POPULARITY
9 episodes with chitlin circuit
4 episodes with chitlin circuit
2 episodes with chitlin circuit
2 episodes with chitlin circuit
3 episodes with chitlin circuit
4 episodes with chitlin circuit
2 episodes with chitlin circuit
2 episodes with chitlin circuit
2 episodes with chitlin circuit
In the second episode of Twang, host Lane Wendell Fischer is joined by music journalist and cultural critic Taylor Crumpton to explore the deep-rooted, often erased contributions of Black, Mexican, and Indigenous artists to the genre. From Southern guitar traditions and borderland ballads to the Chitlin Circuit to Beyonce's Cowboy Carter, we trace how cultural exchange shaped the sound of country music — and why its public image remains so whitewashed. Artists discussed include: Linda Martell, Beyoncé, Mahalia Jackson, Charley Pride, Shaboozey, and Darius Rucker.Listen to the episode companion playlist.Read Lane Wendell Fischer's commentary about this episode
Preston Lauterbach is a former Memphian who has written extensively about African-American music and history and has helped musicians tell their own stories, as well. Preston has appeared on Book Talk several times to discuss his books, The Chitlin Circuit and the Road to Rock ‘n' Roll, Beale Street Dynasty, and Bluff City. Today, we'll be discussing his latest title, Before Elvis:The African American Musicians Who Made The King, which is published by Da Capo Press.
The Chitlin Circuit along with The Great Migration gave especially “black people,” the ability to move away from “Sharecropping,” just another form of slavery, to chase their dreams. The 1920s were roaring, and people forgot that “what goes up must come down.” And after ten years of awesomeness, came ten years of hardship and suffering. And because of Jim Crow, black people suffered hardest. America is the Land of Opportunity!” Still, the wheels of change rolled slowly for black people. From 1870 to 1970 black people were forced to endure, and life as a black entertainer was as dangerous as it was expensive. The Chitlin Circuit wasn't just black people singing and dancing for ‘Soul Food,' the Chitlin Circuit created entrepreneurs during the height of suppression and oppression for blacks in general, while at the same time, offering black entertainers safety, security and opportunity. And I would love to tell you about it.Tonight in Muzik Detention, we will discuss and maybe debate The Chitlin Circuit, and black life during the years of Jim Crow. Open your ‘muzik' history books and press play.
This week Dalanie and Katie talk about the Chitlin Circuit.
If you watched the Grammys this year, you probably caught Beyonce's acceptance speech, when, at long last she landed the album of the year. Beyonce said she hoped to keep pushing forward and opening doors. And her album- Cowboy Carter, which won the Grammy for best country album- is also a door to the past. The album tour- Cowboy Carter and the Rodeo Chitlin Circuit tour- evokes the network of clubs and venues that Black musicians and performers toured during segregation last Century. And the Chitlin Circuit is referenced in one of the tracks on the album: Ya Ya Beyonce's not the only artist to cast back to the Chitlin Circuit. Kendrick Lamar, who netted an armful of Grammys this year, refers to the circuit in ‘Reincarnated' Musicians who honed their craft on the circuit include Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles and Little Richard They're just some of the artists who performed on the Chitlin Circuit. And on this episode of Florida Matters, you'll hear how the circuit shaped the sound of jazz, blues, soul, rock n roll- the foundations of American popular music. One of the guests you'll hear from- Dr Michelle Scott, professor of History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County- will be part of an upcoming discussion presented by WUSF and Arts Axis Florida- about the Chitlin Circuit's impact in Tampa. Also joining the discussion: Dr Nashid Madyun, executive director Florida Humanities.
If you watched the Grammys this year, you probably caught Beyonce's acceptance speech, when, at long last she landed the album of the year. Beyonce said she hoped to keep pushing forward and opening doors. And her album- Cowboy Carter, which won the Grammy for best country album- is also a door to the past. The album tour- Cowboy Carter and the Rodeo Chitlin Circuit tour- evokes the network of clubs and venues that Black musicians and performers toured during segregation last Century. And the Chitlin Circuit is referenced in one of the tracks on the album: Ya Ya Beyonce's not the only artist to cast back to the Chitlin Circuit. Kendrick Lamar, who netted an armful of Grammys this year, refers to the circuit in ‘Reincarnated' Musicians who honed their craft on the circuit include Louis Armstrong, Ray Charles and Little Richard They're just some of the artists who performed on the Chitlin Circuit. And on this episode of Florida Matters, you'll hear how the circuit shaped the sound of jazz, blues, soul, rock n roll- the foundations of American popular music. One of the guests you'll hear from- Dr Michelle Scott, professor of History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County- will be part of an upcoming discussion presented by WUSF and Arts Axis Florida- about the Chitlin Circuit's impact in Tampa. Also joining the discussion: Dr Nashid Madyun, executive director Florida Humanities.
This week's Eye on Travel Podcast with Peter Greenberg - from Coastal Mississippi - an area of the country that few Americans really know. But it has a great story to tell and a unique culture to share. Peter sits down with Rachel Dangermond - Owner of 100 Men Hall - to check in on one of the last remaining juke joints on the Chitlin Circuit, Then, Peter travels to Biloxi to chat with Rusty David - Schooner Captain and “Godfather of Coastal Mississippi” - about the legacy of the Biloxi Schooners. Then, 40, 50, or 60 years ago, it wasn't really a road trip unless it included peanut brittle or a pecan log. Peter sits down Stephanie Stuckey - Author of "Unstuck" and the granddaughter of the founder of Stuckey's, to discuss how she's keeping the roadside legacy alive.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
This week's Eye on Travel Podcast with Peter Greenberg - from Coastal Mississippi - an area of the country that few Americans really know. But it has a great story to tell and a unique culture to share. Peter sits down with Rachel Dangermond - Owner of 100 Men Hall - to check in on one of the last remaining juke joints on the Chitlin Circuit, Then, Peter travels to Biloxi to chat with Rusty David - Schooner Captain and “Godfather of Coastal Mississippi” - about the legacy of the Biloxi Schooners. Then, 40, 50, or 60 years ago, it wasn't really a road trip unless it included peanut brittle or a pecan log. Peter sits down Stephanie Stuckey - Author of "Unstuck" and the granddaughter of the founder of Stuckey's, to discuss how she's keeping the roadside legacy alive.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
GGACP celebrates the birthday of legendary ventriloquist Willie Tyler (b. September 8th) by presenting this ENCORE of an entertaining conversation with Willie and his longtime partner, Lester, from 2018. In this episode, Willie (and Lester) discuss the history of the “Chitlin Circuit,” ventriloquism-themed horror movies, the mob's influence in Vegas and the golden age of “the Motown Sound.” Also: Steve Rossi teams with Slappy White, George Kirby channels Pearl Bailey, Edgar Bergen offers sage advice and Willie opens for Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder. PLUS: Jules Podell! Shari Lewis & Lamb Chop! Don Rickles takes a front seat! Lester meets George Jefferson! And the many talents of Paul Winchell! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
90-year-old blues legend Bobby Rush joins us for a wide-ranging and revealing conversation about songwriting, music, life, and so much more!PART ONE:Scott and Paul chat about Scott's experiences at the Grammy awards, including running into Ted Danson, Jason Isbell, Verdine White, and others. Plus seeing the Killer Mike drama go down and getting soaked in the biggest storm in recent Los Angeles memory! PART TWO:Our in-person an in-depth conversation with living legend Bobby RushABOUT BOBBY RUSH: One of the last of the golden era blues artists, 90-year-old Bobby Rush has been preforming professionally since the 1940s. After a stint traveling with the Rabbit's Foot Minstrels as a teenager, he toured the juke joints of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi before settling in Chicago in the 1950s. Starting in 1964, he released a string of singles on seven different record labels before releasing his first album, Rush Hour, in 1979. Bobby has since amassed an impressive body of recorded work that covers funk, soul, blues, and other influences. Penning much of his own material, his standards include “Chicken Heads,” “Bow Legged Woman,” “I Wanna Do the Do,” “Sue,” “One Monkey Don't Stop No Show,” “Big Fat Woman,” “Night Fishin',” and “Down in Mississippi.” At the age of 83, he won his first Grammy award. Bobby is now a three-time Grammy winner (with seven nominations), is in the Blues Hall of Fame, and has won 16 Blues Music Awards. Rolling Stone magazine dubbed the charismatic entertainer ”the King of the Chitllin' Circuit.” Also known as “the Funkiest Man Alive,” Bobby Rush shows no signs of slowing down. His most recent album is 2023's Grammy-winning All My Love For You. Tags: Grammy nominee, Grammy winner, Blues Hall of Fame
A Message from Syd and Lex: Thank you to all of our Listener Homegirls for tuning in and supporting us for 4 incredible seasons of The New Chitlin Circuit! We usually take a break over the holidays, before coming back with a new season in January. We'll still be back with more Black indie reviews next year, but we'll be taking a longer break to rest, work on other projects, and spend time with our loved ones.Thanks for your support, and we'll see you next year!Follow The New Chitlin Circuitwww.tiktok.com/@newchitlincircuitinstagram.com/newchitlincircuitwww.thenewchitlincircuit.comEmail: ask@thenewchitlincircuit.com The New Chitlin Circuit is the only podcast dedicated solely to highlighting Black, independent film. Every Monday, Syd and Lex review a Black indie, low-budget, or direct-to-tv movie. Some weeks the hosts dig into an edgy Hood-drama on Tubi. Other weeks, Syd and Lex dive into meditative, arthouse films. But every week, it's Black Indies Only.
Otis Redding was nearly shot by James Brown while performing at an after hours club. He played sweet soul music to crowds of KKK sympathizers. He took the stage in his hometown despite a threat on his life. But as the former VP of Stax Records once said, Otis was an overcomer. He overcame danger, violence, and fear, in order to focus his sights on unprecedented commercial success. But in his great quest to jump from R&B to pop, Otis Redding crossed over in more ways than one. For a full list of contributors, see the show notes at disgracelandpod.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Preston Lauterbach, music journalist and author of Beale Street Dynasty, is also the author of The Chitlin Circuit: And the Road to Rock 'n" Roll, where he explores the origins of rock-and-roll in Black culture, specifically Black/Delta blues culture. Cooki B and Tonya talk to him about his book, the artists and songs that served as a springboard for rock music and of course Robert Johnson. Often classified as second tier, the Chitlin Circuit birthed and nurtured some of our country's most renowned musicians and singers whether directly or indirectly!
The Pirates are back with another episode of the good stuff...Dirty Laundry we jump into the Podcast Party, we talk a little about Guitar Center, and the new Chitlin Circuit in Pine Bluff, Ar!Did I mention we are loaded to the gills!Strapped we discuss Santas drug bust...News is MASSIVE...Jims Metal Minute is a DIME tribute...G.A.S. is an Adam Jones Epiphone or bust...Mean Tip of the week is all about Failure...Our main event we shallow end deep dive some PANTERA (tribute) Mexico footage!!WE DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO THE MUSIC YOU HEAR THIS IS MERELY FOR EDUCATION.Sponsored by MEAN BEARD, GREEN BEARD, ANALOG PEDALS, and FRANKLIN STRAPS!!!!!
Hosted by: Chris Richie & Def Chef --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/politibro/message
Robert Bouvard, aka Robbie Ross Is that old neighborhood guy a wheelchair-using amputee? Or a man in an impeccably tailored formal gown with Oscar-caliber make-up and hair? Robert Bouvard is both. Robert Bouvard Robert Bouvard worked with the pioneering Jewel Box Revue, a female impersonation show that toured the Chitlin Circuit in the 1940s. The Jewel Box played New York's Apollo Theater while Black Muslims on the sidewalk outside yelled, “Get the faggots out of Harlem.” Later Bouvard worked in Hollywood and toured with many Broadway musicals, including “Hello Dolly” and “Phantom of the Opera.” Now, 85 years old, he lives in a three-room apartment with his good friend Suzie, tools his go-cart around town and enjoys his theatrical sensibility. Jewel Box Revue. Robert Bouvard and Lynne Carter in a routine that may have inspired the movie “Some Like It Hot” staring Marilyn Monroe. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. We ask ourselves – who else lives in the neighborhood? Hosted by Adrienne Lauby. Produced by Shelley Berman and Adrienne Lauby. The post Robert Bouvard – Pushing Limits – November 11, 2022 appeared first on KPFA.
Let's get to the bottom of this Feel free to donate to CashApp @ $nahsunthegreat or PayPal @ paypal.me/nahsunthegreat
Welcome to Episode 66 with veteran stand-up comedian, Eddie Brill.For 17 years he served as the audience warm-up comic for the late show with David Letterman and for 11 of those years, he was the Stand-Up Comedy Talent Coordinator. In our conversation, Eddie chats with me about his earliest Borscht Belt connection, he reflects on his unplanned career in comedy and how to overcome setbacks. Get to know Eddie HEREListen to his podcast, The Break w/Eddie Brill HEREWatch and learn more about the Chitlin Circuit in Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley HERESupport the showFollow The Borscht Belt Tattler on socials! Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Want to take a trip with the king of the Blues? As B.B. King's photographer and original biographer, Charlie Sawyer was along for the ride. In B.B. King from Indianola to Icon: A Personal Odyssey with the King of the Blues (Schiffer, 2022), journalist and photographer Charles Sawyer discusses his many years working with and near the greatest of Blues icons, from the early years as King was transitioning to the “Chitlin Circuit” to mainstream audiences to the founding of the B. B. King Museum & Delta Interpretive Center, Sawyer was there for it all, and shares it with us—along with more than 100 photographs. David Hamilton Golland is professor of history and immediate past president of the faculty senate at Governors State University in Chicago's southland. @DHGolland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies
Want to take a trip with the king of the Blues? As B.B. King's photographer and original biographer, Charlie Sawyer was along for the ride. In B.B. King from Indianola to Icon: A Personal Odyssey with the King of the Blues (Schiffer, 2022), journalist and photographer Charles Sawyer discusses his many years working with and near the greatest of Blues icons, from the early years as King was transitioning to the “Chitlin Circuit” to mainstream audiences to the founding of the B. B. King Museum & Delta Interpretive Center, Sawyer was there for it all, and shares it with us—along with more than 100 photographs. David Hamilton Golland is professor of history and immediate past president of the faculty senate at Governors State University in Chicago's southland. @DHGolland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Want to take a trip with the king of the Blues? As B.B. King's photographer and original biographer, Charlie Sawyer was along for the ride. In B.B. King from Indianola to Icon: A Personal Odyssey with the King of the Blues (Schiffer, 2022), journalist and photographer Charles Sawyer discusses his many years working with and near the greatest of Blues icons, from the early years as King was transitioning to the “Chitlin Circuit” to mainstream audiences to the founding of the B. B. King Museum & Delta Interpretive Center, Sawyer was there for it all, and shares it with us—along with more than 100 photographs. David Hamilton Golland is professor of history and immediate past president of the faculty senate at Governors State University in Chicago's southland. @DHGolland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
Want to take a trip with the king of the Blues? As B.B. King's photographer and original biographer, Charlie Sawyer was along for the ride. In B.B. King from Indianola to Icon: A Personal Odyssey with the King of the Blues (Schiffer, 2022), journalist and photographer Charles Sawyer discusses his many years working with and near the greatest of Blues icons, from the early years as King was transitioning to the “Chitlin Circuit” to mainstream audiences to the founding of the B. B. King Museum & Delta Interpretive Center, Sawyer was there for it all, and shares it with us—along with more than 100 photographs. David Hamilton Golland is professor of history and immediate past president of the faculty senate at Governors State University in Chicago's southland. @DHGolland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts
Want to take a trip with the king of the Blues? As B.B. King's photographer and original biographer, Charlie Sawyer was along for the ride. In B.B. King from Indianola to Icon: A Personal Odyssey with the King of the Blues (Schiffer, 2022), journalist and photographer Charles Sawyer discusses his many years working with and near the greatest of Blues icons, from the early years as King was transitioning to the “Chitlin Circuit” to mainstream audiences to the founding of the B. B. King Museum & Delta Interpretive Center, Sawyer was there for it all, and shares it with us—along with more than 100 photographs. David Hamilton Golland is professor of history and immediate past president of the faculty senate at Governors State University in Chicago's southland. @DHGolland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography
Want to take a trip with the king of the Blues? As B.B. King's photographer and original biographer, Charlie Sawyer was along for the ride. In B.B. King from Indianola to Icon: A Personal Odyssey with the King of the Blues (Schiffer, 2022), journalist and photographer Charles Sawyer discusses his many years working with and near the greatest of Blues icons, from the early years as King was transitioning to the “Chitlin Circuit” to mainstream audiences to the founding of the B. B. King Museum & Delta Interpretive Center, Sawyer was there for it all, and shares it with us—along with more than 100 photographs. David Hamilton Golland is professor of history and immediate past president of the faculty senate at Governors State University in Chicago's southland. @DHGolland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies
Want to take a trip with the king of the Blues? As B.B. King's photographer and original biographer, Charlie Sawyer was along for the ride. In B.B. King from Indianola to Icon: A Personal Odyssey with the King of the Blues (Schiffer, 2022), journalist and photographer Charles Sawyer discusses his many years working with and near the greatest of Blues icons, from the early years as King was transitioning to the “Chitlin Circuit” to mainstream audiences to the founding of the B. B. King Museum & Delta Interpretive Center, Sawyer was there for it all, and shares it with us—along with more than 100 photographs. David Hamilton Golland is professor of history and immediate past president of the faculty senate at Governors State University in Chicago's southland. @DHGolland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music
Want to take a trip with the king of the Blues? As B.B. King's photographer and original biographer, Charlie Sawyer was along for the ride. In B.B. King from Indianola to Icon: A Personal Odyssey with the King of the Blues (Schiffer, 2022), journalist and photographer Charles Sawyer discusses his many years working with and near the greatest of Blues icons, from the early years as King was transitioning to the “Chitlin Circuit” to mainstream audiences to the founding of the B. B. King Museum & Delta Interpretive Center, Sawyer was there for it all, and shares it with us—along with more than 100 photographs. David Hamilton Golland is professor of history and immediate past president of the faculty senate at Governors State University in Chicago's southland. @DHGolland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/photography
Want to take a trip with the king of the Blues? As B.B. King's photographer and original biographer, Charlie Sawyer was along for the ride. In B.B. King from Indianola to Icon: A Personal Odyssey with the King of the Blues (Schiffer, 2022), journalist and photographer Charles Sawyer discusses his many years working with and near the greatest of Blues icons, from the early years as King was transitioning to the “Chitlin Circuit” to mainstream audiences to the founding of the B. B. King Museum & Delta Interpretive Center, Sawyer was there for it all, and shares it with us—along with more than 100 photographs. David Hamilton Golland is professor of history and immediate past president of the faculty senate at Governors State University in Chicago's southland. @DHGolland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-south
Hi y'all! Syd and I are taking a short summer break. But we'll be back with fresh, new reviews on August 29th! We appreciate all your support so far this season, and we can't wait to review more Black indies for you! In the meantime, here's some fan favorite episodes to revisit: PPP Loan Gone - Our first fan picked review! These Men for Everybody If Not Now...When? Same Difference (2019) Water in a Broken Glass
Will God answer your prayer if you don't end with, "In Jesus' name, Amen?" Learn what praying in the name of Jesus really means. I taught this week on the call of Abraham and the development of God's missionary call through the nation of Israel as they were responsible to communicate the truth of God to the cultures around them. They were given that great commission. The great commission didn't start in Matthew 28. It started with Abraham in Genesis 12 —the first three verses there —Abraham, chosen by God to raise up a nation who would then be God's priests to the world so that they would be a blessing to all of the nations. They had a unique role in the great monotheistic religion. The Jews were supposed to reflect morality to the world. Israel was to witness to the name of God. When they talked about the name of God and witnessing to God's name, that does not mean that they were to let everybody know what they called God, "Yahweh." Their goal wasn't to cover the countryside with evangelists who just let everybody know what the right word for God was. It meant something different. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ https://linktr.ee/jacksonlibon -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #realtalk #face #instagram #amour #take #couple #dance #dancers #vogue #voguedqnce #garden #tiktok #psychology #beyou #near #love #foryou #money #ForYouPizza #fyp #irobot #theend #pups #TikToker #couplegoals #famille #relation #doudou #youtube #twitter #tiktokers #love #reeĺs #shorts #instagood #follow #like #ouy #oyu #babyshark #lilnasx #girl #happybirthday #movie #nbayoungboy #deviance #autotrader #trading #khan #academy #carter #carguru #ancestry #accords #abc #news #bts #cbs #huru #bluebook #socialmedia #whatsapp #music #google #photography #memes #marketing #india #followforfollowback #likeforlikes #a #insta #fashion #k #trending #digitalmarketing #covid #o #snapchat #socialmediamarketing H
