Podcasts about Beano

When you explore the music of The Yardbirds you are really observing the evolution of what would become hard rock.  This group started in 1963 and over its time would engage the talents of three of the greatest guitarists of the rock world:  Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page.  Additional musicians in the group through 1968 were Keith Relf on vocals and harmonica, Jim McCarty on drums, Chris Dreja on rhythm guitar, and Paul Samwell-Smith on bass.  The group was founded in the blues, but over time would explore psychedelic rock, pop rock, and hard rock, with instrumental jams being a signature sound throughout their tenure.Having a Rave Up, also known as "Having a Rave Up with the Yardbirds," is their second American album, and showcases two of their virtuoso guitarists.  The album has one side of studio recordings in which Jeff Beck is the guitarist.  Side two is a compilation of live performances featuring Eric Clapton on guitar.  During a time when most songs were expected to run about three minutes, the Yardbirds would extend these out in live performances to six or seven minutes with instrumental jams known as "rave ups."  The combination of studio and live work is an excellent introduction to The Yardbirds, as the band's strength was in their live performances.  Their studio efforts would improve with the experimentation of Jeff Beck.Jimmy Page would become their guitarist in mid-1966 until their split-up in mid-1968.  He would form a group as "The New Yardbirds" shortly thereafter, which would be renamed shortly thereafter to Led Zeppelin.Rob brings us this study in the origins of rock for this week's podcast. Heart Full of SoulThis song was the first single released by The Yardbirds after Jeff Beck joined the group.  It was written by Graham Gouldman, who would later be the co-lead singer and bassist of 10cc.  The band wanted to include a sitar in the instrumentation for this song, but when things didn't work out for that, Beck experimented with his guitar to duplicate the eastern sound of the sitar instead.You're a Better Man than IThe opening song from the album is also known as "Mister, You're a Better Man than I."  It was written by brothers Mike and Brian Hugg, and is an attempt at a more folk rock song.  The socially conscious lyrics take aim at the hypocrisy of society and politics, stating that you shouldn't judge a person based on superficial appearances or education.Smokestack LightningThe live opener to side two is a cover of an old blues song recorded by American blues artist Howlin' Wolf in 1956.  The inspiration for the title came from watching trains go by at night and seeing the sparks come out of the smokestack.The Train Kept a-Rollin'While Aerosmith's cover may be more famous, this jump blues piece was originally performed by Tiny Bradshaw in 1951.  The Yardbirds played this song during their first American tour in 1965, and Sam Phillips recorded it for them in Memphis later that year.  It closes out side 1 of the album. ENTERTAINMENT TRACK:Main theme from the television action comedy "Batman"This campy superhero show premiered this month. STAFF PICKS:Don't Think Twice, It's Alright by The Wonder Who?Bruce begins the staff picks with a disguise group.  The Four Seasons used the name "The Wonder Who?" for four records released from 1965 to 1967, including this one.  Frankie Valli wasn't happy with his vocals on this song, and he recorded it with a "joke" falsetto voice while trying to break the tension in the studio.  All Your Love by John Mayall & the BluesbreakersLynch brings us a blues song originally recorded by American blues musician Otis Rush in 1958.  Multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter John Mayall led this group, which included Eric Clapton on guitar and John McVie on bass.  This single is the lead-off track to the debut album "Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton," also known as "The Beano Album" because Clapton is reading a children's comic called "The Beano" on the front cover.My Generation by the WhoWayne's staff pick is the hit that started the trajectory for the Who.  Guitarist Pete Townshend wrote this song about young rebellion.  Roger Daltrey incorporates a stutter in his vocals to sound like a British mod on speed.  While this song would reach number 2 on the UK charts, it topped out at number 74 on the US charts.Day Tripper by the BeatlesRob features a well known song from the Beatles, recorded during the "Rubber Soul" album sessions but not included on the album itself.  It was released as a double A-side single along with "We Can Work it Out" during a time when the Beatles were under pressure to release a single in time for the 1965 Christmas season.   COMEDY TRACK:The Lurch by Ted CassidyTed Cassidy played Lurch on "The Addams Family," and also performed this novelty song.   Thanks for listening to “What the Riff?!?” NOTE: To adjust the loudness of the music or voices, you may adjust the balance on your device. VOICES are stronger in the LEFT channel, and MUSIC is stronger on the RIGHT channel.Please follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/whattheriffpodcast/, and message or email us with what you'd like to hear, what you think of the show, and any rock-worthy memes we can share.Of course we'd love for you to rate the show in your podcast platform!**NOTE: What the Riff?!? does not own the rights to any of these songs and we neither sell, nor profit from them. We share them so you can learn about them and purchase them for your own collections.

Mike Huguenin in Hour 1 @MikeHugueninWill Heflin in for Beano today @WillHeflin11Adam Sparks @AdamSparks @KnoxNews joined in Hour 2 for a download on breaking NIL developments in Tennessee TB Show Hotline and Overtime presented by TLD Logistics tldlogistics.com @Drive4TLD#Vols

Tony and Beano live from Calhoun's on the River @CalhounsMike Huguenin in Hour 1 @MikeHugueninBilly Derrick joined to preview Tennessee Vandy @Vol_Baseball @billyderrick10VFL Will Heflin @WillHeflin11 @VIPPlayTN joined to preview Vols VandyHour 3 Overtime presented by TLD Logistics tldlogistics.com @Drive4TLD

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Live from Calhoun's on the River @CalhounsTony, Beano and Will Heflin live previewing Tennessee Kentucky series @Vol_BaseballAnd tracking latest in UT's QB search post NicoHour 3 Overtime presented by TLD Logistics tldlogistics.com @Drive4TLD#Vols

How important are first impressions, really? The Plants are 'talking!' And NUTS! Eat 'em!! That's what Paul Layendecker is BuZzin' about today on The Daily BuZz!!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How important are first impressions, really? The Plants are 'talking!' And NUTS! Eat 'em!! That's what Paul Layendecker is BuZzin' about today on The Daily BuZz!!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Robert Hagan returns from episode 163 to discuss another comic genius as we look at Dudley D.Watkins and his creation, Lord Snooty. You can find copies of this book very cheaply on the second-hand markets, and also look for their celebration of Watkins' work in the Beano and the Dandy. Read more of Robert's own writing in the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics.You can find a list of all the upcoming books on the Facebook page, follow the podcast on instagram, Threads, Mastodon, and BlueSky. And email me comments and suggestions to MCBCpodcast@gmail.comMusic used in this episode is Circuit Breaker by the artist Robodub. Click here to listen to the episode online. Or Download here Right click and choose save link as to download to your computer.

Today: We are getting SUPER excited for Bingo! happening at Landmark Saloon THIS Sunday; free to play and doors are at 2pm! Also today - Bingo facts and French aristocracy, Sarah and her new ridiculous obsession (which you can see on Sunday!) and more - HUGE thank you to our pal Jared at New Rose Tattoo for his generous donation of a $200 Gift Certificate to New Rose Tattoo, which will be our Grand Prize on Sunday!! Thanks again Jared, and have a wonderful night all! :)

Purple Radio x RT Minds: Never Give UpPurple Radio is so proud to be collaborating with grassroots mental health and suicide prevention charity RT Minds.In the second episode of our Never Give Up series, Karis and Beano are joined by singer-songwriter Steve Pledger to discuss the links between art, recovery and mental health.Trigger Warning: This episode contains sensitive discussions, including topics related to suicide and depression.To find out more about RT Minds visit:RTProjects | Mental health | Charity | Art therapy | ArtTo hear more of Steve Pledgers incredible music visit:Steve Pledger | singer/songwriter

Dan and Tom bring back Tom Whiteman from Legacy-Collectibles.com to talk about some of the OSS weapons that were created to help the first U.S. spy agency in WW II. We talked with Mr. Whiteman in an earlier episode where we discussed James Bond's assigned pistol, the Walther PPK. OSS morphed into the CIA!   Tom gives us the background of these weapons, if the weapon was ever used, the pros and cons of the weapon, and a very interesting background on a knife in an OSS Agent's possession.  What spy movies and TV shows can you watch to see some of these weapons?  Take a listen!  Some of the weapons we discuss include:  The Beano grenade  The Liberator pistol  The Colt model 1903 snub nose revolver  A spring-loaded baton  The FitzGerald revolver  The OSS Stiletto (Pancake Flipper)  And more ….   Covert operations weapons offer a lot to decode, so take a listen!   Tell us what you think about our discussion with Tom Whiteman of these OSS weapons  So, take a listen and let us know what you think. Have you heard of any of these?  If so, have you used one? Which one of these weapons do you think would have been the most effective.   Have you seen any of these weapons in a spy movie, TV show, or streaming series?  Let us know your thoughts, ideas for future episodes, and what you thought of this episode. Just drop us a note at info@spymovienavigator.com.  The more we hear from you, the better the show will surely be!  We'll give you a shout-out in a future episode!    You can check out all of our CRACKING THE CODE OF SPY MOVIES podcast episodes on your favorite podcast app or our website. In addition, you can check out our YouTube channel as well.    Episode Webpage: https://bit.ly/3CjZvgE   

Kate Pankhurst is a celebrated children's author and illustrator whose groundbreaking work has transformed how young readers learn about influential women in history. After training as an illustrator, Kate found her passion in creating engaging non-fiction children's books, most notably her revolutionary "Fantastically Great Women" series. Through her unique blend of historical storytelling and captivating illustrations, she has carved out a distinct space in children's literature, making history accessible and exciting for young audiences.Episode Summary: In this engaging episode of She Dares Wins, host Michelle speaks with Kate Pankhurst about her remarkable journey from creating childhood comics to becoming a celebrated author and illustrator. Kate shares candid insights about breaking into children's publishing, the evolution of her "Fantastically Great Women" series, and its unexpected adaptation into a West End musical. The conversation explores how Kate's work has helped fill a crucial gap in children's literature by bringing previously overlooked stories of remarkable women to the forefront.Key Takeaways:Kate's career exemplifies the power of embracing uncertainty and taking creative risksThe success of the "Fantastically Great Women" series demonstrates the strong appetite for diverse historical narratives in children's literatureNavigating a freelance creative career requires resilience, adaptability, and openness to unexpected opportunitiesChildren's books can serve as powerful tools for initiating important conversations about history, equality, and empowermentThe adaptation of Kate's work into different mediums shows how impactful children's literature can reach beyond the pageNotable Moments:Kate reveals how her childhood love of comics and the Beano influenced her career pathThe fascinating origin story of how the "Fantastically Great Women" series came to be when there was nothing like it in the marketDiscussion of how women's achievements in sports, science, and aviation were historically overlookedInsights into the creative process of transforming historical figures into engaging characters for young readersThe surprising story of how her books were adapted into a musical featuring songs by Girls Aloud's songwriterMemorable Quotes:"My whole career has been based on 'I'm not really sure if I can do that, but okay, I'll just have a go.'""When I first started going into schools, I don't remember learning about any women from history... there's just so many stories.""We all change the world a little bit every day.""Reading and books are so important... they help us understand other people and understand ourselves.""Every book you read as a kid has the power to change the world a little bit." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joe chats to callers who have a special place in their heart for comics such as Beano, The Dandy, Judy, Bunty, Tiger, Roy Of The Rovers and many more. Maureen was working for Aer Lingus at the time of the 1952 plane crash.

