American singer, actor, and author
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We continue to feature programs written, directed, and produced by Norman Corwin. Today's episode shows not only the strong poetic touch of Corwin, but integrates it with music, as sung by folk great Burl Ives. It is the historical drama and folk cantata, "The Lonesome Train," which recounts the journey of Abraham Lincoln's funeral train after his assassination. Film buffs will recognize Raymond Massey (Abe Lincoln in Illinois) reprising his iconic role of Abraham Lincoln. Visit our website: https://goodolddaysofradio.com/ Subscribe to our Facebook Group for news, discussions, and the latest podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/881779245938297 Our theme music is "Why Am I So Romantic?" from Animal Crackers: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KHJKAKS/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_MK8MVCY4DVBAM8ZK39WD
Flag day. National Bourbon day. Entertainment from 1962. 1st country #1 song, "under god" added to US pledge of allegiance. Todays birthdays - Harriet Breecher Stowe, Cliff Edwards, Burl Ives, Dorthy McGuirem Marla Gibbs, Donald Trump, Nick Van Eede, Boy George, Jasmine Bleeth. Henry Mancini died.Intro - God did good - Dianna Corcoran https://www.diannacorcoran.com/Bourbon whiskey - William BeckmanYour a grand old flag - Sing a long with kidsI can't stop loving you - Ray CharlesShe still thinks I care - George JonesThe little old log cabin in the lane - Fiddlin John CarsonBirthdays - In da club - 50 Cent https://www.50cent.com/When you wish upon a star - Cliff EdwardsHolly jolly Christmas - Burl IvesThe Jeffersons TV themeI just died in your arms - Cutting CrewDo you really want to hurt me - Culture ClubExit - Whenever your around - The Charlesys https://www.charlesy.co.uk/the-charlesyscountryundergroundradio.comcooolmedia.com
FBTHS #089 - "Steve & Nan Explore the Wild, Wild West of Old Hollywood" In this episode of From Beneath the Hollywood Sign, hosts Steve and Nan saddle up for a lively conversation about their favorite Western films. From dusty saloons to sweeping desert vistas, they explore the iconic imagery, unforgettable characters, and timeless themes that make the Western genre a cornerstone of American cinema. Whether you're a fan of classic John Ford shootouts or revisionist tales that challenge the myth of the Old West, Steve and Nan share personal picks and behind-the-scenes stories that will have you reaching for your cowboy hat. SHOW NOTES: AVA GARDNER MUSEUM: If you would like to make a donation to help support the Ava Gardner Museum in Smithfield, N.C. (Ava'a hometown!), please click on the following link: https://ava-gardner-museum.myshopify.com/products/donations Sources: “Ride the High Country: The seed from Which Peckinpah's Revisionist Approach to the Western Genre Would Ultimately Grow,” by Koralkja Suton, www.cinephiliabeyond.org; “The Real-Life Feud That Gave Joan Crawford's Johnny Guitar A Vicious Edge,” September 4, 2022, by Lee Adams, www.SlashMagazine.com; "From Blood Brother to Broken Arrow,” September 18, 2017, by Doug Hocking, True West Magazine; “Winchester '73,” May 2013, by Jonathan Dawson, www.senseofcinema.com; “Philip Yordan,” April 8, 2003, The Guardian; Naked Spur: Offbeat Film of Chase in Colorado, starring Stewart, Ryan, At Stake, March 26, 1953, New York Times; John Ford: The Man Who Invests America (2019) Documentary directed by Jean-Christophe Klotz Wikipedia.com; TCM.com; IBDB.com; IMDBPro.com; The Criterion Collection; Movies Mentioned: Ride the High Country (1962), starring Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott, Mariette Hartley, Ron Star, James Drury & Warren Oates; Broken Arrow (1950), starring James Stewart, Jeff Chandler, Debra Paget, & Jay Silverheels; Day of the Outlaw (1959), starring Robert Ryan, Burl Ives, Tina Louise, David Nelson, Alan Marshall, Venetia Stevenson, & Elisha Cook, Jr.; My Darling Clementine (1946), starring Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature, Walter Brennan, Cathy Downs, Tim Holt, Ward Bond, Alan Mowbray, & John Ireland; The Naked Spur (1953), starring James Stewart, Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh, Ralph Meeker, & Millard Mitchell; Johnny Guitar (1954), starring Joan Crawford, Mercedes McCambridge, Sterling Hayden, Scott Brady, Tim Holt, Ernest Borgnine, & John Carradine; Winchester 73 (1950), starring James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Stephen McNally, Dan Duryea, Millard Mitchell, John McIntyre, Rock Hudson, & Tony Curtis; Ride Lonesome (1959), starring Randolph Scott, Karen Steele, James Coburn, Lee Van Cleef, & Pernell Roberts; --------------------------------- http://www.airwavemedia.com Please contact sales@advertisecast.com if you would like to advertise on our podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Martin & Lewis || (010 )Marilyn Maxwell // (011) Burl Ives || Broadcast: June 5, 1949; June 12, 1949: : : : :My other podcast channels include: DRAMA X THEATER -- SCI FI x HORROR -- MYSTERY X SUSPENSE -- VARIETY X ARMED FORCES -- THE COMPLETE ORSON WELLESEnjoy my podcast? You can subscribe to receive new post notices. Also, if you have a moment, please give a 4-5 star rating and/or write a 1-2 sentence positive review on your preferred service -- that would help me a lot.Thank you for your support.https://otr.duane.media | Instagram @duane.otr#comedyclassics #oldtimeradio #otr #radioclassics #jackbenny #fibbermcgeemolly #bobhope #lucilleball #martinandlewis #grouchomarx #abbottandcostello #miltonberle #oldtimeradioclassics #classicradio #duaneotr:::: :
We're tackling a particularly weird case today while Mark takes a much deserved vacation. Seth, Heather and guest host Aaron dive into the 1973 case of Sam the Sandown Clown, one of the most bizarre monsters... well, ever. Email - Monsteropolis@smalltownmonsters.com SHOW NOTES: BUFORA Journal Report - 1978 Monsteropolis Sam the Sandown Space Ghost Clown INTRO We told you Seth was coming back. Ha! But there's a catch! Mark is on vacation. I know, total rip off. I'm sorry. Some other guy is here to fill the mic. Announcements? Ohio Bigfoot Conference Dawn of The Dogman is filmed! Thank you Backers. Ogopogo Discount code - 10% off the book, movie or cup until 5/15. No mail this week Today we're talking about a case that is usually discussed in UFO circles, but we've picked it because it has a very, very weird monster. And really, the incident itself doesn't have any ACTUAL UFO sightings - just some nearby ones that add to the mystery. Get ready. We're going to the UK today. All the way, all the way over there. It's May 1973, Tuesday at around 4 PM, the Isle of Wite, near Lake Common, adjacent to the town of Sandown. Two wee children, around age seven. Their names have not been publicly disclosed apparently, even all these darn years later. Can't say I blame them though, and you're about to find out why. They are usually referred to in retellings as “Fay” and “Unnamed boy” SUDDENLY, they heard a HORRIBLE WAILING NOISE which they described as sounding like an ambulance. Being wee curious children they investigated, following the sound into the woods. Why's there an ambulance in the woods? That's a good question. There's not. The wee children found themselves near a little bridge running over a little stream, very idyllic except for the wailing, when SUDDENLY A WEIRD GUY WAS THERE. About seven feet tall and dressed like a clown. Triangle shaped eyes. Three toes and three fingers. Appeared to be made of WOOD. Like, wooden planks for arms. Also wooden antennae poking out from either side of it's head. Red hair that fell to the forehead, and circular marks on his cheeks, even a little bob on top of the hat. And when we say “dressed like a clown” we're talking green tunic, white breeches, conical yellow yat. Like something straight out of Rankin & Bass, but like, wrong. Also, seven feet tall. You know what? Here's a picture. I just love this dude so much He kind of trips and splashes in the water, and he's holding this book. Like a regular book. And he drops the thing, right in the water, sort of playing out this whole cartoonish thing, like you hear the music from the animated movie based on this in your head and it's like “womp WOMP womp WOMP womp womp WOMP WOMP wompy wompy WOMP WOMP WOMP” Then it picks up the book, jumps up on the riverbank and starts like, DANCING AROUND like it's on the moon or something, lifting it's legs up super high, doing a fancy jig I guess. THEN it turned and ran off towards a small metal hut, which had apparently been there the whole time, and dashed inside. What? This isn't normal? Seems very normal to me. And the kids are scared, I mean, you know, they're not having a great time. This isn't what they signed up for. But then the tall weird dude comes back, and he's holding a microphone, and the wailing sound picks back up and the kids are like, nah dude, and they book it. But then the wailing sound stops, and the weird clown man TALKED. “Hello. Are you still there?” And the kids can hear him, even though he's “fifty meters” away. Did I mention the microphone? He's talking into the microphone. So they stop and turn back and clown brother takes the book back out, the one he dropped earlier. He scribbled a bunch of stuff in the book and showed it to the kids, but was apparently just a bunch of random words out of order. Then he starts pointing, one word at time, repeating the same sequence over and over again. And the message said, “I AM ALL COLORS SAM. HELLO AND I AM ALL COLORS SAM.” Would anyone like to play the part of “kids” for this sequence, I'm down to play Clown, I can also just make scifi noises in the background if you guys wanna do it KIDS - “Are you a man” CLOWN - “No” KIDS - “Are you human” CLOWN - “No” KIDS - “Are you a ghost” CLOWN - “Not really, but I am in an odd sort of way” KIDS - “What are you” CLOWN - “You know” Sam also explained that there are others like him on earth, but that they fear human beings. He stated that if he were attacked by humans, he wouldn't fight back. This is around when they realized the creature could talk without the microphone, but the voice was distorted and the lips didn't really move, like someone trying to use a ventriloquist dummy. Then he just turns around and walks towards the hut, and invites the kids to follow him inside. Alright like we're all parents, so obviously there are some concerns here. It's not looking good. And it's gonna get weirder but not like, in a bad way, so, it's cool. It's cool. I've been playing a lot of Stardew Valley lately and this is sending me They crawled through this little hole in the side of the hut. It was two-storied on the inside, and had blue-green walls covered in dials or knobs. Then Sam pulled out a berry, stuck it in his ear, and the kids saw it roll around behind his eyes. Then it popped up in his mouth I guess, like a reverse nutcracker or something, and then he just eats the berry like normal. Like that's just a normal thing to do. They hang out with Sam for a little while, just, chatting about space stuff I guess? And after thirty minutes or so they bounced, headed home, play time is over, okie dokie. The kids keep it largely to themselves, except apparently ran up to the first adult they saw on the way home and said they'd seen a ghost. The unnamed bystander didn't believe them. Stupid idiot. Three weeks later the girl lets it slip to her dad. The report refers to dad as “Mr. Y” to protect his anonymity. Mr. Y didn't take the story seriously, until his daughter continued to insist that it was an actual event, apparently becoming upset when he didn't believe her. Then he starts to question like you and I probably would, “Wait, what if something bad happened and this is just like the child version of it” So he goes and asks the other boy about it, and after some prodding Unnamed Boy tells pretty much the exact same story that Mr. Y's daughter did. Uh oh, two witnesses. Now obviously the kids could have come up with this whole thing on their own. I used to have an imaginary friend that was a giant donut. But Mr. Y starts taking it more seriously, and contacts BUFORA - The British UFO Research Association. Brilliant name. Blows MUFON out of the water. Our information today comes straight from that report. But here's another fun fact - Mr. Y had his own UFO sighting in October of 1970 and March of 1972, so as he's hearing this story from his daughter, he's coming off of two really bizarre encounters of his own. Obviously already asking himself what's out there, what's going on, etc. The report specifically states that Mr. Y never disclosed his own experiences to his daughter. I mean, later probably, but not while she was a kid and not during this encounter. He described a large ring of “seven or more spheres” hovering over a river with no apparent purpose. He had eyes on it for several minutes, and other witnesses passed and remarked on it while it was visible. It moved over trees and between some buildings. During his second encounter he saw two glowing yellow orbs beneath the surface of the water on Compton Bay, which he was overlooking from a cliff face. It was between 9-10 PM. In the the BUFORA article Mr. Y is quoted thusly, Sam. This is Sam. Sam the Sandown Space Ghost Clown. What do you guys think? I've always felt like maybe this guy is a really bad intergalactic salesperson. The vague answers, flashing fancy goods, obviously really nervous. Like he's here to sell space toys to kids and he just can't hack it, so he gives up half way through the pitch and just invites them in for berries. He's already waving around a sketch book and a karaoke machine. He's clearly conjuring Christmas Elf with this disguise. Speaking of Rankin and Bass, and bear with me here, because we're gonna go skeptical for a second - the first Rankin and Bass movie to screen in the UK was Willy McBean and His Magic Machine in 1965. Rankin and Bass's Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer premiered in the US in 1964, and while I wasn't able to find a UK release date, we can assume it would have been relatively soon. Maybe before 1973, even. The film features an elf named Hermey who wears your traditional elf garb, not dissimilar to Sam's. Also present is a living snowman voiced by Burl Ives… named Sam. And of course Bumble the Yeti. I'm NOT saying the kids probably saw this movie and dreamed up some scenario and stuck with it just because that's what kids do sometimes, I'm not saying that at all, but I also kind of am saying that, because ultimately that's the most PROBABLE explanation. Even if they hadn't watched these particular films. One point that's often mentioned is the amount of detail the kids gave when describing the hut and the creature, leading people to assume they couldn't have made it up, but dude? Dude. Kids be mad smart. They can imagine all kinds of stuff and have memories like bear traps when they're interested in something. You ever talk to a nine year old about Pokemon? And also, this was before Pokemon - there wasn't as much entertainment in those days. Dang I feel like I just ruined it. On the other hand, the previous statement is just a theory, and is based on assumptions. There's no direct line that ties the Sam incident to the Rankin & Bass films, or ANY films for that matter. The more fun, bizarre theory is that this was some kind of space creature or interdimensional interloper, and that it was attempting to disguise itself as a human, and failing. Maybe it wanted to practice blending in, and figured a couple of kids were a great place to start. If they freak out they're a lot smaller than you, and nobody is likely to believe them anyway. The fact that Mr. Y got the same story two times from two different kids helps, as does the fact that he had his own UFO sightings in the same area. Then again, we could flip that and say that Mr. Y wasn't able to remain completely objective due to his own experiences. WE will simply probably never know what really happened in 1973. Since, as far as we know, the witnesses have remained anonymous, and for all we know may not be with us anymore (fair chance Fay and Unnamed Boy are still around but that's just a guess based on how old they'd be today), this one will likely remain an obscure and incredibly entertaining mystery.
