own version of the song: "Sarah said, ‘Have you heard of this Aretha Franklin girl?' I said, ‘You heard her do “Skylark,” didn't you?' Sarah said, ‘Yes, I did, and I'm never singing that song again.” But while the album got noticed by other musicians, it didn't get much attention from the wider public. Mersey decided that a change in direction was needed, and they needed to get in someone with more of a jazz background to work with Aretha. He brought in pianist and arranger Bobby Scott, who had previously worked with people like Lester Young, and Scott said of their first meeting “My first memory of Aretha is that she wouldn't look at me when I spoke. She withdrew from the encounter in a way that intrigued me. At first I thought she was just shy—and she was—but I also felt her reading me...For all her deference to my experience and her reluctance to speak up, when she did look me in the eye, she did so with a quiet intensity before saying, ‘I like all your ideas, Mr. Scott, but please remember I do want hits.'” They started recording together, but the sides they cut wouldn't be released for a few years. Instead, Aretha and Mersey went in yet another direction. Dinah Washington died suddenly in December 1963, and given that Aretha was already being compared to Washington by almost everyone, and that Washington had been a huge influence on her, as well as having been close to both her father and her husband/manager, it made sense to go into the studio and quickly cut a tribute album, with Aretha singing Washington's hits: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Cold Cold Heart"] Unfortunately, while Washington had been wildly popular, and one of the most important figures in jazz and R&B in the forties and fifties, her style was out of date. The tribute album, titled Unforgettable, came out in February 1964, the same month that Beatlemania hit the US. Dinah Washington was the past, and trying to position Aretha as "the new Dinah Washington" would doom her to obscurity. John Hammond later said "I remember thinking that if Aretha never does another album she will be remembered for this one. No, the problem was timing. Dinah had died, and, outside the black community, interest in her had waned dramatically. Popular music was in a radical and revolutionary moment, and that moment had nothing to do with Dinah Washington, great as she was and will always be.” At this point, Columbia brought in Clyde Otis, an independent producer and songwriter who had worked with artists like Washington and Sarah Vaughan, and indeed had written one of the songs on Unforgettable, but had also worked with people like Brook Benton, who had a much more R&B audience. For example, he'd written "Baby, You Got What It Takes" for Benton and Washington to do as a duet: [Excerpt: Brook Benton and Dinah Washington, "Baby, You Got What it Takes"] In 1962, when he was working at Mercury Records before going independent, Otis had produced thirty-three of the fifty-one singles the label put out that year that had charted. Columbia had decided that they were going to position Aretha firmly in the R&B market, and assigned Otis to do just that. At first, though, Otis had no more luck with getting Aretha to sing R&B than anyone else had. He later said "Aretha, though, couldn't be deterred from her determination to beat Barbra Streisand at Barbra's own game. I kept saying, ‘Ree, you can outsing Streisand any day of the week. That's not the point. The point is to find a hit.' But that summer she just wanted straight-up ballads. She insisted that she do ‘People,' Streisand's smash. Aretha sang the hell out of it, but no one's gonna beat Barbra at her own game." But after several months of this, eventually Aretha and White came round to the idea of making an R&B record. Otis produced an album of contemporary R&B, with covers of music from the more sophisticated end of the soul market, songs like "My Guy", "Every Little Bit Hurts", and "Walk on By", along with a few new originals brought in by Otis. The title track, "Runnin' Out of Fools", became her biggest hit in three years, making number fifty-seven on the pop charts and number thirty on the R&B charts: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Runnin' Out of Fools"] After that album, they recorded another album with Otis producing, a live-in-the-studio jazz album, but again nobody involved could agree on a style for her. By this time it was obvious that she was unhappy with Columbia and would be leaving the label soon, and they wanted to get as much material in the can as they could, so they could continue releasing material after she left. But her working relationship with Otis was deteriorating -- Otis and Ted White did not get on, Aretha and White were having their own problems, and Aretha had started just not showing up for some sessions, with nobody knowing where she was. Columbia passed her on to yet another producer, this time Bob Johnston, who had just had a hit with