POPULARITY
3 episodes with Chris Kenner
2 episodes with Chris Kenner
4 episodes with Chris Kenner
2 episodes with Chris Kenner
2 episodes with Chris Kenner
3 episodes with Chris Kenner
2 episodes with Chris Kenner
2 episodes with Chris Kenner
2 episodes with Chris Kenner
Miss Heard celebrates Season 6, Episode 283 with Ini Kamoze's 90's hit “Here Comes the Hotstepper” and how it's connected with a 1960s song called "Land of 1000 Dances", which was a number one R&B hit for Wilson Pickett in 1966 and was first recorded in 1962 by Chris Kenner and in 1963 reprised by Fats Domino. You can listen to all our episodes at our website at: https://pod.co/miss-heard-song-lyrics Or iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and many more platforms under Podcast name “Miss Heard Song Lyrics” Don't forget to subscribe/rate/review to help our Podcast in the ratings. Please consider supporting our little podcast via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/MissHeardSongLyrics or via PayPal at https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/MissHeardSongLyrics #missheardsonglyrics #missheardsongs #missheardlyrics #misheardsonglyrics #podcastinavan #vanpodcast #IniKamoze #HereComestheHotstepper #Landof1000Dances https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0N4twV28Mw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_the_Hotstepper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ini_Kamoze https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pr%C3%AAt-%C3%A0-Porter_(film) https://www.songfacts.com/facts/ini-kamoze/here-comes-the-hotstepper
Send us a Text Message.Singles Going Around- Atlantic SoulWe start off Season 6 with a great one. All my life I have loved the sound of Soul from Atlantic Records and their other labels. This is my homage to that great sound.Ray Charles- "I Got A Woman"Solomon Burke- "Stupidity"Eddie Floyd- "Knock On Wood"The Mar-Keys- "Philly Dog"Otis Redding- "Shake"Wilson Pickett- "Land Of 1000 Dances"Arthur Conley- "Sweet Soul Music"Percy Sledge- "Baby, Help Me"Booker T & The MG's- "Green Onions"Sam & Dave- "Hold On I'm Coming"Chris Kenner- "I Like It Like That"Aretha Franklin- "Good Times"The Drifters- "Save The Last Dance For Me"Eddie Floyd- "Good Love, Bad Love"The Coasters- "Down In Mexico"Sam & Dave- "I Thank You"Archie Bell & The Drells- "Tighten Up"Ray Charles- "Don't You Know"King Floyd- "Groove Me"Clarence Carter- "Patches"Joe Tex- "The Love You Save"Solomon Burke- "If You Need Me"Otis Redding- "What A Wonderful World"Wilson Pickett- "Mustang Sally"Booker T & The MGs- "Hip Hug Her"Joe Tex- "The Letter Song"Aretha Franklin- "Save Me"Chris Kenner- "Land Of 1000 Dances"
Singles Going Around- Singles Going Steady (Rainy Day 45's)Chris Kenner- "Sick and Tired" (Imperial X5448)Bill Justis- "Raunchy" (P 309)Randy & The Rockets- "Rocket's Twist" (Jin 161)The Johnny Otis Show- "Willie & The Hand Jive" (Capital 18745)Bobby Charles- "Take It Easy Greasy" (Chess 1832)The Everly Brothers- "Bird Dog" (Cadence 1350)Rod Bernard- "New Orleans Jail" (Hall-Way 19624)Frankie Ford- "Sea Cruise" (Ace 554)George Jones- "White Lightning" (Mercury 17090)Chuck Berry- "Thirty Days" (Chess 7899)Tommy McLain- "Before I Grow Too Old" (Jin 414)Guitar Gable- "Congo Mombo" (Excello 2082)Huey Piano Smith- "Don't You Just Know It" (Ace 545)Alex Broussard- "Aces & Aces" (Al-Moe 1001)Ricky Nelson- "I'm Walkin" (Verve 100747)Slim Harpo-"Shake Your Hips" (Excello 2278)Link Wray- "Rawide" (Epic 45486)Huey Piano Smith- "High Blood Pressure" (Ace 545)Warren Storm- "Mama Mama Mama" (Nasco 6015)*All original mono 45's.
Singles Going Around- Back To Mono Volume 4Mono records-recorded in mono, transferred in mono. Play LOUD.The Byrds- "Mr Spaceman"Pink Floyd- "Astronomy Domine"Chris Kenner- "Something You Got"Cream- "I Feel Free"The Rolling Stones- "Sympathy For The Devil"Bob Dylan- "Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat"The Beatles- "Norwegian Wood"Paul Revere & The Raiders- "The Great Airplane Strike"The Beach Boys- "Here Comes The Night"The Doors- "Break On Through"The Byrds- "The World Turns All Around Her"Chris Kenner- "Land Of 1000 Dances"The Rolling Stones- "Street Fighting Man"Pink Floyd- "Lucifer Sam"Bob Dylan- "Absolutely Sweet Marie"Dale Hawkins- "Suzie Q"Jerry Lee Lewis- "Great Balls Of Fire"Link Wray- "Rumble"Barret Strong- "Money"*All selections from the original records.
Singles Going Around- Jacques Cousteau's Moondog MatineeOn this episode of the podcast, we pulled together some deep soul cuts.The Valentinos- "It's All Over Now"Johnnie Taylor- Rome (Wasn't Built In A Day)Soul Stirrer's- "Looking Back"Lee Moses- "Bad Girl"Joe Tex- "The Love You Save"Slim and Ann- "Can't Stay Away"Irma Thomas- "It's Raining"Beverly McKay- "No I Can't Help You"Betty LaVette- "You Killed The Love"Chris Kenner- "Time"Solomon Burke- "Time Is A Thief"Betty Swann- "My Heart Is Closed"Toussaint McCall- "Nothing Takes The Place of You"Allen Toussaint- "Go Back Home"*All selections taken from the original records
Roots and blues artists Marcia Ball and Tinsley Ellis have both had long careers as recording artists and live performers; in Spring 2023 they joined together with their Acoustic Songs and Stories tour. They stopped at Outpost in the Burbs on March 31st, and we spoke with both artists before the show. The podcast features an exclusive live recording of their version of the Chris Kenner classic 'Something You Got.'
Pastronauts Rejoice! We're finally taking you to the Land of 1000 Dances! The first dance goes to Chris Kenner, the author and soulful belter of the original one-chord wonder (1:30). CK mixes the sacred and secular, and Allen Toussaint and the band give the song a swampy New Orleans groove. Next, we cut a rug with Cannibal & The Headhunters (30:05). Were these guys an actual band, or a vocal group?! These guys add the famous "na na na"'s - which gets us talkin' about the doo-wop influence on the song, AND we ask: did the Beatles steal said "na na na"'s for the end of "Hey Jude"? Clear the dancefloor for Wilson Pickett's 1966 version - the one you all know (54:14). The groove! The grunts! The drums! The screams! The man and the band really take you to the Promised Land. The last dance goes to the Chants R&B from New Zealand (1:18:25). This one's a real garage version - wild, fast, savage, and listen to that ending! Watch us work, y'all!!
Executive producer / magic consultant for David Copperfield for over 30 years from the live Vegas show at the MGM casino to worldwide touring and television events. In 2017 Chris was awarded a Creative Fellowship from the Academy of Magical Arts for his mastery of both the art and business of magic. He is one of those rare individuals who was not only proficient, but highly influential in card magic and coin magic. He is the author of the books Totally Out of Control and The Right Stuff which feature dozens of his close-up creations. On this episode Chris discusses his love of movies including Jaws and the little known whodunnit The Last of Sheila, he shares how he acquired his collection of artist Frank Kozik's colorful vinyl busts and he explains how he stays curious about everything from bridge design to fire hydrant placement to keep his problem solving muscle flexed.
Nueva selección de éxitos mayores o menores de la primera mitad de los años 60, picoteando entre todos los estilos que dieron forma a la música popular de aquellos maravillosos años. Playlist; (sintonía) THE VENTURES “Telstar” JOHN LEYTON “Johnny remember me” PAT READER “Cha cha on the moon” CHRIS KENNER “I like it like that” CANNIBAL and THE HEADHUNTERS “Land of 1000 dances” SHAPE and SIZES “Rain on my feet” TRINI LOPEZ “Unchain my heart” LAVERN BAKER and JIMMY RICKS “You’re the boss” THE ROLLING STONES “Congratulations” CLYDE McPHATTER “Spanish Harlem” SANDIE SHAW “(There’s) always something there to remind me” TIPPIE and THE CLOVERS “Bossa Nova baby” THE ESSEX “A walking mircle” THE VERNON GIRLS “I’m gonna let my hair down” NASHVILLE TEENS “Google eye” ELVIS PRESLEY “One broken heart for sale” CLIFF RICHARD “What I’ve got to do” SIMON and GARFUNKEL “I am a rock” BARBARA LEWIS “Hello stranger” RUBY and THE ROMANTICS “What a difference a day makes” Escuchar audio
Serie dedicada a rescatar grandes clásicos del pop y el rocknroll del siglo XX en forma de versiones. Playlist; (sintonía) THE PHANTOM DRAGSTERS “Mi gran noche” (Salvatore Adamo, Raphael) TY SEGALL “Diddy Wah Diddy” (version Bo Diddley) PJ HARVEY “Wang Dang Doodle” (Willy Dixon-Howlin Wolf) SIOUXSIE and THE BANSHEES “She cracked” (Modern Lovers) PSYCHOTIC YOUTH “All kindsa girls” (The Real Kids) JOHN FELICE “Lil’ red riding Hood” (Sam the Sham) THE MERTON PARKAS “In the midnight hour” (Wilson Pickett) FIFI and THE MACH III “Land of 1000 dances” (Chris Kenner) SUPERSNAZZ “Stay with me” (The Dictators) YO LA TENGO “You tore me down” (Flamin’ Groovies) THE COAL PORTERS “Who’ll stop the rain” (Creedence Clearwater Revival) THE DOLLYROTS “Rock and Roll all nite” (Kiss) THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM “Tumbling dice” (Rolling Stones) JESSE MALIN and BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG “Russian roulette” (Lords of the New Church) CHARLES BRADLEY “Heart of gold” (Neil Young) HOLLY GOLIGHTLY “I don’t know” (Ruth Brown) Escuchar audio
To see the full video on YouTube, check out: https://youtu.be/ZyPrLaoBWPM►http://allaccessmagic.com ►Check out our Patreon: https://patreon.com/allaccessmagic ►Check out our guest! https://www.instagram.com/elliottterral/ ►Get Free Audiobooks at https://audibletrial.com/magic ►Join The Magic Discord: http://1v1magic.comFollow Us Here:Episodes Live Every Wednesday on: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Aaysw0-njB9xH8uvNFvvgAll Access Magic Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allaccessmagic/Blaise's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blaiseserra/Ryan's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mentalism.ca/
Buying a Batmobile, unacknowledged irony, & a working comparative scale of magicians' hands. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
David Copperfield's iteration of the long-suffering Glenn Alai recalls the Indiana magic scene, worldwide shipping, & showbiz parking. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Showdown in Little Tokyo is indisputably a bad movie, but that doesn't mean it isn't a heck of a lot of fun. Starring Dolph Lundgren as Sgt. Chris Kenner and Brandon Lee as his partner Johnny Murata, it desperately wants to be Lethal Weapon. Unfortunately, it lacks the wit, charm, and overall directing acumen that film had. Instead, this is a low budget 90s flick with a seedy aesthetic that rises above its mediocre quality because of some insane, though unintentionally hilarious, scenes. Seriously folks, the way the villain bites it in this movie is one of the all-time great cinema deaths. All that said, this movie tanked. That wasn't entirely its own fault. WB, who produced it, hated Showdown in Little Tokyo, releasing it in under 200 theaters domestically and butchering the original edit. With such low distribution stateside and internationally, it was destined to fail. Boasting a budget of just $8 million, that shouldn't have been the case. There's a bathhouse fight, for Pete's sake. Anyway, sit back, cut the top off a Kirin Ichiban, and if the bathhouse is rocking, don't bother knocking! I, the Thunderous Wizard (@WriterTLK), Capt. Cash, and Chumpzilla are playing pin the katana on Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa! This Week's Segments: Introduction/Plot Breakdown – One's a warrior. One's a wiseguy. They're two Los Angeles cops going after Japan's top mobster...Feet first! (00:00) Lingering Questions – After a word from our brothers in beer at Hop Nation USA, we discuss the most gnarly death of "B-List Action Star Flops." (49:00) The "Double Team" Trivia Challenge – The Double Turn Podcast wins the Samurai Sword Death Match, and then I challenge the field to trivia about the movie. (1:00:20) Recommendations – We offer our picks for the week and next up: We begin "Hops and Pandemic Flops" with the much maligned The Happening! (1:10:22) And, as always, hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram to check out all the interesting factoids—the glory of this film's ending and more—from this week's episode! You can find this episode of Hops and Box Office Flops on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Podbean, Spotify, Acast, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Vurbl, and Amazon Music!