Check Playlist This was a special Easter edition of The Five Count! During the show we heard Bible stories from Burl Ives, reminisced about Mortal Kombat, and discussed our ideal Easter baskets. Happy Easter, gentle listeners!
National Ex-Spuse day. Entertainment from 1994. Lincoln shot, Stone Mountain Georgia completed, 1st American dictionary published, Titanic hit an iceberg. Todays birthdays - Sir John Gielgud, Rod Steiger, Loretta Lynn, Brad Garrett, Anthony Michael Hall, Adrien Brody, Sara Michelle Gellar. Burl Ives died.Intro - God did good - Dianna Corcoran https://www.diannacorcoran.com/ Love stinks - J. Geils BandBump n grind - R. KellyIf the good die young - Tracy LawrenceBirthdays - In da club - 50 Cent http://50cent.com/Stand by your man - Loretta LynnHolly Jolly Christmas - Burl IvesExit - Break up rules - Paige Rutledge https://www.paigerutledge.com/countryundergroundradio.com History and Factoids website
"I Do Do Do Like You" Bing Crosby; "I'll Close My Eyes" - Peggy Lee; "When I Was Single" - Burl Ives & Les Paul; "Hey-Lolly-Lolly-Low" - Burl Ives, Bing Crosby, & Les Paul; "Going Down the Road Filling Bad" - Burl Ives, Bing Crosby, & Les Paul; "As Long as I'm Dreaming" - Bing Crosby; "Good Day" - Peggy Lee & Bing Crosby; "Time After Time" - Bing Crosby with Les Paul;
Hosts Nate Wilcox and Dave Thompson continue their mini-series discussing Dave's book An Evolving Tradition: The Child Ballads in Modern Folk and Rock Music -- buy the book to support the show. This episode covers the first popular American revival of the Child Ballads by artist like The Carter Family and jazz singer Maxine Sullivan. We also cover the beginnings of the popular folk revival by artists like John Jacob Niles and Burl Ives. GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE-- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack. Also subscribe to the LET IT ROLL EXTRA feed on Apple, Spotify or your preferred podcast service. We've got all 350+ episodes listed, organized by mini-series, genre, era, co-host, guest and more. Please sign up for the email list on the site and get music essays from Nate as well as (eventually) transcriptions of every episode. Also if you can afford it please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks! Have a question or a suggestion for a topic or person for Nate to interview? Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter. Follow us on Facebook. Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome to an action-packed episode of Roundtie Radio, recorded live from the Hound Dome in Fort Madison, Iowa. This thrilling game features the Holy Trinity team making their short journey to face local rivals Fort Madison. We have special guest Scotty Melvin joining the commentary team along with your host, Dave. This episode is dedicated to the memory of the late Tony Campbell, a beloved figure in Southeast Iowa's music scene and a great supporter of local sports. Today's game is sponsored by Partners for Profit Fundraising out of Morning Sun. As the game unfolds, listeners are treated to exciting play-by-play coverage, with highlights including standout performances from key players like Nathan Vox, "the hay baler," and Luke Helige. Fort Madison's physically dominant team battles Holy Trinity's finesse-driven squad in one of the most intense games of the season. With celebrity referees Burl Ives, Leonardo DiCaprio, and John Malkovich officiating, the stakes are high and the energy is palpable. Stay tuned as the teams display their prowess on the court and see who can claim victory in this fiercely contested matchup. With in-depth analysis and spirited commentary, this episode is a must-listen for basketball fans eager to catch the excitements of high school sports.
Cinematic Sound Radio - Soundtracks, Film, TV and Video Game Music
Today we present our third ALL REQUEST CHRISTMAS SPECIAL on the CINEMATIC SOUND RADIO PODCAST. Since launching the CINEMATIC SOUND RADIO PODCAST Patreon in April of 2021, we've offered our patrons exclusive perks based on the tier they signed up for. One of those perks is participating in all request programs. If you want to join in future all-request shows, please head over to our Patreon page, and join the community in any tier that is $5 USD/month or above. Once you do, you can participate in all upcoming all-request programs. For this third Patreon All Request Christmas show, we get to hear some Christmas favourites from the biggest supporters of the Cinematic Sound Radio Podcast including Glenn Mcdorman, Nathan Blumenfield, Jeffrey Graebner, Jérôme Flick, Andy Gray, Victor Field, Lee Wileman, Will Welch, Randy Andrews, Stacey Livitsanis, Daniel Herrin, Eldaly Morningstar, Jason Drury, Joel Nichols, Joe Wiles, and Angela Rabatin. They requested tracks from such composers as Burl Ives, George Shaw, Mark McKenzie, Diego Navarro, Michael Kamen, Bruce Broughton, John Williams, Patrick Doyle, Hanae Nakamura, Miki Sakurai, Natsumi Tabuchi, Naoki Sato, Anne Kathrin-Dern, Christophe Beck, Paul Williams, Miles Goodman, Frank Churchhill, and Edward Plumb. On a personal note, I am grateful to my Patreon supporters for their kindness and support; it means everything to me. Thank you to everyone who has shared their personal stories on the podcast. I appreciate your openness and trust. Your stories truly touch me, and I hope they do the same for everyone who listens. This episode is about much more than just the music; it's about the connections and emotions that bind us together. I am so grateful to be a part of this incredible community with you all. Thank you to everyone who participated. Again, if you didn't get a chance to submit a request but want to be a part of the next all-request program, we'd love to have you join the CINEMATIC SOUND RADIO PODCAST Patreon community. However, you should not feel obligated to participate. I am not forcing anyone to join. Remember, this podcast is always free to listen to, but if you want to support the program and join the Patreon community, we'd be delighted to have you. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and enjoy the show! —— Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: Matt DeWater, David Ballantyne, Joe Wiles, Maxime, William Welch, Alan Rogers, Dave Williams, Max Hamulyák, Jeffrey Graebner, Don Mase, Victor Field, Jochen Stolz, Emily Mason, Eric Skroch, Alexander Schiebel, Alphonse Brown, John Link, Matt Berretta, Eldaly Morningstar, Jim Wilson, Glenn McDorman, Chris Malone, Steve Karpicz, Deniz Çağlar, Brent Osterberg, Jérôme Flick, Alex Brouns, Randall Derchan, Angela Rabatin, Larry Reese, Thomas Tinneny, William Burke, Rudy Amaya, Stacy Livitsanis, Carl Wonders, Lee Wileman, Nathan Blumenfeld, Daniel Herrin, Scott Bordelon, James Alexander, Brett French, Ian Clark, Ron, Andy Gray, Joel Nichols. —— Cinematic Sound Radio is fully licensed to play music by SOCAN. Support us on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/cinematicsoundradio Check out our NEW Cinematic Sound Radio TeePublic Store! https://www.teepublic.com/stores/cinematic-sound-radio Cinematic Sound Radio Web: http://www.cinematicsound.net Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cinsoundradio Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cinematicsound Cinematic Sound Radio Fanfare and Theme by David Coscina https://soundcloud.com/user-970634922 Bumper voice artist: Tim Burden http://www.timburden.com
We talk with James Burroughs about his reign as hollywood's greatest sitcom director, being the son of the Abe Burrows In the genetics of comedy, his book “directed by James Burrows”, “Cheers”, “Will & Grace”, “Mary Tyler Moore”, “Taxi”, “Friends”, the scripps that make him want to direct, the ones that don't, his amazing memory, his humble beginnings, the decade it took him to learn how to direct, working with geniuses like James L. Brooks, Chuck Lori, and Kohan & Mutchnick, Andy Kaufman. And Jimmy explains how his two best friends are Al Michaels and Bruce Springsteen.Bio: James Burrows is one of television's most respected and honored creative talents. Over his distinguished career, Burrows has been the recipient of ten Emmys, five Directors Guild of America Awards, the 1996 American Comedy Awards' Creative Achievement Award, and in 2014 the Television Critics Association's Career Achievement Award in 2006 he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Science's Hall of Fame and was honored by the US Comedy Arts Festival with their Career Tribute award. He has been the recipient of 22 nominations for the Director's Guild of America Award, thus bestowing him the honor of being the most nominated director in the history of television at the Guild. He was recently honored by the DGA with the Inaugural 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award in Television. In November of 2015 he directed his 1000 th episode which was recognized by a TV Special on NBC in January of 2016. Burrows' success as the director of television pilots is legendary. He just finished the first two episodes of Frasier re-boot season 2, and has wrapped up the pilot “Mid Century Modern” for Fox. He will be at the helm of “Mid Century Modern” this Fall as the show goes to series. The current primetime television schedule features one show “Neighborhood,”- whose pilot episode Burrows directed and one streaming show, the “Frasier Re-boot” which will begin airing Season 2 on Paramount + in mid-September 2024. In January of 2020, he received his fifth DGA Award for directing the Emmy award winning show “Live in Front of a Studio Audience #1: Norman Lear's All in the Family and The Jeffersons.” He was also asked back to direct “Live in Front of a Studio Audience #3: Different Strokes and The Facts of Life” in December of 2021. In June of2022, he embarked into a new market when he published his autobiography, “Directed by James Burrows.” It has received quite a bit of attention and praise from the industry. Burrows is probably best known as co-creator, executive producer and director of the critically acclaimed series, “Cheers.” The hit show, which aired for 11 seasons, is tied for the most nominated Comedy series in the Television Academy's history and is in third place for most Emmys received by a Comedy Series. Burrows has also received numerous awards for his work on “Will & Grace,” “Frasier,” “Friends,” “Wings,” “Night Court,” “Taxi,” and “Dear John.” For the first time in 25 years, he returned to the stage in the spring of 1998 to direct the highly acclaimed “Man Who Came to Dinner” at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, starring John Mahoney. Burrows learned his trade from the very best, the legendary writer/director Abe Burrows, whose noted career included such classics as “Guys and Dolls,” “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” and “Cactus Flower.” Born in Los Angeles and raised in New York, Burrows graduated from Oberlin College and continued his education at Yale, where he earned a master's degree in fine arts. Burrows relocated to Hollywood to work as a dialogue coach for “O.K. Crackerby!,” a short-lived television series starring Burl Ives. When the show ended, he returned to New York and initially worked as a stage manager before directing several off-Broadway shows, such as “The Castro Complex,” and stock productions of “The Odd Couple” and “Never Too Late.” In 1974, Burrows moved back to the West Coast when he was invited to visit MTM Productions in Los Angeles and offered a job directing an episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” Mr. Burrows and his wife, Debbie, reside in Los Angeles and between them they have a quartet of daughters.
EPISODE 66 - “WHEN CLASSIC FILM'S SUPPORTING ACTORS STEAL THE SHOW” - 12/16/2024 There is nothing quite like watching a film when suddenly a supporting character comes in and walks away with the film. (Think THELMA RITTER, S.Z. SAKALL, or GALE SONDERGAARD in almost every one of their films!) This week we are focusing on some of our favorite supporting charters who come in and snatch that scene right about from under the big stars. From JOANNA BARNES' Gloria Upson declaring, “It was just ghastly!” in “Auntie Mame” to the impassioned monologue about love that BEAH RICHARDS delivers to SPENCER TRACY in “Guess Who's Coming To Dinner,” we take a fun look at these powerful performances that we're still talking about today. SHOW NOTES: Sources: The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (1997) by Roger Lewis; But Darling, I'm Your Auntie Mame!: The Amazing History of the World's Favorite Madcap Aunt (1998), by Richard Tyler Jordan; Tennessee Williams & Company: His Essential Screen Actors (2010), by John DiLeo; “Judy Holiday, Winner of Oscar, Does of Cancer,” June 8, 1965, Los Angeles Times; “Mildred Natwick, 89, Actress Who Excelled at Eccentricity,” October 26, 1994, by Peter B. Flint, New York Times; “Steve Franken, Actor in ‘Dobie Gillis,' Dies at 80,” August 29, 2012, by Daniel E. Slotnik, New York Times; “Madeleine Sherwood, 93, Actress on Stage, Film and ‘Flying Nun,' Dies,” April 26, 2016, by Sam Roberts, New York Times; “The Making of ‘TheParty',” January 13, 2017, by FilMagicians, Youtube.com; “Beah Richards, 80, Actress in Stalwart Roles,” September 16, 2000, by Mel Gussow, New York Times; “Joanna Barnes, Actress in ‘The Parent Trap' and its Sequel. Dies at 87,” May 12, 2022, by Richard Sanomir, New York Times; TCM.com; IMDBPro.com; IBDB.com; Wikipedia.com; Roger Ebert.com; Movies Mentioned: Adams's Rib (1949), starring Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Judy Holiday, David Wayne, Hope Emerson, Jean Hagen, and Tom Ewell; Born Yesterday (1950), starring Judy Holiday, Broderick Crawford, & William Holden; Auntie Mame (1958), starring Rosalind Russell, Forrest Tucker, Fred Clark, Roger Smith, Jan Handzlik, Corale Brown, Pippa Scott, Lee Patrick, Willard Waterman, Joanna Barnes, Connie Gilchrist, Patric Knowles, and Yuki Shimudo; Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958), starring Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives, Judith Anderson, Jack Carson, and Madeleine Sherwood; Spartacus (1960), starring Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Tony Curtis, & Joanna Barnes; The Parent Trap (1961), starring Haley Mills, Maureen O'Hara, Brian Keith, Joanna Barnes, Charles Ruggles, Ana Merkel, Leo G. Carroll, & Cathleen Nesbitt; The Americanization of Emily (1963), starring Julie Andrews & James Garner; The Time Traveler (1964), starring Preston Foster; Goodbye Charlie (1964), starring Tony Curtis, Debbie Reynolds, Ellen Burstyn, Pat Boone, & Joanna Barnes; Barefoot In The Park (1967), starring Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, Mildred Natwick, Charles Boyer, Herb Edelman, and Mabel Albertson; Don't Make Waves (1967) starring Tony Curtis, Claudia Cardinale, Sharon Tate, and Joanna Barnes; Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1967), starring Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Houghton, Beah Richards, Roy E. Glen Sr, Cecil Kellaway, Isabelle Sanford, and Virginia Christine; The Party (1968), starring Peter Sellers, Claudine Longet, Denny Miller, Carol Wayne, Gavin MacLeod, Faye McKenzie, Marge Champion, Steve Frankel, Jean Carson, Corine Cole, J. Edward McKinley, and Herb Ellis; The Parent Trap (1998), starring Lindsay Lohan, Dennis Quaid, Natasha Richardson, Elaine Hendrix, & Lisa Ann Walter. --------------------------------- http://www.airwavemedia.com Please contact sales@advertisecast.com if you would like to advertise on our podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/AnalyticIn this segment of Notorious Mass Effect, Analytic Dreamz provides an in-depth look at Burl Ives and his iconic Christmas song, "A Holly Jolly Christmas." First introduced to audiences in the 1964 Christmas special 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,' where Ives voiced Sam the Snowman, the song was later released as a single in 1965 and featured on the album 'Have a Holly Jolly Christmas.' This album charted at No. 32 on Billboard's Best Bets for Christmas in 1967. Analytic Dreamz discusses the historical significance of "A Holly Jolly Christmas," including its recognition by ASCAP as one of the top 25 most-performed holiday songs at the start of the 21st century. The song experienced a remarkable chart resurgence, first appearing on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2017 and peaking at No. 38, then climbing to a new high of No. 4 in January 2020.In 2024, the song continues its legacy with impressive achievements. It has jumped 23 positions to reach No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week of December 9, 2024. On Spotify, it has seen a significant increase, gaining 46 spots to rank at No. 77 globally. Radio airplay has also surged, with 18.7 million audience impressions, reflecting its widespread popularity.Analytic Dreamz also touches on Burl Ives' enduring legacy. Even after his passing in 1995, "A Holly Jolly Christmas" remains a staple of holiday celebrations, featured on countless playlists and in festive events. The song's relevance is further underscored by active discussions on social media platforms like X, where fans continue to celebrate Ives' contribution to Christmas music.Join Analytic Dreamz for a comprehensive exploration of how "A Holly Jolly Christmas" has not only maintained but grown its cultural impact, ensuring Burl Ives' place in the pantheon of holiday music legends.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/analytic-dreamz-notorious-mass-effect/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Send us a textOn this Episode, Tom and Bert are all about their favorite Christmas Songs to listen to so please enjoy this Special Edition and have a Wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!(3:00) "Last Christmas" by Wham (7:20) "Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow" by Gloria Estefon (11:16) "All I Want for Christmas is You" by Mariah Carey(15:15) "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas" by Burl Ives(17:30) "Happy Holidays-Holiday Season" by Andy Williams(20:10) "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer" by Dean Martin(22:25) "Santa Baby" by Eartha Kitt(25:50) "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" by Frank Sinatra(28:26) "Merry Christmas Darling" by The Carpenters(31:31) "Every Year,Every Christmas" by Luther Vandross(36:34) "Mary's Boy Child/Oh My Lord" by Bony M(40:39) "Gloria" by Michael W. Smith(45:41) "Feliz Navidad" by Jose Feliciano(48:44) "Jingle Bell Rock" by Bobby HelmsEnjoy the Show!You can email us at reeldealzmoviesandmusic@gmail.com or visit our Facebook page, Reel Dealz Podcast: Movies & Music Thru The Decades to leave comments and/or TEXT us at 843-855-1704 as well.
