Podcasts about Decca Records

Show #1097 All Pretty Pretty 01. Hollywood Fats Band - All Pretty Women (3:05) (Rock This House, PBR International, 1979) 02. Dayna Kurtz - That's a Pretty Good Love (2:56) (Lulu and the Broadsides, Kismet Records, 2022) 03. Joseph Veloz - Pretty Is as Pretty Does (3:48) (Joseph and the Velozians, Big O Records, 2021) 04. Dave Thomas - Pretty In Pink (3:21) (Road To The Blues, Blonde On Blonde Direct, 2022) 05. Gary Cain - Pretty (3:26) (Outside The Lines, self-release, 2024) 06. The BB King Blues Band - Hey There Pretty Woman (4:09) (The Soul Of The King, Ruf Records, 2019) 07. The Nighthawks - Pretty Girls and Cadillacs (3:23) (Backtrack, Varrick Records, 1988) 08. Val Starr & The Blues Rocket - Pretty Girl Blues (3:38) (Healing Kind of Blues, Sandwich Factory Records, 2022) 09. David Barrett & John Garcia - Pretty Girls Everywhere (5:45) (Serious Fun, self-release,2003) 10. Ben Racine Band - Too Busy Being Pretty (5:22) (Live à Montréal, self-release, 2019) 11. Sugaray Rayford - Pretty Fine Mama (4:50) (Dangerous, Delta Groove Records, 2013) 12. Tomcats - Pretty Baby (4:29) (Tomcats, Rivera Records, 1984) 13. Kim Wilson - Pretty Baby (3:35) (That's Life, Antone's Records, 1994) 14. Rick Vito - Pretty Women (3:46) (Mojo On My Side, Delta Groove Records, 2015) 15. John Mayall's Bluesbreakers - Oh Pretty Woman (3:37) (Crusade, Decca Records, 1967) 16. Albert King - Oh Pretty Woman (2:47) (45 RPM Single, Stax Records, 1966) 17. Spencer Davis Group - Oh Pretty Woman [1966] (3:19) (Eight Gigs A Week-The Steve Winwood Years, Chronicles Records, 1996) 18. The Underdogs Blues Band - Oh Pretty Woman (3:28) (The Underdogs Blues Band, Zodiac Records, 1968) 19. Jacksons Garden - Pretty Woman [1968] (2:33) (How Do I Get into Jacksons Garden?, Frost Records, 2002) 20. Los Buenos - Oh Pretty Woman (3:07) (45 RPM Single, Acción Records, 1969) 21. Moohah (AC Williams) - Candy (2:34) (78 RPM Shellac, Starmaker Records, 1954) 22. Blues Karloff - Oh Pretty Woman (4:13) (Ready For Jugement Day, Blues Boulevard Records, 2014) 23. Al Corté - Pretty Woman (4:01) (Seasoned Soul, self-release, 2015) 24. Moohah (AC Williams) - All Shook Out (2:51) (78 RPM Shellac, Starmaker Records, 1954) 25. Steve Cropper - Oh Pretty Woman (3:37) (With A Little Help From My Friends, Volt Records, 1969) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

DescriptionCarnegie Hall: A Stage for Legends in 60 Seconds. Take a minute to get the scoop!Fun FactIn 1962, The Beatles were rejected by Decca Records, who claimed "guitar groups are on the way out." Two years later, they rocked Carnegie Hall in a sold-out show, proving just how wrong Decca was! Their performance was so wild that police had to hold back screaming fans.__________________________________________________________________About Steven, HostSteven is a Canadian composer & actor living in Toronto. Through his music, he creates a range of works, with an emphasis on the short-form genre—his muse being to offer the listener both the darker and more satiric shades of human existence. If you're interested, please check out his music website for more. Member of the Canadian League Of Composers.__________________________________________________________________You can FOLLOW ME on Instagram.

Down Home Cajun Music- Pre War Cajun On Decca RecordsBy 1934, the Great Depression forced major recording companies, such as Paramount and Columbia, to rethink their efforts in "French Arcadian" music. It would be left to only three major companies, one of them was Decca Records. Louisiana Rounders- Allons Kooche KoocheJoseph Falcon- Ne Buvez Plus JamaisLeo Soileau's Four Aces- Louisiana BluesSons of Acadians- En Jour A VenirAmedie Ardoin- Les Blues De La PrisonJolly Boys Of Lafayette- AbbevilleJoseph Falcon- Le Nouveau LafayetteCleoma Falcon- Blues NegresJolly Boys Of Lafayette- Old Man CripLeo Soilea's Four Aces-  A UteJoseph Falcon- Louisiana SpecialLeo Soileau's Four Aces- T'Est Petite Et T'Est Mignonne* All selections from the original 78 rpm records.

My guest, Eddie Ray, is truly a giant, a pioneer in the music industry. He started working at Decca Records in 1943, he worked with such diverse at from R & B giant Fats Domino to teen idol Ricky Nelson to Country Star Slim Whitman. He become Chairman of the US Copyright Royalty Tribunal, appointed by President Ronald Reagan. He was Vice Chairman/ Operation Director of the NC Music hall of Fame. A wonder Video. Mr Ray is join by Logan Westbrooks, Hiliary Johnson, Deborah McPhatter and Michael FrisbyProduced, directed, written and hosted by Stephen E Davis.

