Podcasts about Billy Strange

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Best podcasts about Billy Strange

Latest podcast episodes about Billy Strange

El sótano
El sótano - Hits del Billboard; marzo 1965 (parte 1) - 05/03/25

El sótano

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 5, 2025 58:57


Viajamos a marzo de 1965 para recordar singles que llegaron a su puesto más alto en las listas de pop estadounidense en este mes de hace 60 años. Nuevo episodio de esta serie en donde, además de disfrutar recordando grandes canciones, podemos palpar la evolución de la música popular y la gran mezcla de estilos que se daban cita en el Billboard Hot 100.Playlist;(sintonía) BILLY STRANGE “Goldfinger” (top 55)SHIRLEY BASSEY “Goldfinger” (top 8)THE BEATLES “Eight days a week” (top 1)THE TEMPTATIONS “My girl” (top 1)THE SUPREMES “Stop! In the name of love” (top 1)THE VELVELETTES “He was really sayin something” (top 64)JOHNNY RIVERS “Cupid” (top 76)SAM COOKE “A change is gonna come” (top 31)THE IMPRESSIONS “People get ready” (top 14)JERRY BUTLER “Good times” (top 64)THE RONETTES featuring VERONICA “Born to be together” (top 52)THE TRADE WINDS “New York is a lonely town” (top 32)THE BEACH BOYS “Please let me wonder” (top 52)JOE TEX “You better get it” (top 46)FONTELLA BASS and BOBBY McCLURE “Don’t mess up a good thing” (top 33)LITTLE ANTHONY and THE IMPERIALS “Hurt so bad” (top 10)RAY CHARLES “Cry” (top 58)JOHN BARRY and HIS ORCHESTRA “Goldfinger” (top 72)Escuchar audio

El sótano
El sótano - Hits del Billboard; octubre 1964 - 01/10/24

El sótano

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 1, 2024 59:33


Seleccionamos canciones que alcanzaron su puesto más alto en el Billboard Hot 100 en octubre de 1964. En este mes de hace 60 años los ingleses Manfred Mann consiguen un número 1. Pero es la escudería Motown la que saca pecho frente la invasión británica y coloca un buen puñado de bandas en la zona alta de las listas, con mención especial para The Supremes que comenzaban a consolidar su reinado de éxitos.(Foto del podcast; The Temptations)Playlist;(sintonía) BILLY STRANGE “The James Bond heme” (top 58)MANFRED MANN “Do wah diddy diddy” (top 1)THE SUPREMES “Baby love” (top 1)MARTHA and THE VANDELLAS “Dancing in the street” (top 2)FOUR TOPS “Baby I need your lovin” (top 11)THE TEMPTATIONS “Girl (why you wanna make me blue)” (top 26)SANDY NELSON “Teen beat 65” (top 44)THE BEACH BOYS “When I grow up to be a man” (top 9)THE HONDELLS “Little Honda” (top 9)JAN and DEAN “Ride the wild surf” (top 16)WILLIE MITCHELL “20-75” (top 31)THE BLENDELLS “La la la la la” (top 62)CHAD and JEREMY “A summer song” (top 7)THE BEATLES “Matchbox” (top 17)BILLYJ KRAMER and THE DAKOTAS “From a window” (top 23)DON COVAY and THE GOODTIMERS “Mercy mercy” (top 35)THE IMPRESSIONS “You must belive me” (top 15)THE KINGSMEN “Death of an angel” (top 42)DEL SHANNON “Do you want to dance” (top 43)THE JELLY BEANS “Baby be mine” (top 51)Escuchar audio

Deeper Roots Radio Podcast
Episode 20: Freedom Train

Deeper Roots Radio Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 5, 2024 117:22


Summer's in full tilt and we're not ready quite yet for the heat. But that won't stop us cartwheeling down the musical halls as we take an eclectic ride on a free form Friday. Themes and tradition will rule today's playlists, making way for some great roots rock favorites from Elvis, Chuck Berry and Roy Orbison. Country music is well represented with a lonesome George Strait train song, some hellbound Billy Strange, and a trip to Texas with Iris DeMent. KOWS Community Radio features Deeper Roots each and every Friday morning at 9 Pacific and this particular morning is no different save for a few snowflakes in the wind. We'll also dig deeper for some tracks from The Ravens, The Golden Nuggets, The Beach Boys and a little bit of Dr. John. Join us on our free form journey! 

Trivia Tracks With Pryce Robertson

The session guitarist, originally a member of producer Phil Spector's Wrecking Crew, played with dozens of artists from the Beach Boys to Elvis Presley.  

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"PUT ON A STACK OF 45's"- NANCY SINATRA AND LEE HAZLEWOOD- "SOME VELVET MORNING" - Dig This With The Splendid Bohemians - Featuring Rich Buckland and Bill "The Mighty Mez" Mesnik -The Boys Devote Each Episode To A Famed 4

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Play Episode Listen Later Aug 18, 2023 44:24


This essay is one in a series celebrating deserving artists or albums not included on NPR Music's list of 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women.Nancy Sinatra, the force who brought "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" to life, was never meant to sing the song at all. The late Lee Hazlewood, a songwriter and producer for the likes of Duane Eddy, had written the single and intended to sing it himself. But once Sinatra heard it, she immediately had a better idea. "He said, 'It's not really a girl's song. I sing it myself onstage.' I told him that coming from a guy it was harsh and abusive, but was perfect for a little girl to sing," Sinatra told Los Angeles Magazine last year. The song soared to the top of the Billboard pop charts, scored Sinatra two Grammy nominations and has been covered dozens of times by the likes of Loretta Lynn and a baby-faced Nick Cave.The 1966 hit became an anthem for women who refused to be walked all over, and who threatened to do the very same if crossed. It also proved that Sinatra and Hazlewood collaborations were pure magic, a fact writ large on their first collaborative album, 1968's Nancy & Lee. Composed of covers and Hazlewood-penned tunes, Nancy & Lee is a linchpin of horn-driven, off-kilter, sing-speak '60s pop. While Hazlewood's lysergic jilted cowboy baritone purrs throughout the album, and Billy Strange, of the famed Wrecking Crew, lends a hand arranging and composing the songs here, Sinatra's crystalline pipes, made all the more wonderful because of her expressive singing style, make it glisten.The way Sinatra so nonchalantly sings "go ahead, see if I care" on the album's Johnny and June Carter Cash cover "Jackson", you can almost see her shrugging. On the twinkling closing track "I've Been Down So Long (It Looks Like Up To Me)," Sinatra admits: "Well I pushed him off the ladder of success," giggling; Hazlewood chimes in and says: "That's true!" (The vinyl version of the album features Sinatra and Hazlewood in a Q&A, in which they're asked: "Does 'Lady Bird' contain political overtones?" The two reply: "The only overtones 'Lady Bird' contains are the high notes Lee misses and Nancy laughs at").What stuns about Nancy & Lee, though, is how Sinatra and Hazlewood masterfully marry sunshiny orchestral elements with lyrics that dig at something darker about the human condition, ranging from fleeting lovers and feeling so devastatingly lonesome that another romance seems outside the realm of possibility. On the swelling "Sundown, Sundown," Hazelwood growls: "There's no one in this world for me / There's never gonna be." Then Sinatra comes in, sweeping Strange's orchestral arrangements — and listeners — off their feet as she croons: "Sundown / I miss you, sundown / I need you sundown / Come on, come on, come on, come on back to me."Love is always just out of reach on Nancy & Lee; no one is anyone's baby. It's a sweet, elusive dream thing that lives on only in song. Loving feelings are lost, and in "Summer Wine," characters wake up with their pockets empty, head swelled and with only a fading memory to remind them of the one who got away. The album's core is the

Shadow // Yaddo
Above & Beyond

Shadow // Yaddo

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 4, 2022 29:34


Here are two of the hardest working artists we know: Sculptor Harry Leigh on the decades of discipline that saw him through more than half a century of making art, plus his new show in Berlin. And Acclaimed filmmaker Javier Barboza on growing up in East L.A., turning talent into gold, and building a better world. Contributing artists: Joseph Keckler, Billy Strange, Kid Frost, Delinquent Habits, Eartha Kitt, Kinto Sol.

berlin contributing eartha kitt east l kid frost delinquent habits billy strange joseph keckler
All My Favorite Songs
All My Favorite Songs 030 by Lux Interior - The Purple Knif Show

All My Favorite Songs

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 15, 2022


Erick Lee Purkhiser (October 21, 1946 – February 4, 2009), better known by the stage name Lux Interior, was an American singer and a founding member of the American band The Cramps - exponents of trash culture and 'psychobilly' music - from 1972 until his death in 2009 at age 62. In this episode Lux Interior's favorite and obscure 7 inch records, as played by himself in a much sought-after, classic Hollywood radio show he hosted in July of 1984. Lineup: One Way Streets, Bob Hocko, Swamprats, June Jackson, The Trashmen, Link Wray, Bill Carter And The Rovin' Gamblers, The Tides, Earl Hagan & The Interns, Mad Mike And The Maniacs, Billy Strange, Ted Weems & His Orchestra, Ray Anthony & His Orchestra, Gradie O'Neal, The Enchanters, Sam Space, The Cadettes, Archie Bleyer, Vic Mizzy, The Spark Plugs, The Frantics, The Five Blobs, The Troggs, Ward Darby And The Raves, Cozy Cole, The Deadly Ones

A History Of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs
Episode 129: “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones

A History Of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 30, 2021


Episode 129 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones, and how they went from being a moderately successful beat group to being the only serious rivals to the Beatles. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have an eleven-minute bonus episode available, on "I'll Never Find Another You" by the Seekers. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources As usual I've created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. i used a lot of resources for this episode. Two resources that I've used for this and all future Stones episodes — The Rolling Stones: All The Songs by Phillipe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesden is an invaluable reference book, while Old Gods Almost Dead by Stephen Davis is the least inaccurate biography. When in doubt, the version of the narrative I've chosen to use is the one from Davis' book. I've also used Andrew Loog Oldham's autobiography Stoned, and Keith Richards' Life, though be warned that both casually use slurs. Sympathy for the Devil: The Birth of the Rolling Stones and the Death of Brian Jones by Paul Trynka is, as the title might suggest, essentially special pleading for Jones. It's as well-researched and well-written as a pro-Jones book can be, and is worth reading for balance, though I find it unconvincing. This web page seems to have the most accurate details of the precise dates of sessions and gigs. And this three-CD set contains the A and B sides of all the Stones' singles up to 1971, including every Stones track I excerpt in this episode. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Today, we're going to look at one of the most important riffs in rock and roll history -- the record that turned the distorted guitar riff into the defining feature of the genre, even though the man who played that riff never liked it. We're going to look at a record that took the social protest of the folk-rock movement, aligned it with the misogyny its singer had found in many blues songs, and turned it into the most powerful expression of male adolescent frustration ever recorded to that point. We're going to look at "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Satisfaction"] A note before we start this -- this episode deals with violence against women, and with rape. If you're likely to be upset hearing about those things, you might want to either skip this episode, or read the transcript on the website first. The relevant section comes right at the end of the episode, so you can also listen through to the point where I give another warning, without missing any of the rest of the episode. Another point I should make here -- most of the great sixties groups have very accurate biographies written about them. The Stones, even more than the Beatles, have kept a surprising amount of control over their public image, with the result that the only sources about them are either rather sanitised things made with their co-operation, or rather tabloidy things whose information mostly comes from people who are holding a grudge or have a particular agenda. I believe that everything in this episode is the most likely of the various competing narratives, but if you check out the books I used, which are listed on the blog post associated with this episode, you'll see that there are several different tellings of almost every bit of this story. So bear that in mind as you're listening. I've done my best. Anyway, on with the episode.  When we left the Rolling Stones, they were at the very start of their recording career, having just released their first big hit single, a version of "I Wanna Be Your Man", which had been written for them by Lennon and McCartney.  The day after they first appeared on Top of the Pops, they were back in the recording studio, but not to record for themselves. The five Stones, plus Ian Stewart, were being paid two pounds a head by their manager/producer Andrew Oldham to be someone else's backing group. Oldham was producing a version of "To Know Him is to Love Him", the first hit by his idol Phil Spector, for a new singer he was managing named Cleo Sylvester: [Excerpt: Cleo, "To Know Him is to Love Him"] In a further emulation of Spector, the B-side was a throwaway instrumental. Credited to "the Andrew Oldham Orchestra", and with Mike Leander supervising, the song's title, "There Are But Five Rolling Stones", gave away who the performers actually were: [Excerpt: The Andrew Oldham Orchestra, "There Are But Five Rolling Stones"] At this point, the Stones were still not writing their own material, but Oldham had already seen the writing on the wall -- there was going to be no place in the new world opened up by the Beatles for bands that couldn't generate their own hits, and he had already decided who was going to be doing that for his group.  It would have been natural for him to turn to Brian Jones, still at this point the undisputed leader of the group, and someone who had a marvellous musical mind. But possibly in order to strengthen the group's identity as a group rather than a leader and his followers -- Oldham has made different statements about this at different points -- or possibly just because they were living in the same flat as him at the time, while Jones was living elsewhere, he decided that the Rolling Stones' equivalent of Lennon and McCartney was going to be Jagger and Richards. There are several inconsistencies in the stories of how Jagger and Richards started writing together -- and things like what the actual first song they wrote together was, or when they wrote it, will probably always be lost to the combination of self-aggrandisement and drug-fuelled memory loss that makes it difficult to say anything definitive about much of their career. But we do know that one of the earliest songs they wrote together was "As Tears Go By", a song that wasn't considered suitable for the group -- though they did later record a version of it -- and was given instead to Marianne Faithfull, a young singer with whom Jagger was about to enter into a relationship: [Excerpt: Marianne Faithfull, "As Tears Go By"] It's not entirely clear who wrote what on that song -- it's usually referred to as a Jagger/Richards collaboration, but it's credited to Jagger, Richards, and Oldham, and at least one source claims it was actually written by Jagger and the session guitarist Big Jim Sullivan -- and if so, this would be the first time of many that a song written by Jagger or Richards in collaboration with someone else would be credited to Jagger and Richards without any credit going to their co-writer. But the consensus story, as far as there is a consensus, seems to be that Oldham locked Jagger and Richards into a kitchen, and told them they weren't coming out until they had a song written. And it had to be a proper song, not a pastiche of something else, and it had to be the kind of song you could release as a single, not a blues song. After spending all night in the kitchen, Richards eventually got bored of being stuck in there, and started strumming his guitar and singing "it is the evening of the day", and the two of them quickly came up with the rest of the song. After "As Tears Go By", they wrote a lot of songs that they didn't feel were right for the group, but gave them away to other people, like Gene Pitney, who recorded "That Girl Belongs to Yesterday": [Excerpt: Gene Pitney, "That Girl Belongs to Yesterday"] Pitney, and his former record producer Phil Spector, had visited the Stones during the sessions for their first album, which started the day after that Cleo session, and had added a little piano and percussion to a blues jam called "Little by Little", which also featured Allan Clarke and Graham Nash of the Hollies on backing vocals. The songwriting on that track was credited to Spector and Nanker Phelge, a group pseudonym that was used for jam sessions and instrumentals. It was one of two Nanker Phelge songs on the album, and there was also an early Jagger and Richards song, "Tell Me", an unoriginal Merseybeat pastiche: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Tell Me"] But the bulk of the album was made up of cover versions of songs by Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Rufus Thomas, Marvin Gaye, and other Black American musicians. The album went to number one in the UK album charts, which is a much more impressive achievement than it might sound. At this point, albums sold primarily to adults with spending money, and the album charts changed very slowly. Between May 1963 and February 1968, the *only* artists to have number one albums in the UK were the Beatles, the Stones, Dylan, the Monkees, the cast of The Sound of Music, and Val Doonican. And between May 63 and April 65 it was *only* the Beatles and the Stones. But while they'd had a number one album, they'd still not had a number one single, or even a top ten one. "I Wanna Be Your Man" had been written for them and had hit number twelve, but they were still not writing songs that they thought were suited for release as singles, and they couldn't keep asking the Beatles to help them out, so while Jagger and Richards kept improving as songwriters, for their next single they chose a Buddy Holly B-side: [Excerpt: Buddy Holly, "Not Fade Away"] The group had latched on to the Bo Diddley rhythm in that song, along with its machismo -- many of the cover versions they chose in this period seem to have not just a sexual subtext but to be overtly bragging, and if Little Richard is to be believed on the subject, Holly's line "My love is bigger than a Cadillac" isn't that much of an exaggeration. It's often claimed that the Stones exaggerated and emphasised the Bo Diddley sound, and made their version more of an R&B number than Holly's, but if anything their version owes more to someone else.  The Stones' first real UK tour had been on a bill with Mickie Most, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, and the Everly Brothers, and Keith Richards in particular had been amazed by the Everlys. He said later "The best rhythm guitar playing I ever heard was from Don Everly. Nobody ever thinks about that, but their rhythm guitar playing is perfect". Don Everly, of course, was himself very influenced by Bo Diddley, and learned to play in open-G tuning from Diddley -- and several years later, Keith Richards would make that tuning his own, after being inspired by Everly and Ry Cooder.  The Stones' version of "Not Fade Away" owes at least as much to Don Everly's rhythm guitar style as to that of Holly or Diddley. Compare, say, the opening of "Wake Up Little Suzie": [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, "Wake Up Little Suzie"] The rhythm guitar on the Stones version of "Not Fade Away" is definitely Keith Richards doing Don Everly doing Bo Diddley: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Not Fade Away"] That was recorded during the sessions for their first album, and was, depending on whose story you believe, another track that featured Phil Spector and Gene Pitney on percussion, recorded at the same session as "Little by Little", which became its B-side. Bill Wyman, who kept copious notes of the group's activities, has always said that the idea that it was recorded at that session was nonsense, and that it was recorded weeks later, and Oldham merely claimed Spector was on the record for publicity purposes. On the other hand, Gene Pitney had a very strong memory of being at that session. Spector had been in the country because the Ronettes had been touring the UK with the Stones as one of their support acts, along with the Swinging Blue Jeans and Marty Wilde, and Spector was worried that Ronnie might end up with one of the British musicians. He wasn't wrong to worry -- according to Ronnie's autobiography, there were several occasions when she came very close to sleeping with John Lennon, though they never ended up doing anything and remained just friends, while according to Keith Richards' autobiography he and Ronnie had a chaste affair on that tour which became less chaste when the Stones later hit America. But Spector had flown over to the UK to make sure that he remained in control of the young woman who he considered his property. Pitney, meanwhile, according to his recollection, turned up to the session at the request of Oldham, as the group were fighting in the studio and not getting the track recorded. Pitney arrived with cognac, telling the group that it was his birthday and that they all needed to get drunk with him. They did, they stopped fighting, and they recorded the track: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Not Fade Away"] "Not Fade Away" made number three on the UK charts, and also became the first Stones record to chart in the US at all, though it only scraped its way to number forty-eight, not any higher. But in itself that was a lot -- it meant that the Stones had a record doing well enough to justify them going to the US for their first American tour.  But before that, they had to go through yet another UK tour -- though this isn't counted as an official tour in the listings of their tours, it's just a bunch of shows, in different places, that happened to be almost every night for a couple of months. By this time, the audience response was getting overwhelming, and shows often had to be cut short to keep the group safe. At one show, in Birkenhead, the show had to be stopped after the band played *three bars*, with the group running off stage after that as the audience invaded the stage. And then it was off to the US, where they were nowhere near as big, though while they were over there, "Tell Me" was also released as a single to tie in with the tour, and that did surprisingly well, making number twenty-four. The group's first experience of the US wasn't an entirely positive one -- there was a disastrous appearance on the Dean Martin Show on TV, with Martin mocking the group both before and after their performance, to the extent that Bob Dylan felt moved to write in the liner notes to his next album “Dean Martin should apologise t'the Rolling Stones”. But on the other hand, there were some good experiences. They got to see James Brown at the Apollo, and Jagger started taking notes -- though Richards also noted *what* Jagger was noting, saying "James wanted to show off to these English folk. He's got the Famous Flames, and he's sending one out for a hamburger, he's ordering another to polish his shoes and he's humiliating his own band. To me, it was the Famous Flames, and James Brown happened to be the lead singer. But the way he lorded it over his minions, his minders and the actual band, to Mick was fascinating" They also met up with Murray the K, the DJ who had started the career of the Ronettes among others. Murray had unilaterally declared himself "the fifth Beatle", and was making much of his supposed connections with British pop stars, most of whom either had no idea who he was or actively disliked him (Richards, when talking about him, would often replace the K with a four-letter word usually spelled with a "c"). The Stones didn't like him any more than any of the other groups did, but Murray played them a record he thought they'd be interested in -- "It's All Over Now" by the Valentinos, the song that Bobby Womack had written and which was on Sam Cooke's record label: [Excerpt: The Valentinos, "It's All Over Now"] They decided that they were going to record that, and handily Oldham had already arranged some studio time for them. As Giorgio Gomelsky would soon find with the Yardbirds, Oldham was convinced that British studios were simply unsuitable for recording loud blues-based rock and roll music, and Phil Spector had suggested to him that if the Stones loved Chess records so much, they might as well record at Chess studios.  So while the group were in Chicago, they were booked in for a couple of days in the studio at Chess, where they were horrified to discover that their musical idol Muddy Waters was earning a little extra cash painting the studio ceiling and acting as a roadie, helping them in with their equipment.  (It should be noted here that Marshall Chess, Leonard Chess' son who worked with the Stones in the seventies, has denied this happened. Keith Richards insists it did.) But after that shock, they found working at Chess a great experience. Not only did various of their musical idols, like Willie Dixon and Chuck Berry, as well as Waters, pop in to encourage them, and not only were they working with the same engineer who had recorded many of those people's records, but they were working in a recording studio with an actual multi-track system rather than a shoddy two-track tape recorder. From this point on, while they would still record in the UK on occasion, they increasingly chose to use American studios.  