Official historian of Rankin/Bass Productions, Rick Goldschmidt, joins Wendy Snyder – in for Bob Sirott – to talk about the 60th anniversary of ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.’ He mentions when it first aired and how Burl Ives came to join the cast.
Send us a textOn this episode, Tom and Bert select, review and discuss their Honorable Mentions and their TOP 10 + 1 Greatest Holiday Song Favorites of all time!It's the "SONG" that makes the criteria for their selections then theor favorite/best renditions by their favorites singers complete their lists. Some are the traditional Classics and some are newer originals with a few surprise sleeper hits that make up their lists.Some highlights: "Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer" (9:21) by Dean Martin"Merry Christmas Baby" (13:35) by the Carpenters"Happy Holidays/Holiday Season" (21:03) by Andy Williams"Feliz Navidad" (23:30) by Jose Feliciano"Every Year, Every Christmas" (25:52) by Luther Vandross"The Christmas Song" (27:24) by Nat King Cole"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (32:03) by Frank Sinatra"Have a Holly Jolly Christmas" (38:45) by Burl Ives"Peace on Earth"/"Little Drummer Boy" (41:30) by Bing Crosby and David Bowie"Gloria" (51:06) by Michael W. Smith"Santa Baby" (53:45) by Eartha Kitt"Baby It's Cold Outside" (1h 01m) by Dean Martin"Same Old Lang Syne" (1h 12m) by Dan Fogelberg"All I want for Christmas is You" (1h 15m) by Mariah CareyHave a Great Holiday Season and we wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Safe and Happy New Year. Enjoy the Show!You can email us at reeldealzmoviesandmusic@gmail.com or visit our Facebook page, Reel Dealz Podcast: Movies & Music Thru The Decades to leave comments and/or TEXT us at 843-855-1704 as well.
"BOBBY DRISCOLL: CLASSIC CINEMA STAR OF THE MONTH" EPISODE 64 - “BOBBY DRISCOLL - STAR OF THE MONTH” - 12/02/2024 BOBBY DRISCOLL's name may not be too familiar anymore, but in his heyday, he was the male equivalent of NATALIE WOOD. He was one of the most talented and prolific child stars of the 1940s and 1950s. His descent into darkness should serve as a cautionary tale to all of the stage mothers out there who think their kids will be the next big thing. Sometimes, there is a price to pay for fame, and it ain't always pretty. Join us as we discuss the tragic life of child star Bobby Driscoll. SHOW NOTES: Sources: Great Child Stars (1976), by James Robert Parish; “Bobby Driscoll, Dope Suspect," July 11, 1956, Los Angeles Examiner; “Bobby Driscoll Arrested in Bean Shooting Row,” August 23, 1956, Los Angeles Times; “Actor Bob Driscoll Arrested As Addict,” October 29, 1959, Mirror News; “Actor Freed of Charges on Narcotics,” December 12, 1959, Los Angeles Times; “Bobby Driscoll Napped After Rift with Gun,” June 18, 1960, The Citizen News; “New Charge Confronts Former Star,” June 23, 1960, Mirror News; “Actor Fined For Striking Heckler,” October 14, 1960, Los Angeles Examiner; “Driscoll Theft Charge Issued,” April 11, 1961, The Citizen News; “Bobby Driscoll is Arrested Again,” May 2, 1961, Los Angeles Examiner; “Bobby Driscoll, a Film Star at 6, an Addict at 17, Sent to Chino,” October 19, 1961, by Charles Hillinger, Los Angeles Times; “Truly, A Lost Boy,” March 4, 2007, by Susan King, Los Angeles Times; “Oscars Flashback: The Tragic Life and Death of Former Disney Star Bobby Driscoll,” January 22, 2019, by Lynette Rice, Entertainment Weekly; BobbyDriscoll.com; Wikipedia.com; TCM.com; IMDBPro.com; Movies Mentioned: Lost Angel (1943), starring James Craig, Marsha Hunt, & Margaret O'Brien; The Fighting Sullivans (1944) starring Thomas Mitchell & Anne Baxter; Sunday Dinner With A Soldier (1944), starring Anne Baxter, John Hodiak, Charles Winner, & Anne Revere; The Big Bonanza (1944), starring Richard Arlen; So Goes My Love (1946), starring Myrna Loy & Don Ameche; Identity Unknown (1945), starring Richard Arlen; Miss Susie Slagle's (1946), starring Veronica Lake; From This Day Forward (1946), starring Joan Fontaine & Mark Stevens; O.S.S. (1946), starring Alan Ladd & Geraldine Fitzgerald; Three Wise Fools (1946), starring Margaret o'Brine & Lionel Barrymore; Song Of The South (1946), starring James Baskett; If You Knew Susie (1948), starring Eddie Cantor; So Dear to My Heart (1948), starring Burl Ives & Beulah Bondi; The Window (1949), starring Barbara Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Ruth Roman, & Paul Stewart; Treasure Island (1950), starring Robert Newton; When I Grow Up (1951), starring Robert Preston & Martha Scott; The Happy Time (1952), starring Charles Boyer, Louis Jordan, & Marsha Hunt; Peter Pan (1953) The Scarlett Coat (1955), starring Cornel Wilde & George Sanders; The Party Crashers (1958), starring Connie Stevens & Frances Farmer; Dirt (1965), starring Sally Kirkland; --------------------------------- http://www.airwavemedia.com Please contact sales@advertisecast.com if you would like to advertise on our podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
By Golly, it's Sounds Like Radio Volume 185 time as we celebrate Mrs. Potter's (better known as I Love Lucy's Mrs. Trumble) birthday on this Great Gildersleeve from December 3, 1952. That sneaky Egg Man has done it again and tricked Gildy into getting 2 ducks. Perfect for a Mrs. Potter birthday dinner. Your Humble Host enjoyed listening to this one and joining us today for Mrs. Potter's birthday are Burl Ives, Barbara Mandrell, Bing Crosby, Wanda Jackson (that's her in our picture with this show), Vaughn Monroe to head us out to the stores for Christmas shopping & Dinah Washington. Then we all get down with George McCrae for a little '70's style dancin'.
Send us a text4X4: WILLIAM WYLER. #3: THE BIG COUNTRY(Note: Don't skip the theme song this week)TGTPTU Host Ryan's Willie gets a glow-up with THE BIG COUNTRY (1958), the third in our cultivated William Wyler collection.Shot in glorious Technicolor on large-format Technorama to set it apart from the glut of midcentury black-and-white television Westerns, the big-budget film was not a financial success despite winning one, after being nominated for two, Academy Awards and starring at the time four-time Oscar nominee Gregory Peck in the lead role of James McKay, a stranger who comes into town (thanks, Ken! 50-50 odds on this plot by your own estimation), who reunites with his fiancée out on the American frontier only to be hazed by her father's foreman Steve Leech played by Charlton Heston (no Oscar noms at the time but a big win the next year on Wyler's next film Ben-Hur, which, btw, did you hear someone died filming the chariot race?) and later to fall in love/respect/mutual ownership of property with school teacher and Big Muddy landowner Julie Maragon played by Oscar-nominated Jean Simmons (not that one, it's spelled differently, Thomas). The voice and the eyebrows, the legendary singer and thanks to this film an Oscar-winner, Burl Ives plays Rufus Hannassey, the patriarch of a rival company of cowpunchers who also uses the Big Muddy and gets into a scuffle with Peck character's father-in-law-to-be. This spat spirals out of control, Peck's character presents the view with a confident pacificist, and there's a good plot summary on Wikipedia and elsewhere. What you can't get elsewhere is Ryan's special intro with lyrics and deep cuts even more deeply researched for you cineasts, Thomas's pun on seamen, re-ranking the Major, a Hal Ashby connection, and a surprise new ghost guest added to the pod's lore and collection when Charlton Heston's noncorporeal agent visits the studio. The four hosts on this 4x4 do their best to discuss performative masculinity and the connection to war while ensuring they get their f*cking auto-assigned EXPLICIT CONTENT WARNING from their AI censors. “Now tell me, you: what did we prove?" THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.comFacebook: https://m.facebook.com/TGTPTUInstagram: https://instagram.com/thegoodthepodandtheugly?igshid=um92md09kjg0Bluesky: @mrkoral.bsky.socialYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mI2plrgJu-TB95bbJCW-gBuzzsprout: https://thegoodthepodandtheugly.buzzsprout.com/Letterboxd (follow us!):Ken: Ken KoralRyan: Ryan Tobias
Happy Thanksgiving! In today's episode my guest is Ken Smith from the North Pole News Dispatch - one of my favorite Christmas podcasts! Fans of good food, good friends, and good music will enjoy the first part of our discussion where we chat about everything from Thanksgiving recipes and traditions and then talk about Burl Ives and his classic song "Holly Jolly Christmas". Then we turn to a more serious discussion on how to find joy when times are hard. We end the episode reflecting on what we are thankful for - and Ken reminds me that the happy memories I have of those who are past, and those who are with me in the present, are a precious gift. Also, there is a special video version of this episode on youtube, you might want to check it out! Ken's Podcast: North Pole News Dispatch https://www.buzzsprout.com/1947413 On the Porch Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2152398 Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 04:27 Interview with Ken Smith - talking about Thanksgiving, food, and Burl Ives 40:00 When life is hard, being thankful for memories, and for the present 54:30 What we are thankful for 01:04:27 Concluding thoughts Ways to support the show: Rate and review: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-cozy-christmas-podcast/id1523423375 Buy me a coffee? www.ko-fi.com/cozychristmas Ornaments, Mugs, and Notebooks: https://www.etsy.com/shop/CozyChristmasPodcast Logo shirt designs: http://tee.pub/lic/edygC_h4D1c Contact Me: facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cozychristmaspodcast instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cozychristmaspodcast/ twitter: https://twitter.com/CozyXmasPod youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCikiozEbu0h9pKeI1Ei5TQ email: cozychristmaspodcast@gmail.com #christmas #christmaspodcast #thanksgiving2024 #thanksgiving
On this Thanksgiving here at Cail & Company we thought we'd kick off the holidays playing some classic songs to ring in the season. We'll play hits from Bing Crosby, Mariah Carey, Burl Ives, Darlene Love, and many more. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
One of the greatest songwriters of the 60's, Bob Dylan had released seven solo albums between 1962 and 1966. Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits compiles many of the singles from this period along with some of the songs Dylan wrote for other musicians. The compilation went to number 10 on the Billboard 200 chart, number 3 on the UK album chart, and has been certified five times platinum by the RIAA.In the summer of 1966, Dylan crashed his motorcycle near his home, and took off time to recover. The record company was anxious to follow up Dylan's successful "Blonde on Blonde" album, but had no new recordings available, and no clarity on how long Dylan would be out of the studio. Thus the decision to release a Greatest Hits album was an easy one for them. Born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota, the stage name comes from the poet Dylan Thomas. Bob Dylan rose out of the Beatnik coffee houses, and he took inspiration from a wide variety of sources including Woodie Guthrie, Hank Williams, and blues artists like Robert Johnson. He has the unusual distinction of having won a Nobel Prize in Literature. Wayne takes us through this iconic folk rock compilation album, and friend of the show Greg Lyon joins us in Bruce's absence for this week's podcast. Positively 4th StreetThis non-album single was released in 1965 between the "Highway 61 Revisited" album and the "Blonde on Blonde" album, and reached the top 10 on charts in both the US and the UK. The lyrics are laden with bitterness, as the singer laments the lack of compassion in a person who "has a lot of nerve to say you are my friend." An inspiration for this song could have been the reaction Dylan received from folk artists and fans when he "went electric."Blowin' in the WindWhile Dylan released this as a single in 1963, the most successful version of this song was the cover by Peter, Paul and Mary in the same year. This well-known protest song asks a number of questions in its lyrics, most focused on issues of peace and freedom. Whether an answer "blowin' in the wind" is obvious or difficult to grasp is left deliberately ambiguous. The Times They Are a-Changin'This is the title track to Dylan's 1964 album. It is iconic today as a commentary on society in general and 1960's society in particular. The number of groups that have covered this song is vast, including such diverse names as Joan Baez, the Beach Boys, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, and Burl Ives.Subterranean Homesick BluesA number of things make this song famous, from the early video style to the rapid lyric pace, to the inspiration for the name of the domestic terrorist group of the 70's, the Weather Underground ("you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"). Dylan claims inspiration from Chuck Berry and the scat songs of the 1940's in the creation of this track. ENTERTAINMENT TRACK:Sitting There Standing by the Chocolate Watchband (from the motion picture "Riot on the Sunset Strip")This counterculture movie came out during this time, sporting a soundtrack that may be better than the film itself. STAFF PICKS:Detroit City by Tom JonesRob starts the staff picks with a slow blues number originally written by Mel Tillis. Jones cover of this country song originally released by Bobby Bare is about being lonely and homesick on the road. Jones' version went to number 27 on the Billboard Hot 100. I'll Be Doggone by Marvin GayeLynch brings us an upbeat tune which is the first song on which he collaborated with Smokey Robinson. The lyrics tell the singer's girlfriend that if she cheats on him he'll be (dog)gone. This was a big time for the Motown sound.Can't Help Falling In Love by Elvis PresleySpecial guest Greg's staff pick is an iconic ballad by the King. Recorded for the movie "Blue Hawaii" in 1961, it was on the charts in 1962, but has been popular ever since. Elvis was a great inspiration for Greg's life and musicianship.Action Woman by the LitterWayne features an early garage band with a fuzzy feel. It is a good early example of psychedelic music, and chronicles a man's search for a woman of action - a more active girlfriend. INSTRUMENTAL TRACK:Music to Watch Girls By by the Bob Crewe GenerationThis is a great song title with which to finish off the podcast - or ride in an elevator! Thanks for listening to “What the Riff?!?” NOTE: To adjust the loudness of the music or voices, you may adjust the balance on your device. VOICES are stronger in the LEFT channel, and MUSIC is stronger on the RIGHT channel.Please follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/whattheriffpodcast/, and message or email us with what you'd like to hear, what you think of the show, and any rock-worthy memes we can share.Of course we'd love for you to rate the show in your podcast platform!**NOTE: What the Riff?!? does not own the rights to any of these songs and we neither sell, nor profit from them. We share them so you can learn about them and purchase them for your own collections.