Get Clay's books here!Welcome to my new show, Couchsurfing Critics!The ever-talented and amazing Clay McLeod Chapman has returned for another epic round of conversation with yours truly. This time, we're smashing duration records and defying interview conventions. It is, I would say, the closest to just us grabbing coffee and chatting that we could have hoped for, and I am very pleased with the result. For those of you looking for a concentrated discussion of Clay's delicious upcoming release WAKE UP AND OPEN YOUR EYES, might I direct you elsewhere. But! If you want to know what we think about some of the best authors working today, our thoughts on looking at people's book shelves, and some getting really serious about cancer and the pitfalls of belonging to a family, I've got just what the doctor ordered. (and apparently for Nat Cassidy the doctor ordered some Beano, because he is certainly labeled a car farter in this episode. Sorry Nat. I think it was out of love?)In addition to Clay's amazing examination of the culture of radicalization in contemporary America, I would like to recommend that you listen to his top quality podcast called FEARMONGERS. He gets on the best of horror guests, has delightful conversations, and even cajoles them into reading for us all. It's a great little library-backed bit of entertainment.Coming up on The ARC PartyI've got a lot on the books for the next few weeks. I will be recording a discussion with Eric LaRocca in a few days to support the release of his new novel AT DARK I BECOME LOATHSOME, which everyone needs to read. It's grief horror done so so so so so so so well. Also, I'll be talking with Craig Clevenger about the reissue of his debut novel THE CONTORTIONIST'S HANDBOOK. I'm really stoked about this one, as it's been one of my favorites for a while now.I've just recently confirmed with Chuck Wendig that he will be joining me at some point to discuss THE STAIRCASE IN THE WOODS, which I loved!I am planning something called MALERMONTH, where I have on a guest or guests to talk about some awesome Josh Malerman novels, including hopefully DAPHNE, PEARL, and maybe another. GOBLIN? We'll see. I've also started talks with Cynthia Pelayo's representation, and have some tentative plans with Joshua Hull, and many more. I'm also very excited for Shortwave Publishing's first quarterly shipment for 2025 to its Kickstarter backers. The box looks insane and I'm so excited! I'm so scared!Finally for you YouTuberssssss: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.thearcparty.com/subscribe

Beano comes in hot and Tony catches strays from all sides as we whittle down the time til the Vols take the field in Columbus. Mark in Columbus checks in live with a called shot against the Buckeyes and 'corporate AD' Ross Bjork. The Overtime goes off the rails a little as well. 

Beano & Brian take Tony under wing in an eventful show. Old friend of the show Stephan Krajisnik who now covers OSU joins from Cleveland.com to give us his take on the Buckeyes. In the 3rd hour it gets wild as usual. Another day in paradise

Tony & The guys celebrate the spot with the latest projections from Mr C inform the discussion. The gravity of Vandy is discussed with Tony talking various callers down from the ledge while Beano tries his best to keep Tony on track. It's another day at the office for your Tony Basilio Show

Live at Calhoun's on the River Football Friday Tennessee GeorgiaTony and Beano fought through some connection issues in the first segment but finished strong on remote at Calhoun's on the River!MIke Huguenin in Hour 1 @MikeHugueninTLD Logistics Hotline and Hour 3 Overtime presented by tldlogistics.com @Drive4TLD#Vols

Beano cartoonist Nigel Parkinson talks to us about his adventures in the worlds of Anderson - bringing life to Stingray and Thunderbirds in the pages of many of our favourite comics!There's news of a special UFO collectible and Jamie gives notice of the Gerry Anderson store's Black Friday/weekend sale. Finally, the gang watch the second part of Space Precinct's Takeover and give their ratings out of 5! No prizes for guessing what Richard gives it...00:30 Welcome to the Gerry Anderson Podcast! 01:21 Your Youtube Comments02:50 Gerry Anderson News07:17 Nigel Parkinson - Part 229:58 The Voice Of The Podsterons36:37 The Randomiser1:02:42 Wrapping things up! Links MentionedGuest LinksNews LinksNever Miss An EpisodeJoin the Podsterons Facebook groupSubscribe wherever you get your podcastsThe Randomiser with Chris DaleHelp The ShowLeave us a review on Apple PodcastsTweet about it! Use the hashtag #GerryAndersonPodcast@ImJamieAnderson / @RichardNJames / @ChrisDalekJoin the Anderson Insiders for Extra ContentStay In TouchEmail Podcast AT GerryAnderson.comJoin the Email Newsletter

If you've picked up a Beano over the last decades - or any comic at all - you'll be familiar with Nigel Parkinson's work! He's the current artist responsible for Dennis The Menace, but he's also turned his hand to odd Anderson character - from a very early age!Meanwhile Richard James is all over the news and there's a takeover on the Randomiser.00:27 Welcome to the Gerry Anderson Podcast! 01:17 Your Youtube comments02:51 The Gerry Anderson News!06:56 Nigel Parkinson - Part 238:30 The Voice of the Podsterons44:53 The Randomiser1:04:33 Wrapping things up! Links MentionedGuest LinksNews LinksNever Miss An EpisodeJoin the Podsterons Facebook groupSubscribe wherever you get your podcastsThe Randomiser with Chris DaleHelp The ShowLeave us a review on Apple PodcastsTweet about it! Use the hashtag #GerryAndersonPodcast@ImJamieAnderson / @RichardNJames / @ChrisDalekJoin the Anderson Insiders for Extra ContentStay In TouchEmail Podcast AT GerryAnderson.comJoin the Email Newsletter

Beano and Derek waddle into the wacky world of Howard the Duck, quacking jokes and uncovering a feathered conspiracy! And go on all sorts on tangents involving other famous fictional ducks in this episode of the Get Geekish Podcast.   Get Geekish

Beano and Brian hold the fort down for Tony .... celebration of Tennessee win over Florida continuesJosh Heupel press conference Tennessee Bama weekTLD Logistics Hotline presented by tldlogistics.com @Drive4TLD#Vols

What if a "space ghost Dracula" could bring comics to life? We're tackling this and more as we dive into the vibrant world of comics in England, exploring its storied past and cultural significance. We'll take you on a rollercoaster of witty banter, touching on everything from Danzig's fictional elemental powers to the potential of podcasts achieving global acclaim. Join us as we navigate the fascinating journey from America and Japan to the heart of British comic history, with a nod to Europe's rich contributions and the legendary Mars Ravelo of the Philippines.From the iconic pages of the Beano and the Dandy to the silver screen adaptations of early British comics, we've got it all covered. Discover how British comics, initially a staple of children's entertainment, evolved into something more profound. We'll compare the American and British experiences and trace the lineage of comic characters back to the 19th century. Learn about the trials and triumphs of translating British comic narratives into film, with a spotlight on characters like Ally Sloper and cinematic adaptations like "The Adventures of Jane."Venture beyond the UK as we explore the global impact of British comic creators, including films inspired by 2000 AD's "Judge Dredd." From lesser-known adaptations to famous European comic icons like Asterix, Obelix, and Tintin, we celebrate the enduring legacy of comic creators worldwide. Our journey concludes in Southeast Asia, where Mars Ravelo's creations like Darna and Captain Barbell have left an indelible mark on Filipino cinema. Tune in for a lively discussion that promises to broaden your understanding of the global comic scene and its cinematic transformations.

Have you felt it too? That sense of movie fatigue creeping in? On a recent episode of Get Geekish: The Podcast, Derek and Beano dove deep into this very topic. They talked about everything from the decline of quality in big-budget films (rushed CGI, anyone?!) to the overwhelming number of sequels and remakes flooding the market. Remember when getting a good seat was the biggest movie-going challenge? Now, it's sifting through endless options and wondering if the latest blockbuster will actually be worth the price of admission. GetGeekish.com Intro/Outro Music: "Modern Beat Jingle | Intro" from OpenMusicList on Pixabay.

Beano and Derek return to the Get Geekish podcast, diving deep into the spooky world of horror movies! They discuss their evolving tastes, the psychology behind a good scare, and their favorite horror comedies and zombie flicks. Join them for a deep dive into the horror movies that have shaped them and kept them coming back for more! GetGeekish.com Intro/Outro Music: "Modern Beat Jingle | Intro" from OpenMusicList on Pixabay.

***This show is brought to you by DistroKid. Go to http://distrokid.com/vip/the500 for 30% off your first year!*** John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers served as a rite of passage for guitar players who would go on to be a part of other major bands. Eric Clapton was one of those legendary members who passed through the band. Joe Bonamassa and Wayne Federman join this week's episode, discuss “Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton, " and geek out over guitars.  Follow Joe on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joebonamassa Follow Joe on Twitter/X https://x.com/JBONAMASSA Joe Bonamassa Facebook https://www.facebook.com/JoeBonamassa/ Follow Wayne on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/djmortycoyle Follow Wayne on Twitter: https://www.instagram.com/instafederman Follow Josh on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshadammeyers/ Follow Josh on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JoshAdamMeyers Follow Josh on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joshameyers Follow The 500 on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the500podcast/ Follow The 500 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/the500podcast Follow The 500 on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The500PodcastWithJAM/ Email the show: 500podcast@gmail.com Check the show's website: http://the500podcast.com DistroKid Artist Of The Week: Walter Trout https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38S8UI_dV9E Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 314: Craig Bierko Keith Reza welcomes guest Craig Bierko in this episode as they share their experiences from the road, Hollywood insights, and comedy career stories. Live from a Motel 6 in San Diego, they talk about budget motels, working with T.J. Miller, and encounters with Hollywood legends like Richard Dreyfuss. Craig discusses filming with Terry Gilliam, his passion for acting, and admiration for comedians like David Spade and Jeanine Garofalo. They also reflect on the challenges of stand-up comedy and the importance of mentors like Norm Macdonald. Tune in for a humorous and insightful conversation!   Follow Craig's Socials IG: https://www.instagram.com/mrcraigbierko/ X: https://twitter.com/MrCraigBierko    Chapters 00:00 Welcome to Razor Rifts 00:44 Comedy in San Diego 01:58 Podcasting and Norm Macdonald 03:58 Caroline Ray and Beano 12:27 Actors vs. Comedians 17:13 John Cusack's Humor 24:26 Shane Black's Scripts 38:52 Reflecting on a Life-Changing Teacher 41:25 The Impact of a Mother's Determination 42:32 Dealing with Loss and Grief 43:25 Creating a Tribute to a Beloved Pet 47:04 Lessons from a Unique Therapist 49:58 The Journey of an Actor 53:55 The Influence of Comedy and Mentors 01:17:31 The Challenge of Stand-Up Comedy 01:28:12 Final Thoughts and Farewells Takeaways

In this episode of Yeah, That's Probably an Ad, Rebecca Stewart is joined by Helenor Gilmour, Director of Strategy at Beano Brain. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cuando se hace referencia a discos de culto, se abusa del término “seminal”, pero en el caso del John Mayall Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton de 1966 se queda corto, porque es la obra fundamental y piedra fundacional del boom del British blues en los sesenta. Ricardo Portman nos cuenta su historia en un programa que rinde tributo al gran John Mayall (1933 / 2024). Escucharemos All Your Love, Hideaway, Little Girl, Double Crossing Time, What’d I Say, Key to Love, Parchman Farm, Have You Heard, Ramblin’ On My Mind, Steppin’ Out y It Ain't Right + Bonus tracks. Recuerden que nuestros programas los pueden escuchar también en: Nuestra web https://ecosdelvinilo.com/ Radio M7 (Córdoba) lunes 18:00 y sábados 17:00. Distancia Radio (Córdoba) jueves y sábados 19:00 Radio Free Rock (Cartagena) viernes 18:00. Radio Hierbabuena (Lima, Perú) jueves 20:00 (hora Perú)

