Podcasts about Cross Road Blues

"Cannabis, COVID, and Concerts: A Grateful Dead Fan's Journey"Larry Mishkin is back from a break spent in South Carolina with his granddaughter he shares his experience of contracting a mild case of COVID, attributing his quick recovery to his cannabis use. He references studies suggesting that certain strains of sativa marijuana may mitigate COVID symptoms.The episode features a detailed discussion of a special Grateful Dead concert from July 15, 1989, at Deer Creek Music Theater in Noblesville, Indiana. Larry reminisces about the venue, the band's setlist, and the memorable experience shared with friends. He highlights key performances from the show, including "Bertha," "Greatest Story Ever Told," "Candyman," "Walkin' Blues," and others.Larry also covers recent music news, mentioning Melissa Etheridge's performance in Colorado and her upcoming summer tour. He shares updates on the String Cheese Incident's New Orleans-themed show at Red Rocks and Phish's recent appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, where they performed "Evolve" from their new album. Grateful DeadDeer Creek Music Theater CenterNoblesville, INGrateful Dead Live at Deer Creek Music Center on 1989-07-15 : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive With:  Judy, Andy K., Lary V., AWell and others First Dead show ever at Deer Creek which had just opened that year.  Became a regular stop on the Dead's summer tour thereafter and one of the favorite places for the Deadheads given its relatively small size as compared to the stadium venues that soon became the norm for summer tours.  Ironically, two days after this one-off Dead played their final 3 shows at Alpine Valley, switched to Tinley Park in 1990 and then starting in 1991 Chicago summer  tour shows were confined to Soldier Field with 60,000 attendees. INTRO:                                 Bertha                                                Track #2                                                1:20 – 3:00 Garcia/Hunter – first appeared on Grateful Dead (live) aka Skull and Roses or Skullfuck (1971)Played: 401First:  February 18, 1971 at Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, USALast:  June 27, 1995 at the Palace of Auburn Hills, Detroit, MI  SHOW No. 1:                    Walkin Blues                                                Track #5                                                1:38 – 3:20 "Walkin' Blues" or "Walking Blues" is a blues standard written and recorded by American Delta blues musician Son House in 1930. Although unissued at the time, it was part of House's repertoire and other musicians, including Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, adapted the song and recorded their own versions. "Walkin' Blues" was not a commercial success when it was issued as a "race record" marketed to black listeners.  However, the song was received with great enthusiasm by a small group of white jazz record collectors and critics. Producer John Hammond chose "Walkin' Blues" and "Preachin' Blues" as the records to be played at his 1938 From Spirituals to Swing concert, when Johnson himself could not appear (Johnson had died a few months earlier).[15] The 1961 Johnson compilation album King of the Delta Blues Singers was marketed to white enthusiasts. According to most sources, John Hammond was involved in the production and the selection of tracks. The album included the two House-style songs and a song with House-style guitar figures ("Cross Road Blues" and excluded songs in the commercial style of the late 1930s. Notable exclusions were Johnson's one commercial hit, "Terraplane Blues", and two songs which he passed on to the mainstream of blues recording, "Sweet Home Chicago" and "Dust My Broom". Dead first played it in 1966, once in 1982 and 4 times in 1985.  Then, beginning in 1987 it became a standard part of Dead song lists, peaking in 1988 when it was played 23 times.  Became one of Bobby's early first set blues numbers with Minglewood Blues, CC Rider and Little Red Rooster. Played: 141First:  October 7, 1966 at Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA, USALast:  July 2, 1995 at Deer Creek Music Center, Noblesville, IN, USA   SHOW No. 2:                    Crazy Fingers                                                Track #12                                                4:30 – 6:12 Pretty standard second set song, usually pre-drums.  Fist played in 1975, a few times in 1976 and then dropped until 1982 at Ventura County Fairgrounds (day after my first show).  Played 7 times that year, dropped until 1985 (10 times), then dropped until 1987 and then played regularly until the end.  Great tune, Jerry often forgot the lyrics and this version is great because Bobby saves him on the lyrics when Jerry starts to go astray.  Good fun considering how many times Bobby would forget the words to his songs. But one of those things you remember if you see it happen Garcia/Hunter, released on Blues For Allah (Sept. 1, 1975)Played: 145 timesFirst:  June 17, 1975 at Winterland Arena, San Francisco, CA, USALast:  July 5, 1995 at Riverport Amphitheatre in Maryland Heights, MO (St. Louis)  SHOW No. 3:                    Truckin                                                Track #13                                                7:00 – end Hunter/Garcia/Weir/Lesh/Kreutzman (Pigpen went inside to take a nap) by the side of a pool.Released on American Beauty (November, 1970) final tune on the albumPlayed: 532 timesFirst:  August 17, 1970 at Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, USALast:  July 6, 1995 at Riverport Amphitheatre in Maryland Heights, MO                                                  INTO                                                Smokestack Lightning                                                Track #14                                                0:00 – 0:36  "Smokestack Lightning" (also "Smoke Stack Lightning" or "Smokestack Lightnin'") is a blues song recorded by Howlin' Wolf (Chester Burnett) in 1956. It became one of his most popular and influential songs. It is based on earlier blues songs, and numerous artists later interpreted it.  Recorded at Chess Records in Chicago and released in March, 1956 with You Can't Be Beat on the B side. Wolf had performed "Smokestack Lightning" in one form or another at least by the early 1930s,[1] when he was performing with Charley Patton in small Delta communities.[1] The song, described as "a hypnotic one-chord drone piece",[2] draws on earlier blues, such as Tommy Johnson's "Big Road Blues",[3] the Mississippi Sheiks' "Stop and Listen Blues",[4] and Charley Patton's "Moon Going Down".[5][6] Wolf said the song was inspired by watching trains in the night: "We used to sit out in the country and see the trains go by, watch the sparks come out of the smokestack. That was smokestack lightning." In a song review for AllMusic, Bill Janovitz described "Smokestack Lightning" as "almost like a distillation of the essence of the blues... a pleasingly primitive and raw representation of the blues, pure and chant-like. Wolf truly sounds like a man in otherwise inexpressible agony, flailing for words."[8] In 1999, the song received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award, honoring its lasting historical significance.[13]Rolling Stone magazine ranked it at number 291 in its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time"[7] and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included it in its list of the "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll".[14] In 1985, the song was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in the "Classics of Blues Recordings" category[15] and, in 2009, it was selected for permanent preservation in the National Recording Registry of the U.S. Library of Congress. Janovitz also identifies "Smokestack Lightning" as a blues standard "open to varied interpretation, covered by artists ranging from the Yardbirds to Soundgarden, all stamping their personal imprint on the song".[8] Clapton identifies the Yardbirds' performances of the song as the group's most popular live number.[17] They played it almost every show, and sometimes it could last up to 30 minutes. Dead often played it out of Truckin, would also play the blues tune Spoonful out of Truckin. Played:  63 timesFirst:  November 19, 1966 at Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA, USALast:  October 18, 1994 at Madison Square Garden, New York, NY, USA   SHOW No. 4:                    Space                                                Track #17                                                7:45 – 9:20  On November 28, 1973, Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia and drummer Mickey Hart staged a performance at San Francisco's Palace Of Fine Arts. At the time, Hart – whose 80th birthday is today – was on a sabbatical from the Dead, having last performed in public with Garcia and the band in February 1971. Hart would rejoin the Dead for good in October 1974.A poster promoting the concert shows a clean-shaven Garcia dressed in black beside an equally freshly shaven Hart wearing all white. At the bottom of the advertisement was printed “An Experiment in Quadrophonic Sound.”Hart recalled his experience at the duo concert with Garcia in 1973 that was not only a Seastones precursor but also planted the seeds for the band's mind-bending “Space” jams.“There were so many exciting that we've done together. Adventurous musical things. He was also into adventure and creating new spaces, so we had that in common. We got together many times out of the ring – where he first discovered synthesizers, being able to synthesize his guitar, which led to MIDI.“The first concert we did was in 1973. It was just a duo. He got an Arp [Odyssey], an electric instrument, a keyboard, and he plugged his guitar into it and that was the first time I had heard his guitar I had heard his guitar running through sophisticated synthesizers.“I just thought of that concert, which kind of was the beginning of ‘Space' – ‘Drums' and ‘Space' actually – it might have been the very beginning of it. And I think of that on his birthday, the seminal things we did together.” After the November 28, 1973 concert, the Grateful Dead began to occasionally incorporate elements of a “Space” jam into their shows. In January 1978, Dead shows almost always included a nightly “Drums” jam paired with a freeform “Space” jam, consistently showing up mid-second set throughout the rest of their career. Played:  1086First:  March 19, 1966 at Carthay Studios, Los Angeles, CA, USALast:  July 9, 1995 at Soldier Field, Chicago, IL   OUTRO:                               Brokedown Palace                                                Track #22                                                5:04 – 6:43  The lyric to “Brokedown Palace” was written by Robert Hunter as part of a suite of songs that arrived via his pen during a stay in London in 1970. He entitled it “Broke-Down Palace,” and now that it exists as a piece of writing, it seems to have always existed. It was composed on the same afternoon as “Ripple” and “To Lay Me Down,” with the aid of a half bottle of retsina.Its first performance was on August 18, 1970, at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, and became a staple of the live repertoire. After the 1975 hiatus, “Brokedown Palace” appeared almost exclusively as the closing song of the show, as an encore. It had the effect of sending us out of the show on a gentle pillow of sound, the band bidding us “Fare you well, fare you well…”Garcia/HunterReleased on American Beauty (Nov. 1970) Played: 219 timesFirst:  August 18, 1970 at Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, USALast:  June 25, 1995 at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. .Produced by PodConx Deadhead Cannabis Show - https://podconx.com/podcasts/deadhead-cannabis-showLarry Mishkin - https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkinRob Hunt - https://podconx.com/guests/rob-huntJay Blakesberg - https://podconx.com/guests/jay-blakesbergSound Designed by Jamie Humiston - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-humiston-91718b1b3/Recorded on Squadcast

In this heartfelt Black Music Month episode of PGC After Dark, we delve into the profound themes of heartache, loss, and redemption in blues music. Join us as we explore how the raw, emotional content of blues songs resonates deeply with listeners, especially during the quiet hours of the night. Blues music, with its roots in African American history and culture, has long served as a powerful outlet for expressing the deepest sorrows and the journey toward healing. In this episode, we trace the origins of the blues and highlight its evolution through the stories and sounds of iconic artists like B.B. King, Billie Holiday, Muddy Waters, and Etta James. We'll dissect classic tracks such as Robert Johnson's “Cross Road Blues,” Bessie Smith's “Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out,” and Howlin' Wolf's “Smokestack Lightning,” revealing the emotional depth and storytelling prowess that define the genre. Our conversation will uncover how blues music captures the universal human experience of pain and perseverance. We'll discuss the ways in which these songs have provided comfort and solidarity to listeners, allowing them to confront their own struggles and find solace in the shared experience of suffering and hope. Listeners will gain insight into the unique musical elements that give blues its distinctive sound— from the melancholic guitar riffs to the soulful, wailing vocals. We'll also explore how contemporary artists continue to draw inspiration from the blues, keeping its spirit alive while infusing it with modern sensibilities. Tune in for an evocative journey through the emotional landscape of the blues, as we share stories of heartache and redemption that have been immortalized in song. Whether you're a long-time blues aficionado or new to the genre, this episode offers a deep, resonant look at the music that speaks to the soul. Press play and let the haunting melodies and poignant lyrics guide you through the timeless world of the blues. This is one episode that promises to touch your heart and remind you of the healing power of music. Don't miss out on this soulful celebration of the blues! We wanna hear all your thoughts and answer all the questions, so come connect with us.......... Instagram: @pgcafterdark Facebook.com/thephatgirlchronicles Twitter: @pgcafterdark YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/ThePhatGirlChronicles Did you learn something in this episode that you didn't know?!? If so, please share this episode with a friend and leave a 5-star review and comment wherever you listen to this podcast. We would love to know how our show made your day or taught you something new!!! https://www.facebook.com/thephatgirlchronicles/reviews And make sure you listen in on your favorite podcast streaming platform, and leave us a rating, follow us, and share, share, share!!!!