The version of "It's All Over Now" they recorded there was released as their next single. It only made the top thirty in the US -- they had still not properly broken through there -- but it became their first British number one: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "It's All Over Now"] Bobby Womack was furious that the Stones had recorded his song while his version was still new, but Sam Cooke talked him down, explaining that if Womack played his cards right he could have a lot of success through his connection with these British musicians. Once the first royalty cheques came in, Womack wasn't too upset any more. When they returned to the UK, they had another busy schedule of touring and recording -- and not all of it just for Rolling Stones work. There was, for example, an Andrew Oldham Orchestra session, featuring many people from the British session world who we've noted before -- Joe Moretti from Vince Taylor's band, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, Andy White, Mike Leander, and more. Mick Jagger added vocals to their version of "I Get Around": [Excerpt: The Andrew Oldham Orchestra, "I Get Around"] It's possible that Oldham had multiple motives for recording that -- Oldham was always a fan of Beach Boys style pop music more than he was of R&B, but he also was in the process of setting up his own publishing company, and knew that the Beach Boys' publishers didn't operate in the UK. In 1965, Oldham's company would become the Beach Boys' UK publishers, and he would get a chunk of every cover version of their songs, including his own. There were also a lot of demo sessions for Jagger/Richards songs intended for other artists, with Mick and Keith working with those same session musicians -- like this song that they wrote for the comedian Jimmy Tarbuck, demoed by Jagger and Richards with Moretti, Page, Jones, John McLaughlin, Big Jim Sullivan, and Andy White: [Excerpt: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, "We're Wastin' Time"] But of course there were also sessions for Rolling Stones records, like their next UK number one single, "Little Red Rooster": [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Little Red Rooster"] "Little Red Rooster" is a song that is credited to Willie Dixon, but which actually combines several elements from earlier blues songs, including a riff inspired by the one from Son House's "Death Letter Blues": [Excerpt: Son House, "Death Letter Blues"] A melody line and some lines of lyric from Memphis Minnie's "If You See My Rooster": [Excerpt: Memphis Minnie, "If You See My Rooster"] And some lines from Charley Patton's "Banty Rooster Blues": [Excerpt: Charley Patton, "Banty Rooster Blues"] Dixon's resulting song had been recorded by Howlin' Wolf in 1961: [Excerpt: Howlin' Wolf, "Little Red Rooster"] That hadn't been a hit, but Sam Cooke had recorded a cover version, in a very different style, that made the US top twenty and proved the song had chart potential: [Excerpt: Sam Cooke, "Little Red Rooster"] The Rolling Stones version followed Howlin' Wolf's version very closely, except that Jagger states that he *is* a cock -- I'm sorry, a rooster -- rather than that he merely has one. And this would normally be something that would please Brian Jones immensely -- that the group he had formed to promote Delta and Chicago blues had managed to get a song like that to number one in the UK charts, especially as it was dominated by his slide playing. But in fact the record just symbolised the growing estrangement between Jones and the rest of his band. When he turned up at the session to record "Little Red Rooster", he was dismayed to find out that the rest of the group had deliberately told him the wrong date. They'd recorded the track the day before, without him, and just left a note from Jagger to tell him where to put his slide fills. They spent the next few months ping-ponging between the UK and the US. In late 1964 they made another US tour, during which at one point Brian Jones collapsed with what has been variously reported as stress and alcohol poisoning, and had to miss several shows, leaving the group to carry on without him. There was much discussion at this point of just kicking him out of the band, but they decided against it -- he was still perceived as the group's leader and most popular member. They also appeared on the TAMI show, which we've mentioned before, and which we'll look at in more detail when we next look at James Brown, but which is notable here for two things. The first is that they once again saw how good James Brown was, and at this point Jagger decided that he was going to do his best to emulate Brown's performance -- to the extent that he asked a choreographer to figure out what Brown was doing and teach it to him, but the choreographer told Jagger that Brown moved too fast to figure out all his steps. The other is that the musical director for the TAMI Show was Jack Nitzsche, and this would be the start of a professional relationship that would last for many years. We've seen Nitzsche before in various roles -- he was the co-writer of "Needles and Pins", and he was also the arranger on almost all of Phil Spector's hits. He was so important to Spector's sound that Keith Richards has said “Jack was the Genius, not Phil. Rather, Phil took on Jack's eccentric persona and sucked his insides out.” Nitzsche guested on piano when the Stones went into the studio in LA to record a chunk of their next album, including the ballad "Heart of Stone", which would become a single in the US. From that point on, whenever the Stones recorded in LA, Nitzsche would be there, adding keyboards and percussion and acting as an uncredited co-producer and arranger. He was apparently unpaid for this work, which he did just because he enjoyed being around the band. Nitzsche would also play on the group's next UK single, recorded a couple of months later. This would be their third UK number one, and the first one credited to Jagger and Richards as songwriters, though the credit is a rather misleading one in this case, as the chorus is taken directly from a gospel song by Pops Staples, recorded by the Staple Singers: [Excerpt: The Staple Singers, "This May Be The Last Time"] Jagger and Richards took that chorus and reworked it into a snarling song whose lyrics were based around Jagger's then favourite theme -- how annoying it is when women want to do things other than whatever their man wants them to do: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "The Last Time"] There is a deep, deep misogyny in the Stones' lyrics in the mid sixties, partly inspired by the personas taken on by some blues men (though there are very few blues singers who stuck so unrelentingly to a single theme), and partly inspired by Jagger's own relationship with Chrissie Shrimpton, who he regarded as his inferior, even though she was his superior in terms of the British class system. That's even more noticeable on "Play With Fire", the B-side to "The Last Time". "The Last Time" had been recorded in such a long session that Jones, Watts, and Wyman went off to bed, exhausted. But Jagger and Richards wanted to record a demo of another song, which definitely seems to have been inspired by Shrimpton, so they got Jack Nitzsche to play harpsichord and Phil Spector to play (depending on which source you believe) either a bass or a detuned electric guitar: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Play With Fire"] The demo was considered good enough to release, and put out as the B-side without any contribution from the other three Stones. Other songs Chrissie Shrimpton would inspire over the next couple of years would include "Under My Thumb", "19th Nervous Breakdown", and "Stupid Girl". It's safe to say that Mick Jagger wasn't going to win any boyfriend of the year awards. "The Last Time" was a big hit, but the follow-up was the song that turned the Stones from being one of several British bands who were very successful to being the only real challengers to the Beatles for commercial success. And it was a song whose main riff came to Keith Richards in a dream: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction)"] Richards apparently had a tape recorder by the side of his bed, and when the riff came to him he woke up enough to quickly record it before falling back to sleep with the tape running. When he woke up, he'd forgotten the riff, but found it at the beginning of a recording that was otherwise just snoring. For a while Richards was worried he'd ripped the riff off from something else, and he's later said that he thinks that it was inspired by "Dancing in the Street". In fact, it's much closer to the horn line from another Vandellas record, "Nowhere to Run", which also has a similar stomping rhythm: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, "Nowhere to Run"] You can see how similar the two songs are by overlaying the riff from “Satisfaction” on the chorus to “Nowhere to Run”: [Excerpt “Nowhere to Run”/”Satisfaction”] "Nowhere to Run" also has a similar breakdown. Compare the Vandellas: [Excerpt: Martha and the Vandellas, "Nowhere to Run"] to the Stones: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"] So it's fairly clear where the song's inspiration came from, but it's also clear that unlike a song like "The Last Time" this *was* just inspiration, rather than plagiarism.  The recorded version of "Satisfaction" was never one that its main composer was happy with. The group, apart from Brian Jones, who may have added a harmonica part that was later wiped, depending on what sources you read, but is otherwise absent from the track, recorded the basic track at Chess studios, and at this point it was mostly acoustic. Richards thought it had come out sounding too folk-rock, and didn't work at all. At this point Richards was still thinking of the track as a demo -- though by this point he was already aware of Andrew Oldham's tendency to take things that Richards thought were demos and release them. When Richards had come up with the riff, he had imagined it as a horn line, something like the version that Otis Redding eventually recorded: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"] So when they went into the studio in LA with Jack Nitzsche to work on some tracks there including some more work on the demo for “Satisfaction”, as well as Nitzsche adding some piano, Richards also wanted to do something to sketch out what the horn part would be. He tried playing it on his guitar, and it didn't sound right, and so Ian Stewart had an idea, went to a music shop, and got one of the first ever fuzz pedals, to see if Richards' guitar could sound like a horn. Now, people have, over the years, said that "Satisfaction" was the first record ever to use a fuzz tone. This is nonsense. We saw *way* back in the episode on “Rocket '88” a use of a damaged amp as an inspired accident, getting a fuzzy tone, though nobody picked up on that and it was just a one-off thing. Paul Burlison, the guitarist with the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, had a similar accident a few years later, as we also saw, and went with it, deliberately loosening tubes in his amp to get the sound audible on their version of "Train Kept A-Rollin'": [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, "Train Kept A-Rollin'"] A few years later, Grady Martin, the Nashville session player who was the other guitarist on that track, got a similar effect on his six-string bass solo on Marty Robbins' "Don't Worry", possibly partly inspired by Burlison's sound: [Excerpt: Marty Robbins, "Don't Worry"] That tends to be considered the real birth of fuzz, because that time it was picked up by the whole industry. Martin recorded an instrumental showing off the technique: [Excerpt: Grady Martin, "The Fuzz"] And more or less simultaneously, Wrecking Crew guitarist Al Casey used an early fuzz tone on a country record by Sanford Clark: [Excerpt: Sanford Clark, "Go On Home"] And the pedal steel player Red Rhodes had invented his own fuzz box, which he gave to another Wrecking Crew player, Billy Strange, who used it on records like Ann-Margret's "I Just Don't Understand": [Excerpt: Ann-Margret, "I Just Don't Understand"] All those last four tracks, and many more, were from 1960 or 1961. So far from being something unprecedented in recording history, as all too many rock histories will tell you, fuzz guitar was somewhat passe by 1965 -- it had been the big thing on records made by the Nashville A-Team and the Wrecking Crew four or five years earlier, and everyone had moved on to the next gimmick long ago. But it was good enough to use to impersonate a horn to sketch out a line for a demo. Except, of course, that while Jagger and Richards disliked the track as recorded, the other members of the band, and Ian Stewart (who still had a vote even though he was no longer a full member) and Andrew Oldham all thought it was a hit single as it was. They overruled Jagger and Richards and released it complete with fuzz guitar riff, which became one of the most well-known examples of the sound in rock history. To this day, though, when Richards plays the song live, he plays it without the fuzztone effect. Lyrically, the song sees Mick Jagger reaching for the influence of Bob Dylan and trying to write a piece of social commentary. The title line seems, appropriately for a song partly recorded at Chess studios, to have come from a line in a Chuck Berry record, "Thirty Days": [Excerpt: Chuck Berry, "Thirty Days"] But the sentiment also owes more than a little to another record by a Chess star, one recorded so early that it was originally released when Chess was still called Aristocrat Records -- Muddy Waters'  "I Can't Be Satisfied": [Excerpt: Muddy Waters, "I Can't Be Satisfied"] “Satisfaction” is the ultimate exercise in adolescent male frustration. I once read something, and I can't for the life of me remember where or who the author was, that struck me as the most insightful critique of the sixties British blues bands I've ever heard. That person said that by taking the blues out of the context in which the music had been created, they fundamentally changed the meaning of it -- that when Bo Diddley sang "I'm a Man", the subtext was "so don't call me 'boy', cracker". Meanwhile, when some British white teenagers from Essex sang the same words, in complete ignorance of the world in which Diddley lived, what they were singing was "I'm a man now, mummy, so you can't make me tidy my room if I don't want to". But the thing is, there are a lot of teenagers out there who don't want to tidy their rooms, and that kind of message does resonate. And here, Jagger is expressing the kind of aggressive sulk that pretty much every teenager, especially every frustrated male teenager will relate to. The protagonist is dissatisfied with everything in his life, so criticism of the vapidity of advertising is mixed in with sexual frustration because women won't sleep with the protagonist when they're menstruating: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"] It is the most adolescent lyric imaginable, but pop music is an adolescent medium. The song went to number one in the UK, and also became the group's first American number one. But Brian Jones resented it, so much so that when they performed the song live, he'd often start playing “I'm Popeye the Sailor Man”. This was partly because it wasn't the blues he loved, but also because it was the first Stones single he wasn't on (again, at least according to most sources. Some say he played acoustic rhythm guitar, but most say he's not on it and that Richards plays all the guitar parts). And to explain why, I have to get into the unpleasant details I talked about at the start. If you're likely to be upset by discussion of rape or domestic violence, stop the episode now. Now, there are a number of different versions of this story. This is the one that seems most plausible to me, based on what else I know about the Stones, and the different accounts, but some of the details might be wrong, so I don't want anyone to think that I'm saying that this is absolutely exactly what happened. But if it isn't, it's the *kind* of thing that happened many times, and something very like it definitely happened. You see, Brian Jones was a sadist, and not in a good way. There are people who engage in consensual BDSM, in which everyone involved is having a good time, and those people include some of my closest friends. This will never be a podcast that engages in kink-shaming of consensual kinks, and I want to make clear that what I have to say about Jones has nothing to do with that. Because Jones was not into consent. He was into physically injuring non-consenting young women, and he got his sexual kicks from things like beating them with chains. Again, if everyone is involved is consenting, this is perfectly fine, but Jones didn't care about anyone other than himself. At a hotel in Clearwater, Florida, on the sixth of May 1965, the same day that Jagger and Richards finished writing "Satisfaction", a girl that Bill Wyman had slept with the night before came to him in tears. She'd been with a friend the day before, and the friend had gone off with Jones while she'd gone off with Wyman. Jones had raped her friend, and had beaten her up -- he'd blackened both her eyes and done other damage. Jones had hurt this girl so badly that even the other Stones, who as we have seen were very far from winning any awards for being feminists of the year, were horrified. There was some discussion of calling the police on him, but eventually they decided to take matters into their own hands, or at least into one of their employees' hands. They got their roadie Mike Dorsey to teach him a lesson, though Oldham was insistent that Dorsey not mess up Jones' face. Dorsey dangled Jones by his collar and belt out of an upstairs window and told Jones that if he ever did anything like that again, he'd drop him. He also beat him up, cracking two of Jones' ribs. And so Jones was not in any state to play on the group's first US number one, or to play much at all at the session, because of the painkillers he was on for the cracked ribs.  Jones would remain in the band for the next few years, but he had gone from being the group's leader to someone they disliked and were disgusted by. And as we'll see the next couple of times we look at the Stones, he would only get worse.