Hour 1 Tony & Beano get hyped for the upcoming season. Hour 2 Berry Tramel @BerryTramel talking Oklahoma football. An in depth look at Josh Huepel's legendary place in OU football. Also the complicated heat between Heupel and Stoops. Very interesting stuffTLD Logistics Hotline provided by tldlogistics.com @Drive4TLD

Hello and welcome to... To The Regiment, the Early Doors Podcast with Phil Mealey.This week Ben and Phil talk about the last episode of series one. But don't worry it's not the last episode of this series of the podcast. So this is the episode, well the day out, we've been leading up to. All the talk of the Big Boys Beano and it's here. Breakfast in the pub, nice shirts, cigars, impressions, plenty of beer, loads of craic, and then the most... well I won't spoil the ending.At lot of hidden gems and behind in the scenes in this episode. So please enjoy.Thank you for listening and we will see you in two weeks for the last interview of the series. All being well with diaries that is.TO THE REGIMENT... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Edwin Lowe, yes the Beano... uhm Bingo guy took all he learned and created Yahtzee. You need to be observant. Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is... Well, it's us. But we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [Travis Crawford Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young here alongside Steven Semple. And as we always do, Steven... Wait a minute. You didn't whisper anything in my ear during the countdown? Stephen Semple: No, I didn't this time Dave Young: We're going into this blind. I have no idea what we're going to talk about. Stephen Semple: I didn't this time, but there's one thing I ust wanted to mention before we got into it is we're north of 156 episodes. I think this is 157 or 158. And when you think about it- Dave Young: Isn't that crazy? Stephen Semple: It is crazy. We've crossed the three-year mark. And for you and I, we haven't missed, we've not missed a week in that three years. Dave Young: I'm amazed. That's double the number of birthdays I've had, at least. Stephen Semple: I wanted to recognize that because I was looking... when I was doing the preparation and looking at this, I went, "Wow, three years. That's quite amazing." When we started this adventure, I knew we had committed to a year, and here we are still at it, which I think is pretty cool. Dave Young: It is. I don't have any stats handy, but I know that podcasting, this is one of these things that is like, "Oh, this is going to be fun." It's going to be fun to do a podcast. And it is. My participation in it is a lot of fun because I show up, you do a countdown, and I chat. But I know that it's a heavy lift, and people thinking that they're just going to start podcasting, unless you're just going to just start your own live morning show without any back-end production, it's not an easy thing to do. And you've got a whole team working behind the scenes. Stephen Semple: Yeah. There's you and I. And then we have an outsourced person who does the production, and then Dylan Bernier turns all this stuff in the shorts and whatnot. And then Matthew Burns and Gary Bernier get it all posted to the social media. And I'm going to say, if this group of people were not working on it, this would not still be going today. And I think last I looked at the stats, most podcasts I think are 10 or 12 or 14 episodes or something like that. They- Dave Young: Yeah. That's as far as you get. Stephen Semple: As far as you get. And then all of a sudden it's like, "Oh, this is a grind. This is more work than I thought it would be." And things along that line. So, well- Dave Young: You're like, "I'm going to go back to grad school," and, "Oh, God, what was I thinking?" Stephen Semple: Exactly. Dave Young: I started podcasting in 2010 and got 30 episodes in before I gave up. And I think it was just because the shine came off, the shiny object, for me, and nobody knew what a podcast was in 2012. So- Stephen Semple: Yeah. So I just want to thank you, thank the team, and just recognize this milestone. But onto the reason why people actually have tuned in, it's not to hear us chat back and forth. Dave Young: It's not. Stephen Semple: Well, it's not about that. It's not about praising ourselves. What we're going to talk about today is a game called Yahtzee. Dave Young: Yahtzee. I grew up with Yahtzee. I mean, Yahtzee's been around for a long time. Stephen Semple: Sure has. Yeah. Dave Young: And I never played it until, I think after I got married.

Hello and welcome to To The Regiment (apologies for the slight delay this week).In this episode we got some questions from you, the listeners, from Twitter/X, Facebook, and Instagram. Some we may have covered but we cover in more detail or some Ben had just missed.We will be doing this again soon because these questions came in before we even released the first episode (we think). And our fan base has certainly grown.Thank you again for all your support and I promise we will be going on the Big Boy's Beano next time.To The Regiment... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Los gases intestinales son una parte normal del proceso digestivo, pero en ocasiones pueden ser incómodos o embarazosos. Aquí tienes algunas recomendaciones para reducir la cantidad de gases:Cambios en la dieta:Remoja las legumbres: Si usas legumbres secas, remójalas en agua durante la noche antes de cocinarlas. Esto ayuda a reducir los oligosacáridos que causan gases.Cocina bien las legumbres: Asegúrate de cocinarlas hasta que estén completamente suaves, lo que las hace más fáciles de digerir.Introduce las legumbres gradualmente: Si no estás acostumbrado a comer muchas legumbres, aumenta su consumo de manera gradual para que tu sistema digestivo se acostumbre.Evita alimentos que causan gases: Algunos alimentos como el brócoli, la coliflor, el repollo, los frijoles, las cebollas y los refrescos pueden aumentar la producción de gases. Intenta reducir su consumo.Consume alimentos que ayudan a reducir los gases: El jengibre, la menta, el hinojo y el yogur con probióticos pueden ayudar a mejorar la digestión y reducir los gases.Hábitos alimenticios:Come despacio: Comer rápidamente puede hacer que tragues aire, lo cual contribuye a la formación de gases.Mastica bien los alimentos: Una buena masticación facilita la digestión y reduce la formación de gases.Evita el chicle y los caramelos duros: Estos productos pueden hacer que tragues aire adicionalmente.Estilo de vida:Mantén una rutina de ejercicio regular: La actividad física regular ayuda a mantener una digestión saludable y puede reducir la formación de gases.Bebe suficiente agua: Mantenerse bien hidratado ayuda a que el sistema digestivo funcione correctamente.Evita bebidas carbonatadas: Las bebidas con gas pueden aumentar la cantidad de aire en el sistema digestivo.Otros consejos:Usa enzimas digestivas: Productos como Beano pueden ayudar a descomponer los oligosacáridos antes de que lleguen al intestino grueso.Prueba con probióticos: Los probióticos pueden ayudar a equilibrar la flora intestinal y mejorar la digestión.Manejo del estrés:Reduce el estrés: El estrés y la ansiedad pueden afectar la digestión y aumentar la producción de gases. Prueba técnicas de relajación como el yoga, la meditación o la respiración profunda.Implementar estos cambios puede ayudarte a reducir la formación de gases y mejorar tu bienestar digestivo en general.Conviértete en un seguidor de este podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/comiendo-con-maria-nutricion--2497272/support.

In which the Beano comes to our rescue again, solving our identity crises.Support the Show.

This week the result of JK's new haircut poll is revealed, Beano antics, kidnappings and adults napping.We start talking about Neighbours at 17:00https://linktr.ee/neighbourhoodrewatchIf you would like to support the podcast, you could always leave a nice 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify ORyou can subscribe to our Patreon for just £1 a month (plus VAT) and receive early access to the video and audio versions of the podcast as well as exclusive bonus episodes. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-neighbourhood-rewatch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this day in 1951, by a peculiar quirk of fate, the world got not one, but two Dennis the Menaces.  Both Dennises were mischievous rascals with slingshots, dogs, and striped outfits, but their personalities were as different as Yorkshire tea and Americano coffee.  In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly reflect on why Beano eventually gave Walter the Softy a girlfriend; discuss America's 1950s obsession with permissive parenting; and speculate on why the US Dennis the Menace had to go on the run from the police… Further Reading: ‘The Most Unbelievable Comic Ripoff Was a Total Coincidence' (Screen Rant, 2021): https://screenrant.com/dennis-menace-coincidence-us-uk-ripoff/  ‘Dennis the Menace at 60' (BBC, 2011): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12770341  ‘An Insane British-American Coincidence' (Lost in the Pond, 2020): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykOZXhefypw  This episode first premiered in 2022, for members of

Episode 7 of Trailer Tales! Tampon of Terror! Dave can't stop farting. Tammy transitions. Beano was his name-o. Don't move your boots. Shoutout to Custodians. Tammy, Dave, and Crystal will remain friends no matter what! #ChelcieLynn #JeremiahWatkins #Podcast #LibbieHiggins New episodes every Friday on this channel. Subscribe! Jeremiah's Patreon is LIVE: https://www.patreon.com/jeremiahwatkins NEW MERCH IS HERE!: https://www.jeremiahwatkins.com FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trailertalespod See Tammy LIVE on tour: https://www.eatmytrash.com See Jeremiah LIVE on tour: https://www.jeremiahwatkins.com Support Crystal: https://www.libbiehiggins.com Want to send some mail into the show? P.O. BOX JEREMIAH WATKINS/TT P.O. BOX #  78375 LOS ANGELES, CA 90016 Sponsored by: Factor Meals Support the show and get 50% off of Factor at https://www.factormeals.com/TRAILER50 and use code TRAILER50 Shot by Chris McMillan Edited by Jeremiah Watkins Intro Music: Produced by https://www.instagram.com/professorcmusic Intro Vocals: Jeremiah Watkins

Bex got chatting to Craig, Mike & Laura from Beano all about their latest Boomic Minnie's Mission of Maximum MischiefRemember to tune in to Bex weekdays on Fun Kids from 4pm, as well as on the Book Worms Podcast every other Wednesday via the Fun Kids AppSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on Episode 82 of the Announcer Schedules Podcast, Mike Gill and Phil de Montmollin review the NFL's Super Wild Card Weekend and look ahead to the Divisional Rounds. The recent impact of weather on announcers is discussed along with a look at the latest from the NBA, NHL and MLB. Finally, recent award winners and a Hall of Fame induction for Beano Cook are highlighted. A multitude of announcers from past and present are mentioned throughout the show with an array of topics discussed including:*** NFL Super Wild Card Weekend Review *** NFL Divisional Round Preview*** Frigid night for sideline reporters in KC*** Adjustments due to weather in Buffalo*** Friday's NBA slate on ESPN adjusted *** College Basketball weather concerns *** John Fanta and Bill Raftery earn rave reviews*** Fanta's busy schedule including PBA bowling *** Shuffle in Buffalo for TNT and NBC Sports Chicago *** Adam Wainwright joins FOX Sports as full-time analyst *** Australian Open Tennis and Chris Fowler's travel *** NSMA state award winners revealed*** Beano Cook to enter CSC Hall of FameIt's all part of the lastest "Announcer Schedules Podcast" on the Last Word on Sports Media Podcast feed. Make sure to follow/subscribe on Apple, Spreaker, Spotify, Google, etc.!