Episode one hundred and forty-seven of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Hey Joe" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and is the longest episode to date, at over two hours. Patreon backers also have a twenty-two-minute bonus episode available, on "Making Time" by The Creation. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources As usual, I've put together a Mixcloud mix containing all the music excerpted in this episode. For information on the Byrds, I relied mostly on Timeless Flight Revisited by Johnny Rogan, with some information from Chris Hillman's autobiography. Information on Arthur Lee and Love came from Forever Changes: Arthur Lee and the Book of Love by John Einarson, and Arthur Lee: Alone Again Or by Barney Hoskyns. Information on Gary Usher's work with the Surfaris and the Sons of Adam came from The California Sound by Stephen McParland, which can be found at https://payhip.com/CMusicBooks Information on Jimi Hendrix came from Room Full of Mirrors by Charles R. Cross, Crosstown Traffic by Charles Shaar Murray, and Wild Thing by Philip Norman. Information on the history of "Hey Joe" itself came from all these sources plus Hey Joe: The Unauthorised Biography of a Rock Classic by Marc Shapiro, though note that most of that book is about post-1967 cover versions. Most of the pre-Experience session work by Jimi Hendrix I excerpt in this episode is on this box set of alternate takes and live recordings. And "Hey Joe" can be found on Are You Experienced? Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Just a quick note before we start – this episode deals with a song whose basic subject is a man murdering a woman, and that song also contains references to guns, and in some versions to cocaine use. Some versions excerpted also contain misogynistic slurs. If those things are likely to upset you, please skip this episode, as the whole episode focusses on that song. I would hope it goes without saying that I don't approve of misogyny, intimate partner violence, or murder, and my discussing a song does not mean I condone acts depicted in its lyrics, and the episode itself deals with the writing and recording of the song rather than its subject matter, but it would be impossible to talk about the record without excerpting the song. The normalisation of violence against women in rock music lyrics is a subject I will come back to, but did not have room for in what is already a very long episode. Anyway, on with the show. Let's talk about the folk process, shall we? We've talked before, like in the episodes on "Stagger Lee" and "Ida Red", about how there are some songs that aren't really individual songs in themselves, but are instead collections of related songs that might happen to share a name, or a title, or a story, or a melody, but which might be different in other ways. There are probably more songs that are like this than songs that aren't, and it doesn't just apply to folk songs, although that's where we see it most notably. You only have to look at the way a song like "Hound Dog" changed from the Willie Mae Thornton version to the version by Elvis, which only shared a handful of words with the original. Songs change, and recombine, and everyone who sings them brings something different to them, until they change in ways that nobody could have predicted, like a game of telephone. But there usually remains a core, an archetypal story or idea which remains constant no matter how much the song changes. Like Stagger Lee shooting Billy in a bar over a hat, or Frankie killing her man -- sometimes the man is Al, sometimes he's Johnny, but he always done her wrong. And one of those stories is about a man who shoots his cheating woman with a forty-four, and tries to escape -- sometimes to a town called Jericho, and sometimes to Juarez, Mexico. The first version of this song we have a recording of is by Clarence Ashley, in 1929, a recording of an older folk song that was called, in his version, "Little Sadie": [Excerpt: Clarence Ashley, "Little Sadie"] At some point, somebody seems to have noticed that that song has a slight melodic similarity to another family of songs, the family known as "Cocaine Blues" or "Take a Whiff on Me", which was popular around the same time: [Excerpt: The Memphis Jug Band, "Cocaine Habit Blues"] And so the two songs became combined, and the protagonist of "Little Sadie" now had a reason to kill his woman -- a reason other than her cheating, that is. He had taken a shot of cocaine before shooting her. The first recording of this version, under the name "Cocaine Blues" seems to have been a Western Swing version by W. A. Nichol's Western Aces: [Excerpt: W.A. Nichol's Western Aces, "Cocaine Blues"] Woody Guthrie recorded a version around the same time -- I've seen different dates and so don't know for sure if it was before or after Nichol's version -- and his version had himself credited as songwriter, and included this last verse which doesn't seem to appear on any earlier recordings of the song: [Excerpt: Woody Guthrie, "Cocaine Blues"] That doesn't appear on many later recordings either, but it did clearly influence yet another song -- Mose Allison's classic jazz number "Parchman Farm": [Excerpt: Mose Allison, "Parchman Farm"] The most famous recordings of the song, though, were by Johnny Cash, who recorded it as both "Cocaine Blues" and as "Transfusion Blues". In Cash's version of the song, the murderer gets sentenced to "ninety-nine years in the Folsom pen", so it made sense that Cash would perform that on his most famous album, the live album of his January 1968 concerts at Folsom Prison, which revitalised his career after several years of limited success: [Excerpt: Johnny Cash, "Cocaine Blues (live at Folsom Prison)"] While that was Cash's first live recording at a prison, though, it wasn't the first show he played at a prison -- ever since the success of his single "Folsom Prison Blues" he'd been something of a hero to prisoners, and he had been doing shows in prisons for eleven years by the time of that recording. And on one of those shows he had as his support act a man named Billy Roberts, who performed his own song which followed the same broad outlines as "Cocaine Blues" -- a man with a forty-four who goes out to shoot his woman and then escapes to Mexico. Roberts was an obscure folk singer, who never had much success, but who was good with people. He'd been part of the Greenwich Village folk scene in the 1950s, and at a gig at Gerde's Folk City he'd met a woman named Niela Miller, an aspiring songwriter, and had struck up a relationship with her. Miller only ever wrote one song that got recorded by anyone else, a song called "Mean World Blues" that was recorded by Dave Van Ronk: [Excerpt: Dave Van Ronk, "Mean World Blues"] Now, that's an original song, but it does bear a certain melodic resemblance to another old folk song, one known as "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" or "In the Pines", or sometimes "Black Girl": [Excerpt: Lead Belly, "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?"] Miller was clearly familiar with the tradition from which "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" comes -- it's a type of folk song where someone asks a question and then someone else answers it, and this repeats, building up a story. This is a very old folk song format, and you hear it for example in "Lord Randall", the song on which Bob Dylan based "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall": [Excerpt: Ewan MacColl, "Lord Randall"] I say she was clearly familiar with it, because the other song she wrote that anyone's heard was based very much around that idea. "Baby Please Don't Go To Town" is a question-and-answer song in precisely that form, but with an unusual chord progression for a folk song. You may remember back in the episode on "Eight Miles High" I talked about the circle of fifths -- a chord progression which either increases or decreases by a fifth for every chord, so it might go C-G-D-A-E [demonstrates] That's a common progression in pop and jazz, but not really so much in folk, but it's the one that Miller had used for "Baby, Please Don't Go to Town", and she'd taught Roberts that song, which she only recorded much later: [Excerpt: Niela Miller, "Baby, Please Don't Go To Town"] After Roberts and Miller broke up, Miller kept playing that melody, but he changed the lyrics. The lyrics he added had several influences. There was that question-and-answer folk-song format, there's the story of "Cocaine Blues" with its protagonist getting a forty-four to shoot his woman down before heading to Mexico, and there's also a country hit from 1953. "Hey, Joe!" was originally recorded by Carl Smith, one of the most popular country singers of the early fifties: [Excerpt: Carl Smith, "Hey Joe!"] That was written by Boudleaux Bryant, a few years before the songs he co-wrote for the Everly Brothers, and became a country number one, staying at the top for eight weeks. It didn't make the pop chart, but a pop cover version of it by Frankie Laine made the top ten in the US: [Excerpt: Frankie Laine, "Hey Joe"] Laine's record did even better in the UK, where it made number one, at a point where Laine was the biggest star in music in Britain -- at the time the UK charts only had a top twelve, and at one point four of the singles in the top twelve were by Laine, including that one. There was also an answer record by Kitty Wells which made the country top ten later that year: [Excerpt: Kitty Wells, "Hey Joe"] Oddly, despite it being a very big hit, that "Hey Joe" had almost no further cover versions for twenty years, though it did become part of the Searchers' setlist, and was included on their Live at the Star Club album in 1963, in an arrangement that owed a lot to "What'd I Say": [Excerpt: The Searchers, "Hey Joe"] But that song was clearly on Roberts' mind when, as so many American folk musicians did, he travelled to the UK in the late fifties and became briefly involved in the burgeoning UK folk movement. In particular, he spent some time with a twelve-string guitar player from Edinburgh called Len Partridge, who was also a mentor to Bert Jansch, and who was apparently an extraordinary musician, though I know of no recordings of his work. Partridge helped Roberts finish up the song, though Partridge is about the only person in this story who *didn't* claim a writing credit for it at one time or another, saying that he just helped Roberts out and that Roberts deserved all the credit. The first known recording of the completed song is from 1962, a few years after Roberts had returned to the US, though it didn't surface until decades later: [Excerpt: Billy Roberts, "Hey Joe"] Roberts was performing this song regularly on the folk circuit, and around the time of that recording he also finally got round to registering the copyright, several years after it was written. When Miller heard the song, she was furious, and she later said "Imagine my surprise when I heard Hey Joe by Billy Roberts. There was my tune, my chord progression, my question/answer format. He dropped the bridge that was in my song and changed it enough so that the copyright did not protect me from his plagiarism... I decided not to go through with all the complications of dealing with him. He never contacted me about it or gave me any credit. He knows he committed a morally reprehensible act. He never was man enough to make amends and apologize to me, or to give credit for the inspiration. Dealing with all that was also why I made the decision not to become a professional songwriter. It left a bad taste in my mouth.” Pete Seeger, a friend of Miller's, was outraged by the injustice and offered to testify on her behalf should she decide to take Roberts to court, but she never did. Some time around this point, Roberts also played on that prison bill with Johnny Cash, and what happened next is hard to pin down. I've read several different versions of the story, which change the date and which prison this was in, and none of the details in any story hang together properly -- everything introduces weird inconsistencies and things which just make no sense at all. Something like this basic outline of the story seems to have happened, but the outline itself is weird, and we'll probably never know the truth. Roberts played his set, and one of the songs he played was "Hey Joe", and at some point he got talking to one of the prisoners in the audience, Dino Valenti. We've met Valenti before, in the episode on "Mr. Tambourine Man" -- he was a singer/songwriter himself, and would later be the lead singer of Quicksilver Messenger Service, but he's probably best known for having written "Get Together": [Excerpt: Dino Valenti, "Get Together"] As we heard in the "Mr. Tambourine Man" episode, Valenti actually sold off his rights to that song to pay for his bail at one point, but he was in and out of prison several times because of drug busts. At this point, or so the story goes, he was eligible for parole, but he needed to prove he had a possible income when he got out, and one way he wanted to do that was to show that he had written a song that could be a hit he could make money off, but he didn't have such a song. He talked about his predicament with Roberts, who agreed to let him claim to have written "Hey Joe" so he could get out of prison. He did make that claim, and when he got out of prison he continued making the claim, and registered the copyright to "Hey Joe" in his own name -- even though Roberts had already registered it -- and signed a publishing deal for it with Third Story Music, a company owned by Herb Cohen, the future manager of the Mothers of Invention, and Cohen's brother Mutt. Valenti was a popular face on the folk scene, and he played "his" song to many people, but two in particular would influence the way the song would develop, both of them people we've seen relatively recently in episodes of the podcast. One of them, Vince Martin, we'll come back to later, but the other was David Crosby, and so let's talk about him and the Byrds a bit more. Crosby and Valenti had been friends long before the Byrds formed, and indeed we heard in the "Mr. Tambourine Man" episode how the group had named themselves after Valenti's song "Birdses": [Excerpt: Dino Valenti, "Birdses"] And Crosby *loved* "Hey Joe", which he believed was another of Valenti's songs. He'd perform it every chance he got, playing it solo on guitar in an arrangement that other people have compared to Mose Allison. He'd tried to get it on the first two Byrds albums, but had been turned down, mostly because of their manager and uncredited co-producer Jim Dickson, who had strong opinions about it, saying later "Some of the songs that David would bring in from the outside were perfectly valid songs for other people, but did not seem to be compatible with the Byrds' myth. And he may not have liked the Byrds' myth. He fought for 'Hey Joe' and he did it. As long as I could say 'No!' I did, and when I couldn't any more they did it. You had to give him something somewhere. I just wish it was something else... 'Hey Joe' I was bitterly opposed to. A song about a guy who murders his girlfriend in a jealous rage and is on the way to Mexico with a gun in his hand. It was not what I saw as a Byrds song." Indeed, Dickson was so opposed to the song that he would later say “One of the reasons David engineered my getting thrown out was because I would not let Hey Joe be on the Turn! Turn! Turn! album.” Dickson was, though, still working with the band when they got round to recording it. That came during the recording of their Fifth Dimension album, the album which included "Eight Miles High". That album was mostly recorded after the departure of Gene Clark, which was where we left the group at the end of the "Eight Miles High" episode, and the loss of their main songwriter meant that they were struggling for material -- doubly so since they also decided they were going to move away from Dylan covers. This meant that they had to rely on original material from the group's less commercial songwriters, and on a few folk songs, mostly learned from Pete Seeger The album ended up with only eleven songs on it, compared to the twelve that was normal for American albums at that time, and the singles on it after "Eight Miles High" weren't particularly promising as to the group's ability to come up with commercial material. The next single, "5D", a song by Roger McGuinn about the fifth dimension, was a waltz-time song that both Crosby and Chris Hillman were enthused by. It featured organ by Van Dyke Parks, and McGuinn said of the organ part "When he came into the studio I told him to think Bach. He was already thinking Bach before that anyway.": [Excerpt: The Byrds, "5D"] While the group liked it, though, that didn't make the top forty. The next single did, just about -- a song that McGuinn had written as an attempt at communicating with alien life. He hoped that it would be played on the radio, and that the radio waves would eventually reach aliens, who would hear it and respond: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Mr. Spaceman"] The "Fifth Dimension" album did significantly worse, both critically and commercially, than their previous albums, and the group would soon drop Allen Stanton, the producer, in favour of Gary Usher, Brian Wilson's old songwriting partner. But the desperation for material meant that the group agreed to record the song which they still thought at that time had been written by Crosby's friend, though nobody other than Crosby was happy with it, and even Crosby later said "It was a mistake. I shouldn't have done it. Everybody makes mistakes." McGuinn said later "The reason Crosby did lead on 'Hey Joe' was because it was *his* song. He didn't write it but he was responsible for finding it. He'd wanted to do it for years but we would never let him.": [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Hey Joe"] Of course, that arrangement is very far from the Mose Allison style version Crosby had been doing previously. And the reason for that can be found in the full version of that McGuinn quote, because the full version continues "He'd wanted to do it for years but we would never let him. Then both Love and The Leaves had a minor hit with it and David got so angry that we had to let him do it. His version wasn't that hot because he wasn't a strong lead vocalist." The arrangement we just heard was the arrangement that by this point almost every group on the Sunset Strip scene was playing. And the reason for that was because of another friend of Crosby's, someone who had been a roadie for the Byrds -- Bryan MacLean. MacLean and Crosby had been very close because they were both from very similar backgrounds -- they were both Hollywood brats with huge egos. MacLean later said "Crosby and I got on perfectly. I didn't understand what everybody was complaining about, because he was just like me!" MacLean was, if anything, from an even more privileged background than Crosby. His father was an architect who'd designed houses for Elizabeth Taylor and Dean Martin, his neighbour when growing up was Frederick Loewe, the composer of My Fair Lady. He learned to swim in Elizabeth Taylor's private pool, and his first girlfriend was Liza Minelli. Another early girlfriend was Jackie DeShannon, the singer-songwriter who did the original version of "Needles and Pins", who he was introduced to by Sharon Sheeley, whose name you will remember from many previous episodes. MacLean had wanted to be an artist until his late teens, when he walked into a shop in Westwood which sometimes sold his paintings, the Sandal Shop, and heard some people singing folk songs there. He decided he wanted to be a folk singer, and soon started performing at the Balladeer, a club which would later be renamed the Troubadour, playing songs like Robert Johnson's "Cross Roads Blues", which had recently become a staple of the folk repertoire after John Hammond put out the King of the Delta Blues Singers album: [Excerpt: Robert Johnson, "Cross Roads Blues"] Reading interviews with people who knew MacLean at the time, the same phrase keeps coming up. John Kay, later the lead singer of Steppenwolf, said "There was a young kid, Bryan MacLean, kind of cocky but nonetheless a nice kid, who hung around Crosby and McGuinn" while Chris Hillman said "He was a pretty good kid but a wee bit cocky." He was a fan of the various musicians who later formed the Byrds, and was also an admirer of a young guitarist on the scene named Ryland Cooder, and of a blues singer on the scene named Taj Mahal. He apparently was briefly in a band with Taj Mahal, called Summer's Children, who as far as I can tell had no connection to the duo that Curt Boettcher later formed of the same name, before Taj Mahal and Cooder formed The Rising Sons, a multi-racial blues band who were for a while the main rivals to the Byrds on the scene. MacLean, though, firmly hitched himself to the Byrds, and particularly to Crosby. He became a roadie on their first tour, and Hillman said "He was a hard-working guy on our behalf. As I recall, he pretty much answered to Crosby and was David's assistant, to put it diplomatically – more like his gofer, in fact." But MacLean wasn't cut out for the hard work that being a roadie required, and after being the Byrds' roadie for about thirty shows, he started making mistakes, and when they went off on their UK tour they decided not to keep employing him. He was heartbroken, but got back into trying his own musical career. He auditioned for the Monkees, unsuccessfully, but shortly after that -- some sources say even the same day as the audition, though that seems a little too neat -- he went to Ben Frank's -- the LA hangout that had actually been namechecked in the open call for Monkees auditions, which said they wanted "Ben Franks types", and there he met Arthur Lee and Johnny Echols. Echols would later remember "He was this gadfly kind of character who knew everybody and was flitting from table to table. He wore striped pants and a scarf, and he had this long, strawberry hair. All the girls loved him. For whatever reason, he came and sat at our table. Of course, Arthur and I were the only two black people there at the time." Lee and Echols were both Black musicians who had been born in Memphis. Lee's birth father, Chester Taylor, had been a cornet player with Jimmie Lunceford, whose Delta Rhythm Boys had had a hit with "The Honeydripper", as we heard way back in the episode on "Rocket '88": [Excerpt: Jimmie Lunceford and the Delta Rhythm Boys, "The Honeydripper"] However, Taylor soon split from Lee's mother, a schoolteacher, and she married Clinton Lee, a stonemason, who doted on his adopted son, and they moved to California. They lived in a relatively prosperous area of LA, a neighbourhood that was almost all white, with a few Asian families, though the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson lived nearby. A year or so after Arthur and his mother moved to LA, so did the Echols family, who had known them in Memphis, and they happened to move only a couple of streets away. Eight year old Arthur Lee reconnected with seven-year-old Johnny Echols, and the two became close friends from that point on. Arthur Lee first started out playing music when his parents were talked into buying him an accordion by a salesman who would go around with a donkey, give kids free donkey rides, and give the parents a sales pitch while they were riding the donkey, He soon gave up on the accordion and persuaded his parents to buy him an organ instead -- he was a spoiled child, by all accounts, with a TV in his bedroom, which was almost unheard of in the late fifties. Johnny Echols had a similar experience which led to his parents buying him a guitar, and the two were growing up in a musical environment generally. They attended Dorsey High School at the same time as both Billy Preston and Mike Love of the Beach Boys, and Ella Fitzgerald and her then-husband, the great jazz bass player Ray Brown, lived in the same apartment building as the Echols family for a while. Ornette Coleman, the free-jazz saxophone player, lived next door to Echols, and Adolphus Jacobs, the guitarist with the Coasters, gave him guitar lessons. Arthur Lee also knew Johnny Otis, who ran a pigeon-breeding club for local children which Arthur would attend. Echols was the one who first suggested that he and Arthur should form a band, and they put together a group to play at a school talent show, performing "Last Night", the instrumental that had been a hit for the Mar-Keys on Stax records: [Excerpt: The Mar-Keys, "Last Night"] They soon became a regular group, naming themselves Arthur Lee and the LAGs -- the LA Group, in imitation of Booker T and the MGs – the Memphis Group. At some point around this time, Lee decided to switch from playing organ to playing guitar. He would say later that this was inspired by seeing Johnny "Guitar" Watson get out of a gold Cadillac, wearing a gold suit, and with gold teeth in his mouth. The LAGs started playing as support acts and backing bands for any blues and soul acts that came through LA, performing with Big Mama Thornton, Johnny Otis, the O'Jays, and more. Arthur and Johnny were both still under-age, and they would pencil in fake moustaches to play the clubs so they'd appear older. In the fifties and early sixties, there were a number of great electric guitar players playing blues on the West Coast -- Johnny "Guitar" Watson, T-Bone Walker, Guitar Slim, and others -- and they would compete with each other not only to play well, but to put on a show, and so there was a whole bag of stage tricks that West Coast R&B guitarists picked up, and Echols learned all of them -- playing his guitar behind his back, playing his guitar with his teeth, playing with his guitar between his legs. As well as playing their own shows, the LAGs also played gigs under other names -- they had a corrupt agent who would book them under the name of whatever Black group had a hit at the time, in the belief that almost nobody knew what popular groups looked like anyway, so they would go out and perform as the Drifters or the Coasters or half a dozen other bands. But Arthur Lee in particular wanted to have success in his own right. He would later say "When I was a little boy I would listen to Nat 'King' Cole and I would look