Cowboy Tracks
Cowboy Tracks Jul 2 2021 Western Ways

Cowboy Tracks

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 2, 2021 58:00


This is an encore presentation of the "Western Ways" episode, originally aired August , 2020. Artists featured include:  Notable Exceptions, Terry Brown, Patty Clayton, Brenn Hill, Billy Strange, The Western Flyers, Ed Wahl, Carolyn Martin, Mark Kerr, Rusted Spurs West, Ramblin' Rangers, Stephanie Davis, Mike Craig, Joyce Woodson, Janet McBride, Wylie & the Wild West, Kristyn Harris, Wes Westmoreland.

A History Of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs
Episode 107: “Surf City” by Jan and Dean

A History Of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 8, 2020


Episode 107 of A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs looks at “Surf City” and the career of Jan and Dean, including a Pop Symphony, accidental conspiracy to kidnap, and a career that both started and ended with attempts to get out of being drafted. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Hey Little Cobra” by the Rip Chords. 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/ —-more—- Resources No Mixcloud this week, due to the number of songs by Jan and Dean. Stephen McParland has published many, many books on the California surf and hot-rod music scenes. The Grand High Potentates of California Rock: Jan and Dean “In Perspective” 1958-1968 is the one I used most here, but I referred to several. His books can be found at https://payhip.com/CMusicBooks I also used Dead Man’s Curve and Back: The Jan and Dean Story by Mark Thomas Passmore, and Dean Torrence’s autobiography Surf City.  The original mono versions of the Liberty singles are only available on an out-of-print CD that goes for over £400, and many compilations have later rerecordings (often by Dean without Jan) but this has the proper recordings, albeit in stereo mixes. This compilation contains their pre-Liberty singles, including the Jan & Arnie material.   Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them?   Transcript A warning about this episode — it features some discussion of a car crash and resulting disability and recovery, which may be upsetting to some people. Today we’re going to look at one of the most successful duos in rock and roll history, but one who have been relegated to a footnote because of their collaboration with a far more successful band, who had a similar sound to them. We’re going to look at Jan and Dean, and at “Surf City”: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, “Surf City”] The story of Jan and Dean begins with Jan and Arnie, and with the Barons. We discussed the Barons briefly in the episode on “LSD-25”, a few months ago, but only in passing, so to recap — the Barons were a singing group that formed at University High School in LA in the late fifties, centred around Jan Berry. Various people involved in the group’s formation went on to be important parts of the LA music scene in the sixties, but by 1958 they were down to Berry and his friends Arnie Ginsburg — not the DJ we talked about last episode, Dean Torrence, and Don Altfeld. The group members all had a love for R&B, and hung around with various of the Black groups of the time — Don Altfeld has talked about him and Berry being present, but not participating, for Richard Berry’s recording of “Louie Louie”, though his memories of the time seem confused in the interviews I’ve read. And Jan Berry in particular was a real music obsessive, and had what may have been the biggest R&B and rock and roll record collection in LA — which he obtained by scamming record companies, which seems to be very in character for him. He got a letterhead made up for a fake radio station, KJAN, and wrote to every record company he could find asking for promo copies. He ended up getting six copies of every new release “to play on the radio”, and would give some of the extra copies to his friends — and others he would use as frisbees. According to Torrence, Berry would often receive two hundred new records a day, all free. Berry had a reel-to-reel tape recorder belonging to his father — his father, William Berry, was important in the Howard Hughes organisation, and had been in charge of the Spruce Goose project, even flying in the famous plane with Hughes, and Hughes had given him the tape recorder, which unlike almost all recording equipment available in the fifties had a primitive reverb function built in. With that and a microphone stolen from the school auditorium, Berry started recording himself and his friends, and he’d wanted to play one of the tapes he’d made at a party, so he’d taken it to a studio to be cut as an acetate, where it had been heard by Joe Lubin of Arwin Records, who took the tape and got session musicians to overdub it: [Excerpt: Jan and Arnie, “Jennie Lee”] That record was released as by Jan and Arnie, rather than the Barons — Dean Torrence was off doing six months in the army, to get out of being conscripted later. Torrence has always said that he could hear himself on the recording, and that it was one the Barons had done together, but everyone else involved has claimed that while the Barons did record a version of that song, the finished version only features Jan and Arnie’s vocals. Don Altfeld didn’t sing on it, because he was never allowed to sing in the Barons — he was forced to just mouth along, which given that both Jan and Dean were known for regularly singing flat must say something about just how bad a singer he is — though he did apparently hit a metal chair leg as percussion on the record. “Jennie Lee” went to number three on the Cashbox chart — number eight on Billboard — and was a big enough hit that it set a precedent for how all the records Jan Berry would be involved in for the next few years would be made — he would record vocals and piano in his garage, with a ton of reverb, and then the backing track would be recorded to that, usually by the same group of musicians that played on records by people like Sam Cooke, Ritchie Valens, and other late-fifties LA singers — a group centred around Ernie Freeman on piano and organ, Rene Hall on guitar, and Earl Palmer on drums. This was a completely backwards way of recording — normally you’d have the musicians play the backing track first and then overdub the vocals on it — but it was how they would carry on doing things for several years. Jan and Arnie’s follow-up, “Gas Money”, written by Berry, Ginsburg, and Altfeld, did less well, only making number eighty-one in the charts: [Excerpt: Jan and Arnie, “Gas Money”] And their third single didn’t chart at all. By this point, Arnie Ginsburg was getting thoroughly sick of working with Jan Berry — pretty much without exception everyone who knew Berry in the fifties and early sixties says two things about him — that he was the single most intelligent person they ever met, and that he was a domineering egomaniac who used anyone he could remorselessly. Jan and Arnie split up, and Arwin Records seems to have decided to stick with Arnie, rather than Jan — though this might have been because Arnie seemed *less* likely to have hits, as Dean Torrence has later claimed that Arwin was a tax dodge — it was owned by Marty Melcher, Doris Day’s husband, and seems to have been used as much to get out of paying as much tax on the family’s vast wealth as it was a real record label. Whatever the reason, though, Arnie made one more single, as The Rituals, backed by many of the people who had played with The Barons — Bruce Johnston, Sandy Nelson, and Dave Shostac, plus their regular collaborators Mike Deasy, Richie Polodor and Harper Cosby. It didn’t chart: [Excerpt: The Rituals, “Girl in Zanzibar”] Dean Torrence, who had by now left the Army, saw his chance, and soon Jan and Arnie had become Jan and Dean — after a brief phase in which it looked like they might persuade Dean to change his name in order to avoid losing the group name. They hooked up with a new management and production team, Lou Adler and Herb Alpert, who had both been working at Keen Records with Sam Cooke. Kim Fowley later said that it was him who persuaded Adler to sign the duo, but Kim Fowley said a lot of things, very few of them true. Adler and Alpert got the new duo signed to Doré Records, a small label based in LA, and their first release on the label was a cover version of a record originally by a group called the Laurels: [Excerpt: The Laurels, “Baby Talk”] Herb Alpert brought that song to the duo, and their version became a top ten hit, with Jan singing the low parts and Dean singing the lead: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, “Baby Talk”] The hit was big enough that budget labels released soundalike cover versions of it, one of which was by a duo called Tom and Jerry, who had been one hit wonders a year earlier: [Excerpt: Tom and Jerry, “Baby Talk”] That cover version was unsuccessful, something Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were probably very grateful for when they reinvented themselves as sensitive folkies a couple of years later. Around this time, Jan got his girlfriend pregnant. In order not to spoil their son’s promising career — as well as being a singer, he was also at university and planned to become a doctor — Jan’s parents adopted his son and raised the boy as their own son. The duo went on a tour with Little Willie John, Bobby Day, and Little Richard’s old backing band The Upsetters, playing to mainly Black audiences — a tour they were booked on because almost all West Coast doo-wop at that time was from Black singers. Once the mistake was realised, a decision was made to promote the new duo’s image more — lots of photos of the very blonde, very white, duo started to be released, as a way to reassure the white audience. The duo’s film-star good looks assured them of regular coverage in the teen magazines, but they didn’t have any more hits on Doré — of the seven singles they released in the two years after “Baby Talk”, none of them got to better than number fifty-three on the charts.  Eventually the duo left Doré, and Jan released one solo single, “Tomorrow’s Teardrops”: [Excerpt: Jan Berry, “Tomorrow’s Teardrops”] That was actually released as by Jan Barry, rather than Jan Berry, at a point when the duo had actually split up — Dean was getting tired of not having any further hit records, and wanted to concentrate on his college work, while Berry was one of those people who needs to be doing several things simultaneously. Berry’s new girlfriend Jill Gibson added backing vocals — by this time he’d dumped the one he’d got pregnant — and the song was written by Berry and Altfeld. Jan actually started his own label, Ripple Records — named after the brand of cheap wine — to release it, and Dean created the logo for him — the first of many he would create over the years. However, the duo soon reunited, and came up with a plan which would have them only touring during the summer break, and doing local performances in the LA area on those weekends when neither had any homework. Now they needed to get signed to a major label. The one they wanted was Liberty, the label that Eddie Cochran had been on, and whose owner, Si Waronker, was actually the cousin of the owners of Doré. And they had recorded a track that they were sure would get them signed to Liberty. The Marcels had recently had a hit with their doo-wop revival of the old standard “Blue Moon”: [Excerpt: The Marcels, “Blue Moon”] Jan had decided to make a soundalike arrangement of another song from the same period, using the same chord changes — the old Hoagy Carmichael song “Heart and Soul”: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, “Heart and Soul”] They were sure that would be a hit. But Herb Alpert wasn’t — he thought it was a dreadful record, He hated it so much, in fact, that he broke up his partnership with Lou Adler. The division of the partnership’s assets was straightforward — they owned Jan and Dean’s contract, and they owned a tape recorder. Alpert got the tape recorder, and Adler got Jan and Dean. Alpert went on to have a string of hit records as a trumpet player, starting with “The Lonely Bull” in 1962: [Excerpt: Herb Alpert, “The Lonely Bull”] He later formed his own record label, A&M, and never seems to have regretted losing Jan & Dean. Jan and Dean took their tape of “Heart and Soul” to Liberty Records, who said that they did want to sign Jan and Dean, but they didn’t want to release a record like that — they told them to take it somewhere else, and then when the single was a flop, they could come back to Liberty and make some proper records. So the duo got a two-record deal with the small label Challenge Records, on the understanding that after those two singles they would move on to Liberty. And “Heart and Soul” turned out to be a big hit, making number twenty-five on the charts: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, “Heart and Soul”] Their second single on Challenge only made number one hundred and four, but by this time they knew the drill — they’d release their first single on a new label, it would be a big hit, then everything after that would be a flop. But they were going to a new label anyway, and they were sure their first single on Liberty Records would be a huge hit, just like every time they changed labels. The first record they put out on Liberty was a cover of another oldie, “A Sunday Kind of Love”, suggested by Si Waronker’s son Lenny, who we’ll be hearing a lot more about in future episodes. By this point Lou Adler was working for Aldon Music as their West Coast representative, and so the track was credited as “produced by Lou Adler for Nevins-Kirshner”, but Jan was given a separate arrangement credit on the record. But despite their predictions that the single would be a hit because it was a new label, it only made number ninety-four on the charts. The follow-up, “Tennessee”, was a song which had been more or less forced on them — it was originally one of the recordings that Phil Spector produced during his short-lived contract with Liberty, for a group called the Ducanes, but when the Ducanes had made a hash of it, Liberty forced the song on Jan & Dean instead: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, “Tennessee”] By this time, while Ernie Freeman was still the studio leader of the session musicians, Jan was requesting a rather larger group of musicians, and they’d started recording the backing tracks first. The musicians on “Tennessee” included Tommy Allsup and Jerry Allison of the Crickets, Earl Palmer on drums, and Glen Campbell on guitar, but even these proven hit-makers couldn’t bring the song to more than number sixty-nine on the charts. And even that was better than their next two singles, neither of which even made the Hot One Hundred — though the fact that by this point they were reduced to recording versions of “Frosty The Snowman”, and attempting to recapture their first hit with a sequel called “She’s Still Talking Baby Talk” shows how desperately they were casting around for something, anything that could be a hit. Eventually they found something that worked. A group called the Regents had recently had a hit with “Barbara Ann”: [Excerpt: The Regents, “Barbara Ann”] The duo had cut a cover version of that for their most recent album, and they thought it had worked well, and so they wanted something else that would allow Dean to sing a falsetto lead, over a bass vocal by Jan, with a girl’s name in the title. They eventually hit on an old standard from the 1940s, originally