To see the full video on YouTube, check out: https://youtu.be/1chE2_Mksdk►http://allaccessmagic.com ►Check out our Patreon: https://patreon.com/allaccessmagic ►Check out our guest! https://www.instagram.com/chriskenner/ ►Join The Magic Discord: http://1v1magic.comOne of our most anticipated interviews of all time, the incomparable Chris Kenner join us! The executive producer for David Copperfield, Chris has played a key role in Copperfield's magic for the past 30 years. Yet that is not to overshadow is incredibly influential career as a magician and magic creator in his own right who has forever changed the way coin magic and cardistry is performed!Follow Us Here:Episodes Live Every Wednesday on: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Aaysw0-njB9xH8uvNFvvgAll Access Magic Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allaccessmagic/Blaise's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blaiseserra/Ryan's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mentalism.ca/
Today we get to the bottom David Copperfield. Talking with the legend Chris Kenner about Copperfield, magic, youtube, tv, aliens, crypto mining, Las Vegas, conspiracies, and various other lies... Tell three friends.Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4C0edXSTiojGpX7UVNbGIUApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bottom-of-the-barrel/id1517878439Follow us here:BOB YouTube https://www.youtube.com/UCwsDltslJ7QJCBKCKcjooHwBOB Instagram https://www.instagram.com/podcastinthebarrelWES https://www.instagram.com/stuntmagicianCHRIS https://www.instagram.com/chrisramsay52/Welcome back to BOB everyone. @Chris Ramsay and @WES Barker are Magicians, YouTubers, Best Friends, and next door neighbours. Come to this podcast if you like fun. It's mostly stories and nonsense. Super chill. Super honest. Great laughs.
Die drei gloreichen Reiter für magische Gerechtigkeit ringen heute um: Das NPH Card Deck, Ben Seidman - The Oracle System und Maurizio Visconti - CanTastic. Alle Links zur Sendung, wie immer in den Show Notes.
O americano de educação japonesa Chris Kenner é um policial responsável por Little Tóquio, um bairro de Los Angeles. Kenner faz parceria com Johnny Murata, um nipo-americano que não tem contato com suas raízes. Apesar de suas diferenças, os dois se sobressaem por suas habilidades em artes marciais quando lutam contra Yoshida, um traficante de drogas vingativo da máfia japonesa, que tem laços com o passado de Kenner. Seja Membro, tenha diversas vantagens e ajude o Filmes e Games. SIGA O FILMES E GAMES: Podcast: https://anchor.fm/fgcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5KfJKth Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/br/show/1374722 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/filmesegames Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/filmesegames/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/filmesegames
I know, it's not a Monday, but this is a special treat! Here's an hour of Chris Kenner! Ahead of the start of his Masterclass: Live on Sunday July 4th, here's a special, hour-long episode of The Insider where I talk with Chris about why he doesn't do anything flashy anymore, why he thinks helping the youth is so important, how magicians dress, how movies influence his magic and what part he thinks storytelling has in magic. He also briefly touches on what he's going to be teaching this month in this rare chance to see him lecture. Get your ticket for the Masterclass: Live here: https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/masterclass/chris-kenner-masterclass-live
Sintonía: "(Do The) Mashed Potatoes, Pt. 1" - Nat Kendrick & The Swans "Last Night" - The Mar Keys; "Just a Little Bit" - Rosco Gordon; "Watch Your Step" - Bobby Parker; "When You See Me Hurt" - Carl Lester & The Showstoppers; "Hurricane" - Dave "Baby" Cortez; "Turn On Your Love Light" - Bobby Bland; "If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody" - James Ray; "I Like It Like That (Part 1)" - Chris Kenner; "Whole Lotta Woman" - The Contours; "My Girl Josephine" - Bill Black; "Hey! Baby" - Bruce Channel; "The Hunch" - Paul Gayten; "Bye Bye Baby" - Mary Wells; "Gonzo" - James Booker; "You Better Move On" - Arthur Alexander; "Baby It´s You" - The Shirelles; "Well, I Told You" - The Chantels; "You Can´t Sit Down (Part One)" - Phil Upchurch Escuchar audio
Alex & Gerald return to another episode after experiencing the winter storms in Texas. Recently Alex was on local radio to discuss Tiger Woods' accident & how that relates to David Blaine. He dives into his thoughts about Blaine, Copperfield, & Criss Angel. Gerald has a quick rant about Michael Weber -“I got lucky again today!” -Why is Michael Weber is elusive? Why can't Gerald pronounce names? ALL CAPS is rude Snowstorm in Texas Chris Kenner was glad he had money “They'll hook you up…if you have Cash” Putting in the work David v David v Criss Back Problems & side chicks Competitive People Alex & David Blaine's training Jibrizy, Rick Lax, Copperfield doesn't tie his shoelaces
Leather Tuscadero (Suzy Quattro) Do The Fonzie (1977) Jack Gale - The Sloppy Madison (1962) She Knows How To Do The Do-Di-Doo (song-poem) Rod McKuen - Celebrity Twist (1962) Co-written by Rod McKuen and Gladys Shelley. McKuen wrote the #1 song "Jean" for Oliver. Let's Twist (song-poem) KC And the Sunshine Band - Do You Wanna Go Party? (1979) Let's Go Crazy You and I (song-poem) The Classmates - Tighten Up (1968) Do The Mess-Around (song-poem) Chris Kenner - Let Me Show You How (To Twist) (1962) Chris Kenner and Allen Toussaint wrote "I Like It Like That" in 1961. This release is a year later, and is a dead ringer by the co-author, and it confuses me. If you have any more info, let me know. From Wikipedia: "I Like It Like That" sold over one million copies, was nominated for a Grammy, and was awarded a gold disc by the Recording Industry Association of America. In 1963 he released his most enduring song, "Land of 1000 Dances", based on an old spiritual. Kenner's version reached number 77 on the pop chart in 1963. It was later covered by various artists, including Cannibal & the Headhunters, Fats Domino, The Midniters, Wilson Pickett, The Action, and Patti Smith. Kenner's career was affected by his unpredictable behavior – he drank and spent heavily, and would sometimes miss shows or forget the words to his songs. He continued to record until 1968, with diminishing success. In 1968, Kenner was convicted of statutory rape of a minor and spent three years in Louisiana's Angola prison. Kenner died from a heart attack in 1976, at the age of 46, triggered by alcoholism. Fat Back Band - Do The Bus Stop (1976) Their 1980 album Hot Box reached #44, the only album in their long career to get that high. Rod McKuen - Seattle Twist (1962) Remember, he wrote "Jean", the #1 song he wrote for Oliver. Remember that? Bobby Rydell - The Cha-Cha-Cha (1962) (?) Come Bump With Us Jeff Lynne - Doin' That Crazy Thing (1977) Kenny - Do The Bump (1974) The voice-over guy sounds like he's making fun of us. Bay City Rollers would cover this song. Billy Davis - Stanky (Get Funky) (1969) Billy Davis played guitar with Hank Ballard and the Midnighters. Jerk. Roxy Music - Do The Strand (1973) Bobbi Blake - Do The Yo-Yo (song-poem) Must have been in the late 70's, judging by those cheesy string/synths. Bobby Bare - Zig Zag Twist (1961) 17 years later, he'd write and record the original version of "The Gambler" Bobby Lee Trammell - New Dance In France (1964) Jimmy (Mr. Motion) Lynch - Notions of Mr. Motions (1968) Ernie K Doe - Popeye Joe (1962) Gene Marshall - Shake Your Good Stuff (song poem) Graeme Summers - Do The Blue Beat (1964) From New Zealand Gene Marshall - Doing the Wagon-Na-Ga (or Gal) ? - Good and Funky The Funk Brothers With Jerryo - Karate Boo-Ga-Loo (1967) Jim Eanes and the Shenendoah Valley Boys - Wiggle Worm Wiggle (1954) Pretty good recording for so long ago. ? Joe Bataan - Latin Strut (1974) Leroy Jones - Let's Popeye (1962) Little Caesar and the Romans - Popeye One More Time (1961) Lou Courtney - Doin' The Boogaloo (Me And You) (1967) Ralph Lowe - Funk With Us (song-poem) The Rascals - Jungle Walk (1972) The awesome rhythm guitar is Buzz Feiten. Ronnie Dio and the Prophets - Everybody's Got A Dance To Do But Me (1963)
Who Books That? with Harrison Greenbaum (Presented by the International Brotherhood of Magicians)
Harrison interviews Chris Kenner, pioneering comedy magician, esteemed magic inventor, and the executive producer of David Copperfield for over two decades, discovering Chris' process for creating unique magic; if he's sorry for inventing cardistry; and puts Chris' diplomacy to the test with a game of "Compliment or Pass." With special guest, Mike Reiss, co-executive producer of 'The Simpsons,' creator of 'Queer Duck,' and writer for everything from 'ALF' to 'It's Garry Shandling's Show' to 'Ice Age.'Presented by the International Brotherhood of Magicians.