Your Humble Host returns to his Bing Vault and finds an excellent Philco Radio Time show from March 2, 1949. Today Bing Crosby welcomes special guests Burl Ives & Dinah Shore, 2 really great singers and almost legends in their own time. It's Bing time on the Library of Sound Volume 372 and it's happening now!
Devin say one thing, Charlotte says another, and it all changes back again! Dive headfirst into the autumn aesthetic and prepare for the Thanksgiving season with an episode about one of the best films ever covered on Film Literate. Which is pretty short, but only because Fantastic Mr. Fox is, too. And also: 10/10, no notes.Support Film Literate on Patreon!Guest: Charlotte Diazoni
This week, Justin and Chad wrap up Spooky Season with... a classic Western Romance film? ...OK! It's "The Big Country," starring Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, and Burl Ives! Full details on our 2024 Extra Life effort for Children's Miracle Network: https://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donordrive.team&teamID=66652 Download and listen today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, Amazon, Stitcher, Goodpods, and more of your favorite podcast services! Find more fun at GeekCavePodcast.com!
On Volume 180 of Sounds Like Radio it seems everyone's off to the mountains for a vacation except for Leroy & the Great Gildersleeve. Why go to the mountains when you can stay home? That's the way Gildy feels about it, too bad Leroy doesn't agree. So instead Gildy & Leroy will camp in their own backyard. Sounds good, huh? Well, we'll find out if perhaps Al Jolson, Helen O'Connell, Burl Ives, Billie Holiday, Roy Rogers, Peggy Lee & Bing Crosby agree. And our 70's flashback to Your Humble Host's own original album collection with a neat song you never hear anymore. You'll feel the Joy of Cooking once again.
Agents Scott and Cam, along with guest operative Lachlan Page, author of Magical Disinformation, slam back shots and play a high stakes game of checkers against Alec Guinness while decoding the 1959 Graham Greene adaptation Our Man in Havana. Directed by Carol Reed. Starring Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Maureen O'Hara, Ernie Kovacs, Noël Coward, Ralph Richardson, Jo Morrow and Grégoire Aslan. Learn more about Lachlan's work over at his website. All of his books, including Magical Disinformation, are available on Amazon. You can also follow Lachlan on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Become a SpyHards Patron and gain access to top secret "Agents in the Field" bonus episodes, movie commentaries and more! Purchase the latest exclusive SpyHards merch at Redbubble. Social media: @spyhards View the NOC List and the Disavowed List at Letterboxd.com/spyhards Podcast artwork by Hannah Hughes. Theme music by Doug Astley.
EPISODE 55 - “Favorite Classic Films of the 1950s ” - 09/30/2024 ** This episode is sponsored brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/BENEATH and get on your way to being your best self.” ** The 1950s was a real transitional decade for classic films. As we got further away from WW2, and the Cold War began to rise up prominently, there was a cynicism across the land that influenced the content of many Hollywood movies. Films took on a grittier, more realistic feel, and the subject matters were darker and more controversial. It was the decade that sparked masterpieces like “Sunset Boulevard,” “All About Eve,” “From Here To Eternity,” “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof,” “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “Anatomy of a Murder,” “ Strangers on a Train,” “Shane,” and “High Noon.” Listen as Steve and Nan talk about some special 1950s films that inspire them. SHOW NOTES: Sources: TCM.com; IMDBPro.com; Wikipedia.com; NewYorkTimes.com RogerEbert.com Movies Mentioned: No Man of Her Own (1950), starring Barbara Stanwyck, John Lund, and Richard Denning; In A Lonely Place (1950), starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame; A Place In The Sun (1951), starring Montgomery Cliff, Elizabeth Taylor, and Shelley Winters; Pick Up On South Street (1953), starring Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, and Richard Kiley; Witness For the Prosecution (1957), starring Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, and Elsa Lanchester; A Face In The Crowd (1957), starring Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Lee Remick, Walter Matthau, and Anthony Franciosa; Big Country (1958), starring Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker, Burl Ives, Charles Bickford and Charlton Heston; Indiscreet (1959), starring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman; --------------------------------- http://www.airwavemedia.com Please contact sales@advertisecast.com if you would like to advertise on our podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
"Five Minutes More " - Bing Crosby; "The Carioca (Vincent Youmans)" - Skitch Henderson; "The Blue Tailed Fly." - Burl Ives; "That Little Dream Got Nowhere" - Bing Crosby; "A Man is a Brother to a Mule" - Lina Romay; "No Soup" - The Charioteers; "Careless Love/Going Down the Road Feeling Bad" Burl Ives & Bing Crosby; "The Things We Did Last Summer" - Bing Crosby --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/iloveoldtimeradio/support
Jay shares the fascinating history of the traditional American country folk song, “Cotton-Eyed Joe.” Sparked by the recent meme “Gegagedigedagedago (Cotton Eye Joe)” and a video by Polyphonic, Jay traces the song back to its 19th century roots and works his way to today. We listen to versions by the Rednex, Gid Tanner & His Skillet Lickers, Bob Wills, Burl Ives, Karen Dalton, Nina Simone (and a few others).Song: John Zorn Resource - “With Blinding Sight”Get ready for it, it's News with Nick! Finale's rough finale, Martin Shkreli loses his Wu Tang Clan album, and the Boss is here to stay.Song: Tune-yards - “Water Fountain”“Heard It Through the GREGvine” that Oasis is reuniting for a U.K. tour! Plus, what should we make of Linkin Park's countdown timer? Finally, the plot thickens in the Foo Fighters “My Hero” licensing disputes with Trump.Song: Nirvana - “Smells Like Teen Spirit (first live performance, from Hype!)”
The Folk Singers and the Bureau: The FBI, the Folk Artists and the Suppression of the Communist PartyMay 1, 2021The first book to document the efforts of the FBI against the most famous American folk singers of the mid-twentieth century, including Woody Guthrie, 'Sis Cunningham, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays and Burl Ives.Some of the most prominent folk singers of the twentieth century, including Woody Guthrie, 'Sis Cunningham, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Burl Ives, etc., were also political activists with various associations with the American Communist Party. As a consequence, the FBI, along with other governmental and right-wing organizations, were monitoring them, keeping meticulous files running many thousands of pages, and making (and carrying out) plans to purge them from the cultural realm.In The Folk Singers and the Bureau, Aaron J Leonard draws on an unprecedented array of declassified documents and never before released files to shed light on the interplay between left-wing folk artists and their relationship with the American Communist Party, and how it put them in the US government's repressive cross hairs.At a time of increasing state surveillance and repression, The Folk Singers and the Bureau shows how the FBI and other governmental agencies have attempted to shape and repress American culture.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.
We're back with another entry in our Double Feature series! This is where we talk about two films that have some sort of connection (either in reality or in our minds). This episode is pretty straightforward, as Ashley & Matt discuss two 1960s Disney movies starring Hayley Mills!
Duet partners include: Bing Crosby, Dick Haymes, Carmen Miranda, Les Paul, Dan Dailey, Burl Ives and Danny Kaye. Songs include: Take Me Out to the Ball Game, The Woody Woodpecker Song, Rumors Are Flying, Smile, Smile, Smile and There's No Business Like Show Business.
What's up, dudes? It's half way to Christmas, so Merry Halfmas, everyone! To celebrate, I've got CJ from Christmas Sessions and Ashley Dunbar from The Magic of the Season with me to talk about the awesomeness that is Dolly Parton! Did you know she had a 1987 variety show? Well, she did, and that show had a Christmas episode: "A Down Home Country Christmas!"Dolly introduces us to her Christmas show dressed in a Santa suit on the roof of the studio. After sliding down the chimney, her guests Burl Ives and Mac Davis appear on sleds. They all sing a few songs together, "I'll Be Home with Bells On" and "A Down Home Country Christmas." Dolly also tell us the story of a very special Christmas in which her dad bought her mom a wedding ring and she got a new baby brother. Burl sings "A Holly, Jolly Christmas" and Mac sings "Christmas is for Kids." Dolly reminisces about her first Christmas alone in Nashville, and Mac Davis joins her on guitar. It segues nicely to the show's staple sketch Dixie's Place. Socialites Mr. and Mrs. Fulbright's car breaks down, and they find themselves at Dixie's. Mr. Fulbright encounters the ghost of Mr. Pruitt, and rediscovers his spirit of Christmas and family.The show ends in a huge Christmas carol medley with everyone joining in at an icy pond. Dolly, rather than singing us out with "I Will Always Love You," ends the festivities by singing "Once Upon a Christmas." She then thanks all her guests and wishes us a merry time.Puppets? Check. Fake Dolly legs hanging from inside the chimney? Yep. cursed corn husk doll? Definitely! So grab your spoons, play your washboard, and take a sled to this episode! The Magic of the SeasonIG: @themagicoftheseasonpodcastGive us a buzz! Send a text, dudes!Check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Totally Rad Christmas Mall & Arcade, Teepublic.com, or TotallyRadChristmas.com! Later, dudes!
2 + Hours of ComedyFirst a look at this day in History.Then The Eddie Cantor Show, originally broadcast June 12, 1947, 77 years ago, Dream, Dream, Dream. Bert Gordon as "The Mad Russian." Eddie interviews a prospective son-in-law. Eddie and Harry Von Zell travel to Washington to petition Congress to relieve the housing shortage. Next, Father Knows Best starring Robert Young, originally broadcast June 12, 1952, 72 years ago, Lead your own life, Bud. Bud's getting to the age where he wants to be his own man. He's going to move into the room over the feed store. Then the Martin and Lewis show, originally broadcast June 12, 1949, 75 years ago. The boys are looking at doing new music, and they're going to try doing folk music with Burl Ives. Followed by Jack Benny, originally broadcast June 12, 1938, 86 years ago, Artists and Models Abroad. Guests Joan Bennett and director Mitchell Leisen visit Jack in his dressing room on his first day on the set of, "Artists and Models."Finally Lum and Abner, originally broadcast June 12, 1941, 83 years ago, Showdown with Lizebeth. Abner's in hiding from Charlie Dillbeck. Charlie thinks Abner's been romancing his wife.Thanks to Richard for supporting our podcast by using the Buy Me a Coffee function at classicradio.streamCivil defense info mentioned on the show can be found here: www.civildefensemuseum.com/docs.html
Support us on Patreonhttps://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=Awr92rDP5bllDAQAM_ZXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNncTEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1707891407/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.patreon.com%2fuser%3fu%3d4279967/RK=2/RS=9LbiSxziFkcdPQCvqIxPtxIgZ7A-Jack Benny TV Videocasthttps://open.spotify.com/show/6BDar4CsgVEyUloEQ8sWpw?si=89123269fe144a10Jack Benny Show OTR Podcast!https://open.spotify.com/show/3UZ6NSEL7RPxOXUoQ4NiDP?si=987ab6e776a7468cJudy Garland and Friends OTR Podcasthttps://open.spotify.com/show/5ZKJYkgHOIjQzZWCt1a1NN?si=538b47b50852483dStrange New Worlds Of Dimension X-1 Podcasthttps://open.spotify.com/show/6hFMGUvEdaYqPBoxy00sOk?si=a37cc300a8e247a1Buck Benny YouTube Channelhttps://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrOoc1Q5bllBgQA469XNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNncTEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1707891281/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.youtube.com%2f%40BuckBenny/RK=2/RS=nVp4LDJhOmL70bh7eeCi6DPNdW4-Support us on Patreonhttps://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=Awr92rDP5bllDAQAM_ZXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNncTEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1707891407/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.patreon.com%2fuser%3fu%3d4279967/RK=2/RS=9LbiSxziFkcdPQCvqIxPtxIgZ7A-
TVC 644.6a: Greg Ehrbar discusses the Kino Lorber Blu-ray release of The Daydreamer (1966), a feature-length live-action and Animagic-animated adaptation of some of the most famous fairytales of Hans Christian Andersen that was produced by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass, and which featured the talents of Hayley Mills, Tallulah Bankhead, Jack Guilford, Margaret Hamilton, Ray Bolger, Boris Karloff, Burl Ives, Victor Borge, Terry-Thomas, Ed Wynn, Patty Duke, and Robert Goulet. Though unsuccessful at the box office at the time it was originally released, The Daydreamer, in many respects, served as a precursor to the many television specials that Rankin-Bass produced throughout the 1970s. Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They're great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email sales@advertisecast.com or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Songs include: Wild Horses, His Rocking Horse Ran Away, Black Horse Blues, Empty Saddles, Riders In the Sky, Horses Don't Bet On People and The Ride of the Valkeries. Performers include: Betty Hutton, Bing Crosby, Burl Ives, Kay Kyser and Perry Como.