written as a favour for the songwriter’s lawyer, Lee Eastman, about his then one-year-old daughter Linda (who we’ll be hearing more about later in this series). Their version of “Linda” finally gave them another hit after five flops in a row, reaching number twenty-eight in the charts: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, “Linda”] Their career was on an upswing again, and then everything changed for them when they played a gig with support from a local band who had just started having hits, the Beach Boys. The story goes that the Beach Boys were booked to do their own support slot and then to back Jan and Dean on their set. The show went down well with the audience, and they wanted an encore, but Jan and Dean had run out of rehearsed songs. So they suggested that the Beach Boys play their own two singles again, and Jan and Dean would sing with them. The group were flattered that two big stars like Jan and Dean would want to perform their songs, and eagerly joined in. Suddenly, Jan and Dean had an idea — their next album was going to be called Jan & Dean Take Linda Surfin’, but as yet they hadn’t recorded any surf songs. They invited the Beach Boys to come into the studio and record new versions of their two singles for Jan & Dean’s album, with Jan and Dean singing the leads: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean and the Beach Boys, “Surfin'”] The Beach Boys weren’t credited for that session, as they were signed to another label, but it started a long collaboration between the two groups. In particular, the Beach Boys’ leader Brian Wilson became a close collaborator with Berry. And at that same session, Wilson gave Jan and Dean what would become their biggest hit. After the recording, Jan and Dean asked Wilson if he had any new songs they might be able to do. The first one he played them, “Surfin’ USA”, he told them they couldn’t do anything with as he wanted that for the Beach Boys themselves. But then he played them two others. The one that Jan and Dean saw most potential in was a song he’d completed, “Gonna Hustle You”: [Excerpt: Brian Wilson, “Gonna Hustle You”] The duo wanted that as their next single, but Liberty Records flat out refused to put out something that sounded so dirty as “Gonna Hustle You”. They tried rewriting it as “Get a Chance With You”, but even that was too much. They put the song aside, though they’d return to it later as “The New Girl In School”, which would become a minor hit for them. Instead, they worked on a half-completed song that Wilson had started, very much in the same mould as the first two Beach Boys singles, with the provisional title “Goodie Connie Won’t You Please Come Home”. This song would become the first of many Jan and Dean songs for which the songwriting credit is disputed. No-one argues with the fact that the basic idea of the song was Brian Wilson’s, but Jan Berry’s process was to get a lot of people to throw ideas in, sometimes working in a group, sometimes working separately and not even knowing that other people had been involved. The song is officially credited to Wilson and Berry, but Don Altfeld has also claimed he contributed to it, Dean Torrence says that he wrote about a quarter of the lyrics, and it’s also been suggested that Roger Christian wrote the lyrics to the first verse. Christian was an LA-area DJ who was obsessed with cars, and had come to Wilson’s attention after he’d said on the air that the Beach Boys’ “409” was a great song about a bad car. He’d started writing songs with Wilson, and he would also collaborate with both Jan Berry and Wilson’s friend Gary Usher (who was a big part of this scene but hardly ever worked with Jan and Dean because he hated Jan). Almost every car song from this period, by the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, or any number of studio groups, was co-written by Christian, and we’ll be hearing more about him in a future episode. This group of people — Jan and Dean, Brian Wilson, Roger Christian, and Don Altfeld — would write together in various combinations, and write a lot of hits, but a lot of the credits were assigned more or less randomly — though Jan Berry was almost always credited, and Dean Torrence almost never was. The completed song, titled “Surf City”, was recorded with members of the Wrecking Crew — the studio musicians who usually worked with Phil Spector — performing the backing track. In this case, these were Hal Blaine, Glen Campbell, Earl Palmer, Bill Pitman, Ray Pohlman and Billy Strange — there were two drummers because Berry liked a big drum sound. Brian Wilson was at the session, and soon after this he started using some of those musicians himself. While it was released as a Jan and Dean record, Dean doesn’t sing on it at all — the vocals featured Jan, three singers from another Liberty Records group called the Gents, and Brian Wilson, with Wilson and Tony Minichello of the Gents singing the falsetto parts that Dean would sing live: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, “Surf City”] That went to number one, becoming Jan and Dean’s only number one, and Brian Wilson’s first — much to the fury of Wilson’s father Murry, who thought that Wilson’s hits should only be going to the Beach Boys. Murry Wilson may well have been more bothered by the fact that the publishing for the song went to Columbia/Screen Gems, to whom Jan was signed, rather than to Sea of Tunes, the company that published Wilson’s other songs, and which was owned by Murry himself. Murry started calling Jan a “pirate”, which prompted Berry to turn up to a Beach Boys session wearing a full pirate costume to taunt Murry. From “Linda” on, Jan and Dean had ten top forty hits with ten singles — one of the B-sides also charted, but they did miss with “Here They Come From All Over The World”, the theme tune for the TAMI Show, a classic rock concert film on which Jan and Dean appeared both as singers and as the hosts. That was by far their weakest single from this period, being as it is just a list of the musicians in the show, some of them described incorrectly — the song talks about “The Rolling Stones from Liverpool” and James Brown being “the King of the Blues”. All of these hits were made by the same team. The Wrecking Crew would play the instruments, the Gents — now renamed the Matadors, and sometimes the Blossoms would provide backing vocals on the earlier singles. The later ones would feature the Fantastic Baggies instead of the Matadors — two young songwriters, Steve Barri and P.F. Sloan, who were also making their own surf records. The lead would be sung by Jan, the falsetto by some combination of Brian Wilson, Dean Torrence, Tony Minichello and P.F. Sloan — often Dean wouldn’t appear at all. The singles would be written by some combination of Wilson, Berry, Altfeld and Christian, and the songs would be about the same subjects as the Beach Boys’ records — surf, cars, girls, or some combination of the three. Sometimes the records would be just repetitions of the formula, like “Drag City”, which was an attempt at a second “Surf City”: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, “Drag City”] But often there would be a self-parodic element that wasn’t present in the Beach Boys’ singles, as in “The Little Old Lady From Pasadena”, a car song written by Berry, Christian, and Altfeld, based on a series of Dodge commercials featuring a car-racing old lady: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, “The Little Old Lady From Pasadena”] And the grotesque “Dead Man’s Curve”, equal parts a serious attempt at a teen tragedy song and a parody of the genre, which took on a new meaning a few years after it was a hit: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, “Dead Man’s Curve”] But while 1963 and 64 saw the duo rack up an incredible run of hits, they were making enemies. Jan was so unpleasant to people by this point that even the teen mags would call him out, with Teen Scene in March 1964 running an article which read, in part, “Blast of the month goes to half of a certain group whose initials are J&D. Reason for the blast: his personality, which makes enemies faster than Carter makes pills… (It’s the Jan Half)… Acting like Mr. Big Britches gets you nowhere, and your poor partner, who is one of the nicest guys on earth, shouldn’t be forced to go around making apologies for your actions.” And while Torrence may have been “one of the nicest guys on Earth”, not all of his friends were. In fact, in December 1963, his closest friend, Barry Keenan, was the ringleader in the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra Jr.  Keenan told Torrence about the plan in advance, and Torrence had lent Keenan a great deal of money, which Keenan used to finance the kidnapping. Torrence was accused of being a major part of the plot, though he was let off after testifying against the people who were actually involved — he’s always claimed that he thought that his friend’s talking about his plan for the perfect crime was just talk, not a serious plan. Torrence had even offered suggestions, jokingly, which Keenan had incorporated — and Keenan had left a bag containing fifty thousand dollars at Torrence’s home, Torrence’s share of the ransom money, which Torrence refused to keep. However, Sinatra Sr was annoyed enough at Torrence that a lot of plans for Jan and Dean TV shows and film appearances suddenly dried up. The lack of TV and film appearances was a particular problem as the music industry was changing under them, and surf and hot rod records weren’t the in thing any more — and Brian Wilson seems to have been less interested in working with them as well, as the Beach Boys overtook Jan and Dean in popularity. 1965 saw them trying to figure out the new, more serious, music scene, with experiments like Pop Symphony Number 1, an album of orchestral arrangements of the duo’s hits by Berry (who minored in music at UCLA) and George Tipton: [Excerpt: The Bel-Aire Pops Orchestra, “Surf City”] The duo also tried going folk-rock, releasing an album called Folk ‘n’ Roll, which featured another variation on the “Surf City” and “Drag City” theme — this one “Folk City”: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, “Folk City”] That album didn’t do well at all, not least because the lead-off single was a pro-war protest song, released as a Jan Berry solo single. Berry had become incensed by Buffy Saint-Marie’s song “The Universal Soldier”, and had written a right-wing response, “The Universal Coward”: [Excerpt: Jan Berry, “The Universal Coward”] As you can imagine, that was not popular with the folk-rock crowd, especially coming as it did from someone who was still managing to avoid the draft by studying medicine, even as he was also a pop star. Torrence became so irritated with Berry, and with the music they were making, during the recording of that album that he ended up going down the hall to another studio, where the Beach Boys were recording their unplugged Party! album, and sitting in with them. He suggested they do a new recording of “Barbara Ann”, and he sang lead on it, uncredited: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, “Barbara Ann”] That went to number two on the charts, becoming the biggest hit record that Torrence ever sang on. Torrence was happier with the next project, though, an album spoofing the popular TV show Batman, with several comedy sketches, along with songs about the characters from the TV show: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, “Batman”] But by this point, in 1966, Jan and Dean’s singles were doing absolutely nothing in the charts. In March, Liberty Records dropped them. And then on April the twelfth, 1966, something happened that would end their chances of another comeback. Jan Berry had been in numerous accidents over the previous few years — he was a thrill-seeker, and would often end up crashing cars or breaking bones. On April the twelfth, he had an appointment at the draft board, at which he was given bad news — depending on which account you read, he was either told that his draft deferment was coming to an end and he was going to Vietnam straight away, or that he was going to Vietnam as soon as he graduated from medical school at the end of the school year. He was furious, and he got into his car. What happened next has been the subject of some debate. Some people say that a wheel came off his car — and some have hinted that this was the result of some of Sinatra’s friends getting revenge on Jan and Dean. Others just say he was driving carelessly, which he often did. Some have suggested that he was trying to deliberately get into a minor accident to avoid being drafted. Whatever happened, he was involved in a major accident, in which he, though luckily no-one else, was severely injured. He spent a month in a coma, and came out of it severely brain damaged. He had to relearn to read and speak, and for the rest of his life would have problems with his memory, his physical co-ordination, and his speech. Liberty kept releasing old Jan and Dean tracks, and even got them a final top twenty hit with “Popsicle”, a song from a few years earlier. Dean made a Jan and Dean album, Save For a Rainy Day, without Jan, while Jan was still recovering, as a way of trying to keep their career options open if Jan ever got better. Dean put it out on the duo’s own new label, J&D, and there were plans for Columbia to pick it up and give it a wider release, but Jan refused to sign the contracts — he was furious that Dean had made a Jan and Dean record without him, and would have nothing to do with it. Torrence tried to have a music career anyway — he put out a cover of the Beach Boys song “Vegetables” under the name The Laughing Gravy: [Excerpt: The Laughing Gravy, “Vegetables”] But he soon gave up, and became an artist, designing covers and logos for people like Harry Nilsson, Canned Heat, the Turtles, and the Beach Boys. Jan tried making his own Jan and Dean album without Dean, even though he was unable to sing again or write yet. With a lot of help from Roger Christian, he pulled together some old half-finished songs and finished them, got in some soundalike session singers and famous friends like Glen Campbell and Davy Jones of the Monkees and put together Carnival of Sound, an album that didn’t get released until 2010: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, “Girl You’re Blowing My Mind”] In the mid-seventies, Jan and Dean got back together and started touring the nostalgia circuit, spurred by a TV movie, Dead Man’s Curve, based on their lives. There seemed to be a love-hate relationship between them in later years — they would split up and get back together, and their roles had reversed, with Dean now taking most of the leads on the shows — Dean had to look after Jan a lot of the time, and some reports said that Jan had to relearn the words to the three songs he sang lead on every night. But with the aid of some excellent backing musicians, and with some love and tolerance from the audience for Jan’s ongoing problems, they managed to regularly please crowds of thousands until a few weeks before Jan’s death in 2004. Since then, Dean has mostly performed with the Surf City All-Stars, a band that sometimes also features Al Jardine and David Marks of the Beach Boys, playing a few shows a year. He released an autobiography in 2016 — it came out at the same time as the autobiographies of Brian Wilson and Mike Love of the Beach Boys, ensuring that even at this late date, he would be overshadowed by his more famous colleagues.