Show #1092 20th Century Revisited 01. Eddie Boyd - The Big Question (3:02) (Five Long Years, Fontana Records, 1965) 02. John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers - Someday After A While (Tou'll Be Sorry) (3:01) (A Hard Road, Decca Records, 1967) 03. Eric Clapton - Someday After A While (4:28) (From The Cradle, Reprise Records, 1994) 04. Fleetwood Mac - No PLace To Go (3:24) (Fleetwood Mac, Blue Horizon Records, 1968) 05. Buddy Guy - Stick Around [1963] (3:52) (Blues Rarities, Chess Records, 1984) 06. Dana Gillespie - Tongue In Cheek (4:54) (Blues It Up, Ace Records, 1990) 07. Red Devils - Quarter To Twelve (6:54) (King King, American Recordings, 1992) 08. Little Walter - Mellow Down Easy (2:40) (45 RPM Single B-side, Checker Records, 1954) 09. Tony Joe White - Did Somebody Make A Fool Out Of You (4:46) (Homemade Ice Cream, Warner Bros Records, 1973) 10. Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Blues With A Feeling (4:24) (The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Elektra Records, 1965) 11. Spencer Davis Group - Blues In F (3:24) (45 RPM Single B-side, Fontana Records, 1966) 12. Blood Sweat & Tears - I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know (5:54) (Child Is Father To The Man, CBS Records, 1968) 13. Johnny Winter - It's My Life Baby (4:12) (Guitar Slinger, Alligator Records, 1984) 14. David Bromberg - Suffer To Sing The Blues [1979] (5:43) (Long Way From Here, Fantasy Records, 1986) 15. Sonny Boy Williamson II - Fattening Frogs For Snakes (2:22) (Down And Out Blues, Checker Records, 1959) 16. Canned Heat - Help Me (3:06) (Canned Heat, Liberty Records, 1967) 17. Electric Flag - Texas (4:45) (A Long Time Comin', CBS Records, 1968) 18. Bonnie Raitt - Everybody's Cryin' Mercy (3:23) (Takin' My Time, Warner Bros Records, 1973) 19. Omar & the Howlers - Everybody Knows About My Good Thing (5:45) (Big Leg Beat, Amazing Records, 1980) 20. ZZ Hill - Everybody Knows About My Good Thing (4:53) (Down Home, Malaco Records, 1981) 21. Chicken Shack - San-Ho-Zay (3:05) (40 Blue Fingers Freshly Packed And Ready To Serve, Blue Horizon Records, 1968) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

Con Chawki Senouci approfondiamo " Choke Enough", ultimo album di Oklou, parliamo di "Saya", il nuovo disco di Saya Grey, e con Muireann Bradley parliamo di "I Kept these Old Blues", il suo disco d'esordio, alla vigilia della sua ripubblicazione per Decca Records

Rockshow episode 210 The Story of Phil Lynott and Thin LizzyPhilip Parris Lynott, born on August 20, 1949, in West Bromwich, England, and raised in Dublin, Ireland, was the charismatic frontman, bassist, and primary songwriter of Thin Lizzy—one of the most influential rock bands of the 1970s and early 80s. Known for his poetic lyrics, distinctive voice, and commanding stage presence, Lynott played a crucial role in shaping the band's signature sound, blending hard rock with Celtic influences and storytelling.The Formation of Thin Lizzy (1969-1972)Lynott formed Thin Lizzy in Dublin in 1969, along with drummer Brian Downey, guitarist Eric Bell, and organist Eric Wrixon (who left shortly after). The band was named after a character from a comic book (The Dandy's “Tin Lizzie”). They signed with Decca Records and released their self-titled debut album in 1971, but mainstream success eluded them at first.Their breakthrough came in 1972 with their reworking of the traditional Irish folk song “Whiskey in the Jar,” which became a major hit in Ireland and the UK. However, after their next few albums underperformed, Eric Bell left the band, leading to a major lineup change that would define their classic sound.The Classic Thin Lizzy Lineup (1974-1980)After Bell's departure, Thin Lizzy transitioned into a twin-guitar rock powerhouse. Lynott recruited Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson, forming the band's legendary dual-guitar attack. Their first major success in this era came with “The Boys Are Back in Town” (1976) from the Jailbreak album, which remains their most famous song.Notable Albums & Songs:•Jailbreak (1976) – “The Boys Are Back in Town,” “Jailbreak” •Johnny the Fox (1976) – “Don't Believe a Word” •Bad Reputation (1977) – “Dancing in the Moonlight,” “Bad Reputation”•Live and Dangerous (1978) – Regarded as one of the greatest live rock albums of all time•Black Rose: A Rock Legend (1979) – “Do Anything You Want To,” “Waiting for an Alibi,” “Black Rose”Thin Lizzy became known for their explosive live performances, poetic lyrics, and blending of hard rock with Irish storytelling. However, internal tensions, particularly with Brian Robertson's unreliability, led to lineup changes.The Later Years & Decline (1980-1983)Thin Lizzy disbanded in 1983 after a farewell tour, marking the end of an era.Phil Lynott's Solo Career & Tragic DeathAfter Thin Lizzy, Lynott pursued a solo career, releasing two albums:•Solo in Soho (1980) – “King's Call,” “Dear Miss Lonelyhearts”•The Philip Lynott Album (1982) He also collaborated with musicians like Gary Moore (“Out in the Fields”) and worked on various projects. However, his drug addiction worsened, and in late 1985, he collapsed due to complications from heroin and alcohol abuse.Phil Lynott passed away on January 4, 1986, at the age of 36.Thin Lizzy's LegacyDespite Lynott's passing, Thin Lizzy's influence remains strong. Various members have carried on the band's music, with Scott Gorham leading tribute tours. Lynott's lyrical storytelling, stage presence, and fusion of Celtic themes with hard rock inspired countless musicians, including Metallica, Iron Maiden, and U2.Today, Lynott is celebrated as Ireland's first great rock star, with statues, documentaries, and tributes keeping his legacy alive.Essential Listening for New Fans: Phil Lynott remains one of rock's most beloved and tragic figures—a poet, a rocker, and a legend whose music still resonates today.http://www.thinlizzy.org/phil.htmlhttps://youtube.com/@thinlizzyofficial?si=HtxqVIFF3_AuRiWrhttps://www.thinlizzyofficial.com/https://www.facebook.com/share/15serR1qV2/?mibextid=wwXIfrhttps://x.com/thinlizzy_?s=21&t=Mzw5de5zsR-SDDbhyzH0Lghttps://www.instagram.com/thinlizzy?igsh=bjE3aXRvdnhnMDVh#ThinLizzy #PhilLynott #RockLegends #ClassicRock #IrishRock #TheBoysAreBackInTown #Jailbreak #LiveAndDangerous #70sRock #HardRock #WhiskeyInTheJar #BlackRose #DancingInTheMoonlight #RockNRoll #LegendaryBands