On the show this week Erik is joined by the Author of Totally Out of Control, Executive Producer for David Copperfield, and wildly creative magician Chris Kenner. They talk about showing Brother John Hamman coin magic, behind the scenes of The Magic Man Examiner, and dig into a story that dominated the magic headlines in 2018. Nick Locapo stops by to talk about the R Paul Wilson effect Quarter Pounder. Before all that, the show kicks off with Josh Birch talking about his desert island magic book.
Kenner es un guerrero; Murata, un sinvergüenza. Ambos, policías de Los Ángeles tras los pasos de los zares yakuza de la droga. Con los pies por delante, provocarán una masacre en el barrio japonés. Esta vez en Cinema Totopo... ¡Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991), filme de Mark L. Lester!
Radio Jazz studievært Kay Seitzmayer mindes den amerikanske musiker, sangskriver, arrangør og pladeproducent Allen Toussaint (1938-2015) med et program fyldt med New Orleans musik, R&B og med navne som Lee Dorsey, Dave Bartholomew, Fats Domino, Benny Spellman, Chris Kenner, Irma Thomas, The Meters, The Wild Tchoupitoulas, Dr. John og Professor Longhair. Sendt i Radio Jazz i 2016 Der er mere jazz på www.radiojazz.dk
Episode fifty-eight of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Mr. Lee” by the Bobbettes, and at the lbirth of the girl group sound. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Little Bitty Pretty One”, by Thurston Harris. —-more—- Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. I’ve used multiple sources to piece together the information here. Marv Goldberg’s page is always the go-to for fifties R&B groups. Girl Groups: Fabulous Females Who Rocked the World by John Clemente has an article about the group with some interview material. American Singing Groups by Jay Warner also has an article on the group. Most of the Bobbettes’ material is out of print, but handily this CD is coming out next Friday, with most of their important singles on it. I have no idea of its quality, as it’s not yet out, but it seems like it should be the CD to get if you want to hear more of their music. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Over the last few months we’ve seen the introduction to rock and roll music of almost all the elements that would characterise the music in the 1960s — we have the music slowly standardising on a lineup of guitar, bass, and drums, with electric guitar lead. We have the blues-based melodies, the backbeat, the country-inspired guitar lines. All of them are there. They just need putting together in precisely the right proportions for the familiar sound of the early-sixties beat groups to come out. But there’s one element, as important as all of these, which has not yet turned up, and which we’re about to see for the first time. And that element is the girl group. Girl groups played a vital part in the development of rock and roll music, and are never given the credit they deserve. But you just have to look at the first Beatles album to see how important they were. Of the six cover versions on “Please Please Me”, three are of songs originally recorded by girl groups — two by the Shirelles, and one by the Cookies. And the thing about the girl groups is that they were marketed as collectives, not as individuals — occasionally the lead singer would be marketed as a star in her own right, but more normally it would be the group, not the members, who were known. So it’s quite surprising that the first R&B girl group to hit the charts was one that, with the exception of one member, managed to keep their original members until they died. and where two of those members were still in the group into the middle of the current decade. So today, we’re going to have a look at the group that introduced the girl group sound to rock and roll, and how the world of music was irrevocably changed because of how a few young kids felt about their fifth-grade teacher. [Excerpt: The Bobettes, “Mister Lee”] Now, we have to make a distinction here when we’re talking about girl groups. There had, after all, been many vocal groups in the pre-rock era that consisted entirely of women — the Andrews Sisters, for example, had been hugely popular, as had the Boswell Sisters, who sang the theme song to this show. But those groups were mostly what was then called “modern harmony” — they were singing block harmonies, often with jazz chords, and singing them on songs that came straight from Tin Pan Alley. There was no R&B influence in them whatsoever. When we talk about girl groups in rock and roll, we’re talking about something that quickly became a standard lineup — you’d have one woman out front singing the lead vocal, and two or three others behind her singing answering phrases and providing “ooh” vocals. The songs they performed would be, almost without exception, in the R&B mould, but would usually have much less gospel influence than the male vocal groups or the R&B solo singers who were coming up at the same time. While doo-wop groups and solo singers were all about showing off individual virtuosity, the girl groups were about the group as a collective — with very rare exceptions, the lead singers of the girl groups would use very little melisma or ornamentation, and would just sing the melody straight. And when it comes to that kind of girl group, the Bobbettes were the first one to have any real impact. They started out as a group of children who sang after school, at church and at the glee club. The same gang of seven kids, aged between eleven and fifteen, would get together and sing, usually pop songs. After a little while, though, Reather Dixon and Emma Pought, the two girls who’d started this up, decided that they wanted to take things a bit more seriously. They decided that seven girls was too many, and so they whittled the numbers down to the five best singers — Reather and Emma, plus Helen Gathers, Laura Webb, and Emma’s sister Jannie. The girls originally named themselves the Harlem Queens, and started performing at talent shows around New York. We’ve talked before about how important amateur nights were for black entertainment in the forties and fifties, but it’s been a while, so to refresh your memories — at this point in time, black live entertainment was dominated by what was known as the Chitlin Circuit, an informal network of clubs and theatres around the US which put on largely black acts for almost exclusively black customers. Those venues would often have shows that lasted all day — a ticket for the Harlem Apollo, for example, would allow you to come and go all day, and see the same performers half a dozen times. To fill out these long bills, as well as getting the acts to perform multiple times a day, several of the chitlin circuit venues would put on talent nights, where young performers could get up on stage and have a chance to win over the audiences, who were notoriously unforgiving. Despite the image we might have in our heads now of amateur talent nights, these talent contests would often produce some of the greatest performers in the music business, and people like Johnny Otis would look to them to discover new talent. They were a way for untried performers to get themselves noticed, and while few did, some of those who managed would go on to have great success. And so in late 1956, the five Harlem Queens, two of them aged only eleven, went on stage at the Harlem Apollo, home of the most notoriously tough audiences in America. But they went down well enough that James Dailey, the manager of a minor bird group called the Ospreys, decided to take them on as well. The Ospreys were a popular group around New York who would eventually get signed to Atlantic, and release records like “Do You Wanna Jump Children”: [Excerpt: The Ospreys, “Do You Wanna Jump Children?”] Dailey thought that the Harlem Queens had the potential to be much bigger than the Ospreys, and he decided to try to get them signed to Atlantic Records. But one thing would need to change — the Harlem Queens sounded more like a motorcycle gang than the name of a vocal group. Laura’s sister had just had a baby, who she’d named Chanel Bobbette. They decided to name the group after the baby, but the Chanels sounded too much like the Chantels, a group from the Bronx who had already started performing. So they became the Bobbettes. They signed to Atlantic, where Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler encouraged them to perform their own material. The girls had been writing songs together, and they had one — essentially a playground chant — that they’d been singing together for a while, about their fifth-grade teacher Mr. Lee. Depending on who you believe — the girls gave different accounts over the years — the song was either attacking him, or merely affectionately mocking his appearance. It called him “four-eyed” and said he was “the ugliest teacher you ever did see”. Atlantic liked the feel of the song, but they didn’t want the girls singing a song that was just attacking a teacher, and so they insisted on them changing the lyrics. With the help of Reggie Obrecht, the bandleader for the session, who got a co-writing credit on the song largely for transcribing the girls’ melody and turning it into something that musicians could play, the song became, instead, a song about “the handsomest sweetie you ever did see”: [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, “Mister Lee”] Incidentally, there seems to be some disagreement about who the musicians were on the track. Jacqueline Warwick, in “Girl Groups, Girl Culture”, claims that the saxophone solo on “Mr. Lee” was played by King Curtis, who did play on many sessions for Atlantic at the time. It’s possible — and Curtis was an extremely versatile player, but he generally played with a very thick tone. Compare his playing on “Dynamite at Midnight”, a solo track he released in 1957: [Excerpt: King Curtis, “Dynamite at Midnight”] With the solo on “Mr Lee”: [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, “Mister Lee”] I think it more likely that the credit I’ve seen in other places, such as Atlantic sessionographies, is correct, and that the sax solo is played by the less-well-known player Jesse Powell, who played on, for example, “Fools Fall in Love” by the Drifters: [Excerpt: The Drifters, “Fools Fall In Love”] If that’s correct — and my ears tell me it is — then presumably the other credits in those sources are also correct, and the backing for “Mister Lee” was mostly provided by B-team session players, the people who Atlantic would get in for less important sessions, rather than the first-call people they would use on their major artists — so the musicians were Jesse Powell on tenor sax; Ray Ellis on piano; Alan Hanlon and Al Caiola on guitar; Milt Hinton on bass; and Joe Marshall on drums. “Mr. Lee” became a massive hit, going to number one on the R&B charts and making the top ten on the pop charts, and making the girls the first all-girl R&B vocal group to have a hit record, though they would soon be followed by others — the Chantels, whose name they had tried not to copy, charted a few weeks later. “Mr. Lee” also inspired several answer records, most notably the instrumental “Walking with Mr. Lee” by Lee Allen, which was a minor hit in 1958, thanks largely to it being regularly featured on American Bandstand: [Excerpt: Lee Allen, “Walking With Mr. Lee”] The song also came to the notice of their teacher — who seemed to have already known about the girls’ song mocking him. He called a couple of the girls out of their class at school, and checked with them that they knew the song had been made into a record. He’d recognised it as the song the girls had sung about him, and he was concerned that perhaps someone had heard the girls singing their song and stolen it from them. They explained that the record was actually them, and he was, according to Reather Dixon, “ecstatic” that the song had been made into a record — which suggests that whatever the girls’ intention with the song, their teacher took it as an affectionate one. However, they didn’t stay at that school long after the record became a hit. The girls were sent off on package tours of the Chitlin’ circuit, touring with other Atlantic artists like Clyde McPhatter and Ruth Brown, and so they were pulled out of their normal school and started attending The Professional School For Children, a school in New York that was also attended by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers and the Chantels, among others, which would allow them to do their work while on tour and post it back to the school. On the tours, the girls were very much taken under the wing of the adult performers. Men like Sam Cooke, Clyde McPhatter, and Jackie Wilson would take on somewhat paternal roles, trying to ensure that nothing bad would happen to these little girls away from home, while women like Ruth Brown and LaVern Baker would teach them how to dress, how to behave on stage, and what makeup to wear — something they had