A History Of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs
Episode 107: "Surf City" by Jan and Dean

A History Of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 8, 2020 44:46


Episode 107 of A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs looks at "Surf City" and the career of Jan and Dean, including a Pop Symphony, accidental conspiracy to kidnap, and a career that both started and ended with attempts to get out of being drafted. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on "Hey Little Cobra" by the Rip Chords. 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/ ----more---- Resources No Mixcloud this week, due to the number of songs by Jan and Dean. Stephen McParland has published many, many books on the California surf and hot-rod music scenes. The Grand High Potentates of California Rock: Jan and Dean "In Perspective" 1958-1968 is the one I used most here, but I referred to several. His books can be found at https://payhip.com/CMusicBooks I also used Dead Man's Curve and Back: The Jan and Dean Story by Mark Thomas Passmore, and Dean Torrence's autobiography Surf City.  The original mono versions of the Liberty singles are only available on an out-of-print CD that goes for over £400, and many compilations have later rerecordings (often by Dean without Jan) but this has the proper recordings, albeit in stereo mixes. This compilation contains their pre-Liberty singles, including the Jan & Arnie material.   Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them?   Transcript A warning about this episode -- it features some discussion of a car crash and resulting disability and recovery, which may be upsetting to some people. Today we're going to look at one of the most successful duos in rock and roll history, but one who have been relegated to a footnote because of their collaboration with a far more successful band, who had a similar sound to them. We're going to look at Jan and Dean, and at "Surf City": [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, "Surf City"] The story of Jan and Dean begins with Jan and Arnie, and with the Barons. We discussed the Barons briefly in the episode on "LSD-25", a few months ago, but only in passing, so to recap -- the Barons were a singing group that formed at University High School in LA in the late fifties, centred around Jan Berry. Various people involved in the group's formation went on to be important parts of the LA music scene in the sixties, but by 1958 they were down to Berry and his friends Arnie Ginsburg -- not the DJ we talked about last episode, Dean Torrence, and Don Altfeld. The group members all had a love for R&B, and hung around with various of the Black groups of the time -- Don Altfeld has talked about him and Berry being present, but not participating, for Richard Berry's recording of "Louie Louie", though his memories of the time seem confused in the interviews I've read. And Jan Berry in particular was a real music obsessive, and had what may have been the biggest R&B and rock and roll record collection in LA -- which he obtained by scamming record companies, which seems to be very in character for him. He got a letterhead made up for a fake radio station, KJAN, and wrote to every record company he could find asking for promo copies. He ended up getting six copies of every new release "to play on the radio", and would give some of the extra copies to his friends -- and others he would use as frisbees. According to Torrence, Berry would often receive two hundred new records a day, all free. Berry had a reel-to-reel tape recorder belonging to his father -- his father, William Berry, was important in the Howard Hughes organisation, and had been in charge of the Spruce Goose project, even flying in the famous plane with Hughes, and Hughes had given him the tape recorder, which unlike almost all recording equipment available in the fifties had a primitive reverb function built in. With that and a microphone stolen from the school auditorium, Berry started recording himself and his friends, and he'd wanted to play one of the tapes he'd made at a party, so he'd taken it to a studio to be cut as an acetate, where it had been heard by Joe Lubin of Arwin Records, who took the tape and got session musicians to overdub it: [Excerpt: Jan and Arnie, "Jennie Lee"] That record was released as by Jan and Arnie, rather than the Barons -- Dean Torrence was off doing six months in the army, to get out of being conscripted later. Torrence has always said that he could hear himself on the recording, and that it was one the Barons had done together, but everyone else involved has claimed that while the Barons did record a version of that song, the finished version only features Jan and Arnie's vocals. Don Altfeld didn't sing on it, because he was never allowed to sing in the Barons -- he was forced to just mouth along, which given that both Jan and Dean were known for regularly singing flat must say something about just how bad a singer he is -- though he did apparently hit a metal chair leg as percussion on the record. "Jennie Lee" went to number three on the Cashbox chart -- number eight on Billboard -- and was a big enough hit that it set a precedent for how all the records Jan Berry would be involved in for the next few years would be made -- he would record vocals and piano in his garage, with a ton of reverb, and then the backing track would be recorded to that, usually by the same group of musicians that played on records by people like Sam Cooke, Ritchie Valens, and other late-fifties LA singers -- a group centred around Ernie Freeman on piano and organ, Rene Hall on guitar, and Earl Palmer on drums. This was a completely backwards way of recording -- normally you'd have the musicians play the backing track first and then overdub the vocals on it -- but it was how they would carry on doing things for several years. Jan and Arnie's follow-up, "Gas Money", written by Berry, Ginsburg, and Altfeld, did less well, only making number eighty-one in the charts: [Excerpt: Jan and Arnie, "Gas Money"] And their third single didn't chart at all. By this point, Arnie Ginsburg was getting thoroughly sick of working with Jan Berry -- pretty much without exception everyone who knew Berry in the fifties and early sixties says two things about him -- that he was the single most intelligent person they ever met, and that he was a domineering egomaniac who used anyone he could remorselessly. Jan and Arnie split up, and Arwin Records seems to have decided to stick with Arnie, rather than Jan -- though this might have been because Arnie seemed *less* likely to have hits, as Dean Torrence has later claimed that Arwin was a tax dodge -- it was owned by Marty Melcher, Doris Day's husband, and seems to have been used as much to get out of paying as much tax on the family's vast wealth as it was a real record label. Whatever the reason, though, Arnie made one more single, as The Rituals, backed by many of the people who had played with The Barons -- Bruce Johnston, Sandy Nelson, and Dave Shostac, plus their regular collaborators Mike Deasy, Richie Polodor and Harper Cosby. It didn't chart: [Excerpt: The Rituals, "Girl in Zanzibar"] Dean Torrence, who had by now left the Army, saw his chance, and soon Jan and Arnie had become Jan and Dean -- after a brief phase in which it looked like they might persuade Dean to change his name in order to avoid losing the group name. They hooked up with a new management and production team, Lou Adler and Herb Alpert, who had both been working at Keen Records with Sam Cooke. Kim Fowley later said that it was him who persuaded Adler to sign the duo, but Kim Fowley said a lot of things, very few of them true. Adler and Alpert got the new duo signed to Doré Records, a small label based in LA, and their first release on the label was a cover version of a record originally by a group called the Laurels: [Excerpt: The Laurels, "Baby Talk"] Herb Alpert brought that song to the duo, and their version became a top ten hit, with Jan singing the low parts and Dean singing the lead: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, "Baby Talk"] The hit was big enough that budget labels released soundalike cover versions of it, one of which was by a duo called Tom and Jerry, who had been one hit wonders a year earlier: [Excerpt: Tom and Jerry, "Baby Talk"] That cover version was unsuccessful, something Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were probably very grateful for when they reinvented themselves as sensitive folkies a couple of years later. Around this time, Jan got his girlfriend pregnant. In order not to spoil their son's promising career -- as well as being a singer, he was also at university and planned to become a doctor -- Jan's parents adopted his son and raised the boy as their own son. The duo went on a tour with Little Willie John, Bobby Day, and Little Richard's old backing band The Upsetters, playing to mainly Black audiences -- a tour they were booked on because almost all West Coast doo-wop at that time was from Black singers. Once the mistake was realised, a decision was made to promote the new duo's image more -- lots of photos of the very blonde, very white, duo started to be released, as a way to reassure the white audience. The duo's film-star good looks assured them of regular coverage in the teen magazines, but they didn't have any more hits on Doré -- of the seven singles they released in the two years after "Baby Talk", none of them got to better than number fifty-three on the charts.  Eventually the duo left Doré, and Jan released one solo single, "Tomorrow's Teardrops": [Excerpt: Jan Berry, "Tomorrow's Teardrops"] That was actually released as by Jan Barry, rather than Jan Berry, at a point when the duo had actually split up -- Dean was getting tired of not having any further hit records, and wanted to concentrate on his college work, while Berry was one of those people who needs to be doing several things simultaneously. Berry's new girlfriend Jill Gibson added backing vocals -- by this time he'd dumped the one he'd got pregnant -- and the song was written by Berry and Altfeld. Jan actually started his own label, Ripple Records -- named after the brand of cheap wine -- to release it, and Dean created the logo for him -- the first of many he would create over the years. However, the duo soon reunited, and came up with a plan which would have them only touring during the summer break, and doing local performances in the LA area on those weekends when neither had any homework. Now they needed to get signed to a major label. The one they wanted was Liberty, the label that Eddie Cochran had been on, and whose owner, Si Waronker, was actually the cousin of the owners of Doré. And they had recorded a track that they were sure would get them signed to Liberty. The Marcels had recently had a hit with their doo-wop revival of the old standard "Blue Moon": [Excerpt: The Marcels, "Blue Moon"] Jan had decided to make a soundalike arrangement of another song from the same period, using the same chord changes -- the old Hoagy Carmichael song "Heart and Soul": [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, "Heart and Soul"] They were sure that would be a hit. But Herb Alpert wasn't -- he thought it was a dreadful record, He hated it so much, in fact, that he broke up his partnership with Lou Adler. The division of the partnership's assets was straightforward -- they owned Jan and Dean's contract, and they owned a tape recorder. Alpert got the tape recorder, and Adler got Jan and Dean. Alpert went on to have a string of hit records as a trumpet player, starting with "The Lonely Bull" in 1962: [Excerpt: Herb Alpert, "The Lonely Bull"] He later formed his own record label, A&M, and never seems to have regretted losing Jan & Dean. Jan and Dean took their tape of "Heart and Soul" to Liberty Records, who said that they did want to sign Jan and Dean, but they didn't want to release a record like that -- they told them to take it somewhere else, and then when the single was a flop, they could come back to Liberty and make some proper records. So the duo got a two-record deal with the small label Challenge Records, on the understanding that after those two singles they would move on to Liberty. And "Heart and Soul" turned out to be a big hit, making number twenty-five on the charts: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, "Heart and Soul"] Their second single on Challenge only made number one hundred and four, but by this time they knew the drill -- they'd release their first single on a new label, it would be a big hit, then everything after that would be a flop. But they were going to a new label anyway, and they were sure their first single on Liberty Records would be a huge hit, just like every time they changed labels. The first record they put out on Liberty was a cover of another oldie, "A Sunday Kind of Love", suggested by Si Waronker's son Lenny, who we'll be hearing a lot more about in future episodes. By this point Lou Adler was working for Aldon Music as their West Coast representative, and so the track was credited as "produced by Lou Adler for Nevins-Kirshner", but Jan was given a separate arrangement credit on the record. But despite their predictions that the single would be a hit because it was a new label, it only made number ninety-four on the charts. The follow-up, "Tennessee", was a song which had been more or less forced on them -- it was originally one of the recordings that Phil Spector produced during his short-lived contract with Liberty, for a group called the Ducanes, but when the Ducanes had made a hash of it, Liberty forced the song on Jan & Dean instead: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, "Tennessee"] By this time, while Ernie Freeman was still the studio leader of the session musicians, Jan was requesting a rather larger group of musicians, and they'd started recording the backing tracks first. The musicians on "Tennessee" included Tommy Allsup and Jerry Allison of the Crickets, Earl Palmer on drums, and Glen Campbell on guitar, but even these proven hit-makers couldn't bring the song to more than number sixty-nine on the charts. And even that was better than their next two singles, neither of which even made the Hot One Hundred -- though the fact that by this point they were reduced to recording versions of "Frosty The Snowman", and attempting to recapture their first hit with a sequel called "She's Still Talking Baby Talk" shows how desperately they were casting around for something, anything that could be a hit. Eventually they found something that worked. A group called the Regents had recently had a hit with "Barbara Ann": [Excerpt: The Regents, "Barbara Ann"] The duo had cut a cover version of that for their most recent album, and they thought it had worked well, and so they wanted something else that would allow Dean to sing a falsetto lead, over a bass vocal by Jan, with a girl's name in the title. They eventually hit on an old standard from the 1940s, originally written as a favour for the songwriter's lawyer, Lee Eastman, about his then one-year-old daughter Linda (who we'll be hearing more about later in this series). Their version of "Linda" finally gave them another hit after five flops in a row, reaching number twenty-eight in the charts: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, "Linda"] Their career was on an upswing again, and then everything changed for them when they played a gig with support from a local band who had just started having hits, the Beach Boys. The story goes that the Beach Boys were booked to do their own support slot and then to back Jan and Dean on their set. The show went down well with the audience, and they wanted an encore, but Jan and Dean had run out of rehearsed songs. So they suggested that the Beach Boys play their own two singles again, and Jan and Dean would sing with them. The group were flattered that two big stars like Jan and Dean would want to perform their songs, and eagerly joined in. Suddenly, Jan and Dean had an idea -- their next album was going to be called Jan & Dean Take Linda Surfin', but as yet they hadn't recorded any surf songs. They invited the Beach Boys to come into the studio and record new versions of their two singles for Jan & Dean's album, with Jan and Dean singing the leads: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean and the Beach Boys, "Surfin'"] The Beach Boys weren't credited for that session, as they were signed to another label, but it started a long collaboration between the two groups. In particular, the Beach Boys' leader Brian Wilson became a close collaborator with Berry. And at that same session, Wilson gave Jan and Dean what would become their biggest hit. After the recording, Jan and Dean asked Wilson if he had any new songs they might be able to do. The first one he played them, "Surfin' USA", he told them they couldn't do anything with as he wanted that for the Beach Boys themselves. But then he played them two others. The one that Jan and Dean saw most potential in was a song he'd completed, "Gonna Hustle You": [Excerpt: Brian Wilson, "Gonna Hustle You"] The duo wanted that as their next single, but Liberty Records flat out refused to put out something that sounded so dirty as "Gonna Hustle You". They tried rewriting it as "Get a Chance With You", but even that was too much. They put the song aside, though they'd return to it later as "The New Girl In School", which would become a minor hit for them. Instead, they worked on a half-completed song that Wilson had started, very much in the same mould as the first two Beach Boys singles, with the provisional title "Goodie Connie Won't You Please Come Home". This song would become the first of many Jan and Dean songs for which the songwriting credit is disputed. No-one argues with the fact that the basic idea of the song was Brian Wilson's, but Jan Berry's process was to get a lot of people to throw ideas in, sometimes working in a group, sometimes working separately and not even knowing that other people had been involved. The song is officially credited to Wilson and Berry, but Don Altfeld has also claimed he contributed to it, Dean Torrence says that he wrote about a quarter of the lyrics, and it's also been suggested that Roger Christian wrote the lyrics to the first verse. Christian was an LA-area DJ who was obsessed with cars, and had come to Wilson's attention after he'd said on the air that the Beach Boys' "409" was a great song about a bad car. He'd started writing songs with Wilson, and he would also collaborate with both Jan Berry and Wilson's friend Gary Usher (who was a big part of this scene but hardly ever worked with Jan and Dean because he hated Jan). Almost every car song from this period, by the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, or any number of studio groups, was co-written by Christian, and we'll be hearing more about him in a future episode. This group of people -- Jan and Dean, Brian Wilson, Roger Christian, and Don Altfeld -- would write together in various combinations, and write a lot of hits, but a lot of the credits were assigned more or less randomly -- though Jan Berry was almost always credited, and Dean Torrence almost never was. The completed song, titled "Surf City", was recorded with members of the Wrecking Crew -- the studio musicians who usually worked with Phil Spector -- performing the backing track. In this case, these were Hal Blaine, Glen Campbell, Earl Palmer, Bill Pitman, Ray Pohlman and Billy Strange -- there were two drummers because Berry liked a big drum sound. Brian Wilson was at the session, and soon after this he started using some of those musicians himself. While it was released as a Jan and Dean record, Dean doesn't sing on it at all -- the vocals featured Jan, three singers from another Liberty Records group called the Gents, and Brian Wilson, with Wilson and Tony Minichello of the Gents singing the falsetto parts that Dean would sing live: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, "Surf City"] That went to number one, becoming Jan and Dean's only number one, and Brian Wilson's first -- much to the fury of Wilson's father Murry, who thought that Wilson's hits should only be going to the Beach Boys. Murry Wilson may well have been more bothered by the fact that the publishing for the song went to Columbia/Screen Gems, to whom Jan was signed, rather than to Sea of Tunes, the company that published Wilson's other songs, and which was owned by Murry himself. Murry started calling Jan a "pirate", which prompted Berry to turn up to a Beach Boys session wearing a full pirate costume to taunt Murry. From "Linda" on, Jan and Dean had ten top forty hits with ten singles -- one of the B-sides also charted, but they did miss with "Here They Come From All Over The World", the theme tune for the TAMI Show, a classic rock concert film on which Jan and Dean appeared both as singers and as the hosts. That was by far their weakest single from this period, being as it is just a list of the musicians in the show, some of them described incorrectly -- the song talks about "The Rolling Stones from Liverpool" and James Brown being "the King of the Blues". All of these hits were made by the same team. The Wrecking Crew would play the instruments, the Gents -- now renamed the Matadors, and sometimes the Blossoms would provide backing vocals on the earlier singles. The later ones would feature the Fantastic Baggies instead of the Matadors -- two young songwriters, Steve Barri and P.F. Sloan, who were also making their own surf records. The lead would be sung by Jan, the falsetto by some combination of Brian Wilson, Dean Torrence, Tony Minichello and P.F. Sloan -- often Dean wouldn't appear at all. The singles would be written by some combination of Wilson, Berry, Altfeld and Christian, and the songs would be about the same subjects as the Beach Boys' records -- surf, cars, girls, or some combination of the three. Sometimes the records would be just repetitions of the formula, like "Drag City", which was an attempt at a second "Surf City": [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, "Drag City"] But often there would be a self-parodic element that wasn't present in the Beach Boys' singles, as in "The Little Old Lady From Pasadena", a car song written by Berry, Christian, and Altfeld, based on a series of Dodge commercials featuring a car-racing old lady: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, "The Little Old Lady From Pasadena"] And the grotesque "Dead Man's Curve", equal parts a serious attempt at a teen tragedy song and a parody of the genre, which took on a new meaning a few years after it was a hit: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, "Dead Man's Curve"] But while 1963 and 64 saw the duo rack up an incredible run of hits, they were making enemies. Jan was so unpleasant to people by this point that even the teen mags would call him out, with Teen Scene in March 1964 running an article which read, in part, "Blast of the month goes to half of a certain group whose initials are J&D. Reason for the blast: his personality, which makes enemies faster than Carter makes pills... (It's the Jan Half)... Acting like Mr. Big Britches gets you nowhere, and your poor partner, who is one of the nicest guys on earth, shouldn't be forced to go around making apologies for your actions." And while Torrence may have been "one of the nicest guys on Earth", not all of his friends were. In fact, in December 1963, his closest friend, Barry Keenan, was the ringleader in the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra Jr.  Keenan told Torrence about the plan in advance, and Torrence had lent Keenan a great deal of money, which Keenan used to finance the kidnapping. Torrence was accused of being a major part of the plot, though he was let off after testifying against the people who were actually involved -- he's always claimed that he thought that his friend's talking about his plan for the perfect crime was just talk, not a serious plan. Torrence had even offered suggestions, jokingly, which Keenan had incorporated -- and Keenan had left a bag containing fifty thousand dollars at Torrence's home, Torrence's share of the ransom money, which Torrence refused to keep. However, Sinatra Sr was annoyed enough at Torrence that a lot of plans for Jan and Dean TV shows and film appearances suddenly dried up. The lack of TV and film appearances was a particular problem as the music industry was changing under them, and surf and hot rod records weren't the in thing any more -- and Brian Wilson seems to have been less interested in working with them as well, as the Beach Boys overtook Jan and Dean in popularity. 1965 saw them trying to figure out the new, more serious, music scene, with experiments like Pop Symphony Number 1, an album of orchestral arrangements of the duo's hits by Berry (who minored in music at UCLA) and George Tipton: [Excerpt: The Bel-Aire Pops Orchestra, "Surf City"] The duo also tried going folk-rock, releasing an album called Folk 'n' Roll, which featured another variation on the "Surf City" and "Drag City" theme -- this one "Folk City": [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, "Folk City"] That album didn't do well at all, not least because the lead-off single was a pro-war protest song, released as a Jan Berry solo single. Berry had become incensed by Buffy Saint-Marie's song "The Universal Soldier", and had written a right-wing response, "The Universal Coward": [Excerpt: Jan Berry, "The Universal Coward"] As you can imagine, that was not popular with the folk-rock crowd, especially coming as it did from someone who was still managing to avoid the draft by studying medicine, even as he was also a pop star. Torrence became so irritated with Berry, and with the music they were making, during the recording of that album that he ended up going down the hall to another studio, where the Beach Boys were recording their unplugged Party! album, and sitting in with them. He suggested they do a new recording of "Barbara Ann", and he sang lead on it, uncredited: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Barbara Ann"] That went to number two on the charts, becoming the biggest hit record that Torrence ever sang on. Torrence was happier with the next project, though, an album spoofing the popular TV show Batman, with several comedy sketches, along with songs about the characters from the TV show: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, "Batman"] But by this point, in 1966, Jan and Dean's singles were doing absolutely nothing in the charts. In March, Liberty Records dropped them. And then on April the twelfth, 1966, something happened that would end their chances of another comeback. Jan Berry had been in numerous accidents over the previous few years -- he was a thrill-seeker, and would often end up crashing cars or breaking bones. On April the twelfth, he had an appointment at the draft board, at which he was given bad news -- depending on which account you read, he was either told that his draft deferment was coming to an end and he was going to Vietnam straight away, or that he was going to Vietnam as soon as he graduated from medical school at the end of the school year. He was furious, and he got into his car. What happened next has been the subject of some debate. Some people say that a wheel came off his car -- and some have hinted that this was the result of some of Sinatra's friends getting revenge on Jan and Dean. Others just say he was driving carelessly, which he often did. Some have suggested that he was trying to deliberately get into a minor accident to avoid being drafted. Whatever happened, he was involved in a major accident, in which he, though luckily no-one else, was severely injured. He spent a month in a coma, and came out of it severely brain damaged. He had to relearn to read and speak, and for the rest of his life would have problems with his memory, his physical co-ordination, and his speech. Liberty kept releasing old Jan and Dean tracks, and even got them a final top twenty hit with "Popsicle", a song from a few years earlier. Dean made a Jan and Dean album, Save For a Rainy Day, without Jan, while Jan was still recovering, as a way of trying to keep their career options open if Jan ever got better. Dean put it out on the duo's own new label, J&D, and there were plans for Columbia to pick it up and give it a wider release, but Jan refused to sign the contracts -- he was furious that Dean had made a Jan and Dean record without him, and would have nothing to do with it. Torrence tried to have a music career anyway -- he put out a cover of the Beach Boys song "Vegetables" under the name The Laughing Gravy: [Excerpt: The Laughing Gravy, "Vegetables"] But he soon gave up, and became an artist, designing covers and logos for people like Harry Nilsson, Canned Heat, the Turtles, and the Beach Boys. Jan tried making his own Jan and Dean album without Dean, even though he was unable to sing again or write yet. With a lot of help from Roger Christian, he pulled together some old half-finished songs and finished them, got in some soundalike session singers and famous friends like Glen Campbell and Davy Jones of the Monkees and put together Carnival of Sound, an album that didn't get released until 2010: [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, “Girl You're Blowing My Mind"] In the mid-seventies, Jan and Dean got back together and started touring the nostalgia circuit, spurred by a TV movie, Dead Man's Curve, based on their lives. There seemed to be a love-hate relationship between them in later years -- they would split up and get back together, and their roles had reversed, with Dean now taking most of the leads on the shows -- Dean had to look after Jan a lot of the time, and some reports said that Jan had to relearn the words to the three songs he sang lead on every night. But with the aid of some excellent backing musicians, and with some love and tolerance from the audience for Jan's ongoing problems, they managed to regularly please crowds of thousands until a few weeks before Jan's death in 2004. Since then, Dean has mostly performed with the Surf City All-Stars, a band that sometimes also features Al Jardine and David Marks of the Beach Boys, playing a few shows a year. He released an autobiography in 2016 -- it came out at the same time as the autobiographies of Brian Wilson and Mike Love of the Beach Boys, ensuring that even at this late date, he would be overshadowed by his more famous colleagues.