Quinn Sullivan – Eyesight to the blind - Salvation - 2024 Chris Bergson Band – You Lied - Comforts of Home - 2024 Damon Fowler – Catch you crying - Barnyard Smile - 2024 Seasick Steve – Move to the country - A Trip A Stumble A Fall Down On Your Knees - 2024 Sammy Kershaw – I can't quit you baby - Cross Road Blues - 2024 Dennis Jones – Six feet off the ground - About TIme - 2024 Big Joe Shelton - Mississippi Night - 2024 Sierra Green & The Giants – This is a man's world - Here We Are - 2024 Eden Brent -Watch the world go by -  Getaway Blues - 2024 Toronzo Cannon – I hate love - Shut Up & Play! - 2024 Robert 'Lefty Preacher' Sampson – Story of the Blues - They Call Me Lefty Preacher - 2024 

Hear "Cross Road Blues" on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/1TrGdXSgiBm8W68D2K1COG Hear "Cross Road Blues" on Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/gb/song/cross-road-blues/546817835 Follow me: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/songsofnote/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/songsofnote/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to my newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://eepurl.com/hzQ0Fv⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

fWotD Episode 2550: Cross Road Blues Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.The featured article for Sunday, 28 April 2024 is Cross Road Blues."Cross Road Blues" (commonly known as "Crossroads") is a song written by the American blues artist Robert Johnson. He performed it as a solo piece with his vocal and acoustic slide guitar in the Delta blues-style. The song has become part of the Robert Johnson mythology as referring to the place where he supposedly sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his musical talent. This is based largely on folklore of the American South that identifies a crossroads as the site where such pacts are made, although the lyrics do not contain any references to Satan or a Faustian bargain. "Cross Road Blues" may have been in Johnson's repertoire since 1932 and, in 1936, he recorded two performances. One was released in 1937 as a single that was heard mainly in the Mississippi Delta area. The second, which reached a wider audience, was included on King of the Delta Blues Singers, a compilation album of some of Johnson's songs released in 1961 during the American folk music revival.Over the years, several bluesmen have recorded versions of the song, usually as ensemble pieces with electrified guitars. Elmore James' recordings in 1954 and 1960–1961 have been identified as perhaps the most significant of the earlier renditions. In the late 1960s, guitarist Eric Clapton and the British rock group Cream popularized the song as "Crossroads". Their blues rock interpretation became one of their best-known songs and inspired many cover versions.Both Johnson and Cream's recordings of the song have received accolades from various organizations and publications. Both have also led the song to be identified as a blues standard as well as an important piece in the repertoires of blues-inspired rock musicians. Clapton continues to be associated with the song and has used the name for the drug treatment center he founded and the series of music festivals to raise money for it.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 01:10 UTC on Sunday, 28 April 2024.For the full current version of the article, see Cross Road Blues on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm Danielle Neural.

Mais il y a une histoire qui s'est également poursuivie, celle de Robert Johnson. En effet, l'album King of the Delta Blues Singers a déclenché une recherche d'informations sur Johnson au sein de la communauté des spécialistes et musiciens blancs du blues, et des gens comme Al Wilson de Canned Heat, Gayle Dean Wardlow, Paul Oliver, Peter Guralnick, Steve LaVere et Mack McCormick ont commencé à enquêter sur la vie de Johnson et à écrire des articles et des livres à son sujet.  PLAYLIST Robert Johnson, "Cross Road Blues" Uncle Dave Macon, "Death of John Henry" Willie Brown, "M&O Blues" Jimmie Rodgers, "Waiting for a Train" Lonnie Johnson et Louis Armstrong, "Hotter Than That" Charlie Patton, "You're Gonna Need Somebody When You Die" Son House, "Preaching the Blues" Johnnie Temple, "Lead Pencil Blues" Robert Jr Lockwood, "Steady Rollin' Man" Robert Johnson, "They're Red Hot" Robert Johnson, "Sweet Home Chicago" Kokomo Arnold, "Old Original Kokomo Blues". Robert Johnson, "Come on In My Kitchen" Robert Johnson, "Love in Vain"

In the tapestry of modern music, blues has woven its influence far and wide, but perhaps one of its most intriguing impacts lies in the grunge movement of the late 20th century. This chapter explores how the raw emotion and musical techniques of blues formed the backbone of grunge, a genre that defined a generation. Grunge music, emerging in Seattle in the late 1980s, was more than a genre—it was a cultural phenomenon. Its roots, however, were firmly planted in the blues tradition. The genre's signature sound—characterized by heavy guitar distortion, aggressive drumming, and emotive lyrics—echoed the raw, unfiltered essence of blues. The influence of blues is evident in the guitar techniques and lyrical themes of grunge. The emotional depth and soul-bearing honesty found in the works of blues legends like Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters resonated in the grunge movement. Songs like Johnson's "Cross Road Blues" exemplified the expressive power of blues, which grunge artists like Nirvana mirrored in tracks such as "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Blues was not just a precursor to grunge; it was the foundation upon which rock music was built. The genre's influence on rock icons like The Rolling Stones, as seen in "Paint It, Black," laid the groundwork for the heavier, introspective sound that would become grunge's hallmark. Contemplating a world without blues offers a stark perspective on its influence. The introspective and often somber tone of grunge lyrics, as well as the genre's complex musical structures, owe much to the blues tradition. Without this influence, songs like Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" might have lacked the depth and emotive resonance that define them. The legacy of grunge, deeply rooted in the blues, continues to resonate in modern music. Artists like Gary Clark Jr., with songs such as "Bright Lights," showcase the ongoing relevance of blues, while bands like Foo Fighters demonstrate grunge's lasting influence on the rock genre. The journey from blues to grunge is a testament to the enduring power of musical evolution. This chapter highlights how blues, often unseen, has been a guiding force in shaping the sound and soul of grunge, leaving an indelible mark on the landscape of modern music. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theblueslegacy/message

In this episode, photographer Oli Kellett talks about how he discovered Paradise early in his career, how the idea emerged for his award-winning series Cross Road Blues, the concept behind it and how he photographed it, how ice-cream and eastern philosophy combined to inspire his Life Drawing Series, and how his current obsession is something... Continue Reading →

We're continuing our monthly astrology series and looking at the astrology of October 2023. HOW ARE WE ALREADY IN OCTOBER???The theme for this month is "At A Crossroads" - so we're breaking down the idea of "crossroads" in some really intricate ways, because it's a common theme in mythology and folklore across many cultures. October is basically like one giant crossroads moment. Where will you choose to go from here? We're not going to sugarcoat it: October has a lot going on. You might say it'll feel pretty "heated" because the "Via Combusta" (AKA the "fiery road") is getting activated by a ton of planetary alignments. We're telling you what the Via Combusta means and how it's being activated throughout the month. Between two eclipses (a New Moon Eclipse in Libra and a Full Moon Eclipse in Taurus), five (count them, five!) planets changing signs, and Pluto finally ending its long retrograde...there's a lot of cosmic action going on and we're ready to share it all with you.How are you feeling about October? Are there any celestial events or astrological alignments that you're particularly eager to experience? P.S. RATE US 5 STARS PLEASE! IT HELPS SO MUCH! Additional Resources:Clairannoyance InstagramClairannoyance TikTokClairannoyance WebsiteMegan's InstagramMegan's TikTokMegan's WebsiteRyan's InstagramRyan's TikTokRyan's Website

It's finally September! Bre and Maestro are preparing for the fall season with a horror novella to kick things off. Crossroads by Laurel Hightower is a story about grief, motherhood, and how far you'd go for the people you love. TWs for depictions of grief, loss of a child, self harm, and suicide attempts. You can contact us at tmttspodcast@gmail.com Website: https://tmttspodcast.wixsite.com/home Follow us on social media: @tmttspodcast on Instagram and TikTok. Also on YOUTUBE! THERE'S MORE TO THE STORY IS A SPOILER-FILLED SHOW PLEASE LISTEN WITH CAUTION.

La última edición de Ruta 61 va dedicada a Manolo Martínez Molina, que fue quien hace 15 años me animó a presentar el piloto de Ruta 61 a la entonces directora de Radio 3, Lara López. Gracias a Lara y al entonces subdirector de Radio 3, Diego Manrique, por aprobar el proyecto. Gracias a todos los oyentes del programa por haberlo escuchado a lo largo de los años. Por último, pero no por ello menos importante, gracias a todos los intérpretes de blues por regalarnos esta música tan profundamente humana. Playlist: Snatch It Back and Hold It – Junior Wells; Done Got Old – Buddy Guy; Am I Wrong – Keb' Mo'; Low Down Ways – Jontavious Willis; Blues for Charlie – Ike Quebec; Bad Avenue – Valerie Wellington; Wade in the Water – Big Mama Thornton; Born Under a Bad Sign – Albert King, con Stevie Ray Vaughan; Cross Road Blues – Robert Johnson; Come On In My Kitchen – Cassandra Wilson; Black Girl (Where Did You Sleep Last Night) – Lead Belly; Lovin' In My Baby's Eyes – Taj Mahal; All Night Long – Junior Kimbrough; Hoodoo Man Blues – Junior Wells. Escuchar audio