been unable to learn from their male manager. Indeed, their manager, James Dailey, had started as a tailor, and for a long time sewed the girls’ dresses himself — which resulted in the group getting a reputation as the worst-dressed group on the circuit, one of the reasons they eventually dumped him. With “Mr. Lee” a massive success, Atlantic wanted the group to produce more of the same — catchy upbeat novelty numbers that they wrote themselves. The next single, “Speedy”, was very much in the “Mr. Lee” style, but was also a more generic song, without “Mr. Lee”‘s exuberance: [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, “Speedy”] One interesting thing here is that as well as touring the US, the Bobbettes made several trips to the West Indies, where R&B was hugely popular. The Bobbettes were, along with Gene and Eunice and Fats Domino, one of the US acts who made an outsized impression, particularly in Jamaica, and listening to the rhythms on their early records you can clearly see the influence they would later have on reggae. We’ll talk more about reggae and ska in future episodes, but to simplify hugely, the biggest influences on those genres as they were starting in the fifties were calypso, the New Orleans R&B records made in Cosimo Matassa’s studio, and the R&B music Atlantic was putting out, and the Bobbettes were a prime part of that influence. “Mr. Lee”, in particular, was later recorded by a number of Jamaican reggae artists, including Laurel Aitken: [Excerpt: Laurel Aitken, “Mr. Lee”] And the Harmonians: [Excerpt: the Harmonians, “Music Street”] But while “Mr Lee” was having a massive impact, and the group was a huge live act, they were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the way their recording career was going. Atlantic was insisting that they keep writing songs in the style of “Mr. Lee”, but they were so busy they were having to slap the songs together in a hurry rather than spend time working on them, and they wanted to move on to making other kinds of records, especially since all the “Mr. Lee” soundalikes weren’t actually hitting the charts. They were also trying to expand by working with other artists — they would often act as the backing vocalists for other acts on the package shows they were on, and I’ve read in several sources that they performed uncredited backing vocals on some records for Clyde McPhatter and Ivory Joe Hunter, although nobody ever says which songs they sang on. I can’t find an Ivory Joe Hunter song that fits the bill during the Bobbettes’ time on Atlantic, but I think “You’ll Be There” is a plausible candidate for a Clyde McPhatter song they could have sung on — it’s one of the few records McPhatter made around this time with obviously female vocals on it, it was arranged and conducted by Ray Ellis, who did the same job on the Bobbettes’ records, and it was recorded only a few days after a Bobbettes session. I can’t identify the voices on the record well enough to be convinced it’s them, but it could well be: [Excerpt: Clyde McPhatter, “You’ll Be There”] Eventually, after a couple of years of frustration at their being required to rework their one hit, they recorded a track which let us know how they really felt: [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, “I Shot Mr. Lee”, Atlantic version] I think that expresses their feelings pretty well. They submitted that to Atlantic, who refused to release it, and dropped the girls from their label. This started a period where they would sign with different labels for one or two singles, and would often cut the same song for different labels. One label they signed to, in 1960, was Triple-X Records, one of the many labels run by George Goldner, the associate of Morris Levy we talked about in the episode on “Why Do Fools Fall In Love”, who was known for having the musical taste of a fourteen-year-old girl. There they started what would be a long-term working relationship with the songwriter and producer Teddy Vann. Vann is best known for writing “Love Power” for the Sand Pebbles: [Excerpt: The Sand Pebbles, “Love Power”] And for his later minor novelty hit, “Santa Claus is a Black Man”: [Excerpt: Akim and Teddy Vann, “Santa Claus is a Black Man”] But in 1960 he was just starting out, and he was enthusiastic about working with the Bobbettes. One of the first things he did with them was to remake the song that Atlantic had rejected, “I Shot Mr. Lee”: [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, “I Shot Mr. Lee”, Triple-X version] That became their biggest hit since the original “Mr. Lee”, reaching number fifty-two on the Billboard Hot One Hundred, and prompting Atlantic to finally issue the original version of “I Shot Mr. Lee” to compete with it. There were a few follow-ups, which also charted in the lower regions of the charts, most of them, like “I Shot Mr. Lee”, answer records, though answers to other people’s records. They charted with a remake of Billy Ward and the Dominos’ “Have Mercy Baby”, with “I Don’t Like It Like That”, an answer to Chris Kenner’s “I Like It Like That”, and finally with “Dance With Me Georgie”, a reworking of “The Wallflower” that referenced the then-popular twist craze. [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, “Dance With Me Georgie”] The Bobbettes kept switching labels, although usually working with Teddy Vann, for several years, with little chart success. Helen Gathers decided to quit — she stopped touring with the group in 1960, because she didn’t like to travel, and while she continued to record with them for a little while, eventually she left the group altogether, though they remained friendly. The remaining members continued as a quartet for the next twenty years. While the Bobbettes didn’t have much success on their own after 1961, they did score one big hit as the backing group for another singer, when in 1964 they reached number four in the charts backing Johnny Thunder on “Loop De Loop”: [Excerpt: Johnny Thunder, “Loop De Loop”] The rest of the sixties saw them taking part in all sorts of side projects, none of them hugely commercially successful, but many of them interesting in their own right. Probably the oddest was a record released in 1964 to tie in with the film Dr Strangelove, under the name Dr Strangelove and the Fallouts: [Excerpt: Dr Strangelove and the Fallouts, “Love That Bomb”] Reather and Emma, the group’s two strongest singers, also recorded one single as the Soul Angels, featuring another singer, Mattie LaVette: [Excerpt: The Soul Angels, “It’s All In Your Mind”] The Bobbettes continued working together throughout the seventies, though they appear to have split up, at least for a time, around 1974. But by 1977, they’d decided that twenty years on from “Mister Lee”, their reputation from that song was holding them back, and so they attempted a comeback in a disco style, under a new name — the Sophisticated Ladies. [Excerpt: Sophisticated Ladies, “Check it Out”] That got something of a cult following among disco lovers, but it didn’t do anything commercially, and they reverted to the Bobbettes name for their final single, “Love Rhythm”: [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, “Love Rhythm”] But then, tragedy struck — Jannie Pought was stabbed to death in the street, in a random attack by a stranger, in September 1980. She was just thirty-four. The other group members struggled on as a trio. Throughout the eighties and nineties, the group continued performing, still with three original members, though their performances got fewer and fewer. For much of that time they still held out hope that they could revive their recording career, and you see them talking in interviews from the eighties about how they were determined eventually to get a second gold record to go with “Mr. Lee”. They never did, and they never recorded again — although they did eventually get a *platinum* record, as “Mr. Lee” was used in the platinum-selling soundtrack to the film Stand By Me. Laura Webb Childress died in 2001, at which point the two remaining members, the two lead singers of the group, got in a couple of other backing vocalists, and carried on for another thirteen years, playing on bills with other fifties groups like the Flamingos, until Reather Dixon Turner died in 2014, leaving Emma Pought Patron as the only surviving member. Emma appears to have given up touring at that point and retired. The Bobbettes may have only had one major hit under their own name, but they made several very fine records, had a career that let them work together for the rest of their lives, and not only paved the way for every girl group to follow, but also managed to help inspire a whole new genre with the influence they had over reggae. Not bad at all for a bunch of schoolgirls singing a song to make fun of their teacher…
Episode fifty-eight of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Mr. Lee” by the Bobbettes, and at the lbirth of the girl group sound. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Little Bitty Pretty One”, by Thurston Harris. —-more—- Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. I’ve used multiple sources to piece together the information here. Marv Goldberg’s page is always the go-to for fifties R&B groups. Girl Groups: Fabulous Females Who Rocked the World by John Clemente has an article about the group with some interview material. American Singing Groups by Jay Warner also has an article on the group. Most of the Bobbettes’ material is out of print, but handily this CD is coming out next Friday, with most of their important singles on it. I have no idea of its quality, as it’s not yet out, but it seems like it should be the CD to get if you want to hear more of their music. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Over the last few months we’ve seen the introduction to rock and roll music of almost all the elements that would characterise the music in the 1960s — we have the music slowly standardising on a lineup of guitar, bass, and drums, with electric guitar lead. We have the blues-based melodies, the backbeat, the country-inspired guitar lines. All of them are there. They just need putting together in precisely the right proportions for the familiar sound of the early-sixties beat groups to come out. But there’s one element, as important as all of these, which has not yet turned up, and which we’re about to see for the first time. And that element is the girl group. Girl groups played a vital part in the development of rock and roll music, and are never given the credit they deserve. But you just have to look at the first Beatles album to see how important they were. Of the six cover versions on “Please Please Me”, three are of songs originally recorded by girl groups — two by the Shirelles, and one by the Cookies. And the thing about the girl groups is that they were marketed as collectives, not as individuals — occasionally the lead singer would be marketed as a star in her own right, but more normally it would be the group, not the members, who were known. So it’s quite surprising that the first R&B girl group to hit the charts was one that, with the exception of one member, managed to keep their original members until they died. and where two of those members were still in the group into the middle of the current decade. So today, we’re going to have a look at the group that introduced the girl group sound to rock and roll, and how the world of music was irrevocably changed because of how a few young kids felt about their fifth-grade teacher. [Excerpt: The Bobettes, “Mister Lee”] Now, we have to make a distinction here when we’re talking about girl groups. There had, after all, been many vocal groups in the pre-rock era that consisted entirely of women — the Andrews Sisters, for example, had been hugely popular, as had the Boswell Sisters, who sang the theme song to this show. But those groups were mostly what was then called “modern harmony” — they were singing block harmonies, often with jazz chords, and singing them on songs that came straight from Tin Pan Alley. There was no R&B influence in them whatsoever. When we talk about girl groups in rock and roll, we’re talking about something that quickly became a standard lineup — you’d have one woman out front singing the lead vocal, and two or three others behind her singing answering phrases and providing “ooh” vocals. The songs they performed would be, almost without exception, in the R&B mould, but would usually have much less gospel influence than the male vocal groups or the R&B solo singers who were coming up at the same time. While doo-wop groups and solo singers were all about showing off individual virtuosity, the girl groups were about the group as a collective — with very rare exceptions, the lead singers of the girl groups would use very little melisma or ornamentation, and would just sing the melody straight. And when it comes to that kind of girl group, the Bobbettes were the first one to have any real impact. They started out as a group of children who