Podcasts about country joe mcdonald

Vor 50 Jahren, am 30. April 1975, endete der Vietnamkrieg. Insgesamt 20 Jahre hat er gedauert, Millionen Opfer gefordert auf beiden Seiten und die US-Gesellschaft gespalten. Es war der erste Krieg, der medial präsent war, über die Bildschirme der USA flackerte und auch in der Musik verhandelt wurde. · Es gibt heute über 4000 Songs über den Vietnamkrieg, kein Krieg hat mehr Musik hervorgebracht. Warum hat der Vietnamkrieg eine so strake musikalische Identität? · Die US-amerikanische Rock- und Popmusik war einerseits elementarer Bestandteil der Propaganda während des Vietnamkrieges, andererseits aber auch des Protests. Einige Beispiele. · 1969 schleuderten tausende Hippies dem Krieg in Woodstock das wahrscheinlich berühmteste «Fuck» der Geschichte entgegen. Wie Country Joe McDonalds «I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die-Rag» zu einer der grössten Hymnen der Friedensbewegung wurde · Fast jeder Soldat in Vietnam hatte «seinen» Song. Musik half den US-Soldaten in Vietnam, den Kriegsalltag zu überstehen, die Todesangst zu überwinden und war ihre Verbindung nach Hause · In Dschungelcamps und Kasernen in Vietnam ertönte Musik aus Kassettenrekordern, tragbaren Plattenspielern und Radiogeräten. Und die Soldaten machten selbst Musik: Mit Gitarren, Mundharmonikas und anderen Instrumenten. · Auch nach dem offiziellen Kriegsende 1975 ging die musikalische Auseinandersetzung mit dem Vietnamkrieg weiter. Viele US-amerikanischen Musikerinnen und Musiker, wie Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel oder R.E.M. bearbeiten die Folgen. Und die Veteranen machen selbst Musik, um ihre Erlebnisse zu verarbeiten. · Im Podcast zu hören sind: · Doug Bradley (*1947), Kriegsveteran und Autor, z.B. «We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War» (UMass Press, 2015, zusammen mit Craig Werner) · Detlev Hoegen, Geschäftsführer vom deutschen Label Bear Family Records. 2010 erschien die CD-Box «Next Stop is Vietnam. The War on Record 1961-2008» · Country Joe McDonald (*1942), Musiker und Protestsänger. Mit dem «I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die-Rag» schuf er 1965 eine der grossen Anti-Vietnamkriegshymnen Bei Fragen, Anregungen oder Themenvorschlägen schreibt uns: kontext@srf.ch Autorin: Elisabeth Baureithel Host: Bernard Senn Produktion: Dagmar Walser Technik: Thomas Baumgartner