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On Episode 13 of Season 5 of the Old Radio Comedy Podcast, we bring you the June 12, 1949 broadcast from The Martin and Lewis Show, guest starring Burl Ives, and the episode "Jim's Birthday," from Father Knows Best, Feb. 23, 1950. Enjoy!
Jah Wobble - aka John Wardle - wrote ‘Dark Luminosity: Memoirs of a Geezer' in 2009. It's just been reworked, expanded and republished and it's well worth reading, full of detail about growing up in the East End, unexploded bombs, pickling factories, grim schooldays, record shops and clubs, the bands he saw and his arrival at Kingsway College where he met John Lydon and Sid Vicious and became a cornerstone of the punk rock inner circle. And then two challenging years as the bassist of Public Image Ltd, the time he worked as a train driver and ticket collector for London Transport, a series of collaborations – Brian Eno, Baaba Maal, Holger Czukay, Sinead O'Connor, Chaka Demus – and some bold and original solo albums (you'll enjoy Island Records' reaction when he pitches an album based on the poems of William Blake). Among this podcast's highlights … … the Kafkaesque world of working for the London Underground in the days when you could “punch an area manager and not get sacked”. … why great rhythm sections are like great football players. … his dad, an El-Alamein survivor, on seeing Mick Jagger on Top of the Pops: “the Rolling Stones should be used for mine clearance.” … Public Image Ltd – “three of the weirdest people you could ever meet”, the band that kept their cash in a shoebox. … “you can't go through life as a tourist”. … the secret of the perfect bass sound. … watching the first Sex Pistols' rehearsal. … seeing Bob Marley & the Wailers at the Lyceum. … the record that reversed his dislike of the Beatles. … why working with Pharoah Sanders was the highlight of his musical life. … his 2023 album, ‘The Bus Routes of South London'. … Jim Reeves, Burl Ives and further sounds of the family homestead. ... and a powerful aversion to hippies. Order John's memoir here …https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Luminosity-Memoirs-Geezer-expanded/dp/0571375359Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content, plus a whole load more: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Diane and Sean discuss a "Star Wars" TV movie...Caravan of Courage. There are no other words to describe this. Episode music is, "Ewok Caravan of Courage", by Peter Bernstein from the OST.- Our theme song is by Brushy One String- Artwork by Marlaine LePage- Why Do We Own This DVD? Merch available at Teepublic- Follow the show on social media:- IG: @whydoweownthisdvd- Tumblr: WhyDoWeOwnThisDVD- Follow Sean's Plants on IG: @lookitmahplants- Watch Sean be bad at video games on TwitchSupport the show
Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger spend the holidays strolling the grounds of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's former mansion in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to witness the birthplace of a poem written Christmas morning in 1863, when Longfellow felt his hope renewed after his son had been badly injured in a Civil War battle. The poem was later turned into a holiday song that's been recorded by giants like: Burl Ives, Frank Sinatra, Harry Belafonte, Andy Williams, and Johnny Cash. The Legend of the Longfellow Bells - A New England Legends Podcast Listen ad-free plus get early access and bonus episodes at: https://www.patreon.com/NewEnglandLegends For more episodes join us here each Monday or visit their website to catch up on the hundreds of tales that legends are made of. https://ournewenglandlegends.com/category/podcasts/Follow Jeff Belanger here: https://jeffbelanger.com/Get Jeff's new book, The Fright Before Christmas: Surviving Krampus and Other Yuletide Monsters, Witches, and Ghosts here: https://bit.ly/3uVTRgh See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The first Christmas Song Tournament is here! Run-DMC, Mariah Carey, Burl Ives, The Pogues, Nat King Cole, and more fight to the death for title of Best Christmas Song according to Jesse the Tree, Milc, and Televangel! Plus we take a detour into the Burl Ives classic White Dog! As always for exclusive content and early releases sign up for our patreon! https://www.patreon.com/calloutculturepodcast --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/calloutculture/support
In Episode 329 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger spend Christmas strolling the grounds of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's former mansion in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to witness the birthplace of a poem written Christmas morning in 1863, when Longfellow felt his hope renewed after his son had been badly injured in a Civil War battle. The poem was later turned into a holiday song that's been recorded by giants like: Burl Ives, Frank Sinatra, Harry Belafonte, Andy Williams, and Johnny Cash. See more here: https://ournewenglandlegends.com/podcast-329-when-longfellow-heard-the-bells-on-christmas-day/ Listen ad-free plus get early access and bonus episodes at: https://www.patreon.com/NewEnglandLegends
This week on Myopia Movies, we learn it is ok to be a dentist. We splurge and watch two classic Rankin and Bass Shorts! We watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and The Year without a Santa Claus, ground zero for the classic holiday characters Yukon Cornelius, The Bumble, Snow Miser and Heat Miser, and an elf who wants to be a dentist! Watch the puppet magic of the Charlie in a box and it snowing in South town! How will Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and The Year without a Santa Claus hold up? Host: Nic Panel: Keiko and Candace Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Directed by Larry Roemer Starring: Billie Mae Richards, Burl Ives, Larry D. Mann, and the world's most ornory Santa Claus The Year without a Santa Claus Directed by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr. Starring: Shirley Booth, Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, George S. Irving
The first book to document the efforts of the FBI against the most famous American folk singers of the mid-twentieth century, including Woody Guthrie, 'Sis Cunningham, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays and Burl Ives.Some of the most prominent folk singers of the twentieth century, including Woody Guthrie, 'Sis Cunningham, Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Burl Ives, etc., were also political activists with various associations with the American Communist Party. As a consequence, the FBI, along with other governmental and right-wing organizations, were monitoring them, keeping meticulous files running many thousands of pages, and making (and carrying out) plans to purge them from the cultural realm.In The Folk Singers and the Bureau, Aaron J Leonard draws on an unprecedented array of declassified documents and never before released files to shed light on the interplay between left-wing folk artists and their relationship with the American Communist Party, and how it put them in the US government's repressive cross hairs.At a time of increasing state surveillance and repression, The Folk Singers and the Bureau shows how the FBI and other governmental agencies have attempted to shape and repress American culture.read less9 months agoThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement
Paine Radio ClassicsWe Cannot Say Much of the 'Really Good Stuff' on Here That's Why We Created Paine.tv YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE TO THE SHOW BY CLICKING THIS LINK -- *** DONATE HERE *** GET the Intel that's Too Hot For Anywhere Else at P A IN E. TV CONTRIBUTE TO THE SHOW BY CLICKING THIS LINK -- *** DONATE HERE *** ...This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5788750/advertisement
Episode one hundred and sixty-seven of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “The Weight" by the Band, the Basement Tapes, and the continuing controversy over Dylan going electric. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a half-hour bonus episode available, on "S.F. Sorrow is Born" by the Pretty Things. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Also, a one-time request here -- Shawn Taylor, who runs the Facebook group for the podcast and is an old and dear friend of mine, has stage-three lung cancer. I will be hugely grateful to anyone who donates to the GoFundMe for her treatment. Errata At one point I say "when Robertson and Helm travelled to the Brill Building". I meant "when Hawkins and Helm". This is fixed in the transcript but not the recording. Resources There are three Mixcloud mixes this time. As there are so many songs by Bob Dylan and the Band excerpted, and Mixcloud won't allow more than four songs by the same artist in any mix, I've had to post the songs not in quite the same order in which they appear in the podcast. But the mixes are here — one, two, three. I've used these books for all the episodes involving Dylan: Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties by Elijah Wald, which is recommended, as all Wald's books are. Bob Dylan: All The Songs by Phillipe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon is a song-by-song look at every song Dylan ever wrote, as is Revolution in the Air, by Clinton Heylin. Heylin also wrote the most comprehensive and accurate biography of Dylan, Behind the Shades. I've also used Robert Shelton's No Direction Home, which is less accurate, but which is written by someone who knew Dylan. Chronicles Volume 1 by Bob Dylan is a partial, highly inaccurate, but thoroughly readable autobiography. Information on Tiny Tim comes from Eternal Troubadour: The Improbable Life of Tiny Tim by Justin Martell. Information on John Cage comes from The Roaring Silence by David Revill Information on Woodstock comes from Small Town Talk by Barney Hoskyns. For material on the Basement Tapes, I've used Million Dollar Bash by Sid Griffin. And for the Band, I've used This Wheel's on Fire by Levon Helm with Stephen Davis, Testimony by Robbie Robertson, The Band by Craig Harris and Levon by Sandra B Tooze. I've also referred to the documentaries No Direction Home and Once Were Brothers. The complete Basement Tapes can be found on this multi-disc box set, while this double-CD version has the best material from the sessions. All the surviving live recordings by Dylan and the Hawks from 1966 are on this box set. There are various deluxe versions of Music From Big Pink, but still the best way to get the original album is in this twofer CD with the Band's second album. Transcript Just a brief note before I start – literally while I was in the middle of recording this episode, it was announced that Robbie Robertson had died today, aged eighty. Obviously I've not had time to alter the rest of the episode – half of which had already been edited – with that in mind, though I don't believe I say anything disrespectful to his memory. My condolences to those who loved him – he was a huge talent and will be missed. There are people in the world who question the function of criticism. Those people argue that criticism is in many ways parasitic. If critics knew what they were talking about, so the argument goes, they would create themselves, rather than talk about other people's creation. It's a variant of the "those who can't, teach" cliche. And to an extent it's true. Certainly in the world of rock music, which we're talking about in this podcast, most critics are quite staggeringly ignorant of the things they're talking about. Most criticism is ephemeral, published in newspapers, magazines, blogs and podcasts, and forgotten as soon as it has been consumed -- and consumed is the word . But sometimes, just sometimes, a critic will have an effect on the world that is at least as important as that of any of the artists they criticise. One such critic was John Ruskin. Ruskin was one of the preeminent critics of visual art in the Victorian era, particularly specialising in painting and architecture, and he passionately advocated for a form of art that would be truthful, plain, and honest. To Ruskin's mind, many artists of the past, and of his time, drew and painted, not what they saw with their own eyes, but what other people expected them to paint. They replaced true observation of nature with the regurgitation of ever-more-mannered and formalised cliches. His attacks on many great artists were, in essence, the same critiques that are currently brought against AI art apps -- they're just recycling and plagiarising what other people had already done, not seeing with their own eyes and creating from their own vision. Ruskin was an artist himself, but never received much acclaim for his own work. Rather, he advocated for the works of others, like Turner and the pre-Raphaelite school -- the latter of whom were influenced by Ruskin, even as he admired them for seeing with their own vision rather than just repeating influences from others. But those weren't the only people Ruskin influenced. Because any critical project, properly understood, becomes about more than just the art -- as if art is just anything. Ruskin, for example, studied geology, because if you're going to talk about how people should paint landscapes and what those landscapes look like, you need to understand what landscapes really do look like, which means understanding their formation. He understood that art of the kind he wanted could only be produced by certain types of people, and so society had to be organised in a way to produce such people. Some types of societal organisation lead to some kinds of thinking and creation, and to properly, honestly, understand one branch of human thought means at least to attempt to understand all of them. Opinions about art have moral consequences, and morality has political and economic consequences. The inevitable endpoint of any theory of art is, ultimately, a theory of society. And Ruskin had a theory of society, and social organisation. Ruskin's views are too complex to summarise here, but they were a kind of anarcho-primitivist collectivism. He believed that wealth was evil, and that the classical liberal economics of people like Mill was fundamentally anti-human, that the division of labour alienated people from their work. In Ruskin's ideal world, people would gather in communities no bigger than villages, and work as craftspeople, working with nature rather than trying to bend nature to their will. They would be collectives, with none richer or poorer than any other, and working the land without modern technology. in the first half of the twentieth century, in particular, Ruskin's influence was *everywhere*. His writings on art inspired the Impressionist movement, but his political and economic ideas were the most influential, right across the political spectrum. Ruskin's ideas were closest to Christian socialism, and he did indeed inspire many socialist parties -- most of the founders of Britain's Labour Party were admirers of Ruskin and influenced by his ideas, particularly his opposition to the free market. But he inspired many other people -- Gandhi talked about the profound influence that Ruskin had on him, saying in his autobiography that he got three lessons from Ruskin's Unto This Last: "That 1) the good of the individual is contained in the good of all. 2) a lawyer's work has the same value as the barber's in as much as all have the same right of earning their livelihood from their work. 3) a life of labour, i.e., the life of the tiller of the soil and the handicraftsman is the life worth living. The first of these I knew. The second I had dimly realized. The third had never occurred to me. Unto This Last made it clear as daylight for me that the second and third were contained in the first. I arose with the dawn, ready to reduce these principles to practice" Gandhi translated and paraphrased Unto this Last into Gujurati and called the resulting book Sarvodaya (meaning "uplifting all" or "the welfare of all") which he later took as the name of his own political philosophy. But Ruskin also had a more pernicious influence -- it was said in 1930s Germany that he and his friend Thomas Carlyle were "the first National Socialists" -- there's no evidence I know of that Hitler ever read Ruskin, but a *lot* of Nazi rhetoric is implicit in Ruskin's writing, particularly in his opposition to progress (he even opposed the bicycle as being too much inhuman interference with nature), just as much as more admirable philosophies, and he was so widely read in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that there's barely a political movement anywhere that didn't bear his fingerprints. But of course, our focus here is on music. And Ruskin had an influence on that, too. We've talked in several episodes, most recently the one on the Velvet Underground, about John Cage's piece 4'33. What I didn't mention in any of the discussions of that piece -- because I was saving it for here -- is that that piece was premiered at a small concert hall in upstate New York. The hall, the Maverick Concert Hall, was owned and run by the Maverick arts and crafts collective -- a collective that were so called because they were the *second* Ruskinite arts colony in the area, having split off from the Byrdcliffe colony after a dispute between its three founders, all of whom were disciples of Ruskin, and all of whom disagreed violently about how to implement Ruskin's ideas of pacifist all-for-one and one-for-all community. These arts colonies, and others that grew up around them like the Arts Students League were the thriving centre of a Bohemian community -- close enough to New York that you could get there if you needed to, far enough away that you could live out your pastoral fantasies, and artists of all types flocked there -- Pete Seeger met his wife there, and his father-in-law had been one of the stonemasons who helped build the Maverick concert hall. Dozens of artists in all sorts of areas, from Aaron Copland to Edward G Robinson, spent time in these communities, as did Cage. Of course, while these arts