at that purple Capitol Records logo. I wanted to be on Capitol, that was my goal. Later on I used to walk from Dorsey High School all the way up to the Capitol building in Hollywood -- did that many times. I was determined to get a record deal with Capitol, and I did, without the help of a fancy manager or anyone else. I talked to Adam Ross and Jack Levy at Ardmore-Beechwood. I talked to Kim Fowley, and then I talked to Capitol". The record that the LAGs released, though, was not very good, a track called "Rumble-Still-Skins": [Excerpt: The LAGs, "Rumble-Still-Skins"] Lee later said "I was young and very inexperienced and I was testing the record company. I figured if I gave them my worst stuff and they ripped me off I wouldn't get hurt. But it didn't work, and after that I started giving my best, and I've been doing that ever since." The LAGs were dropped by Capitol after one single, and for the next little while Arthur and Johnny did work for smaller labels, usually labels owned by Bob Keane, with Arthur writing and producing and Johnny playing guitar -- though Echols has said more recently that a lot of the songs that were credited to Arthur as sole writer were actually joint compositions. Most of these records were attempts at copying the style of other people. There was "I Been Trying", a Phil Spector soundalike released by Little Ray: [Excerpt: Little Ray, "I Been Trying"] And there were a few attempts at sounding like Curtis Mayfield, like "Slow Jerk" by Ronnie and the Pomona Casuals: [Excerpt: Ronnie and the Pomona Casuals, "Slow Jerk"] and "My Diary" by Rosa Lee Brooks: [Excerpt: Rosa Lee Brooks, "My Diary"] Echols was also playing with a lot of other people, and one of the musicians he was playing with, his old school friend Billy Preston, told him about a recent European tour he'd been on with Little Richard, and the band from Liverpool he'd befriended while he was there who idolised Richard, so when the Beatles hit America, Arthur and Johnny had some small amount of context for them. They soon broke up the LAGs and formed another group, the American Four, with two white musicians, bass player John Fleckenstein and drummer Don Costa. Lee had them wear wigs so they seemed like they had longer hair, and started dressing more eccentrically -- he would soon become known for wearing glasses with one blue lens and one red one, and, as he put it "wearing forty pounds of beads, two coats, three shirts, and wearing two pairs of shoes on one foot". As well as the Beatles, the American Four were inspired by the other British Invasion bands -- Arthur was in the audience for the TAMI show, and quite impressed by Mick Jagger -- and also by the Valentinos, Bobby Womack's group. They tried to get signed to SAR Records, the label owned by Sam Cooke for which the Valentinos recorded, but SAR weren't interested, and they ended up recording for Bob Keane's Del-Fi records, where they cut "Luci Baines", a "Twist and Shout" knock-off with lyrics referencing the daughter of new US President Lyndon Johnson: [Excerpt: The American Four, "Luci Baines"] But that didn't take off any more than the earlier records had. Another American Four track, "Stay Away", was recorded but went unreleased until 2006: [Excerpt: Arthur Lee and the American Four, "Stay Away"] Soon the American Four were changing their sound and name again. This time it was because of two bands who were becoming successful on the Sunset Strip. One was the Byrds, who to Lee's mind were making music like the stuff he heard in his head, and the other was their rivals the Rising Sons, the blues band we mentioned earlier with Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder. Lee was very impressed by them as an multiracial band making aggressive, loud, guitar music, though he would always make the point when talking about them that they were a blues band, not a rock band, and *he* had the first multiracial rock band. Whatever they were like live though, in their recordings, produced by the Byrds' first producer Terry Melcher, the Rising Sons often had the same garage band folk-punk sound that Lee and Echols would soon make their own: [Excerpt: The Rising Sons, "Take a Giant Step"] But while the Rising Sons recorded a full album's worth of material, only one single was released before they split up, and so the way was clear for Lee and Echols' band, now renamed once again to The Grass Roots, to become the Byrds' new challengers. Lee later said "I named the group The Grass Roots behind a trip, or an album I heard that Malcolm X did, where he said 'the grass roots of the people are out in the street doing something about their problems instead of sitting around talking about it'". After seeing the Rolling Stones and the Byrds live, Lee wanted to get up front and move like Mick Jagger, and not be hindered by playing a guitar he wasn't especially good at -- both the Stones and the Byrds had two guitarists and a frontman who just sang and played hand percussion, and these were the models that Lee was following for the group. He also thought it would be a good idea commercially to get a good-looking white boy up front. So the group got in another guitarist, a white pretty boy who Lee soon fell out with and gave the nickname "Bummer Bob" because he was unpleasant to be around. Those of you who know exactly why Bobby Beausoleil later became famous will probably agree that this was a more than reasonable nickname to give him (and those of you who don't, I'll be dealing with him when we get to 1969). So when Bryan MacLean introduced himself to Lee and Echols, and they found out that not only was he also a good-looking white guitarist, but he was also friends with the entire circle of hipsters who'd been going to Byrds gigs, people like Vito and Franzoni, and he could get a massive crowd of them to come along to gigs for any band he was in and make them the talk of the Sunset Strip scene, he was soon in the Grass Roots, and Bummer Bob was out. The Grass Roots soon had to change their name again, though. In 1965, Jan and Dean recorded their "Folk and Roll" album, which featured "The Universal Coward"... Which I am not going to excerpt again. I only put that pause in to terrify Tilt, who edits these podcasts, and has very strong opinions about that song. But P. F. Sloan and Steve Barri, the songwriters who also performed as the Fantastic Baggies, had come up with a song for that album called "Where Where You When I Needed You?": [Excerpt: Jan and Dean, "Where Were You When I Needed You?"] Sloan and Barri decided to cut their own version of that song under a fake band name, and then put together a group of other musicians to tour as that band. They just needed a name, and Lou Adler, the head of Dunhill Records, suggested they call themselves The Grass Roots, and so that's what they did: [Excerpt: The Grass Roots, "Where Were You When I Needed You?"] Echols would later claim that this was deliberate malice on Adler's part -- that Adler had come in to a Grass Roots show drunk, and pretended to be interested in signing them to a contract, mostly to show off to a woman he'd brought with him. Echols and MacLean had spoken to him, not known who he was, and he'd felt disrespected, and Echols claims that he suggested the name to get back at them, and also to capitalise on their local success. The new Grass Roots soon started having hits, and so the old band had to find another name, which they got as a joking reference to a day job Lee had had at one point -- he'd apparently worked in a specialist bra shop, Luv Brassieres, which the rest of the band found hilarious. The Grass Roots became Love. While Arthur Lee was the group's lead singer, Bryan MacLean would often sing harmonies, and would get a song or two to sing live himself. And very early in the group's career, when they were playing a club called Bido Lito's, he started making his big lead spot a version of "Hey Joe", which he'd learned from his old friend David Crosby, and which soon became the highlight of the group's set. Their version was sped up, and included the riff which the Searchers had popularised in their cover version of "Needles and Pins", the song originally recorded by MacLean's old girlfriend Jackie DeShannon: [Excerpt: The Searchers, "Needles and Pins"] That riff is a very simple one to play, and variants of it became very, very, common among the LA bands, most notably on the Byrds' "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better": [Excerpt: The Byrds, "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better"] The riff was so ubiquitous in the LA scene that in the late eighties Frank Zappa would still cite it as one of his main memories of the scene. I'm going to quote from his autobiography, where he's talking about the differences between the LA scene he was part of and the San Francisco scene he had no time for: "The Byrds were the be-all and end-all of Los Angeles rock then. They were 'It' -- and then a group called Love was 'It.' There were a few 'psychedelic' groups that never really got to be 'It,' but they could still find work and get record deals, including the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Sky Saxon and the Seeds, and the Leaves (noted for their cover version of "Hey, Joe"). When we first went to San Francisco, in the early days of the Family Dog, it seemed that everybody was wearing the same costume, a mixture of Barbary Coast and Old West -- guys with handlebar mustaches, girls in big bustle dresses with feathers in their hair, etc. By contrast, the L.A. costumery was more random and outlandish. Musically, the northern bands had a little more country style. In L.A., it was folk-rock to death. Everything had that" [and here Zappa uses the adjectival form of a four-letter word beginning with 'f' that the main podcast providers don't like you saying on non-adult-rated shows] "D chord down at the bottom of the neck where you wiggle your finger around -- like 'Needles and Pins.'" The reason Zappa describes it that way, and the reason it became so popular, is that if you play that riff in D, the chords are D, Dsus2, and Dsus4 which means you literally only wiggle one finger on your left hand: [demonstrates] And so you get that on just a ton of records from that period, though Love, the Byrds, and the Searchers all actually play the riff on A rather than D: [demonstrates] So that riff became the Big Thing in LA after the Byrds popularised the Searchers sound there, and Love added it to their arrangement of "Hey Joe". In January 1966, the group would record their arrangement of it for their first album, which would come out in March: [Excerpt: Love, "Hey Joe"] But that wouldn't be the first recording of the song, or of Love's arrangement of it – although other than the Byrds' version, it would be the only one to come out of LA with the original Billy Roberts lyrics. Love's performances of the song at Bido Lito's had become the talk of the Sunset Strip scene, and soon every band worth its salt was copying it, and it became one of those songs like "Louie Louie" before it that everyone would play. The first record ever made with the "Hey Joe" melody actually had totally different lyrics. Kim Fowley had the idea of writing a sequel to "Hey Joe", titled "Wanted Dead or Alive", about what happened after Joe shot his woman and went off. He produced the track for The Rogues, a group consisting of Michael Lloyd and Shaun Harris, who later went on to form the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, and Lloyd and Harris were the credited writers: [Excerpt: The Rogues, "Wanted Dead or Alive"] The next version of the song to come out was the first by anyone to be released as "Hey Joe", or at least as "Hey Joe, Where You Gonna Go?", which was how it was titled on its initial release. This was by a band called The Leaves, who were friends of Love, and had picked up on "Hey Joe", and was produced by Nik Venet. It was also the first to have the now-familiar opening line "Hey Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand?": [Excerpt: The Leaves, "Hey Joe Where You Gonna Go?"] Roberts' original lyric, as sung by both Love and the Byrds, had been "where you going with that money in your hand?", and had Joe headed off to *buy* the gun. But as Echols later said “What happened was Bob Lee from The Leaves, who were friends of ours, asked me for the words to 'Hey Joe'. I told him I would have the words the next day. I decided to write totally different lyrics. The words you hear on their record are ones I wrote as a joke. The original words to Hey Joe are ‘Hey Joe, where you going with that money in your hand? Well I'm going downtown to buy me a blue steel .44. When I catch up with that woman, she won't be running round no more.' It never says ‘Hey Joe where you goin' with that gun in your hand.' Those were the words I wrote just because I knew they were going to try and cover the song before we released it. That was kind of a dirty trick that I played on The Leaves, which turned out to be the words that everybody uses.” That first release by the Leaves also contained an extra verse -- a nod to Love's previous name: [Excerpt: The Leaves, "Hey Joe Where You Gonna Go?"] That original recording credited the song as public domain -- apparently Bryan MacLean had refused to tell the Leaves who had written the song, and so they assumed it was traditional. It came out in November 1965, but only as a promo single. Even before the Leaves, though, another band had recorded "Hey Joe", but it didn't get released. The Sons of Adam had started out as a surf group called the Fender IV, who made records like "Malibu Run": [Excerpt: The Fender IV, "Malibu Run"] Kim Fowley had suggested they change their name to the Sons of Adam, and they were another group who were friends with Love -- their drummer, Michael Stuart-Ware, would later go on to join Love, and Arthur Lee wrote the song "Feathered Fish" for them: [Excerpt: Sons of Adam, "Feathered Fish"] But while they were the first to record "Hey Joe", their version has still to this day not been released. Their version was recorded for Decca, with producer Gary Usher, but before it was released, another Decca artist also recorded the song, and the label weren't sure which one to release. And then the label decided to press Usher to record a version with yet another act -- this time with the Surfaris, the surf group who had had a hit with "Wipe Out". Coincidentally, the Surfaris had just changed bass players -- their most recent bass player, Ken Forssi, had quit and joined Love, whose own bass player, John Fleckenstein, had gone off to join the Standells, who would also record a version of “Hey Joe” in 1966. Usher thought that the Sons of Adam were much better musicians than the Surfaris, who he was recording with more or less under protest, but their version, using Love's arrangement and the "gun in your hand" lyrics, became the first version to come out on a major label: [Excerpt: The Surfaris, "Hey Joe"] They believed the song was in the public domain, and so the songwriting credits on the record are split between Gary Usher, a W. Hale who nobody has been able to identify, and Tony Cost, a pseudonym for Nik Venet. Usher said later "I got writer's credit on it because I was told, or I assumed at the time, the song was Public Domain; meaning a non-copyrighted song. It had already been cut two or three times, and on each occasion the writing credit had been different. On a traditional song, whoever arranges it, takes the songwriting credit. I may have changed a few words and arranged and produced it, but I certainly did not co-write it." The public domain credit also appeared on the Leaves' second attempt to cut the song, which was actually given a general release, but flopped. But when the Leaves cut the song for a *third* time, still for the same tiny label, Mira, the track became a hit in May 1966, reaching number thirty-one: [Excerpt: The Leaves, "Hey Joe"] And *that* version had what they thought was the correct songwriting credit, to Dino Valenti. Which came as news to Billy Roberts, who had registered the copyright to the song back in 1962 and had no idea that it had become a staple of LA garage rock until he heard his song in the top forty with someone else's name on the credits. He angrily confronted Third Story Music, who agreed to a compromise -- they would stop giving Valenti songwriting royalties and start giving them to Roberts instead, so long as he didn't sue them and let them keep the publishing rights. Roberts was indignant about this -- he deserved all the money, not just half of it -- but he went along with it to avoid a lawsuit he might not win. So Roberts was now the credited songwriter on the versions coming out of the LA scene. But of course, Dino Valenti had been playing "his" song to other people, too. One of those other people was Vince Martin. Martin had been a member of a folk-pop group called the Tarriers, whose members also included the future film star Alan Arkin, and who had had a hit in the 1950s with "Cindy, Oh Cindy": [Excerpt: The Tarriers, "Cindy, Oh Cindy"] But as we heard in the episode on the Lovin' Spoonful, he had become a Greenwich Village folkie, in a duo with Fred Neil, and recorded an album with him, "Tear Down the Walls": [Excerpt: Fred Neil and Vince Martin, "Morning Dew"] That song we just heard, "Morning Dew", was another question-and-answer folk song. It was written by the Canadian folk-singer Bonnie Dobson, but after Martin and Neil recorded it, it was picked up on by Martin's friend Tim Rose who stuck his own name on the credits as well, without Dobson's permission, for a version which made the song into a rock standard for which he continued to collect royalties: [Excerpt: Tim Rose, "Morning Dew"] This was something that Rose seems to have made a habit of doing, though to be fair to him it went both ways. We heard about him in the Lovin' Spoonful episode too, when he was in a band named the Big Three with Cass Elliot and her coincidentally-named future husband Jim Hendricks, who recorded this song, with Rose putting new music to the lyrics of the old public domain song "Oh! Susanna": [Excerpt: The Big Three, "The Banjo Song"] The band Shocking Blue used that melody for their 1969 number-one hit "Venus", and didn't give Rose any credit: [Excerpt: Shocking Blue, "Venus"] But another song that Rose picked up from Vince Martin was "Hey Joe". Martin had picked the song up from Valenti, but didn't know who had written it, or who was claiming to have written it, and told Rose he thought it might be an old Appalchian murder ballad or something. Rose took the song and claimed writing credit in his own name -- he would always, for the rest of his life, claim it was an old folk tune he'd heard in Florida, and that he'd rewritten it substantially himself, but no evidence of the song has ever shown up from prior to Roberts' copyright registration, and Rose's version is basically identical to Roberts' in melody and lyrics. But Rose takes his version at a much slower pace, and his version would be the model for the most successful versions going forward, though those other versions would use the lyrics Johnny Echols had rewritten, rather than the ones Rose used: [Excerpt: Tim Rose, "Hey Joe"] Rose's version got heard across the Atlantic as well. And in particular it was heard by Chas Chandler, the bass player of the Animals. Some sources seem to suggest that Chandler first heard the song performed by a group called the Creation, but in a biography I've read of that group they clearly state that they didn't start playing the song until 1967. But however he came across it, when Chandler heard Rose's recording, he knew that the song could be a big hit for someone, but he didn't know who. And then he bumped into Linda Keith, Keith Richards' girlfriend, who took him to see someone whose guitar we've already heard in this episode: [Excerpt: Rosa Lee Brooks, "My Diary"] The Curtis Mayfield impression on guitar there was, at least according to many sources the first recording session ever played on by a guitarist then calling himself Maurice (or possibly Mo-rees) James. We'll see later in the story that it possibly wasn't his first -- there are conflicting accounts, as there are about a lot of things, and it was recorded either in very early 1964, in which case it was his first, or (as seems more likely, and as I tell the story later) a year later, in which case he'd played on maybe half a dozen tracks in the studio by that point. But it was still a very early one. And by late 1966 that guitarist had reverted to the name by which he was brought up, and was calling himself Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix and Arthur Lee had become close, and Lee would later claim that Hendrix had copied much of Lee's dress style and attitude -- though many of Hendrix's other colleagues and employers, including Little Richard, would make similar claims -- and most of them had an element of truth, as Lee's did. Hendrix was a sponge. But Lee did influence him. Indeed, one of Hendrix's *last* sessions, in March 1970, was guesting on an album by Love: [Excerpt: Love with Jimi Hendrix, "Everlasting First"] Hendrix's name at birth was Johnny Allen Hendrix, which made his father, James Allen Hendrix, known as Al, who was away at war when his son was born, worry that he'd been named after another man who might possibly be the real father, so the family just referred to the child as "Buster" to avoid the issue. When Al Hendrix came back from the war the child was renamed James Marshall Hendrix -- James after Al's first name, Marshall after Al's dead brother -- though the family continued calling him "Buster". Little James Hendrix Junior didn't have anything like a stable home life. Both his parents were alcoholics, and Al Hendrix was frequently convinced that Jimi's mother Lucille was having affairs and became abusive about it. They had six children, four of whom were born disabled, and Jimi was the only one to remain with his parents -- the rest were either fostered or adopted at birth, fostered later on because the parents weren't providing a decent home life, or in one case made a ward of state because the Hendrixes couldn't afford to pay for a life-saving operation for him. The only one that Jimi had any kind of regular contact with was the second brother, Leon, his parents' favourite, who stayed with them for several years before being fostered by a family only a few blocks away. Al and Lucille Hendrix frequently split and reconciled, and while they were ostensibly raising Jimi (and for a few years Leon), he was shuttled between them and various family members and friends, living sometimes in Seattle where his parents lived and sometimes in Vancouver with his paternal grandmother. He was frequently malnourished, and often survived because friends' families fed him. Al Hendrix was also often physically and emotionally abusive of the son he wasn't sure was his. Jimi grew up introverted, and stuttering, and only a couple of things seemed to bring him out of his shell. One was science fiction -- he always thought that his nickname, Buster, came from Buster Crabbe, the star of the Flash Gordon serials he loved to watch, though in fact he got the nickname even before that interest developed, and he was fascinated with ideas about aliens and UFOs -- and the other was music. Growing up in Seattle in the forties and fifties, most of the music he was exposed to as a child and in his early teens was music made by and for white people -- there wasn't a very large Black community in the area at the time compared to most major American cities, and so there were no prominent R&B stations. As a kid he loved the music of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, and when he was thirteen Jimi's favourite record was Dean Martin's "Memories are Made of This": [Excerpt: Dean Martin, "Memories are Made of This"] He also, like every teenager, became a fan of rock and roll music. When Elvis played at a local stadium when Jimi was fifteen, he couldn't afford a ticket, but he went and sat on top of a nearby hill and watched the show from the distance. Jimi's first exposure to the blues also came around this time, when his father briefly took in lodgers, Cornell and Ernestine Benson, and Ernestine had a record collection that included records by Lightnin' Hopkins, Howlin' Wolf, and Muddy Waters, all of whom Jimi became a big fan of, especially Muddy Waters. The Bensons' most vivid memory of Jimi in later years was him picking up a broom and pretending to play guitar along with these records: [Excerpt: Muddy Waters, "Baby Please Don't Go"] Shortly after this, it would be Ernestine Benson who would get Jimi his very first guitar. By this time Jimi and Al had lost their home and moved into a boarding house, and the owner's son had an acoustic guitar with only one string that he was planning to throw out. When Jimi asked if he could have it instead of it being thrown out, the owner told him he could have it for five dollars. Al Hendrix refused to pay that much for it, but Ernestine Benson bought Jimi the guitar. She said later “He only had one string, but he could really make that string talk.” He started carrying the guitar on his back everywhere he went, in imitation of Sterling Hayden in the western Johnny Guitar, and eventually