Episode 169 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Piece of My Heart" and the short, tragic life of Janis Joplin. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a half-hour bonus episode available, on "Spinning Wheel" by Blood, Sweat & Tears. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources There are two Mixcloud mixes this time. As there are so many songs by Big Brother and the Holding Company and Janis Joplin excerpted, and Mixcloud won't allow more than four songs by the same artist in any mix, I've had to post the songs not in quite the same order in which they appear in the podcast. But the mixes are here — one, two . For information on Janis Joplin I used three biographies -- Scars of Sweet Paradise by Alice Echols, Janis: Her Life and Music by Holly George-Warren, and Buried Alive by Myra Friedman. I also referred to the chapter '“Being Good Isn't Always Easy": Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Dusty Springfield, and the Color of Soul' in Just Around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination by Jack Hamilton. Some information on Bessie Smith came from Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay, a book I can't really recommend given the lack of fact-checking, and Bessie by Chris Albertson. I also referred to Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday by Angela Y. Davis And the best place to start with Joplin's music is this five-CD box, which contains both Big Brother and the Holding Company albums she was involved in, plus her two studio albums and bonus tracks. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I start, this episode contains discussion of drug addiction and overdose, alcoholism, mental illness, domestic abuse, child abandonment, and racism. If those subjects are likely to cause you upset, you may want to check the transcript or skip this one rather than listen. Also, a subject I should probably say a little more about in this intro because I know I have inadvertently caused upset to at least one listener with this in the past. When it comes to Janis Joplin, it is *impossible* to talk about her without discussing her issues with her weight and self-image. The way I write often involves me paraphrasing the opinions of the people I'm writing about, in a mode known as close third person, and sometimes that means it can look like I am stating those opinions as my own, and sometimes things I say in that mode which *I* think are obviously meant in context to be critiques of those attitudes can appear to others to be replicating them. At least once, I have seriously upset a fat listener when talking about issues related to weight in this manner. I'm going to try to be more careful here, but just in case, I'm going to say before I begin that I think fatphobia is a pernicious form of bigotry, as bad as any other form of bigotry. I'm fat myself and well aware of how systemic discrimination affects fat people. I also think more generally that the pressure put on women to look a particular way is pernicious and disgusting in ways I can't even begin to verbalise, and causes untold harm. If *ANYTHING* I say in this episode comes across as sounding otherwise, that's because I haven't expressed myself clearly enough. Like all people, Janis Joplin had negative characteristics, and at times I'm going to say things that are critical of those. But when it comes to anything to do with her weight or her appearance, if *anything* I say sounds critical of her, rather than of a society that makes women feel awful for their appearance, it isn't meant to. Anyway, on with the show. On January the nineteenth, 1943, Seth Joplin typed up a letter to his wife Dorothy, which read “I wish to tender my congratulations on the anniversary of your successful completion of your production quota for the nine months ending January 19, 1943. I realize that you passed through a period of inflation such as you had never before known—yet, in spite of this, you met your goal by your supreme effort during the early hours of January 19, a good three weeks ahead of schedule.” As you can probably tell from that message, the Joplin family were a strange mixture of ultraconformism and eccentricity, and those two opposing forces would dominate the personality of their firstborn daughter for the whole of her life.  Seth Joplin was a respected engineer at Texaco, where he worked for forty years, but he had actually dropped out of engineering school before completing his degree. His favourite pastime when he wasn't at work was to read -- he was a voracious reader -- and to listen to classical music, which would often move him to tears, but he had also taught himself to make bathtub gin during prohibition, and smoked cannabis. Dorothy, meanwhile, had had the possibility of a singing career before deciding to settle down and become a housewife, and was known for having a particularly beautiful soprano voice. Both were, by all accounts, fiercely intelligent people, but they were also as committed as anyone to the ideals of the middle-class family even as they chafed against its restrictions. Like her mother, young Janis had a beautiful soprano voice, and she became a soloist in her church choir, but after the age of six, she was not encouraged to sing much. Dorothy had had a thyroid operation which destroyed her singing voice, and the family got rid of their piano soon after (different sources say that this was either because Dorothy found her daughter's singing painful now that she couldn't sing herself, or because Seth was upset that his wife could no longer sing. Either seems plausible.) Janis was pushed to be a high-achiever -- she was given a library card as soon as she could write her name, and encouraged to use it, and she was soon advanced in school, skipping a couple of grades. She was also by all accounts a fiercely talented painter, and her parents paid for art lessons. From everything one reads about her pre-teen years, she was a child prodigy who was loved by everyone and who was clearly going to be a success of some kind. Things started to change when she reached her teenage years. Partly, this was just her getting into rock and roll music, which her father thought a fad -- though even there, she differed from her peers. She loved Elvis, but when she heard "Hound Dog", she loved it so much that she tracked down a copy of Big Mama Thornton's original, and told her friends she preferred that: [Excerpt: Big Mama Thornton, "Hound Dog"] Despite this, she was still also an exemplary student and overachiever. But by the time she turned fourteen, things started to go very wrong for her. Partly this was just down to her relationship with her father changing -- she adored him, but he became more distant from his daughters as they grew into women. But also, puberty had an almost wholly negative effect on her, at least by the standards of that time and place. She put on weight (which, again, I do not think is a negative thing, but she did, and so did everyone around her), she got a bad case of acne which didn't ever really go away, and she also didn't develop breasts particularly quickly -- which, given that she was a couple of years younger than the other people in the same classes at school, meant she stood out even more. In the mid-sixties, a doctor apparently diagnosed her as having a "hormone imbalance" -- something that got to her as a possible explanation for why she was, to quote from a letter she wrote then, "not really a woman or enough of one or something." She wondered if "maybe something as simple as a pill could have helped out or even changed that part of me I call ME and has been so messed up.” I'm not a doctor and even if I were, diagnosing historical figures is an unethical thing to do, but certainly the acne, weight gain, and mental health problems she had are all consistent with PCOS, the most common endocrine disorder among women, and it seems likely given what the doctor told her that this was the cause. But at the time all she knew was that she was different, and that in the eyes of her fellow students she had gone from being pretty to being ugly. She seems to have been a very trusting, naive, person who was often the brunt of jokes but who desperately needed to be accepted, and it became clear that her appearance wasn't going to let her fit into the conformist society she was being brought up in, while her high intelligence, low impulse control, and curiosity meant she couldn't even fade into the background. This left her one other option, and she decided that she would deliberately try to look and act as different from everyone else as possible. That way, it would be a conscious choice on her part to reject the standards of her fellow pupils, rather than her being rejected by them. She started to admire rebels. She became a big fan of Jerry Lee Lewis, whose music combined the country music she'd grown up hearing in Texas, the R&B she liked now, and the rebellious nature she was trying to cultivate: [Excerpt: Jerry Lee Lewis, "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On"] When Lewis' career was derailed by his marriage to his teenage cousin, Joplin wrote an angry letter to Time magazine complaining that they had mistreated him in their coverage. But as with so many people of her generation, her love of rock and roll music led her first to the blues and then to folk, and she soon found herself listening to Odetta: [Excerpt: Odetta, "Muleskinner Blues"] One of her first experiences of realising she could gain acceptance from her peers by singing was when she was hanging out with the small group of Bohemian teenagers she was friendly with, and sang an Odetta song, mimicking her voice exactly. But young Janis Joplin was listening to an eclectic range of folk music, and could mimic more than just Odetta. For all that her later vocal style was hugely influenced by Odetta and by other Black singers like Big Mama Thornton and Etta James, her friends in her late teens and early twenties remember her as a vocal chameleon with an achingly pure soprano, who would more often than Odetta be imitating the great Appalachian traditional folk singer Jean Ritchie: [Excerpt: Jean Ritchie, "Lord Randall"] She was, in short, trying her best to become a Beatnik, despite not having any experience of that subculture other than what she read in books -- though she *did* read about them in books, devouring things like Kerouac's On The Road. She came into conflict with her mother, who didn't understand what was happening to her daughter, and who tried to get family counselling to understand what was going on. Her father, who seemed to relate more to Janis, but who was more quietly eccentric, put an end to that, but Janis would still for the rest of her life talk about how her mother had taken her to doctors who thought she was going to end up "either in jail or an insane asylum" to use her words. From this point on, and for the rest of her life, she was torn between a need for approval from her family and her peers, and a knowledge that no matter what she did she couldn't fit in with normal societal expectations. In high school she was a member of the Future Nurses of America, the Future Teachers of America, the Art Club, and Slide Rule Club, but she also had a reputation as a wild girl, and as sexually active (even though by all accounts at this point she was far less so than most of the so-called "good girls" – but her later activity was in part because she felt that if she was going to have that reputation anyway she might as well earn it). She also was known to express radical opinions, like that segregation was wrong, an opinion that the other students in her segregated Texan school didn't even think was wrong, but possibly some sort of sign of mental illness. Her final High School yearbook didn't contain a single other student's signature. And her initial choice of university, Lamar State College of Technology, was not much better. In the next town over, and attended by many of the same students, it had much the same attitudes as the school she'd left. Almost the only long-term effect her initial attendance at university had on her was a negative one -- she found there was another student at the college who was better at painting. Deciding that if she wasn't going to be the best at something she didn't want to do it at all, she more or less gave up on painting at that point. But there was one positive. One of the lecturers at Lamar was Francis Edward "Ab" Abernethy, who would in the early seventies go on to become the Secretary and Editor of the Texas Folklore Society, and was also a passionate folk musician, playing double bass in string bands. Abernethy had a great collection of blues 78s. and it was through this collection that Janis first discovered classic blues, and in particular Bessie Smith: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Black Mountain Blues"] A couple of episodes ago, we had a long look at the history of the music that now gets called "the blues" -- the music that's based around guitars, and generally involves a solo male vocalist, usually Black during its classic period. At the time that music was being made though it wouldn't have been thought of as "the blues" with no modifiers by most people who were aware of it. At the start, even the songs they were playing weren't thought of as blues by the male vocalist/guitarists who played them -- they called the songs they played "reels". The music released by people like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Son House, Robert Johnson, Kokomo Arnold and so on was thought of as blues music, and people would understand and agree with a phrase like "Lonnie Johnson is a blues singer", but it wasn't the first thing people thought of when they talked about "the blues". Until relatively late -- probably some time in the 1960s -- if you wanted to talk about blues music made by Black men with guitars and only that music, you talked about "country blues". If you thought about "the blues", with no qualifiers, you thought about a rather different style of music, one that white record collectors started later to refer to as "classic blues" to differentiate it from what they were now calling "the blues". Nowadays of course if you say "classic blues", most people will think you mean Muddy Waters or John Lee Hooker, people who were contemporary at the time those white record collectors were coming up with their labels, and so that style of music gets referred to as "vaudeville blues", or as "classic female blues": [Excerpt: Mamie Smith, "Crazy Blues"] What we just heard was the first big blues hit performed by a Black person, from 1920, and as we discussed in the episode on "Crossroads" that revolutionised the whole record industry when it came out. The song was performed by Mamie Smith, a vaudeville performer, and was originally titled "Harlem Blues" by its writer, Perry Bradford, before he changed the title to "Crazy Blues" to get it to a wider audience. Bradford was an important figure in the vaudeville scene, though other than being the credited writer of "Keep A-Knockin'" he's little known these days. He was a Black musician and grew up playing in minstrel shows (the history of minstrelsy is a topic for another day, but it's more complicated than the simple image of blackface that we are aware of today -- though as with many "more complicated than that" things it is, also the simple image of blackface we're aware of). He was the person who persuaded OKeh records that there would be a market for music made by Black people that sounded Black (though as we're going to see in this episode, what "sounding Black" means is a rather loaded question). "Crazy Blues" was the result, and it was a massive hit, even though it was marketed specifically towards Black listeners: [Excerpt: Mamie Smith, "Crazy Blues"] The big stars of the early years of recorded blues were all making records in the shadow of "Crazy Blues", and in the case of its very biggest stars, they were working very much in the same mould. The two most important blues stars of the twenties both got their start in vaudeville, and were both women. Ma Rainey, like Mamie Smith, first performed in minstrel shows, but where Mamie Smith's early records had her largely backed by white musicians, Rainey was largely backed by Black musicians, including on several tracks Louis Armstrong: [Excerpt: Ma Rainey, "See See Rider"] Rainey's band was initially led by Thomas Dorsey, one of the most important men in American music, who we've talked about before in several episodes, including the last one. He was possibly the single most important figure in two different genres -- hokum music, when he, under the name "Georgia Tom" recorded "It's Tight Like That" with Tampa Red: [Excerpt: Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, "It's Tight Like That"] And of course gospel music, which to all intents and purposes he invented, and much of whose repertoire he wrote: [Excerpt: Mahalia Jackson, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord"] When Dorsey left Rainey's band, as we discussed right back in episode five, he was replaced by a female pianist, Lil Henderson. The blues was a woman's genre. And Ma Rainey was, by preference, a woman's woman, though she was married to a man: [Excerpt: Ma Rainey, "Prove it on Me"] So was the biggest star of the classic blues era, who was originally mentored by Rainey. Bessie Smith, like Rainey, was a queer woman who had relationships with men but was far more interested in other women.  There were stories that Bessie Smith actually got her start in the business by being kidnapped by Ma Rainey, and forced into performing on the same bills as her in the vaudeville show she was touring in, and that Rainey taught Smith to sing blues in the process. In truth, Rainey mentored Smith more in stagecraft and the ways of the road than in singing, and neither woman was only a blues singer, though both had huge success with their blues records.  Indeed, since Rainey was already in the show, Smith was initially hired as a dancer rather than a singer, and she also worked as a male impersonator. But Smith soon branched out on her own -- from the beginning she was obviously a star. The great jazz clarinettist Sidney Bechet later said of her "She had this trouble in her, this thing that would not let her rest sometimes, a meanness that came and took her over. But what she had was alive … Bessie, she just wouldn't let herself be; it seemed she couldn't let herself be." Bessie Smith was signed by Columbia Records in 1923, as part of the rush to find and record as many Black women blues singers as possible. Her first recording session produced "Downhearted Blues", which became, depending on which sources you read, either the biggest-selling blues record since "Crazy Blues" or the biggest-selling blues record ever, full stop, selling three quarters of a million copies in the six months after its release: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Downhearted Blues"] Smith didn't make royalties off record sales, only making a flat fee, but she became the most popular Black performer of the 1920s. Columbia signed her to an exclusive contract, and she became so rich that she would literally travel between gigs on her own private train. She lived an extravagant life in every way, giving lavishly to her friends and family, but also drinking extraordinary amounts of liquor, having regular affairs, and also often physically or verbally attacking those around her. By all accounts she was not a comfortable person to be around, and she seemed to be trying to fit an entire lifetime into every moment. From 1923 through 1929 she had a string of massive hits. She recorded material in a variety of styles, including the dirty blues: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Empty Bed Blues] And with accompanists like Louis Armstrong: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith with Louis Armstrong, "Cold in Hand Blues"] But the music for which she became best known, and which sold the best, was when she sang about being mistreated by men, as on one of her biggest hits, "'Tain't Nobody's Biz-Ness if I Do" -- and a warning here, I'm going to play a clip of the song, which treats domestic violence in a way that may be upsetting: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "'Tain't Nobody's Biz-Ness if I Do"] That kind of material can often seem horrifying to today's listeners -- and quite correctly so, as domestic violence is a horrifying thing -- and it sounds entirely too excusing of the man beating her up for anyone to find it comfortable listening. But the Black feminist scholar Angela Davis has made a convincing case that while these records, and others by Smith's contemporaries, can't reasonably be considered to be feminist, they *are* at the very least more progressive than they now seem, in that they were, even if excusing it, pointing to a real problem which was otherwise left unspoken. And that kind of domestic violence and abuse *was* a real problem, including in Smith's own life. By all accounts she was terrified of her husband, Jack Gee, who would frequently attack her because of her affairs with other people, mostly women. But she was still devastated when he left her for a younger woman, not only because he had left her, but also because he kidnapped their adopted son and had him put into a care home, falsely claiming she had abused him. Not only that, but before Jack left her closest friend had been Jack's niece Ruby and after the split she never saw Ruby again -- though after her death Ruby tried to have a blues career as "Ruby Smith", taking her aunt's surname and recording a few tracks with Sammy Price, the piano player who worked with Sister Rosetta Tharpe: [Excerpt: Ruby Smith with Sammy Price, "Make Me Love You"] The same month, May 1929, that Gee left her, Smith recorded what was to become her last big hit, and most well-known song, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out": [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out"] And that could have been the theme for the rest of her life. A few months after that record came out, the Depression hit, pretty much killing the market for blues records. She carried on recording until 1931, but the records weren't selling any more. And at the same time, the talkies came in in the film industry, which along with the Depression ended up devastating the vaudeville audience. Her earnings were still higher than most, but only a quarter of what they had been a year or two earlier. She had one last recording session in 1933, produced by John Hammond for OKeh Records, where she showed that her style had developed over the years -- it was now incorporating the newer swing style, and featured future swing stars Benny Goodman and Jack Teagarden in the backing band: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Gimme a Pigfoot"] Hammond was not hugely impressed with the recordings, preferring her earlier records, and they would be the last she would ever make. She continued as a successful, though no longer record-breaking, live act until 1937, when she and her common-law husband, Lionel Hampton's uncle Richard Morgan, were in a car crash. Morgan escaped, but Smith died of her injuries and was buried on October the fourth 1937. Ten thousand people came to her funeral, but she was buried in an unmarked grave -- she was still legally married to Gee, even though they'd been separated for eight years, and while he supposedly later became rich from songwriting royalties from some of her songs (most of her songs were written by other people, but she wrote a few herself) he refused to pay for a headstone for her. Indeed on more than one occasion he embezzled money that had been raised by other people to provide a headstone. Bessie Smith soon became Joplin's favourite singer of all time, and she started trying to copy her vocals. But other than discovering Smith's music, Joplin seems to have had as terrible a time at university as at school, and soon dropped out and moved back in with her parents. She went to business school for a short while, where she learned some secretarial skills, and then she moved west, going to LA where two of her aunts lived, to see if she could thrive better in a big West Coast city than she did in small-town Texas. Soon she moved from LA to Venice Beach, and from there had a brief sojourn in San Francisco, where she tried to live out her beatnik fantasies at a time when the beatnik culture was starting to fall apart. She did, while she was there, start smoking cannabis, though she never got a taste for that drug, and took Benzedrine and started drinking much more heavily than she had before. She soon lost her job, moved back to Texas, and re-enrolled at the same college she'd been at before. But now she'd had a taste of real Bohemian life -- she'd been singing at coffee houses, and having affairs with both men and women -- and soon she decided to transfer to the University of Texas at Austin. At this point, Austin was very far from the cultural centre it has become in recent decades, and it was still a straitlaced Texan town, but it was far less so than Port Arthur, and she soon found herself in a folk group, the Waller Creek Boys. Janis would play autoharp and sing, sometimes Bessie Smith covers, but also the more commercial country and folk music that was popular at the time, like "Silver Threads and Golden Needles", a song that had originally been recorded by Wanda Jackson but at that time was a big hit for Dusty Springfield's group The Springfields: [Excerpt: The Waller Creek Boys, "Silver Threads and Golden Needles"] But even there, Joplin didn't fit in comfortably. The venue where the folk jams were taking place was a segregated venue, as everywhere around Austin was. And she was enough of a misfit that the campus newspaper did an article on her headlined "She Dares to Be Different!", which read in part "She goes barefooted when she feels like it, wears Levi's to class because they're more comfortable, and carries her Autoharp with her everywhere she goes so that in case she gets the urge to break out into song it will be handy." There was a small group of wannabe-Beatniks, including Chet Helms, who we've mentioned previously in the Grateful Dead episode, Gilbert Shelton, who went on to be a pioneer of alternative comics and create the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, and Shelton's partner in Rip-Off Press, Dave Moriarty, but for the most part the atmosphere in Austin was only slightly better for Janis than it had been in Port Arthur. The final straw for her came when in an annual charity fundraiser joke competition to find the ugliest man on campus, someone nominated her for the "award". She'd had enough of Texas. She wanted to go back to California. She and Chet Helms, who had dropped out of the university earlier and who, like her, had already spent some time on the West Coast, decided to hitch-hike together to San Francisco. Before leaving, she made a recording for her ex-girlfriend Julie Paul, a country and western musician, of a song she'd written herself. It's recorded in what many say was Janis' natural voice -- a voice she deliberately altered in performance in later years because, she would tell people, she didn't think there was room for her singing like that in an industry that already had Joan Baez and Judy Collins. In her early years she would alternate between singing like this and doing her imitations of Black women, but the character of Janis Joplin who would become famous never sang like this. It may well be the most honest thing that she ever recorded, and the most revealing of who she really was: [Excerpt: Janis Joplin, "So Sad to Be Alone"] Joplin and Helms made it to San Francisco, and she started performing at open-mic nights and folk clubs around the Bay Area, singing in her Bessie Smith and Odetta imitation voice, and sometimes making a great deal of money by sounding different from the wispier-voiced women who were the norm at those venues. The two friends parted ways, and she started performing with two other folk musicians, Larry Hanks and Roger Perkins, and she insisted that they would play at least one Bessie Smith song at every performance: [Excerpt: Janis Joplin, Larry Hanks, and Roger Perkins, "Black Mountain Blues (live in San Francisco)"] Often the trio would be joined by Billy Roberts, who at that time had just started performing the song that would make his name, "Hey Joe", and Joplin was soon part of the folk scene in the Bay Area, and admired by Dino Valenti, David Crosby, and Jerry Garcia among others. She also sang a lot with Jorma Kaukonnen, and recordings of the two of them together have circulated for years: [Excerpt: Janis Joplin and Jorma Kaukonnen, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out"] Through 1963, 1964, and early 1965 Joplin ping-ponged from coast to coast, spending time in the Bay Area, then Greenwich Village, dropping in on her parents then back to the Bay Area, and she started taking vast quantities of methamphetamine. Even before moving to San Francisco she had been an occasional user of amphetamines – at the time they were regularly prescribed to students as study aids during exam periods, and she had also been taking them to try to lose some of the weight she always hated. But while she was living in San Francisco she became dependent on the drug. At one point her father was worried enough about her health to visit her in San Francisco, where she managed to fool him that she was more or less OK. But she looked to him for reassurance that things would get better for her, and he couldn't give it to her. He told her about a concept that he called the "Saturday night swindle", the idea that you work all week so you can go out and have fun on Saturday in the hope that that will make up for everything else, but that it never does. She had occasional misses with what would have been lucky breaks -- at one point she was in a motorcycle accident just as record labels were interested in signing her, and by the time she got out of the hospital the chance had gone. She became engaged to another speed freak, one who claimed to be an engineer and from a well-off background, but she was becoming severely ill from what was by now a dangerous amphetamine habit, and in May 1965 she decided to move back in with her parents, get clean, and have a normal life. Her new fiance was going to do the same, and they were going to have the conformist life her parents had always wanted, and which she had always wanted to want. Surely with a husband who loved her she could find a way to fit in and just be normal. She kicked the addiction, and wrote her fiance long letters describing everything about her family and the new normal life they were going to have together, and they show her painfully trying to be optimistic about the future, like one where she described her family to him: "My mother—Dorothy—worries so and loves her children dearly. Republican and Methodist, very sincere, speaks in clichés which she really means and is very good to people. (She thinks you have a lovely voice and is terribly prepared to like you.) My father—richer than when I knew him and kind of embarrassed about it—very well read—history his passion—quiet and very excited to have me home because I'm bright and we can talk (about antimatter yet—that impressed him)! I keep telling him how smart you are and how proud I am of you.…" She went back to Lamar, her mother started sewing her a wedding dress, and for much of the year she believed her fiance was going to be her knight in shining armour. But as it happened, the fiance in question was described by everyone else who knew him as a compulsive liar and con man, who persuaded her father to give him money for supposed medical tests before the wedding, but in reality was apparently married to someone else and having a baby with a third woman. After the engagement was broken off, she started performing again around the coffeehouses in Austin and Houston, and she started to realise the possibilities of rock music for her kind of performance. The missing clue came from a group from Austin who she became very friendly with, the Thirteenth Floor Elevators, and the way their lead singer Roky Erickson would wail and yell: [Excerpt: The 13th Floor Elevators, "You're Gonna Miss Me (live)"] If, as now seemed inevitable, Janis was going to make a living as a performer, maybe she should start singing rock music, because it seemed like there was money in it. There was even some talk of her singing with the Elevators. But then an old friend came to Austin from San Francisco with word from Chet Helms. A blues band had formed, and were looking for a singer, and they remembered her from the coffee houses. Would she like to go back to San Francisco and sing with them? In the time she'd been away, Helms had become hugely prominent in the San Francisco music scene, which had changed radically. A band from the area called the Charlatans had been playing a fake-Victorian saloon called the Red Dog in nearby Nevada, and had become massive with the people who a few years earlier had been beatniks: [Excerpt: The Charlatans, "32-20"] When their residency at the Red Dog had finished, several of the crowd who had been regulars there had become a collective of sorts called the Family Dog, and Helms had become their unofficial leader. And there's actually a lot packed into that choice of name. As we'll see in a few future episodes, a lot of West Coast hippies eventually started calling their collectives and communes families. This started as a way to get round bureaucracy -- if a helpful welfare officer put down that the unrelated people living in a house together were a family, suddenly they could get food stamps. As with many things, of course, the label then affected how people thought about themselves, and one thing that's very notable about the San Francisco scene hippies in particular is that they are some of the first people to make a big deal about what we now  call "found family" or "family of choice". But it's also notable how often the hippie found families took their model from the only families these largely middle-class dropouts had ever known, and structured themselves around men going out and doing the work -- selling dope or panhandling or being rock musicians or shoplifting -- with the women staying at home doing the housework. The Family Dog started promoting shows, with the intention of turning San Francisco into "the American Liverpool", and soon Helms was rivalled only by Bill Graham as the major promoter of rock shows in the Bay Area. And now he wanted Janis to come back and join this new band. But Janis was worried. She was clean now. She drank far too much, but she wasn't doing any other drugs. She couldn't go back to San Francisco and risk getting back on methamphetamine. She needn't worry about that, she was told, nobody in San Francisco did speed any more, they were all on LSD -- a drug she hated and so wasn't in any danger from. Reassured, she made the trip back to San Francisco, to join Big Brother and the Holding Company. Big Brother and the Holding Company were the epitome of San Francisco acid rock at the time. They were the house band at the Avalon Ballroom, which Helms ran, and their first ever gig had been at the Trips Festival, which we talked about briefly in the Grateful Dead episode. They were known for being more imaginative than competent -- lead guitarist James Gurley was often described as playing parts that were influenced by John Cage, but was equally often, and equally accurately, described as not actually being able to keep his guitar in tune because he was too stoned. But they were drawing massive crowds with their instrumental freak-out rock music. Helms thought they needed a singer, and he had remembered Joplin, who a few of the group had seen playing the coffee houses. He decided she would be perfect for them, though Joplin wasn't so sure. She thought it was worth a shot, but as she wrote to her parents before meeting the group "Supposed to rehearse w/ the band this afternoon, after that I guess I'll know whether I want to stay & do that for awhile. Right now my position is ambivalent—I'm glad I came, nice to see the city, a few friends, but I'm not at all sold on the idea of becoming the poor man's Cher.” In that letter she also wrote "I'm awfully sorry to be such a disappointment to you. I understand your fears at my coming here & must admit I share them, but I really do think there's an awfully good chance I won't blow it this time." The band she met up with consisted of lead guitarist James Gurley, bass player Peter Albin, rhythm player Sam Andrew, and drummer David Getz.  To start with, Peter Albin sang lead on most songs, with Joplin adding yelps and screams modelled on those of Roky Erickson, but in her first gig with the band she bowled everyone over with her lead vocal on the traditional spiritual "Down on Me", which would remain a staple of their live act, as in this live recording from 1968: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Down on Me (Live 1968)"] After that first gig in June 1966, it was obvious that Joplin was going to be a star, and was going to be the group's main lead vocalist. She had developed a whole new stage persona a million miles away from her folk performances. As Chet Helms said “Suddenly this person who would stand upright with her fists clenched was all over the stage. Roky Erickson had modeled himself after the screaming style of Little Richard, and Janis's initial stage presence came from Roky, and ultimately Little Richard. It was a very different Janis.” Joplin would always claim to journalists that her stage persona was just her being herself and natural, but she worked hard on every aspect of her performance, and far from the untrained emotional outpouring she always suggested, her vocal performances were carefully calculated pastiches of her influences -- mostly Bessie Smith, but also Big Mama Thornton, Odetta, Etta James, Tina Turner, and Otis Redding. That's not to say that those performances weren't an authentic expression of part of herself -- they absolutely were. But the ethos that dominated San Francisco in the mid-sixties prized self-expression over technical craft, and so Joplin had to portray herself as a freak of nature who just had to let all her emotions out, a wild woman, rather than someone who carefully worked out every nuance of her performances. Joplin actually got the chance to meet one of her idols when she discovered that Willie Mae Thornton was now living and regularly performing in the Bay Area. She and some of her bandmates saw Big Mama play a small jazz club, where she performed a song she wouldn't release on a record for another two years: [Excerpt: Big Mama Thornton, "Ball 'n' Chain"] Janis loved the song and scribbled down the lyrics, then went backstage to ask Big Mama if Big Brother could cover the song. She gave them her blessing, but told them "don't" -- and here she used a word I can't use with a clean rating -- "it up". The group all moved in together, communally, with their partners -- those who had them. Janis was currently single, having dumped her most recent boyfriend after discovering him shooting speed, as she was still determined to stay clean. But she was rapidly discovering that the claim that San Franciscans no longer used much speed had perhaps not been entirely true, as for example Sam Andrew's girlfriend went by the nickname Speedfreak Rita. For now, Janis was still largely clean, but she did start drinking more. Partly this was because of a brief fling with Pigpen from the Grateful Dead, who lived nearby. Janis liked Pigpen as someone else on the scene who didn't much like psychedelics or cannabis -- she didn't like drugs that made her think more, but only drugs that made her able to *stop* thinking (her love of amphetamines doesn't seem to fit this pattern, but a small percentage of people have a different reaction to amphetamine-type stimulants, perhaps she was one of those). Pigpen was a big drinker of Southern Comfort -- so much so that it would kill him within a few years -- and Janis started joining him. Her relationship with Pigpen didn't last long, but the two would remain close, and she would often join the Grateful Dead on stage over the years to duet with him on "Turn On Your Lovelight": [Excerpt: Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead, "Turn on Your Lovelight"] But within two months of joining the band, Janis nearly left. Paul Rothchild of Elektra Records came to see the group live, and was impressed by their singer, but not by the rest of the band. This was something that would happen again and again over the group's career. The group were all imaginative and creative -- they worked together on their arrangements and their long instrumental jams and often brought in very good ideas -- but they were not the most disciplined or technically skilled of musicians, even when you factored in their heavy drug use, and often lacked the skill to pull off their better ideas. They were hugely popular among the crowds at the Avalon Ballroom, who were on the group's chemical wavelength, but Rothchild was not impressed -- as he was, in general, unimpressed with psychedelic freakouts. He was already of the belief in summer 1966 that the fashion for extended experimental freak-outs would soon come to an end and that there would be a pendulum swing back towards more structured and melodic music. As we saw in the episode on The Band, he would be proved right in a little over a year, but being ahead of the curve he wanted to put together a supergroup that would be able to ride that coming wave, a group that would play old-fashioned blues. He'd got together Stefan Grossman, Steve Mann, and Taj Mahal, and he wanted Joplin to be the female vocalist for the group, dueting with Mahal. She attended one rehearsal, and the new group sounded great. Elektra Records offered to sign them, pay their rent while they rehearsed, and have a major promotional campaign for their first release. Joplin was very, very, tempted, and brought the subject up to her bandmates in Big Brother. They were devastated. They were a family! You don't leave your family! She was meant to be with them forever! They eventually got her to agree to put off the decision at least until after a residency they'd been booked for in Chicago, and she decided to give them the chance, writing to her parents "I decided to stay w/the group but still like to think about the other thing. Trying to figure out which is musically more marketable because my being good isn't enough, I've got to be in a good vehicle.” The trip to Chicago was a disaster. They found that the people of Chicago weren't hugely interested in seeing a bunch of white Californians play the blues, and that the Midwest didn't have the same Bohemian crowds that the coastal cities they were used to had, and so their freak-outs didn't go down well either. After two weeks of their four-week residency, the club owner stopped paying them because they were so unpopular, and they had no money to get home. And then they were approached by Bob Shad. (For those who know the film Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, the Bob Shad in that film is named after this one -- Judd Apatow, the film's director, is Shad's grandson) This Shad was a record producer, who had worked with people like Big Bill Broonzy, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, and Billy Eckstine over an eighteen-year career, and had recently set up a new label, Mainstream Records. He wanted to sign Big Brother and the Holding Company. They needed money and... well, it was a record contract! It was a contract that took half their publishing, paid them a five percent royalty on sales, and gave them no advance, but it was still a contract, and they'd get union scale for the first session. In that first session in Chicago, they recorded four songs, and strangely only one, "Down on Me", had a solo Janis vocal. Of the other three songs, Sam Andrew and Janis dueted on Sam's song "Call on Me", Albin sang lead on the group composition "Blindman", and Gurley and Janis sang a cover of "All Is Loneliness", a song originally by the avant-garde street musician Moondog: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "All is Loneliness"] The group weren't happy with the four songs they recorded -- they had to keep the songs to the length of a single, and the engineers made sure that the needles never went into the red, so their guitars sounded far more polite and less distorted than they were used to. Janis was fascinated by the overdubbing process, though, especially double-tracking, which she'd never tried before but which she turned out to be remarkably good at. And they were now signed to a contract, which meant that Janis wouldn't be leaving the group to go solo any time soon. The family were going to stay together. But on the group's return to San Francisco, Janis started doing speed again, encouraged by the people around the group, particularly Gurley's wife. By the time the group's first single, "Blindman" backed with "All is Loneliness", came out, she was an addict again. That initial single did nothing, but the group were fast becoming one of the most popular in the Bay Area, and almost entirely down to Janis' vocals and on-stage persona. Bob Shad had already decided in the initial session that while various band members had taken lead, Janis was the one who should be focused on as the star, and when they drove to LA for their second recording session it was songs with Janis leads that they focused on. At that second session, in which they recorded ten tracks in two days, the group recorded a mix of material including one of Janis' own songs, the blues track "Women is Losers", and a version of the old folk song "the Cuckoo Bird" rearranged by Albin. Again they had to keep the arrangements to two and a half minutes a track, with no extended soloing and a pop arrangement style, and the results sound a lot more like the other San Francisco bands, notably Jefferson Airplane, than like the version of the band that shows itself in their live performances: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Coo Coo"] After returning to San Francisco after the sessions, Janis went to see Otis Redding at the Fillmore, turning up several hours before the show started on all three nights to make sure she could be right at the front. One of the other audience members later recalled “It was more fascinating for me, almost, to watch Janis watching Otis, because you could tell that she wasn't just listening to him, she was studying something. There was some kind of educational thing going on there. I was jumping around like the little hippie girl I was, thinking This is so great! and it just stopped me in my tracks—because all of a sudden Janis drew you very deeply into what the performance was all about. Watching her watch Otis Redding was an education in itself.” Joplin would, for the rest of her life, always say that Otis Redding was her all-time favourite singer, and would say “I started singing rhythmically, and now I'm learning from Otis Redding to push a song instead of just sliding over it.” [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "I Can't Turn You Loose (live)"] At the start of 1967, the group moved out of the rural house they'd been sharing and into separate apartments around Haight-Ashbury, and they brought the new year in by playing a free show organised by the Hell's Angels, the violent motorcycle gang who at the time were very close with the proto-hippies in the Bay Area. Janis in particular always got on well with the Angels, whose drugs of choice, like hers, were speed and alcohol more than cannabis and psychedelics. Janis also started what would be the longest on-again off-again relationship she would ever have, with a woman named Peggy Caserta. Caserta had a primary partner, but that if anything added to her appeal for Joplin -- Caserta's partner Kimmie had previously been in a relationship with Joan Baez, and Joplin, who had an intense insecurity that made her jealous of any other female singer who had any success, saw this as in some way a validation both of her sexuality and, transitively, of her talent. If she was dating Baez's ex's lover, that in some way put her on a par with Baez, and when she told friends about Peggy, Janis would always slip that fact in. Joplin and Caserta would see each other off and on for the rest of Joplin's life, but they were never in a monogamous relationship, and Joplin had many other lovers over the years. The next of these was Country Joe McDonald of Country Joe and the Fish, who were just in the process of recording their first album Electric Music for the Mind and Body, when McDonald and Joplin first got together: [Excerpt: Country Joe and the Fish, "Grace"] McDonald would later reminisce about lying with Joplin, listening to one of the first underground FM radio stations, KMPX, and them playing a Fish track and a Big Brother track back to back. Big Brother's second single, the other two songs recorded in the Chicago session, had been released in early 1967, and the B-side, "Down on Me", was getting a bit of airplay in San Francisco and made the local charts, though it did nothing outside the Bay Area: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Down on Me"] Janis was unhappy with the record, though, writing to her parents and saying, “Our new record is out. We seem to be pretty dissatisfied w/it. I think we're going to try & get out of the record contract if we can. We don't feel that they know how to promote or engineer a record & every time we recorded for them, they get all our songs, which means we can't do them for another record company. But then if our new record does something, we'd change our mind. But somehow, I don't think it's going to." The band apparently saw a lawyer to see if they could get out of the contract with Mainstream, but they were told it was airtight. They were tied to Bob Shad no matter what for the next five years. Janis and McDonald didn't stay together for long -- they clashed about his politics and her greater fame -- but after they split, she asked him to write a song for her before they became too distant, and he obliged and recorded it on the Fish's next album: [Excerpt: Country Joe and the Fish, "Janis"] The group were becoming so popular by late spring 1967 that when Richard Lester, the director of the Beatles' films among many other classics, came to San Francisco to film Petulia, his follow-up to How I Won The War, he chose them, along with the Grateful Dead, to appear in performance segments in the film. But it would be another filmmaker that would change the course of the group's career irrevocably: [Excerpt: Scott McKenzie, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)"] When Big Brother and the Holding Company played the Monterey Pop Festival, nobody had any great expectations. They were second on the bill on the Saturday, the day that had been put aside for the San Francisco acts, and they were playing in the early afternoon, after a largely unimpressive night before. They had a reputation among the San Francisco crowd, of course, but they weren't even as big as the Grateful Dead, Moby Grape or Country Joe and the Fish, let alone Jefferson Airplane. Monterey launched four careers to new heights, but three of the superstars it made -- Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, and the Who -- already had successful careers. Hendrix and the Who had had hits in the UK but not yet broken the US market, while Redding was massively popular with Black people but hadn't yet crossed over to a white audience. Big Brother and the Holding Company, on the other hand, were so unimportant that D.A. Pennebaker didn't even film their set -- their manager at the time had not wanted to sign over the rights to film their performance, something that several of the other acts had also refused -- and nobody had been bothered enough to make an issue of it. Pennebaker just took some crowd shots and didn't bother filming the band. The main thing he caught was Cass Elliot's open-mouthed astonishment at Big Brother's performance -- or rather at Janis Joplin's performance. The members of the group would later complain, not entirely inaccurately, that in the reviews of their performance at Monterey, Joplin's left nipple (the outline of which was apparently visible through her shirt, at least to the male reviewers who took an inordinate interest in such things) got more attention than her four bandmates combined. As Pennebaker later said “She came out and sang, and my hair stood on end. We were told we weren't allowed to shoot it, but I knew if we didn't have Janis in the film, the film would be a wash. Afterward, I said to Albert Grossman, ‘Talk to her manager or break his leg or whatever you have to do, because we've got to have her in this film. I can't imagine this film without this woman who I just saw perform.” Grossman had a talk with the organisers of the festival, Lou Adler and John Phillips, and they offered Big Brother a second spot, the next day, if they would allow their performance to be used in the film. The group agreed, after much discussion between Janis and Grossman, and against the wishes of their manager: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Ball and Chain (live at Monterey)"] They were now on Albert Grossman's radar. Or at least, Janis Joplin was. Joplin had always been more of a careerist than the other members of the group. They were in music to have a good time and to avoid working a straight job, and while some of them were more accomplished musicians than their later reputations would suggest -- Sam Andrew, in particular, was a skilled player and serious student of music -- they were fundamentally content with playing the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore and making five hundred dollars or so a week between them. Very good money for 1967, but nothing else. Joplin, on the other hand, was someone who absolutely craved success. She wanted to prove to her family that she wasn't a failure and that her eccentricity shouldn't stop them being proud of her; she was always, even at the depths of her addictions, fiscally prudent and concerned about her finances; and she had a deep craving for love. Everyone who talks about her talks about how she had an aching need at all times for approval, connection, and validation, which she got on stage more than she got anywhere else. The bigger the audience, the more they must love her. She'd made all her decisions thus far based on how to balance making music that she loved with commercial success, and this would continue to be the pattern for her in future. And so when journalists started to want to talk to her, even though up to that point Albin, who did most of the on-stage announcements, and Gurley, the lead guitarist, had considered themselves joint leaders of the band, she was eager. And she was also eager to get rid of their manager, who continued the awkward streak that had prevented their first performance at the Monterey Pop Festival from being filmed. The group had the chance to play the Hollywood Bowl -- Bill Graham was putting on a "San Francisco Sound" showcase there, featuring Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, and got their verbal agreement to play, but after Graham had the posters printed up, their manager refused to sign the contracts unless they were given more time on stage. The next day after that, they played Monterey again -- this time the Monterey Jazz Festival. A very different crowd to the Pop Festival still fell for Janis' performance -- and once again, the film being made of the event didn't include Big Brother's set because of their manager. While all this was going on, the group's recordings from the previous year were rushed out by Mainstream Records as an album, to poor reviews which complained it was nothing like the group's set at Monterey: [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Bye Bye Baby"] They were going to need to get out of that contract and sign with somewhere better -- Clive Davis at Columbia Records was already encouraging them to sign with him -- but to do that, they needed a better manager. They needed Albert Grossman. Grossman was one of the best negotiators in the business at that point, but he was also someone who had a genuine love for the music his clients made.  And he had good taste -- he managed Odetta, who Janis idolised as a singer, and Bob Dylan, who she'd been a fan of since his first album came out. He was going to be the perfect manager for the group. But he had one condition though. His first wife had been a heroin addict, and he'd just been dealing with Mike Bloomfield's heroin habit. He had one absolutely ironclad rule, a dealbreaker that would stop him signing them -- they didn't use heroin, did they? Both Gurley and Joplin had used heroin on occasion -- Joplin had only just started, introduced to the drug by Gurley -- but they were only dabblers. They could give it up any time they wanted, right? Of course they could. They told him, in perfect sincerity, that the band didn't use heroin and it wouldn't be a problem. But other than that, Grossman was extremely flexible. He explained to the group at their first meeting that he took a higher percentage than other managers, but that he would also make them more money than other managers -- if money was what they wanted. He told them that they needed to figure out where they wanted their career to be, and what they were willing to do to get there -- would they be happy just playing the same kind of venues they were now, maybe for a little more money, or did they want to be as big as Dylan or Peter, Paul, and Mary? He could get them to whatever level they wanted, and he was happy with working with clients at every level, what did they actually want? The group were agreed -- they wanted to be rich. They decided to test him. They were making twenty-five thousand dollars a year between them at that time, so they got ridiculously ambitious. They told him they wanted to make a *lot* of money. Indeed, they wanted a clause in their contract saying the contract would be void if in the first year they didn't make... thinking of a ridiculous amount, they came up with seventy-five thousand dollars. Grossman's response was to shrug and say "Make it a hundred thousand." The group were now famous and mixing with superstars -- Peter Tork of the Monkees had become a close friend of Janis', and when they played a residency in LA they were invited to John and Michelle Phillips' house to see a rough cut of Monterey Pop. But the group, other than Janis, were horrified -- the film barely showed the other band members at all, just Janis. Dave Getz said later "We assumed we'd appear in the movie as a band, but seeing it was a shock. It was all Janis. They saw her as a superstar in the making. I realized that though we were finally going to be making money and go to another level, it also meant our little family was being separated—there was Janis, and there was the band.” [Excerpt: Big Brother and the Holding Company, "Bye Bye Baby"] If the group were going to make that hundred thousand dollars a year, they couldn't remain on Mainstream Records, but Bob Shad was not about to give up his rights to what could potentially be the biggest group in America without a fight. But luckily for the group, Clive Davis at Columbia had seen their Monterey performance, and he was also trying to pivot the label towards the new rock music. He was basically willing to do anything to get them. Eventually Columbia agreed to pay Shad two hundred thousand dollars for the group's contract -- Davis and Grossman negotiated so half that was an advance on the group's future earnings, but the other half was just an expense for the label. On top of that the group got an advance payment of fifty thousand dollars for their first album for Columbia, making a total investment by Columbia of a quarter of a million dollars -- in return for which they got to sign the band, and got the rights to the material they'd recorded for Mainstream, though Shad would get a two percent royalty on their first two albums for Columbia. Janis was intimidated by signing for Columbia, because that had been Aretha Franklin's label before she signed to Atlantic, and she regarded Franklin as the greatest performer in music at that time.  Which may have had something to do with the choice of a new song the group added to their setlist in early 1968 -- one which was a current hit for Aretha's sister Erma: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Piece of My Heart"] We talked a little in the last episode about the song "Piece of My Heart" itself, though mostly from the perspective of its performer, Erma Franklin. But the song was, as we mentioned, co-written by Bert Berns. He's someone we've talked about a little bit in previous episodes, notably the ones on "Here Comes the Night" and "Twist and Shout", but those were a couple of years ago, and he's about to become a major figure in the next episode, so we might as well take a moment here to remind listeners (or tell those who haven't heard those episodes) of the basics and explain where "Piece of My Heart" comes in Berns' work as a whole. Bert Berns was a latecomer to the music industry, not getting properly started until he was thirty-one, after trying a variety of other occupations. But when he did get started, he wasted no time making his mark -- he knew he had no time to waste. He had a weak heart and knew the likelihood was he was going to die young. He started an association with Wand records as a songwriter and performer, writing songs for some of Phil Spector's pre-fame recordings, and he also started producing records for Atlantic, where for a long while he was almost the equal of Jerry Wexler or Leiber and Stoller in terms of number of massive hits created. His records with Solomon Burke were the records that first got the R&B genre renamed soul (previously the word "soul" mostly referred to a kind of R&Bish jazz, rather than a kind of gospel-ish R&B). He'd also been one of the few American music industry professionals to work with British bands before the Beatles made it big in the USA, after he became alerted to the Beatles' success with his song "Twist and Shout", which he'd co-written with Phil Medley, and which had been a hit in a version Berns produced for the Isley Brothers: [Excerpt: The Isley Brothers, "Twist and Shout"] That song shows the two elements that existed in nearly every single Bert Berns song or production. The first is the Afro-Caribbean rhythm, a feel he picked up during a stint in Cuba in his twenties. Other people in the Atlantic records team were also partial to those rhythms -- Leiber and Stoller loved what they called the baion rhythm -- but Berns more than anyone else made it his signature. He also very specifically loved the song "La Bamba", especially Ritchie Valens' version of it: [Excerpt: Ritchie Valens, "La Bamba"] He basically seemed to think that was the greatest record ever made, and he certainly loved that three-chord trick I-IV-V-IV chord sequence -- almost but not quite the same as the "Louie Louie" one.  He used it in nearly every song he wrote from that point on -- usually using a bassline that went something like this: [plays I-IV-V-IV bassline] He used it in "Twist and Shout" of course: [Excerpt: The Isley Brothers, "Twist and Shout"] He used it in "Hang on Sloopy": [Excerpt: The McCoys, "Hang on Sloopy"] He *could* get more harmonically sophisticated on occasion, but the vast majority of Berns' songs show the power of simplicity. They're usually based around three chords, and often they're actually only two chords, like "I Want Candy": [Excerpt: The Strangeloves, "I Want Candy"] Or the chorus to "Here Comes the Night" by Them, which is two chords for most of it and only introduces a third right at the end: [Excerpt: Them, "Here Comes the Night"] And even in that song you can hear the "Twist and Shout"/"La Bamba" feel, even if it's not exactly the same chords. Berns' whole career was essentially a way of wringing *every last possible drop* out of all the implications of Ritchie Valens' record. And so even when he did a more harmonically complex song, like "Piece of My Heart", which actually has some minor chords in the bridge, the "La Bamba" chord sequence is used in both the verse: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Piece of My Heart"] And the chorus: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Piece of My Heart"] Berns co-wrote “Piece of My Heart” with Jerry Ragavoy. Berns and Ragavoy had also written "Cry Baby" for Garnet Mimms, which was another Joplin favourite: [Excerpt: Garnet Mimms, "Cry Baby"] And Ragavoy, with other collaborators