This week on Episode 82 of the Announcer Schedules Podcast, Mike Gill and Phil de Montmollin review the NFL's Super Wild Card Weekend and look ahead to the Divisional Rounds. The recent impact of weather on announcers is discussed along with a look at the latest from the NBA, NHL and MLB. Finally, recent award winners and a Hall of Fame induction for Beano Cook are highlighted. A multitude of announcers from past and present are mentioned throughout the show with an array of topics discussed including:*** NFL Super Wild Card Weekend Review *** NFL Divisional Round Preview*** Frigid night for sideline reporters in KC*** Adjustments due to weather in Buffalo*** Friday's NBA slate on ESPN adjusted *** College Basketball weather concerns *** John Fanta and Bill Raftery earn rave reviews*** Fanta's busy schedule including PBA bowling *** Shuffle in Buffalo for TNT and NBC Sports Chicago *** Adam Wainwright joins FOX Sports as full-time analyst *** Australian Open Tennis and Chris Fowler's travel *** NSMA state award winners revealed*** Beano Cook to enter CSC Hall of FameIt's all part of the lastest "Announcer Schedules Podcast" on the Last Word on Sports Media Podcast feed. Make sure to follow/subscribe on Apple, Spreaker, Spotify, Google, etc.!

Hour 4 with Dorin Dickerson, Jeff Hathhorn, and Pat Bostick: FanDuel Odds and Ends with Dorin Dickerson, Austin Bechtold, Pat Bostick, and Jeff Hathhorn. A new social media trend is to name random wide receivers of the past. We go around the studio and name random Steelers that come to mind throughout the years, with some notable highlights. We hear comments from Tim Brando and John Lukas on Beano Cook being inducted in the Sports Communicators Hall of Fame. NFL game picks for divisional weekend. 

After a reshuffle that saw Suella Braverman leave her post as Home Secretary, and left the government with no women in the “big four” offices of state, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk spoke to Emma Barnett. They discussed the impact of the reshuffle, as well as sentencing reforms which will affect women, and the alleged rapist currently serving as a Conservative MP. Endometriosis is a chronic condition which affects one in 10 women, for whom tissue similar to the lining of the womb starts to grow in other places, causing debilitating pain and in some cases fertility complications. But a charity that looks to support women suffering from the condition - Endometriosis South Coast - has faced criticism this week after announcing that a trans woman, Steph Richards, would be their new CEO. The decision to appoint Steph was made by Jodie Hughes, Chair of the Trustees, who also founded the charity. They spoke to Emma about the appointment. Lisa Lintott always enjoyed writing, but being a single mum meant that this had to take a back seat. But when her son Jazz, an aspiring actor, found that he was only being sent typecast roles, Lisa enrolled herself into a creative writing masters and wrote her own play, casting her son in the lead role. Going for Gold, which tells the life story of British boxer Frankie Lucas, has since won multiple awards, including Best Production Play, Best Producer and Best Actor at this year's Black British Theatre Awards, catapulting them both into the spotlight. Jazz and Lisa told Emma about this unexpected partnership. Minnie the Minx is turning 70. In December the much loved Beano cartoon character will celebrate 70 years since her first appearance. The writers and illustrators of the Beano, based in Dundee, Scotland, created Minnie to “be just as tough as the boys” and “kick back against pre-war societal norms.” Well, that was in 1953. Today, a special edition of The Beano is coming out, guest-edited by England's football captain, Leah Williamson. Laura Howell has been drawing Minnie since 2018 and explained why Minnie's popularity has endured.

E258 Fierce is Coming, Don't Be a Fat Bear, Fingers Optional, Beano for the Soul by Paul George

Frank Skinner's on Absolute Radio every Saturday morning and you can enjoy the show's podcast right here. The Radio Academy Award winning gang bring you a show which is like joining your mates for a coffee... So, put the kettle on, sit down and enjoy UK commercial radio's most popular podcast. This week the team are in Edinburgh and are joined by Chloe Petts. Frank's had a Beano-style injury, Pierre's had a flying saucer incident and Chloe's smashed it at karaoke.

Frank Skinner's on Absolute Radio every Saturday morning and you can enjoy the show's podcast right here. The Radio Academy Award winning gang bring you a show which is like joining your mates for a coffee... So, put the kettle on, sit down and enjoy UK commercial radio's most popular podcast. This week Frank and Emily are joined by Steve Hall. Frank has been to a wedding, Steve has been to see Dexys and the team discuss the 85th Anniversary of the Beano.