Episode 166 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Crossroads", Cream, the myth of Robert Johnson, and whether white men can sing the blues. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-eight-minute bonus episode available, on “Tip-Toe Thru' the Tulips" by Tiny Tim. 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/ Errata I talk about an interview with Clapton from 1967, I meant 1968. I mention a Graham Bond live recording from 1953, and of course meant 1963. I say Paul Jones was on vocals in the Powerhouse sessions. Steve Winwood was on vocals, and Jones was on harmonica. Resources As I say at the end, the main resource you need to get if you enjoyed this episode is Brother Robert by Annye Anderson, Robert Johnson's stepsister. There are three Mixcloud mixes this time. As there are so many songs by Cream, Robert Johnson, John Mayall, and Graham Bond excerpted, and Mixcloud won't allow more than four songs by the same artist in any mix, I've had to post the songs not in quite the same order in which they appear in the podcast. But the mixes are here -- one, two, three. This article on Mack McCormick gives a fuller explanation of the problems with his research and behaviour. The other books I used for the Robert Johnson sections were McCormick's Biography of a Phantom; Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson, by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow; Searching for Robert Johnson by Peter Guralnick; and Escaping the Delta by Elijah Wald. I can recommend all of these subject to the caveats at the end of the episode. The information on the history and prehistory of the Delta blues mostly comes from Before Elvis by Larry Birnbaum, with some coming from Charley Patton by John Fahey. The information on Cream comes mostly from Cream: How Eric Clapton Took the World by Storm by Dave Thompson. I also used Ginger Baker: Hellraiser by Ginger Baker and Ginette Baker, Mr Showbiz by Stephen Dando-Collins, Motherless Child by Paul Scott, and  Alexis Korner: The Biography by Harry Shapiro. The best collection of Cream's work is the four-CD set Those Were the Days, which contains every track the group ever released while they were together (though only the stereo mixes of the albums, and a couple of tracks are in slightly different edits from the originals). You can get Johnson's music on many budget compilation records, as it's in the public domain in the EU, but the double CD collection produced by Steve LaVere for Sony in 2011 is, despite the problems that come from it being associated with LaVere, far and away the best option -- the remasters have a clarity that's worlds ahead of even the 1990s CD version it replaced. And for a good single-CD introduction to the Delta blues musicians and songsters who were Johnson's peers and inspirations, Back to the Crossroads: The Roots of Robert Johnson, compiled by Elijah Wald as a companion to his book on Johnson, can't be beaten, and contains many of the tracks excerpted in this episode. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before we start, a quick note that this episode contains discussion of racism, drug addiction, and early death. There's also a brief mention of death in childbirth and infant mortality. It's been a while since we looked at the British blues movement, and at the blues in general, so some of you may find some of what follows familiar, as we're going to look at some things we've talked about previously, but from a different angle. In 1968, the Bonzo Dog Band, a comedy musical band that have been described as the missing link between the Beatles and the Monty Python team, released a track called "Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?": [Excerpt: The Bonzo Dog Band, "Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?"] That track was mocking a discussion that was very prominent in Britain's music magazines around that time. 1968 saw the rise of a *lot* of British bands who started out as blues bands, though many of them went on to different styles of music -- Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After, Jethro Tull, Chicken Shack and others were all becoming popular among the kind of people who read the music magazines, and so the question was being asked -- can white men sing the blues? Of course, the answer to that question was obvious. After all, white men *invented* the blues. Before we get any further at all, I have to make clear that I do *not* mean that white people created blues music. But "the blues" as a category, and particularly the idea of it as a music made largely by solo male performers playing guitar... that was created and shaped by the actions of white male record executives. There is no consensus as to when or how the blues as a genre started -- as we often say in this podcast "there is no first anything", but like every genre it seems to have come from multiple sources. In the case of the blues, there's probably some influence from African music by way of field chants sung by enslaved people, possibly some influence from Arabic music as well, definitely some influence from the Irish and British folk songs that by the late nineteenth century were developing into what we now call country music, a lot from ragtime, and a lot of influence from vaudeville and minstrel songs -- which in turn themselves were all very influenced by all those other things. Probably the first published composition to show any real influence of the blues is from 1904, a ragtime piano piece by James Chapman and Leroy Smith, "One O' Them Things": [Excerpt: "One O' Them Things"] That's not very recognisable as a blues piece yet, but it is more-or-less a twelve-bar blues. But the blues developed, and it developed as a result of a series of commercial waves. The first of these came in 1914, with the success of W.C. Handy's "Memphis Blues", which when it was recorded by the Victor Military Band for a phonograph cylinder became what is generally considered the first blues record proper: [Excerpt: The Victor Military Band, "Memphis Blues"] The famous dancers Vernon and Irene Castle came up with a dance, the foxtrot -- which Vernon Castle later admitted was largely inspired by Black dancers -- to be danced to the "Memphis Blues", and the foxtrot soon overtook the tango, which the Castles had introduced to the US the previous year, to become the most popular dance in America for the best part of three decades. And with that came an explosion in blues in the Handy style, cranked out by every music publisher. While the blues was a style largely created by Black performers and writers, the segregated nature of the American music industry at the time meant that most vocal performances of these early blues that were captured on record were by white performers, Black vocalists at this time only rarely getting the chance to record. The first blues record with a Black vocalist is also technically the first British blues record. A group of Black musicians, apparently mostly American but led by a Jamaican pianist, played at Ciro's Club in London, and recorded many tracks in Britain, under a name which I'm not going to say in full -- it started with Ciro's Club, and continued alliteratively with another word starting with C, a slur for Black people. In 1917 they recorded a vocal version of "St. Louis Blues", another W.C. Handy composition: [Excerpt: Ciro's Club C**n Orchestra, "St. Louis Blues"] The first American Black blues vocal didn't come until two years later, when Bert Williams, a Black minstrel-show performer who like many Black performers of his era performed in blackface even though he was Black, recorded “I'm Sorry I Ain't Got It You Could Have It If I Had It Blues,” [Excerpt: Bert Williams, "I'm Sorry I Ain't Got It You Could Have It If I Had It Blues,”] But it wasn't until 1920 that the second, bigger, wave of popularity started for the blues, and this time it started with the first record of a Black *woman* singing the blues -- Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues": [Excerpt: Mamie Smith, "Crazy Blues"] You can hear the difference between that and anything we've heard up to that point -- that's the first record that anyone from our perspective, a hundred and three years later, would listen to and say that it bore any resemblance to what we think of as the blues -- so much so that many places still credit it as the first ever blues record. And there's a reason for that. "Crazy Blues" was one of those records that separates the music industry into before and after, like "Rock Around the Clock", "I Want to Hold Your Hand", Sgt Pepper, or "Rapper's Delight". It sold seventy-five thousand copies in its first month -- a massive number by the standards of 1920 -- and purportedly went on to sell over a million copies. Sales figures and market analysis weren't really a thing in the same way in 1920, but even so it became very obvious that "Crazy Blues" was a big hit, and that unlike pretty much any other previous records, it was a big hit among Black listeners, which meant that there was a market for music aimed at Black people that was going untapped. Soon all the major record labels were setting up subsidiaries devoted to what they called "race music", music made by and for Black people. And this sees the birth of what is now known as "classic blues", but at the time (and for decades after) was just what people thought of when they thought of "the blues" as a genre. This was music primarily sung by female vaudeville artists backed by jazz bands, people like Ma Rainey (whose earliest recordings featured Louis Armstrong in her backing band): [Excerpt: Ma Rainey, "See See Rider Blues"] And Bessie Smith, the "Empress of the Blues", who had a massive career in the 1920s before the Great Depression caused many of these "race record" labels to fold, but who carried on performing well into the 1930s -- her last recording was in 1933, produced by John Hammond, with a backing band including Benny Goodman and Jack Teagarden: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Give Me a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer"] It wouldn't be until several years after the boom started by Mamie Smith that any record companies turned to recording Black men singing the blues accompanied by guitar or banjo. The first record of this type is probably "Norfolk Blues" by Reese DuPree from 1924: [Excerpt: Reese DuPree, "Norfolk Blues"] And there were occasional other records of this type, like "Airy Man Blues" by Papa Charlie Jackson, who was advertised as the “only man living who sings, self-accompanied, for Blues records.” [Excerpt: Papa Charlie Jackson, "Airy Man Blues"] But contrary to the way these are seen today, at the time they weren't seen as being in some way "authentic", or "folk music". Indeed, there are many quotes from folk-music collectors of the time (sadly all of them using so many slurs that it's impossible for me to accurately quote them) saying that when people sang the blues, that wasn't authentic Black folk music at all but an adulteration from commercial music -- they'd clearly, according to these folk-music scholars, learned the blues style from records and sheet music rather than as part of an oral tradition. Most of these performers were people who recorded blues as part of a wider range of material, like Blind Blake, who recorded some blues music but whose best work was his ragtime guitar instrumentals: [Excerpt: Blind Blake, "Southern Rag"] But it was when Blind Lemon Jefferson started recording for Paramount records in 1926 that the image of the blues as we now think of it took shape. His first record, "Got the Blues", was a massive success: [Excerpt: Blind Lemon Jefferson, "Got the Blues"] And this resulted in many labels, especially Paramount, signing up pretty much every Black man with a guitar they could find in the hopes of finding another Blind Lemon Jefferson. But the thing is, this generation of people making blues records, and the generation that followed them, didn't think of themselves as "blues singers" or "bluesmen". They were songsters. Songsters were entertainers, and their job was to sing and play whatever the audiences would want to hear. That included the blues, of course, but it also included... well, every song anyone would want to hear.  They'd perform old folk songs, vaudeville songs, songs that they'd heard on the radio or the jukebox -- whatever the audience wanted. Robert Johnson, for example, was known to particularly love playing polka music, and also adored the records of Jimmie Rodgers, the first country music superstar. In 1941, when Alan Lomax first recorded Muddy Waters, he asked Waters what kind of songs he normally played in performances, and he was given a list that included "Home on the Range", Gene Autry's "I've Got Spurs That Jingle Jangle Jingle", and Glenn Miller's "Chattanooga Choo-Choo". We have few recordings of these people performing this kind of song though. One of the few we have is Big Bill Broonzy, who was just about the only artist of this type not to get pigeonholed as just a blues singer, even though blues is what made him famous, and who later in his career managed to record songs like the Tin Pan Alley standard "The Glory of Love": [Excerpt: Big Bill Broonzy, "The Glory of Love"] But for the most part, the image we have of the blues comes down to one man, Arthur Laibley, a sales manager for the Wisconsin Chair Company. The Wisconsin Chair Company was, as the name would suggest, a company that started out making wooden chairs, but it had branched out into other forms of wooden furniture -- including, for a brief time, large wooden phonographs. And, like several other manufacturers, like the Radio Corporation of America -- RCA -- and the Gramophone Company, which became EMI, they realised that if they were going to sell the hardware it made sense to sell the software as well, and had started up Paramount Records, which bought up a small label, Black Swan, and soon became the biggest manufacturer of records for the Black market, putting out roughly a quarter of all "race records" released between 1922 and 1932. At first, most of these were produced by a Black talent scout, J. Mayo Williams, who had been the first person to record Ma Rainey, Papa Charlie Jackson, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, but in 1927 Williams left Paramount, and the job of supervising sessions went to Arthur Laibley, though according to some sources a lot of the actual production work was done by Aletha Dickerson, Williams' former assistant, who was almost certainly the first Black woman to be what we would now think of as a record producer. Williams had been interested in recording all kinds of music by Black performers, but when Laibley got a solo Black man into the studio, what he wanted more than anything was for him to record the blues, ideally in a style as close as possible to that of Blind Lemon Jefferson. Laibley didn't have a very hands-on approach to recording -- indeed Paramount had very little concern about the quality of their product anyway, and Paramount's records are notorious for having been put out on poor-quality shellac and recorded badly -- and he only occasionally made actual suggestions as to what kind of songs his performers should write -- for example he asked Son House to write something that sounded like Blind Lemon Jefferson, which led to House writing and recording "Mississippi County Farm Blues", which steals the tune of Jefferson's "See That My Grave is Kept Clean": [Excerpt: Son House, "Mississippi County Farm Blues"] When Skip James wanted to record a cover of James Wiggins' "Forty-Four Blues", Laibley suggested that instead he should do a song about a different gun, and so James recorded "Twenty-Two Twenty Blues": [Excerpt: Skip James, "Twenty-Two Twenty Blues"] And Laibley also suggested that James write a song about the Depression, which led to one of the greatest blues records ever, "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues": [Excerpt: Skip James, "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues"] These musicians knew that they were getting paid only for issued sides, and that Laibley wanted only blues from them, and so that's what they gave him. Even when it was a performer like Charlie Patton. (Incidentally, for those reading this as a transcript rather than listening to it, Patton's name is more usually spelled ending in ey, but as far as I can tell ie was his preferred spelling and that's what I'm using). Charlie Patton was best known as an entertainer, first and foremost -- someone who would do song-and-dance routines, joke around, play guitar behind his head. He was a clown on stage, so much so that when Son House finally heard some of Patton's records, in the mid-sixties, decades after the fact, he was astonished that Patton could actually play well. Even though House had been in the room when some of the records were made, his memory of Patton was of someone who acted the fool on stage. That's definitely not the impression you get from the Charlie Patton on record: [Excerpt: Charlie Patton, "Poor Me"] Patton is, as far as can be discerned, the person who was most influential in creating the music that became called the "Delta blues". Not a lot is known about Patton's life, but he was almost certainly the half-brother of the Chatmon brothers, who made hundreds of records, most notably as members of the Mississippi Sheiks: [Excerpt: The Mississippi Sheiks, "Sitting on Top of the World"] In the 1890s, Patton's family moved to Sunflower County, Mississippi, and he lived in and around that county until his death in 1934. Patton learned to play guitar from a musician called Henry Sloan, and then Patton became a mentor figure to a *lot* of other musicians in and around the plantation on which his family lived. Some of the musicians who grew up in the immediate area around Patton included Tommy Johnson: [Excerpt: Tommy Johnson, "Big Road Blues"] Pops Staples: [Excerpt: The Staple Singers, "Will The Circle Be Unbroken"] Robert Johnson: [Excerpt: Robert Johnson, "Crossroads"] Willie Brown, a musician who didn't record much, but who played a lot with Patton, Son House, and Robert Johnson and who we just heard Johnson sing about: [Excerpt: Willie Brown, "M&O Blues"] And Chester Burnett, who went on to become known as Howlin' Wolf, and whose vocal style was equally inspired by Patton and by the country star Jimmie Rodgers: [Excerpt: Howlin' Wolf, "Smokestack Lightnin'"] Once Patton started his own recording career for Paramount, he also started working as a talent scout for them, and it was him who brought Son House to Paramount. Soon after the Depression hit, Paramount stopped recording, and so from 1930 through 1934 Patton didn't make any records. He was tracked down by an A&R man in January 1934 and recorded one final session: [Excerpt, Charlie Patton, "34 Blues"] But he died of heart failure two months later. But his influence spread through his proteges, and they themselves influenced other musicians from the area who came along a little after, like Robert Lockwood and Muddy Waters. This music -- or that portion of it that was considered worth recording by white record producers, only a tiny, unrepresentative, portion of their vast performing repertoires -- became known as the Delta Blues, and when some of these musicians moved to Chicago and started performing with electric instruments, it became Chicago Blues. And as far as people like John Mayall in Britain were concerned, Delta and Chicago Blues *were* the blues: [Excerpt: John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, "It Ain't Right"] John Mayall was one of the first of the British blues obsessives, and for a long time thought of himself as the only one. While we've looked before at the growth of the London blues scene, Mayall wasn't from London -- he was born in Macclesfield and grew up in Cheadle Hulme, both relatively well-off suburbs of Manchester, and after being conscripted and doing two years in the Army, he had become an art student at Manchester College of Art, what is now Manchester Metropolitan University. Mayall had been a blues fan from the late 1940s, writing off to the US to order records that hadn't been released in the UK, and by most accounts by the late fifties he'd put together the biggest blues collection in Britain by quite some way. Not only that, but he had one of the earliest home tape recorders, and every night he would record radio stations from Continental Europe which were broadcasting for American service personnel, so he'd amassed mountains of recordings, often unlabelled, of obscure blues records that nobody else in the UK knew about. He was also an accomplished pianist and guitar player, and in 1956 he and his drummer friend Peter Ward had put together a band called the Powerhouse Four (the other two members rotated on a regular basis) mostly to play lunchtime jazz sessions at the art college. Mayall also started putting on jam sessions at a youth club in Wythenshawe, where he met another drummer named Hughie Flint. Over the late fifties and into the early sixties, Mayall more or less by himself built up a small blues scene in Manchester. The Manchester blues scene was so enthusiastic, in fact, that when the American Folk Blues Festival, an annual European tour which initially featured Willie Dixon, Memhis Slim, T-Bone Walker, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, and John Lee Hooker, first toured Europe, the only UK date it played was at the Manchester Free Trade Hall, and people like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones and Jimmy Page had to travel up from London to see it. But still, the number of blues fans in Manchester, while proportionally