sang after school, at church and at the glee club. The same gang of seven kids, aged between eleven and fifteen, would get together and sing, usually pop songs. After a little while, though, Reather Dixon and Emma Pought, the two girls who’d started this up, decided that they wanted to take things a bit more seriously. They decided that seven girls was too many, and so they whittled the numbers down to the five best singers — Reather and Emma, plus Helen Gathers, Laura Webb, and Emma’s sister Jannie. The girls originally named themselves the Harlem Queens, and started performing at talent shows around New York. We’ve talked before about how important amateur nights were for black entertainment in the forties and fifties, but it’s been a while, so to refresh your memories — at this point in time, black live entertainment was dominated by what was known as the Chitlin Circuit, an informal network of clubs and theatres around the US which put on largely black acts for almost exclusively black customers. Those venues would often have shows that lasted all day — a ticket for the Harlem Apollo, for example, would allow you to come and go all day, and see the same performers half a dozen times. To fill out these long bills, as well as getting the acts to perform multiple times a day, several of the chitlin circuit venues would put on talent nights, where young performers could get up on stage and have a chance to win over the audiences, who were notoriously unforgiving. Despite the image we might have in our heads now of amateur talent nights, these talent contests would often produce some of the greatest performers in the music business, and people like Johnny Otis would look to them to discover new talent. They were a way for untried performers to get themselves noticed, and while few did, some of those who managed would go on to have great success. And so in late 1956, the five Harlem Queens, two of them aged only eleven, went on stage at the Harlem Apollo, home of the most notoriously tough audiences in America. But they went down well enough that James Dailey, the manager of a minor bird group called the Ospreys, decided to take them on as well. The Ospreys were a popular group around New York who would eventually get signed to Atlantic, and release records like “Do You Wanna Jump Children”: [Excerpt: The Ospreys, “Do You Wanna Jump Children?”] Dailey thought that the Harlem Queens had the potential to be much bigger than the Ospreys, and he decided to try to get them signed to Atlantic Records. But one thing would need to change — the Harlem Queens sounded more like a motorcycle gang than the name of a vocal group. Laura’s sister had just had a baby, who she’d named Chanel Bobbette. They decided to name the group after the baby, but the Chanels sounded too much like the Chantels, a group from the Bronx who had already started performing. So they became the Bobbettes. They signed to Atlantic, where Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler encouraged them to perform their own material. The girls had been writing songs together, and they had one — essentially a playground chant — that they’d been singing together for a while, about their fifth-grade teacher Mr. Lee. Depending on who you believe — the girls gave different accounts over the years — the song was either attacking him, or merely affectionately mocking his appearance. It called him “four-eyed” and said he was “the ugliest teacher you ever did see”. Atlantic liked the feel of the song, but they didn’t want the girls singing a song that was just attacking a teacher, and so they insisted on them changing the lyrics. With the help of Reggie Obrecht, the bandleader for the session, who got a co-writing credit on the song largely for transcribing the girls’ melody and turning it into something that musicians could play, the song became, instead, a song about “the handsomest sweetie you ever did see”: [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, “Mister Lee”] Incidentally, there seems to be some disagreement about who the musicians were on the track. Jacqueline Warwick, in “Girl Groups, Girl Culture”, claims that the saxophone solo on “Mr. Lee” was played by King Curtis, who did play on many sessions for Atlantic at the time. It’s possible — and Curtis was an extremely versatile player, but he generally played with a very thick tone. Compare his playing on “Dynamite at Midnight”, a solo track he released in 1957: [Excerpt: King Curtis, “Dynamite at Midnight”] With the solo on “Mr Lee”: [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, “Mister Lee”] I think it more likely that the credit I’ve seen in other places, such as Atlantic sessionographies, is correct, and that the sax solo is played by the less-well-known player Jesse Powell, who played on, for example, “Fools Fall in Love” by the Drifters: [Excerpt: The Drifters, “Fools Fall In Love”] If that’s correct — and my ears tell me it is — then presumably the other credits in those sources are also correct, and the backing for “Mister Lee” was mostly provided by B-team session players, the people who Atlantic would get in for less important sessions, rather than the first-call people they would use on their major artists — so the musicians were Jesse Powell on tenor sax; Ray Ellis on piano; Alan Hanlon and Al Caiola on guitar; Milt Hinton on bass; and Joe Marshall on drums. “Mr. Lee” became a massive hit, going to number one on the R&B charts and making the top ten on the pop charts, and making the girls the first all-girl R&B vocal group to have a hit record, though they would soon be followed by others — the Chantels, whose name they had tried not to copy, charted a few weeks later. “Mr. Lee” also inspired several answer records, most notably the instrumental “Walking with Mr. Lee” by Lee Allen, which was a minor hit in 1958, thanks largely to it being regularly featured on American Bandstand: [Excerpt: Lee Allen, “Walking With Mr. Lee”] The song also came to the notice of their teacher — who seemed to have already known about the girls’ song mocking him. He called a couple of the girls out of their class at school, and checked with them that they knew the song had been made into a record. He’d recognised it as the song the girls had sung about him, and he was concerned that perhaps someone had heard the girls singing their song and stolen it from them. They explained that the record was actually them, and he was, according to Reather Dixon, “ecstatic” that the song had been made into a record — which suggests that whatever the girls’ intention with the song, their teacher took it as an affectionate one. However, they didn’t stay at that school long after the record became a hit. The girls were sent off on package tours of the Chitlin’ circuit, touring with other Atlantic artists like Clyde McPhatter and Ruth Brown, and so they were pulled out of their normal school and started attending The Professional School For Children, a school in New York that was also attended by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers and the Chantels, among others, which would allow them to do their work while on tour and post it back to the school. On the tours, the girls were very much taken under the wing of the adult performers. Men like Sam Cooke, Clyde McPhatter, and Jackie Wilson would take on somewhat paternal roles, trying to ensure that nothing bad would happen to these little girls away from home, while women like Ruth Brown and LaVern Baker would teach them how to dress, how to behave on stage, and what makeup to wear — something they had been unable to learn from their male manager. Indeed, their manager, James Dailey, had started as a tailor, and for a long time sewed the girls’ dresses himself — which resulted in the group getting a reputation as the worst-dressed group on the circuit, one of the reasons they eventually dumped him. With “Mr. Lee” a massive success, Atlantic wanted the group to produce more of the same — catchy upbeat novelty numbers that they wrote themselves. The next single, “Speedy”, was very much in the “Mr. Lee” style, but was also a more generic song, without “Mr. Lee”‘s exuberance: [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, “Speedy”] One interesting thing here is that as well as touring the US, the Bobbettes made several trips to the West Indies, where R&B was hugely popular. The Bobbettes were, along with Gene and Eunice and Fats Domino, one of the US acts who made an outsized impression, particularly in Jamaica, and listening to the rhythms on their early records you can clearly see the influence they would later have on reggae. We’ll talk more about reggae and ska in future episodes, but to simplify hugely, the biggest influences on those genres as they were starting in the fifties were calypso, the New Orleans R&B records made in Cosimo Matassa’s studio, and the R&B music Atlantic was putting out, and the Bobbettes were a prime part of that influence. “Mr. Lee”, in particular, was later recorded by a number of Jamaican reggae artists, including Laurel Aitken: [Excerpt: Laurel Aitken, “Mr. Lee”] And the Harmonians: [Excerpt: the Harmonians, “Music Street”] But while “Mr Lee” was having a massive impact, and the group was a huge live act, they were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the way their recording career was going. Atlantic was insisting that they keep writing songs in the style of “Mr. Lee”, but they were so busy they were having to slap the songs together in a hurry rather than spend time working on them, and they wanted to move on to making other kinds of records, especially since all the “Mr. Lee” soundalikes weren’t actually hitting the charts. They were also trying to expand by working with other artists — they would often act as the backing vocalists for other acts on the package shows they were on, and I’ve read in several sources that they performed uncredited backing vocals on some records for Clyde McPhatter and Ivory Joe Hunter, although nobody ever says which songs they sang on. I can’t find an Ivory Joe Hunter song that fits the bill during the Bobbettes’ time on Atlantic, but I think “You’ll Be There” is a plausible candidate for a Clyde McPhatter song they could have sung on — it’s one of the few records McPhatter made around this time with obviously female vocals on it, it was arranged and conducted by Ray Ellis, who did the same job on the Bobbettes’ records, and it was recorded only a few days after a Bobbettes session. I can’t identify the voices on the record well enough to be convinced it’s them, but it could well be: [Excerpt: Clyde McPhatter, “You’ll Be There”] Eventually, after a couple of years of frustration at their being required to rework their one hit, they recorded a track which let us know how they really felt: [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, “I Shot Mr. Lee”, Atlantic version] I think that expresses their feelings pretty well. They submitted that to Atlantic, who refused to release it, and dropped the girls from their label. This started a period where they would sign with different labels for one or two singles, and would often cut the same song for different labels. One label they signed to, in 1960, was Triple-X Records, one of the many labels run by George Goldner, the associate of Morris Levy we talked about in the episode on “Why Do Fools Fall In Love”, who was known for having the musical taste of a fourteen-year-old girl. There they started what would be a long-term working relationship with the songwriter and producer Teddy Vann. Vann is best known for writing “Love Power” for the Sand Pebbles: [Excerpt: The Sand Pebbles, “Love Power”] And for his later minor novelty hit, “Santa Claus is a Black Man”: [Excerpt: Akim and Teddy Vann, “Santa Claus is a Black Man”] But in 1960 he was just starting out, and he was enthusiastic about working with the Bobbettes. One of the first things he did with them was to remake the song that Atlantic had rejected, “I Shot Mr. Lee”: [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, “I Shot Mr. Lee”, Triple-X version] That became their biggest hit since the original “Mr. Lee”, reaching number fifty-two on the Billboard Hot One Hundred, and prompting Atlantic to finally issue the original version of “I Shot Mr. Lee” to compete with it. There were a few follow-ups, which also charted in the lower regions of the charts, most of them, like “I Shot Mr. Lee”, answer records, though answers to other people’s records. They charted with a remake of Billy Ward and the Dominos’ “Have Mercy Baby”, with “I Don’t Like It Like That”, an answer to Chris Kenner’s “I Like It Like That”, and finally with “Dance With Me Georgie”, a reworking of “The Wallflower” that referenced the then-popular twist craze. [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, “Dance With Me Georgie”] The Bobbettes kept switching labels, although usually working with Teddy Vann, for several years, with little chart success. Helen Gathers decided to quit — she stopped touring with