Episode 166 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Crossroads", Cream, the myth of Robert Johnson, and whether white men can sing the blues. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-eight-minute bonus episode available, on “Tip-Toe Thru' the Tulips" by Tiny Tim. 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/ Errata I talk about an interview with Clapton from 1967, I meant 1968. I mention a Graham Bond live recording from 1953, and of course meant 1963. I say Paul Jones was on vocals in the Powerhouse sessions. Steve Winwood was on vocals, and Jones was on harmonica. Resources As I say at the end, the main resource you need to get if you enjoyed this episode is Brother Robert by Annye Anderson, Robert Johnson's stepsister. There are three Mixcloud mixes this time. As there are so many songs by Cream, Robert Johnson, John Mayall, and Graham Bond excerpted, and Mixcloud won't allow more than four songs by the same artist in any mix, I've had to post the songs not in quite the same order in which they appear in the podcast. But the mixes are here -- one, two, three. This article on Mack McCormick gives a fuller explanation of the problems with his research and behaviour. The other books I used for the Robert Johnson sections were McCormick's Biography of a Phantom; Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson, by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow; Searching for Robert Johnson by Peter Guralnick; and Escaping the Delta by Elijah Wald. I can recommend all of these subject to the caveats at the end of the episode. The information on the history and prehistory of the Delta blues mostly comes from Before Elvis by Larry Birnbaum, with some coming from Charley Patton by John Fahey. The information on Cream comes mostly from Cream: How Eric Clapton Took the World by Storm by Dave Thompson. I also used Ginger Baker: Hellraiser by Ginger Baker and Ginette Baker, Mr Showbiz by Stephen Dando-Collins, Motherless Child by Paul Scott, and  Alexis Korner: The Biography by Harry Shapiro. The best collection of Cream's work is the four-CD set Those Were the Days, which contains every track the group ever released while they were together (though only the stereo mixes of the albums, and a couple of tracks are in slightly different edits from the originals). You can get Johnson's music on many budget compilation records, as it's in the public domain in the EU, but the double CD collection produced by Steve LaVere for Sony in 2011 is, despite the problems that come from it being associated with LaVere, far and away the best option -- the remasters have a clarity that's worlds ahead of even the 1990s CD version it replaced. And for a good single-CD introduction to the Delta blues musicians and songsters who were Johnson's peers and inspirations, Back to the Crossroads: The Roots of Robert Johnson, compiled by Elijah Wald as a companion to his book on Johnson, can't be beaten, and contains many of the tracks excerpted in this episode. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before we start, a quick note that this episode contains discussion of racism, drug addiction, and early death. There's also a brief mention of death in childbirth and infant mortality. It's been a while since we looked at the British blues movement, and at the blues in general, so some of you may find some of what follows familiar, as we're going to look at some things we've talked about previously, but from a different angle. In 1968, the Bonzo Dog Band, a comedy musical band that have been described as the missing link between the Beatles and the Monty Python team, released a track called "Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?": [Excerpt: The Bonzo Dog Band, "Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?"] That track was mocking a discussion that was very prominent in Britain's music magazines around that time. 1968 saw the rise of a *lot* of British bands who started out as blues bands, though many of them went on to different styles of music -- Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After, Jethro Tull, Chicken Shack and others were all becoming popular among the kind of people who read the music magazines, and so the question was being asked -- can white men sing the blues? Of course, the answer to that question was obvious. After all, white men *invented* the blues. Before we get any further at all, I have to make clear that I do *not* mean that white people created blues music. But "the blues" as a category, and particularly the idea of it as a music made largely by solo male performers playing guitar... that was created and shaped by the actions of white male record executives. There is no consensus as to when or how the blues as a genre started -- as we often say in this podcast "there is no first anything", but like every genre it seems to have come from multiple sources. In the case of the blues, there's probably some influence from African music by way of field chants sung by enslaved people, possibly some influence from Arabic music as well, definitely some influence from the Irish and British folk songs that by the late nineteenth century were developing into what we now call country music, a lot from ragtime, and a lot of influence from vaudeville and minstrel songs -- which in turn themselves were all very influenced by all those other things. Probably the first published composition to show any real influence of the blues is from 1904, a ragtime piano piece by James Chapman and Leroy Smith, "One O' Them Things": [Excerpt: "One O' Them Things"] That's not very recognisable as a blues piece yet, but it is more-or-less a twelve-bar blues. But the blues developed, and it developed as a result of a series of commercial waves. The first of these came in 1914, with the success of W.C. Handy's "Memphis Blues", which when it was recorded by the Victor Military Band for a phonograph cylinder became what is generally considered the first blues record proper: [Excerpt: The Victor Military Band, "Memphis Blues"] The famous dancers Vernon and Irene Castle came up with a dance, the foxtrot -- which Vernon Castle later admitted was largely inspired by Black dancers -- to be danced to the "Memphis Blues", and the foxtrot soon overtook the tango, which the Castles had introduced to the US the previous year, to become the most popular dance in America for the best part of three decades. And with that came an explosion in blues in the Handy style, cranked out by every music publisher. While the blues was a style largely created by Black performers and writers, the segregated nature of the American music industry at the time meant that most vocal performances of these early blues that were captured on record were by white performers, Black vocalists at this time only rarely getting the chance to record. The first blues record with a Black vocalist is also technically the first British blues record. A group of Black musicians, apparently mostly American but led by a Jamaican pianist, played at Ciro's Club in London, and recorded many tracks in Britain, under a name which I'm not going to say in full -- it started with Ciro's Club, and continued alliteratively with another word starting with C, a slur for Black people. In 1917 they recorded a vocal version of "St. Louis Blues", another W.C. Handy composition: [Excerpt: Ciro's Club C**n Orchestra, "St. Louis Blues"] The first American Black blues vocal didn't come until two years later, when Bert Williams, a Black minstrel-show performer who like many Black performers of his era performed in blackface even though he was Black, recorded “I'm Sorry I Ain't Got It You Could Have It If I Had It Blues,” [Excerpt: Bert Williams, "I'm Sorry I Ain't Got It You Could Have It If I Had It Blues,”] But it wasn't until 1920 that the second, bigger, wave of popularity started for the blues, and this time it started with the first record of a Black *woman* singing the blues -- Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues": [Excerpt: Mamie Smith, "Crazy Blues"] You can hear the difference between that and anything we've heard up to that point -- that's the first record that anyone from our perspective, a hundred and three years later, would listen to and say that it bore any resemblance to what we think of as the blues -- so much so that many places still credit it as the first ever blues record. And there's a reason for that. "Crazy Blues" was one of those records that separates the music industry into before and after, like "Rock Around the Clock", "I Want to Hold Your Hand", Sgt Pepper, or "Rapper's Delight". It sold seventy-five thousand copies in its first month -- a massive number by the standards of 1920 -- and purportedly went on to sell over a million copies. Sales figures and market analysis weren't really a thing in the same way in 1920, but even so it became very obvious that "Crazy Blues" was a big hit, and that unlike pretty much any other previous records, it was a big hit among Black listeners, which meant that there was a market for music aimed at Black people that was going untapped. Soon all the major record labels were setting up subsidiaries devoted to what they called "race music", music made by and for Black people. And this sees the birth of what is now known as "classic blues", but at the time (and for decades after) was just what people thought of when they thought of "the blues" as a genre. This was music primarily sung by female vaudeville artists backed by jazz bands, people like Ma Rainey (whose earliest recordings featured Louis Armstrong in her backing band): [Excerpt: Ma Rainey, "See See Rider Blues"] And Bessie Smith, the "Empress of the Blues", who had a massive career in the 1920s before the Great Depression caused many of these "race record" labels to fold, but who carried on performing well into the 1930s -- her last recording was in 1933, produced by John Hammond, with a backing band including Benny Goodman and Jack Teagarden: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Give Me a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer"] It wouldn't be until several years after the boom started by Mamie Smith that any record companies turned to recording Black men singing the blues accompanied by guitar or banjo. The first record of this type is probably "Norfolk Blues" by Reese DuPree from 1924: [Excerpt: Reese DuPree, "Norfolk Blues"] And there were occasional other records of this type, like "Airy Man Blues" by Papa Charlie Jackson, who was advertised as the “only man living who sings, self-accompanied, for Blues records.” [Excerpt: Papa Charlie Jackson, "Airy Man Blues"] But contrary to the way these are seen today, at the time they weren't seen as being in some way "authentic", or "folk music". Indeed, there are many quotes from folk-music collectors of the time (sadly all of them using so many slurs that it's impossible for me to accurately quote them) saying that when people sang the blues, that wasn't authentic Black folk music at all but an adulteration from commercial music -- they'd clearly, according to these folk-music scholars, learned the blues style from records and sheet music rather than as part of an oral tradition. Most of these performers were people who recorded blues as part of a wider range of material, like Blind Blake, who recorded some blues music but whose best work was his ragtime guitar instrumentals: [Excerpt: Blind Blake, "Southern Rag"] But it was when Blind Lemon Jefferson started recording for Paramount records in 1926 that the image of the blues as we now think of it took shape. His first record, "Got the Blues", was a massive success: [Excerpt: Blind Lemon Jefferson, "Got the Blues"] And this resulted in many labels, especially Paramount, signing up pretty much every Black man with a guitar they could find in the hopes of finding another Blind Lemon Jefferson. But the thing is, this generation of people making blues records, and the generation that followed them, didn't think of themselves as "blues singers" or "bluesmen". They were songsters. Songsters were entertainers, and their job was to sing and play whatever the audiences would want to hear. That included the blues, of course, but it also included... well, every song anyone would want to hear.  They'd perform old folk songs, vaudeville songs, songs that they'd heard on the radio or the jukebox -- whatever the audience wanted. Robert Johnson, for example, was known to particularly love playing polka music, and also adored the records of Jimmie Rodgers, the first country music superstar. In 1941, when Alan Lomax first recorded Muddy Waters, he asked Waters what kind of songs he normally played in performances, and he was given a list that included "Home on the Range", Gene Autry's "I've Got Spurs That Jingle Jangle Jingle", and Glenn Miller's "Chattanooga Choo-Choo". We have few recordings of these people performing this kind of song though. One of the few we have is Big Bill Broonzy, who was just about the only artist of this type not to get pigeonholed as just a blues singer, even though blues is what made him famous, and who later in his career managed to record songs like the Tin Pan Alley standard "The Glory of Love": [Excerpt: Big Bill Broonzy, "The Glory of Love"] But for the most part, the image we have of the blues comes down to one man, Arthur Laibley, a sales manager for the Wisconsin Chair Company. The Wisconsin Chair Company was, as the name would suggest, a company that started out making wooden chairs, but it had branched out into other forms of wooden furniture -- including, for a brief time, large wooden phonographs. And, like several other manufacturers, like the Radio Corporation of America -- RCA -- and the Gramophone Company, which became EMI, they realised that if they were going to sell the hardware it made sense to sell the software as well, and had started up Paramount Records, which bought up a small label, Black Swan, and soon became the biggest manufacturer of records for the Black market, putting out roughly a quarter of all "race records" released between 1922 and 1932. At first, most of these were produced by a Black talent scout, J. Mayo Williams, who had been the first person to record Ma Rainey, Papa Charlie Jackson, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, but in 1927 Williams left Paramount, and the job of supervising sessions went to Arthur Laibley, though according to some sources a lot of the actual production work was done by Aletha Dickerson, Williams' former assistant, who was almost certainly the first Black woman to be what we would now think of as a record producer. Williams had been interested in recording all kinds of music by Black performers, but when Laibley got a solo Black man into the studio, what he wanted more than anything was for him to record the blues, ideally in a style as close as possible to that of Blind Lemon Jefferson. Laibley didn't have a very hands-on approach to recording -- indeed Paramount had very little concern about the quality of their product anyway, and Paramount's records are notorious for having been put out on poor-quality shellac and recorded badly -- and he only occasionally made actual suggestions as to what kind of songs his performers should write -- for example he asked Son House to write something that sounded like Blind Lemon Jefferson, which led to House writing and recording "Mississippi County Farm Blues", which steals the tune of Jefferson's "See That My Grave is Kept Clean": [Excerpt: Son House, "Mississippi County Farm Blues"] When Skip James wanted to record a cover of James Wiggins' "Forty-Four Blues", Laibley suggested that instead he should do a song about a different gun, and so James recorded "Twenty-Two Twenty Blues": [Excerpt: Skip James, "Twenty-Two Twenty Blues"] And Laibley also suggested that James write a song about the Depression, which led to one of the greatest blues records ever, "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues": [Excerpt: Skip James, "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues"] These musicians knew that they were getting paid only for issued sides, and that Laibley wanted only blues from them, and so that's what they gave him. Even when it was a performer like Charlie Patton. (Incidentally, for those