Patti Page, "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte": [Excerpt: Patti Page, "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte"] Johnston was just about to hit an incredible hot streak as a producer. At the same time as his sessions with Aretha, he was also producing Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, and just after the sessions finished he'd go on to produce Simon & Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence album. In the next few years he would produce a run of classic Dylan albums like Blonde on Blonde, John Wesley Harding, and New Morning, Simon & Garfunkel's follow up Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme, Leonard Cohen's first three albums, and Johnny Cash's comeback with the Live at Folsom Prison album and its follow up At San Quentin. He also produced records for Marty Robbins, Flatt & Scruggs, the Byrds, and Burl Ives during that time period. But you may notice that while that's as great a run of records as any producer was putting out at the time, it has little to do with the kind of music that Aretha Franklin was making then, or would become famous with. Johnston produced a string-heavy session in which Aretha once again tried to sing old standards by people like Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern. She then just didn't turn up for some more sessions, until one final session in August, when she recorded songs like "Swanee" and "You Made Me Love You". For more than a year, she didn't go into a studio. She also missed many gigs and disappeared from her family's life for periods of time. Columbia kept putting out records of things she'd already recorded, but none of them had any success at all. Many of the records she'd made for Columbia had been genuinely great -- there's a popular perception that she was being held back by a record company that forced her to sing material she didn't like, but in fact she *loved* old standards, and jazz tunes, and contemporary pop at least as much as any other kind of music. Truly great musicians tend to have extremely eclectic tastes, and Aretha Franklin was a truly great musician if anyone was. Her Columbia albums are as good as any albums in those genres put out in that time period, and she remained proud of them for the rest of her life. But that very eclecticism had meant that she hadn't established a strong identity as a performer -- everyone who heard her records knew she was a great singer, but nobody knew what "an Aretha Franklin record" really meant -- and she hadn't had a single real hit, which was the thing she wanted more than anything. All that changed when in the early hours of the morning, Jerry Wexler was at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals recording a Wilson Pickett track -- from the timeline, it was probably the session for "Mustang Sally", which coincidentally was published by Ted White's publishing company, as Sir Mack Rice, the writer, was a neighbour of White and Franklin, and to which Aretha had made an uncredited songwriting contribution: [Excerpt: Wilson Pickett, "Mustang Sally"] Whatever the session, it wasn't going well. Percy Sledge, another Atlantic artist who recorded at Muscle Shoals, had turned up and had started winding Pickett up, telling him he sounded just like James Brown. Pickett *hated* Brown -- it seems like almost every male soul singer of the sixties hated James Brown -- and went to physically attack Sledge. Wexler got between the two men to protect his investments in them -- both were the kind of men who could easily cause some serious damage to anyone they hit -- and Pickett threw him to one side and charged at Sledge. At that moment the phone went, and Wexler yelled at the two of them to calm down so he could talk on the phone. The call was telling him that Aretha Franklin was interested in recording for Atlantic. Rev. Louise Bishop, later a Democratic politician in Pennsylvania, was at this time a broadcaster, presenting a radio gospel programme, and she knew Aretha. She'd been to see her perform, and had been astonished by Aretha's performance of a recent Otis Redding single, "Respect": [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "Respect"] Redding will, by the way, be getting his own episode in a few months' time, which is why I've not covered the making of that record here. Bishop thought that Aretha did the song even better than Redding -- something Bishop hadn't thought possible. When she got talking to Aretha after the show, she discovered that her contract with Columbia was up, and Aretha didn't really know what she was going to do -- maybe she'd start her own label or something. She hadn't been into the studio in more than a year, but she did have some songs she'd been working on. Bishop was good friends with Jerry Wexler, and she knew that he was a big fan of Aretha's, and had been saying for a while that when her contract was up he'd like to sign her. Bishop offered to make the