pWotD Episode 2831: Marianne Faithfull Welcome to Popular Wiki of the Day, spotlighting Wikipedia's most visited pages, giving you a peek into what the world is curious about today.With 482,580 views on Friday, 31 January 2025 our article of the day is Marianne Faithfull.Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (29 December 1946 – 30 January 2025) was an English singer and actress. She achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her UK top 5 single "As Tears Go By" and became one of the leading female artists of the British Invasion in the United States.Born in Hampstead, London, Faithfull began her career in 1964 after attending a party for the Rolling Stones, where she was discovered by Andrew Loog Oldham. Her 1965 debut studio album Marianne Faithfull, released simultaneously with her studio album Come My Way, was a huge success and was followed by further albums on Decca Records. From 1966 to 1970 she had a highly publicised romantic relationship with Mick Jagger. Her popularity was enhanced by roles in films, including I'll Never Forget What's'isname (1967), The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968) and Hamlet (1969). But her popularity was overshadowed by personal problems in the 1970s, when she became anorexic, homeless and addicted to heroin.During her 1960s musical career, Faithfull was noted for her distinctive melodic, high-register vocals. But, in the subsequent decade, her voice was altered by severe laryngitis and persistent drug abuse, which left her sounding permanently raspy, cracked and lower in pitch. The new sound was praised as "whisky soaked" by some critics and was seen as having helped to capture the raw emotions expressed in her music.After a long absence, Faithfull made a musical comeback in 1979 with the release of a critically acclaimed seventh studio album, Broken English. The album was a commercial success and marked a resurgence of her musical career. Broken English earned Faithfull a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance and is regarded as her "definitive recording". She followed this with a series of studio albums including Dangerous Acquaintances (1981), A Child's Adventure (1983) and Strange Weather (1987). Faithfull wrote three books about her life: Faithfull: An Autobiography (1994), Memories, Dreams & Reflections (2007) and Marianne Faithfull: A Life on Record (2014).Faithfull received the World Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 Women's World Awards, and in 2011 she was made a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the government of France.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 02:36 UTC on Saturday, 1 February 2025.For the full current version of the article, see Marianne Faithfull 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 neural Kimberly.