reading this as a transcript rather than listening to it, Patton's name is more usually spelled ending in ey, but as far as I can tell ie was his preferred spelling and that's what I'm using). Charlie Patton was best known as an entertainer, first and foremost -- someone who would do song-and-dance routines, joke around, play guitar behind his head. He was a clown on stage, so much so that when Son House finally heard some of Patton's records, in the mid-sixties, decades after the fact, he was astonished that Patton could actually play well. Even though House had been in the room when some of the records were made, his memory of Patton was of someone who acted the fool on stage. That's definitely not the impression you get from the Charlie Patton on record: [Excerpt: Charlie Patton, "Poor Me"] Patton is, as far as can be discerned, the person who was most influential in creating the music that became called the "Delta blues". Not a lot is known about Patton's life, but he was almost certainly the half-brother of the Chatmon brothers, who made hundreds of records, most notably as members of the Mississippi Sheiks: [Excerpt: The Mississippi Sheiks, "Sitting on Top of the World"] In the 1890s, Patton's family moved to Sunflower County, Mississippi, and he lived in and around that county until his death in 1934. Patton learned to play guitar from a musician called Henry Sloan, and then Patton became a mentor figure to a *lot* of other musicians in and around the plantation on which his family lived. Some of the musicians who grew up in the immediate area around Patton included Tommy Johnson: [Excerpt: Tommy Johnson, "Big Road Blues"] Pops Staples: [Excerpt: The Staple Singers, "Will The Circle Be Unbroken"] Robert Johnson: [Excerpt: Robert Johnson, "Crossroads"] Willie Brown, a musician who didn't record much, but who played a lot with Patton, Son House, and Robert Johnson and who we just heard Johnson sing about: [Excerpt: Willie Brown, "M&O Blues"] And Chester Burnett, who went on to become known as Howlin' Wolf, and whose vocal style was equally inspired by Patton and by the country star Jimmie Rodgers: [Excerpt: Howlin' Wolf, "Smokestack Lightnin'"] Once Patton started his own recording career for Paramount, he also started working as a talent scout for them, and it was him who brought Son House to Paramount. Soon after the Depression hit, Paramount stopped recording, and so from 1930 through 1934 Patton didn't make any records. He was tracked down by an A&R man in January 1934 and recorded one final session: [Excerpt, Charlie Patton, "34 Blues"] But he died of heart failure two months later. But his influence spread through his proteges, and they themselves influenced other musicians from the area who came along a little after, like Robert Lockwood and Muddy Waters. This music -- or that portion of it that was considered worth recording by white record producers, only a tiny, unrepresentative, portion of their vast performing repertoires -- became known as the Delta Blues, and when some of these musicians moved to Chicago and started performing with electric instruments, it became Chicago Blues. And as far as people like John Mayall in Britain were concerned, Delta and Chicago Blues *were* the blues: [Excerpt: John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, "It Ain't Right"] John Mayall was one of the first of the British blues obsessives, and for a long time thought of himself as the only one. While we've looked before at the growth of the London blues scene, Mayall wasn't from London -- he was born in Macclesfield and grew up in Cheadle Hulme, both relatively well-off suburbs of Manchester, and after being conscripted and doing two years in the Army, he had become an art student at Manchester College of Art, what is now Manchester Metropolitan University. Mayall had been a blues fan from the late 1940s, writing off to the US to order records that hadn't been released in the UK, and by most accounts by the late fifties he'd put together the biggest blues collection in Britain by quite some way. Not only that, but he had one of the earliest home tape recorders, and every night he would record radio stations from Continental Europe which were broadcasting for American service personnel, so he'd amassed mountains of recordings, often unlabelled, of obscure blues records that nobody else in the UK knew about. He was also an accomplished pianist and guitar player, and in 1956 he and his drummer friend Peter Ward had put together a band called the Powerhouse Four (the other two members rotated on a regular basis) mostly to play lunchtime jazz sessions at the art college. Mayall also started putting on jam sessions at a youth club in Wythenshawe, where he met another drummer named Hughie Flint. Over the late fifties and into the early sixties, Mayall more or less by himself built up a small blues scene in Manchester. The Manchester blues scene was so enthusiastic, in fact, that when the American Folk Blues Festival, an annual European tour which initially featured Willie Dixon, Memhis Slim, T-Bone Walker, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, and John Lee Hooker, first toured Europe, the only UK date it played was at the Manchester Free Trade Hall, and people like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones and Jimmy Page had to travel up from London to see it. But still, the number of blues fans in Manchester, while proportionally large, was objectively small enough that Mayall was captivated by an article in Melody Maker which talked about Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies' new band Blues Incorporated and how it was playing electric blues, the same music he was making in Manchester. He later talked about how the article had made him think that maybe now people would know what he was talking about. He started travelling down to London to play gigs for the London blues scene, and inviting Korner up to Manchester to play shows there. Soon Mayall had moved down to London. Korner introduced Mayall to Davey Graham, the great folk guitarist, with whom Korner had recently recorded as a duo: [Excerpt: Alexis Korner and Davey Graham, "3/4 AD"] Mayall and Graham performed together as a duo for a while, but Graham was a natural solo artist if ever there was one. Slowly Mayall put a band together in London. On drums was his old friend Peter Ward, who'd moved down from Manchester with him. On bass was John McVie, who at the time knew nothing about blues -- he'd been playing in a Shadows-style instrumental group -- but Mayall gave him a stack of blues records to listen to to get the feeling. And on guitar was Bernie Watson, who had previously played with Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages. In late 1963, Mike Vernon, a blues fan who had previously published a Yardbirds fanzine, got a job working for Decca records, and immediately started signing his favourite acts from the London blues circuit. The first act he signed was John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, and they recorded a single, "Crawling up a Hill": [Excerpt: John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, "Crawling up a Hill (45 version)"] Mayall later called that a "clumsy, half-witted attempt at autobiographical comment", and it sold only five hundred copies. It would be the only record the Bluesbreakers would make with Watson, who soon left the band to be replaced by Roger Dean (not the same Roger Dean who later went on to design prog rock album covers). The second group to be signed by Mike Vernon to Decca was the Graham Bond Organisation. We've talked about the Graham Bond Organisation in passing several times, but not for a while and not in any great detail, so it's worth pulling everything we've said about them so far together and going through it in a little more detail. The Graham Bond Organisation, like the Rolling Stones, grew out of Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated. As we heard in the episode on "I Wanna Be Your Man" a couple of years ago, Blues Incorporated had been started by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies, and at the time we're joining them in 1962 featured a drummer called Charlie Watts, a pianist called Dave Stevens, and saxophone player Dick Heckstall-Smith, as well as frequent guest performers like a singer who called himself Mike Jagger, and another one, Roderick Stewart. That group finally found themselves the perfect bass player when Dick Heckstall-Smith put together a one-off group of jazz players to play an event at Cambridge University. At the gig, a little Scottish man came up to the group and told them he played bass and asked if he could sit in. They told him to bring along his instrument to their second set, that night, and he did actually bring along a double bass. Their bluff having been called, they decided to play the most complicated, difficult, piece they knew in order to throw the kid off -- the drummer, a trad jazz player named Ginger Baker, didn't like performing with random sit-in guests -- but astonishingly he turned out to be really good. Heckstall-Smith took down the bass player's name and phone number and invited him to a jam session with Blues Incorporated. After that jam session, Jack Bruce quickly became the group's full-time bass player. Bruce had started out as a classical cellist, but had switched to the double bass inspired by Bach, who he referred to as "the guv'nor of all bass players". His playing up to this point had mostly been in trad jazz bands, and he knew nothing of the blues, but he quickly got the hang of the genre. Bruce's first show with Blues Incorporated was a BBC recording: [Excerpt: Blues Incorporated, "Hoochie Coochie Man (BBC session)"] According to at least one source it was not being asked to take part in that session that made young Mike Jagger decide there was no future for him with Blues Incorporated and to spend more time with his other group, the Rollin' Stones. Soon after, Charlie Watts would join him, for almost the opposite reason -- Watts didn't want to be in a band that was getting as big as Blues Incorporated were. They were starting to do more BBC sessions and get more gigs, and having to join the Musicians' Union. That seemed like a lot of work. Far better to join a band like the Rollin' Stones that wasn't going anywhere. Because of Watts' decision to give up on potential stardom to become a Rollin' Stone, they needed a new drummer, and luckily the best drummer on the scene was available. But then the best drummer on the scene was *always* available. Ginger Baker had first played with Dick Heckstall-Smith several years earlier, in a trad group called the Storyville Jazzmen. There Baker had become obsessed with the New Orleans jazz drummer Baby Dodds, who had played with Louis Armstrong in the 1920s. Sadly because of 1920s recording technology, he hadn't been able to play a full kit on the recordings with Armstrong, being limited to percussion on just a woodblock, but you can hear his drumming style much better in this version of "At the Jazz Band Ball" from 1947, with Mugsy Spanier, Jack Teagarden, Cyrus St. Clair and Hank Duncan: [Excerpt: "At the Jazz Band Ball"] Baker had taken Dobbs' style and run with it, and had quickly become known as the single best player, bar none, on the London jazz scene -- he'd become an accomplished player in multiple styles, and was also fluent in reading music and arranging. He'd also, though, become known as the single person on the entire scene who was most difficult to get along with. He resigned from his first band onstage, shouting "You can stick your band up your arse", after the band's leader had had enough of him incorporating bebop influences into their trad style. Another time, when touring with Diz Disley's band, he was dumped in Germany with no money and no way to get home, because the band were so sick of him. Sometimes this was because of his temper and his unwillingness to suffer fools -- and he saw everyone else he ever met as a fool -- and sometimes it was because of his own rigorous musical ideas. He wanted to play music *his* way, and wouldn't listen to anyone who told him different. Both of these things got worse after he fell under the influence of a man named Phil Seaman, one of the only drummers that Baker respected at all. Seaman introduced Baker to African drumming, and Baker started incorporating complex polyrhythms into his playing as a result. Seaman also though introduced Baker to heroin, and while being a heroin addict in the UK in the 1960s was not as difficult as it later became -- both heroin and cocaine were available on prescription to registered addicts, and Baker got both, which meant that many of the problems that come from criminalisation of these drugs didn't affect addicts in the same way -- but it still did not, by all accounts, make him an easier person to get along with. But he *was* a fantastic drummer. As Dick Heckstall-Smith said "With the advent of Ginger, the classic Blues Incorporated line-up, one which I think could not be bettered, was set" But Alexis Korner decided that the group could be bettered, and he had some backers within the band. One of the other bands on the scene was the Don Rendell Quintet, a group that played soul jazz -- that style of jazz that bridged modern jazz and R&B, the kind of music that Ray Charles and Herbie Hancock played: [Excerpt: The Don Rendell Quintet, "Manumission"] The Don Rendell Quintet included a fantastic multi-instrumentalist, Graham Bond, who doubled on keyboards and saxophone, and Bond had been playing occasional experimental gigs with the Johnny Burch Octet -- a group led by another member of the Rendell Quartet featuring Heckstall-Smith, Bruce, Baker, and a few other musicians, doing wholly-improvised music. Heckstall-Smith, Bruce, and Baker all enjoyed playing with Bond, and when Korner decided to bring him into the band, they were all very keen. But Cyril Davies, the co-leader of the band with Korner, was furious at the idea. Davies wanted to play strict Chicago and Delta blues, and had no truck with other forms of music like R&B and jazz. To his mind it was bad enough that they had a sax player. But the idea that they would bring in Bond, who played sax and... *Hammond* organ? Well, that was practically blasphemy. Davies quit the group at the mere suggestion. Bond was soon in the band, and he, Bruce, and Baker were playing together a *lot*. As well as performing with Blues Incorporated, they continued playing in the Johnny Burch Octet, and they also started performing as the Graham Bond Trio. Sometimes the Graham Bond Trio would be Blues Incorporated's opening act, and on more than one occasion the Graham Bond Trio, Blues Incorporated, and the Johnny Burch Octet all had gigs in different parts of London on the same night and they'd have to frantically get from one to the other. The Graham Bond Trio also had fans in Manchester, thanks to the local blues scene there and their connection with Blues Incorporated, and one night in February 1963 the trio played a gig there. They realised afterwards that by playing as a trio they'd made £70, when they were lucky to make £20 from a gig with Blues Incorporated or the Octet, because there were so many members in those bands. Bond wanted to make real money, and at the next rehearsal of Blues Incorporated he announced to Korner that he, Bruce, and Baker were quitting the band -- which was news to Bruce and Baker, who he hadn't bothered consulting. Baker, indeed, was in the toilet when the announcement was made and came out to find it a done deal. He was going to kick up a fuss and say he hadn't been consulted, but Korner's reaction sealed the deal. As Baker later said "‘he said “it's really good you're doing this thing with Graham, and I wish you the best of luck” and all that. And it was a bit difficult to turn round and say, “Well, I don't really want to leave the band, you know.”'" The Graham Bond Trio struggled at first to get the gigs they were expecting, but that started to change when in April 1963 they became the Graham Bond Quartet, with the addition of virtuoso guitarist John McLaughlin. The Quartet soon became one of the hottest bands on the London R&B scene, and when Duffy Power, a Larry Parnes teen idol who wanted to move into R&B, asked