large, was objectively small enough that Mayall was captivated by an article in Melody Maker which talked about Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies' new band Blues Incorporated and how it was playing electric blues, the same music he was making in Manchester. He later talked about how the article had made him think that maybe now people would know what he was talking about. He started travelling down to London to play gigs for the London blues scene, and inviting Korner up to Manchester to play shows there. Soon Mayall had moved down to London. Korner introduced Mayall to Davey Graham, the great folk guitarist, with whom Korner had recently recorded as a duo: [Excerpt: Alexis Korner and Davey Graham, "3/4 AD"] Mayall and Graham performed together as a duo for a while, but Graham was a natural solo artist if ever there was one. Slowly Mayall put a band together in London. On drums was his old friend Peter Ward, who'd moved down from Manchester with him. On bass was John McVie, who at the time knew nothing about blues -- he'd been playing in a Shadows-style instrumental group -- but Mayall gave him a stack of blues records to listen to to get the feeling. And on guitar was Bernie Watson, who had previously played with Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages. In late 1963, Mike Vernon, a blues fan who had previously published a Yardbirds fanzine, got a job working for Decca records, and immediately started signing his favourite acts from the London blues circuit. The first act he signed was John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, and they recorded a single, "Crawling up a Hill": [Excerpt: John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, "Crawling up a Hill (45 version)"] Mayall later called that a "clumsy, half-witted attempt at autobiographical comment", and it sold only five hundred copies. It would be the only record the Bluesbreakers would make with Watson, who soon left the band to be replaced by Roger Dean (not the same Roger Dean who later went on to design prog rock album covers). The second group to be signed by Mike Vernon to Decca was the Graham Bond Organisation. We've talked about the Graham Bond Organisation in passing several times, but not for a while and not in any great detail, so it's worth pulling everything we've said about them so far together and going through it in a little more detail. The Graham Bond Organisation, like the Rolling Stones, grew out of Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated. As we heard in the episode on "I Wanna Be Your Man" a couple of years ago, Blues Incorporated had been started by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies, and at the time we're joining them in 1962 featured a drummer called Charlie Watts, a pianist called Dave Stevens, and saxophone player Dick Heckstall-Smith, as well as frequent guest performers like a singer who called himself Mike Jagger, and another one, Roderick Stewart. That group finally found themselves the perfect bass player when Dick Heckstall-Smith put together a one-off group of jazz players to play an event at Cambridge University. At the gig, a little Scottish man came up to the group and told them he played bass and asked if he could sit in. They told him to bring along his instrument to their second set, that night, and he did actually bring along a double bass. Their bluff having been called, they decided to play the most complicated, difficult, piece they knew in order to throw the kid off -- the drummer, a trad jazz player named Ginger Baker, didn't like performing with random sit-in guests -- but astonishingly he turned out to be really good. Heckstall-Smith took down the bass player's name and phone number and invited him to a jam session with Blues Incorporated. After that jam session, Jack Bruce quickly became the group's full-time bass player. Bruce had started out as a classical cellist, but had switched to the double bass inspired by Bach, who he referred to as "the guv'nor of all bass players". His playing up to this point had mostly been in trad jazz bands, and he knew nothing of the blues, but he quickly got the hang of the genre. Bruce's first show with Blues Incorporated was a BBC recording: [Excerpt: Blues Incorporated, "Hoochie Coochie Man (BBC session)"] According to at least one source it was not being asked to take part in that session that made young Mike Jagger decide there was no future for him with Blues Incorporated and to spend more time with his other group, the Rollin' Stones. Soon after, Charlie Watts would join him, for almost the opposite reason -- Watts didn't want to be in a band that was getting as big as Blues Incorporated were. They were starting to do more BBC sessions and get more gigs, and having to join the Musicians' Union. That seemed like a lot of work. Far better to join a band like the Rollin' Stones that wasn't going anywhere. Because of Watts' decision to give up on potential stardom to become a Rollin' Stone, they needed a new drummer, and luckily the best drummer on the scene was available. But then the best drummer on the scene was *always* available. Ginger Baker had first played with Dick Heckstall-Smith several years earlier, in a trad group called the Storyville Jazzmen. There Baker had become obsessed with the New Orleans jazz drummer Baby Dodds, who had played with Louis Armstrong in the 1920s. Sadly because of 1920s recording technology, he hadn't been able to play a full kit on the recordings with Armstrong, being limited to percussion on just a woodblock, but you can hear his drumming style much better in this version of "At the Jazz Band Ball" from 1947, with Mugsy Spanier, Jack Teagarden, Cyrus St. Clair and Hank Duncan: [Excerpt: "At the Jazz Band Ball"] Baker had taken Dobbs' style and run with it, and had quickly become known as the single best player, bar none, on the London jazz scene -- he'd become an accomplished player in multiple styles, and was also fluent in reading music and arranging. He'd also, though, become known as the single person on the entire scene who was most difficult to get along with. He resigned from his first band onstage, shouting "You can stick your band up your arse", after the band's leader had had enough of him incorporating bebop influences into their trad style. Another time, when touring with Diz Disley's band, he was dumped in Germany with no money and no way to get home, because the band were so sick of him. Sometimes this was because of his temper and his unwillingness to suffer fools -- and he saw everyone else he ever met as a fool -- and sometimes it was because of his own rigorous musical ideas. He wanted to play music *his* way, and wouldn't listen to anyone who told him different. Both of these things got worse after he fell under the influence of a man named Phil Seaman, one of the only drummers that Baker respected at all. Seaman introduced Baker to African drumming, and Baker started incorporating complex polyrhythms into his playing as a result. Seaman also though introduced Baker to heroin, and while being a heroin addict in the UK in the 1960s was not as difficult as it later became -- both heroin and cocaine were available on prescription to registered addicts, and Baker got both, which meant that many of the problems that come from criminalisation of these drugs didn't affect addicts in the same way -- but it still did not, by all accounts, make him an easier person to get along with. But he *was* a fantastic drummer. As Dick Heckstall-Smith said "With the advent of Ginger, the classic Blues Incorporated line-up, one which I think could not be bettered, was set" But Alexis Korner decided that the group could be bettered, and he had some backers within the band. One of the other bands on the scene was the Don Rendell Quintet, a group that played soul jazz -- that style of jazz that bridged modern jazz and R&B, the kind of music that Ray Charles and Herbie Hancock played: [Excerpt: The Don Rendell Quintet, "Manumission"] The Don Rendell Quintet included a fantastic multi-instrumentalist, Graham Bond, who doubled on keyboards and saxophone, and Bond had been playing occasional experimental gigs with the Johnny Burch Octet -- a group led by another member of the Rendell Quartet featuring Heckstall-Smith, Bruce, Baker, and a few other musicians, doing wholly-improvised music. Heckstall-Smith, Bruce, and Baker all enjoyed playing with Bond, and when Korner decided to bring him into the band, they were all very keen. But Cyril Davies, the co-leader of the band with Korner, was furious at the idea. Davies wanted to play strict Chicago and Delta blues, and had no truck with other forms of music like R&B and jazz. To his mind it was bad enough that they had a sax player. But the idea that they would bring in Bond, who played sax and... *Hammond* organ? Well, that was practically blasphemy. Davies quit the group at the mere suggestion. Bond was soon in the band, and he, Bruce, and Baker were playing together a *lot*. As well as performing with Blues Incorporated, they continued playing in the Johnny Burch Octet, and they also started performing as the Graham Bond Trio. Sometimes the Graham Bond Trio would be Blues Incorporated's opening act, and on more than one occasion the Graham Bond Trio, Blues Incorporated, and the Johnny Burch Octet all had gigs in different parts of London on the same night and they'd have to frantically get from one to the other. The Graham Bond Trio also had fans in Manchester, thanks to the local blues scene there and their connection with Blues Incorporated, and one night in February 1963 the trio played a gig there. They realised afterwards that by playing as a trio they'd made £70, when they were lucky to make £20 from a gig with Blues Incorporated or the Octet, because there were so many members in those bands. Bond wanted to make real money, and at the next rehearsal of Blues Incorporated he announced to Korner that he, Bruce, and Baker were quitting the band -- which was news to Bruce and Baker, who he hadn't bothered consulting. Baker, indeed, was in the toilet when the announcement was made and came out to find it a done deal. He was going to kick up a fuss and say he hadn't been consulted, but Korner's reaction sealed the deal. As Baker later said "‘he said “it's really good you're doing this thing with Graham, and I wish you the best of luck” and all that. And it was a bit difficult to turn round and say, “Well, I don't really want to leave the band, you know.”'" The Graham Bond Trio struggled at first to get the gigs they were expecting, but that started to change when in April 1963 they became the Graham Bond Quartet, with the addition of virtuoso guitarist John McLaughlin. The Quartet soon became one of the hottest bands on the London R&B scene, and when Duffy Power, a Larry Parnes teen idol who wanted to move into R&B, asked his record label to get him a good R&B band to back him on a Beatles cover, it was the Graham Bond Quartet who obliged: [Excerpt: Duffy Power, "I Saw Her Standing There"] The Quartet also backed Power on a package tour with other Parnes acts, but they were also still performing their own blend of hard jazz and blues, as can be heard in this recording of the group live in June 1953: [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Quartet, "Ho Ho Country Kicking Blues (Live at Klooks Kleek)"] But that lineup of the group didn't last very long. According to the way Baker told the story, he fired McLaughlin from the group, after being irritated by McLaughlin complaining about something on a day when Baker was out of cocaine and in no mood to hear anyone else's complaints. As Baker said "We lost a great guitar player and I lost a good friend." But the Trio soon became a Quartet again, as Dick Heckstall-Smith, who Baker had wanted in the band from the start, joined on saxophone to replace McLaughlin's guitar. But they were no longer called the Graham Bond Quartet. Partly because Heckstall-Smith joining allowed Bond to concentrate just on his keyboard playing, but one suspects partly to protect against any future lineup changes, the group were now The Graham Bond ORGANisation -- emphasis on the organ. The new lineup of the group got signed to Decca by Vernon, and were soon recording their first single, "Long Tall Shorty": [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Long Tall Shorty"] They recorded a few other songs which made their way onto an EP and an R&B compilation, and toured intensively in early 1964, as well as backing up Power on his follow-up to "I Saw Her Standing There", his version of "Parchman Farm": [Excerpt: Duffy Power, "Parchman Farm"] They also appeared in a film, just like the Beatles, though it was possibly not quite as artistically successful as "A Hard Day's Night": [Excerpt: Gonks Go Beat trailer] Gonks Go Beat is one of the most bizarre films of the sixties. It's a far-future remake of Romeo and Juliet. where the two star-crossed lovers are from opposing countries -- Beatland and Ballad Isle -- who only communicate once a year in an annual song contest which acts as their version of a war, and is overseen by "Mr. A&R", played by Frank Thornton, who would later star in Are You Being Served? Carry On star Kenneth Connor is sent by aliens to try to bring peace to the two warring countries, on pain of exile to Planet Gonk, a planet inhabited solely by Gonks (a kind of novelty toy for which there was a short-lived craze then). Along the way Connor encounters such luminaries of British light entertainment as Terry Scott and Arthur Mullard, as well as musical performances by Lulu, the Nashville Teens, and of course the Graham Bond Organisation, whose performance gets them a telling-off from a teacher: [Excerpt: Gonks Go Beat!] The group as a group only performed one song in this cinematic masterpiece, but Baker also made an appearance in a "drum battle" sequence where eight drummers played together: [Excerpt: Gonks Go Beat drum battle] The other drummers in that scene included, as well as some lesser-known players, Andy White who had played on the single version of "Love Me Do", Bobby Graham, who played on hits by the Kinks and the Dave Clark Five, and Ronnie Verrell, who did the drumming for Animal in the Muppet Show. Also in summer 1964, the group performed at the Fourth National Jazz & Blues Festival in Richmond -- the festival co-founded by Chris Barber that would evolve into the Reading Festival. The Yardbirds were on the bill, and at the end of their set they invited Bond, Baker, Bruce, Georgie Fame, and Mike Vernon onto the stage with them, making that the first time that Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Jack Bruce were all on stage together. Soon after that, the Graham Bond Organisation got a new manager, Robert Stigwood. Things hadn't been working out for them at Decca, and Stigwood soon got the group signed to EMI, and became their producer as well. Their first single under Stigwood's management was a cover version of the theme tune to the Debbie Reynolds film "Tammy". While that film had given Tamla records its name, the song was hardly an R&B classic: [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Tammy"] That record didn't chart, but Stigwood put the group out on the road as part of the disastrous Chuck Berry tour we heard about in the episode on "All You Need is Love", which led to the bankruptcy of  Robert Stigwood Associates. The Organisation moved over to Stigwood's new company, the Robert Stigwood Organisation, and Stigwood continued to be the credited producer of their records, though after the "Tammy" disaster they decided they were going to take charge themselves of the actual music. Their first album, The Sound of 65, was recorded in a single three-hour session, and they mostly ran through their standard set -- a mixture of the same songs everyone else on the circuit was playing, like "Hoochie Coochie Man", "Got My Mojo Working", and "Wade in the Water", and originals like Bruce's "Train Time": [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Train Time"] Through 1965 they kept working. They released a non-album single, "Lease on Love", which is generally considered to be the first pop record to feature a Mellotron: [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Lease on Love"] and Bond and Baker also backed another Stigwood act, Winston G, on his debut single: [Excerpt: Winston G, "Please Don't Say"] But the group were developing severe tensions. Bruce and Baker had started out friendly, but by this time they hated each other. Bruce said he couldn't hear his own playing over Baker's loud drumming, Baker thought that Bruce was far too fussy a player and should try to play simpler lines. They'd both try to throw each other during performances, altering arrangements on the fly and playing things that would trip the other player up. And *neither* of them were particularly keen on Bond's new love of the Mellotron, which was all over their second album, giving it a distinctly proto-prog feel at times: [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Baby Can it Be True?"] Eventually at a gig in Golders Green, Baker started throwing drumsticks at Bruce's head while Bruce was trying to play a bass solo. Bruce retaliated by throwing his bass at Baker, and then jumping on him and starting a fistfight which had to be broken up by the venue security. Baker fired Bruce from the band, but Bruce kept turning up to gigs anyway, arguing that Baker had no right to sack him as it was a democracy. Baker always claimed that in fact Bond had wanted to sack Bruce but hadn't wanted to get his hands dirty, and insisted that Baker do it, but neither Bond nor Heckstall-Smith objected when Bruce turned up for the next couple of gigs. So Baker took matters into his own hands, He pulled out a knife and told Bruce "If you show up at one more gig, this is going in you." Within days, Bruce was playing with John Mayall, whose Bluesbreakers had gone through some lineup changes by this point. Roger Dean had only played with the Bluesbreakers for a short time before Mayall had replaced him. Mayall had not been impressed with Eric Clapton's playing with the Yardbirds at first -- even though graffiti saying "Clapton is God" was already starting to appear around London -- but he had been *very* impressed with Clapton's playing on "Got to Hurry", the B-side to "For Your Love": [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, "Got to Hurry"] When he discovered that Clapton had quit the band, he sprang into action and quickly recruited him to replace Dean. Clapton knew he had made the right choice when a month after he'd joined, the group got the word that Bob Dylan had been so impressed with Mayall's single "Crawling up a Hill" -- the one that nobody liked, not even Mayall himself -- that he wanted to jam with Mayall and his band in the studio. Clapton of course went along: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan and the Bluesbreakers, "If You Gotta Go, Go Now"] That was, of course, the session we've talked about in the Velvet Underground episode and elsewhere of which little other than that survives, and which Nico attended. At this point, Mayall didn't have a record contract, his experience recording with Mike Vernon having been no more successful than the Bond group's had been. But soon he got a one-off deal -- as a solo artist, not with the Bluesbreakers -- with Immediate Records. Clapton was the only member of the group to play on the single, which was produced by Immediate's house producer Jimmy Page: [Excerpt: John Mayall, "I'm Your Witchdoctor"] Page was impressed enough with Clapton's playing that he invited him round to Page's house to jam together. But what Clapton didn't know was that Page was taping their jam sessions, and that he handed those tapes over to Immediate Records -- whether he was forced to by his contract with the label or whether that had been his plan all along depends on whose story you believe, but Clapton never truly forgave him. Page and Clapton's guitar-only jams had overdubs by Bill Wyman, Ian Stewart, and drummer Chris Winter, and have been endlessly repackaged on blues compilations ever since: [Excerpt: Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, "Draggin' My Tail"] But Mayall was having problems with John McVie, who had started to drink too much, and as soon as he found out that Jack Bruce was sacked by the Graham Bond Organisation, Mayall got in touch with Bruce and got him to join the band in McVie's place. Everyone was agreed that this lineup of the band -- Mayall, Clapton, Bruce, and Hughie Flint -- was going places: [Excerpt: John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Jack Bruce, "Hoochie Coochie Man"] Unfortunately, it wasn't going to last long. Clapton, while he thought that Bruce was the greatest bass player he'd ever worked with, had other plans. He was going to leave the country and travel the world as a peripatetic busker. He was off on his travels, never to return. Luckily, Mayall had someone even better waiting in the wings. A young man had, according to Mayall, "kept coming down to all the gigs and saying, “Hey, what are you doing with him?” – referring to whichever guitarist was onstage that night – “I'm much better than he is. Why don't you let me play guitar for you?” He got really quite nasty about it, so finally, I let him sit in. And he was brilliant." Peter Green was probably the best blues guitarist in London at that time, but this lineup of the Bluesbreakers only lasted a handful of gigs -- Clapton discovered that busking in Greece wasn't as much fun as being called God in London, and came back very soon after he'd left. Mayall had told him that he could have his old job back when