and crafts communities had a reputation for Bohemianism and artistic extremism, even radical utopian artists have their limits, and legend has it that the premiere of 4'33 was met with horror and derision, and eventually led to one artist in the audience standing up and calling on the residents of the town around which these artistic colonies had agglomerated: “Good people of Woodstock, let's drive these people out of town.” [Excerpt: The Band, "The Weight"] Ronnie Hawkins was almost born to make music. We heard back in the episode on "Suzie Q" in 2019 about his family and their ties to music. Ronnie's uncle Del was, according to most of the sources on the family, a member of the Sons of the Pioneers -- though as I point out in that episode, his name isn't on any of the official lists of group members, but he might well have performed with them at some point in the early years of the group. And he was definitely a country music bass player, even if he *wasn't* in the most popular country and western group of the thirties and forties. And Del had had two sons, Jerry, who made some minor rockabilly records: [Excerpt: Jerry Hawkins, "Swing, Daddy, Swing"] And Del junior, who as we heard in the "Susie Q" episode became known as Dale Hawkins and made one of the most important rock records of the fifties: [Excerpt: Dale Hawkins, "Susie Q"] Ronnie Hawkins was around the same age as his cousins, and was in awe of his country-music star uncle. Hawkins later remembered that after his uncle moved to Califormia to become a star “He'd come home for a week or two, driving a brand new Cadillac and wearing brand new clothes and I knew that's what I wanted to be." Though he also remembered “He spent every penny he made on whiskey, and he was divorced because he was running around with all sorts of women. His wife left Arkansas and went to Louisiana.” Hawkins knew that he wanted to be a music star like his uncle, and he started performing at local fairs and other events from the age of eleven, including one performance where he substituted for Hank Williams -- Williams was so drunk that day he couldn't perform, and so his backing band asked volunteers from the audience to get up and sing with them, and Hawkins sang Burl Ives and minstrel-show songs with the band. He said later “Even back then I knew that every important white cat—Al Jolson, Stephen Foster—they all did it by copying blacks. Even Hank Williams learned all the stuff he had from those black cats in Alabama. Elvis Presley copied black music; that's all that Elvis did.” As well as being a performer from an early age, though, Hawkins was also an entrepreneur with an eye for how to make money. From the age of fourteen he started running liquor -- not moonshine, he would always point out, but something far safer. He lived only a few miles from the border between Missouri and Arkansas, and alcohol and tobacco were about half the price in Missouri that they were in Arkansas, so he'd drive across the border, load up on whisky and cigarettes, and drive back and sell them at a profit, which he then used to buy shares in several nightclubs, which he and his bands would perform in in later years. Like every man of his generation, Hawkins had to do six months in the Army, and it was there that he joined his first ever full-time band, the Blackhawks -- so called because his name was Hawkins, and the rest of the group were Black, though Hawkins was white. They got together when the other four members were performing at a club in the area where Hawkins was stationed, and he was so impressed with their music that he jumped on stage and started singing with them. He said later “It sounded like something between the blues and rockabilly. It sort of leaned in both directions at the same time, me being a hayseed and those guys playing a lot funkier." As he put it "I wanted to sound like Bobby ‘Blue' Bland but it came out sounding like Ernest Tubb.” Word got around about the Blackhawks, both that they were a great-sounding rock and roll band and that they were an integrated band at a time when that was extremely unpopular in the southern states, and when Hawkins was discharged from the Army he got a call from Sam Phillips at Sun Records. According to Hawkins a group of the regular Sun session musicians were planning on forming a band, and he was asked to front the band for a hundred dollars a week, but by the time he got there the band had fallen apart. This doesn't precisely line up with anything else I know about Sun, though it perhaps makes sense if Hawkins was being asked to front the band who had variously backed Billy Lee Riley and Jerry Lee Lewis after one of Riley's occasional threats to leave the label. More likely though, he told everyone he knew that he had a deal with Sun but Phillips was unimpressed with the demos he cut there, and Hawkins made up the story to stop himself losing face. One of the session players for Sun, though, Luke Paulman, who played in Conway Twitty's band among others, *was* impressed with Hawkins though, and suggested that they form a band together with Paulman's bass player brother George and piano-playing cousin Pop Jones. The Paulman brothers and Jones also came from Arkansas, but they specifically came from Helena, Arkansas, the town from which King Biscuit Time was broadcast. King Biscuit Time was the most important blues radio show in the US at that time -- a short lunchtime programme which featured live performances from a house band which varied over the years, but which in the 1940s had been led by Sonny Boy Williamson II, and featured Robert Jr. Lockwood, Robert Johnson's stepson, on guiitar: [Excerpt: Sonny Boy Williamson II "Eyesight to the Blind (King Biscuit Time)"] The band also included a drummer, "Peck" Curtis, and that drummer was the biggest inspiration for a young white man from the town named Levon Helm. Helm had first been inspired to make music after seeing Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys play live when Helm was eight, and he had soon taken up first the harmonica, then the guitar, then the drums, becoming excellent at all of them. Even as a child he knew that he didn't want to be a farmer like his family, and that music was, as he put it, "the only way to get off that stinking tractor and out of that one hundred and five degree heat.” Sonny Boy Williamson and the King Biscuit Boys would perform in the open air in Marvell, Arkansas, where Helm was growing up, on Saturdays, and Helm watched them regularly as a small child, and became particularly interested in the drumming. “As good as the band sounded,” he said later “it seemed that [Peck] was definitely having the most fun. I locked into the drums at that point. Later, I heard Jack Nance, Conway Twitty's drummer, and all the great drummers in Memphis—Jimmy Van Eaton, Al Jackson, and Willie Hall—the Chicago boys (Fred Belew and Clifton James) and the people at Sun Records and Vee-Jay, but most of my style was based on Peck and Sonny Boy—the Delta blues style with the shuffle. Through the years, I've quickened the pace to a more rock-and-roll meter and time frame, but it still bases itself back to Peck, Sonny Boy Williamson, and the King Biscuit Boys.” Helm had played with another band that George Paulman had played in, and he was invited to join the fledgling band Hawkins was putting together, called for the moment the Sun Records Quartet. The group played some of the clubs Hawkins had business connections in, but they had other plans -- Conway Twitty had recently played Toronto, and had told Luke Paulman about how desperate the Canadians were for American rock and roll music. Twitty's agent Harold Kudlets booked the group in to a Toronto club, Le Coq D'Or, and soon the group were alternating between residencies in clubs in the Deep South, where they were just another rockabilly band, albeit one of the better ones, and in Canada, where they became the most popular band in Ontario, and became the nucleus of an entire musical scene -- the same scene from which, a few years later, people like Neil Young would emerge. George Paulman didn't remain long in the group -- he was apparently getting drunk, and also he was a double-bass player, at a time when the electric bass was becoming the in thing. And this is the best place to mention this, but there are several discrepancies in the various accounts of which band members were in Hawkins' band at which times, and who played on what session. They all *broadly* follow the same lines, but none of them are fully reconcilable with each other, and nobody was paying enough attention to lineup shifts in a bar band between 1957 and 1964 to be absolutely certain who was right. I've tried to reconcile the various accounts as far as possible and make a coherent narrative, but some of the details of what follows may be wrong, though the broad strokes are correct. For much of their first period in Ontario, the group had no bass player at all, relying on Jones' piano to fill in the bass parts, and on their first recording, a version of "Bo Diddley", they actually got the club's manager to play bass with them: [Excerpt: Ronnie Hawkins, "Hey Bo Diddley"] That is claimed to be the first rock and roll record made in Canada, though as everyone who has listened to this podcast knows, there's no first anything. It wasn't released as by the Sun Records Quartet though -- the band had presumably realised that that name would make them much less attractive to other labels, and so by this point the Sun Records Quartet had become Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks. "Hey Bo Diddley" was released on a small Canadian label and didn't have any success, but the group carried on performing live, travelling back down to Arkansas for a while and getting a new bass player, Lefty Evans, who had been playing in the same pool of musicians as them, having been another Sun session player who had been in Conway Twitty's band, and had written Twitty's "Why Can't I Get Through to You": [Excerpt: Conway Twitty, "Why Can't I Get Through to You"] The band were now popular enough in Canada that they were starting to get heard of in America, and through Kudlets they got a contract with Joe Glaser, a Mafia-connected booking agent who booked them into gigs on the Jersey Shore. As Helm said “Ronnie Hawkins had molded us into the wildest, fiercest, speed-driven bar band in America," and the group were apparently getting larger audiences in New Jersey than Sammy Davis Jr was, even though they hadn't released any records in the US. Or at least, they hadn't released any records in their own name in the US. There's a record on End Records by Rockin' Ronald and the Rebels which is very strongly rumoured to have been the Hawks under another name, though Hawkins always denied that. Have a listen for yourself and see what you think: [Excerpt: Rockin' Ronald and the Rebels, "Kansas City"] End Records, the label that was on, was one of the many record labels set up by George Goldner and distributed by Morris Levy, and when the group did release a record in their home country under their own name, it was on Levy's Roulette Records. An audition for Levy had been set up by Glaser's booking company, and Levy decided that given that Elvis was in the Army, there was a vacancy to be filled and Ronnie Hawkins might just fit the bill. Hawkins signed a contract with Levy, and it doesn't sound like he had much choice in the matter. Helm asked him “How long did you have to sign for?” and Hawkins replied "Life with an option" That said, unlike almost every other artist who interacted with Levy, Hawkins never had a bad word to say about him, at least in public, saying later “I don't care what Morris was supposed to have done, he looked after me and he believed in me. I even lived with him in his million-dollar apartment on the Upper East Side." The first single the group recorded for Roulette, a remake of Chuck Berry's "Thirty Days" retitled "Forty Days", didn't chart, but the follow-up, a version of Young Jessie's "Mary Lou", made number twenty-six on the charts: [Excerpt: Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, "Mary Lou"] While that was a cover of a Young Jessie record, the songwriting credits read Hawkins and Magill -- Magill was a pseudonym used by Morris Levy. Levy hoped to make Ronnie Hawkins into a really big star, but hit a snag. This was just the point where the payola scandal had hit and record companies were under criminal investigation for bribing DJs to play their records. This was the main method of promotion that Levy used, and this was so well known that Levy was, for a time, under more scrutiny than anyone. He couldn't risk paying anyone off, and so Hawkins' records didn't get the expected airplay. The group went through some lineup changes, too, bringing in guitarist Fred Carter (with Luke Paulman moving to rhythm and soon leaving altogether) from Hawkins' cousin Dale's band, and bass player Jimmy Evans. Some sources say that Jones quit around this time, too, though others say he was in the band for a while longer, and they had two keyboards (the other keyboard being supplied by Stan Szelest. As well as recording Ronnie Hawkins singles, the new lineup of the group also recorded one single with Carter on lead vocals, "My Heart Cries": [Excerpt: Fred Carter, "My Heart Cries"] While the group were now playing more shows in the USA, they were still playing regularly in Canada, and they had developed a huge fanbase there. One of these was a teenage guitarist called Robbie Robertson, who had become fascinated with the band after playing a support slot for them, and had started hanging round, trying to ingratiate himself with the band in the hope of being allowed to join. As he was a teenager, Hawkins thought he might have his finger on the pulse of the youth market, and when Hawkins and Helm travelled to the Brill Building to hear new songs for consideration for their next album, they brought Robertson along to listen to them and give his opinion. Robertson himself ended up contributing two songs to the album, titled Mr. Dynamo. According to Hawkins "we had a little time after the session, so I thought, Well, I'm just gonna put 'em down and see what happens. And they were released. Robbie was the songwriter for words, and Levon was good for arranging, making things fit in and all that stuff. He knew what to do, but he didn't write anything." The two songs in question were "Someone Like You" and "Hey Boba Lou": [Excerpt: Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, "Hey Boba Lou"] While Robertson was the sole writer of the songs, they were credited to Robertson, Hawkins, and Magill -- Morris Levy. As Robertson told the story later, “It's funny, when those songs came out and I got a copy of the album, it had another name on there besides my name for some writer like Morris Levy. So, I said to Ronnie, “There was nobody there writing these songs when I wrote these songs. Who is Morris Levy?” Ronnie just kinda tapped me on the head and said, “There are certain things about this business that you just let go and you don't question.” That was one of my early music industry lessons right there" Robertson desperately wanted to join the Hawks, but initially it was Robertson's bandmate Scott Cushnie who became the first Canadian to join the Hawks. But then when they were in Arkansas, Jimmy Evans decided he wasn't going to go back to Canada. So Hawkins called Robbie Robertson up and made him an offer. Robertson had to come down to Arkansas and get a couple of quick bass lessons from Helm (who could play pretty much every instrument to an acceptable standard, and so was by this point acting as the group's musical director, working out arrangements and leading them in rehearsals). Then Hawkins and Helm had to be elsewhere for a few weeks. If, when they got back, Robertson was good enough on bass, he had the job. If not, he didn't. Robertson accepted, but he nearly didn't get the gig after all. The place Hawkins and Helm had to be was Britain, where they were going to be promoting their latest single on Boy Meets Girls, the Jack Good TV series with Marty Wilde, which featured guitarist Joe Brown in the backing band: [Excerpt: Joe Brown, “Savage”] This was the same series that Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent were regularly appearing on, and while they didn't appear on the episodes that Hawkins and Helm appeared on, they did appear on the episodes immediately before Hawkins and Helm's two appearances, and again a couple of weeks after, and were friendly with the musicians who did play with Hawkins and Helm, and apparently they all jammed together a few times. Hawkins was impressed enough with Joe Brown -- who at the time was considered the best guitarist on the British scene -- that he invited Brown to become a Hawk. Presumably if Brown had taken him up on the offer, he would have taken the spot that ended up being Robertson's, but Brown turned him down -- a decision he apparently later regretted. Robbie Robertson was now a Hawk, and he and Helm formed an immediate bond. As Helm much later put it, "It was me and Robbie against the world. Our mission, as we saw it, was to put together the best band in history". As rockabilly was by this point passe, Levy tried converting Hawkins into a folk artist, to see if he could get some of the Kingston Trio's audience. He recorded a protest song, "The Ballad of Caryl Chessman", protesting the then-forthcoming execution of Chessman (one of only a handful of people to be executed in the US in recent decades for non-lethal offences), and he made an album of folk tunes, The Folk Ballads of Ronnie Hawkins, which largely consisted of solo acoustic recordings, plus a handful of left-over Hawks recordings from a year or so earlier. That wasn't a success, but they also tried a follow-up, having Hawkins go country and do an album of Hank Williams songs, recorded in Nashville at Owen Bradley's Quonset hut. While many of the musicians on the album were Nashville A-Team players, Hawkins also insisted on having his own band members perform, much to the disgust of the producer, and so it's likely (not certain, because there seem to be various disagreements