the group in 1960, because she didn’t like to travel, and while she continued to record with them for a little while, eventually she left the group altogether, though they remained friendly. The remaining members continued as a quartet for the next twenty years. While the Bobbettes didn’t have much success on their own after 1961, they did score one big hit as the backing group for another singer, when in 1964 they reached number four in the charts backing Johnny Thunder on “Loop De Loop”: [Excerpt: Johnny Thunder, “Loop De Loop”] The rest of the sixties saw them taking part in all sorts of side projects, none of them hugely commercially successful, but many of them interesting in their own right. Probably the oddest was a record released in 1964 to tie in with the film Dr Strangelove, under the name Dr Strangelove and the Fallouts: [Excerpt: Dr Strangelove and the Fallouts, “Love That Bomb”] Reather and Emma, the group’s two strongest singers, also recorded one single as the Soul Angels, featuring another singer, Mattie LaVette: [Excerpt: The Soul Angels, “It’s All In Your Mind”] The Bobbettes continued working together throughout the seventies, though they appear to have split up, at least for a time, around 1974. But by 1977, they’d decided that twenty years on from “Mister Lee”, their reputation from that song was holding them back, and so they attempted a comeback in a disco style, under a new name — the Sophisticated Ladies. [Excerpt: Sophisticated Ladies, “Check it Out”] That got something of a cult following among disco lovers, but it didn’t do anything commercially, and they reverted to the Bobbettes name for their final single, “Love Rhythm”: [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, “Love Rhythm”] But then, tragedy struck — Jannie Pought was stabbed to death in the street, in a random attack by a stranger, in September 1980. She was just thirty-four. The other group members struggled on as a trio. Throughout the eighties and nineties, the group continued performing, still with three original members, though their performances got fewer and fewer. For much of that time they still held out hope that they could revive their recording career, and you see them talking in interviews from the eighties about how they were determined eventually to get a second gold record to go with “Mr. Lee”. They never did, and they never recorded again — although they did eventually get a *platinum* record, as “Mr. Lee” was used in the platinum-selling soundtrack to the film Stand By Me. Laura Webb Childress died in 2001, at which point the two remaining members, the two lead singers of the group, got in a couple of other backing vocalists, and carried on for another thirteen years, playing on bills with other fifties groups like the Flamingos, until Reather Dixon Turner died in 2014, leaving Emma Pought Patron as the only surviving member. Emma appears to have given up touring at that point and retired. The Bobbettes may have only had one major hit under their own name, but they made several very fine records, had a career that let them work together for the rest of their lives, and not only paved the way for every girl group to follow, but also managed to help inspire a whole new genre with the influence they had over reggae. Not bad at all for a bunch of schoolgirls singing a song to make fun of their teacher…
Episode fifty-eight of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "Mr. Lee" by the Bobbettes, and at the lbirth of the girl group sound. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on "Little Bitty Pretty One", by Thurston Harris. ----more---- Resources As always, I've created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. I've used multiple sources to piece together the information here. Marv Goldberg's page is always the go-to for fifties R&B groups. Girl Groups: Fabulous Females Who Rocked the World by John Clemente has an article about the group with some interview material. American Singing Groups by Jay Warner also has an article on the group. Most of the Bobbettes' material is out of print, but handily this CD is coming out next Friday, with most of their important singles on it. I have no idea of its quality, as it's not yet out, but it seems like it should be the CD to get if you want to hear more of their music. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Over the last few months we've seen the introduction to rock and roll music of almost all the elements that would characterise the music in the 1960s -- we have the music slowly standardising on a lineup of guitar, bass, and drums, with electric guitar lead. We have the blues-based melodies, the backbeat, the country-inspired guitar lines. All of them are there. They just need putting together in precisely the right proportions for the familiar sound of the early-sixties beat groups to come out. But there's one element, as important as all of these, which has not yet turned up, and which we're about to see for the first time. And that element is the girl group. Girl groups played a vital part in the development of rock and roll music, and are never given the credit they deserve. But you just have to look at the first Beatles album to see how important they were. Of the six cover versions on "Please Please Me", three are of songs originally recorded by girl groups -- two by the Shirelles, and one by the Cookies. And the thing about the girl groups is that they were marketed as collectives, not as individuals -- occasionally the lead singer would be marketed as a star in her own right, but more normally it would be the group, not the members, who were known. So it's quite surprising that the first R&B girl group to hit the charts was one that, with the exception of one member, managed to keep their original members until they died. and where two of those members were still in the group into the middle of the current decade. So today, we're going to have a look at the group that introduced the girl group sound to rock and roll, and how the world of music was irrevocably changed because of how a few young kids felt about their fifth-grade teacher. [Excerpt: The Bobettes, "Mister Lee"] Now, we have to make a distinction here when we're talking about girl groups. There had, after all, been many vocal groups in the pre-rock era that consisted entirely of women -- the Andrews Sisters, for example, had been hugely popular, as had the Boswell Sisters, who sang the theme song to this show. But those groups were mostly what was then called "modern harmony" -- they were singing block harmonies, often with jazz chords, and singing them on songs that came straight from Tin Pan Alley. There was no R&B influence in them whatsoever. When we talk about girl groups in rock and roll, we're talking about something that quickly became a standard lineup -- you'd have one woman out front singing the lead vocal, and two or three others behind her singing answering phrases and providing "ooh" vocals. The songs they performed would be, almost without exception, in the R&B mould, but would usually have much less gospel influence than the male vocal groups or the R&B solo singers who were coming up at the same time. While doo-wop groups and solo singers were all about showing off individual virtuosity, the girl groups were about the group as a collective -- with very rare exceptions, the lead singers of the girl groups would use very little melisma or ornamentation, and would just sing the melody straight. And when it comes to that kind of girl group, the Bobbettes were the first one to have any real impact. They started out as a group of children who sang after school, at church and at the glee club. The same gang of seven kids, aged between eleven and fifteen, would get together and sing, usually pop songs. After a little while, though, Reather Dixon and Emma Pought, the two girls who'd started this up, decided that they wanted to take things a bit more seriously. They decided that seven girls was too many, and so they whittled the numbers down to the five best singers -- Reather and Emma, plus Helen Gathers, Laura Webb, and Emma's sister Jannie. The girls originally named themselves the Harlem Queens, and started performing at talent shows around New York. We've talked before about how important amateur nights were for black entertainment in the forties and fifties, but it's been a while, so to refresh your memories -- at this point in time, black live entertainment was dominated by what was known as the Chitlin Circuit, an informal network of clubs and theatres around the US which put on largely black acts for almost exclusively black customers. Those venues would often have shows that lasted all day -- a ticket for the Harlem Apollo, for example, would allow you to come and go all day, and see the same performers half a dozen times. To fill out these long bills, as well as getting the acts to perform multiple times a day, several of the chitlin circuit venues would put on talent nights, where young performers could get up on stage and have a chance to win over the audiences, who were notoriously unforgiving. Despite the image we might have in our heads now of amateur talent nights, these talent contests would often produce some of the greatest performers in the music business, and people like Johnny Otis would look to them to discover new talent. They were a way for untried performers to get themselves noticed, and while few did, some of those who managed would go on to have great success. And so in late 1956, the five Harlem Queens, two of them aged only eleven, went on stage at the Harlem Apollo, home of the most notoriously tough audiences in America. But they went down well enough that James Dailey, the manager of a minor bird group called the Ospreys, decided to take them on as well. The Ospreys were a popular group around New York who would eventually get signed to Atlantic, and release records like "Do You Wanna Jump Children": [Excerpt: The Ospreys, "Do You Wanna Jump Children?"] Dailey thought that the Harlem Queens had the potential to be much bigger than the Ospreys, and he decided to try to get them signed to Atlantic Records. But one thing would need to change -- the Harlem Queens sounded more like a motorcycle gang than the name of a vocal group. Laura's sister had just had a baby, who she'd named Chanel Bobbette. They decided to name the group after the baby, but the Chanels sounded too much like the Chantels, a group from the Bronx who had already started performing. So they became the Bobbettes. They signed to Atlantic, where Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler encouraged them to perform their own material. The girls had been writing songs together, and they had one -- essentially a playground chant -- that they'd been singing together for a while, about their fifth-grade teacher Mr. Lee. Depending on who you believe -- the girls gave different accounts over the years -- the song was either attacking him, or merely affectionately mocking his appearance. It called him "four-eyed" and said he was "the ugliest teacher you ever did see". Atlantic liked the feel of the song, but they didn't want the girls singing a song that was just attacking a teacher, and so they insisted on them changing the lyrics. With the help of Reggie Obrecht, the bandleader for the session, who got a co-writing credit on the song largely for transcribing the girls' melody and turning it into something that musicians could play, the song became, instead, a song about "the handsomest sweetie you ever did see": [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, "Mister Lee"] Incidentally, there seems to be some disagreement about who the musicians were on the track. Jacqueline Warwick, in "Girl Groups, Girl Culture", claims that the saxophone solo on "Mr. Lee" was played by King Curtis, who did play on many sessions for Atlantic at the time. It's possible -- and Curtis was an extremely versatile player, but he generally played with a very thick tone. Compare his playing on "Dynamite at Midnight", a solo track he released in 1957: [Excerpt: King Curtis, "Dynamite at Midnight"] With the solo on "Mr Lee": [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, "Mister Lee"] I think it more likely that the credit I've seen in other places, such as Atlantic sessionographies, is correct, and that the sax solo is played by the less-well-known player Jesse Powell, who played on, for example, "Fools Fall in Love" by the Drifters: [Excerpt: The Drifters, "Fools Fall In Love"] If that's correct -- and my ears tell me it is -- then presumably the other credits in those sources are also correct, and the backing for "Mister Lee" was mostly provided by B-team session players, the people who Atlantic would get in for less important sessions, rather than the first-call people they would use on their major artists -- so the musicians were Jesse Powell on tenor sax; Ray Ellis on piano; Alan Hanlon and Al Caiola on guitar; Milt Hinton on bass; and Joe Marshall on drums. "Mr. Lee" became