he got back, and so Green was out and Clapton was back in. And soon the Bluesbreakers' revolving door revolved again. Manfred Mann had just had a big hit with "If You Gotta Go, Go Now", the same song we heard Dylan playing earlier: [Excerpt: Manfred Mann, "If You Gotta Go, Go Now"] But their guitarist, Mike Vickers, had quit. Tom McGuinness, their bass player, had taken the opportunity to switch back to guitar -- the instrument he'd played in his first band with his friend Eric Clapton -- but that left them short a bass player. Manfred Mann were essentially the same kind of band as the Graham Bond Organisation -- a Hammond-led group of virtuoso multi-instrumentalists who played everything from hardcore Delta blues to complex modern jazz -- but unlike the Bond group they also had a string of massive pop hits, and so made a lot more money. The combination was irresistible to Bruce, and he joined the band just before they recorded an EP of jazz instrumental versions of recent hits: [Excerpt: Manfred Mann, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"] Bruce had also been encouraged by Robert Stigwood to do a solo project, and so at the same time as he joined Manfred Mann, he also put out a solo single, "Drinkin' and Gamblin'" [Excerpt: Jack Bruce, "Drinkin' and Gamblin'"] But of course, the reason Bruce had joined Manfred Mann was that they were having pop hits as well as playing jazz, and soon they did just that, with Bruce playing on their number one hit "Pretty Flamingo": [Excerpt: Manfred Mann, "Pretty Flamingo"] So John McVie was back in the Bluesbreakers, promising to keep his drinking under control. Mike Vernon still thought that Mayall had potential, but the people at Decca didn't agree, so Vernon got Mayall and Clapton -- but not the other band members -- to record a single for a small indie label he ran as a side project: [Excerpt: John Mayall and Eric Clapton, "Bernard Jenkins"] That label normally only released records in print runs of ninety-nine copies, because once you hit a hundred copies you had to pay tax on them, but there was so much demand for that single that they ended up pressing up five hundred copies, making it the label's biggest seller ever. Vernon eventually convinced the heads at Decca that the Bluesbreakers could be truly big, and so he got the OK to record the album that would generally be considered the greatest British blues album of all time -- Blues Breakers, also known as the Beano album because of Clapton reading a copy of the British kids' comic The Beano in the group photo on the front. [Excerpt: John Mayall with Eric Clapton, "Ramblin' On My Mind"] The album was a mixture of originals by Mayall and the standard repertoire of every blues or R&B band on the circuit -- songs like "Parchman Farm" and "What'd I Say" -- but what made the album unique was Clapton's guitar tone. Much to the chagrin of Vernon, and of engineer Gus Dudgeon, Clapton insisted on playing at the same volume that he would on stage. Vernon later said of Dudgeon "I can remember seeing his face the very first time Clapton plugged into the Marshall stack and turned it up and started playing at the sort of volume he was going to play. You could almost see Gus's eyes meet over the middle of his nose, and it was almost like he was just going to fall over from the sheer power of it all. But after an enormous amount of fiddling around and moving amps around, we got a sound that worked." [Excerpt: John Mayall with Eric Clapton, "Hideaway"] But by the time the album cane out. Clapton was no longer with the Bluesbreakers. The Graham Bond Organisation had struggled on for a while after Bruce's departure. They brought in a trumpet player, Mike Falana, and even had a hit record -- or at least, the B-side of a hit record. The Who had just put out a hit single, "Substitute", on Robert Stigwood's record label, Reaction: [Excerpt: The Who, "Substitute"] But, as you'll hear in episode 183, they had moved to Reaction Records after a falling out with their previous label, and with Shel Talmy their previous producer. The problem was, when "Substitute" was released, it had as its B-side a song called "Circles" (also known as "Instant Party -- it's been released under both names). They'd recorded an earlier version of the song for Talmy, and just as "Substitute" was starting to chart, Talmy got an injunction against the record and it had to be pulled. Reaction couldn't afford to lose the big hit record they'd spent money promoting, so they needed to put it out with a new B-side. But the Who hadn't got any unreleased recordings. But the Graham Bond Organisation had, and indeed they had an unreleased *instrumental*. So "Waltz For a Pig" became the B-side to a top-five single, credited to The Who Orchestra: [Excerpt: The Who Orchestra, "Waltz For a Pig"] That record provided the catalyst for the formation of Cream, because Ginger Baker had written the song, and got £1,350 for it, which he used to buy a new car. Baker had, for some time, been wanting to get out of the Graham Bond Organisation. He was trying to get off heroin -- though he would make many efforts to get clean over the decades, with little success -- while Bond was starting to use it far more heavily, and was also using acid and getting heavily into mysticism, which Baker despised. Baker may have had the idea for what he did next from an article in one of the music papers. John Entwistle of the Who would often tell a story about an article in Melody Maker -- though I've not been able to track down the article itself to get the full details -- in which musicians were asked to name which of their peers they'd put into a "super-group". He didn't remember the full details, but he did remember that the consensus choice had had Eric Clapton on lead guitar, himself on bass, and Ginger Baker on drums. As he said later "I don't remember who else was voted in, but a few months later, the Cream came along, and I did wonder if somebody was maybe believing too much of their own press". Incidentally, like The Buffalo Springfield and The Pink Floyd, Cream, the band we are about to meet, had releases both with and without the definite article, and Eric Clapton at least seems always to talk about them as "the Cream" even decades later, but they're primarily known as just Cream these days. Baker, having had enough of the Bond group, decided to drive up to Oxford to see Clapton playing with the Bluesbreakers. Clapton invited him to sit in for a couple of songs, and by all accounts the band sounded far better than they had previously. Clapton and Baker could obviously play well together, and Baker offered Clapton a lift back to London in his new car, and on the drive back asked Clapton if he wanted to form a new band. Clapton was as impressed by Baker's financial skills as he was by his musicianship. He said later "Musicians didn't have cars. You all got in a van." Clearly a musician who was *actually driving a new car he owned* was going places. He agreed to Baker's plan. But of course they needed a bass player, and Clapton thought he had the perfect solution -- "What about Jack?" Clapton knew that Bruce had been a member of the Graham Bond Organisation, but didn't know why he'd left the band -- he wasn't particularly clued in to what the wider music scene was doing, and all he knew was that Bruce had played with both him and Baker, and that he was the best bass player he'd ever played with. And Bruce *was* arguably the best bass player in London at that point, and he was starting to pick up session work as well as his work with Manfred Mann. For example it's him playing on the theme tune to "After The Fox" with Peter Sellers, the Hollies, and the song's composer Burt Bacharach: [Excerpt: The Hollies with Peter Sellers, "After the Fox"] Clapton was insistent. Baker's idea was that the band should be the best musicians around. That meant they needed the *best* musicians around, not the second best. If Jack Bruce wasn't joining, Eric Clapton wasn't joining either. Baker very reluctantly agreed, and went round to see Bruce the next day -- according to Baker it was in a spirit of generosity and giving Bruce one more chance, while according to Bruce he came round to eat humble pie and beg for forgiveness. Either way, Bruce agreed to join the band. The three met up for a rehearsal at Baker's home, and immediately Bruce and Baker started fighting, but also immediately they realised that they were great at playing together -- so great that they named themselves the Cream, as they were the cream of musicians on the scene. They knew they had something, but they didn't know what. At first they considered making their performances into Dada projects, inspired by the early-twentieth-century art movement. They liked a band that had just started to make waves, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band -- who had originally been called the Bonzo Dog Dada Band -- and they bought some props with the vague idea of using them on stage in the same way the Bonzos did. But as they played together they realised that they needed to do something different from that. At first, they thought they needed a fourth member -- a keyboard player. Graham Bond's name was brought up, but Clapton vetoed him. Clapton wanted Steve Winwood, the keyboard player and vocalist with the Spencer Davis Group. Indeed, Winwood was present at what was originally intended to be the first recording session the trio would play. Joe Boyd had asked Eric Clapton to round up a bunch of players to record some filler tracks for an Elektra blues compilation, and Clapton had asked Bruce and Baker to join him, Paul Jones on vocals, Winwood on Hammond and Clapton's friend Ben Palmer on piano for the session. Indeed, given that none of the original trio were keen on singing, that Paul Jones was just about to leave Manfred Mann, and that we know Clapton wanted Winwood in the band, one has to wonder if Clapton at least half-intended for this to be the eventual lineup of the band. If he did, that plan was foiled by Baker's refusal to take part in the session. Instead, this one-off band, named The Powerhouse, featured Pete York, the drummer from the Spencer Davis Group, on the session, which produced the first recording of Clapton playing on the Robert Johnson song originally titled "Cross Road Blues" but now generally better known just as "Crossroads": [Excerpt: The Powerhouse, "Crossroads"] We talked about Robert Johnson a little back in episode ninety-seven, but other than Bob Dylan, who was inspired by his lyrics, we had seen very little influence from Johnson up to this point, but he's going to be a major influence on rock guitar for the next few years, so we should talk about him a little here. It's often said that nobody knew anything about Robert Johnson, that he was almost a phantom other than his records which existed outside of any context as artefacts of their own. That's... not really the case. Johnson had died a little less than thirty years earlier, at only twenty-seven years old. Most of his half-siblings and step-siblings were alive, as were his son, his stepson, and dozens of musicians he'd played with over the years, women he'd had affairs with, and other assorted friends and relatives. What people mean is that information about Johnson's life was not yet known by people they consider important -- which is to say white blues scholars and musicians. Indeed, almost everything people like that -- people like *me* -- know of the facts of Johnson's life has only become known to us in the last four years. If, as some people had expected, I'd started this series with an episode on Johnson, I'd have had to redo the whole thing because of the information that's made its way to the public since then. But here's what was known -- or thought -- by white blues scholars in 1966. Johnson was, according to them, a field hand from somewhere in Mississippi, who played the guitar in between working on the cotton fields. He had done two recording sessions, in 1936 and 1937. One song from his first session, "Terraplane Blues", had been a very minor hit by blues standards: [Excerpt: Robert Johnson, "Terraplane Blues"] That had sold well -- nobody knows how well, but maybe as many as ten thousand copies, and it was certainly a record people knew in 1937 if they liked the Delta blues, but ten thousand copies total is nowhere near the sales of really successful records, and none of the follow-ups had sold anything like that much -- many of them had sold in the hundreds rather than the thousands. As Elijah Wald, one of Johnson's biographers put it "knowing about Johnson and Muddy Waters but not about Leroy Carr or Dinah Washington was like knowing about, say, the Sir Douglas Quintet but not knowing about the Beatles" -- though *I* would add that the Sir Douglas Quintet were much bigger during the sixties than Johnson was during his lifetime. One of the few white people who had noticed Johnson's existence at all was John Hammond, and he'd written a brief review of Johnson's first two singles under a pseudonym in a Communist newspaper. I'm going to quote it here, but the word he used to talk about Black people was considered correct then but isn't now, so I'll substitute Black for that word: "Before closing we cannot help but call your attention to the greatest [Black] blues singer who has cropped up in recent years, Robert Johnson. Recording them in deepest Mississippi, Vocalion has certainly done right by us and by the tunes "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" and "Terraplane Blues", to name only two of the four sides already released, sung to his own guitar accompaniment. Johnson makes Leadbelly sound like an accomplished poseur" Hammond had tried to get Johnson to perform at the Spirituals to Swing concerts we talked about in the very first episodes of the podcast, but he'd discovered that he'd died shortly before. He got Big Bill Broonzy instead, and played a couple of Johnson's records from a record player on the stage. Hammond introduced those recordings with a speech: "It is tragic that an American audience could not have been found seven or eight years ago for a concert of this kind. Bessie Smith was still at the height of her career and Joe Smith, probably the greatest trumpet player America ever knew, would still have been around to play obbligatos for her...dozens of other artists could have been there in the flesh. But that audience as well as this one would not have been able to hear Robert Johnson sing and play the blues on his guitar, for at that time Johnson was just an unknown hand on a Robinsonville, Mississippi plantation. Robert Johnson was going to be the big surprise of the evening for this audience at Carnegie Hall. I know him only from his Vocalion blues records and from the tall, exciting tales the recording engineers and supervisors used to bring about him from the improvised studios in Dallas and San Antonio. I don't believe Johnson had ever worked as a professional musician anywhere, and it still knocks me over when I think of how lucky it is that a talent like his ever found its way onto phonograph records. We will have to be content with playing two of his records, the old "Walkin' Blues" and the new, unreleased, "Preachin' Blues", because Robert Johnson died last week at the precise moment when Vocalion scouts finally reached him and told him that he was booked to appear at Carnegie Hall on December 23. He was in his middle twenties and nobody seems to know what caused his death." And that was, for the most part, the end of Robert Johnson's impact on the culture for a generation. The Lomaxes went down to Clarksdale, Mississippi a couple of years later -- reports vary as to whether this was to see if they could find Johnson, who they were unaware was dead, or to find information out about him, and they did end up recording a young singer named Muddy Waters for the Library of Congress, including Waters' rendition of "32-20 Blues", Johnson's reworking of Skip James' "Twenty-Two Twenty Blues": [Excerpt: Muddy Waters, "32-20 Blues"] But Johnson's records remained unavailable after their initial release until 1959, when the blues scholar Samuel Charters published the book The Country Blues, which was the first book-length treatment ever of Delta blues. Sixteen years later Charters said "I shouldn't have written The Country Blues when I did; since I really didn't know enough, but I felt I couldn't afford to wait. So The Country Blues was two things. It was a romanticization of certain aspects of black life in an effort to force the white society to reconsider some of its racial attitudes, and on the other hand it was a cry for help. I wanted hundreds of people to go out and interview the surviving blues artists. I wanted people to record them and document their lives, their environment, and their music, not only so that their story would be preserved but also so they'd get a little money and a little recognition in their last years." Charters talked about Johnson in the book, as one of the performers who played "minor roles in the story of the blues", and said that almost nothing was known about his life. He talked about how he had been poisoned by his common-law wife, about how his records were recorded in a pool hall, and said "The finest of Robert Johnson's blues have a brooding sense of torment and despair. The blues has become a personified figure of despondency." Along with Charters' book came a compilation album of the same name, and that included the first ever reissue of one of Johnson's tracks, "Preaching Blues": [Excerpt: Robert Johnson, "Preaching Blues"] Two years later, John Hammond, who had remained an ardent fan of Johnson, had Columbia put out the King of the Delta Blues Singers album. At the time no white blues scholars knew what Johnson looked like and they had no photos of him, so a generic painting of a poor-looking Black man with a guitar was used for the cover. The liner note to King of the Delta Blues Singers talked about how Johnson was seventeen or eighteen when he made his recordings, how he was "dead before he reached his twenty-first birthday, poisoned by a jealous girlfriend", how he had "seldom, if ever, been away from the plantation in Robinsville, Mississippi, where he was born and raised", and how he had had such stage fright that when he was asked to play in front of other musicians, he'd turned to face a wall so he couldn't see them. And that would be all that any of the members of the Powerhouse would know about Johnson. Maybe they'd also heard the rumours that were starting to spread that Johnson had got his guitar-playing skills by selling his soul to the devil at a crossroads at midnight, but that would have been all they knew when they recorded their filler track for Elektra: [Excerpt: The Powerhouse, "Crossroads"] Either way, the Powerhouse lineup only lasted for that one session -- the group eventually decided that a simple trio would be best for the music they wanted to play. Clapton had seen Buddy Guy touring with just a bass player and drummer a year earlier, and had liked the idea of the freedom that gave him as a guitarist. The group soon took on Robert Stigwood as a manager, which caused more arguments between Bruce and Baker. Bruce was convinced that if they were doing an all-for-one one-for-all thing they should also manage themselves, but Baker pointed out that that was a daft idea when they could get one of the biggest managers in the country to look after them. A bigger argument, which almost killed the group before it started, happened when Baker told journalist Chris Welch of the Melody Maker about their plans. In an echo of the way that he and Bruce had been resigned from Blues Incorporated without being consulted, now with no discussion Manfred Mann and John Mayall were reading in the papers that their band members were quitting before those members had bothered to mention it. Mayall was furious, especially since the album Clapton had played on hadn't yet come out. Clapton was supposed to work a month's notice while Mayall found another guitarist, but Mayall spent two weeks begging Peter Green to rejoin the band. Green was less than eager -- after all, he'd been fired pretty much straight away earlier -- but Mayall eventually persuaded him. The second he did, Mayall turned round to Clapton and told him he didn't have to work the rest of his notice -- he'd found another guitar player and Clapton was fired: [Excerpt: John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, "Dust My Blues"] Manfred Mann meanwhile took on the Beatles' friend Klaus Voorman to replace Bruce. Voorman would remain with the band until the end, and like Green was for Mayall, Voorman was in some ways a better fit for Manfred Mann than Bruce was. In particular he could double on flute, as he did for example on their hit version of Bob Dylan's "The Mighty Quinn": [Excerpt: Manfred Mann "The Mighty Quinn"] The new group, The Cream, were of course signed in the UK to Stigwood's Reaction label. Other than the Who, who only stuck around for one album, Reaction was not a very successful label. Its biggest signing was a former keyboard player for Screaming Lord Sutch, who recorded for them under the names Paul Dean and Oscar, but who later became known as Paul Nicholas and had a successful career in musical theatre and sitcom. Nicholas never had any hits for Reaction, but he did release one interesting record, in 1967: [Excerpt: Oscar, "Over the Wall We Go"] That was one of the earliest songwriting attempts by a young man who had recently named himself David Bowie. Now the group were public, they started inviting journalists to their rehearsals, which were mostly spent trying to combine their disparate musical influences --