Radio8Ball hosted by Andras Jones
Ian Moore (Season Three-TheAppening-024-August 17, 2020)

Radio8Ball hosted by Andras Jones

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 23, 2020 89:48


IAN MOORE joins this week's Pop Oracle session with host ANDRAS JONES to discuss how his song "Caroline" answered BRYAN CONNOLLY'S question on last week's episode. During the course of the session Ian and Andras talk about The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys and the Steve McQueen film "Baby The Rain Must Fall". To hear ANDRAS's question please join the Patreon campaign. $1 a month gets you the bonus episodes: https://www.patreon.com/radio8ball  Featuring: The Radio8Ball Theme Song performed by KENDL WINTER The Pop Oracle Song of The Day for August 17, 2020: "Birdwatchers" by JENNY JENKINS R8BONUS EPISODE with PAUL PLAGENS Featured Music: "Caroline" by IAN MOORE "Caroline, No" by THE BEACH BOYS "Baby The Rain Must Fall" by ELMORE BERNSTEIN & BILLY STRANGE "Lovesick Car" by PAUL PLAGENS "Shine For Me" by ELMORE BERNSTEIN & BILLY STRANGE Bonus Ep: "Flaming Home" by MT. ERIE Double Naught Spy Car provides the musical bed with “The Mooche” by Duke Ellington & “In Walked Bud, Out Walked Bud” by Thelonious Monk Thanks to Alan Green for “special projects”. LINKS: RADIO8BALL WEBSITE - www.radio8ball.com  IAN MOORE - http://www.ianmoore.com/ MATTHEW SOUTHWORTH - http://matthewsouthworth.net/ RADIO8BALL APP - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/radio8ball/id1326738822 RADIO8BALL PATREON - https://www.patreon.com/radio8ball RADIO8BALL FACEBOOK - https://www.facebook.com/radio8ball/ RADIO8BALL TWITTER - @radio8ball RADIO8BALL INSTAGRAM - @theradio8ballshow EPISODE PAGE at: http://www.radio8ball.com/2020/08/23/ian-moore-paul-plagens/ Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/radio8ball See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stoïque - Discipline is the new Sexy
L'expert exerce son art au lieu d'en parler

Stoïque - Discipline is the new Sexy

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 3, 2019 2:09


"A little less conversation, a little more action" - Mac Davis & Billy Strange pour Elvis Presley Rejoignez la newsletter : www.stoique.fr --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/stoique/message

Beyond The Sim
Ep 37: NASCAR Heat 4

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 18, 2019 101:19


Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 36: WRC 8 & iRacing Season 4 Thoughts

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 10, 2019 91:37


iRacing Season 4 iRacing V8 Supers Dirt Update Acer Hyperbeast WRC 8 Wreckfest Update VRS w/Tim Ryan GT Sport Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

iracing simracing billy strange
Nerds With Words
Episode #137 - Billy Strange

Nerds With Words

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 2, 2019 102:31


AAAWWW SHIT! Episode #137 is up for your viewing pleasure. BILLY STRANGE IS BACK! Adam is away on a "business trip," fixing his micro-peen so check out comedian Neil Wood & Billy Strange talking the culture of BDSM, LGBTQ and all the acronyms. PLUS, a good 'O Newscorner from Producer Evan. DropTent Media Network: FB: @Droptent IG: @droptentmedia www.nerdswithwordspodcast.com/droptent Nerds With Words Social Media: www.Nerdswithwordspodcast.com Instagram: @nerds.with.words Twitter: @NerdsWithWords1 Facebook: @nerdswithwordspodcast Youtube: Nerdswithwords Patreon: NerdsWithWords SPONSOR: eliquid.com/nerds30 - 30% off entire order! Largest online vape catalog available! Buy oils, kits, pens, accessories and more! Free shipping on all products! Promo code: Nerds30 - 30% off!

Beyond The Sim
Ep 34: NASCAR Heat 4 Info

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 19, 2019 103:12


rF2 Two Strong pack GRID Vid WRC 8 iRacing - Ignite RaceRoom - WTCR esport GT Sport NY McLaren Shadow NASCAR Heat 4 Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 33: Derek Speare Hangs Out With BTS

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 12, 2019 160:23


Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 32: Sim Racing News (There's A Lot This Week)

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 5, 2019 141:30


Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 31: iRacing Success On Prime Time TV

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 29, 2019 143:45


ACC Codemasters Blog GT Sport SRS PCars 2 iRacing on NBC Sports Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 30: Sim Racers Complain Too Much?

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 22, 2019 108:32


iRacing - DownShift iRacing - Fairbury Simucube F1 2019 Draft Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 29: Managing Stress While Racing

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 15, 2019 114:05


ACC Update Dirt RALLY 2.0 update GT Sport vid PC2 F1 2019 driver announcements Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 28: Overtaking Etiquette

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 8, 2019 122:02


ACC F1 2019 McLaren Shadow GRID Delayed NASCAR Heat 4 Announcement GT Sport rF2 Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 27: F1 2019 & rFactor 2 Tatuus Pack

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 2, 2019 106:07


GT Sport esports- iRacing Project CARS 2 F1 2019 rFactor 2 Tatuus Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 26: Indycar E-Sports Game Possibility

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 24, 2019 143:34


Grid Raceroom F1 KartKraft esports - iracing Project cars Gran Turismo IndyCar Game Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 25: E3 & Racing Games

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 17, 2019 122:16


ACC - Update Dirt Rally 2.0 - Update FH4 - Lego Speed Champions Fanatec iRacing E3 Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 24: ACC Raises Bigger Questions

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 10, 2019 171:41


iRacing Lucas Oil Trucks Codemasters Sale McLaren Shadow SIMBIN Gets A Podium Assetto Corsa Competizione and what it says about the industry at large. Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

raises simracing billy strange
Beyond The Sim
Ep 23: Assetto Corsa Competizione Impressions

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 3, 2019 69:13


iRacing - pro4 vid ACC - SRO esport DIRT 2.0 on sale Sauber driver let go iRacing 24h LeMans ACC Impressions Force Feedback Discussion Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 22: Codemasters Announce GRID Reboot

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later May 28, 2019 102:36


iRacing - Silverstone update Reiza - Announcemnt of an announcement GRID Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 21: Assetto Corsa Competizione Gets "Matchmaking" Clarification

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later May 20, 2019 115:24


iRacing - USAC Midget sponsorship rFactor 2 - Rudy shows off the updated Zandvoort circuit Heat 3 - Pro League Driver Dirt Rally 2.0 Assetto Corsa Competizione Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 20: The Dirt Rally 2.0 Business Model

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later May 13, 2019 149:43


This was a pre-recorded episode, so not much news to go over. Wait...when do we ever need MORE to talk about? News: -DiRT Rally Subaru Impreza 2008 and Ford Focus 2007 out -iRacing TCR and Pro trucks in June -VRC Bentley E Sports: -iRacing Eldora pro race Discussion: -VRC Pro... sim of a sim. Breaking the 3rd wall! -Coaching pros and cons, what's the value? Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 19: The Relevance Of Reviews & Review Scores

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later May 5, 2019 122:25


Not much news so we just went with the flow of chat on this one! Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 18: A.I. Is Predictable, So Are Humans

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 29, 2019 111:25


F1 2019 Senna vs Prost Volkswagen ID R Challenge in RaceRoom FIA Truck Racing Championship Annoucement VRC Announce Prototypes rFactor 2 A1E Championship Gran Turismo Sport Nations Cup & Manufacturers Championship Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 17: Breaking Driver Plateaus

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 20, 2019 113:50


rFactor 2 releases Gen2 Formula E Dirt Rally 2.0 Sweden is coming RaceRoom Easter sale is here GT Sport possible update soon Fanatec shows off their DD Brendon Leigh to race Formula Ford NASCAR iRacing esports driver profiles Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 16: Assetto Corsa Competizione Gets A Release Date

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 15, 2019 31:51


Assetto Corsa Competizione F1 2019 GT Sport iRacing Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 15: Dirt Rally 2.0 Releases Monte Carlo

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 12, 2019 120:48


-DR 2.0 Monte Carlo -New iRacing modified -RF2 Reiza pack -F1 2019 -iRacing World of Outlaws Sprintcars Opener Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 14: with GamerMuscle

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 11, 2019 162:51


Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

simracing billy strange
Beyond The Sim
Ep 13: iRacing Breaks The Skippy

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 10, 2019 150:14


Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 12: iRacing's New Tire Model

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 7, 2019 129:05


Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

model tire simracing billy strange
Beyond The Sim
Ep 11: Shaun's Lucky Dog Race & Sim Racing In 10 Years

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 6, 2019 156:37


Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 10: Dirt Rally 2.0 Thoughts

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2019 66:07


Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

simracing dirt rally billy strange
Beyond The Sim
Ep 09: Physics Vs Feeling

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 2, 2019 111:47


Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

physics simracing billy strange
Beyond The Sim
Ep 08: Fighting Sim Racing Burnout

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 31, 2019 112:23


Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 07: Multiplayer Ranking Systems

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 30, 2019 100:10


Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 06: iRacing 24 Hours Of Daytona

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 30, 2019 111:56


Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

iracing simracing 24 hours of daytona billy strange
Beyond The Sim
Ep 05: McLaren Shadow Finals

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 29, 2019 99:53


Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 03: No VR In Dirt Rally 2.0

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 25, 2019 97:39


Shaun and Billy discuss the possible reasons and issues with no VR in Dirt Rally 2.0 along with Slightly Mad Studios new announcement. Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 04: What Do We Do To Find More On Track Speed?