Esta semana, en Islas de Robinson, recuperamos otra "sesión de arqueología". Suenan: CARGOE - "HORSES AND SILVER THINGS" ("CARGOE", 1972) / TERRY MANNING - "CHOO CHOO TRAIN" ("HOME SWEET HOME", 1970) / FLAMIN' GROOVIES - "HEADIN' FOR THE TEXAS BORDER" ("FLAMINGO", 1970) / MC5 - "LOOKING AT YOU" ("BACK IN THE USA", 1970) / J. GEILS BAND - "WHAT'S YOUR HURRY" ("J. GEILS BAND", 1970) / THE GUESS WHO - "MINSTREL BOY" ("CANNED WHEAT", 1969) / CARL PERKINS & NRBQ - "SORRY CHARLIE" ("BOPPIN' THE BLUES", 1970) / MERLE HAGGARD - "WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ME" ("I'M A LONESOME FUGITIVE", 1967) / COUNTRY JOE MCDONALD - "TONIGHT I'M SINGING JUST FOR YOU" ("TONIGHT I'M SINGING JUST FOR YOU", 1970) / JOHN STEWART - "MOTHER COUNTRY" ("CALIFORNIA BLOODLINES", 1969) / MICHAEL NESMITH - "CONTINUING" ("PRETTY MUCH YOUR STANDARD RANCH STASH", 1973) / PAUL SIEBEL - "PRAYER'S SONG" ("JACK KNIFE GIPSY", 1972) /Escuchar audio