connection, and then went back home and phoned Wexler's wife, waking her up -- it was one in the morning by this point, but Bishop was accustomed to phoning Wexler late at night when it was something important. Wexler's wife then phoned him in Muscle Shoals, and he phoned Bishop back and made the arrangements to meet up. Initially, Wexler wasn't thinking about producing Aretha himself -- this was still the period when he and the Ertegun brothers were thinking of selling Atlantic and getting out of the music business, and so while he signed her to the label he was originally going to hand her over to Jim Stewart at Stax to record, as he had with Sam and Dave. But in a baffling turn of events, Jim Stewart didn't actually want to record her, and so Wexler determined that he had better do it himself. And he didn't want to do it with slick New York musicians -- he wanted to bring out the gospel sound in her voice, and he thought the best way to do that was with musicians from what Charles Hughes refers to as "the country-soul triangle" of Nashville, Memphis, and Muscle Shoals. So he booked a week's worth of sessions at FAME studios, and got in FAME's regular rhythm section, plus a couple of musicians from American Recordings in Memphis -- Chips Moman and Spooner Oldham. Oldham's friend and songwriting partner Dan Penn came along as well -- he wasn't officially part of the session, but he was a fan of Aretha's and wasn't going to miss this. Penn had been the first person that Rick Hall, the owner of FAME, had called when Wexler had booked the studio, because Hall hadn't actually heard of Aretha Franklin up to that point, but didn't want to let Wexler know that. Penn had assured him that Aretha was one of the all-time great talents, and that she just needed the right production to become massive. As Hall put it in his autobiography, "Dan tended in those days to hate anything he didn't write, so I figured if he felt that strongly about her, then she was probably going to be a big star." Charlie Chalmers, a horn player who regularly played with these musicians, was tasked with putting together a horn section. The first song they recorded that day was one that the musicians weren't that impressed with at first. "I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)" was written by a songwriter named Ronnie Shannon, who had driven from Georgia to Detroit hoping to sell his songs to Motown. He'd popped into a barber's shop where Ted White was having his hair cut to ask for directions to Motown, and White had signed him to his own publishing company and got him to write songs for Aretha. On hearing the demo, the musicians thought that the song was mediocre and a bit shapeless: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin "I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You) (demo)"] But everyone there was agreed that Aretha herself was spectacular. She didn't speak much to the musicians, just went to the piano and sat down and started playing, and Jerry Wexler later compared her playing to Thelonius Monk (who was indeed one of the jazz musicians who had influenced her). While Spooner Oldham had been booked to play piano, it was quickly decided to switch him to electric piano and organ, leaving the acoustic piano for Aretha to play, and she would play piano on all the sessions Wexler produced for her in future. Although while Wexler is the credited producer (and on this initial session Rick Hall at FAME is a credited co-producer), everyone involved, including Wexler, said that the musicians were taking their cues from Aretha rather than anyone else. She would outline the arrangements at the piano, and everyone else would fit in with what she was doing, coming up with head arrangements directed by her. But Wexler played a vital role in mediating between her and the musicians and engineering staff, all of whom he knew and she didn't. As Rick Hall said "After her brief introduction by Wexler, she said very little to me or anyone else in the studio other than Jerry or her husband for the rest of the day. I don't think Aretha and I ever made eye contact after our introduction, simply because we were both so totally focused on our music and consumed by what we were doing." The musicians started working on "I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)", and at first found it difficult to get the groove, but then Oldham came up with an electric piano lick which everyone involved thought of as the key that unlocked the song for them: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)"] After that, they took a break. Most of them were pleased with the track, though Rick Hall wasn't especially happy. But then Rick Hall wasn't especially happy about anything at that point. He'd always used mono for his recordings until then, but had been basically forced to install at least a two-track system by Tom Dowd, Atlantic's chief engineer, and was resentful of this imposition. During the break, Dan Penn went