Show #1086 More Good Music 01. Dennis Spencer - Cheap Entertainment (4:00) (Bluesman From Jupiter, self-release, 2024) 02. Piney Woods - You Got Me Where You Want Me (2:34) (The Piney Woods Record, self-release, 2024) 03. Heavydrunk & Watermelon Slim - Little Bighorn (3:26) (Bluesland Theme Park, Heavydrunk Records, 2025) 04. Jennifer Porter - Stop Your Talkin' (4:12) (Sun Come And Shine Redux, Overton Music, 2025) 05. Steve Howell & the Mighty Men - One Mint Julep (2:38) (Yeah Man, Out Of The Past Music, 2025) 06. Sunny Bleau & the Moons - S-H-E-E-E W-O-M-A-N (5:21) (Passion & Regrets, Endless Blues Records, 2025) 07. Mark Muleman Massey - She's Married To The Streets (3:28) (Been A Long Long Time, MuleTone Records, 2025) 08. Giles Robson & John Primer - Let Me Explain (2:43) (Ten Chicago Blues Classics, self-release, 2024) 09. Ed Alstrom - Fruitcake (4:00) (Flee Though None Pursue, Haywire Records, 2025) 10. Ollee Owens - Solid Ground (2:47) (Nowhere To Hide, Ollee Owens Music, 2024) 11. Hitman Blues Band - Back To The Blues (3:22) (Calling Long Distance, Nerus Records, 2024) 12. Robbert Duijf - First Train Out (3:30) (Silver Spoon, Naked Productions, 2025) 13. Reckoners - Woman's Woman (3:34) (Reckoners, Vintage League Music/Uptown Sound, 2024) 14. Greg Nagy - Never Mine (2:48) (The Real You, self-release, 2024) 15. Carly Harvey - Worth Waiting For (2:55) (Kamama, self-release, 2024) 16. The Band - Chest Fever (5:15) (Music From Big Pink, Capitol Records, 1968) 17. Dinah Washington (with Eddie Chamblee Orchestra) - Trouble In Mind (2:26) (45 RPM Single, Mercury Records, 1952) 18. Thelma La Vizzo - Trouble In Mind (3:01) (78 RPM Shellac, Paramount Records, 1924) 19. Bertha "Chippie" Hill - Trouble In Mind (2:51) (78 RPM Shellac, Okeh Records, 1926) 20. Georgia White - Trouble In Mind (2:35) (78 RPM Shellac, Decca Records, 1936) 21. Richard M. Jones - Trouble In Mind (2:40) (78 RPM Shellac, Bluebird Records, 1936) 22. Nina Simone - Trouble in Mind (2:45) (Pastel Blues, Philips Records, 1965) 23. Big Bill Broonzy - Trouble In Mind [1957] (2:36) (Black Brown And White, Mercury Records, 1991) 24. Two Men From Earth - Trouble In Mind (3:30) (Walkin' To New Orleans, self-release, 2009) 25. Misses Satchmo - Trouble In Mind (2:35) (The Sun Will Shine, Disques Bros Records, 2011) 26. Mose Allison - Trouble In Mind (3:15) (Local Color, Prestige Records, 1958) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

Brenda Lee spent the early years of her life in Georgia, and though her family didn't have a lot of money, they always made sure she had batteries to run the radio so she could listen to the Grand Ole Opry. Between that and singing at their Baptist church, her interest in music became clear, and her extraordinary talent became even clearer. She was still a kid when her mother moved the family to Missouri so she could be a part of a TV program called Ozark Jubilee, and she was signed to Decca Records soon after that. Over the next handful of years, she set a record for the number of top 10 hits by a woman, and she also recorded one of the most famous Christmas songs of all time when she was just 13 years old: “Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree.” Sid talks to Brenda about her own Christmas traditions, her friendships with artists like Tanya Tucker and the late Kris Kristofferson, and her thoughts on the increased prominence of women in music over the course of her long career. For more info visit: southernliving.com/biscuitsandjam Biscuits & Jam is produced by: Sid Evans - Editor-in-Chief, Southern Living Krissy Tiglias - GM, Southern Living Lottie Leymarie - Executive Producer Michael Onufrak - Audio Engineer & Editor/Producer Jeremiah McVay - Producer Jennifer Del Sole - Director of Audio Growth Strategy & Operations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The quintessential moment of a jazz funeral is the playing of “Just a Closer Walk to Thee.” Some say this custom goes all the back to early days of the New Orleans music scene nearly a century and half ago. It's a lovely story… and, well, untrue.The jazzman most associated with playing this beautiful song — New Orleans' legendary clarinetist George Lewis — revealed the tune actually has a much more recent history, one in which a barroom jukebox plays a prominent role.“The first time I played it was in the The Eureka Band” in 1942, Lewis told his biographer Tom Bethell. “We heard it on a music box, and a woman asked us to play it for a funeral” for her murdered husband.The MurderThe victim in this story, said Lewis, was in an uptown bar in one of New Orleans' rougher neighborhoods known as “The Battlefield.” He was just putting a nickel in the jukebox when someone stabbed him in the back.When the widow later learns that the song the poor man wanted to hear on that fateful evening was the new Sister Rosetta Tharpe recording of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” she asked George Lewis's band to play it at his funeral.Before that time, Lewis said, the tune was not known in New Orleans; however, after The Eureka Brass Band's performance, bands have been playing it at funerals ever since.The Song's Story“Just a Closer Walk with Thee” is a surprisingly modern song. It was published in 1940 in Chicago by Kenneth Morris, though Morris never claimed to have actually written the melody. In his book The Golden Age of Gospel, Horace Clarence Boyer tells how Morris was riding a train from Kansas City to Chicago. Along the way, he stepped off at one of the stops for some fresh air; while there, Morris heard a station porter singing a song. “He paid little attention at first,” Boyer wrote, “but after he re-boarded the train, the song remained with him. It became so prominent in his mind that at the next stop, he left the train, took another train back to the earlier station and asked the porter to sing the song again.”Morris wrote down the words and music — later adding a few lyrics of his own to provide more breadth — and published “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” that same year.RecordingsThe first known recording was by the Selah Jubilee Singers for Decca Records on Oct. 8, 1941.It didn't take long, though, for the song to get a jazzier treatment. Two months later, also for Decca, Rosetta Tharpe waxed the disc that would wind up on a jukebox in New Orleans and change George Lewis's life. After Lewis recorded it on his 1943 New Orleans Stompers album, “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” became his most requested tune for the remaining 25 years of his life.Our Take on the TuneRecently when Danny Cox read here how The Flood played “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” at a friend's memorial service 20 years ago, he said, “Why don't we do that song anymore?” Well, why indeed? So lately the guys have been dusting it off and just listen to the soulful, sassy spin the lads have put on it. Here's a take from last week's rehearsal.More Churchy Stuff, You Say?If this week's selection has you in the mood for a little more of The Flood's brand of reverence, you might enjoy the “Gospel Hour” playlist on the free Radio Floodango music streaming service.Click here to read all about it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Sup Vo1ceHeads!This episode is an ode to the Rolling Stone's original promoter, marketing specialist, pop psychologist, record producer, AKA Impresario extraordinare, Mr. Andrew Loog Oldham of Decca Records' fame.It was Andrew who put me onto the concept of artists-in-business not being Entrepreneurs, but rather greater success is in thinking of themselves as Impresarios.  I delve into this powerful distinction and how it can help inform you shape your career, whether you're a singer, songwriter, voice talent, promoter, producer, or any combination therein.Enjoy, like, follow, comment, hit me up @vo1cehead!-Ian Temple CampbellFor joy, power and a voice-centric worldviewallvoicemedia.com