Segment 4, September 16th, 2023 When Jimmy Buffet passed away on September 1st of this year the entire music community mourned.  This singer-songwriter, born  in 1946, helped define something that's been called tropical rock & "island escapism."  He sold over 20 million albums of his 30 released.  Eight of them are certified gold and nine are platinum or multi-platinum. He was known as an outdoorsperson.  His love of surfing, fishing, & living the outdoor lifestyle  were a big part of his persona & music. In fact, it was a change to a lyric of his first Top 40 hit, "Come Monday" that helped shine a light on his love for the hiking.  In fact, Buffet recognized "Come Monday" as a special song to him because of when it was written & to whom it was written.  He told David Letterman in an interview that it was written to his girlfriend while he was "heading up to San Francisco for the Labor Day Weekend show."  At the time he had been away from loved ones, his dog was in the pound, & he didn't have much money. He was staying in a Howard Johnson's in Mill Valley, California, and opening for Country Joe McDonald in San Anselmo, CA. The song's initial single release had the song's third line, "I've got my hiking shoes on."  However, Buffet changed in to the now iconic, "I've got my Hushpuppies on" referring to the brand of leather, leisure shoes that began in 1958. The success of that single in 1974 helped bring money, fame, & adoration that lasted throughout his career. Inside the hiking shoe & hiking boot store, Jesse Brown's, we think the lyric change was a good one.  However, it is also nice to know that the sailor, angler, & performer, also like to wear his hiking shoes.  