about what was recorded when) that that album features the first studio recordings with Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson playing together: [Excerpt: Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, "Your Cheatin' Heart"] Other sources claim that the only Hawk allowed to play on the album sessions was Helm, and that the rest of the musicians on the album were Harold Bradley and Hank Garland on guitar, Owen Bradley and Floyd Cramer on piano, Bob Moore on bass, and the Anita Kerr singers. I tend to trust Helm's recollection that the Hawks played at least some of the instruments though, because the source claiming that also seems to confuse the Hank Williams and Folk Ballads albums, and because I don't hear two pianos on the album. On the other hand, that *does* sound like Floyd Cramer on piano, and the tik-tok bass sound you'd get from having Harold Bradley play a baritone guitar while Bob Moore played a bass. So my best guess is that these sessions were like the Elvis sessions around the same time and with several of the same musicians, where Elvis' own backing musicians played rhythm parts but left the prominent instruments to the A-team players. Helm was singularly unimpressed with the experience of recording in Nashville. His strongest memory of the sessions was of another session going on in the same studio complex at the time -- Bobby "Blue" Bland was recording his classic single "Turn On Your Love Light", with the great drummer Jabo Starks on drums, and Helm was more interested in listening to that than he was in the music they were playing: [Excerpt: Bobby "Blue" Bland, "Turn On Your Love Light"] Incidentally, Helm talks about that recording being made "downstairs" from where the Hawks were recording, but also says that they were recording in Bradley's Quonset hut. Now, my understanding here *could* be very wrong -- I've been unable to find a plan or schematic anywhere -- but my understanding is that the Quonset hut was a single-level structure, not a multi-level structure. BUT the original recording facilities run by the Bradley brothers were in Owen Bradley's basement, before they moved into the larger Quonset hut facility in the back, so it's possible that Bland was recording that in the old basement studio. If so, that won't be the last recording made in a basement we hear this episode... Fred Carter decided during the Nashville sessions that he was going to leave the Hawks. As his son told the story: "Dad had discovered the session musicians there. He had no idea that you could play and make a living playing in studios and sleep in your own bed every night. By that point in his life, he'd already been gone from home and constantly on the road and in the service playing music for ten years so that appealed to him greatly. And Levon asked him, he said, “If you're gonna leave, Fred, I'd like you to get young Robbie over here up to speed on guitar”…[Robbie] got kind of aggravated with him—and Dad didn't say this with any malice—but by the end of that week, or whatever it was, Robbie made some kind of comment about “One day I'm gonna cut you.” And Dad said, “Well, if that's how you think about it, the lessons are over.” " (For those who don't know, a musician "cutting" another one is playing better than them, so much better that the worse musician has to concede defeat. For the remainder of Carter's notice in the Hawks, he played with his back to Robertson, refusing to look at him. Carter leaving the group caused some more shuffling of roles. For a while, Levon Helm -- who Hawkins always said was the best lead guitar player he ever worked with as well as the best drummer -- tried playing lead guitar while Robertson played rhythm and another member, Rebel Payne, played bass, but they couldn't find a drummer to replace Helm, who moved back onto the drums. Then they brought in Roy Buchanan, another guitarist who had been playing with Dale Hawkins, having started out playing with Johnny Otis' band. But Buchanan didn't fit with Hawkins' personality, and he quit after a few months, going off to record his own first solo record: [Excerpt: Roy Buchanan, "Mule Train Stomp"] Eventually they solved the lineup problem by having Robertson -- by this point an accomplished lead player --- move to lead guitar and bringing in a new rhythm player, another Canadian teenager named Rick Danko, who had originally been a lead player (and who also played mandolin and fiddle). Danko wasn't expected to stay on rhythm long though -- Rebel Payne was drinking a lot and missing being at home when he was out on the road, so Danko was brought in on the understanding that he was to learn Payne's bass parts and switch to bass when Payne quit. Helm and Robertson were unsure about Danko, and Robertson expressed that doubt, saying "He only knows four chords," to which Hawkins replied, "That's all right son. You can teach him four more the way we had to teach you." He proved himself by sheer hard work. As Hawkins put it “He practiced so much that his arms swoll up. He was hurting.” By the time Danko switched to bass, the group also had a baritone sax player, Jerry Penfound, which allowed the group to play more of the soul and R&B material that Helm and Robertson favoured, though Hawkins wasn't keen. This new lineup of the group (which also had Stan Szelest on piano) recorded Hawkins' next album. This one was produced by Henry Glover, the great record producer, songwriter, and trumpet player who had played with Lucky Millinder, produced Wynonie Harris, Hank Ballard, and Moon Mullican, and wrote "Drowning in My Own Tears", "The Peppermint Twist", and "California Sun". Glover was massively impressed with the band, especially Helm (with whom he would remain friends for the rest of his life) and set aside some studio time for them to cut some tracks without Hawkins, to be used as album filler, including a version of the Bobby "Blue" Bland song "Farther On Up the Road" with Helm on lead vocals: [Excerpt: Levon Helm and the Hawks, "Farther On Up the Road"] There were more changes on the way though. Stan Szelest was about to leave the band, and Jones had already left, so the group had no keyboard player. Hawkins had just the replacement for Szelest -- yet another Canadian teenager. This one was Richard Manuel, who played piano and sang in a band called The Rockin' Revols. Manuel was not the greatest piano player around -- he was an adequate player for simple rockabilly and R&B stuff, but hardly a virtuoso -- but he was an incredible singer, able to do a version of "Georgia on My Mind" which rivalled Ray Charles, and Hawkins had booked the Revols into his own small circuit of clubs around Arkanasas after being impressed with them on the same bill as the Hawks a couple of times. Hawkins wanted someone with a good voice because he was increasingly taking a back seat in performances. Hawkins was the bandleader and frontman, but he'd often given Helm a song or two to sing in the show, and as they were often playing for several hours a night, the more singers the band had the better. Soon, with Helm, Danko, and Manuel all in the group and able to take lead vocals, Hawkins would start missing entire shows, though he still got more money than any of his backing group. Hawkins was also a hard taskmaster, and wanted to have the best band around. He already had great musicians, but he wanted them to be *the best*. And all the musicians in his band were now much younger than him, with tons of natural talent, but untrained. What he needed was someone with proper training, someone who knew theory and technique. He'd been trying for a long time to get someone like that, but Garth Hudson had kept turning him down. Hudson was older than any of the Hawks, though younger than Hawkins, and he was a multi-instrumentalist who was far better than any other musician on the circuit, having trained in a conservatory and learned how to play Bach and Chopin before switching to rock and roll. He thought the Hawks were too loud sounding and played too hard for him, but Helm kept on at Hawkins to meet any demands Hudson had, and Hawkins eventually agreed to give Hudson a higher wage than any of the other band members, buy him a new Lowry organ, and give him an extra ten dollars a week to give the rest of the band music lessons. Hudson agreed, and the Hawks now had a lineup of Helm on drums, Robertson on guitar, Manuel on piano, Danko on bass, Hudson on organ and alto sax, and Penfound on baritone sax. But these new young musicians were beginning to wonder why they actually needed a frontman who didn't turn up to many of the gigs, kept most of the money, and fined them whenever they broke one of his increasingly stringent set of rules. Indeed, they wondered why they needed a frontman at all. They already had three singers -- and sometimes a fourth, a singer called Bruce Bruno who would sometimes sit in with them when Penfound was unable to make a gig. They went to see Harold Kudlets, who Hawkins had recently sacked as his manager, and asked him if he could get them gigs for the same amount of money as they'd been getting with Hawkins. Kudlets was astonished to find how little Hawkins had been paying them, and told them that would be no problem at all. They had no frontman any more -- and made it a rule in all their contracts that the word "sideman" would never be used -- but Helm had been the leader for contractual purposes, as the musical director and longest-serving member (Hawkins, as a non-playing singer, had never joined the Musicians' Union so couldn't be the leader on contracts). So the band that had been Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks became the Levon Helm Sextet briefly -- but Penfound soon quit, and they became Levon and the Hawks. The Hawks really started to find their identity as their own band in 1964. They were already far more interested in playing soul than Hawkins had been, but they were also starting to get into playing soul *jazz*, especially after seeing the Cannonball Adderley Sextet play live: [Excerpt: Cannonball Adderley, "This Here"] What the group admired about the Adderley group more than anything else was a sense of restraint. Helm was particularly impressed with their drummer, Louie Hayes, and said of him "I got to see some great musicians over the years, and you see somebody like that play and you can tell, y' know, that the thing not to do is to just get it down on the floor and stomp the hell out of it!" The other influence they had, and one which would shape their sound even more, was a negative one. The two biggest bands on the charts at the time were the Beatles and the Beach Boys, and as Helm described it in his autobiography, the Hawks thought both bands' harmonies were "a blend of pale, homogenised, voices". He said "We felt we were better than the Beatles and the Beach Boys. We considered them our rivals, even though they'd never heard of us", and they decided to make their own harmonies sound as different as possible as a result. Where those groups emphasised a vocal blend, the Hawks were going to emphasise the *difference* in their voices in their own harmonies. The group were playing prestigious venues like the Peppermint Lounge, and while playing there they met up with John Hammond Jr, who they'd met previously in Canada. As you might remember from the first episode on Bob Dylan, Hammond Jr was the son of the John Hammond who we've talked about in many episodes, and was a blues musician in his own right. He invited Helm, Robertson, and Hudson to join the musicians, including Michael Bloomfield, who were playing on his new album, So Many Roads: [Excerpt: John P. Hammond, "Who Do You Love?"] That album was one of the inspirations that led Bob Dylan to start making electric rock music and to hire Bloomfield as his guitarist, decisions that would have profound implications for the Hawks. The first single the Hawks recorded for themselves after leaving Hawkins was produced by Henry Glover, and both sides were written by Robbie Robertson. "uh Uh Uh" shows the influence of the R&B bands they were listening to. What it reminds me most of is the material Ike and Tina Turner were playing at the time, but at points I think I can also hear the influence of Curtis Mayfield and Steve Cropper, who were rapidly becoming Robertson's favourite songwriters: [Excerpt: The Canadian Squires, "Uh Uh Uh"] None of the band were happy with that record, though. They'd played in the studio the same way they played live, trying to get a strong bass presence, but it just sounded bottom-heavy to them when they heard the record on a jukebox. That record was released as by The Canadian Squires -- according to Robertson, that was a name that the label imposed on them for the record, while according to Helm it was an alternative name they used so they could get bookings in places they'd only recently played, which didn't want the same band to play too often. One wonders if there was any confusion with the band Neil Young played in a year or so before that single... Around this time, the group also met up with Helm's old musical inspiration Sonny Boy Williamson II, who was impressed enough with them that there was some talk of them being his backing band (and it was in this meeting that Williamson apparently told Robertson "those English boys want to play the blues so bad, and they play the blues *so bad*", speaking of the bands who'd backed him in the UK, like the Yardbirds and the Animals). But sadly, Williamson died in May 1965 before any of these plans had time to come to fruition. Every opportunity for the group seemed to be closing up, even as they knew they were as good as any band around them. They had an offer from Aaron Schroeder, who ran Musicor Records but was more importantly a songwriter and publisher who had written for Elvis Presley and published Gene Pitney. Schroeder wanted to sign the Hawks as a band and Robertson as a songwriter, but Henry Glover looked over the contracts for them, and told them "If you sign this you'd better be able to pay each other, because nobody else is going to be paying you". What happened next is the subject of some controversy, because as these things tend to go, several people became aware of the Hawks at the same time, but it's generally considered that nothing would have happened the same way were it not for Mary Martin. Martin is a pivotal figure in music business history -- among other things she discovered Leonard Cohen and Gordon Lightfoot, managed Van Morrison, and signed Emmylou Harris to Warner Brothers records -- but a somewhat unknown one who doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. Martin was from Toronto, but had moved to New York, where she was working in Albert Grossman's office, but she still had many connections to Canadian musicians and kept an eye out for them. The group had sent demo tapes to Grossman's offices, and Grossman had had no interest in them, but Martin was a fan and kept pushing the group on Grossman and his associates. One of those associates, of course, was Grossman's client Bob Dylan. As we heard in the episode on "Like a Rolling Stone", Dylan had started making records with electric backing, with musicians who included Mike Bloomfield, who had played with several of the Hawks on the Hammond album, and Al Kooper, who was a friend of the band. Martin gave Richard Manuel a copy of Dylan's new electric album Highway 61 Revisited, and he enjoyed it, though the rest of the group were less impressed: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Highway 61 Revisited"] Dylan had played the Newport Folk Festival with some of the same musicians as played on his records, but Bloomfield in particular was more interested in continuing to play with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band than continuing with Dylan long-term. Mary Martin kept telling Dylan about this Canadian band she knew who would be perfect for him, and various people associated with the Grossman organisation, including Hammond, have claimed to have been sent down to New Jersey where the Hawks were playing to check them out in their live setting. The group have also mentioned that someone who looked a lot like Dylan was seen at some of their shows. Eventually, Dylan phoned Helm up and made an offer. He didn't need a full band at the moment -- he had Harvey Brooks on bass and Al Kooper on keyboards -- but he did need a lead guitar player and drummer for a couple of gigs he'd already booked, one in Forest Hills, New York, and a bigger gig at the Hollywood Bowl. Helm, unfamiliar with Dylan's work, actually asked Howard Kudlets if Dylan was capable of filling the Hollywood Bowl. The musicians rehearsed together and got a set together for the shows. Robertson and Helm thought the band sounded terrible, but Dylan liked the sound they were getting a lot. The audience in Forest Hills agreed with the Hawks, rather than Dylan, or so it would appear. As we heard in the "Like a Rolling Stone" episode, Dylan's turn towards rock music was *hated* by the folk purists who saw him as some sort of traitor to the movement, a movement whose figurehead he had become without wanting to. There were fifteen thousand people in the audience, and they listened politely enough to the first set, which Dylan played acoustically, But before the second set -- his first ever full electric set, rather than the very abridged one at Newport -- he told the musicians “I don't know what it will be like out there It's going to be some kind of carnival and I want you to all know that up front. So go out there and keep playing no matter how weird it gets!” There's a terrible-quality audience recording of that show in circulation, and you can hear the crowd's reaction to the band and to the new material: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Ballad of a Thin Man" (live Forest Hills 1965, audience noise only)] The audience also threw things at the musicians, knocking Al Kooper off his organ stool at one point. While Robertson remembered the Hollywood Bowl show as being an equally bad reaction, Helm remembered the audience there as being much more friendly, and the better-quality recording of that show seems to side with