off to finish a song he and Spooner Oldham had been writing, which he hoped Aretha would record at the session: [Excerpt: Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man"] They had the basic structure of the song down, but hadn't quite finished the middle eight, and both Jerry Wexler and Aretha Franklin chipped in uncredited lyrical contributions -- Aretha's line was "as long as we're together baby, you'd better show some respect to me". Penn, Oldham, Chips Moman, Roger Hawkins, and Tommy Cogbill started cutting a backing track for the song, with Penn singing lead initially with the idea that Aretha would overdub her vocal. But while they were doing this, things had been going wrong with the other participants. All the FAME and American rhythm section players were white, as were Wexler, Hall, and Dowd, and Wexler had been very aware of this, and of the fact that they were recording in Alabama, where Aretha and her husband might not feel totally safe, so he'd specifically requested that the horn section at least contain some Black musicians. But Charlie Chalmers hadn't been able to get any of the Black musicians he would normally call when putting together a horn section, and had ended up with an all-white horn section as well, including one player, a trumpet player called Ken Laxton, who had a reputation as a good player but had never worked with any of the other musicians there -- he was an outsider in a group of people who regularly worked together and had a pre-existing relationship. As the two outsiders, Laxton and Ted White had, at first, bonded, and indeed had started drinking vodka together, passing a bottle between themselves, in a way that Rick Hall would normally not allow in a session -- at the time, the county the studio was in was still a dry county. But as Wexler said, “A redneck patronizing a Black man is a dangerous camaraderie,” and White and Laxton soon had a major falling out. Everyone involved tells a different story about what it was that caused them to start rowing, though it seems to have been to do with Laxton not showing the proper respect for Aretha, or even actually sexually assaulting her -- Dan Penn later said “I always heard he patted her on the butt or somethin', and what would have been wrong with that anyway?”, which says an awful lot about the attitudes of these white Southern men who thought of themselves as very progressive, and were -- for white Southern men in early 1967. Either way, White got very, very annoyed, and insisted that Laxton get fired from the session, which he was, but that still didn't satisfy White, and he stormed off to the motel, drunk and angry. The rest of them finished cutting a basic track for "Do Right Woman", but nobody was very happy with it. Oldham said later “She liked the song but hadn't had time to practice it or settle into it I remember there was Roger playing the drums and Cogbill playing the bass. And I'm on these little simplistic chords on organ, just holding chords so the song would be understood. And that was sort of where it was left. Dan had to sing the vocal, because she didn't know the song, in the wrong key for him. That's what they left with—Dan singing the wrong-key vocal and this little simplistic organ and a bass and a drum. We had a whole week to do everything—we had plenty of time—so there was no hurry to do anything in particular.” Penn was less optimistic, saying "But as I rem

Johnny Cash was a county music legend and one of the founding fathers of rock and roll, but he thought he was washed up by the mid 1990s. The Man In Black had lost his edge. His record company didn't care about him any more, and he was playing small venues for a few hundred people. Then, he met famous record producer Rick Rubin. The man who produced albums from Slayer and the Beastie Boys had a simple vision: he invited Johnny Cash to come to his house and record him playing his favorite songs. This weird combination of Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin turned into a project that went from 1994 until John's death in 2003. It produced a series of albums called the American Recordings where he put his own spin on songs from Bruce Springsteen, Depeche Mode, Tom Waits, Bob Marley, Danzig, U2, Tom Petty, and of course, Nine Inch Nails. The project revitalized Johnny Cash's career and reintroduced him to a whole new generation of fans. The original American badass was back. On today's episode of Prisoners of Rock and Roll, we are going to explore the times when Johnny Cash covered the music of other artists. We're going to dive into the amazing work that came out of the American sessions as well as covers he did during his entire 50 year career.Check out our episode playlist.Part of Pantheon Podcasts.Check us out on Facebook and Twitter, or shoot get in touch at prisonersofrockandroll@gmail.comIf you're looking for an awesome beverage, check out Tiesta Tea. Enter promo code PRISONER15 and save 15% off of your next order!