got some more strings for it and learned to play. He would play it left-handed -- until his father came in. His father had forced him to write with his right hand, and was convinced that left-handedness was the work of the devil, so Jimi would play left-handed while his father was somewhere else, but as soon as Al came in he would flip the guitar the other way up and continue playing the song he had been playing, now right-handed. Jimi's mother died when he was fifteen, after having been ill for a long time with drink-related problems, and Jimi and his brother didn't get to go to the funeral -- depending on who you believe, either Al gave Jimi the bus fare and told him to go by himself and Jimi was too embarrassed to go to the funeral alone on the bus, or Al actually forbade Jimi and Leon from going. After this, he became even more introverted than he was before, and he also developed a fascination with the idea of angels, convinced his mother now was one. Jimi started to hang around with a friend called Pernell Alexander, who also had a guitar, and they would play along together with Elmore James records. The two also went to see Little Richard and Bill Doggett perform live, and while Jimi was hugely introverted, he did start to build more friendships in the small Seattle music scene, including with Ron Holden, the man we talked about in the episode on "Louie Louie" who introduced that song to Seattle, and who would go on to record with Bruce Johnston for Bob Keane: [Excerpt: Ron Holden, "Gee But I'm Lonesome"] Eventually Ernestine Benson persuaded Al Hendrix to buy Jimi a decent electric guitar on credit -- Al also bought himself a saxophone at the same time, thinking he might play music with his son, but sent it back once the next payment became due. As well as blues and R&B, Jimi was soaking up the guitar instrumentals and garage rock that would soon turn into surf music. The first song he learned to play was "Tall Cool One" by the Fabulous Wailers, the local group who popularised a version of "Louie Louie" based on Holden's one: [Excerpt: The Fabulous Wailers, "Tall Cool One"] As we talked about in the "Louie Louie" episode, the Fabulous Wailers used to play at a venue called the Spanish Castle, and Jimi was a regular in the audience, later writing his song "Spanish Castle Magic" about those shows: [Excerpt: The Jimi Hendrix Experience, "Spanish Castle Magic"] He was also a big fan of Duane Eddy, and soon learned Eddy's big hits "Forty Miles of Bad Road", "Because They're Young", and "Peter Gunn" -- a song he would return to much later in his life: [Excerpt: Jimi Hendrix, "Peter Gunn/Catastrophe"] His career as a guitarist didn't get off to a great start -- the first night he played with his first band, he was meant to play two sets, but he was fired after the first set, because he was playing in too flashy a manner and showing off too much on stage. His girlfriend suggested that he might want to tone it down a little, but he said "That's not my style". This would be a common story for the next several years. After that false start, the first real band he was in was the Velvetones, with his friend Pernell Alexander. There were four guitarists, two piano players, horns and drums, and they dressed up with glitter stuck to their pants. They played Duane Eddy songs, old jazz numbers, and "Honky Tonk" by Bill Doggett, which became Hendrix's signature song with the band. [Excerpt: Bill Doggett, "Honky Tonk"] His father was unsupportive of his music career, and he left his guitar at Alexander's house because he was scared that his dad would smash it if he took it home. At the same time he was with the Velvetones, he was also playing with another band called the Rocking Kings, who got gigs around the Seattle area, including at the Spanish Castle. But as they left school, most of Hendrix's friends were joining the Army, in order to make a steady living, and so did he -- although not entirely by choice. He was arrested, twice, for riding in stolen cars, and he was given a choice -- either go to prison, or sign up for the Army for three years. He chose the latter. At first, the Army seemed to suit him. He was accepted into the 101st Airborne Division, the famous "Screaming Eagles", whose actions at D-Day made them legendary in the US, and he was proud to be a member of the Division. They were based out of Fort Campbell, the base near Clarksville we talked about a couple of episodes ago, and while he was there he met a bass player, Billy Cox, who he started playing with. As Cox and Hendrix were Black, and as Fort Campbell straddled the border between Kentucky and Tennessee, they had to deal with segregation and play to only Black audiences. And Hendrix quickly discovered that Black audiences in the Southern states weren't interested in "Louie Louie", Duane Eddy, and surf music, the stuff he'd been playing in Seattle. He had to instead switch to playing Albert King and Slim Harpo songs, but luckily he loved that music too. He also started singing at this point -- when Hendrix and Cox started playing together, in a trio called the Kasuals, they had no singer, and while Hendrix never liked his own voice, Cox was worse, and so Hendrix was stuck as the singer. The Kasuals started gigging around Clarksville, and occasionally further afield, places like Nashville, where Arthur Alexander would occasionally sit in with them. But Cox was about to leave the Army, and Hendrix had another two and a bit years to go, having enlisted for three years. They couldn't play any further away unless Hendrix got out of the Army, which he was increasingly unhappy in anyway, and so he did the only thing he could -- he pretended to be gay, and got discharged on medical grounds for homosexuality. In later years he would always pretend he'd broken his ankle parachuting from a plane. For the next few years, he would be a full-time guitarist, and spend the periods when he wasn't earning enough money from that leeching off women he lived with, moving from one to another as they got sick of him or ran out of money. The Kasuals expanded their lineup, adding a second guitarist, Alphonso Young, who would show off on stage by playing guitar with his teeth. Hendrix didn't like being upstaged by another guitarist, and quickly learned to do the same. One biography I've used as a source for this says that at this point, Billy Cox played on a session for King Records, for Frank Howard and the Commanders, and brought Hendrix along, but the producer thought that Hendrix's guitar was too frantic and turned his mic off. But other sources say the session Hendrix and Cox played on for the Commanders wasn't until three years later, and the record *sounds* like a 1965 record, not a 1962 one, and his guitar is very audible – and the record isn't on King. But we've not had any music to break up the narration for a little while, and it's a good track (which later became a Northern Soul favourite) so I'll play a section here, as either way it was certainly an early Hendrix session: [Excerpt: Frank Howard and the Commanders, "I'm So Glad"] This illustrates a general problem with Hendrix's life at this point -- he would flit between bands, playing with the same people at multiple points, nobody was taking detailed notes, and later, once he became famous, everyone wanted to exaggerate their own importance in his life, meaning that while the broad outlines of his life are fairly clear, any detail before late 1966 might be hopelessly wrong. But all the time, Hendrix was learning his craft. One story from around this time sums up both Hendrix's attitude to his playing -- he saw himself almost as much as a scientist as a musician -- and his slightly formal manner of speech. He challenged the best blues guitarist in Nashville to a guitar duel, and the audience actually laughed at Hendrix's playing, as he was totally outclassed. When asked what he was doing, he replied “I was simply trying to get that B.B. King tone down and my experiment failed.” Bookings for the King Kasuals dried up, and he went to Vancouver, where he spent a couple of months playing in a covers band, Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, whose lead guitarist was Tommy Chong, later to find fame as one half of Cheech and Chong. But he got depressed at how white Vancouver was, and travelled back down south to join a reconfigured King Kasuals, who now had a horn section. The new lineup of King Kasuals were playing the chitlin circuit and had to put on a proper show, and so Hendrix started using all the techniques he'd seen other guitarists on the circuit use -- playing with his teeth like Alphonso Young, the other guitarist in the band, playing with his guitar behind his back like T-Bone Walker, and playing with a fifty-foot cord that allowed him to walk into the crowd and out of the venue, still playing, like Guitar Slim used to. As well as playing with the King Kasuals, he started playing the circuit as a sideman. He got short stints with many of the second-tier acts on the circuit -- people who had had one or two hits, or were crowd-pleasers, but weren't massive stars, like Carla Thomas or Jerry Butler or Slim Harpo. The first really big name he played with was Solomon Burke, who when Hendrix joined his band had just released "Just Out of Reach (Of My Two Empty Arms)": [Excerpt: Solomon Burke, "Just Out of Reach (Of My Two Empty Arms)"] But he lacked discipline. “Five dates would go beautifully,” Burke later said, “and then at the next show, he'd go into this wild stuff that wasn't part of the song. I just couldn't handle it anymore.” Burke traded him to Otis Redding, who was on the same tour, for two horn players, but then Redding fired him a week later and they left him on the side of the road. He played in the backing band for the Marvelettes, on a tour with Curtis Mayfield, who would be another of Hendrix's biggest influences, but he accidentally blew up Mayfield's amp and got sacked. On another tour, Cecil Womack threw Hendrix's guitar off the bus while he slept. In February 1964 he joined the band of the Isley Brothers, and he would watch the Beatles on Ed Sullivan with them during his first days with the group. Assuming he hadn't already played the Rosa Lee Brooks session (and I think there's good reason to believe he hadn't), then the first record Hendrix played on was their single "Testify": [Excerpt: The Isley Brothers, "Testify"] While he was with them, he also moonlighted on Don Covay's big hit "Mercy, Mercy": [Excerpt: Don Covay and the Goodtimers, "Mercy Mercy"] After leaving the Isleys, Hendrix joined the minor soul singer Gorgeous George, and on a break from Gorgeous George's tour, in Memphis, he went to Stax studios in the hope of meeting Steve Cropper, one of his idols. When he was told that Cropper was busy in the studio, he waited around all day until Cropper finished, and introduced himself. Hendrix was amazed to discover that Cropper was white -- he'd assumed that he must be Black -- and Cropper was delighted to meet the guitarist who had played on "Mercy Mercy", one of his favourite records. The two spent hours showing each other guitar licks -- Hendrix playing Cropper's right-handed guitar, as he hadn't brought along his own. Shortly after this, he joined Little Richard's band, and once again came into conflict with the star of the show by trying to upstage him. For one show he wore a satin shirt, and after the show Richard screamed at him “I am the only Little Richard! I am the King of Rock and Roll, and I am the only one allowed to be pretty. Take that shirt off!” While he was with Richard, Hendrix played on his "I Don't Know What You've Got, But It's Got Me", which like "Mercy Mercy" was written by Don Covay, who had started out as Richard's chauffeur: [Excerpt: Little Richard, "I Don't Know What You've Got, But It's Got Me"] According to the most likely version of events I've read, it was while he was working for Richard that Hendrix met Rosa Lee Brooks, on New Year's Eve 1964. At this point he was using the name Maurice James, apparently in tribute to the blues guitarist Elmore James, and he used various names, including Jimmy James, for most of his pre-fame performances. Rosa Lee Brooks was an R&B singer who had been mentored by Johnny "Guitar" Watson, and when she met Hendrix she was singing in a girl group who were one of the support acts for Ike & Tina Turner, who Hendrix went to see on his night off. Hendrix met Brooks afterwards, and told her she looked like his mother -- a line he used on a lot of women, but which was true in her case if photos are anything to go by. The two got into a relationship, and were soon talking about becoming a duo like Ike and Tina or Mickey and Sylvia -- "Love is Strange" was one of Hendrix's favourite records. But the only recording they made together was the "My Diary" single. Brooks always claimed that she actually wrote that song, but the label credit is for Arthur Lee, and it sounds like his work to me, albeit him trying hard to write like Curtis Mayfield, just as Hendrix is trying to play like him: [Excerpt: Rosa Lee Brooks, "My Diary"] Brooks and Hendrix had a very intense relationship for a short period. Brooks would later recall Little
Today I'm joined by Brandon McEachern and Marcus Allen, the co-founders of Broccoli City. The music festival makes its return to Washington D.C. on May 7-8 with a stacked lineup that includes Gunna, Summer Walker, Wale, and plenty more stars from the world of hip-hop and R&B. The black-owned promotion had not one, but two events canceled in the past two years. During the forced downtime, festival co-founders Marcus Allen and Brandon McEachern made a conscious decision to not just return for 2022, but come back better than ever. Specifically, the two wanted to leverage the Broccoli City platform to create black change. Since starting in 2013, the festival has always catered to black people first and foremost. But in 2022, it's aiming to give its fans better resources well beyond the music grounds. The duo is accomplishing that in the form of an expo that'll feature job/internship opportunities, health/wellness tools, financial support for small businesses, and forums on criminal justice issues, amongst other things. The expo is one component of what the festival organizers are calling BLK Change Weekend. The world and the music festival industry have transformed plenty since Broccoli City's last show in 2019. However, Brandon and Marcus are not just changing with the times — they're creating it with new initiatives too. Here's what we covered in this episode of the Trapital podcast: [0:00] Broccoli City Returns For 2022[3:10] The Optics Of Bringing Back Broccoli City After Two Years Of Cancellation [6:34] Artists Charging More For One-Off Festival Than Tour Event [12:25] Managing Egos When Creating Festival Flyers [14:31] Changing Nature Of Agents With Talents[19:05] Broccoli City's Biggest Advantage Over Other Festivals[23:15] Measuring Success For The Festival[25:25] Anticipating Whether An Event Will Succeed Or Won't [27:15] How Loyal Are Customers To Certain Festivals? [29:01] Ongoing Challenges Of Being Black Execs In Music Festival Scene[31:15] Influence Of The Live Nation Partnership [34:47] Lining Up The Festival With BLK Change Weekend[41:39] What's In Store For The 2022 Event?Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSSHost: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.coGuests: Marcus Allen, Brandon McEachern This week's sponsor is 1-800-NUMBER, a creative agency that produces iconic moments for brand and artists. The studio has collaborated with Lil' Uzi Vert, Future, Isaiah Rashad, 24KGoldn, Nike, Sony, Universal Music Group, TDE, and more. Want to hear how 1-800-NUMBER can help your next project? Book a free 30-min intro chat. Trapital is home for the business of hip-hop. Gain the latest insights from hip-hop's biggest players by reading Trapital's free weekly memo. ______TranscriptionMarcus Allen 00:00Ain't no better feeling to know coming into the event is going down like that, feeling that morning. Those mornings be like the best mornings because you really, there's two times it's the day you drop in in the morning of the festival that is just there's nothing like those two days coming into that time, and those are moments that you really appreciate and you cherish and we've had mornings that have felt good like that. And we may have some mornings and then feel bad because we always walked into the festival that morning, knowing it was about to be a win.Dan Runcie 00:40Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level. Today's episode is with Brandon McKay Hearn and Marcus Allen. They're the founders of Broccoli City. It's a two-day music festival that's based in DC that has headliners, Annie Lenox, Summer Walker, they have Lil Durk, Gunna, and great lineup of some of the biggest names in hip hop and R&B. This festival is focused on celebrating Black culture more broadly with the entire weekend they have planned with the BLK change weekend, they have a 5K. And they have other community events that really speak to maybe the topics that be branded and Mark is talking about on this episode, we talk about what it was like for them to get this festival off the ground, given some of the challenges the past two years and how COVID set them back. We also talked about some of the challenges dealing with particular artists. Some of you may remember, there was a pretty public complaint from Wale. He was one of the artists that was frustrated, but they were able to navigate some things with him. So we talked about what it's like dealing with artists, some of their pushback, but also we talked a little bit about the broader Asia landscape. If you've been following Trapital, you know, I've talked about examples of the NBA, where you have an agent like a Rich Paul and Klutch Sports and the influence that they've had making things happen for their stars, while the same thing happens in the music industry with some of these powerful agents that are trying to convince themselves and others that their stars deserve to have headlining spots everywhere. So we talked a little bit about that. We also talked about what it's like for black music festival promoters, and how they are not just pushing this, but also some of the challenges they may have in this industry. We also talked about some of the other economics some of the decisions and what Brandon and Marcus are most excited for and how all that stays afloat. If you are interested at all in the music festival space, what it takes to put one on this is definitely the conversation for you. It was a great chat, it was great to reconnect with them both. Here's my chat with Brandon and Marcus. All right, we got Brandon, Marcus co-founders of broccoli city, y'all are back. COVID set y'all back for a couple of years via y'all like “Nah, we're gonna be here. We're gonna make this happen.” So how does it feel?Brandon McEachern 03:10Man, it feels good. It feels good to be back. Happy that the world is opening up. You know, for a minute, dead. Damn, we thought that we was gonna be able to come back for 2021. But you know, COVID and the variant had a different plan in mind. You know what I mean? So, so that's what we're happy. We're back this year, though. 2020 to two days. You know, we outside so it's a good look.Dan Runcie 03:32Yeah, I mean, I feel like it must have been stressful because 2021, once everyone got vaccinated, I'm sure you probably thought the rest of the year was green light, right? Go Let's go. But no, Mari I came through with that touch.Brandon McEachern 03:46And a couple other festivals got off. You know what I mean? So that was the thing to kind of had to like, dang, you know, like Lollapalooza, the biggest festival, one of the best festivals out, shout out to them. They actually, “Oh, rolling loud.” Got to do this. Shout out to Matt Tyree like saying, “Yeah, we just got the short end of the stick on that side. But it's all good.”Marcus Allen 04:04Yeah, I mean, I think the other part too, is is that of the festivals that got off, we were the only ones that was focusing in on people of color, right? And so there was a certain optic that was in the air that was like, as our people was the most effective. It was a decision like, you know, do we put all of our people in jeopardy, right? Do we create a big spreader event? And will the world accept this having a big spreader of like, how he makes up somebody else? And like Brandon and I've just decided it just weren't worth it. It wasn't worth the risk on anybody's part.Dan Runcie 04:33So walk me through the steps of being able to put this back on right because I'm sure some of those same questions you're talking about Marcus some of that trade off? Are people going to be comfortable if there's a super spreader event when we're putting this on? What was that decision process like?Brandon McEachern 04:47Man so um, I think it number one it was we decided we're gonna push through like we came in at ‘22 saying it's gonna take the world to pretty much be shut down for us not to come back right so I think that was number one. We got on the same page with our partners at Live Nation just in terms of what their plan was for COVID one to 22. And once they gave us the “Hey, listen, we're all full steam ahead. We support and you guys fully. We were locked in.” Brandon, everybody affiliated and connected says Book and talent started booking talent. Man probably back in what November. And it took probably longer than it ever took us to book talent because so many shows were rescheduled for 22. So many people wanted to get back on tour, venues were booked and double booked. And so this year was everything about this year was very much different than what we ever ever had.Dan Runcie 05:41And on the side of trying to put the talent you mentioned, it took much longer than ever, what were some of those conversations, like, because I'm sure you had interest but was there more hesitancy because of their own discomfort about COVID or was it just their own uncertainty about their schedules? What was that like?Brandon McEachern 05:58I think that the COVID, the COVID side of it wasn't necessarily the conversation. It was more so the busy runway, like everybody knew that everybody was coming back. So you may want to book artists, but they got to a four or five-city tour that they're trying to push out, you know what I mean? So at the time, they not necessarily thinking about a festival, they trying to do their own, you know, single tour, so it was just having those conversations with agents. And obviously management as well say, hey, you know, this could be a part of your tour day, or whatever the case may be, but I think it was yet again, it really was just a runway, it was just so packed. It was so bad.Dan Runcie 06:34That makes sense. And I'm curious, what was it like from the price perspective? Because when you're dealing with agents when you're dealing with folks, whether it's the artist or even the venue's like where people item or what was there where they try to be like Fat Joe with the yesterday's price is not today's price. Brandon McEachern 06:50Yesterday's price, today's price you got to meet. So I don't know if everybody was just trying to get a bread back from what they had last previously. You don't I mean, those years that we were all, but yeah, prices have definitely went up like the game is crazy, especially when you say that F word. You know, I mean, as soon as you say festival, it changes the dichotomy of the other conversation you didn't mean.Marcus Allen 07:11Agents was talking about inflation is like what was inflated in the price of people themselves? Like what I don't get, how could there be inflation connected with booking talent? Brandon McEachern 07:20You know, is it true? Is it true? You know, that's the cost of playdough, D. That's what you got to do. You know what I mean? That's the cost to play in this game. You know what I'm saying? It's a big cost to so tell my young festival people about to get into this festival game. Just know, these cats is crazy out here.Dan Runcie 07:36You can you talk a bit more about that PC mention where once you make good Festival, the prices go up, or people's eyes light up, you're freaked out, like why is that? And how much higher are we talking?Brandon McEachern 07:48Yeah. Now granted, all this stuff has happened like pre-Marcus and Brandon, right? Like we are, I would say we were Allen Iverson before he got into organized ball. You know what I mean? Like, that was us for the longest time. We were independent. I mean, we actually still kind of are independent. But a club show that's different than you know, than a festival day. You know what I mean? A one-off is different yet again, from a festival date. Because I think personally, they start looking at your pockets too.Marcus Allen 08:16Well, you know, what it is, is the most festivals, in a lot of cases, while there is a capacity, once you reach capacity, that number's so big. That is crazy, right? So they're thinking about hard cap. So you go play a film, or I can say specifically, we're going to sell 1,500 tickets. When you're in a festival ground, that's 100,000 square feet, I might be able to sell 20,000 I might be able to sell 50,000 So they plan for that margin, is he