In the quiet this morning, I think about some of my loved ones and the crossroads of life at which they stand. A chapter-a-day podcast from Jeremiah 6. The text version may be found and shared at tomvanderwell.com. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/wayfarer-tom-vander-well/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/wayfarer-tom-vander-well/support

In this episode we're going down to the cross road, fall to our knees, beg for mercy please and sell our soul for musical greatness.We investigate Robert Johnson's ‘Cross Road Blues' and attempt to sort through, fact, fiction, myth and legend. Is it Blues' the haunting tale of a Faustian contract or the harrowing reality of an African American man's experience in the Deep South?We also discuss Ralph Macchio's punchable face. And find out what links Johnson to Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse.  SaucesRobert Johnson : lost and foundBy Barry Lee Pearson & Bill McCullochRobert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture by Patricia Schroeder https://www.vox.com/2015/3/23/8277271/27-club-real-myth https://www.musicradar.com/news/eric-clapton-interview-blues-robert-johnson 

Enhorabuena a Mingo-Sanpa & Bárez Bros., que se quedaron con el tercer puesto en el 10º Concurso Europeo de Blues, celebrado este mes en Suecia. Y bienvenidos a Will Jacobs & Marcos Coll, que vuelven a subir a los escenarios de verano. Playlist: Snatch It Back and Hold It – Junior Wells; Just Keep Lovin' Her – Mingo-Sanpa & Bárez Bros.; Come On In My Kitchen – Cassandra Wilson; Come On In My Kitchen – Robert Johnson; It Ain't Safe; Goin' To Berlin, What U Doing, C. J.'s Bounce, Stranded, Hey Baby, One Too Many Times, Goin' To Berlin (en directo) – Will Jacobs & Marcos Coll; Hell Hound On My Trail – Robert Johnson; Hellhound On My Trail – Cassandra Wilson; Cross Road Blues – Robert Johnson. Escuchar audio