John Williams, London Symphony Orchstra [00:23] "The Desert and The Robot Auction" Star Wars 20th Century Records 2T-541 1977 Pretty much every aspect of this soundtrack is seared into my Gen X nerd mind. Silver Jews [03:15] "Advice to the Graduate" Starlite Walker Drag City DC55 1994 The debut outing from David Berman and friends, here including partners in crime Steve Malkmus, Bob Nastanovich, and even Steve West. There is also a lovely cover of this song by The Pastels (https://youtu.be/tQ1vuKAGmUo?si=y7G-DZUy094zyJUf) (recorded for a Peel session). Lena Lovich [06:30] "I Think We're Alone Now" Stateless Stiff Records SEEZ 7 1978 (1979 reissue) From the original UK Stiff Records release of Stateless, a very first-wave New Wave version of "I Think We're Alone Now", originally recorded by Tommy James and the Shondells. Also available in Japanese! (https://youtu.be/URPtOAs_eMc?si=zX0h-wST3jcLzadK) Lena Lovich [09:18] "Lucky Number" Stateless Stiff-Epic JE 36102 1979 The US version changes up the track order, and has a number of songs remixed by Roger Bichirian. David Bowie [13:47] "Golden Years" Station to Station RCA Victor AQL1-1327 1976 (1986 reissue) Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick laying down the funky guitars. The cover features a photograph of Bowie by Steve Shapiro from Nicholas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) (https://youtu.be/KarWCgIw3Wk?si=52k2oqnxkEJ2HNah). Sinéad O'Connor [17:46] "Some Day My Prince Will Come" Stay Awake (Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films) A&M Records B0029005-01 1988 (2018 reissue) The late great Sinéad O'Connor interpreting Snow White's ballad accompanied by the late great Andy Rourke from the late great Hal Willner. Willner was one of the most imaginative music producers, responsible for so many excellent tribute albums, and one of the most innovative music shows on network television: Night Music (https://youtu.be/ChPPW6NbsFk?si=AusrNnmpxTl4mWUI). Graham Parker and the Shot [18:55] "Wake Up (Next to You)" Steady Nerves Elektra 9 60388-1 1985 Graham gets all romantic in a Motown sorta way. This single made it as high as 39 on the Hot 100. Graham Parker and the Rumour [24:00] "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down" Stick to Me Mercury SRM-1-3706 1977 Graham and company do a fine rendition of this song that was initally a hit for Ann Peebles (https://youtu.be/cyMsvE8UcbI?si=VqkTZdDF9ubuspVT). The Rolling Stones [29:35] "Dead Flowers" Sticky Fingers Rolling Stones Records COC 59100 1972 The first album the Stones recorded after being freed from their Decca Records obligation. This copy has one of the actual working zippers, as designed by Andy Warhol. Many listeners will also be familiar with Townes van Zandt's acoustic version that appears on his live album Roadsongs, and was subsequently used in The Big Lebowski (Coen, 1998). The Aquadolls [33:40] "Tweaker Kidz" Stoked on You Burger Records BRGR390 2014 Fun track from the debut Aquadolls album. Talking Heads [36:06] "Once in a Lifetime" Stop Making Sense Sire 1-25186 1984 There was a very cute promo (https://youtu.be/R2gVgpHIDz0?si=UfreL9mJCNr_K3iC) for the A24 re-release of the film recently. Nadja [42:03] "The Stone" The Stone Is Not Hit by the Sun, Nor Carved with a Knife Gizeh Records GZH70 2016 As usual, more heavy dreamy goodness from one of my favorite duos. Music behind the DJ: "Gomez" by Vic Mizzy