gonna sell 20? Or is he gonna sell 50 they trying to get money like you're gonna pay for 50? You know, I'm saying even if you know, you only got to sell to 20. But they ain't trying to hear that.Dan Runcie 08:52That's real. Because even some of these tours that take place in a theaters or outside venues, there's still a capacity there. But I think people see the flexibility there. But then people obviously see when there's too much flexibility. And there's there could be logistical issues and things like that. The other piece that is a factor of festivals that I would assume is probably part of it, too, is because it's more of a one-off event as opposed to touring. People want to up the price for that event, right. It's almost like paying someone a per diem rate even though that per diem rate would never be their salary for if you normalize it out over a set period, right?Brandon McEachern 09:29I like the way you broke that down, D. Yeah, yeah, we get and they are, they're in demand. So they can say what I mean, if you got a good album, if you pop in, you can kind of say whatever, you know, and to be honest, a lot of promoters have paid these artists that hefty hefty bag. So they like yo I'm not going back regardless of what your festival may mean to the community or whatever the case may be, you know, so get again you get you got to pay to play.Marcus Allen 09:56And then the other part of that too is is that in the festival scene is so competitive with the big boys, that they need certain names to be able to headline those festivals. And so they really created a housing bubble. That's really what we end right now. Right? There's literally a bubble. And for only way for it to burst is that as a collective, the Live Nations, the AGs, they got to just simply say to the agents, nah, we not paying it no more, but they keep paying it. They keep paying it. Every time when an agent come with a wild number, somebody is paying it. So it's really in the body…Brandon McEachern 10:34you make this clear that we're not anti paying people what they were, you know, I mean, let me just say that right now. Like, it's all good, we get it, you know what I mean? Your talents that God gave you that gift, you know, I just got through listening to you, whatever the case may be, I know what this money is doing for your family. You know what I mean? Because at the end of the day, a lot of these artists are getting a lot of a bread from shows, you know, me, I don't know what the streaming stuff is, and all that. But we do understand that these festivals are a bulk of a lot of these artists' income or whatever the case may be. So we definitely adhere to that. And we pay all of our artists very well. You know what I mean? I don't think nobody would say Oh, broccoli city shortchanged us or anything of that nature, never at all. Never. Dan Runcie 11:16That housing market analogy, I think makes perfect sense, right? Because we're seated now across the America, you have people with well-paying jobs do their thing. And then someone else giving out $100,000 above asking price cash off to go buy…Brandon McEachern 11:30you in the bay, you know what it is?Dan Runcie 11:32Exactly, exactly. And it's like, I'm sure you probably see that well, where it's like, even if you may not think and artists market rate, is it more than what you're willing to give? Not like you said not they're trying to shortchange everyone, but there's a market for everyone, for sure. But then, if another festival just is willing to put everything behind it, that is the market and then it's like, alright, well, you know, even if I may not agree with where that is, someone is willing to pay that price. So it does reset things. So I'm sure that's probably difficult to some perspective to deal with. But I think another thing too, and maybe part of this is navigating artist' emotions, or artist feelings is Ivan here. And more recently, there's some artists that have started to complain about how be their David's on that music festival poster or what font size they have and stuff like that. How much do y'all deal with that? Or how much did you deal with that either past years, or this year was brought. Brandon McEachern 12:25Man, we've actually never dealt with it before until this year, who dealt with it with somebody and much respect to that somebody as well. But you know, honestly, and it's funny, because he had, again, these conversations weren't had as much as they were had this year, just in terms of the billing placement. And I don't know yet again, if that was something that happened during COVID. And folks was like, hey, you know, when I come back into this game, I want to make sure my joint is bigger than everybody's name, whatever the case may be. But it's actually something that's done when we put the offer out, and we're going back and forth with the agent, you know, they'll say things or management, they'll say, you know, top-line billing or, you know, I mean, like, they'll make it a conversation piece, you know, and usually, we match our eye on that. And it's not a problem that then sometimes the artists may not have been in communication with the management or the agent, and then certain things happen. And I don't know, Dan, if you could put a clip up of what we talked about. Yeah, you know, saying, but definitely, to that tea.Dan Runcie 13:25Yeah. And I think on that front, you know, I know you're not trying to put anybody on blast by any means. But I'm curious, though, is there some type of trade-off there where there's an artist that is frustrated about something, they're not communicating to you? They just want to put it out on Twitter, and then all of the blog aggregators that say, oh, you know, so and so is upset with Broccoli City, on one hand, it may be a negative thing, but on the other hand, now, you'll have a bunch of press out there. It's like, oh, yeah, well, Broccoli City's back this year, let me go check that out. What was that? Like? Did you notice a bump in sales after that.Brandon McEachern 13:59Sales, to be honest with you, the sales is already in a very good place. But just in terms of the attention to your point, we definitely got a lot of tension off that. And it became a conversation outside of just our particular event, which I thought was super dope did at least cause conversation between folks in the industry is that to the third, and I think I could have swore I seen somebody else actually just do this. Like yesterday, a particular artist just got mad, I think at Lollapalooza, something about something. So yeah, I mean, they're becoming really vocal about it. But we respect this. Marcus Allen 14:31The other thing too, Dan B's has a more personal connection with the agents, right. So just as an outside person, to my degree, right, because I don't really talk to him, but I get firsthand information. I see the emails, a part of it, I believe, is agents positioning themselves because the industry is changing. Right? COVID really made artists readdress how to teams in their business restructure right. You sit down, you've been paying people all this money, you had two years off a year and a half off, you now get a chance to really look at your books, you now get a chance to think about what are you paying people? What are they doing to be paid? And so I believe that folks tightened up their teams, which made a lot of agents on the outside. So obviously, cream rises, right. So the best agents are gonna still be the best agents, but they have to still show value, right? And we may all everybody may be still paying you agents gonna get you your fee, for the most part. So if you get in 100,000, you get 100,000. But if I'm an agent, and I say to you, Dan, listen, I'm gonna get you your bag. But I'm gonna also make sure you get topline billing on every festival. Now, you might know in your heart, hey, no topline billing. But if an agent tell me I can get you top line billing, and 200,000, who you gonna go with? That's the new game, right? It's about the value proposition of what the business is around these artists and how they're thinking about it and the value proposition of each part of their business. You know, I mean, what's the role of everybody? What are you bringing to the table for this fee? I'm paying you.Dan Runcie 16:13So this is fascinating, but it's not surprising. And I say that because I think about what we see in the NBA, right? There's been plenty polarizing opinions about the impact of Rich Paul and what he's been doing with Klutch Sports. And you can literally insert Ben Simmons in the example that you just brought up, right. But the NBA is a bit more transparent about these things. People either love or hate what Rich Paul is doing. And it's been very actively talked about. I don't know if people outside of the industry music know that dynamic as much with regards to people in music, like who the agent is, that is the equivalent of the Rich Paul or the Klutch Sports in that way, where the client goes there because the client is like, hey, my way or the highway, we are getting you to the Los Angeles Lakers. Watch me do this, right, like, but I'm sure that even though those things aren't public, that's the kind of shit that y'all handling. Yeah, on that front with the headliner piece. You talked about that as well. I know that you've had different headliners each year. But is that something where that does become at least a conversation where let's say you are dealing with a agent who had promised this to their artists, but you're like, hey, we either don't want to have that person as the headliner, or B, we already have it set. Does that, do those conversations stop? Is there continued negotiation there at least for you all, what is that piece of it been like?Brandon McEachern 17:42Usually Dan, if a person is a headliner, we want them as a headliner, like everybody know that they gonna be the headliner, you know, what I'm saying? Now, I will say for this year, was a little different, because we went the route of having two black women, headliners and Annie Lennox, and Summer Walker issue that we had with a particular somebody, it was a matter of who was more important in a particular area, particular city. It was longevity versus right now impact, right? He's like that kind of deal. You know, I mean, it's like I've been running this race longer. But in the short term, you're bigger.Dan Runcie 18:19Right. And I mentioned that piece is probably interesting, too. I know conversations we've had offline about this, just given that you are very much wanting to have and celebrate an event that is pushing or promoting black music for black people, and that it doesn't necessarily always 100% line up with festivals that are hip hop festivals that may be happening, although the artists themselves may be black. They aren't necessarily selling or having guests there, or attendees who are black. I think we've seen plenty of examples of that. How does that dynamic and curation shape not just who you reach out to for headliners and others, but also how you think that shapes the makeup and the target audience for the festival?Brandon McEachern 19:05I mean, I think that I think we don't necessarily go for what's trendy, if that makes sense in terms on the booking side, because we actually do, we do know the culture, right? So if you look at Broccoli sitting in 2016, you know, we had Anderson Paak, you know what I mean? Like if you look at what was that March 2015. You know, we had Kaytranada you know what I mean? And this is yet again years before they become who they become because one of the things that we try to make sure that we do is we listen to the streets, listen to Little Sisters, listen to nieces, listen to… Marcus Allen 19:38Even better, go look at the 2020 Grammys, and then go look at the 2020 Brockton city festival lineup that got canceled.Brandon McEachern 19:46Yeah, you know, LS who does a cat was you know what I mean? We are a new dozer was and then as soon as I'm not gonna say as soon as we booked her, but you know, everybody's starting to see her value. But we saw that way back I heard the streets Definitely like our rules. I knew what time it was with that young lady. And I think that that's one of the things that broccoli city does a hell of a job at, you know, is just really listening and finding that talent early and being able to give them a shot before everybody kind of hops on the bandwagon of that particular person.Dan Runcie 20:17So that piece there listening, finding the talent and having a year before the mainstream does, how was that piece of change? Because, you know, y'all been doing this for a few years now. In 2015 16, there was no Tiktok, and there wasn't some of these other things, but how has that played a factor in what you're noticing or what you're trying to pick up on where things are heading?Brandon McEachern 20:38I think it's still the same. I think it's still listening to the youth, you know what I mean? And we do know, when Tiktoks on that, you know, hours and hours and all that and we got money, you know, but he's at the festival. So I think it's just different avenues. At one point, it was all SoundCloud. You know what I mean? And that was kind of like your avenue to the music. So I think it's really just kind of just staying above and making sure that you got an ear to the streets and and not thinking that you know, at all, I think sometimes we get in a space where we think like, oh, we know this, that to the third like no, there's a 13, 14, 15, 16 year old, that's way cooler than you. And that's what you need to be listed.Marcus Allen 21:14I think also to some of it is time into right, because this is one thing to know the right artists, but if you book them off-season, you hustling backwards, right? So like in this example, we booked a lineup in 28, I guess in November, but we got Durk. Durk was out cycle in 2020. But right i mean 2021. But right now, he's crazy. It looked we looked crazy. I was on a call listening to be talked to somebody and they asked him be How did you know? How did you know it was Durk? Because if you look at the festivals Durk do we know only festival that marks a major name right? And so we look be looking like, you know, like he like he perfect for dictate the future. But it was really just understanding that he was coming. Right and just believing that Durk is a strong artist, and he's coming.Dan Runcie 22:02Yeah, I think so much of that insight is key, right? That is your job. At the end of the day, you're trying to have these you want to create the memories for fans to be like, oh, yeah, remember, they were on Durk early, we have that. Because then that obviously builds audience and the people that come back year after year after year on that front. And that is something that I've begun to, especially with a festival like yours. Do you have stats or anything on how many of the people are repeat purchasers or the folks that come back as opposed to be able to try to bring the new audience in? And what is that? What are those two groups look like? Let's take a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsor.Marcus Allen 22:41We got a super high super high turnover rate. And I will say not only the super high turnover rate of people who attend the one tear connection to people who went right. So like, Oh, I saw my cousin went two years ago. Now I want to go right. And so I think it's very close to that as well. Like, it's almost like I wasn't ready for it three years ago. Now. I'm ready right now I get it.Dan Runcie 23:03Right. That makes sense. That makes sense. And for both y'all. What does success look like? So when you're looking back after the festival, of course, there's things like tickets and revenue, but from a high level, what does success look like?Brandon McEachern 23:15I mean, for me and get again, Marcus, I probably have a different answer because I connect to the world a little different than he does. But for me, it's the stories. It's the stories, obviously, bottom line stuff, right, we'll make sure we hit on my bottom line and chip was good financially, but it's the stories man, like when I hear the stories of be me and my home girl was out there. And did it look like to me that or another thing that is artists having a good time, too. You know what I mean? Like going back to Anderson Paak story, Fox story, I remember him saying that this was the first time he performed in front of this many black people, you know what I mean? Which I thought was crazy and dope at the same time. So it was those type of things for me, they've really claim success on myself. Marcus Allen 23:57And I love markets.Brandon McEachern 23:59Now, I mean, it ain't no better feeling like the money always got to be right. Let's just be clear, right? Like, I mean, that's what we're here for Dan, we're here to make money. But it ain't no better feeling to know, coming into the event is going down like that feeling that morning. Those mornings be like the best mornings because you really, there's two times it's the day you drop it in the morning of the festival. That is just there's nothing like those two days coming into that time. And those are moments that you really appreciate and you cherish and we've had mornings that have felt good like that. And we have some mornings that and feel bad because we always walked into the festival that morning, knowing it was about to be a win. So when you know it's gonna be a win, you really, really appreciate that you really appreciate it. And then once everybody get home safely, and you get back to that hotel, you can look at your partner in the eye and be like, Yeah, that's a great feeling, man. That's it is a great show.Dan Runcie 24:58That's special. I hear that. Can you talk more about that, actually. So those mornings that for past festivals where maybe you woke up and you weren't sure how it was going to go where you had less certainty? What was it about the planning or leading up to it that made you feel that? And then on the flip side, what is it about those festivals where you're like, Yes, this is going to be the best one yet? What was it about that feeling the morning that made you have that memory. Marcus Allen 25:25So this is wild, Dan, because, and Brandon, you might even feel differently about this. But after doing it for enough years, either the people want it or they don't, there's not much that you can do to market it to a sellout. You can make sure it stays in front of people, but when they want it, and if they don't, they don't. And so you spend four months, five months, just talking about what the flyer gonna look like the names gonna be on it. So it's like somebody dropping an album, you know, I'm saying and cats ain't messing with it. That's like, it's hard to accept it. Because you don't like so and slow and slow and slow. Just kidding me, right? And you like, man, we go put these marketing plans together, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. But then you get to the point where you realize they just ain't messing with it. They just ain't messing with it. And so it's like, you know, when you see somebody drop an album, they sell 100,000, the first week, and the second week, they sold 5,000 10,000. Because that nobody wanted to tell nobody, people wasn't talking about it. And so it just dies off.Dan Runcie 26:25Hmm, that makes sense. Brandon, anything you want to add?Brandon McEachern 26:28No, I think he hit it right on the head. You gotta mean like, you put a lot of time and effort in this thing. But they don't want it. They don't want it. You got to eat that. You got to eat. Dan Runcie 26:39it's fascinating. Because obviously, so much of that is dependent on the line of that you have and how people are feeling about the lineup. And I'm sure this affects every festival people buy tickets because they want to see them. But I'm sure you probably have people that will go to Broccoli City regardless because they just enjoy the vibe of it. And in your opinion, do you think any festival in the country has that benefit where it is if they have whoever is the headliner, just because it's that name? And just because it's that vibe, they will have a dedicated audience or do you think this is something that every festival promoter has to navigate?Brandon McEachern 27:15I mean, I personally think that there are some festivals out there that just have that right like yet again, the Lollapalooza the world, possibly even like the bottle rocks, you know what I'm saying? Like, and if you notice, I'm not naming any, any urban land festivals, you don't say black land festivals, I would love to see more of that within our communities, in all honesty, like, you know, just kind of loyal to the work that you know, your people are putting in to kind of put something together but you know, that's you just cry. You know, I mean, you preaching to the choir at that point. Right. So it is what it is. But I do think that there are some staple brands, like I said, the Lollapalooza of the world, BottleRock, Marc, I'm pretty sure you got some. Marcus Allen 27:54Maybe in terms of black maybe, Only Essence. Oh, yeah, that's for sure. I think it's probably Only Essence that I would say from a black perspective, actually has real draw.Brandon McEachern 28:05Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that's something that we working on, right. Like you want to keep giving people you know, it's like, man, we've been doing this for 10 years. Are you gonna trust us? At some point? You know what I mean? So, yeah, but it's just an interesting thing, Dan, just in terms of the urban saw.Dan Runcie 28:18Yeah, definitely. I feel like essence definitely has that annual Black homecoming vibe to it, that makes it the search for the draw it is. And I think for you, what a lot of your peers who are also black festival promoters in urban music are also in that same boat wanting to build that up as well. And, Brad, I know, we talked a little bit about this, but what has it been like from your perspective? Because obviously, you see that so much of the music from this community is what is making these festivals that money, but you as a both the all as black promoters in this space are likely still experiencing challenges pushing so much of this even though it is your music that is making this entire ecosystem what it is, Brandon McEachern 29:01Yeah, no, I mean, it's really just a trip. And at the end of the day, you know, shout out to folks like you, right, that give us somewhat of a platform to kind of, you know, just speak so people just kind of know what we got, I don't even think that people leaving, they don't even think about it, you know, like, maybe those who are in kind of a creative space. Think about it, but I know there's been people who have, you know, man talk shit to me or something at some point, right? But then they start planning something big, and they'll text me like, you know what, be my bad bro. My bad man cuz now I see what you were going through. When I thought that it was just kind of a walleye kind of thing. You know what I'm saying? But it takes a lot of hard work. And it's interesting yet again, going back to dealing with agents from our side on the urban side, and how they may treat me versus how they may treat you know, Jordan and those folks from governors ball you don't I mean, like the tone of the voice. You know, we talked about this a little bit earlier. They're not saying they talk to you crazy, but I don't have some wild conversations with some of these agents. You got to me even going back to the artists, right, and our particular artists that we were speaking of my question is, I wonder what the comrade, I wonder, would he have done that on another festival? You get what I'm saying? Do you feel like you can do that? Because we're so close in terms of camaraderie. It's like, you know how your friends treat you versus somebody who don't know you treat you if that makes sense. Dan Runcie 30:24It's a fair question, right? Like, because I'm sure you probably wondered, oh, would they have done that if it was Coachella, one and two, how would people respond? If they were trying to say something about? Yeah, on festival like Coachella, Brandon McEachern 30:39It may be as forgiving. I suppose you know what I mean? Or try to get to the bottom of the issue or just snip you. You know, I think we saw that last year, or the year before last with artists saying a certain thing and every festival followed suit, and snip snip,Dan Runcie 30:54right. It doesn't take much for Word to travel and people to just see how the dynamic is. I know one of the changes for you over the years with this festival has been the partnership with Live Nation urban and what you've been able to do with them. How has it been working with them? And what influence have they had for you all in the more recent years with the festival?Brandon McEachern 31:13More, more, want to take that? Marcus Allen 31:15Yeah, I mean, I mean, I think the number one thing that they've been able to do is take some of the financial risk off of Brandon and I to be able to operate the festival in much more of a business and not a annual, write with every year, we got to figure out how to get back in position to raise capital to find an investor to you know, me, it's just like a