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 25, 2019 63:21


Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 01: The Viability of Sim Racing in eSports

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 25, 2019 48:40


Shaun and Billy discuss the viability of sim racing in the current market esports as well as this weeks news! Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Beyond The Sim
Ep 02: Staying Motivated

Beyond The Sim

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 25, 2019 79:09


Shaun and Billy discuss how to stay motivated with sim racing. Beyond The Sim is a joint venture between YouTube Creators Shaun Cole of The Simpit and Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing. Beyond The Sim is a podcast done live, every Friday at 9am PST on The Simpit YouTube channel. This podcast has in-depth conversations on all aspects of Sim Racing and related news items including Sim Racing E-Sports.

Nerds With Words
Episode 95 - Billy Strange

Nerds With Words

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 3, 2018 100:42


Billy Strange is a comedian from Philadelphia, PA. You can follow him on Instagram @WilliamPStrange and Twitter @billynpstrange. SPONSOR: eliquid.com/nerds30 - 30% off entire order! Largest online vape catalog available! Buy oils, kits, pens, accessories and more! Free shipping on all products! Promo code: Nerds30 - 30% off! www.Nerdswithwordspodcast.com Instagram.com/nerds.with.words Twitter.com/NerdsWithWords1 Facebook.com/nerdswithwordspodcast Youtube.com/channel/UCXDgxBWt9WEc2MyyEy3MIww Patreon.com/nerdswithwords

Magical Misery Tour
#14 Bloody C*ckrings w/ Billy Strange

Magical Misery Tour

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 29, 2018 112:59


Welcome back after our Thanksgiving hiatus!  Billy Strange joins the show to talk about discovering gayness, Craigslist Rape, and the funs of "needle play". This one is pretty intense. Find him on Facebook under Billy Strange Comedy. Enjoy!   *We're moving to Fridays now, because frankly, I'm way more free to work on these Thursday nights.  We've got some great casts dropping in the next few weeks, so Subscribe, Share, Tell your friends, Carve the Magical Misery Into your forehead, or assassinate a celebrity and scream about us on the witness stand.

Sim Racing Perspectives Podcast
Sim Racing Perspectives Podcast: Episode 7 Sim racing hardware discussion with Billy Strange

Sim Racing Perspectives Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 6, 2018 101:20


In this episode we are joined again by Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing to discuss sim racing hardware. From the currently available sim racing hardware options to the solutions we ourselves use

Sim Racing Perspectives Podcast
Sim Racing Perspectives Podcast: Episode 2 Billy Strange and Assetto Corsa Competizione

Sim Racing Perspectives Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 21, 2018 69:23


In this our second episode we are joined by our special guest Billy Strange of Billy Strange Racing on YouTube and we also discuss the topic of the forthcoming sim racing title Assetto Corsa Competizione. Check out Billy's excellent channel! https://www.youtube.com/billystrangeracing Follow Billy: https://twitter.com/strange_billy https://www.instagram.com/strange_billy/ Intro music by: Brandon aka Birocratic, from the album: Bumps "Osaka" And check out "Tony's Belated Breakfast" http://birocratic.lnk.to/allYL

Hymns Free
This Train (is Bound for Glory)

Hymns Free

Play Episode Listen Later May 30, 2015 4:11


This Train (is Bound for Glory) - Chords, Lyrics and OriginsOur version of this Classic African-American Spiritual features a New Orleans Style Piano, Ukelele, Muddy Waters style Delta Blues Dobro, Guitars, Drums, Swing Acoustic Bass, and FiddleOriginsFirst recorded in 1922 by the Florida Normal Industrial Institute Quartet, This Train (or 'This Train is Bound for Glory' or 'Dis Train' as it is sometimes known) is an African-American spiritual. The oddly-named Florida Normal Industrial Institute Quartet were an early African-American barber-shop act who sang the song a cappella. This Train was later made famous by Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who recorded it twice: initially, using an acoustic guitar, in the 1930s, and then again, using an electric guitar, in the 1950s. Her 1950s version is now seen as a precursor of Rock-n-Roll. It was also famously recorded as 'This Train is Bound for Glory' by Woody Guthrie. Guthrie's autobiographical novel, 'Bound for Glory' takes its title from the song.GThis train is bound for glory, this train.G DThis train is bound for glory, this train.GThis train is bound for glory,CNon gonna ride it but the righteous and the holy.G D GThis train is bound for glory, this train.This train don't carry no gamblers, this train;This train don't carry no gamblers, this train;This train don't carry no gamblers,No High Flyers, no midnight ramblers,This train is bound for glory, this train.This train don't carry no liars, this train;This train don't carry no liars, this train;This train don't carry no liars,No Hypocrites, compromiseers, and Truth DeniersThis train don't carry no liars, this train.© 2015 Shiloh Worship Music COPY FREELY;This Music is copyrighted to prevent misuse, however,permission is granted for non-commercial copying-Radio play permitted- www.shilohworshipmusic.comFrom Wikipedia:Early history:The earliest known example of "This Train" is a recording by Florida Normal and Industrial Institute Quartette from 1922, under the title "Dis Train."[3] Another one of the earliest recordings of the song is the version made by Wood's Blind Jubilee Singers in August 1925 under the title "This Train Is Bound for Glory". The next year the song found its way into print for the first time in the Lomaxes' American Folk Songs and Ballads anthology and was subsequently included in Alan Lomax's 1960 anthology, Folk Songs of North America.[2]In 1935, the first hillbilly recording of the song was released by Tennessee Ramblers as "Dis Train" in reference to the song's black roots.[2] Then in the late 1930s, after becoming the first black artist to sign with a major label, gospel singer and guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe recorded "This Train" as a hit for Decca. Her later version of the song, released by Decca in the early 1950s, featured Tharpe on electric guitar and is cited as one of several examples of her work that led to the emergence of rock 'n roll.Other recordingsOver the years, "This Train" has been covered by artists specializing in numerous genres, including blues, folk, bluegrass, gospel, rock, post-punk, jazz, reggae, and zydeco. Among the solo artists and groups who have recorded it are Louis Armstrong, Big Bill Broonzy, Brothers Four, Hylo Brown, Alice Coltrane, Delmore Brothers, Sandy Denny, D.O.A., Lonnie Donegan, Jimmy Durante, Snooks Eaglin, Bob Gibson, Joe Glazer, John Hammond, Jr., Cisco Houston, Janis Ian, Mahalia Jackson, Ella Jenkins, Sleepy LaBeef, The Limeliters, Trini Lopez, Bob Marley & The Wailers, Ziggy Marley, Ricky Nelson, Peter, Paul & Mary, Utah Phillips, Pete Seeger, The Seekers, Roberta Sherwood, Hank Snow, David Soul, Staples Singers, Billy Strange, the Tarriers, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Hank Thompson, Sublime, Randy Travis, The Verlaines, Bunny Wailer, Nina Hagen, Girls at Our Best!, Buckwheat Zydeco and Jools Holland.[2][4]”Come and check out our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ShilohWorshipGroup/videos  Free Christian Worship Music on the iTunes StorePlease check out our free Christian Worship Music on the iTunes Store. We offer 6 free Podcasts that contain our original worship music. Below are the links- if you like them you can subscribe FREE and receive new songs in the form of podcasts as they are released.Free Bluegrass Gospel Hymns and Songs from Shiloh Worship Music. Old Standard Hymns and Songs as well as Original Bluegrass Gospel Songs.http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-a-friend-we-have-in-jesus/id471784726?i=100849735FREE PRAISE & WORSHIP  FREE Original Praise and Worship Music Our style is very eclectic ranging from Blues to Folk to Reggae to Worldbeat to Bluegrass to Contemporary Worship. Most songs Are in English, some songs are in English and Spanish, and a few songs have been translated into other languages like Swahili, French, Chinese, and Korean. Etc. We Love Jesus, we are simple christian disciples of Jesus using our gifts to lavish our love and lives for Him. Our desire is to point others to Jesus. Our music is simple-most of these original songs are prayers to Jesus set to music. Although our music is copyrighted ©2000-2013 Shiloh Worship Music, to prevent misuse, feel free to pass this music around for any and all non-commercial use. Jesus said, "freely you have received, freely give!"http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/free-praise-and-worship/id436298678FREE Contemporary Christian Worshiphttps://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/free-contemporary-christian/id882132356 FREE WORSHIP MUSICOriginal Worship music SUBSCRIBE in iTunes We Love Jesus, we are simple christian disciples of Jesus using our gifts to lavish our love and lives for Him. To point others to Jesus. our music is simple-most of these original songs are prayers to Jesus set to music. Although our music is copyrighted ©2000-2013 Shiloh Worship Music, to prevent misuse, feel free to pass this music around for any and all non-commercial use. Jesus said, "freely you have received, freely give!"http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/free-jesus-music/id395892905

Project Moonbase – The Historic Sound of the Future | Unusual music show | Podcast | Space cult | projectmoonbase.com
PMB108: Fun Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse (Jose Mauro, Nick Ingman, Geoff Love and His Orchestra, Sun Ra, Billy Strange, Les Baxter, John Cameron, Gil Mellé, Ligabue)

Project Moonbase – The Historic Sound of the Future | Unusual music show | Podcast | Space cult | projectmoonbase.com

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 17, 2012 59:24


With less than a week to go until the end of civilisation as we know it, we thought we’d provide a fun and informative guide to help you survive the imminent apocalypse. So you can expect to hear guidance in … Continue reading →

Project Moonbase – The Historic Sound of the Future | Unusual music show | Podcast | Space cult | projectmoonbase.com
PMB002: Billy Strange (Soulless Party, Janko Nilovic, Stereolab,Juan Garcia Esquivel, Disasterpeace,Balsara and His Singing Sitars, Jack Arel)

Project Moonbase – The Historic Sound of the Future | Unusual music show | Podcast | Space cult | projectmoonbase.com

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 17, 2010 58:22


Welcome to our second podcast, in which we celebrate the music of composer, arranger and guitar-twanger extraordinaire, Billy Strange (thanks to tweeters KingNirdle and JanDerrer for the suggestion). In addition to that, we have music from another of our listeners, … Continue reading →

Icon Fetch
2 - Darlene Love - Fame the Musical

Icon Fetch

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 20, 2010 29:15


She’s one of the greatest singers in the history of music. Darlene Love has lent her voice to countless hit singles over the years, including “He’s a Rebel” by the Crystals, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” by the Righteous Brothers, and her own holiday classic “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”.She’s also had the opportunity to sing with many legends of music including Elvis,Sam Cooke, Aretha, Marvin Gaye, Cher, and even Cheech & Chong! Many others will remember her as Danny Glover’s wife in the Lethal Weapon movies. Darlene is currently gearing up for a run of “Fame the Musical” in Australia, where she stars as Miss Sherman, a no-nonsense teacher at the school for the arts. We’ll also discuss the new DVD release of “The T.A.M.I. Show”, which Darlene was a part of.You can find out more about Darlene, by going to her official site, www.darleneloveworld.comSinger Darlene Love has lent her voice to literally hundreds of recordings over the years. We’ve assembled a list of some of her “Greatest Hits”“Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” – Darlene Love – One of Darlene’s greatest moments. A stone-cold holiday classic from Phil Spector’s A Christmas Gift to You. You can close your eyes and feel the snow falling on you.“He’s a Rebel” – credited to the Crystals, but it’s actually Darlene on lead vocals. Her first #1 hit.“Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah – Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans – Darlene sings on this Disney classic turned inside-out. Extra points for Billy Strange’s guitar solo that sounds like it’s coming from another planet.“(Today I Met) The Boy I’m Gonna Marry” – Darlene Love – One of the few Spector tracks to actually sport Miss D’s name. Darlene reaches back to her days in the gospel choir for a gutty performance. Imagine her preaching to the congregation about her good news.“The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)” – Betty Everett – Darlene and the Blossoms do the question-asking, like “Is it in his eyes”? sharing the lead vocalis with Betty. The vocal ascending that they do when Betty sings “Kiss him / and squeeze him tight” will send shivers.“Poor Side of Town” – Johnny Rivers – Darlene & the Blossoms show off their gentler side as they echo Johnny’s verses with sweet sophistication.“The Right Time” – Bobby Darin – Darlene duets with Bobby on this under-appreciated cut from a lost Darin LP called Bobby Darin Sings Ray Charles“Brown-Eyed Woman” – Bill Medley – The deep-voiced half of the Righteous Brothers testifies his love for Darlene, while she and her sisters turn up the heat.“Basketball Jones – Cheech and Chong – Showing that she truly is one of the most versatile of vocalists, Darlene lends her talents to C&C’s parody of the Brighter Side of Darkness “Love Jones.”