Show #1068 Memorial For Beardo 2023 Last week on September 17 it was 7 years ago that Beardo, founder of Bandana Blues, passed away. So this episode is an eclectic mix of music dedicated to Beardo. 01. Jimmy Thackery with the Cate Brothers - Arky Shuffle (5:37) (In The Natural State, Rykodisc, 2006) 02. Steve Miller Band - Blues Without Blame (5:50) (Rock Love, Capitol Records, 1971) 03. Matt Schofield - Djam (5:59) (Siftin' Thru Ashes, Nugene Records, 2005) 04. Savoy Brown - Time Does Tell (5:28) (Street Corner Talking, Deram Records, 1971) 05. MonkeyJunk - The Marrinator (5:13) (To Behold, Stony Plain Records, 2011) 06. Frank Zappa - Peaches En Regalia (3:38) (Hot Rats, Bizarre/Reprise Records, 1969) 07. Paul Butterfield - Screamin' (4:38) (The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Elektra Records, 1965) 08. Charles Brown - Hard Times [1951] (3:12) (Cool Blues Singer, Saga Blues Records, 2005) 09. Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated - Blue Mink (3:32) (Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated, Ace Of Clubs Records, 1965) 10. Slo Leak - Sold For Parts (4:20) (New Century Blues, Icon Records, 2008) 11. Zoot Money's Big Roll Band - Zoot's Suit (3:29) (45 RPM Single, Decca Records, 1964) 12. Jeff Pevar - Stalagmite St. Blues (3:14) (From The Core, Pet Peev Music, 2012) 13. Albert Castiglia - Sleepless Nights (5:00) (Solid Ground, Ruf Records, 2014) 14. Ronnie Earl & the Broadcasters - Blues For The West Side (3:34) (Still River, Audioquest Records, 1994) 15. Magnus Berg - Drifting (3:48) (Cut Me Loose, Screen Door Records, 2014) 16. Jason Ricci & New Blood - Dodecahedron (5:16) (Rocket Number 9, Eclecto Groove, 2007) 17. Danny Gatton & Joey DeFrancesco - Big Mo (4:43) (Relentless, Big Mo Records, 1994) 18. Al Basile - Reality Show (5:38) (The Goods, Sweetspot Records, 2011) 19. Buddy Whittington - Greenwood (4:09) (Buddy Whittington, self-release, 2007) 20. Oz Noy - Damn This Groove (feat. Dweezil Zappa) (5:49) (Who Gives A Funk, Abstract Logix, 2016) 21. Bugs Henderson - Blues In Reverse (8:28) (Years In The Jungle, Trigger/Taxim Records, 1993) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

This week Sara sits down with country music icon, Bill Anderson! Bill walks Sara through his journey to finding his love for music and how he ended up in Nashville pursuing his dream. The two of them reminisce on Bill presenting Sara her Opry induction and the songs that Bill has written that Sara loves. Bill also offers to take Sara out on his boat, and who knows, maybe the next big country hit will be written on Whispering Bill Anderson's boat. You don't wanna miss the laughs and memories shared in this episode!   About Bill Anderson: Bill Anderson has been using that philosophy for over sixty years to capture the attention of millions of country music fans around the world, en route to becoming a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and one of the most popular, most enduring entertainers of our time. He's known, in fact as "Whispering Bill," a nickname hung on him years ago as a result of his breathy voice and his warm, soft approach to singing a country song. His credentials, however, shout his prominence: One of the most awarded songwriters in the history of country music, a million-selling recording artist many times over, television game show host, network soap opera star, author of four books, and a consummate onstage performer. His backup group, The Po' Folks Band, has long been considered one of the finest instrumental and vocal groups in the business. Bill Anderson was born in Columbia, South Carolina, but spent most of his growing-up years around Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in journalism, having worked his way through college as a disc jockey on nearby radio stations. It was while he was still in school that he began performing and writing songs. At the age of nineteen, he composed the country classic, "City Lights," and began rapidly carving his place in musical history. He moved to Nashville, Tennessee, secured a recording contract with Decca Records, and began turning out hit after hit with songs like "Po'Folks," "Mama Sang A Song," "The Tips Of My Fingers," "8X10," and the unforgettable country and pop smash, "Still." His compositions were recorded by such diverse musical talents as Ray Price, Porter Wagoner, James Brown, Debbie Reynolds, Ivory Joe Hunter, Kitty Wells, Faron Young, Lawrence Welk, Dean Martin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Aretha Franklin, Walter Brennan and many others. Bill has been voted Songwriter Of The Year six times, Male Vocalist Of The Year, half of the Duet Of The Year with both Jan Howard and Mary Lou Turner, has hosted and starred in the Country Music Television Series Of The Year, seen his band voted Band Of The Year, and in 1975 was voted membership in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Ten years later, the State of Georgia honored him by choosing him as only the 7th living performer inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. In 1993, he was made a member of the Georgia Broadcasters' Hall of Fame. In 1994, South Carolina inducted him into their Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame. And in 2001, he received the ultimate honor, membership in Nashville's prestigious Country Music Hall of Fame. Bill Anderson continues to paint a broad stroke across the Nashville music scene. He has been a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1961 and performs there regularly. He continues to write and to record, his latest release being vocal and instrumental versions of some of his best known songs, titled "Bill Anderson - The Hits Re-Imagined." On the personal side, Bill lives on Old Hickory Lake outside Nashville where he spends as much time as possible with his three children and eight grandchildren. He is a boater and sports enthusiast who has been known to adjust his work schedule to fit around a ball game he just "has to see." He is an avid reader, his bookshelves lined with mysteries, biographies, books on religion, sports, and humor.   Listen to Unbroke:...