consistent cycle. You can't grow a brand, having to do that every single year, because you're starting from scratch every time. Right. And when you're doing that one loss is devastated. You know, me as devastated and as independent. Where, I mean, you think they think they've been in a Lollapalooza been going on for 25, 40, 30 years, you know, I mean, you think they don't want every year, you know, I'm saying like, it's an ebb and flow, like you're gonna lose some years. And so that's what Live Nation gives you the ability to do is have some years to just be normal, right? And not make $2 million at the gate, right? Like, just be normal. Like, yo, we lost money this time. Alright, we're gonna be back next year, and we know we gonna be back. So that's huge.Brandon McEachern 32:21And I would say, you know, shout out to our partner, Shan Ji, who is, you know, who's been in the game, you know what I mean? And it's rare that you meet, you know, other people that's been through what you've been through, you know, what I mean? So just big shout out to him and his vision and everything that he's built…Marcus Allen 32:35And let us working to. He lay his work, yeah, let me let us work he don't play to you know, micromanage, he let us work. He wants to see stuff when it goes out. He want to make sure he got some merch, you know, I mean, he want to know who the lineup is he want to help add value in terms of setting the right talent, you know, I mean, he want to make it easy for us, and use his experience, you know, to make it easier for us, you know, as we navigate through this whole thing,Brandon McEachern 32:59on top of relationships as well, because yet again, this industry is superduper small and like a Dan, right? Like, we know, Dan already from from from back in the day a little bit, even though it was like a year, and I'm trying to go but just imagine Sean and the relationships that he built over the years and to be able to introduce markets into markets and nine to different folds that, you know, makes sense that he has, you know, strong relationships with and then us doing the same, because his folks on the street is different events that he don't know about that maybe we introduced him to. So it's been a fantastic relationship.Dan Runcie 33:31Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Because at the end of the day, most festivals, even the ones that are household names today lose money in the first few years. So when you're starting from scratch, so much of it depends on who you could get money from investors, how you can get secured, you know, deals in place for all of these things. And unfortunately, it can be harder for folks that look like you to be able to do that here and in this country, right. So when you look at that being able to have the support of a company that has gone through to the fact that they have a division geared towards this, the partnership makes perfect sense. It gives you all the room to do what you could do to build this up, because you know that something is here. And I think that if we just let's say it like it wasn't there, if we just let the festivals that can maintain get to where they are, then there's so much left as an opportunity or not even as an opportunity. There's so much left that isn't given the opportunity because of that. So it's one of those partnerships that I do think makes a ton of sense, at least from the outside for my perspective.Marcus Allen 34:31for sure. So shout out to Ellen, you for sure. Yeah. Dan Runcie 34:35The other thing too, with this year, you lined it up with the blockchain, we get that I know that was part of the promotional push for this. How has that shaped your event planning and what you hope is in store for this weekend?Brandon McEachern 34:47Yeah, I mean, we're kind of we've always kind of been on that. Right, Dan? So when we talk about when we talk about broccoli city as a whole, right, you know, to say that broccoli City is a music festival. It's kind of disrespectful, right? When you think about Everything that we have done leading up into this point like in 2017, US launching, you know, Broccoli cod, you know, like, I don't know, any other festivals that you can go to that you have a networking opportunity, a chance to maybe hear a Dan talk or hear Bosman St. John talk, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know, no other festivals with that. And if I do, I know them after we started the whole conference outlook, right? And then when you think about a 5k, ruin, right, like, I don't know, any other festivals that's doing 5k. But I think they are something to do do that stuff now. But yet again, it was always a black chain weekend, we think about it, you know what I mean? And yet again, I know that we're one of the only festivals if you think about on a wide scale of them all that gears, the talent, gears, the experience, the host, the music, the all that geared with African Americans, black people of color in mind, first, you know what I'm saying? Like, our people aren't the afterthought, which I think is some of these other events. We may be the afterthought, you know, So yet again, with Blackshades weekend, and really just kind of putting that word out there, it really hasn't changed much of what we already have been doing. And honestly, I think it was important for us to put a name to it, though. So I'm glad that you mentioned that, Dan. And Marc, I don't know if you have any statements on that, please. Marcus Allen 36:15Yeah. Now just gonna say that it was important for us to say what it is right, like coming out of COVID, we made a conscious decision that we wanted to use our platform that are right. And at the core, what that meant was we wanted to create black change for black folks. We knew we had corporate partners, we knew we had different folks who've been looking to touch this demo with our sponsorship and partners have always been strong. But now it was time to say like, alright, well, you've been cutting broccoli city a check, how can we do a better job of providing resources opportunities to these attendees? Oh, you want a better platform to do? So you need an expo? Okay, we're going to add an expo to the conference. You know, I mean, like, Oh, you want to talk about health and wellness? Okay, we're gonna add another component to the five cake. Right. So I think, for us, it was always there. But we needed to be attentional going in between to about that.Brandon McEachern 37:09And to add on the Marcus's point, Dan, not afraid to say black, right. Like, I think a lot of us get to a certain level. And I even said it earlier, right? Like POC like people of color, like, you know, I mean, which is cool, don't get me wrong. But Marcus and I wasn't afraid to say Yo, we really want to do this for black folks. And I don't think it's nothing wrong with that at all. You know what I mean? Like there are specific festivals that may be geared toward the Hispanic consumer, which is completely fine. I don't mean, you'll see no black person there.Marcus Allen 37:37But I think the key about black the conversation around black chains is that for black chains to happen, it takes more than black people. Right? So let's be clear, right, like black chains happens internally with black people. But you need some white folks, some Spanish folks, some Asian folks to participate right? In some change happening. So this isn't necessarily just a black event. It's just that we focus in on creating change for black people. Dan Runcie 38:03That's an important distinction. And I think that to your point, right, there is a great opportunity to celebrate this and not be afraid to call it what it is and have that there are many festivals that hit different groups for that reason, but the fact that you all know your audience know the opportunity you're going to create and in the region that you're doing it it makes perfect sense.Marcus Allen 38:23Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know what to think on that even if we check out if everybody checks out the quest love documentary to summer soul, and you know what I mean? Everybody didn't get us on that. But it's like, Yo, this shit going on right now too. So, come to broccoli city is see somewhere solid? Actually, there's well, you know,Dan Runcie 38:41exactly, exactly. Alright, well, before we let you go for the listeners, give us a sense of how you're feeling now going into it. Of course the festivals coming up and you talked a little bit about some of those years. You're feeling good some of those years you're not How are you feeling right now?Brandon McEachern 38:57feel great. I feel good. You know, say I'm pretty sure Marcus feels great too. I mean, it's lit up you know, I mean, everything from whiz kid to summer Walker to Tim's to Rico nasty to Young Jeezy to snow man like Don Oliver, like what the fuck are we talking about? You know what I mean? Like is split up 2121 dirt? I mean, come on mate, Gunner like come on man. And on top of that, there's so many things going on that weekend black chains weekend and it's in DC I'm feeling Mac you know what I mean? Like it's phenomenal. So I'm super excited. I don't know Mark got anything to add.Marcus Allen 39:31I feel super excited. It's funny because not that BS job is done. But the bulk of his core ship is on the front end. So now like he like do my job you know me, “What's up now” like so now it's like I'm all back to back production calls experience call venue calls and so speak.Brandon McEachern 39:52On that though it, me and Marc have had this conversation. It's one of the things that I respect about my partner so much is that Marc hates it when we go somewhere. We're at an event No, like, Oh, this is okay for black of it. You know what I mean? Like, and I love for you to just speak on how you trying to heighten our experience and how you know me, like how you heighten the experience. He's already heightened experience for other LNU properties as well.Marcus Allen 40:14Honestly, Dan made me you know what it is right? We met at probably one of the most immaculate fundraisers of person could go to, right? Like, let's be honest, right? Like, we saw some stuff right there front of us that was like, Oh, is this happening in real life, like, I gotta go back and watch the video to confirm, I'm watching this with my own eyes. And at the end of the day, like, there's a stigma out there that if you just have the talent, that's enough, and in a love, Coachella spin to $10 million little art, that's more than that's more than festivals hold talent budgets. But that's why to our conversation earlier, why they dropped that lineup with no names, and it'd be sold out. Because people know that there's an experience value associated with that brand. And a lot of our people aren't willing to invest that $10 million, because it may not come back to you year one, that's an amortized cost over 10 years, for you to see that value in that art to spending. And so I think that's what we're getting into now. Right. And that's what the partner show ln gives us the ability to do is to go spend big money on experience, right? And push partners to say, like, “Nah, you can't do that little 10 by 10 Cent,” na, na, if you want to be on site with us, you got to step it up. You got to get your agency's up, like you got to get it right.Brandon McEachern 41:39And we want to give that experience to our people. Yet again, if this is Black change weekend, it needs to be beautiful. We aren't a culture, we you know what I mean? So even if there's any sponsors, listen to this, any, you know what I mean? Like, get at us. So we can make this experience great, because these are the same people that make your products what it is, these are the same people that make whatever artist that is on top. It was Sinead good to Nika and Rahim that made that artists pot, period, period, you know what I mean? And those are the folks that go to broccoli city, you know what I mean? Even if we talk about ticket prices and things of that nature, Dan, like, come on, bro. We give him folks. 10, 12 phenomenal acts, and our prices ain't nowhere near anyway, I don't even want to get there. That's a whole nother conversation. And we've done that by choice because we want to make sure that we give our people the experience. I had a girl tell me one time, the, I never been to Disney World. But I've been to Broccoli City, though. And I appreciate you for that. You know what I mean? Because we the only festival that maybe she can afford, you know, so I don't know is this such a bigger conversation than what we can do in this 30 to 40 minutes, but it's a real thing. And yet again, I just commend I commend my partner Republican in front of the whole whoever listening, you know, to me for really sticking on that shit, like, not be like, we got to make sure this shit right, bro. And I respect that wholeheartedly because anybody can book artists, if you got the bread, you can go out there and get them. That's fine. You know, now I do hop through hoops to sit and do what I do, you know, I mean, to give myself a pat on the shoulder. But factors, in what way in terms of what we try to do for this experiences is key. And we just want our people to have a magnificent time. So anyway, shout out to that today's experience.Dan Runcie 43:21So it's a perfect way to complement both your skill sets where you see the space. And yeah, I mean, Marc, I hear you be already has his work done. He could get excited about stuff. And I know you got a lot on your plate. But I think that you have it in store, you have the partners and like you said, you know, there's an opportunity here, we're no different than a company investing in a startup or investing in artists, many of these festivals did that, you know, level of support do and I think that's where it can happen, especially with something that has the proven audience that you all do, for sure.Marcus Allen 43:52For sure. Now, a lot have you got a ticket now even be in DC because we got these VIPs on the ice for you waiting when you get here?Dan Runcie 43:59For sure, John, appreciate y'all. Thank you.Brandon McEachern 44:02And yet again, Dan, thank you, D man for highlighting what's going on on this side. You know what I mean? From the Chitlin Circuit there right now, you know what I mean? Like, it's been a whole bunch of us pushing and curating our culture and making sure that that we are responsible for getting our artists out there and getting their music out there. You know, I mean, and yet again, I don't want to keep tooting my own horn. But I mean, we had to Willow and Jaden back in the day, you know, I'm saying like we had come over the salons isn't like, tattoos gotta stop. It's me. No, you know what I mean? All these cats that a lot of people were just taking note too, like, we've been pushing these folks out and not for any other reason. And they've been using their gifts, and we want to make sure that we use our platform to get their gifts to the world. You know if that makes sense. So it's a blessing. Appreciate you.Dan Runcie 44:50A 100%, 100%. Alright, then yeah, anyone else that is listening, you already know about the concert. Make sure go to the website. Y'all want to give a quick plug. Make sure that People listening nowhere to go check it out.Brandon McEachern 45:01Man go to BCfestival.com. Broccoli City. I'm pretty sure you heard of it. Your cousin heard of it, you know, so make sure you out there. Yeah, make sure you out there because you don't want to see them pitches. You don't want to be on Instagram that day you're not there. That's just not something you want to do.Marcus Allen 45:18For sure, man, appreciate you again. Damn it. It's love man. This is great. Just to connect with you. Big fan of the podcast. Stay on the Twitter. I'll be back to comment on some of your stuff. But I'd be like yeah, let me chill you know me some of them comments be crazy. But nice is love though. I really appreciate this man. I love the growth that you build in the USA with your platform it and the brand growth man stay down. Anything we could do, man you already know. Brandon McEachern 45:44And yet again, and I sorry, do you know me? I'm gonna go on a tangent, but we let go. But that's the ecosystem, right? Yeah. Right. Black Journalists, right? Black curated events, like we all you know what I mean? So we have to do a way better job black executives that you've interviewed before, black agents that you've interviewed before, we got to find a way to make it work, because they're finding out a way to make it work. In all due respect. You know what I mean? So we got to figure it out. But pretty say to Brother, I'm gonna get off my shoeDan Runcie 46:12For sure. No, that's a great note to end on. Appreciate you both man.Marcus Allen 46:17Appreciate you man.Dan Runcie 46:20If you enjoyed this podcast, go ahead and share with a friend. Copy the link, text it to a friend, post it in your group chat, post it in your Slack groups. Wherever you and your people talk, spread the word. That's how Trapital continues to grow and continues to reach the right people. And while you're at it, if you use Apple Podcast, go ahead, rate the podcast. Give it a high rating and leave a review, tell people why you like the podcast that helps more people discover the show. Thank you in advance. Talk to you next week.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Triggerrun – Artist Bio Triggerrun Production (TRP), one of the greatest hidden treasures of the underground music scene has returned! The legacy began in 1989, when three (3) young men from Monroe High (Albany, GA), would recruit three (3) young men from a rival high school, Westover, to form a dance group to compete in local talent shows just for fun. Their first performance would be epic and awe-inspiring as TRP would spark the initial flame to secure their legacy into the underground world of hip hop to begin their dominance! To quench their new found thirst for fame, Triggerun would set its sight on their next big venture and enter into the city's most popular cash prize event of them all, Albany's "Night At The Apollo" event sponsored and promoted by Gilbert Udoto as spin-off of the World Famous "cultural phenomena, “It's Showtime At The Apollo”. The goal was simple, to win the local cash prize of five hundred dollars ($500) to pay for studio time at Katz & Jammer, in order to record and shop their demo to the industry major record labels in hopes of their big break! Hungry for stardom, in 1992, Triggerrun would split into two groups to double their earnings in the "Dance" category. And as a result, Triggerrun would win both 1st and 2nd place in the dance category. Their feat was so impressive, TRP would begin to create a cult following throughout the city. Over the next four years, they would reign atop of the dance category, winning 1st Place for three (3) out of the four (4) years before officially retiring from the amateur circuit during the 5th year. As an encore, in the summer of ‘93, Triggerrun began expanding its territory crossing Florida lines. Next stop, Tallahassee Florida. Home of the Florida A & M University (FAMU) Rattlers, The Tallahassee Urban League and 100 Black Men of America would sponsor the talent show extravaganza at one of the coolest nightclubs in the city, the Moon. Triggerrun's 1st Place finish at the Moon would help the group finally reach their pinnacle. For the next stop would be a one way ticket to perform center stage in front of a national television audience at the World Famous "Apollo Theatre" in Harlem, New York hosted by the one and only Steve Harvey! However, their much celebrated victory would soon spark another competitive stand-off with the FAMU Marching 100's beloved Strikers dance group. After securing their victory, Triggerrun would frequent another well known Tallahassee night spot of its day known as “The Barn''. The night would be EPIC! And would go down in history as the first ever, “You Got Served “dance off! The Trigger versus the Strikers!! The dance battle would go back and forward as expected. However, Triggerrun would prevail with their eclectic style of dance to claim the unofficial victory. Their victory at the Moon would also capture the eyes and ears of Miami-bass music artist, Beat Master Clay D. The “Give Me A Bottle” emcee would invite Triggerrun to perform as opening act for a three day tour headlined by Uncle Luke [Skywalker]. The invitation would be their first professional tour. Triggerrun would use this opportunity to promote their first indie single release, “Pump Ya Fist.” Triggerrun finally began to experience success, and stardom away from home, as they would be scheduled to interview with the campus television show “Snake Eyes”, (created by Kelsey L. Scott). This interview would spawn an additional opportunity as opening act for II D Extreme and Heavy D, a FAMU sponsored student concert event. However, it was TRP's amateur night television debut that would forever change the world of Hip Hop as they would perform an eclectic, aerobatic dance ensemble that would catapult them into the underground mythical urban legends and pioneers for the next generation of Hip Hop dancers. An entertainment spectacle never before seen, Triggerrun would become a precursor to spark an evolutionary dance culture and trend across the nation. H3TheArtist(Herbert Bowens, Jr.) described the performance as "a surreal and humbling experience". Fast forward to 1998, “Knegil”(Anthony K. Washington) would head north to Atlanta to finish school and raise a family. Still trying to hold the group together, TRP worked to drop their second indie release, the single, “Toss It Up” recorded at the infamous Patchwerk studios home of none other than the legends Outkast. TRP began to set focus on the new music scene growing in Atlanta and would perform at one of the local area club hot spot known as the “Aquarium”. Shortly after, Triggerrun would grow apart as “Knegil” would come to a spiritual crossroads. The choice, either to continue to chase the dream of music or raising a family. The latter proved victorious, ultimately sealing the group's fate. In the meantime, H3TheArtist (Herbert Bowens,Jr.) would continue his love of dance at Florida A & M University. He marched with the world- renown Marching 100,(Snare Drum..Z Phi 28) where he became widely known on campus as the dancing machine. His dynamic dance style, inspired by the Trigger, was further polished in the program Orchesis Contemporary Dance Theatre where he studied modern ballet, African, and tap dance. H3 was evolving as an artist and overall performer. He also pursued his passion in acting while playing the Lead Male Actor in “On Toby Time”, an off-Broadway musical about a man chasing his dreams in NewYork during the Chitlin Circuit and The Scarecrow in FAMU'S rendition of the Wiz. In each musical production, Herb used his acting, singing, and dancing super powers earning him the name…H3 (a triple threat).After graduating from FAMU with a degree in elementary education, H3 moved to Atlanta to continue pursuing his dreams in the arts. In Atlanta, he landed his first role in the blockbuster movie Drumline(2002) directed by Charles Stone/Twentieth Century Fox and Stomp the Yard (2007) directed by Sylvain White/Rainforest Production. Herbert was amongst a very select group of dancers cast as a Theta Nu Theta (Fictitious Fraternity) which represented a band of elite dancers/steppers. A musician since elementary school, H3 began quest as a solo artist, writing and composing music which he released through the independent distributor DistroKid . Herb's “Steppin Out” album demonstrates his lyrical range, vocal style, and diverse content which captures the playful, romantic, and theatrical side of love. In addition, H3 crafted a master musical ensemble titled,”The Carousel-A Poetry Based Musical”, a play about never giving up on your dreams. An inspirational play turned true through his own perseverance and journey that has brought him back full circle to the brotherhood, Triggerrun! Acting as the glue to hold the group together, Syncere(Nathaniel Whitfield) kept the members in touch, never letting the dream fade. In 2021, things clicked, and major events pulled Triggerrun back together again. They have refined their direction, focusing on what they truly want. Hard at work on new music, they are building an extensive catalog of work and launching a successful clothing line. The time is right, giving Triggerrun their chance to finally share their voice and leave their musical footprint. Using music as a therapy to express pain and process heartache, this opportunity has proven to be a miracle in each of their lives. Their passion has been rekindled, and Triggerrun is remembering a true love that will never fail them: Music. Triggerrun's underground music revolution created an undeniable cosmic shift that is still resonating within the industry at large. What began as a music and dance troupe is now a lifelong brotherhood. Triggerrun maintains a delicate balance of curating, critiquing, and refining their work together. Their sound is derived from a collection of hip-hop roots, blended with an R&B flair. Re-emerging from the underground with its eclectic New York City meets ATL bass thumping, Dirty South infusion debut single, Turn Up!
(Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/MOXIE - Enter promo code MOXIE for 83% off and 3 extra months free!) T-shirt for Ukraine Why did no one tell me about Moms Mabley?!! Hear about her and other 'living loud and proud' ladies (Dorothy Parker, Mae West, Tallulah Bankhead) on this International Women's Day. 01:00 Tallulah Bankhead 13:00 Mae West 23:00 Moms Mabley Links to all the research resources are on the website. Hang out with your fellow Brainiacs. Reach out and touch Moxie on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Become a patron of the podcast arts! Patreon or Ko-Fi. Or buy the book and a shirt. Music: Kevin MacLeod, David Fesilyan, Dan Henig. and/or Chris Haugen. Sponsors: Dumb People with Terrible Ideas, History Obscura, Sambucol Want to start a podcast or need a better podcast host? Get up to TWO months hosting for free from Libsyn with coupon code "moxie." Dorothy Parker was a famously wry, witty, and acerbic writer and critic, with a low opinion of relationships. Her wit was apparent from an early age, referring to her father's second wife as “The Housekeeper.” She was described by journalist and critic Alexander Woolcott as “a combination of Little Nell and Lady MacBeth.” As a literary critic, she said of one book, "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." The author of the book? Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. My name's Moxie…. This episode drops on Intl Womens Day, and I've covered a lot of remarkable women on the show, for a number of remarkable reasons, but today we focus on ladies for their remarks, for their wit and their wild ways. Tallulah Bankhead is a name I've known for many years, but never really knew anything about her. Back in the day, going to the big “computer show and sale” at the raceway complex with my dad, circa 1996, I picked up some cd-roms of FVM video games and some educational stuff like Microsoft Encarta Musical Instruments and some reference that included hundred of famous quotes. Some of you I realize will have no idea what I just said, a few of you will be unclear what a cd-rom is, but a few of you just got a cold chill like someone walking across your grave. Tallulah Bankhead's wit featured prominently with quotes like, "If I were well behaved, I'd die of boredom," “I read Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That's what I call a liberal education," and "I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me." ‘I like her,' I thought, but didn't look into who she actually was until this week. Considering she's the inspiration for one of Disney's most iconic villains, you'd think I'd have come across something between then and now, but not. Bankhead, the daughter of an Alabama congressman and future speaker of the House, was named after her paternal grandmother, whose name was inspired by Tallulah Falls, Georgia. That grandmother would raise her when her mother died a few days after her birth and the loss sent her father into a pit of depression and alcoholism. Little Tallulah was… difficult. Tallulah discovered at an early age that theatrics were a viable outlet for gaining the attention, good or bad, that she craved. A series of throat and chest infections as a child had left her with a raspy voice which would later become her trademark. It also made her stand out from her classmates, but Tallulah was not the type to be bullied and soon became the terror or students and the bane of teachers. She would find herself sent to, and expelled from, two different convent schools, the first for once for throwing ink at a nun and the next time for making a pass at one. At 15, Bankhead submitted her own photo to film industry magazine Picture Play, winning a small part in a movie and a trip to New York. She was allowed to go only by promising her father, a Congressman, she'd abstain from men and alcohol, but as she famously put it in her autobiography, "He didn't say anything about women and cocaine." She was a self-described "technical virgin" until 20. Though she lacked training and discipline, she possessed a dazzling stage presence, her husky voice providing fascinating contrast with her good looks. Quickly ascending to stardom, she just as easily gained renown for her quick-witted outspokenness and indefatigable party going. In New York, Bankhead moved into the famous Algonquin Hotel, a hotspot for the artistic and literary elite of the era, and was quickly rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous. After several years starring in films and on stage in New York, Bankhole's acting was praised, but she had not yet scored a big commercial hit. So, she moved to London in 1923, where her stardom grew. Her fame heightened in 1924 when she played Amy in Sidney Howard's They Knew What They Wanted. The show won the 1925 Pulitzer Prize. But Bankhead was best known for her antics off-stage. She'd drive her Bently recklessly through London and if she got lost, she'd hire a black cab to drive to where she was going and she'd follow him. She spent her nights at booze and drug-filled parties, partaking liberally, and reportedly smoked 120 cigarettes a day, which is kind of dubious because how would you have time for anything else. She also openly had a series of relationships with both men and women, including some very famous female personalities of the day. Names attached to her, with or without facts to back it included Greta Garbo, Hattie McDaniel, the first AfrAm actress to win an Oscar, and singer Billie Holiday. One thing that's known with great certainty is that she talked openly about her vices, and women just weren't supposed to do that. Hell, they weren't supposed to *have vices. She found herself included in Hays' "Doom Book", which would help her inspire a Disney villain, since only the worst of the worst were in the Doom Book, but it didn't do much for her career. Brief refresher on the Hays Code, and you can hear lots more about it in the episode Words You Can't Say on TV or Radio, way back in Oct 2018 before I started numbering episodes, the Hays Code a set of strict guidelines all motion pictures companies operated under from 1934 to 1968. It prohibited profanity, suggestive nudity, sexual perversions like homosexuality, interracial relationships, any talk of reproductive anything, and, in case you were unclear where all this came from, it banned ridicule of authority in general and the clergy in particular. This is why married couples in black&white sitcoms slept in separate beds. The Doom Book, which was either a closely guarded secret or never physically existed, was said to have contained the names of over 150 thespians considered too morally tumultuous to be used in movies. So this is the law of the land when a gal like Tallulah Bankhead is running around in cursing like a sailor in hedonistic, drug-fueled, openly-bisexual glee. Giving up on Hollywood, Bankhead returned to Broadway for a decade or so, where she reached her zenith with her performances in The Little Foxes and The Skin of Our Teeth, both of which earned her the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and was briefly married to actor John Emery. [a la Sam O'Nella] Never heard of him? Me neither. What's his story? I didn't bother. In 1943 she decided to give Hollywood a second try, but Hollywood hadn't had the same thought about her. There was one bright spot, being cast in and praised for Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat in 1944. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, Bankhead's hedonistic lifestyle and excessive drinking had taken its toll. Critics complained that she had become a self-caricature, which feels like a real oof. She kept her career afloat by publishing a best-selling autobiography, touring in plays like Private Lives and Dear Charles, before headlining her own nightclub act. In 1965 she made her last *film appearance, playing a homicidal religious fanatic in the British thriller Die! Die! My Darling! Tallulah Bankhead's final acting assignments included a “Special Guest Villain” stint on the TV series Batman. When she was advised that the series was considered “high camp,” her response was vintage Tallulah: “Don't tell me about camp, dahling! I invented it!” Am I ever going to tell you which Disney villain she inspired? I supposed, if I must. Disney animator Marc Davis once told of his creative process when tasked to create the villain for an upcoming film. (It was 1961 if you want to try to guess.) The chaaracter would become iconic, instantly recognizable whether cartoon or real life. Davis looked to real-life "bad" women, and while he said there were a number of different people who he kept in mind while drawing her, one name rose to the top – Tallulah Bankhead. So no matter if her movie or Broadway career is forgotten, Bankhead will always live on as Cruella de Ville. Mae West When she was good, she was very good. But when she was bad, she made film history. Whether making films, writing plays or flirting with the camera, Mae West was undisputedly the most controversial sex siren of her time and she even landed in jail because of it. She was the queen of double entendres on and off screen, delivering some of the best-remembered quips in movie history. You know the line, "Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?", yeah, that was West In "She Done Him Wrong." in 1933. Mary Jane West was born on Aug. 17, 1893 in Queens, NY to a boxer turned cop and a former corset and fashion model. The acting bug bit the heck out of West when she was tiny, bringing home talent show prizes at age 5. At age 12, she became a professional vaudeville performer. She was secretly married at age 17, but only lived with her husband for a few weeks, though they didn't legally divorce for 31 years. The adult West was rumored to have secretly married another man, but on the whole she preferred younger men. Her long-term partner Paul Novak was 30 years her junior. West was also rumored to have worn custom 8 in platform shoes, because she was only 5'2”. Two tangents, I would have *massive respect for anyone who could even walk in 8in platform, and that's something all the women in today's discussion have in common - they're all my size. In 1926, under the pen name "Jane Mast," West wrote, produced and starred in a play called Sex, about a sex worker named Margie La Monte who was looking to better her situation by finding a well-to-do man to marry well if not wisely. Mae West was sentenced to 10 days in prison and given a $500 fine, charged with “obscenity and corrupting the morals of youth.” The rumor mill went into overtime when she was behind bars – she was permitted to wear silk underpants instead of prison-issue or the warden wined and dined her every night. West was set free after serving eight of the ten days and remarked to reporters that it was “…the first time I ever got anything for good behavior.” Before the show was raided in February of 1927 around 325,000 people had come through the turnstiles. Buns in seats, laddie, buns in seat. Not bothered in the slightest, and probably keenly aware of all the free publicity she just got, West appeared in a string of successful plays, including "The Drag," a 1927 play that was banned from Broadway because of its homosexual theme. If you think people try to tell you what to say these days, imagine having to deal with the likes of the Hays Code or the Catholic Legion of Decency, which I maintain sounds like a pro-wrestling tag team. She was an advocate of gay and transgender rights, which were at the time generally throught to be the same thing, and her belief that "a gay man was actually a female soul housed in a male body" ran counter to the belief at that time that homosexuality was an illness. Her next play, The Pleasure Man ran for only one showing before also being shut down with the whole cast being arrested for obscenity, but this time getting off thanks to a hung jury. West continued to stir up controversy with her plays, including the Broadway smash "Diamond Lil" in 1928, about a loose woman of the 1890s. Dominating the Broadway scene was nice, but West had her eyes set to the, well, to the west and Hollywood. West was 38 years old at the time, which is the age when the phone stops ringing for many actresses, but Paramount Pictures offered West a contract at $5000 a week ($80,000 now) and –luckily for all of us or I might not be talking about her right now– they let her re-write her lines. Her first film, Night After Night, set the tone for her on-screen persona right from jump street, from her first line where a hat check girl says to her “Goodness, what beautiful diamonds.” To which West replied, “Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.” Within three years she was the second highest paid person in the United States. The only person earning more was the publishing magnate friggin' William Randolph Hearst. West not only made her own career, she insisted a young Cary Grant be cast opposite her, putting Grant on the road to his Golden Age icon status. That was ‘33's "She Done Him Wrong," which contained her most famous quote, but I'm sorry to tell you that you've been saying it wrong your whole life. Yes, your whole life. You've seen it parodied in cartoons. The line isn't "Why don't you come up and seem me sometime?" "Why don't you come up some time and see me?" Am I being painfully pedantic to point this out? Yes. …. That's all. The public loved Mae West, but her blunt sexuality onscreen rubbed censors the wrong way. In 1934, they began deleting overtly sexy lines and whole scenes from her films. Not about to take that lying down, West doubled up on double entendres, hoping that the censors would delete the most offensive lines and miss the subtler ones. More controversial films followed. West was already 50 when she made "The Heat's On," but her youthful look and performance made the film a cult favorite. She also got banned from the radio for a sketch about Adam and Eve opposite Don Ameche, was on TV a few times, and even recorded two successful rock albums, decades before the late Christopher Lee. Bonus facts: Cassandra Peterson, aka Elvira Mistress of the Dark, was once the lead singer of an Italian punk rock band. MIDROLL The script for this episode started with Bankhead, West, and Dorothy Parker. I recognized that they were demographically pretty similar, though Parker was Jewish and there's a wild theory out there that West was mixed-race, so I started asking around for WOC/LGBT of that same era and one name came up again and again, a name I'd never heard of, an oversight I now know to be a damn shame if ever there was one. Presenting for the elucidation of many listeners, Moms Mabley. Moms, plural not possessive, had been a vaudeville star for half a century on what was called the Chitlin Circuit, before white audiences began to discover her. Her trademarks were her old lady persona, complete with house coat, dust cap and waddling shuffle, and her raunchy, man-hungry humor, which is funny in a few ways when you consider she was an out-and-proud lesbian. Although Moms spent her professional life making people laugh, her personal life had more than its share of grief. If you're not in the mood for tragic backstory, I totally understand if you want to hit your jump-30 button. Born Loretta Mary Aiken in North Carolina in 1894, Moms was the grandaughter of a slave and one of 16 children. She was the victim of rape twice before the age of 14, once by an older black man and the other by the town's white sheriff. Both rapes resulted in pregnancies; both babies were given away. Loretta's father, a volunteer fireman, had been killed when a fire engine exploded, and her mother was run over and killed by a truck while coming home from church on Christmas Day. Her stepfather forced her to marry a man she didn't even like, one assumes to pare down the number of dependent minors in the house. At the age of 14, Loretta ran away to join a minstrel show. A young girl out in the world on her own would normally be a recipe for disaster, heartache and suffering, but Moms had already had enough of all those, thank you very much. She took the name Mabley from her first boyfriend and acquired the nickname Moms later on, though none of my sources, and they are regrettably few and superficial, recounted why. She was only in her early 20's when she devised the old lady character and kept her persona up until her actual age exceeded the character. Like all who played vaudeville, she had multiple talents: dancing, singing, jokes. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she had a gift for crafting original material far stronger than the stock routines others toured with. At the prompting of the vaudeville team Butterbeans and Susie, she moved to New York City in the early 20's and found herself in the the Harlem Renaissance. "I never went back across the Mason-Dixon line," recalled Mabley. "Not for another thirty years." Toward the end of her life, Moms would say “There were some horrible things done to me. I played every state in the Union except Mississippi. I won't go there; they ain't read.” She hardly needed to back then anyway, playing the Apollo so often she could probably have gotten her mail forwarded there. There used to be a showbiz expression, “It won't play in Peoria,” meaning something will not be successful for a wide, Joe Everyman (read: white) audience, and Moms certainly fit that bill. Moms talked about sex constantly. That's not surprising from female comics these days, though it still isn't as acceptable as it is for male comics. But unlike the male comics of Mom's day, she slid into the jokes sideways with a double-entendre or a well-placed pause, rather than the straightforward use of obscenity that would become popular with such later black comedians as Richard Pryor. Although Loretta herself was a lesbian, Moms was that of ''dirty old lady'' with a penchant for younger men. She made fun of older men, subtly ridiculing the ways they wielded authority over women as well as the declining of their sexual powers. Her signature line became: ''Ain't nothin' an old man can do for me but bring me a message from a young man.'' She moved from vaudeville into films, but Hollywood wasn't exactly rolling out the red carpet for black actors and film-makers. That's okay, they said, we'll just do it ourselves. As early as 1929 there were over 460 "colored movie houses" across America. owned and operated by, and catering specifically to, African-Americans, with all-Black cast films, shorts, and even newsreels. But it would be fair to say that these were B-movies, filmed in a couple of days, with whatever equipment and people you could cobble together. Hell, scenes were usually shot in one take, because editing requires more time and money. Where they shone was in the musical numbers, crafting scenes that would have shamed MGM or Warner Brothers, if only they'd had any budget at all. Comedian Slappy White remembered, "It wasn't hard casting the actors. All of us were out of work before the picture started [and we] would all be out of work again as soon as it was finished." Moms starred in 1948's Boarding House Blues where she played landlord to a building of rent-dodging vaudeville performers, which is an amazing premise. The film also showcased "Crip" Heard, a tap dancer with only one arm and one leg. And the best thing about Boarding House Blues? You can actually see it! It's on the free Tubi app, link in the show notes, not a sponsor, and I plan to watch it as soon as I can make myself sit still for 1.5 hours. Watch-party anyone? Film was nice and everything, but it was vinyl records that gave Moms the boost she needed to expand her audience. Comedy records were *the thing in the early 60's.Her first vinyl appearance came a few years prior with the 1956 Vanguard Records release A Night at the Apollo. The album is a fascinating social document with liner notes written by Langston Hughes. Of the many other noteworthy things about that album is the fact that Moms wasn't paid for her part in it. So she was understandably reluctant when the Chess brothers asked her to cut an album with them. Phil and Leonard Chess were Jewish immigrants who arrived in Chicago a few months prior to the stock market crash who were able to buy some South Side bars after the end of prohibition. Their Macomba Lounge became a hot spot when they started booking live music, mostly rhythm and blues, which drew in the biggest crowds. The brothers noticed this, and that the acts who had people lining up around the block, weren't available on records, so they started a record company. Chess Records signed names like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Bo Diddley, and Chuck Berry. These records delivered new found joys for the white public and offered posterity for Chicago's African-American crowd. Always on the lookout for what was popular with their original Black audience, Chess Records asked Moms Mabley to sign, but she understandably didn't want to get screwed again. Luckily her manager was able to persuade her and Moms Mabley on Stage (also known under the name Moms Mabley: The Funniest Woman Alive) was produced. Chicago was host to Hugh Hefner's Playboy Club, a venue that always featured a strong roster of Black performers and plenty of white bohemians, and that's where she recorded Moms Mabley at The Playboy Club. Y'all gotta see this album cover, link in the shownotes. If you were to listen to On Stage and then Playboy Club, you'd notice something…different between the two albums. On Stage was recorded at The Apollo and opens with a thunderous cacophony of cheerings. Playboy Club, not as much, because that album was recorded in front of an all-white audience. It was time for a cross-over. It was also the time for civil rights –lunch counters, fire hoses, marches. Mabley's act became increasingly political, but her benevolent old grandma persona made her non-threatening and more accessible to white crowds. Moms knew white audiences needed to hear her message now, and that they might actually hear her. She was just a little old lady, shuffling onto the stage, how threatening could she be? Plus she was on the biggest TV shows of the day –Merv Griffin, Johnny Carson, Flip Wilson, Mike Douglas, the Smothers Brothers– and they were okay, so she must be okay. Moms had crossed over. She played Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. She put out more albums, including my favorite title, Young Men Si, Old Men No. She began acting in big studio films, like The Cincinatti Kid, with Steve McQueen. In 1966 Moms returned to the South for the first time in over three decades. It, uh, didn't go great. In the middle of her show, five shots rang out in the theater and Moms scrambled off-stage. Thankfully, the shots went nowhere near her, originating apparently from a fight between audience members. Regardless, a story made the rounds that one of the bullets went straight through her floppy hat. "I hadn't been in Columbia, South Carolina, for thirty-five years," explained Moms, "and [now] bullets ran me out of town." Music became a regular part of her act, and a cover version of "Abraham, Martin and John" hit No. 35 on the Billboard Hot 100 on July 19, 1969, making Mabley, at 75, the oldest living person to have a U.S. Top 40 hit. Mabley continued performing in the 1970s. In 1971, she appeared on The Pearl Bailey Show. Later that year, she opened for Ike & Tina Turner at the Greek Theatre and sang a tribute to Louis Armstrong as part of her set.