a massive hit, going to number one on the R&B charts and making the top ten on the pop charts, and making the girls the first all-girl R&B vocal group to have a hit record, though they would soon be followed by others -- the Chantels, whose name they had tried not to copy, charted a few weeks later. "Mr. Lee" also inspired several answer records, most notably the instrumental "Walking with Mr. Lee" by Lee Allen, which was a minor hit in 1958, thanks largely to it being regularly featured on American Bandstand: [Excerpt: Lee Allen, "Walking With Mr. Lee"] The song also came to the notice of their teacher -- who seemed to have already known about the girls' song mocking him. He called a couple of the girls out of their class at school, and checked with them that they knew the song had been made into a record. He'd recognised it as the song the girls had sung about him, and he was concerned that perhaps someone had heard the girls singing their song and stolen it from them. They explained that the record was actually them, and he was, according to Reather Dixon, "ecstatic" that the song had been made into a record -- which suggests that whatever the girls' intention with the song, their teacher took it as an affectionate one. However, they didn't stay at that school long after the record became a hit. The girls were sent off on package tours of the Chitlin' circuit, touring with other Atlantic artists like Clyde McPhatter and Ruth Brown, and so they were pulled out of their normal school and started attending The Professional School For Children, a school in New York that was also attended by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers and the Chantels, among others, which would allow them to do their work while on tour and post it back to the school. On the tours, the girls were very much taken under the wing of the adult performers. Men like Sam Cooke, Clyde McPhatter, and Jackie Wilson would take on somewhat paternal roles, trying to ensure that nothing bad would happen to these little girls away from home, while women like Ruth Brown and LaVern Baker would teach them how to dress, how to behave on stage, and what makeup to wear -- something they had been unable to learn from their male manager. Indeed, their manager, James Dailey, had started as a tailor, and for a long time sewed the girls' dresses himself -- which resulted in the group getting a reputation as the worst-dressed group on the circuit, one of the reasons they eventually dumped him. With "Mr. Lee" a massive success, Atlantic wanted the group to produce more of the same -- catchy upbeat novelty numbers that they wrote themselves. The next single, "Speedy", was very much in the "Mr. Lee" style, but was also a more generic song, without "Mr. Lee"'s exuberance: [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, "Speedy"] One interesting thing here is that as well as touring the US, the Bobbettes made several trips to the West Indies, where R&B was hugely popular. The Bobbettes were, along with Gene and Eunice and Fats Domino, one of the US acts who made an outsized impression, particularly in Jamaica, and listening to the rhythms on their early records you can clearly see the influence they would later have on reggae. We'll talk more about reggae and ska in future episodes, but to simplify hugely, the biggest influences on those genres as they were starting in the fifties were calypso, the New Orleans R&B records made in Cosimo Matassa's studio, and the R&B music Atlantic was putting out, and the Bobbettes were a prime part of that influence. "Mr. Lee", in particular, was later recorded by a number of Jamaican reggae artists, including Laurel Aitken: [Excerpt: Laurel Aitken, "Mr. Lee"] And the Harmonians: [Excerpt: the Harmonians, "Music Street"] But while "Mr Lee" was having a massive impact, and the group was a huge live act, they were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the way their recording career was going. Atlantic was insisting that they keep writing songs in the style of "Mr. Lee", but they were so busy they were having to slap the songs together in a hurry rather than spend time working on them, and they wanted to move on to making other kinds of records, especially since all the "Mr. Lee" soundalikes weren't actually hitting the charts. They were also trying to expand by working with other artists -- they would often act as the backing vocalists for other acts on the package shows they were on, and I've read in several sources that they performed uncredited backing vocals on some records for Clyde McPhatter and Ivory Joe Hunter, although nobody ever says which songs they sang on. I can't find an Ivory Joe Hunter song that fits the bill during the Bobbettes' time on Atlantic, but I think "You'll Be There" is a plausible candidate for a Clyde McPhatter song they could have sung on -- it's one of the few records McPhatter made around this time with obviously female vocals on it, it was arranged and conducted by Ray Ellis, who did the same job on the Bobbettes' records, and it was recorded only a few days after a Bobbettes session. I can't identify the voices on the record well enough to be convinced it's them, but it could well be: [Excerpt: Clyde McPhatter, "You'll Be There"] Eventually, after a couple of years of frustration at their being required to rework their one hit, they recorded a track which let us know how they really felt: [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, "I Shot Mr. Lee", Atlantic version] I think that expresses their feelings pretty well. They submitted that to Atlantic, who refused to release it, and dropped the girls from their label. This started a period where they would sign with different labels for one or two singles, and would often cut the same song for different labels. One label they signed to, in 1960, was Triple-X Records, one of the many labels run by George Goldner, the associate of Morris Levy we talked about in the episode on "Why Do Fools Fall In Love", who was known for having the musical taste of a fourteen-year-old girl. There they started what would be a long-term working relationship with the songwriter and producer Teddy Vann. Vann is best known for writing "Love Power" for the Sand Pebbles: [Excerpt: The Sand Pebbles, "Love Power"] And for his later minor novelty hit, "Santa Claus is a Black Man": [Excerpt: Akim and Teddy Vann, "Santa Claus is a Black Man"] But in 1960 he was just starting out, and he was enthusiastic about working with the Bobbettes. One of the first things he did with them was to remake the song that Atlantic had rejected, "I Shot Mr. Lee": [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, "I Shot Mr. Lee", Triple-X version] That became their biggest hit since the original "Mr. Lee", reaching number fifty-two on the Billboard Hot One Hundred, and prompting Atlantic to finally issue the original version of “I Shot Mr. Lee” to compete with it. There were a few follow-ups, which also charted in the lower regions of the charts, most of them, like "I Shot Mr. Lee", answer records, though answers to other people's records. They charted with a remake of Billy Ward and the Dominos' "Have Mercy Baby", with "I Don't Like It Like That", an answer to Chris Kenner's "I Like It Like That", and finally with "Dance With Me Georgie", a reworking of "The Wallflower" that referenced the then-popular twist craze. [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, "Dance With Me Georgie"] The Bobbettes kept switching labels, although usually working with Teddy Vann, for several years, with little chart success. Helen Gathers decided to quit -- she stopped touring with the group in 1960, because she didn't like to travel, and while she continued to record with them for a little while, eventually she left the group altogether, though they remained friendly. The remaining members continued as a quartet for the next twenty years. While the Bobbettes didn't have much success on their own after 1961, they did score one big hit as the backing group for another singer, when in 1964 they reached number four in the charts backing Johnny Thunder on "Loop De Loop": [Excerpt: Johnny Thunder, "Loop De Loop"] The rest of the sixties saw them taking part in all sorts of side projects, none of them hugely commercially successful, but many of them interesting in their own right. Probably the oddest was a record released in 1964 to tie in with the film Dr Strangelove, under the name Dr Strangelove and the Fallouts: [Excerpt: Dr Strangelove and the Fallouts, "Love That Bomb"] Reather and Emma, the group's two strongest singers, also recorded one single as the Soul Angels, featuring another singer, Mattie LaVette: [Excerpt: The Soul Angels, "It's All In Your Mind"] The Bobbettes continued working together throughout the seventies, though they appear to have split up, at least for a time, around 1974. But by 1977, they'd decided that twenty years on from "Mister Lee", their reputation from that song was holding them back, and so they attempted a comeback in a disco style, under a new name -- the Sophisticated Ladies. [Excerpt: Sophisticated Ladies, "Check it Out"] That got something of a cult following among disco lovers, but it didn't do anything commercially, and they reverted to the Bobbettes name for their final single, "Love Rhythm": [Excerpt: The Bobbettes, "Love Rhythm"] But then, tragedy struck -- Jannie Pought was stabbed to death in the street, in a random attack by a stranger, in September 1980. She was just thirty-four. The other group members struggled on as a trio. Throughout the eighties and nineties, the group continued performing, still with three original members, though their performances got fewer and fewer. For much of that time they still held out hope that they could revive their recording career, and you see them talking in interviews from the eighties about how they were determined eventually to get a second gold record to go with "Mr. Lee". They never did, and they never recorded again -- although they did eventually get a *platinum* record, as "Mr. Lee" was used in the platinum-selling soundtrack to the film Stand By Me. Laura Webb Childress died in 2001, at which point the two remaining members, the two lead singers of the group, got in a couple of other backing vocalists, and carried on for another thirteen years, playing on bills with other fifties groups like the Flamingos, until Reather Dixon Turner died in 2014, leaving Emma Pought Patron as the only surviving member. Emma appears to have given up touring at that point and retired. The Bobbettes may have only had one major hit under their own name, but they made several very fine records, had a career that let them work together for the rest of their lives, and not only paved the way for every girl group to follow, but also managed to help inspire a whole new genre with the influence they had over reggae. Not bad at all for a bunch of schoolgirls singing a song to make fun of their teacher...
With Gary U.S. Bonds, Carole King, Elvis Presley, Chris Kenner, Glen Campbell, The Harptones, Dinah Washington, Nolan Strong & The Diablos... Summer is coming to a close. School is in and the autumn leaves will be coming down in no time. Our twin spin this week is Jack Scott's "My True Love" and its b-side "Leroy" (I prefer the b-side). Some originals folks!!! - "Turn Around, Look At Me" by Glen Campbell (later covered by the Vogues) and "Land of A 1,000 Dances" by Chris Kenner (later covered by Wilson Pickett among others).
The second in our trio of interviews is with David Copperfield's Executive Producer Chris Kenner. In this interview Chris discusses his thoughts on creativity in magic and the overuse of that particular word. He also talks about his generosity towards young magicians and why he doesn't give them advice. Chris also shares the story of his first meeting with David Copperfield and how he made his way up the ranks to his current position. He talks about why the Tornado of Fire TV special was David's last and also shares an anecdote about a disagreement with the boss in a high pressure environment.
He's really polite. He does amazing dove magic. He's won IBM Stage Magician of the Year. The Magic Circle's Stage Magician of the Year. And he's been part of a hugely successful magic touring show, The Masters of Illusion. Join us as Edward talks about doves, meeting your heroes and sitting on the floor with Chris Kenner doing a coins across routine.
Another off-site episode! We traveled to the luxurious basement of Chris Kenner to drunkenly discuss the surprisingly women-empowering film “Stripped To Kill”!So cut a hole in your favorite hoodie, plug in a few hundred lava lamps, and prepare for an excessive amount of costume changes and 80’s titties!
A surprisingly feminist/women-forward movie about a police officer going undercover as a stripper to catch a killer. You read that right. We watched “Stripped To Kill” with special guest Chris Kenner! Check out the trailer and listen to your new homework episode!