La música es uno de los medios que ha difundido el mensaje de la paz a todos los lugares. A través de letras y canciones expresamos nuestras denuncias, nuestros anhelos y nuestras emociones más profundas. En este capítulo final de serie les contamos las historias que acompañan a algunas de las canciones que hicieron parte de nuestro recorrido por la paz en el mundo.   Notas del episodio  La historia de “War”, una poderosa canción pacifista interpretada desde el soul U2 y la tremenda historia detrás de «Sunday, Bloody Sunday» En este artículo se hace un recorrido por algunas de las canciones que homenajearon a Nelson mandela y a su causa https://www.lavanguardia.com/musica/20131206/54377471949/anciones-mandela.html «Give peace a chance» y todo el contexto que rodeó la creación del himno pacifista de Lennon y Ono La letra en español de «Feel Like I'm Fixing To Die Rag» de Country Joe McDonald, unas de las canciones más fuertes en contra de la guerra de Vietnam Y aquí la canción que acompañó a toda la serie de Historias de Paz y Reconciliación en sus emisiones por Radio Nacional de Colombia. Para Martha Gómez nuestro cariño y agradecimiento, «Para la guerra, nada» Agradecimientos a César López por su música y su imagen para este episodio Agradecimientos a César López por su fotografía para este episodio   ¡Síguenos en nuestras Redes Sociales! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DianaUribe.fm/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dianauribe.fm/?hl=es-la Twitter: https://twitter.com/dianauribefm?lang=es Pagina web: https://www.dianauribe.fm

From the archives, singer-songwriter Country Joe McDonald in performance at the Fur Peace Station concert hall from June 16, 2012.