his record label to get him a good R&B band to back him on a Beatles cover, it was the Graham Bond Quartet who obliged: [Excerpt: Duffy Power, "I Saw Her Standing There"] The Quartet also backed Power on a package tour with other Parnes acts, but they were also still performing their own blend of hard jazz and blues, as can be heard in this recording of the group live in June 1953: [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Quartet, "Ho Ho Country Kicking Blues (Live at Klooks Kleek)"] But that lineup of the group didn't last very long. According to the way Baker told the story, he fired McLaughlin from the group, after being irritated by McLaughlin complaining about something on a day when Baker was out of cocaine and in no mood to hear anyone else's complaints. As Baker said "We lost a great guitar player and I lost a good friend." But the Trio soon became a Quartet again, as Dick Heckstall-Smith, who Baker had wanted in the band from the start, joined on saxophone to replace McLaughlin's guitar. But they were no longer called the Graham Bond Quartet. Partly because Heckstall-Smith joining allowed Bond to concentrate just on his keyboard playing, but one suspects partly to protect against any future lineup changes, the group were now The Graham Bond ORGANisation -- emphasis on the organ. The new lineup of the group got signed to Decca by Vernon, and were soon recording their first single, "Long Tall Shorty": [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Long Tall Shorty"] They recorded a few other songs which made their way onto an EP and an R&B compilation, and toured intensively in early 1964, as well as backing up Power on his follow-up to "I Saw Her Standing There", his version of "Parchman Farm": [Excerpt: Duffy Power, "Parchman Farm"] They also appeared in a film, just like the Beatles, though it was possibly not quite as artistically successful as "A Hard Day's Night": [Excerpt: Gonks Go Beat trailer] Gonks Go Beat is one of the most bizarre films of the sixties. It's a far-future remake of Romeo and Juliet. where the two star-crossed lovers are from opposing countries -- Beatland and Ballad Isle -- who only communicate once a year in an annual song contest which acts as their version of a war, and is overseen by "Mr. A&R", played by Frank Thornton, who would later star in Are You Being Served? Carry On star Kenneth Connor is sent by aliens to try to bring peace to the two warring countries, on pain of exile to Planet Gonk, a planet inhabited solely by Gonks (a kind of novelty toy for which there was a short-lived craze then). Along the way Connor encounters such luminaries of British light entertainment as Terry Scott and Arthur Mullard, as well as musical performances by Lulu, the Nashville Teens, and of course the Graham Bond Organisation, whose performance gets them a telling-off from a teacher: [Excerpt: Gonks Go Beat!] The group as a group only performed one song in this cinematic masterpiece, but Baker also made an appearance in a "drum battle" sequence where eight drummers played together: [Excerpt: Gonks Go Beat drum battle] The other drummers in that scene included, as well as some lesser-known players, Andy White who had played on the single version of "Love Me Do", Bobby Graham, who played on hits by the Kinks and the Dave Clark Five, and Ronnie Verrell, who did the drumming for Animal in the Muppet Show. Also in summer 1964, the group performed at the Fourth National Jazz & Blues Festival in Richmond -- the festival co-founded by Chris Barber that would evolve into the Reading Festival. The Yardbirds were on the bill, and at the end of their set they invited Bond, Baker, Bruce, Georgie Fame, and Mike Vernon onto the stage with them, making that the first time that Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Jack Bruce were all on stage together. Soon after that, the Graham Bond Organisation got a new manager, Robert Stigwood. Things hadn't been working out for them at Decca, and Stigwood soon got the group signed to EMI, and became their producer as well. Their first single under Stigwood's management was a cover version of the theme tune to the Debbie Reynolds film "Tammy". While that film had given Tamla records its name, the song was hardly an R&B classic: [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Tammy"] That record didn't chart, but Stigwood put the group out on the road as part of the disastrous Chuck Berry tour we heard about in the episode on "All You Need is Love", which led to the bankruptcy of  Robert Stigwood Associates. The Organisation moved over to Stigwood's new company, the Robert Stigwood Organisation, and Stigwood continued to be the credited producer of their records, though after the "Tammy" disaster they decided they were going to take charge themselves of the actual music. Their first album, The Sound of 65, was recorded in a single three-hour session, and they mostly ran through their standard set -- a mixture of the same songs everyone else on the circuit was playing, like "Hoochie Coochie Man", "Got My Mojo Working", and "Wade in the Water", and originals like Bruce's "Train Time": [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Train Time"] Through 1965 they kept working. They released a non-album single, "Lease on Love", which is generally considered to be the first pop record to feature a Mellotron: [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Lease on Love"] and Bond and Baker also backed another Stigwood act, Winston G, on his debut single: [Excerpt: Winston G, "Please Don't Say"] But the group were developing severe tensions. Bruce and Baker had started out friendly, but by this time they hated each other. Bruce said he couldn't hear his own playing over Baker's loud drumming, Baker thought that Bruce was far too fussy a player and should try to play simpler lines. They'd both try to throw each other during performances, altering arrangements on the fly and playing things that would trip the other player up. And *neither* of them were particularly keen on Bond's new love of the Mellotron, which was all over their second album, giving it a distinctly proto-prog feel at times: [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Baby Can it Be True?"] Eventually at a gig in Golders Green, Baker started throwing drumsticks at Bruce's head while Bruce was trying to play a bass solo. Bruce retaliated by throwing his bass at Baker, and then jumping on him and starting a fistfight which had to be broken up by the venue security. Baker fired Bruce from the band, but Bruce kept turning up to gigs anyway, arguing that Baker had no right to sack him as it was a democracy. Baker always claimed that in fact Bond had wanted to sack Bruce but hadn't wanted to get his hands dirty, and insisted that Baker do it, but neither Bond nor Heckstall-Smith objected when Bruce turned up for the next couple of gigs. So Baker took matters into his own hands, He pulled out a knife and told Bruce "If you show up at one more gig, this is going in you." Within days, Bruce was playing with John Mayall, whose Bluesbreakers had gone through some lineup changes by this point. Roger Dean had only played with the Bluesbreakers for a short time before Mayall had replaced him. Mayall had not been impressed with Eric Clapton's playing with the Yardbirds at first -- even though graffiti saying "Clapton is God" was already starting to appear around London -- but he had been *very* impressed with Clapton's playing on "Got to Hurry", the B-side to "For Your Love": [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, "Got to Hurry"] When he discovered that Clapton had quit the band, he sprang into action and quickly recruited him to replace Dean. Clapton knew he had made the right choice when a month after he'd joined, the group got the word that Bob Dylan had been so impressed with Mayall's single "Crawling up a Hill" -- the one that nobody liked, not even Mayall himself -- that he wanted to jam with Mayall and his band in the studio. Clapton of course went along: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan and the Bluesbreakers, "If You Gotta Go, Go Now"] That was, of course, the session we've talked about in the Velvet Underground episode and elsewhere of which little other than that survives, and which Nico attended. At this point, Mayall didn't have a record contract, his experience recording with Mike Vernon having been no more successful than the Bond group's had been. But soon he got a one-off deal -- as a solo artist, not with the Bluesbreakers -- with Immediate Records. Clapton was the only member of the group to play on the single, which was produced by Immediate's house producer Jimmy Page: [Excerpt: John Mayall, "I'm Your Witchdoctor"] Page was impressed enough with Clapton's playing that he invited him round to Page's house to jam together. But what Clapton didn't know was that Page was taping their jam sessions, and that he handed those tapes over to Immediate Records -- whether he was forced to by his contract with the label or whether that had been his plan all along depends on whose story you believe, but Clapton never truly forgave him. Page and Clapton's guitar-only jams had overdubs by Bill Wyman, Ian Stewart, and drummer Chris Winter, and have been endlessly repackaged on blues compilations ever since: [Excerpt: Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, "Draggin' My Tail"] But Mayall was having problems with John McVie, who had started to drink too much, and as soon as he found out that Jack Bruce was sacked by the Graham Bond Organisation, Mayall got in touch with Bruce and got him to join the band in McVie's place. Everyone was agreed that this lineup of the band -- Mayall, Clapton, Bruce, and Hughie Flint -- was going places: [Excerpt: John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Jack Bruce, "Hoochie Coochie Man"] Unfortunately, it wasn't going to last long. Clapton, while he thought that Bruce was the greatest bass player he'd ever worked with, had other plans. He was going to leave the country and travel the world as a peripatetic busker. He was off on his travels, never to return. Luckily, Mayall had someone even better waiting in the wings. A young man had, according to Mayall, "kept coming down to all the gigs and saying, “Hey, what are you doing with him?” – referring to whichever guitarist was onstage that night – “I'm much better than he is. Why don't you let me play guitar for you?” He got really quite nasty about it, so finally, I let him sit in. And he was brilliant." Peter Green was probably the best blues guitarist in London at that time, but this lineup of the Bluesbreakers only lasted a handful of gigs -- Clapton discovered that busking in Greece wasn't as much fun as being called God in London, and came back very soon after he'd left. Mayall had told him that he could have his old job back when he got back, and so Green was out and Clapton was back in. And soon the Bluesbreakers' revolving door revolved again. Manfred Mann had just had a big hit with "If You Gotta Go, Go Now", the same song we heard Dylan playing earlier: [Excerpt: Manfred Mann, "If You Gotta Go, Go Now"] But their guitarist, Mike Vickers, had quit. Tom McGuinness, their bass player, had taken the opportunity to switch back to guitar -- the instrument he'd played in his first band with his friend Eric Clapton -- but that left them short a bass player. Manfred Mann were essentially the same kind of band as the Graham Bond Organisation -- a Hammond-led group of virtuoso multi-instrumentalists who played everything from hardcore Delta blues to complex modern jazz -- but unlike the Bond group they also had a string of massive pop hits, and so made a lot more money. The combination was irresistible to Bruce, and he joined the band just before they recorded an EP of jazz instrumental versions of recent hits: [Excerpt: Manfred Mann, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"] Bruce had also been encouraged by Robert Stigwood to do a solo project, and so at the same time as he joined Manfred Mann, he also put out a solo single, "Drinkin' and Gamblin'" [Excerpt: Jack Bruce, "Drinkin' and Gamblin'"] But of course, the reason Bruce had joined Manfred Mann was that they were having pop hits as well as playing jazz, and soon they did just that, with Bruce playing on their number one hit "Pretty Flamingo": [Excerpt: Manfred Mann, "Pretty Flamingo"] So John McVie was back in the Bluesbreakers, promising to keep his drinking under control. Mike Vernon still thought that Mayall had potential, but the people at Decca didn't agree, so Vernon got Mayall and Clapton -- but not the other band members -- to record a single for a small indie label he ran as a side project: [Excerpt: John Mayall and Eric Clapton, "Bernard Jenkins"] That label normally only released records in print runs of ninety-nine copies, because once you hit a hundred copies you had to pay tax on them, but there was so much demand for that single that they ended up pressing up five hundred copies, making it the label's biggest seller ever. Vernon eventually convinced the heads at Decca that the Bluesbreakers could be truly big, and so he got the OK to record the album that would generally be considered the greatest British blues album of all time -- Blues Breakers, also known as the Beano album because of Clapton reading a copy of the British kids' comic The Beano in the group photo on the front. [Excerpt: John Mayall with Eric Clapton, "Ramblin' On My Mind"] The album was a mixture of originals by Mayall and the standard repertoire of every blues or R&B band on the circuit -- songs like "Parchman Farm" and "What'd I Say" -- but what made the album unique was Clapton's guitar tone. Much to the chagrin of Vernon, and of engineer Gus Dudgeon, Clapton insisted on playing at the same volume that he would on stage. Vernon later said of Dudgeon "I can remember seeing his face the very first time Clapton plugged into the Marshall stack and turned it up and started playing at the sort of volume he was going to play. You could almost see Gus's eyes meet over the middle of his nose, and it was almost like he was just going to fall over from the sheer power of it all. But after an enormous amount of fiddling around and moving amps around, we got a sound that worked." [Excerpt: John Mayall with Eric Clapton, "Hideaway"] But by the time the album cane out. Clapton was no longer with the Bluesbreakers. The Graham Bond Organisation had struggled on for a while after Bruce's departure. They brought in a trumpet player, Mike Falana, and even had a hit record -- or at least, the B-side of a hit record. The Who had just put out a hit single, "Substitute", on Robert Stigwood's record label, Reaction: [Excerpt: The Who, "Substitute"] But, as you'll hear in episode 183, they had moved to Reaction Records after a falling out with their previous label, and with Shel Talmy their previous producer. The problem was, when "Substitute" was released, it had as its B-side a song called "Circles" (also known as "Instant Party -- it's been released under both names). They'd recorded an earlier version of the song for Talmy, and just as "Substitute" was starting to chart, Talmy got an injunction against the record and it had to be pulled. Reaction couldn't afford to lose the big hit record they'd spent money promoting, so they needed to put it out with a new B-side. But the Who hadn't got any unreleased recordings. But the Graham Bond Organisation had, and indeed they had an unreleased *instrumental*. So "Waltz For a Pig" became the B-side to a top-five single, credited to The Who Orchestra: [Excerpt: The Who Orchestra, "Waltz For a Pig"] That record provided the catalyst for the formation of Cream, because Ginger Baker had written the song, and got £1,350 for it, which he used to buy a new car. Baker had, for some time, been wanting to get out of the Graham Bond Organisation. He was trying to get off heroin -- though he would make many efforts to get clean over the decades, with little success -- while Bond was starting to use it far more heavily, and was also using acid and getting heavily into mysticism, which Baker despised. Baker may have had the idea for what he did next from an article in one of the music papers. John Entwistle of the Who would often tell a