This week Sara sits down with country music icon, Bill Anderson! Bill walks Sara through his journey to finding his love for music and how he ended up in Nashville pursuing his dream. The two of them reminisce on Bill presenting Sara her Opry induction and the songs that Bill has written that Sara loves. Bill also offers to take Sara out on his boat, and who knows, maybe the next big country hit will be written on Whispering Bill Anderson's boat. You don't wanna miss the laughs and memories shared in this episode!   About Bill Anderson: Bill Anderson has been using that philosophy for over sixty years to capture the attention of millions of country music fans around the world, en route to becoming a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and one of the most popular, most enduring entertainers of our time. He's known, in fact as “Whispering Bill,” a nickname hung on him years ago as a result of his breathy voice and his warm, soft approach to singing a country song. His credentials, however, shout his prominence: One of the most awarded songwriters in the history of country music, a million-selling recording artist many times over, television game show host, network soap opera star, author of four books, and a consummate onstage performer. His backup group, The Po' Folks Band, has long been considered one of the finest instrumental and vocal groups in the business. Bill Anderson was born in Columbia, South Carolina, but spent most of his growing-up years around Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in journalism, having worked his way through college as a disc jockey on nearby radio stations. It was while he was still in school that he began performing and writing songs. At the age of nineteen, he composed the country classic, “City Lights,” and began rapidly carving his place in musical history. He moved to Nashville, Tennessee, secured a recording contract with Decca Records, and began turning out hit after hit with songs like “Po'Folks,” “Mama Sang A Song,” “The Tips Of My Fingers,” “8X10,” and the unforgettable country and pop smash, “Still.” His compositions were recorded by such diverse musical talents as Ray Price, Porter Wagoner, James Brown, Debbie Reynolds, Ivory Joe Hunter, Kitty Wells, Faron Young, Lawrence Welk, Dean Martin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Aretha Franklin, Walter Brennan and many others. Bill has been voted Songwriter Of The Year six times, Male Vocalist Of The Year, half of the Duet Of The Year with both Jan Howard and Mary Lou Turner, has hosted and starred in the Country Music Television Series Of The Year, seen his band voted Band Of The Year, and in 1975 was voted membership in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Ten years later, the State of Georgia honored him by choosing him as only the 7th living performer inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. In 1993, he was made a member of the Georgia Broadcasters' Hall of Fame. In 1994, South Carolina inducted him into their Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame. And in 2001, he received the ultimate honor, membership in Nashville's prestigious Country Music Hall of Fame. Bill Anderson continues to paint a broad stroke across the Nashville music scene. He has been a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1961 and performs there regularly. He continues to write and to record, his latest release being vocal and instrumental versions of some of his best known songs, titled “Bill Anderson – The Hits Re-Imagined.” On the personal side, Bill lives on Old Hickory Lake outside Nashville where he spends as much time as possible with his three children and eight grandchildren. He is a boater and sports enthusiast who has been known to adjust his work schedule to fit around a ball game he just “has to see.” He is an avid reader, his bookshelves lined with mysteries, biographies, books on religion, sports, and humor.   Listen to Unbroke: (https://ffm.to/seunbroke)   LET'S BE SOCIAL:   Follow Bill Anderson: Instagram: (@whisperinbillanderson) Youtube: (@BillAnderson) Website: https://billanderson.com/wired/   Follow Diving in Deep Podcast: Instagram –(@divingindeeppod) TikTok – (@divingindeeppod) Twitter – (@divingindeeppod) Facebook – (@divingindeeppod)   Follow Sara Evans: Instagram – (@saraevansmusic) TikTok – (@saraevansmusic) Twitter – (@saraevansmusic) Facebook – (@saraevansmusic)   Produced and Edited by: The Cast Collective (Nashville, TN) YouTube – ( @TheCastCollective ) Instagram – (@TheCastCollective) Twitter – (@TheCastCollective)   Directed by: Erin Dugan Edited By: Sean Dugan, Corey Williams, & Michaela Dolph https://www.thecastcollective.com  