I wanted to track down an interesting subject from the legendary Woodstock festival. I've had the pleasure fo speaking to a few artists that played, but no one that actually attended the festival. That was until I located Mike Greenblatt, a writer, freelance journalist and in 2019 he published his first novel "Woodstock 50th Anniversary: Back To Yasgur's Farm" which also included a foreword by the legendary Country Joe McDonald! Greenblatt is a purist  when it comes to music. His love for the arts is outstanding and inspiring and though he's older than me, I feel we're the same in many ways. We came from the same generation of thought, the same energy source, the same cosmic womb... WE ARE THE PEOPLE! It was wonderful speaking to Greenblatt and hearing his legendary tales of attending the greatest and most terrifying festival in rock history, Woodstock! You had to be there in many ways, but hopefully this a kaleidoscope into that prismatic void for anyone that missed it, which was most of us. Enjoy!  https://www.thejerseysound.com/Support the show Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Monday, August 15th will mark the 53rd anniversary of Peace, Love, and Music - a.k.a. Woodstock. This week on the show, we're traveling back to 1969 and reliving the festival through LIVE recordings and stories from John Fogerty, Santana, Neil Young, Country Joe McDonald, and more! For more info on the show, visit reelinwithryan.com

Country Joe and the Fish formed in Berkeley, California, in 1965. The band was among the influential groups in the San Francisco music scene during the mid- to late 1960s. The Woodstock festival's most memorable moment was McDonald's unexpected solo performance of "The Fuck Cheer". The audience  responded by chanting along with McDonald. McDonald's rendition of propelled the song into the mainstream  and was featured on the Woodstock film.   The performance of the song was cause for The Ed Sullivan Show to ban Country Joe from ever booking the show. Joe discusses his early years and the forming of Country Joe and The Fish.  The legendary stories become true as Joe tells timeless stories about friends, Bob Dylan Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Barry Melton, Jimi Hendrix and others in a career that has spanned 60 plus years. "The guitar neck turned into a snake and I had no idea what was playing."Joe tells the story of the band taking LSD and trying to perform at the legendary Matrix club in San Francisco. Please SUBSCRIBE to Mark Hummel's Harmonica Party YouTube Channel. Mark Hummel  Accidental Productions

T. Rex - children of the revolutionKaleidoscope - Pulsating DreamBob Dylan - the times they are a changin'Country Joe McDonald & Grootna - Free Some DayJohn Lennon/Plastic Ono Band - power to the peopleThe Grateful Dead - ripple 9/26/80Pink Floyd - one of these daysThe Byrds - chimes of freedomGil Scott-Heron - the revolution will not be televisedThunderclap Newman - Something In The AirJefferson Airplane - volunteersThe Grateful Dead - throwing stonesToni McCann & the Blue Jays - NoBig Brother & the Holding Company - down on meFlasher - Icky BickyPete Seeger - if I had a hammer (live 1963)Bob Marley & the Wailers - get up, stand upThe Grateful Dead - man smart, woman smarter 4/2/89Donovan - catch the windJohnny Harris – Paint It BlackWoody Guthrie - all you fascists bound to loseQuicksilver Messenger Service - Local ColorLance - FireballCouture & ConstructionWeekly conversations about luxury building & design. Brought to you by Textures Nashville.Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the show

After the cliff hanger in part 1 you will want to hear how Gerry was extracted from the battle site. This great story-teller weaves a fascinating conclusion to his time in Viet Nam and his life since that time. All music is used by permission. The USMC Viet Nam Tankers Association wish to gratefully acknowledge Country Joe McDonald and the donation of his music from the album the Viet Nam Experience. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/francis-remkiewicz/message

This week, Cincinnati, Ohio based post-punk neo-folk acoustic oldtime string band The Tillers recorded live at Ozark Folk Center State Park. Also, interviews with The Tillers' fearless leader, Mike Oberst. “The Tillers have been thumping their own distinctive sound of string band style folk music for a decade, riding it all over the country and across the sea. Four studio albums and one live record have won them praise as modern folk storytellers of the national soundscape. The band features Mike Oberst on banjo & vocals, Sean Geil on guitar & vocals, Joe Macheret on fiddle, and Aaron Geil on upright bass. “The Tillers got their start in August 2007 when they started thumping around with some banjos and guitars and a big wooden bass. Their look didn't fit the stereotype. They were clearly recovering punk rockers with roots in city's west side punk rock and hardcore scene. The punk influence gave their sound a distinctive bite, setting them apart from most other folk acts- a hard-driving percussive strum and stomp that brought new pulse and vinegar to some very old songs. But their musical range soon proved itself as they floated from hard-tackle thumping to tender graceful melody, all the while topped by Oberst and Geil's clear tenor harmonies. “Musically, the band wears many hats. Their sound has proven to be an appropriate fit with a wide range of musical styles- traditional folk, bluegrass, jazz, punk rock and anything else they might run into. They have shared the stage with a broad swath of national touring acts, ranging from renowned folk legends such as Doc Watson, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Guy Clark, Country Joe McDonald, Jerry Douglas, Iris Dement, Pokey LaFarge, The Hackensaw Boys and The Carolina Chocolate Drops to rambunctious rock daredevils like the Legendary Shack Shakers.” www.the-tillers.com/bio In this week's “From the Vault” segment, OHR producer Jeff Glover offers a 1981 archival recording of Ozark original fiddler Sam Younger performing the traditional tune “Smoky Mountain Shuffle,” from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives. Author, folklorist and songwriter Charley Sandage presents an historical portrait of the people, events and indomitable spirit of Ozark culture that resulted in the creation of the Ozark Folk Center State Park and its enduring legacy of music and craft. In this episode, Charley begins our celebration of 50 years of the Buffalo National River, America's first national river.

Adrian Shaw or Ade Shaw - bass player with Hawkwind, Bevis Frond, Arthur Brown - in conversation with David Eastaugh Ade Shaw, is a musician primarily working in the psychedelic field. He has a long history dating back to the 1960s working with such acts as Hawkwind,Country Joe McDonald, Arthur Brown, and the Deviants. Shaw played bass for former Tyrannosaurus Rex percussionist Steve Peregrin Took's band in 1974 and three years later, while appearing with Hawkwind on the former other half of Tyrannosaurus Rex Marc Bolan's TV show, was himself invited to join T.Rex; however Bolan's death very shortly thereafter prevented this. Shaw co-founded Magic Muscle, and since 1990 has been a member of British psychedelic outfit the Bevis Frond. He has also recorded many albums as a solo artist and co-run the independent record label Woronzow Records with Bevis Frond's Nick Saloman. Since 2011 Shaw has also been a member of the band Hawklords.

This exhibit is called Vietnam War: The Music. Our mission here at the Music Museum is to support all Vietnam Veterans and those who serve the United States, then and now. We thank you for your service. Early-on, in Vietnam, soldiers turned to music as a lifeline to the home front they promised to defend. Country music was a big part of a soldier’s down time that centered around the hooches and outposts of Vietnam. The music that was popular during the Vietnam War was, and is still, therapy. There are songs you can remember, and then there are songs you REALLY remember. Many of these songs will have a special meaning for you. A place, a brother, a time gone by. Our shows are broadcast around the world. They say thank you & “welcome home” to all Vietnam Vets. There is no opinion offered on the War. It’s all about the music. For your service and your sacrifice, this is Vietnam War: The Music. This episode is called “A Country Boy in The Jungle” Join the conversation on Facebook at----- https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008232395712 or by email at dannymemorylane@gmail.com You’ll hear: 1) Fire On The Mountain by The Marshall Tucker Band 2) Welcome Home by Country Joe McDonald 3) Detroit City by Bobby Bare 4) Old Hippie by The Bellamy Brothers 5) Stand By Your Man by Tammy Wynette 6) Billy and Sue by B. J. Thomas 7) Didn't I by Montgomery Gentry [From the 2002 Vietnam war film, We Were Soldiers, starring Mel Gibson as Lieutenant General Hal Moore] 8) Where Only the Graves Are Real by Otis Gibbs 9) Okie from Muskogee by Merle Haggard & The Strangers [from Platoon, a 1986 Vietnam war film] 10) All American Girl by Carrie Underwood 11) American Soldier by Toby Keith 12) She Thinks I Still Care by George Jones 13) Bobbie Sue by The Oak Ridge Boys 14) 409 by The Beach Boys (w/ Junior Brown, lead vocal & guitar; The Beach Boys, backing vocals) 15) Walkin' After Midnight by Patsy Cline 16) Distant Drums by Jim Reeves 17) Please Remember Me [Acoustic Version] by Rodney Crowell 18) Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival 19) Live Those Songs Again by Kenny Chesney 20) The Streets Of Laredo by Marty Robbins 21) You Never Even Called Me By My Name [The Perfect Country & Western Song] by David Allan Coe 22) Soldier's Last Letter by Ernest Tubb 23) Bob Wills Is Still The King by Waylon Jennings 24) The Bumper Of My S.U.V. by Chely Wright 25) God Bless America Again by Bobby Bare 26) From The Bottle To The Bottom by Kris Kristofferson 27) Make The World Go Away by Ray Price 28) Lay Me Down (Draped in the Red White and Blue) by Elvis Carden 29) Green, Green Grass of Home by Elvis Presley 30) Singing In Vietnam Talking Blues by Johnny Cash 31) Take It Easy by Travis Tritt 32) Whatever Brings You Back by Wynonna Judd 33) With God on Your Side by Buddy Miller 34) God Bless The U.S.A. by Lee Greenwood

Trigésimo primer capítulo de Radio Gorlami. Si disfrutaste este capítulo de Gorlami Radio tanto como nosotrxs compartilo y recomendalo. Además podes seguirnos en nuestras redes sociales. En instagram como @gorlamiradio (https://www.instagram.com/gorlamiradio/) y Twitter como @gorlamiradio (https://twitter.com/GorlamiRadio).

El 4 de octubre de 1970 falleció Janis Joplin, a los 27 años de edad. 50 años después, hace ¡medio siglo! Su figura sigue siendo muy influyente. En vida solo publicó tres elepes originales (y uno previo muy desconocido). Sus grupos fueron Big Brother and the Holding Co., Kozmic Blues Band y Full Tilt Boogie Band. Su triunfo masivo fue póstumo. Repasamos su figura intentando aportar algo diferente, oyendo versiones de grupos españoles como Texaco en 1993, Merche Corisco en 1996 o Los Pedales en 2010 (haciendo los tres "Mercedes Benz"). Previamente oímos tres interpretaciones del álbum "Pearl" y como interludio una versión diferente de "Summertime" y la canción "Janis" que Country Joe McDonald le dedicó en 1967. Luego "Try" por Las Niñas en Logroño 2004, "Work me Lord" por Sara Van en 2009, y "Piece of My Heart" por New York Dolls en Benicassim 2008. Acabamos con dos canciones de la polaca Natalia Przybysz de su cedé monográfico dedicado a Janis en 2013 Escuchar audio

Spike's insurance repair saga continues, but the Twisted Tunes keep flowing from his stream of consciousness. We're having so much fun, I was going to edit someplace in this piece but I couldn't find it afterwards. So you get it raw, and uncut. Murder Hornets, Joe sounding Republican, and Andrew Rivers guest stars. Bonus, Country Joe McDonald on the BRS in April of 2014.

ft. Atakora Manu, Tatsuro Yamashita (Air Records), Julie Pip, Ngozi Family (Now-Again), Ramsey Lewis, Christine Lewin ‎(Athens of the North), Country Joe McDonald, F.J. ‎(Smiling C), Original Love / Larry Heard (Edit & Dub Tokyo), Andrew Ashong & Theo Parrish (Sound Signature), Vince Guaraldi Trio, The Pharcyde ‎(Delicious Vinyl), J Dilla (Stones Throw), George Benson, Batsumi, The City ‎(Light in the Attic), David Crosby, Torn Hawk (L.I.E.S.), My Bloody Valentine, Thom Yorke, Joni Mitchell, Chic‎

Contagious obscurities from: Bill Hershey and The Almonds,The Free Spirits, DDT and The Repellents, The Casual Three,The Swinging Apolloes, Mickey Lee Lane, Lenny and Dick,The Untouchables, Country Joe McDonald, Joe Tex,Copper Penny, We Five, and more!As broadcast live from the viral epicenter via 5130kc sw

Celebrating Woodstock's 50th anniversary, I spoke with Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane, Graham Nash of csn&y , Jerry Martini (founder of Sly & the Family Stone), Country Joe Mcdonald and Sam Andrew (Big Brother & the Holding Co.)  Enjoy!  