story about an article in Melody Maker -- though I've not been able to track down the article itself to get the full details -- in which musicians were asked to name which of their peers they'd put into a "super-group". He didn't remember the full details, but he did remember that the consensus choice had had Eric Clapton on lead guitar, himself on bass, and Ginger Baker on drums. As he said later "I don't remember who else was voted in, but a few months later, the Cream came along, and I did wonder if somebody was maybe believing too much of their own press". Incidentally, like The Buffalo Springfield and The Pink Floyd, Cream, the band we are about to meet, had releases both with and without the definite article, and Eric Clapton at least seems always to talk about them as "the Cream" even decades later, but they're primarily known as just Cream these days. Baker, having had enough of the Bond group, decided to drive up to Oxford to see Clapton playing with the Bluesbreakers. Clapton invited him to sit in for a couple of songs, and by all accounts the band sounded far better than they had previously. Clapton and Baker could obviously play well together, and Baker offered Clapton a lift back to London in his new car, and on the drive back asked Clapton if he wanted to form a new band. Clapton was as impressed by Baker's financial skills as he was by his musicianship. He said later "Musicians didn't have cars. You all got in a van." Clearly a musician who was *actually driving a new car he owned* was going places. He agreed to Baker's plan. But of course they needed a bass player, and Clapton thought he had the perfect solution -- "What about Jack?" Clapton knew that Bruce had been a member of the Graham Bond Organisation, but didn't know why he'd left the band -- he wasn't particularly clued in to what the wider music scene was doing, and all he knew was that Bruce had played with both him and Baker, and that he was the best bass player he'd ever played with. And Bruce *was* arguably the best bass player in London at that point, and he was starting to pick up session work as well as his work with Manfred Mann. For example it's him playing on the theme tune to "After The Fox" with Peter Sellers, the Hollies, and the song's composer Burt Bacharach: [Excerpt: The Hollies with Peter Sellers, "After the Fox"] Clapton was insistent. Baker's idea was that the band should be the best musicians around. That meant they needed the *best* musicians around, not the second best. If Jack Bruce wasn't joining, Eric Clapton wasn't joining either. Baker very reluctantly agreed, and went round to see Bruce the next day -- according to Baker it was in a spirit of generosity and giving Bruce one more chance, while according to Bruce he came round to eat humble pie and beg for forgiveness. Either way, Bruce agreed to join the band. The three met up for a rehearsal at Baker's home, and immediately Bruce and Baker started fighting, but also immediately they realised that they were great at playing together -- so great that they named themselves the Cream, as they were the cream of musicians on the scene. They knew they had something, but they didn't know what. At first they considered making their performances into Dada projects, inspired by the early-twentieth-century art movement. They liked a band that had just started to make waves, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band -- who had originally been called the Bonzo Dog Dada Band -- and they bought some props with the vague idea of using them on stage in the same way the Bonzos did. But as they played together they realised that they needed to do something different from that. At first, they thought they needed a fourth member -- a keyboard player. Graham Bond's name was brought up, but Clapton vetoed him. Clapton wanted Steve Winwood, the keyboard player and vocalist with the Spencer Davis Group. Indeed, Winwood was present at what was originally intended to be the first recording session the trio would play. Joe Boyd had asked Eric Clapton to round up a bunch of players to record some filler tracks for an Elektra blues compilation, and Clapton had asked Bruce and Baker to join him, Paul Jones on vocals, Winwood on Hammond and Clapton's friend Ben Palmer on piano for the session. Indeed, given that none of the original trio were keen on singing, that Paul Jones was just about to leave Manfred Mann, and that we know Clapton wanted Winwood in the band, one has to wonder if Clapton at least half-intended for this to be the eventual lineup of the band. If he did, that plan was foiled by Baker's refusal to take part in the session. Instead, this one-off band, named The Powerhouse, featured Pete York, the drummer from the Spencer Davis Group, on the session, which produced the first recording of Clapton playing on the Robert Johnson song originally titled "Cross Road Blues" but now generally better known just as "Crossroads": [Excerpt: The Powerhouse, "Crossroads"] We talked about Robert Johnson a little back in episode ninety-seven, but other than Bob Dylan, who was inspired by his lyrics, we had seen very little influence from Johnson up to this point, but he's going to be a major influence on rock guitar for the next few years, so we should talk about him a little here. It's often said that nobody knew anything about Robert Johnson, that he was almost a phantom other than his records which existed outside of any context as artefacts of their own. That's... not really the case. Johnson had died a little less than thirty years earlier, at only twenty-seven years old. Most of his half-siblings and step-siblings were alive, as were his son, his stepson, and dozens of musicians he'd played with over the years, women he'd had affairs with, and other assorted friends and relatives. What people mean is that information about Johnson's life was not yet known by people they consider important -- which is to say white blues scholars and musicians. Indeed, almost everything people like that -- people like *me* -- know of the facts of Johnson's life has only become known to us in the last four years. If, as some people had expected, I'd started this series with an episode on Johnson, I'd have had to redo the whole thing because of the information that's made its way to the public since then. But here's what was known -- or thought -- by white blues scholars in 1966. Johnson was, according to them, a field hand from somewhere in Mississippi, who played the guitar in between working on the cotton fields. He had done two recording sessions, in 1936 and 1937. One song from his first session, "Terraplane Blues", had been a very minor hit by blues standards: [Excerpt: Robert Johnson, "Terraplane Blues"] That had sold well -- nobody knows how well, but maybe as many as ten thousand copies, and it was certainly a record people knew in 1937 if they liked the Delta blues, but ten thousand copies total is nowhere near the sales of really successful records, and none of the follow-ups had sold anything like that much -- many of them had sold in the hundreds rather than the thousands. As Elijah Wald, one of Johnson's biographers put it "knowing about Johnson and Muddy Waters but not about Leroy Carr or Dinah Washington was like knowing about, say, the Sir Douglas Quintet but not knowing about the Beatles" -- though *I* would add that the Sir Douglas Quintet were much bigger during the sixties than Johnson was during his lifetime. One of the few white people who had noticed Johnson's existence at all was John Hammond, and he'd written a brief review of Johnson's first two singles under a pseudonym in a Communist newspaper. I'm going to quote it here, but the word he used to talk about Black people was considered correct then but isn't now, so I'll substitute Black for that word: "Before closing we cannot help but call your attention to the greatest [Black] blues singer who has cropped up in recent years, Robert Johnson. Recording them in deepest Mississippi, Vocalion has certainly done right by us and by the tunes "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" and "Terraplane Blues", to name only two of the four sides already released, sung to his own guitar accompaniment. Johnson makes Leadbelly sound like an accomplished poseur" Hammond had tried to get Johnson to perform at the Spirituals to Swing concerts we talked about in the very first episodes of the podcast, but he'd discovered that he'd died shortly before. He got Big Bill Broonzy instead, and played a couple of Johnson's records from a record player on the stage. Hammond introduced those recordings with a speech: "It is tragic that an American audience could not have been found seven or eight years ago for a concert of this kind. Bessie Smith was still at the height of her career and Joe Smith, probably the greatest trumpet player America ever knew, would still have been around to play obbligatos for her...dozens of other artists could have been there in the flesh. But that audience as well as this one would not have been able to hear Robert Johnson sing and play the blues on his guitar, for at that time Johnson was just an unknown hand on a Robinsonville, Mississippi plantation. Robert Johnson was going to be the big surprise of the evening for this audience at Carnegie Hall. I know him only from his Vocalion blues records and from the tall, exciting tales the recording engineers and supervisors used to bring about him from the improvised studios in Dallas and San Antonio. I don't believe Johnson had ever worked as a professional musician anywhere, and it still knocks me over when I think of how lucky it is that a talent like his ever found its way onto phonograph records. We will have to be content with playing two of his records, the old "Walkin' Blues" and the new, unreleased, "Preachin' Blues", because Robert Johnson died last week at the precise moment when Vocalion scouts finally reached him and told him that he was booked to appear at Carnegie Hall on December 23. He was in his middle twenties and nobody seems to know what caused his death." And that was, for the most part, the end of Robert Johnson's impact on the culture for a generation. The Lomaxes went down to Clarksdale, Mississippi a couple of years later -- reports vary as to whether this was to see if they could find Johnson, who they were unaware was dead, or to find information out about him, and they did end up recording a young singer named Muddy Waters for the Library of Congress, including Waters' rendition of "32-20 Blues", Johnson's reworking of Skip James' "Twenty-Two Twenty Blues": [Excerpt: Muddy Waters, "32-20 Blues"] But Johnson's records remained unavailable after their initial release until 1959, when the blues scholar Samuel Charters published the book The Country Blues, which was the first book-length treatment ever of Delta blues. Sixteen years later Charters said "I shouldn't have written The Country Blues when I did; since I really didn't know enough, but I felt I couldn't afford to wait. So The Country Blues was two things. It was a romanticization of certain aspects of black life in an effort to force the white society to reconsider some of its racial attitudes, and on the other hand it was a cry for help. I wanted hundreds of people to go out and interview the surviving blues artists. I wanted people to record them and document their lives, their environment, and their music, not only so that their story would be preserved but also so they'd get a little money and a little recognition in their last years." Charters talked about Johnson in the book, as one of the performers who played "minor roles in the story of the blues", and said that almost nothing was known about his life. He talked about how he had been poisoned by his common-law wife, about how his records were recorded in a pool hall, and said "The finest of Robert Johnson's blues have a brooding sense of torment and despair. The blues has become a personified figure of despondency." Along with Charters' book came a compilation album of the same name, and that included the first ever reissue of one of Johnson's tracks, "Preaching Blues": [Excerpt: Robert Johnson, "Preaching Blues"] Two years later, John Hammond, who had remained an ardent fan of Johnson, had Columbia put out the King of the Delta Blues Singers album. At the time no white blues scholars knew what Johnson looked like and they had no photos of him, so a generic painting of a poor-looking Black man with a guitar was used for the cover. The liner note to King of the Delta Blues Singers talked about how Johnson was seventeen or eighteen when he made his recordings, how he was "dead before he reached his twenty-first birthday, poisoned by a jealous girlfriend", how he had "seldom, if ever, been away from the plantation in Robinsville, Mississippi, where he was born and raised", and how he had had such stage fright that when he was asked to play in front of other musicians, he'd turned to face a wall so he couldn't see them. And that would be all that any of the members of the Powerhouse would know about Johnson. Maybe they'd also heard the rumours that were starting to spread that Johnson had got his guitar-playing skills by selling his soul to the devil at a crossroads at midnight, but that would have been all they knew when they recorded their filler track for Elektra: [Excerpt: The Powerhouse, "Crossroads"] Either way, the Powerhouse lineup only lasted for that one session -- the group eventually decided that a simple trio would be best for the music they wanted to play. Clapton had seen Buddy Guy touring with just a bass player and drummer a year earlier, and had liked the idea of the freedom that gave him as a guitarist. The group soon took on Robert Stigwood as a manager, which caused more arguments between Bruce and Baker. Bruce was convinced that if they were doing an all-for-one one-for-all thing they should also manage themselves, but Baker pointed out that that was a daft idea when they could get one of the biggest managers in the country to look after them. A bigger argument, which almost killed the group before it started, happened when Baker told journalist Chris Welch of the Melody Maker about their plans. In an echo of the way that he and Bruce had been resigned from Blues Incorporated without being consulted, now with no discussion Manfred Mann and John Mayall were reading in the papers that their band members were quitting before those members had bothered to mention it. Mayall was furious, especially since the album Clapton had played on hadn't yet come out. Clapton was supposed to work a month's notice while Mayall found another guitarist, but Mayall spent two weeks begging Peter Green to rejoin the band. Green was less than eager -- after all, he'd been fired pretty much straight away earlier -- but Mayall eventually persuaded him. The second he did, Mayall turned round to Clapton and told him he didn't have to work the rest of his notice -- he'd found another guitar player and Clapton was fired: [Excerpt: John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, "Dust My Blues"] Manfred Mann meanwhile took on the Beatles' friend Klaus Voorman to replace Bruce. Voorman would remain with the band until the end, and like Green was for Mayall, Voorman was in some ways a better fit for Manfred Mann than Bruce was. In particular he could double on flute, as he did for example on their hit version of Bob Dylan's "The Mighty Quinn": [Excerpt: Manfred Mann "The Mighty Quinn"] The new group, The Cream, were of course signed in the UK to Stigwood's Reaction label. Other than the Who, who only stuck around for one album, Reaction was not a very successful label. Its biggest signing was a former keyboard player for Screaming Lord Sutch, who recorded for them under the names Paul Dean and Oscar, but who later became known as Paul Nicholas and had a successful career in musical theatre and sitcom. Nicholas never had any hits for Reaction, but he did release one interesting record, in 1967: [Excerpt: Oscar, "Over the Wall We Go"] That was one of the earliest songwriting attempts by a young man who had recently named himself David Bowie. Now the group were public, they started inviting journalists to their rehearsals, which were mostly spent trying to combine their disparate musical influences --