Helen and Gavin chat about I'm Your Man, Halloween Kills, No Time to Die, and Lamb, and it's Week 4 from the list of Rolling Stone's 500 Best Songs Ever, numbers 485 to 481; 212 by Azealia Banks, Buddy Holly by Weezer, I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) by The Four Tops, Bad Romance by Lady Gaga, and Cross Road Blues by Robert Johnson.

#223-221Intro/Outro: Do You Realize?? by The Flaming Lips223. King of the Delta Blues Singers, Vol. 1 by Robert Johnson (Come On in My Kitchen & Cross Road Blues & Travelin' Riverside Blues & Walkin' Blues & Hellhound on My Trail)222. Desperado by The Eagles (Desperado & Twenty-One & Bitter Creek & Tequila Sunrise)221. Raising Sand by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss (Killing the Blues & Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On) & Please Read the Letter)Decade update:00's - 1210's - 690's - 560's - 270's - 280's - 130's - 140's - 1Top years:2007 - 51991, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012 - 2King of the Delta Blues Singers, Vol. 1 album artDesperado album artRaising Sand album artVote on Today's Album ArtHave you voted on Week 1 Round 1 winners yet? If so, no further action needed. If not:Week 1 Round 1 Winners (episodes 301-305)Vote on Week 1 Round 2 Album Art

Standin' at the crossroad, baby, risin' sun goin' downStandin' at the crossroad, baby, risin' sun goin' downI believe to my soul, now, poor Bob is sinkin' downRobert JohnsonThe great Mississippi Delta bluesman Robert Johnson (1911-1938) was a revolutionary guitarist with a wicked way with words. While he still has a living stepsister who published a captivating memoir last year, much is not known about his life and death. Johnson's prodigious musical powers in combination with his short life and enigmatic biography have naturally generated much lore, one tale being his visit to the crossroads.Early in his brief and brilliant musical career he reportedly struggled to learn his instrument. He allegedly left his home in Mississippi and returned a transformed and transformative artist, capable of extraordinary musical feats — an innovator with fathomless potential. Thus began the legend of the crossroads.The tale is that a young Johnson went to a mystical crossroads where he met the devil. There, as one does at a crossroads, he chose his path, cutting a deal that would see him become a musical legend. All he had to do was forfeit his eternal soul.The story is bunk, of course, since everyone knows that the devil does not truck in retail but only in bulk, but it is a juicy tale. A similar myth has been attached to my good friend Bob Dylan, who, legend has it, himself visited with the devil shortly after leaving his home state of Minnesota.As for Johnson, his two recordings of “Cross Road Blues” did nothing to dispel the myth of how he procured his prodigious talents.So, what does this lore tell us about, well, anything? Is it a cautionary tale about how we should not wish to rise too fast and risk flaming out? Is that old saw — the one about how young stars who burn bright will die young — still even worth regarding? After all, if true, how can we explain the longevity and still-active careers of Dylan, The Rolling Stones, and even The Monkees?The crossroads myth is about life choices. Stay on the straight path or take a turn. Rarely are the choices so stark as the temptation to go with the devil or not. In fact, most life choices, even the really momentous ones, may look as innocuous as picking a direction at an actual crossroad. The problem is, we can never really know what or whom our choice serves in the long run.It is a truism that every choice has consequences, intentional or not, foreseen or not. While this may seem an obvious platitude, we often don't connect our choices and their outcomes, whether as individuals or as a species. Even our innocent or seemingly innocuous choices can have unintended effects. For instance, buy local berries that happen to be packaged in a convenient plastic box, and you are — however minutely — supporting the fossil fuel industry and contributing to climate change. Purchase a newly renovated house in a revitalize neighborhood, and you may be participating in gentrification and the displacement of poorer residents. Contemplating and accepting personal responsibility for the consequences of our choices can make us uncomfortable, and too many people just cannot abide even the prospect of discomfort.Part of the challenge of understanding the impact of our choices stems from our tendency to portray choices as binaries: right or wrong. You know the image: there is an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. You come to the crossroads. You can turn or travel straight on. But, even right choices can go wrong. Someone rushing an injured neighbor to the hospital (a right choice) may accidentally hit a pedestrian (a bad outcome). The effort to eat a plant-based diet (a good option) may increase demand for food transport and storage (a bad ramification). The desire to improve opportunities for the prosperity of the planet's people (a worthy cause) ends up relying on activities and industries that destroy that planet (a bad effect).So, then, perhaps the best thing to do is to make no choice at all. That option would be effective if not for the fact that, making no choice at all, standing still as the world passes by, is as much a choice as any, and one with usually undesirable consequences.Once you have made a few wrong turns (or right turns that have turned out wrong), it is difficult to ascertain and understand how you arrived where you are and how to get back on your preferred track. We can really only forge ahead with more choices and more consequences.Frankly, I sometimes wish it were all as cut and dry as Robert Johnson standing with the devil at the crossroads. Here is good, and here is bad. Here are the consequences of each choice: either flame out quickly in a life of decadence and musical genius or enjoy a long life albeit in utter obscurity. Be Achilles, the hero of epic poetry, or be some guy who sailed straight home from Troy without incident to work his farm and raise his kids. Choose. Personally, I love binaries and find their clarity of selection both easy and satisfying, at least initially. You could look east or you could look west, as Johnson puts it. Over time, though, it gets pretty boring when every choice is a simple this or that with predictable outcomes: this thing is good and this other thing is bad. Reality, as it turns out, is much messier, featuring choices not as a series of uncomplicated crossroads and discernible directions but as a multitude of interwoven highways across an abundance of land leading to the vast uncertainty ahead. No, I guess the way things are— messy as they be — ultimately suits me better, at least that is, to quote Dylan, “most of the time.”Share your thoughts on this topic or participate in a discussion by leaving a comment below or by contacting me directly by email: You must register with Substack to leave a comment, which stinks but is painless and free.I look forward to hearing from you.Post this essay on social media or send it by email to someone you want to inspire/annoy.Subscribe to receive my weekly newsletter and special editions directly to your mailbox.You can improve your ability to achieve your organization's mission.Visit my website and reach out to me to learn how. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimsalvucci.substack.com

#65-61Intro/Outro: Tomorrow by Silverchair65. Rock & Roll by Led Zeppelin (4)64. (Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding63. Fixing a Hole by The Beatles (26)62. Crossroads by Cream (2)61. Born to Run by Bruce SpringsteenBalderdash alertBonus excerpt: Cross Road Blues by Robert Johnson

durée : 00:06:37 - La chronique de Djubaka - Aujourd'hui, Djubaka nous parle de Robert Johnson, à partir du bouquin de Bruce Conforth et Gayle Wardlow «Et le diable a surgi » (Castor music).