The year was 1969. Richard Nixon was in the White House. Neil Armstrong was on the Moon. And revolution was in the air. In that backdrop, 500,000 young people gathered on a mid-August weekend in upstate New York for the promise of three days of peace and music. What they experienced at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair was something far greater. Mike Greenblatt knows. He was there!   Celebrating “the greatest peaceful event in history,” Woodstock 50th Anniversary: Back to Yasgur’s Farm (Krause Publications) offers a dazzling and compelling front-row seat to the most important concert in rock history, an implausible happening filled with trials and triumphs that defined a generation.   Author and Woodstock attendee Mike Greenblatt brilliantly captures the power of music’s greatest performers such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, Santana, John Sebastian and the Who, while sharing stories both personal and audacious from the crowd of a half million strong who embraced not only the music but each other.   The book features a Foreword by Country Joe McDonald, whose rousing solo acoustic version of “The Fish Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” was one of the most memorable performances at Woodstock. Readers will enjoy interviews with such rock icons as Graham Nash, Carlos Santana, Joe Cocker, Richie Havens, Country Joe McDonald, Edgar Winter, members of Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sly & The Family Stone, Canned Heat, Sha Na Na, co-host Chip Monck, fans and countless others. In addition, all 32 performances at the festival are showcased. Equal parts circus and surreal, Woodstock 50th Anniversary: Back to Yasgur’s Farm tells a transcendent tale of a musical and mythical moment in time.  

Woodstock Golden Anniversary

On this week's Teen Girl Talk we're talking about Woodstock or Bust.  Two singer-songwriters head for the greatest music festival in history and hijinks ensue!  Meanwhile, Suesie is so salty about her lack of knowledge about American history.  Frank is right about the timeframe of the Korean War.  Also, there's a cameo from Mama Cota!  Also known as Suesan 1.  Intro is Rebel Girl by Bikini Kill.  Outro is Fixin'-To-Die Rag by Country Joe McDonald.   Please rate, review and subscribe to the show on iTunes E-mail: realteengirltalk@gmail.com  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/teengirltalk/ Buy us a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/teengirltalk Frank's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJcUttxP0ujvc6HXBz-4kIw/videos

On this week's Teen Girl Talk we're talking about Woodstock or Bust.  Two singer-songwriters head for the greatest music festival in history and hijinks ensue!  Meanwhile, Suesie is so salty about her lack of knowledge about American history.  Frank is right about the timeframe of the Korean War.  Also, there's a cameo from Mama Cota!  Also known as Suesan 1.  Intro is Rebel Girl by Bikini Kill.  Outro is Fixin'-To-Die Rag by Country Joe McDonald.   Please rate, review and subscribe to the show on iTunes E-mail: realteengirltalk@gmail.com  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/teengirltalk/ Buy us a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/teengirltalk Frank's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJcUttxP0ujvc6HXBz-4kIw/videos

Country Joe McDonald and Santana's Michael Carabello join Andy Zax – producer of a comprehensive new box set – and host Brian Hiatt to look back at the original Woodstock

Bethel, genau vor 50 Jahren. Eine riesige Wiese auf der normalerweise Kühe weiden. Schauplatz für das Woodstock Festival. Eine halbe Million Menschen hat sich versammelt, eine gigantische Kulisse, keiner kann sich damals ausmalen wie legendär Woodstock einmal sein wird. Dass es auch 50 Jahre später noch als DAS Rock Happening gefeiert wird. Der "Spirit of Woodstock" ist nicht totzukriegen. Dabei ist die Organisation lausig, nichts klappt, schon am ersten Tag sind Essen und Wasser ausverkauft. Trotzdem: die Stimmung ist gut. Was auch daran liegt, dass es reichlich Drogen gibt, vor und hinter der Bühne. Und jede Menge Stories, die Sie vielleicht noch nicht kennen: Bob Dylan droht mit seiner Knarre, Carlos Santana kämpft mit einer Schlange, Country Joe McDonald tritt gleich zweimal auf, Joe Cocker hat einen 18-Stunden-Filmriss...

Join me for a conversation with legendary South African DJ, Chris Prior. Known as the Rock Professor, he has been a conduit for rock & roll music in South Africa. What do toy poodles, lederhosen, and Country Joe McDonald all have in common? They are all a part of Chris Prior's backstory. The Rock Professor's Podcast can be found at:https://krips48.podomatic.com/

Paul began his career touring on the road with the 1982 rock sensation Aldo Nova. Since then, he’s written multiple hits and toured with Winger, Alice Cooper, Steve Perry, Cinderella, John Waite, Tommy Shaw and more. Paul also has a successful career licensing his music to television and movies, which he discussed during this conversation Paul also shares some cool stories about how he connected with Alice Cooper, Tommy Shaw, and Cinderella… getting started in music and how Country Joe McDonald wound up living with Paul and turned him on to guitar as a kid… how he got into licensing his music and the track that wound up paying his bills for 10 years… yellow finches, red cardinals, photography, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and more. Really interesting convo: Subscribe https://www.EveryoneLovesGuitar.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EveryoneLovesGuitar/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everyonelovesguitar/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ELovesGuitar

Since we're reliving Cold War tensions and proliferation of Walls, here are some Hurdy Gurdy Songs: 1. Jawaher Shofani “Nami (Lament)” from Lullabies from the Axis of Evil (2004) 2. Amalio Martinez, Leonor Almanza & Mimi Goese “Lonely Traveler / la Enorme Distancia” from Songs Across Walls of Separation (2008) 3. Daniel Bujord Delgado, East Hill Singers & Nidia Edith Lorea “Sorrow of My Eyes / Amor Eterno” from Songs Across Walls of Separation (2008) 4. Anoushka Shankar “Dissolving Boundaries” from Land of Gold on Deutsche Grammophon Classics 5. Rachel Portman “Never See Your Children Again” composed by Rachel Portman from A Dog's Purpose (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) on Back Lot Music 6. The Beatles “Back In the U.S.S.R.” from The Beatles (White Album) (12 Inch, 1968) on EMI UK 7. Slim Galliard Quartette “Atomic Cocktail” from Slim Gailard: The Ultimate Collection 8. Roy Acuff “Advice to Joe” from Advice to Joe 9. Country Joe McDonald “Secret agent” from Vietnam Experience on Rag Baby Records And, Boris & Natasha, and Radio Free Europe broadcast!

براتون پخش می کنه Country Joe McDonald از what are we fighting for این هفته گرامافون آهنگ

Our final Mixed Up Confusion for Woody Guthrie month looks at Woody's influence beyond Bob Dylan and onward toward the future, with projects like Mermaid Avenue and others. Part 1 (3:00) looks at other artists interpretation of Woody, featuring: Donovan, Ani DiFranco, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Bruce Springsteen, Alison Krauss, Country Joe McDonald, Ry Cooder, Old Crow Medicine Show, U2, Jimmy LaFave and Odetta. Part 2 (14:00) concerns Billy Bragg and Wilco's 1998 MERMAID AVENUE and the utter brilliance of Woody as a tender hearted and quite romantic songwriter. Part. 3 (45:00) looks toward the future. We listen to songs by the Dropkick Murphy's and Anti-Flag and delve into the other album interpretations of Woody's words with the Klezmatics, Jonatha Brooke, and Jay Farrar and Company. Full Woody Guthrie Month posts (and playlists for every episode) at our website. You can also follow along with our weekly real-time Spotify playlist – See That My Playlist is Kept Clean – and join the conversation on Twitter, message us on Facebook, and like on Instagram. And if you're loving us, consider our Patreon. For as little as one dollar you get early access to every episode we do as soon as they're edited (and a dedicated feed just for you) and exclusive content that'll only ever be on Patreon. Thanks! Tomorrow: Our last thoughts on Woody Guthrie.