Helm: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Maggie's Farm (live at the Hollywood Bowl 1965)"] After those two shows, Helm and Robertson went back to their regular gig. and in September they made another record. This one, again produced by Glover, was for Atlantic's Atco subsidiary, and was released as by Levon and the Hawks. Manuel took lead, and again both songs were written by Robertson: [Excerpt: Levon and the Hawks, "He Don't Love You (And He'll Break Your Heart)"] But again that record did nothing. Dylan was about to start his first full electric tour, and while Helm and Robertson had not thought the shows they'd played sounded particularly good, Dylan had, and he wanted the two of them to continue with him. But Robertson and, especially, Helm, were not interested in being someone's sidemen. They explained to Dylan that they already had a band -- Levon and the Hawks -- and he would take all of them or he would take none of them. Helm in particular had not been impressed with Dylan's music -- Helm was fundamentally an R&B fan, while Dylan's music was rooted in genres he had little time for -- but he was OK with doing it, so long as the entire band got to. As Mary Martin put it “I think that the wonderful and the splendid heart of the band, if you will, was Levon, and I think he really sort of said, ‘If it's just myself as drummer and Robbie…we're out. We don't want that. It's either us, the band, or nothing.' And you know what? Good for him.” Rather amazingly, Dylan agreed. When the band's residency in New Jersey finished, they headed back to Toronto to play some shows there, and Dylan flew up and rehearsed with them after each show. When the tour started, the billing was "Bob Dylan with Levon and the Hawks". That billing wasn't to last long. Dylan had been booked in for nine months of touring, and was also starting work on what would become widely considered the first double album in rock music history, Blonde on Blonde, and the original plan was that Levon and the Hawks would play with him throughout that time. The initial recording sessions for the album produced nothing suitable for release -- the closest was "I Wanna Be Your Lover", a semi-parody of the Beatles' "I Want to be Your Man": [Excerpt: Bob Dylan with Levon and the Hawks, "I Wanna Be Your Lover"] But shortly into the tour, Helm quit. The booing had continued, and had even got worse, and Helm simply wasn't in the business to be booed at every night. Also, his whole conception of music was that you dance to it, and nobody was dancing to any of this. Helm quit the band, only telling Robertson of his plans, and first went off to LA, where he met up with some musicians from Oklahoma who had enjoyed seeing the Hawks when they'd played that state and had since moved out West -- people like Leon Russell, J.J. Cale (not John Cale of the Velvet Underground, but the one who wrote "Cocaine" which Eric Clapton later had a hit with), and John Ware (who would later go on to join the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band). They started loosely jamming with each other, sometimes also involving a young singer named Linda Ronstadt, but Helm eventually decided to give up music and go and work on an oil rig in New Orleans. Levon and the Hawks were now just the Hawks. The rest of the group soldiered on, replacing Helm with session drummer Bobby Gregg (who had played on Dylan's previous couple of albums, and had previously played with Sun Ra), and played on the initial sessions for Blonde on Blonde. But of those sessions, Dylan said a few weeks later "Oh, I was really down. I mean, in ten recording sessions, man, we didn't get one song ... It was the band. But you see, I didn't know that. I didn't want to think that" One track from the sessions did get released -- the non-album single "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?"] There's some debate as to exactly who's playing drums on that -- Helm says in his autobiography that it's him, while the credits in the official CD releases tend to say it's Gregg. Either way, the track was an unexpected flop, not making the top forty in the US, though it made the top twenty in the UK. But the rest of the recordings with the now Helmless Hawks were less successful. Dylan was trying to get his new songs across, but this was a band who were used to playing raucous music for dancing, and so the attempts at more subtle songs didn't come off the way he wanted: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan and the Hawks, "Visions of Johanna (take 5, 11-30-1965)"] Only one track from those initial New York sessions made the album -- "One Of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)" -- but even that only featured Robertson and Danko of the Hawks, with the rest of the instruments being played by session players: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan (One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)"] The Hawks were a great live band, but great live bands are not necessarily the same thing as a great studio band. And that's especially the case with someone like Dylan. Dylan was someone who was used to recording entirely on his own, and to making records *quickly*. In total, for his fifteen studio albums up to 1974's Blood on the Tracks, Dylan spent a total of eighty-six days in the studio -- by comparison, the Beatles spent over a hundred days in the studio just on the Sgt Pepper album. It's not that the Hawks weren't a good band -- very far from it -- but that studio recording requires a different type of discipline, and that's doubly the case when you're playing with an idiosyncratic player like Dylan. The Hawks would remain Dylan's live backing band, but he wouldn't put out a studio recording with them backing him until 1974. Instead, Bob Johnston, the producer Dylan was working with, suggested a different plan. On his previous album, the Nashville session player Charlie McCoy had guested on "Desolation Row" and Dylan had found him easy to work with. Johnston lived in Nashville, and suggested that they could get the album completed more quickly and to Dylan's liking by using Nashville A-Team musicians. Dylan agreed to try it, and for the rest of the album he had Robertson on lead guitar and Al Kooper on keyboards, but every other musician was a Nashville session player, and they managed to get Dylan's songs recorded quickly and the way he heard them in his head: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine"] Though Dylan being Dylan he did try to introduce an element of randomness to the recordings by having the Nashville musicians swap their instruments around and play each other's parts on "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35", though the Nashville players were still competent enough that they managed to get a usable, if shambolic, track recorded that way in a single take: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35"] Dylan said later of the album "The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It's that thin, that wild mercury sound. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up." The album was released in late June 1966, a week before Freak Out! by the Mothers of Invention, another double album, produced by Dylan's old producer Tom Wilson, and a few weeks after Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys. Dylan was at the forefront of a new progressive movement in rock music, a movement that was tying thoughtful, intelligent lyrics to studio experimentation and yet somehow managing to have commercial success. And a month after Blonde on Blonde came out, he stepped away from that position, and would never fully return to it. The first half of 1966 was taken up with near-constant touring, with Dylan backed by the Hawks and a succession of fill-in drummers -- first Bobby Gregg, then Sandy Konikoff, then Mickey Jones. This tour started in the US and Canada, with breaks for recording the album, and then moved on to Australia and Europe. The shows always followed the same pattern. First Dylan would perform an acoustic set, solo, with just an acoustic guitar and harmonica, which would generally go down well with the audience -- though sometimes they would get restless, prompting a certain amount of resistance from the performer: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Just Like a Woman (live Paris 1966)"] But the second half of each show was electric, and that was where the problems would arise. The Hawks were playing at the top of their game -- some truly stunning performances: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan and the Hawks, "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues (live in Liverpool 1966)"] But while the majority of the audience was happy to hear the music, there was a vocal portion that were utterly furious at the change in Dylan's musical style. Most notoriously, there was the performance at Manchester Free Trade Hall where this happened: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone (live Manchester 1966)"] That kind of aggression from the audience had the effect of pushing the band on to greater heights a lot of the time -- and a bootleg of that show, mislabelled as the Royal Albert Hall, became one of the most legendary bootlegs in rock music history. Jimmy Page would apparently buy a copy of the bootleg every time he saw one, thinking it was the best album ever made. But while Dylan and the Hawks played defiantly, that kind of audience reaction gets wearing. As Dylan later said, “Judas, the most hated name in human history, and for what—for playing an electric guitar. As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord, and delivering him up to be crucified; all those evil mothers can rot in hell.” And this wasn't the only stress Dylan, in particular, was under. D.A. Pennebaker was making a documentary of the tour -- a follow-up to his documentary of the 1965 tour, which had not yet come out. Dylan talked about the 1965 documentary, Don't Look Back, as being Pennebaker's film of Dylan, but this was going to be Dylan's film, with him directing the director. That footage shows Dylan as nervy and anxious, and covering for the anxiety with a veneer of flippancy. Some of Dylan's behaviour on both tours is unpleasant in ways that can't easily be justified (and which he has later publicly regretted), but there's also a seeming cruelty to some of his interactions with the press and public that actually reads more as frustration. Over and over again he's asked questions -- about being the voice of a generation or the leader of a protest movement -- which are simply based on incorrect premises. When someone asks you a question like this, there are only a few options you can take, none of them good. You can dissect the question, revealing the incorrect premises, and then answer a different question that isn't what they asked, which isn't really an option at all given the kind of rapid-fire situation Dylan was in. You can answer the question as asked, which ends up being dishonest. Or you can be flip and dismissive, which is the tactic Dylan chose. Dylan wasn't the only one -- this is basically what the Beatles did at press conferences. But where the Beatles were a gang and so came off as being fun, Dylan doing the same thing came off as arrogant and aggressive. One of the most famous artifacts of the whole tour is a long piece of footage recorded for the documentary, with Dylan and John Lennon riding in the back of a taxi, both clearly deeply uncomfortable, trying to be funny and impress the other, but neither actually wanting to be there: [Excerpt Dylan and Lennon conversation] 33) Part of the reason Dylan wanted to go home was that he had a whole new lifestyle. Up until 1964 he had been very much a city person, but as he had grown more famous, he'd found New York stifling. Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary had a cabin in Woodstock, where he'd grown up, and after Dylan had spent a month there in summer 1964, he'd fallen in love with the area. Albert Grossman had also bought a home there, on Yarrow's advice, and had given Dylan free run of the place, and Dylan had decided he wanted to move there permanently and bought his own home there. He had also married, to Sara Lowndes (whose name is, as far as I can tell, pronounced "Sarah" even though it's spelled "Sara"), and she had given birth to his first child (and he had adopted her child from her previous marriage). Very little is actually known about Sara, who unlike many other partners of rock stars at this point seemed positively to detest the limelight, and whose privacy Dylan has continued to respect even after the end of their marriage in the late seventies, but it's apparent that the two were very much in love, and that Dylan wanted to be back with his wife and kids, in the country, not going from one strange city to another being asked insipid questions and having abuse screamed at him. He was also tired of the pressure to produce work constantly. He'd signed a contract for a novel, called Tarantula, which he'd written a draft of but was unhappy with, and he'd put out two single albums and a double-album in a little over a year -- all of them considered among the greatest albums ever made. He could only keep up this rate of production and performance with a large intake of speed, and he was sometimes staying up for four days straight to do so. After the European leg of the tour, Dylan was meant to take some time to finish overdubs on Blonde on Blonde, edit the film of the tour for a TV special, with his friend Howard Alk, and proof the galleys for Tarantula, before going on a second world tour in the autumn. That world tour never happened. Dylan was in a motorcycle accident near his home, and had to take time out to recover. There has been a lot of discussion as to how serious the accident actually was, because Dylan's manager Albert Grossman was known to threaten to break contracts by claiming his performers were sick, and because Dylan essentially disappeared from public view for the next eighteen months. Every possible interpretation of the events has been put about by someone, from Dylan having been close to death, to the entire story being put up as a fake. As Dylan is someone who is far more protective of his privacy than most rock stars, it's doubtful we'll ever know the precise truth, but putting together the various accounts Dylan's injuries were bad but not life-threatening, but they acted as a wake-up call -- if he carried on living like he had been, how much longer could he continue? in his sort-of autobiography, Chronicles, Dylan described this period, saying "I had been in a motorcycle accident and I'd been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race. Having children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on. Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me and I was seeing everything through different glasses." All his forthcoming studio and tour dates were cancelled, and Dylan took the time out to recover, and to work on his film, Eat the Document. But it's clear that nobody was sure at first exactly how long Dylan's hiatus from touring was going to last. As it turned out, he wouldn't do another tour until the mid-seventies, and would barely even play any one-off gigs in the intervening time. But nobody knew that at the time, and so to be on the safe side the Hawks were being kept on a retainer. They'd always intended to work on their own music anyway -- they didn't just want to be anyone's backing band -- so they took this time to kick a few ideas around, but they were hamstrung by the fact that it was difficult to find rehearsal space in New York City, and they didn't have any gigs. Their main musical work in the few months between summer 1966 and spring 1967 was some recordings for the soundtrack of a film Peter Yarrow was making. You Are What You Eat is a bizarre hippie collage of a film, documenting the counterculture between 1966 when Yarrow started making it and 1968 when it came out. Carl Franzoni, one of the leaders of the LA freak movement that we've talked about in episodes on the Byrds, Love, and the Mothers of Invention, said of the film “If you ever see this movie you'll understand what ‘freaks' are. It'll let you see the L.A. freaks, the San Francisco freaks, and the New York freaks. It was like a documentary and it was about the makings of what freaks were about. And it had a philosophy, a very definite philosophy: that you are free-spirited, artistic." It's now most known for introducing the song "My Name is Jack" by John Simon, the film's music supervisor: [Excerpt: John Simon, "My Name is Jack"] That song would go on to be a top ten hit in the UK for Manfred Mann: [Excerpt: Manfred Mann, "My Name is Jack"] The Hawks contributed backing music for several songs for the film, in which they acted as backing band for another old Greenwich Village folkie who had been friends with Yarrow and Dylan but who was not yet the star he would soon become, Tiny Tim: [Excerpt: Tiny Tim, "Sonny Boy"] This was their first time playing together properly since the end of the European tour, and Sid Griffin has noted that these Tiny Tim sessions are the first time you can really hear the sound that the group would develop over the next year, and which would characterise them for their whole career. Robertson, Danko, and Manuel also did a session, not for the film with another of Grossman's discoveries, Carly Simon, playing a version of "Baby Let Me Follow You Down", a song they'd played a lot with Dylan on the tour that spring. That recording has never been released, and I've only managed to track down a brief clip of it from a BBC documentary, with Simon and an interviewer talking over most of the clip (so this won't be in the Mixcloud I put together of songs): [Excerpt: Carly Simon, "Baby Let Me Follow You Down"] That recording is notable though because as well as Robertson, Danko, and Manuel, and Dylan's regular studio keyboard players Al Kooper and Paul Griffin, it also features Levon Helm on drums, even though Helm had still not rejoined the band and was at the time mostly working in New Orleans. But his name's on the session log, so he must have m