In 1991, the “buddy cop” genre was a staple of the action films of the era. Action-packed with tongue firmly in cheek, these films were testosterone-heavy and fun! Showdown in Little Tokyo remains a prime example of this bygone era. Dolph Lundgren stars as Sgt. Chris Kenner, a wrecking ball of a cop who is partnered with a young Brandon Lee as they take on the Yakuza who are on the verge of taking over Los Angeles. And wouldn’t you know it… These detectives have the necessary martial arts skills needed to stop this takeover! At barely 80 minutes, Showdown packs in loads of action sequences, Tia Carrere, training montages, funny banter, and unforgettable one-liners (some that I imagine many would choose to forget)! Joining me to reminisce about this cult classic are two regulars to the show – Chris Prentice and Jeremie Damoiseau (of the Dolph Ultimate website). Is Lundgren’s Kenner actually a reincarnated samurai warrior (who’s also invincible)? What does David Michael Frank’s memorable score bring to the film? Exactly how many continuity errors are present in Showdown? And what is with Brandon Lee’s infamous line of dialogue? Join us as we discuss Showdown, its production, and cult status 27 years later! Major thanks to Chris Prentice and Jeremie Damoiseau for joining me. Please check out Jeremie’s Lundgren fansite: dolph-forum.com. Also be sure to be on the lookout for Jeremie’s book, The Punisher: The Untold Story of an 80’s Cult Classic, to be released soon in the US! www.facebook.com/ThePunisher.FilmBook; www.instagram.com/punisher.book; twitter.com/Punisher_Book. Feel free to rate and review the show on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever else you subscribe!
Showdown in Little Tokyo is a 1991 action film. It features Brandon Lee in his first American film role, starring alongside Dolph Lundgren. In this film set in Los Angeles, two police officers (Johnny Murata and Sgt. Chris Kenner, respectively) attempt to take down a Yakuza drug operation. The tone of the movie follows the traditional buddy cop formula. Show notes and links: Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991) (imdb.com) Craption! Showdown In Little Tokyo (dammagedgoods.com) Showdown in Little Tokyo - Internet Movie Firearms Database (imfdb.org) Showdown in Little Tokyo (Film) (tvtropes.org)
This week, I bring you an interview with Steve Chezaday who shares some advice and insights from his years performing full-time. Topics include dealing with clients, pricing, managing your money, and customizing and maintaining your props. There’s a lot insight to be gained from this chat. Chezaday is a magician who’s pretty much done it all from close up magic to grand illusion. His energetic show has taken him all over the country. He’s toured with Abbott’s Magic Festival and is also quite handy when it comes to building props and stage illusions. And he can do it all while rockin’ an air guitar! Success Mantra Always be prepared. Always have your money work for you. Personalizing & Maintaining Show Props • Personalizing props. • Custom painting goes a long way. • Putting your own twist or spin on routines. • Constantly capturing your own ideas on paper so you don’t lose them. • Importance of quick reset. • Preparing and maintaining larger props. • Having protective cases for everything in a stage show. Other Topics Covered • Talks about how he gets shows. • Stacking shows. Knowing your setup & teardown time and being efficient. • The importance of saving and investing your money. • Talked about how he had a part time job for a long time which helped him to build his magic career. • How his correspondences with clients are mainly online through email now. • Making your clients feel like they’re getting a bargain. • The psychology of charging $295 instead of $300. • Don’t sell your magic, sell you. You want them to want you, not just “a magician." • Don’t let people wait, because someone else will get back to a potential client if you don’t. • Talks about working with the best and the worst in the industry while doing the Abbott’s show. • Don’t be a prima donna. Try to make everything as simple as you can and treat everyone well. Be reasonable. Failure Moment Talks about a last-minute hell gig that came about because of miscommunication. Favorite Success Some of the charities that he’s able to work with. Parting Advice Love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life. Recommended books and resources: Note: Many of the links in this section are affiliate links, meaning we earn a small portion of any sales. If you're enjoying our podcast and decide to purchase one of the recommended resources or books, please consider using our affiliate links to help support the work we're doing here at the Successful Performercast. Thanks! Resources: Pages on Mac Rising Card App by Chris Kenner Books: Me Inc. by Gene Simmons Beating a Dead Horse by Sandy Marshall The Magical Life of Marshall Brodien Where can we find Steve Chezaday? Chezaday.com Steve on Facebook
They're back! After a long absence Angel Baby and regular guest Dick Blackburn return to scratch stacks of obscuro jumped up wax. From sassy gal cover versions, to rockin' octogenearians, from wild west wig-outs to nursery rhyme rompers, they spin each and every poundin' sound from uptown to downtown that's fit to be put down. You Can't Stay Here (Step It Up And Go) – Pearl Reaves and "The Concords" – Harlem / Roll Over Beethoven – Helene Dixon – Vik / Playmates – The Regents – Blue Cat / Where You Been! – Lloyd “Fatman” – Okeh / You Should’a Treated Me Right – Eloise – Wand / Check You Later – Eddie And Gene And The Nightcaps – Tonjo / You Oughta See Grandma Rock – Skeets McDonald – Capitol / Grandma – Long John Hunter – Yucca / Grandpa’s Rock – Trail Blazers with vocal by Ray Darden – Watson / Princess Whitefoot – Little Dickie Chaffin and Cheyenne Cowboys – Karl / Uprisin – The Glentells – S&R / The Adventures of the Lone Ranger (Intro) – Decca / Hi Ho Silver – The Marc IV – Continental / Humpity Dumpity – Gene Vincent – UK Columbia / Cinderella – Chris Kenner – Instant / Old King Cole – The Arrows – New Sound / Shape Up – Otis White and The Hillrockers – Gala / Let Me In – The Sorrows – Piccadilly / Go Get 'Em – The Chevies And Premiers featuring Alice Spinner – Intern
Programa de radio dedicado al blues con interpretes como Lester Williams, Willie Trice, Chris Kenner y Hokum Boys
Programa de radio dedicado al blues con interpretes como Lester Williams, Willie Trice, Chris Kenner y Hokum Boys
Twas the week before Christmas and things got weirder than usual on Ripley Radio, the official radio broadcast of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! We hear how hot-dog eating champion Joey Chestnut added dessert to his repertoire and won a Twinkie eating contest by downing more than 10 pounds of those sweet little delights accounting for 18,000-plus calories! And, Jodi Pliszka reveals how drinking a whole lot of cola over a long period of time, can be quite detrimental to your health. Additional Wacky and Unbelievable Stories on the Dec. 16 episode of Ripley Radio: Angela unveils where the most unusual, and most dangerous drinking locations are in the world; Florida TV personality Scott Fais explains how the state’s snowbirds this year may be upset to learn that a popular hot springs soaking spot located in a deep sinkhole, has been closed; in Texas, lightning does strike twice when it hits the same man twice within seconds while he competed in the off-road challenge – Paychecks for Rednecks; and Varla Ventura, author of Banshees, Werewolves, Vampires and Other Creatures of the Night, provides a primer on the Irish fairy creature, the Banshee. Chris Kenner provides this week’s musical egress with the original version of 1961’s I Like it Like That!
Wayne Houchin has been creating magic since trying to duplicate the illusions of David Copperfield with cardboard boxes in his family's living room. He went on to stage a straight jacket escape while hanging from a crane in order to promote his first series of shows at the age of sixteen. In 2003, an underground tape of Wayne's original magic was seen by acclaimed mentalist Banachek who immediately recognized Wayne's potential. While consulting for the first season of Criss Angel : Mindfreak, Banachek suggested that Wayne be brough on to assist in the production of several of his original effects. In 2007 Houchin, Jonathan Bayme, Chris Kenner, B.J. Bueno, and Dana Hocking formerd Theory 11, a new online entity devoted to the advancement of the art of magic. Today, Wayne is releasing his latest project, "The Art of Magic" as a DVD or online download. Wayne joins us on the Magic Newswire's Spirit of Magic podcast to discuss his philosophy and thoughts on magic today.
Prior to a concert by Allen Toussaint and Henry Butler at the Library of Congress, Toussaint sat for an interview with Larry Appelbaum about his hit records, life in the recording studios, the New Orleans piano tradition, Professor Longhair, the challenges of songwriting and producing and the impact of Hurricane Katrina. Speaker Biography: Allen Toussaint (b. 1938) is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and one of most influential figures in New Orleans popular music. He has worked with a wide range of artists including Elvis Costello, Patti LaBelle, Dr. John, Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Etta James, Aaron Neville and many others. Toussaint began his studio career supervising recordings for Minit Records and Instant Records in New Orleans, writing and producing hits for Ernie K-Doe, Irma Thomas, Art and Aaron Neville, Chris Kenner and Benny Spellman. His string of hits continued with the songs "Java" and "Whipped Cream" (Herb Alpert), "Yes, We Can Can" (Pointer Sisters), "Sneaking Sally Through The Alley" (Robert Palmer), "Lady Marmalade" (LaBelle) and "Southern Night" (Glen Campbell). Speaker Biography: Larry Appelbaum is a music specialist at the Library of Congress. For captions, transcript, and more information, visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5343.
In a special cross promotion with the Dan Sperry Live Show, we bring you our coverage of the America’s Got Talent results show where iTricks’ own Dan Sperry advanced to the semifinals. Justin Robert Young is joined by Rudy Coby and Chris Kenner. .
Rudy Coby is back with a vengeance! After more than a decade away from magic, Rudy has returned to stage one of the most successful events in the history of the Magic Castle. For one week only the Magic Castle was transformed into a wild laboratory where Mad Scientists battle the World's Greatest Magicians. Featured performers included Chris Kenner, Brian Brushwood, Andrew Mayne, Marilyn Manson and many more. Rudy is best known for the character that he plays on stage. "Labman" is a Scientific Superhero who claims to be a strange invader from this very planet. His original magic creations have brought him worldwide success with appearances in dozens of different countries including two primetime Fox-TV specials Rudy Coby: The Coolest Magician On Earth here in the US. Rudy's renewed enthusiasm for magic is infectious and you are sure to rediscover your passion for the art after this episode of This Week in Magic. This is Part Two of our interview with "The Coolest Magician on Earth"
Rudy Coby is back with a vengeance! After more than a decade away from magic, Rudy has returned to stage one of the most successful events in the history of the Magic Castle. For one week only the Magic Castle is transformed into a wild laboratory where Mad Scientists battle the World's Greatest Magicians. Featured performers included Chris Kenner, Brian Brushwood, Andrew Mayne, Marilyn Manson and many more. Rudy is best known for the character that he plays on stage. "Labman" is a Scientific Superhero who claims to be a strange invader from this very planet. His original magic creations have brought him worldwide success with appearances in dozens of different countries including two primetime Fox-TV specials Rudy Coby: The Coolest Magician On Earth here in the US. Rudy's renewed enthusiasm for magic is infectious and you are sure to rediscover your passion for the art after this episode of This Week in Magic.
This podcast features one of the most respected and creative minds in magic, Chris Kenner. Listen in as he speaks about the art of magic, what makes Magic-Con different, and what we can expect from him and others in March.
© 2020-2025 Ivy Podcast Discovery LLC