From the “Ballad of the Green Berets” to “Bad Moon Rising,” the music of the Vietnam War is woven through every vets memories. Vietnam vet Doug Bradley and his fellow University of Wisconsin professor Craig Werner first intended to whittle down a list of the top 20 songs of the war, and soon realized that was an impossible errand. No Vietnam veteran is alike, and hundreds of songs held meaning for those who fought there. It was a varied soundtrack of patriotism and protests, hard rock and soul music, love songs, Dear John songs and more. Bradley and Werner’s book We Gotta Get Out Of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War (University of Massachusetts Press, 2015) blends musical and personal histories, explaining the backgrounds of specific songs and artists as well as what they meant to the Vietnam soldiers. In a conversation with Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, they discuss everything from the generational differences between Vietnam soldiers and their World War II-veteran fathers to the importance of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” written a full decade after the war ended. Hanoi Hannah, Good Morning Vietnam DJ Adrian Cronauer, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Nancy Sinatra, Country Joe McDonald and his famous F cheer all played a role in the wars musical history. Take a musical trip through this sometimes personal and often poetic book. Country Joe himself said of it, We all love popular music and we all love soldiers. All we have left is memories. Maybe there is something to learn from this book, from their experiences, from the music. God, I hope so.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the “Ballad of the Green Berets” to “Bad Moon Rising,” the music of the Vietnam War is woven through every vets memories. Vietnam vet Doug Bradley and his fellow University of Wisconsin professor Craig Werner first intended to whittle down a list of the top 20 songs of the war, and soon realized that was an impossible errand. No Vietnam veteran is alike, and hundreds of songs held meaning for those who fought there. It was a varied soundtrack of patriotism and protests, hard rock and soul music, love songs, Dear John songs and more. Bradley and Werner’s book We Gotta Get Out Of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War (University of Massachusetts Press, 2015) blends musical and personal histories, explaining the backgrounds of specific songs and artists as well as what they meant to the Vietnam soldiers. In a conversation with Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, they discuss everything from the generational differences between Vietnam soldiers and their World War II-veteran fathers to the importance of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” written a full decade after the war ended. Hanoi Hannah, Good Morning Vietnam DJ Adrian Cronauer, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Nancy Sinatra, Country Joe McDonald and his famous F cheer all played a role in the wars musical history. Take a musical trip through this sometimes personal and often poetic book. Country Joe himself said of it, We all love popular music and we all love soldiers. All we have left is memories. Maybe there is something to learn from this book, from their experiences, from the music. God, I hope so.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the “Ballad of the Green Berets” to “Bad Moon Rising,” the music of the Vietnam War is woven through every vets memories. Vietnam vet Doug Bradley and his fellow University of Wisconsin professor Craig Werner first intended to whittle down a list of the top 20 songs of the war, and soon realized that was an impossible errand. No Vietnam veteran is alike, and hundreds of songs held meaning for those who fought there. It was a varied soundtrack of patriotism and protests, hard rock and soul music, love songs, Dear John songs and more. Bradley and Werner’s book We Gotta Get Out Of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War (University of Massachusetts Press, 2015) blends musical and personal histories, explaining the backgrounds of specific songs and artists as well as what they meant to the Vietnam soldiers. In a conversation with Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, they discuss everything from the generational differences between Vietnam soldiers and their World War II-veteran fathers to the importance of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” written a full decade after the war ended. Hanoi Hannah, Good Morning Vietnam DJ Adrian Cronauer, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Nancy Sinatra, Country Joe McDonald and his famous F cheer all played a role in the wars musical history. Take a musical trip through this sometimes personal and often poetic book. Country Joe himself said of it, We all love popular music and we all love soldiers. All we have left is memories. Maybe there is something to learn from this book, from their experiences, from the music. God, I hope so.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the “Ballad of the Green Berets” to “Bad Moon Rising,” the music of the Vietnam War is woven through every vets memories. Vietnam vet Doug Bradley and his fellow University of Wisconsin professor Craig Werner first intended to whittle down a list of the top 20 songs of the war, and soon realized that was an impossible errand. No Vietnam veteran is alike, and hundreds of songs held meaning for those who fought there. It was a varied soundtrack of patriotism and protests, hard rock and soul music, love songs, Dear John songs and more. Bradley and Werner’s book We Gotta Get Out Of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War (University of Massachusetts Press, 2015) blends musical and personal histories, explaining the backgrounds of specific songs and artists as well as what they meant to the Vietnam soldiers. In a conversation with Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, they discuss everything from the generational differences between Vietnam soldiers and their World War II-veteran fathers to the importance of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” written a full decade after the war ended. Hanoi Hannah, Good Morning Vietnam DJ Adrian Cronauer, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Nancy Sinatra, Country Joe McDonald and his famous F cheer all played a role in the wars musical history. Take a musical trip through this sometimes personal and often poetic book. Country Joe himself said of it, We all love popular music and we all love soldiers. All we have left is memories. Maybe there is something to learn from this book, from their experiences, from the music. God, I hope so.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the “Ballad of the Green Berets” to “Bad Moon Rising,” the music of the Vietnam War is woven through every vets memories. Vietnam vet Doug Bradley and his fellow University of Wisconsin professor Craig Werner first intended to whittle down a list of the top 20 songs of the war, and soon realized that was an impossible errand. No Vietnam veteran is alike, and hundreds of songs held meaning for those who fought there. It was a varied soundtrack of patriotism and protests, hard rock and soul music, love songs, Dear John songs and more. Bradley and Werner’s book We Gotta Get Out Of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War (University of Massachusetts Press, 2015) blends musical and personal histories, explaining the backgrounds of specific songs and artists as well as what they meant to the Vietnam soldiers. In a conversation with Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, they discuss everything from the generational differences between Vietnam soldiers and their World War II-veteran fathers to the importance of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” written a full decade after the war ended. Hanoi Hannah, Good Morning Vietnam DJ Adrian Cronauer, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Nancy Sinatra, Country Joe McDonald and his famous F cheer all played a role in the wars musical history. Take a musical trip through this sometimes personal and often poetic book. Country Joe himself said of it, We all love popular music and we all love soldiers. All we have left is memories. Maybe there is something to learn from this book, from their experiences, from the music. God, I hope so.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the “Ballad of the Green Berets” to “Bad Moon Rising,” the music of the Vietnam War is woven through every vets memories. Vietnam vet Doug Bradley and his fellow University of Wisconsin professor Craig Werner first intended to whittle down a list of the top 20 songs of the war, and soon realized that was an impossible errand. No Vietnam veteran is alike, and hundreds of songs held meaning for those who fought there. It was a varied soundtrack of patriotism and protests, hard rock and soul music, love songs, Dear John songs and more. Bradley and Werner’s book We Gotta Get Out Of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War (University of Massachusetts Press, 2015) blends musical and personal histories, explaining the backgrounds of specific songs and artists as well as what they meant to the Vietnam soldiers. In a conversation with Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, they discuss everything from the generational differences between Vietnam soldiers and their World War II-veteran fathers to the importance of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” written a full decade after the war ended. Hanoi Hannah, Good Morning Vietnam DJ Adrian Cronauer, Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Nancy Sinatra, Country Joe McDonald and his famous F cheer all played a role in the wars musical history. Take a musical trip through this sometimes personal and often poetic book. Country Joe himself said of it, We all love popular music and we all love soldiers. All we have left is memories. Maybe there is something to learn from this book, from their experiences, from the music. God, I hope so.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

https://www.virginradio.it/audio/191014/Country-Joe-McDonald---The.htmlhttps://www.virginradio.it/audio/191014/Country-Joe-McDonald---The.htmlWed, 18 Nov 2015 09:12:12 +0100Virgin RadioVirgin Radiono0

Join Glasscaster as we share an exciting look into the world of Peggy Pettigrew Stewart. Her work with fused glass, kiln casting and Verre Eglomise has brought the world some phenomenal glass art. We discuss at length her current project casting the faces of some of rock and roll's greatest legends in glass. Focusing specifically on the San Francisco Bay area bands during the Summer of Love, she has cast the faces of Big Brother and the Holding Company, (Janis Joplin's Band), Country Joe McDonald of Country Joe and the Fish, some members of the Jefferson Airplane, and all of Santana. These complex pieces of glass each take several painstaking months to create, and are all a labor of love. There are many more stars to immortalize, and Peggy shares her concepts and methods in this insightful interview. Rock on, Peggy!

Beginning with all four of our CD players filled with lots of 60s jazz played all at once, and a reprise of The Last Poets relating the history of jazz, we continue with Nico and The Velvet Underground, The Byrds, Country Joe McDonald vs. LBJ, an ode to Richard Nixon, and lots of other mid to late 60s rock. After a review of the early 60's Mercury and Gemini space flights, Nasa's Apollo program to put us on the moon “By the end of this decade” begins. 3 Hours. The post Over the Edge -“Universe Part 26 What About The 60's? P” appeared first on KPFA.

What better way to start off this Podcast than with Country Joe & the Fish...their LP from 1967 "Electric Music for the Mind & Body" is the inspiration for this humble 1 hour Pod...Starting off with CJ & the Fish from EMFTM&B is "Flying High"....stuck on L.A. Freeway is no way to be, brothers & sister....so Smokey Joe Whitfield checks out the "Function at the Junction" via an old 78 rpm on the Crest label [L.A.] from 1955...Joel Scott Hill & the Strangers chime in with the very first 45 rpm on L.A.'s Titan label ..."Caterpiller Crawl" [1959]...Hill would go on to play in Canned Heat after guitar god, Harvey Mandell vacated the lead guitar chair....finishing off the first set is Blackburn & Snow, an excellent L.A. duo with "Stranger in a Strange Land" [Verve '66]...they put out 1 killer Lp and this 45 rpm written by Samuel F. Omar a.k.a. David Crosby. Lead guitar chores by The Ventures Jerry McGhee....Next up is Country Joe McDonald hisself with the title track from "Hold On It's Comin'' [Vanguard '71]...I dig this record and can't help but think how the material would sound with the Fish backing him up instead of some UK session cats!....The Cadillacs raise the beats-per-second level with an ultra rare 45 rpm "Please Mr. Johnson" [Josie '59] giving the Coasters a run for their moolah!! NYC gets to join in with Television's "Friction" offa their great debut record "Marquee Moon" [Elektra '77] and spinning back a decade The Shadows slip "Bombay Duck" on the turntable [Columbia '67]......At this point we'll take a minute to catch up while The Barry Gray Orchestra commands turntable #2 with "Joe 90 Theme" Joe 90 is a late-1960s British science-fiction television series concerning the adventures and exploits of nine-year-old Joe McClaine, who starts a double life as a schoolboy turned spy when his scientist father invents a pioneering machine capable of duplicating and then transferring expert knowledge and experience to another human brain. Equipped with the skills of the foremost academic and military minds, Joe enlists in the World Intelligence Network (WIN), becoming its "Most Special Agent", pursuing the ideal of world peace and saving human life....awesome, I say.Leaf Hound is up next from a stupidly rare record [their only one] on the Decca label [1971]. LH featured Pete French on vocals [Atomic Rooster / Cactus] and his cousin Mick Halls [Brunning Sunflower Blues Band / Mogul Thrash] on lead guitar....UK copies trade in the $1000's......We'll revisit Country Joe & Fish for "Section 43" an eerie instrumental that was more than likely inspired by some heavy drug inducing....July's "Friendly Man" switches the vibe for some incredible psych / pop from a band that morphed into Jade Warrior who eventually morphed into muzak of the worst kind...don't get me wrong, the first 3 Jade Warrior LP's KICK ASS!! but something happened along the way and they turned into a new age lump of crap....I'm only sayin'....Blue Cheer sends it back to California with "Man on the run" from "BC #5: The Original Human Being". Gary Yoder nee of KAK on guitar & Norman Mayall [Dr. West's Medicine Show / Sopwith Camel] on drums join Dickie Peterson for another terrific LP from these guys who started out life LOUDER THAN GOD!!! Milton Brown & His Musical Brownies cut the breeze with "Cheezy Breeze" from 1935 [Decca 78 rpm] and John Hammond gives the Pod a shot of bluesy r&r "I Wish You Would" with Robbie Robertson on guitar and Bill Wyman of the Stones on bass....from 1967's "I Can Tell"That's it for this week....join me next week when we take the "Last POD to Clarksville"

Join the Woodstock reunion, featuring special guest, producer Michael Lang, singer Country Joe McDonald, emcee Wavy Gravy - and most importantly - YOU!We'll talk with Michael about the festival and his book, "The Road to Woodstock" (Ecco/HarperCollins, © 2009). Call in and ask questions or share memories on (347) 945-6866.We will also be joined by singer Country Joe McDonald, who performed two sets at the concert.Joe is currently advising on a box set of music called "Next Stop Is Vietnam: The War on Record: 1954-2008," available in June 2010 on Bear Family Records. Sing along with Joe here: http://www.countryjoe.com. We'll also talk to Wavy Gravy, who was an emcee at Woodstock. He and members of the Hog Farm Collective were in charge of security at the event!Wavy has a new film out called "Saint Misbehavin: The Wavy Gravy Movie." Find out more about the movie and Wavy's antics here: http://www.wavygravy.net

Join the Woodstock reunion, featuring special guest, producer Michael Lang, singer Country Joe McDonald, emcee Wavy Gravy - and most importantly - YOU!We'll talk with Michael about the festival and his book, "The Road to Woodstock" (Ecco/HarperCollins, © 2009). Call in and ask questions or share memories on (347) 945-6866.We will also be joined by singer Country Joe McDonald, who performed two sets at the concert.Joe is currently advising on a box set of music called "Next Stop Is Vietnam: The War on Record: 1954-2008," available in June 2010 on Bear Family Records. Sing along with Joe here: http://www.countryjoe.com. We'll also talk to Wavy Gravy, who was an emcee at Woodstock. He and members of the Hog Farm Collective were in charge of security at the event!Wavy has a new film out called "Saint Misbehavin: The Wavy Gravy Movie." Find out more about the movie and Wavy's antics here: http://www.wavygravy.net

This episode is two actual minutes of peace & music, as Country Joe McDonald remembers how the general vibe at Woodstock helped to diffuse what would be fighting words at a normal rock concert.