This week’s episodes:Super Shiro 34 ‘A Hero’s Holiday’Woodpecker Detective’s Office 8 ‘Young Man’Fruits Basket S2 9 ‘My Precious…’Tower of God 10 ‘Beyond The Sadness’Wacky TV Nanana 8 ‘Captured! Terror Aboard the Pirate Ship’Listeners 10 ‘Cross Road Blues’Wave Listen To Me 10 ‘I Have To Do This’ The post Let’s Go #156 – Let’s Ignore Medical Advice appeared first on DYNAMITE IN THE BRAIN.

Eric and Chase go on a musical history tour from the vantage point of the mythical crossroads and its significance as a symbol of transition and transformation. The “Crossroads” adorns everything from popular music to the electrification of rural America, military nuclear tests and the bikini. Join us at the Hermetic hermeneutic threshold between the hydroelectricity, popular music, and the Atomic Age. Cross Road Blues by Robert Johnson Rocket 88 by Ike Turner Rock a While by Goree Carter Buckaroo Banzai (1984) Back to the Future (1985) O’ Brother Where Art Thou (2000)

It’s the DECADE CROSSOVER EPISODE. Welcome to episode 13! It covers the week of December 30, 2019 - January 3, 2020. Can you believe it? 2020!?New episode art. Because… why not?Each week on this podcast, we’ll share the information that's within the newsletter put out by EarBuds Podcast Collective. EBPC is a listening movement. We send a weekly email with a theme and 5 podcast episodes on that theme, and each week is curated by a different person. Anyone can curate a list -- just reach out!We partner with Inside Podcasting to bring you the week’s top podcast news stories. Written by Skye Pillsbury, Inside Podcasting is a thrice weekly email newsletter that covers the podcast world. Since Inside Podcasting went on a holiday hiatus this week, we aren’t reading any industry news. Instead, get ready for some podcast tidbits.This week's theme comes to us from Paul Orefice (creator of the Music Matters Much newsletter) and is called *Music: A Worthy, Lifelong Companion.* Paul chose 5 podcast episodes that fit within that theme. Listen in to learn about why Paul chose this theme, the episodes, and more.Podcasts explored this week:MONDAY: Song Exploder - Aimee Mann - Patient Zero - 19 minutes TUESDAY: Sound Opinions - Opinions on Tool, Lana Del Rey & More, Farewell to Ric Ocasek & Daniel Johnston - 58 minutes WEDNESDAY: PRI Arts & Entertainment - American Icons: 'Cross Road Blues' - 20 minutes THURSDAY: Strong Songs - "Mr. Blue Sky" By Electric Light Orchestra - 35 minutes FRIDAY: The Beatles Anthology Podcast - Anthology 1 - 12 minutesWe've also included information about our sponsor, Buzzsprout!Meaningful Podcast Monetization — Buzzsprout's Affiliate Marketplace offers meaningful monetization for podcasters of any size. Open to all Buzzsprout podcasters and you keep 100% of the proceeds. Learn more about how to monetize a podcast with affiliate partnerships. Sign up for Buzzsprout here and get a $20 Amazon gift card: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1Want to sponsor one of our upcoming episodes? Email us at earbudspodcastcollective@gmail.com.This episode was written and produced by Arielle Nissenblatt, who also hosts the show.All of these episodes are available on Podchaser, Castbox, and wherever else you get your podcasts!Special thanks to Daniel Tureck who mixes and masters Feedback with EarBuds. Jeremy Einhorn engineered this episode. Abby Klionsky edits our newsletter, which can be found at earbudspodcastcollective.org.Thank you to Matthew Swedo for composing our music. It rocks and we love it. Find him and ask him all about your music needs. He’s at @matthewswedo on Instagram and online at www.matthewswedo.com.Follow us on social media:Twitter: @earbudspodcolInstagram: @earbudspodcastcollectiveFacebook: EarBuds Podcast CollectiveIf you like this podcast, please subscribe and tell a friend about the beauty of podcasts!More information at earbudspodcastcollective.org

Open Bayes! Votre nouvelle émission tous les jeudis soir à partir de 20h sur New’s FM. Le talk show des Alpes qui vous permettra de répondre à la question : c’est quoi les bayes ? Autrement dit, quoi de neuf sur Grenoble et ailleurs ! Suivez notre actualité sur Instagram @openbayes. Notre invité : Le rappeur Makk à l’occasion de sa série sur sa chaîne YouTube, alternance de films et de clips de rap. Makk alterne rap, action et arts martiaux dans une série de vidéos soignée et tout à fait remarquable à découvrir sur YouTube. Au sommaire ce soir : 1) Le portrait chinois de l’invité 2) Les bayes de l’invité : Nous avons parlé de son parcours, de ses origines (il vient de Saint-Martin-d’Hères) et partage quelques anecdotes sur sa vie. 3) L’instant téloche : Un entre-soi délétère dans les médias qui se voilent la face… Suite de la chronique de la semaine dernière. Les références : Extrait « Luc Ferry face (?) à Jacques Julliard » du film Les Nouveaux Chiens de Garde de Yannick Kergoat et Gilles Balbastre (2012) – disponible sur la chaîne YouTube de Acrimed (licence CC-BY) Extrait Outfoxed de Robert Greenwald (2004) Extrait « «Ambiguïté» de la France insoumise sur l'antisémitisme : un interrogatoire en règle sur BFM-TV » disponible sur la chaîne YouTube de Acrimed (licence CC-BY) 4) La musique de l’invité : Dedicate de Lil Wayne (Tha Carter V, 2018) 5) Le baye d’actu de l’invité : Un sujet dont on n’a très peu entendu parler : l'islamophobie. Pour Makk, les polémiques autour de ça sont un écran de fumée qui masque les vrais problèmes de la société. Extrait de la reprise de Balance ton quoi par les Molem Sisters, sur la chaîne YouTube de Sara Lou Pour aller plus loin : Le Parisien, Le racisme anti-musulmans en France, le grand malaise, publié en ligne le 6 novembre 2019 (disponible en version abonnés) 6) Les bayes de l’invité 2: En quoi consiste le projet Resurrections ? Quelles sont ses influences ? Son style ? Extrait de Cross Road Blues par Robert Johnson (1937) Extrait de Burn par The Cure (The Crow: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, 1994) 7) L’instant narration : Mathilde nous raconte une histoire librement inspirée du film La Reine des Neiges 2 (Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck - actuellement en salles) Extrait de la vidéo "La Reine des Neiges : soutien aux parents" | Topito – disponible sur YouTube 8) Cadeau - Freestyle : Makk nous proposera un freestyle sur l’instrumental de la chanson Can’t C Me de 2Pac (All Eyez On Me, 1996) Les musiques de Maak diffusées dans l’émission : Until Dawn Killer Overload Générique : Parov Stellar – Catgroove / All Night (The Art of Sampling, 2013) Autres musiques utilisées pendant l’émission : Pour le portrait chinois : China-PiPa · 徐梦圆 (China-PiPa - 2016) Pour l’instant téloche : Nightcall par Kavinsky (Nightcall, 2010) Children's Reich Song par Ludovic Bource (Extrait de la BO du film "OSS 117 : Rio ne répond plus…" sorti en 2009) Pour l’instant narration : Musique de percussion, puissant et relaxant Tribal Rhythm de la chaine YouTube Musique Apaisante et Bien Etre (sous licence Creative Commons BY 3.0) Fantasy Celtic Music - Spirit of the Wild par BrunuhVille (Age of Wonders, 2015) Merci à Karim et Sylvain (pour la dédicace)!

Another Waits-does-Burroughs track this week, as we’re joined by stage manager and Black Rider alumnus Penny Foxley for some discussion of her first-hand experience working on the play. We talk through Robert Wilson’s micromanagement of actors’ gestures, the fun of doing the show compared to its bleak content, and the presence of the crossroads myth in the 1930s blues of Robert Johnson. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Crossroads, The Black Rider, Tom Waits (1993) Cross Road Blues, King of the Delta Blues Singers, Robert Johnson (1937) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Sign on the Window isn't the Bob Dylan podcast you need, but it's definitely the one that you want! Each week we select a Dylan song at random, live with the song for a week (or two) and then get together to discuss. This week we start Robert Johnson Month with "Down the Highway" off 1962's Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. In this episode, Kelly and Daniel hark back to "Outlaw Blues" (episode 6!), talk about the theme of Season 3 (gambling!), Eataly, "Cross Road Blues" and highways. As always, full show notes at our website. You can also follow along with our weekly real-time Spotify playlist – See That My Playlist is Kept Clean – or just listen to this episode's playlist 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! Next episode: Hopin' you'll come through, too

Kurt Andersen talks with author N.K. Jemisin about writing, politics, and her new book “How Long 'til Black Future Month?” Our latest American Icons segment is about “Cross Road Blues,” the song that helped to posthumously popularize — and mythologize — Robert Johnson. And how “This Is Spinal Tap,” which opened 35 years ago this week, helped create the template for other hilarious mockumentaries.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurt Andersen talks with author N.K. Jemisin about writing, politics, and her new book “How Long 'til Black Future Month?” Our latest American Icons segment is about “Cross Road Blues,” the song that helped to posthumously popularize — and mythologize — Robert Johnson. And how “This Is Spinal Tap,” which opened 35 years ago this week, helped create the template for other hilarious mockumentaries.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever wanted something so badly you’d sell your soul to get it? Youth? Wealth? Sex? Power? Knowledge? We call it making a deal with the devil, or in more literary terms, a Faustian bargain. But who was Faust? How did his tale first get told? How was his legend advanced, and what great works did he inspire? In this special episode of The History of Literature, we look at the historical Faust and dig into the literary myth of Faustian bargains, from Icarus and the Temptations of Christ, through Christopher Marlowe and Goethe, all the way to bluesman Robert Johnson and his legendary trip to the Crossroads.  FREE GIFT!  Write a review on iTunes (or another site), then send us an email at jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com to receive your free History of Literature card as a thank you gift. Act now while supplies last!  Show Notes:  Contact the host at jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com or by leaving a voicemail at 1-361-4WILSON (1-361-494-5766).  You can find more literary discussion at jackewilson.com and more episodes of the series at historyofliterature.com. Check out our Facebook page at facebook.com/historyofliterature. You can follow Jacke Wilson at his Twitter account @WriterJacke. You can also follow Mike and the Literature Supporters Club (and receive daily book recommendations) by looking for @literatureSC. Music Credits: “Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the Free Music Archive / CC by SA). “Cross Road Blues” by Robert Johnson “NewsSting” and “Dragon and Toast” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The story behind "Cross Road Blues" by Robert Johnson

This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission Sir Christopher Meyer. Sir Christopher joined the PCC earlier this year after a glittering career in the diplomatic service. His last posting as Ambassador to Washington covered the September 11th attacks and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In all he spent 36 years with the Foreign Office during which time he held postings to key missions in Washington, Moscow, Madrid and Brussels. He worked as Foreign Office spokesman for Geoffrey Howe in the 1980s and as Press Secretary to the former Prime Minister John Major in the mid 1990s.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Cross Road Blues by Robert Johnson Book: The Four Adventures of Richard Hannay: The 39 Steps, Greenmantle, Mr Standfast, the Three Hostages by John Buchan Luxury: A jukebox

This week Sue Lawley's castaway is the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission Sir Christopher Meyer. Sir Christopher joined the PCC earlier this year after a glittering career in the diplomatic service. His last posting as Ambassador to Washington covered the September 11th attacks and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In all he spent 36 years with the Foreign Office during which time he held postings to key missions in Washington, Moscow, Madrid and Brussels. He worked as Foreign Office spokesman for Geoffrey Howe in the 1980s and as Press Secretary to the former Prime Minister John Major in the mid 1990s. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Cross Road Blues by Robert Johnson Book: The Four Adventures of Richard Hannay: The 39 Steps, Greenmantle, Mr Standfast, the Three Hostages by John Buchan Luxury: A jukebox