[24] While filming the 1974 film Amazing Grace, (her only film starring role)[1] Mabley suffered a heart attack. She returned to work three weeks later, after receiving a pacemaker. She is survived not only by her children (she had four other children as an adult), but by more contemporary comedians who remember her and want to keep her story alive. She was the subject of a Broadway play by Clarice Taylor, who played one of the grandma's on the Cosby Show; two projects from Whoopi Goldberg, one being the comedy show that put Goldberg on the map in 1984 and a documentary in 2013, and in season 3 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, where she was portrayed by lifelong fan Wanda Sykes. And that's… Dorothy Parker's wit was, deservedly, the stuff of legend. Of the Yale prom, she said, “ If all the girls attending it were laid end to end, I wouldn't be at all surprised.” It was that saucy humor that got her fired from her job as a staff writer at Vanity Fair. Parker spoke openly about having had an abortion, a thing that simply was not done in the 1920's, saying, “It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.” A firm believer in civil rights, she bequeathed her literary estate to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Remember Sources: https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/204532%7C103917/Mae-West/#biography https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mae-West https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/52283/13-things-you-might-not-know-about-mae-west http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/04/this-day-in-history-mae-west-is-sentenced-to-10-days-in-prison-for-writing-directing-and-performing-in-the-broadway-play-sex/ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tallulah-Bankhead https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/05/real-cruella-de-vil-tallulah-bankhead https://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/09/theater/theater-the-pain-behind-the-laughter-of-moms-mabley.html https://dorothyparker.com/gallery/biography https://bookshop.org/books/your-brain-on-facts-things-you-didn-t-know-things-you-thought-you-knew-and-things-you-never-knew-you-never-knew-trivia-quizzes-fun-fa/9781642502534?aid=14459&listref=books-based-on-podcasts https://www.mamamia.com.au/tallulah-bankhead-cruella/
We take a counter-racist look at the legacy of Anti-Blackness within U.S. Pop-Culture by way of Music, Film and Television with a focus on Minstrelsy, Vaudeville, Chitlin Circuit and Blue Comedy. All of which displayed Rap, Poetry, Spoken Words and Rhyming as a fundamental element of entertainment tradition. We contend that rap has been a part of U.S. Black Classifieds entertainment tradition from its beginning. We play clips of NPR, Butterfly McQueen, Butterbeans & Susie, Moms Mabley, Mantan Moreland, Pigmeat Markham, Redd Foxx, Lawanda Page, Leroy Daniels and Rudy Rat Moore to add context.
00:00 - intro.02:30 - Bernie Mac and Jeff Brown.04:00 - The 90's: The golden age of comedy.09:45 - Misconceptions about comedians.12:00 - Life on comedy tour.17:30 - "The perfect set doesn't exist"19:30 - cancel culture.24:00 - Phat Tuesdays on Amazon Prime.25:30 - Chitlin Circuit for comedy.29:00 - White comics.31:00 - What women really want according to Theo.37:00 - You love that bitch you ain't leavin.39:30 - Hoe stage/ Theo is not a fan of BBC.45:00 - What is a good man?48:00 - Seeing the signs. Red flags looking green lights.55:50 - Hatch.60:00 - We need to get our pilot license and put on for a plane.63:30 - Rapid fire.
Bobby Rush, whose outlook on life after years playing in Blues clubs from Louisiana to Chicago, and more recently internationally, is as positive as it is meaningful. His story is told in his new autobiograpphy I'm not studio ya My American Blues story (Hachette). It is an honor to welcome this Grammy winning artist.
How does an American Blues musician navigate art, faith, business and racism during a career that spans almost 70 years and after everything, end up one of the last of the first True Blues Masters on the planet. Bobby Rush is our guest today and he's won 12 Blues Music, Awards, and in 2017, at the age of 83. Yes, 83 (!), won his first Grammy award for "Porcupine Meat." Celebrating the release of his new memoir “I Ain't Studdin' Ya" Bobby stops by ramble City to share stories from his incredible career working alongside many of the ‘greats' from the American Music tradition and some of his personal views and philosophies on life and music. Rolling Stone Magazine called him, "The King of the Chitlin Circuit" because of his 50 years of Relentless touring.Buy "I AIN'T STUDDIN' YA"Listen to BOBBY RUSHChitlin' CircuitTranscriptsUpcoming guests include musician Hall of Fame Musician LOUIE SHELTON, singer/songwriter BOB EVANS, Writer/Director WESLEY ENOCH, Hall of Fame Poker Player Marsha Waggoner and so many more!Produced by Old Fashioned StudiosHosted by Bradley McCawSound design by Matt Erskine & Cross Point SolutionsAssistant Engineering by Gilang CandradityaTheme composed by James Ryan
How does an American Blues musician navigate art, faith, business and racism during a career that spans almost 70 years and after everything, end up one of the last of the first True Blues Masters on the planet. Bobby Rush is our guest today and he's won 12 Blues Music, Awards, and in 2017, at the age of 83. Yes, 83 (!), won his first Grammy award for "Porcupine Meat." Celebrating the release of his new memoir “I Ain't Studdin' Ya" Bobby stops by ramble City to share stories from his incredible career working alongside many of the ‘greats' from the American Music tradition and some of his personal views and philosophies on life and music. Rolling Stone Magazine called him, "The King of the Chitlin Circuit" because of his 50 years of Relentless touring.Buy "I AIN'T STUDDIN' YA"Listen to BOBBY RUSHChitlin' CircuitTranscriptsUpcoming guests include musician Hall of Fame Musician LOUIE SHELTON, singer/songwriter BOB EVANS, Writer/Director WESLEY ENOCH, Hall of Fame Poker Player Marsha Waggoner and so many more!Produced by Old Fashioned StudiosHosted by Bradley McCawSound design by Matt Erskine & Cross Point SolutionsAssistant Engineering by Gilang CandradityaTheme composed by James Ryan
Did that Episode 17 description load yet? Don't trip, The PodigalSons are BACK to fill that content void in your life, with takes that'll make ya funny bone shake. The brothers open up the episode with BARZ and a discussion on Talent versus Technical Skill. Who ya'll got? Also are the PodigalSons too old to go viral? Forget viral, they want Golden Globes (18:00). The PodigalSons give their takes on different movies that have come out and Mr.SpreadLove reminds us of the ‘Chitlin Circuit.' Black Brandon gets into the some lifetime achievement shine and the PodigalSons reflect on that time they played poker with Norman Lear (35:15) Recorded on March 4th, the brothers couldn't get by without celebrating the newest Newman to the fold, which leads into a little parenting advice (52:16). Mr.SpreadLove gives us a preview of his birthday plans and Black Brandon wraps the show up with some T's and P's. Get Bust Living Ya'll (1:13:05)!! LIKE, RATE, SUBSCRIBE… if you feeling the PodigalSon Vibes.
On this episode of Blues In The Basement, Cookie B and Leon celebrate some of the greatest hits performed at the Chitlin' Circuit. We hear from greats like Johnny Taylor, Bobby Blue Bland, and many more. Make sure to tune into this brand new episode on the Kudzukian app and kudzukian.com
Jean Carroll entered the scene when women were only a part of the background, the straight man in a comedy duo, or on the Chitlin Circuit. Her elegant looks and casual, conversational comedy sent her straight to the top! Audiences loved her and she did 20 episodes of the Ed Sullivan Show, and was said to be the inspiration behind “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” Listen in as Dave, Kelly, and Logan introduce us to Jean Carroll! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We talk about Thanksgiving recipes, potential cabinet positions for Neera Tanden and Rahm Emmanuel, and Umbrella Academy star, Elliot Page.
Roger Travassos is a real estate agent who started his career after over 20 years as a session drummer. We talk about his experience as a drummer for hire with international touring acts and how he overcame adversity and imposter syndrome on the “Chitlin’ Circuit” with Motown artist Remy Shand. He describes how his life changed when he adopted his daughter, his early days in real estate and how he learned that “you get what you bring to the door” while knocking on over 100 doors/day. He also shares personal growth work that allowed him to see the suffering of the person who killed his mother when he was 18 and gave him the willingness to forgive. “One of the things in my past most listeners wouldn’t know is: when I was 18 years old I lost my mother to some really unfortunate circumstances. Someone walked into her workplace and took 3 lives, one of them being my mother’s. My experience of life after that was always that I was irritated. I had a chip on my shoulder. Really in a lot of ways I was kind of playing a victim. One thing that really changed my life is I did the Landmark Forum and I learned how to make my mother present in my life again. And I also started to understand that it’s possible for me to have a willingness to forgive someone for something that they did. And I found that people don’t do things in life just because they want to be mean. That’s how life occurs to them in the moment. I had a feeling like someone was out to really intentionally hurt me or my mother. But I actually started to see that someone was actually suffering. That’s why they did what they did. And that in itself has like a tragedy that allowed me to have a willingness to forgive.”--- SUPPORT THIS PODCAST: https://bit.ly/aswKO-FI---ROGER TRAVASSOS WEB: https://www.rogertravassos.com IG: https://www.instagram.com/rogertravassos--- AND SOMETIMES ... WHY?: WEB https://www.andsometimeswhy.com EMAIL mailto:andsometimeswhypod@gmail.com INSTA https://www.instagram.com/andsometimeswhypod FB https://www.facebook.com/andsometimeswhypod TWEET https://twitter.com/sometimeswhypod
Sarah Dash defines the word "legend." As an award-winning vocalist, songwriter, motivational speaker, educator, entrepreneur, and humanitarian, Sarah is a unique force whose voice has touched millions of listeners around the world. From co-founding Patti LaBelle & the Bluebelles and making history as a member of Labelle to becoming the very first Music Ambassador (2017) of Trenton, New Jersey, Sarah has blazed a trail in every facet of her remarkable career. Music has been a constant source of inspiration in Sarah's life ever since her childhood in Trenton. The seventh of thirteen children born to Elder Abraham Dash and Mother Elizabeth Dash, Sarah sang in the Trenton Church of Christ Choir as a young girl and entertained her classmates with renditions of standards like "With These Hands." The radio dial introduced her to everything from R&B and rock 'n' roll to country and polka, with the voices of Tina Turner, Gladys Knight, and Smokey Robinson shaping some of Sarah's earliest influences alongside albums by Mahalia Jackson, Nat "King" Cole, Andy Williams, and her brother's jazz collection. Doo-wop groups The Capris and The Dells inspired the name of Sarah's first group, the Del-Capris, which included another Trenton-based singer, Nona Hendryx. When Sarah and Nona teamed with Patricia (Patti) Holte and Cynthia (Cindy) Birdsong of The Ordettes, a new group was born — The Bluebelles. Beginning in 1962, Patti LaBelle & the Bluebelles were among the most dynamic vocal groups of the 1960s, recording for major labels like Cameo-Parkway and Atlantic, touring the Chitlin' Circuit, and earning rave reviews for their appearances at the Apollo Theater where they were affectionately nicknamed "The Sweethearts of the Apollo." Visit SarahDash.net for more info
TV Guru and Yuki sit down and talk about the Chitlin Circuit: an entertainment stable of the black american's grassroots community. Despite certain entertainers dislike for the Chitlin Circuit, without it, nobody would care about the current big stars of entertainment today as the Chitlin Circuit will make or break an entertainer. Find us @ http://swarthynerd.com/ https://twitter.com/swarthynerd https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-E7IKrrIY3WTEi-2--RYAw Hit us up at swarthynerd@gmail.com Yuki's Social Media https://www.facebook.com/yukithesnowman/ https://yukithesnowman.com/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnW2H7VD6ahR4xXPba-DYLQ https://twitter.com/weebtrashyuki Tv Guru's Social Media https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxRviGx_yUWnDD0oABAT85g https://mobile.twitter.com/superlostfan108 cash app $lostfan108 Receipts in order (only on the website or podcasting apps) Raised by wolves (hbo max) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAg6RTQEfeM Archer (fx animated comedy) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ0U39heCVI Woke (hulu comedy) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYt5HEabwvM The third day (hbo drama) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T43V6z9wYyE Tenent (movie) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3pk_TBkihU The boys (amazon prime) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVHwlqyMyhM Rent a girlfriend (anime) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZFEtc3CKHs New voice actor for the simpsons (article) https://deadline.com/2020/09/the-simpsons-new-voice-hank-azarias-carl-alex-desert-1234584979/ Rent a girlfriend gets renewed (article) https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2020-09-25/rent-a-girlfriend-anime-gets-2nd-season/.164482 George carlin (video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY1eXnbB1Mg Richard pryor and red fox Pryor goes fox hunting (album) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phttcGbQSBY
Welcome to The New Chitlin Circuit! A podcast reviewing black indie, low-budget, and straight-to-DVD movies hosted by Syd and Lex. Premieres March 16, 2020
As a prefix, "post" tends to signify both the offspring of something major and a place where you can lay multiple creative ideas on the table–like "post-punk" or "post-rock." The last term is synonymous with both the trio Twin Talk and their hometown city of Chicago. Twin Talk's music is jazz, but it's produced like an indie-rock record, not too unlike the music of some of their illustrious fans such as Bon Iver or Jason Moran. With a brooding, elegant, cinematic, and dreamlike sound, Twin Talk takes on the intensity of Sonny Rollins with the soundscapes of Tortoise. The second half of the program welcomes Grachan Moncur III, whose own music could also be described as brooding and cinematic, if not idiosyncratic. One of the most original composers in the canon of American music, his career has taken him from Julliard, to the Chitlin Circuit, to hard bop, to the avant-garde. He's also gained the artistic respect of Ray Charles, The Jazztet, Jackie McLean, Archie Shepp, Lee Morgan, and Frank Zappa to name a few. His Blue Note recordings are often celebrated, but throughout the years his more underground work has earned him a fervent cult following. The Major Scale explores three of these recordings with the man himself: the rare and sought after Echoes of Prayer, Shadows, and Blues For Donald Duck.
Bill Carbone is an ethnomusicologist, musician, and a writer. He teaches at Wesleyan University and Southern Connecticut State University where he teaches “Music of the World's People. ” As a musician(drummer, writer, singer), Bill has worked with with renowned bands and artists like Max Creek, Zac Deputy, Melvin Sparks, Toussaint and the China Band, and the Z3. As a writer, Bill has been published in Wax Poetics, Modern Drummer, jazz.com, and in a long-running New Haven Advocate column. Find Bill Carbone here: http://www.billcarbone.com Bill on FB: https://www.facebook.com/billcarbone What is the “Chitlin Circuit” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitlin%27_circuit Film: The Girls in the Band http://thegirlsintheband.com/synopsis/ Very clever and funny Mike Judge film that we refer to several times: Idiocracy http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ The 100 People Project http://www.100people.org/statistics_detailed_statistics.php http://www.100people.org/wp/the-100-people-project-an-introduction/ Some of the “Avant-garde” jazz musicians that we talked about: Anthony Braxton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Braxton Pheeroan akLaff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pheeroan_akLaff Sun Ra: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ra Art Ensemble of Chicago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Ensemble_of_Chicago Music played on this podcast: Opening theme: Composed by Matt Oestreicher, used as an opening and closing theme of the film "We Cause Scenes." Performed by: Marissa Licata, Ervin Dede, and Egil Rostad at SST Studios in Weehawken, NJ.
Rod and Karen drink 4 Loko with Kriss (Host of the Insanity Check Podcast) and Brandon (Host of Where's My 40 Acres Podcast). We talk about NFL training camp video game, Nerds in comic books, Sons of Anarchy, What happened to the 5%ers, Being smart in the middle ages and what's harder to pull out of of? To hear the rest of the 6 hour 4 Loko marathon podcast please go download episode 212 or the Insanity Check Podcast. Intro: 4 Loko - Yung Trap Outro: Raw Life - Foreign Exchange Twitter: @rodimusprime @SayDatAgain @InsanityReport @PhenomBlak Email: theblackguywhotips@gmail.com Blog: www.theblackguywhotips.com Voice Mail: 704-557-0186 www.wheresmy40acres.com www.insanityreport.com
© 2020-2025 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