Intro by: Gail NoblesEnding music by: Gail NoblesStory by: Gail NoblesToday's topic The Lost Generation. Got to bring back the music. The music of love. A time when music was great with soul and had the sound of smooth harmonies. And I'm thinking of a fabulous group known as the lost generation. With their silky vocals and that sweet R&B groove, they brought us tunes that made the world smile. They knew how to stir those emotions sending love notes through the airwaves straight to your heart. It's time to revive that love music. Whether it's their iconic hits or those deep cuts that made you feel like you were floating on a cloud, we owe it to ourselves to bring back the sounds that defined a generation. Now let me tell you about the group Lost Generation. The members Lowrell Simon, Fred Simon (brothers),Jesse Dean, Leslie Dean and Larry Brownlee began singing together in 1969. This was after Jesse Dean completed time in the United States Army. Shortly after forming, Lowrell Simon's childhood friend, Gus Redmond (who was by that time promotional head at Brunswick Records), had the group record with producer Carl Davis. The result of these sessions was the single "The Sly, Slick and the Wicked", which became a hit in the US, and whose sales earned Brunswick Records enough profits to buy itself out and dissociate itself from its parent company, Decca Records, that same year. Lowrell Simon was inspired for the song's title by the film title The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.The group scored a few further hits, and disbanded in 1974. Members Brownlee and Fred Simon later joining Mystique. Lowrell Simon embarked on a successful career as a songwriter and, in the late 70's, a solo artist. Larry Brownlee died in 1978. Fred Simon currently sings bass vocals with The Chi-Lites. Lowrell Simon died in 2018 of multiple health complications. They were a group that had great vocal arrangements. They were like a sweet potion blending powerful leads with silky background harmonies that transported you straight to the heart of the soul experience. The band sound was a perfect marriage of passion and skill. So as we reminisce about the year 1969, let's not forget The Lost Generation - the torch barriers of soul music keeping the flame alive in an ever-changing musical landscape. I'm Gail Nobles, and you're listening to the Cat Bear.

In Rocker Deaths part 3, Tessa discusses the events that took place that wiped these people off the earth, from a plane crash to a massacre, suicides, a tsunami and much more. CREDITS & LINKS INTRO MUSIC: Bobby Mackey "Johanna" COVER PHOTO/S: The images you see are not my own, I found them on Wikimedia Commons: TOP: (Seventeen) Scenes from a beach in Banten after tsunami struck Indonesian National Armed Forces Public domain Sunda strait tsunami 2.jpg BOTTOM LEFT: (Ricky Nelson) Publicity photo of American entertainer, Ricky Nelson promoting him as a musical artist on Decca Records, circa 1966. Decca Records Public domain BOTTOM MIDDLE: (Miami Showband) Simple Memorial Plaque at location of the Miami Showband Killings in 2019 Bigar Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 BOTTOM RIGHT: (Barry Cowsill) Louise Palanker Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 TheCowsills MUSIC SHOUT OUTS: Alien Manner (Woodland Hills, California) "Listen Official", "Zinger", "Green Dragon" Like what you heard? Click below to listen to more of Alien Manner's amazing music: https://www.instagram.com/alienmanner?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==  Stick the Landing (Chicago, Illinois) "Headliner", "Heartache" Like what you heard? Click below to listen to more of Stick The Landing's amazing music: http://YouTube.com/@stickthelandingband  Liars Handshake (Pueblo, Colorado) "Stockholm", "Halfway Home" Like what you heard? Click below to listen to more of Liars Handshake's amazing music: https://liarshandshake.com/en-usd/ VOICE OVER SHOUTOUTS: Thomas Jaynes as Pilot Ken and Pilot Don Ruggles Jerry Cooper as Firefighter Louis Glover and Bart Herbison Shawn Curtis as Terry Six and Steve Travers MJ Mauro as Stevie Nicks PART 3 LINE UP: * Ricky Nelson and his band The Stone Canyon Band * The Exploding Hearts - Adam Cox, Jeremy Gage, & Matt Fitzgerald * The Miami Showband - Brian McCoy, Tony Geraghty & Fran O'Toole * Barry Cowsill from The Cowsills * Seventeen - Windu Andi Darmawan, Herman Sikumbang, Awal Bani Purbani, Oki Wijaya & Dylan Sahara SUICIDE HOTLINE: 1-800-273-8255

Acclaimed genre-crossing songwriter and interpreter Madeleine Peyroux takes stock of her songwriting over the years and shares insights into the creation of her latest album. PART ONEPaul and Scott talk music books, the value of recording, and whether or not performers should stick to a strict or loose interpretation of a song when performing live. PART TWOOur in-depth conversation with Madeleine PeyrouxABOUT MADELEINE PEYROUXMadeleine Peyroux moved to Paris with her mother at the age of 12 and began singing with street musicians while still a teenager. She eventually joined the Lost Wandering Blues and Jazz Band, with whom she toured Europe. After being discovered by Atlantic Records she released her debut album, Dreamland, in 1996. Madeleine's commercial breakthrough came with the Gold-selling album Careless Love in 2004 and it's single, the self-penned “Don't Wait Too Long,” which was released by Rounder Records and topped the jazz charts. The follow-up album, Half the Perfect World, hit the Top 40 on Billboard's US album chart. Her 2009 album, Bare Bones, was the first to feature all original material. She moved to Decca Records for the Standing on the Rooftop album in 2011 and has since released four additional studio albums. Her latest effort, Let's Walk, features all original material and continues to showcase her masterful blending of jazz, blues, folk, pop, and more. 

Mares and Jen have enjoyed playing  a game of luck called “Underground Roulette.”  The game is easy to play. Just select a tube stop at random, keep a curious mind, and hit the streets!  It's an engaging way to get a sense of place and all that the city offers. But, what if we could add the dimension of time, seeing not only the neighborhood as it is, but as it was?In this episode, we explore the underground stops with stories involving the theme of luck. London: a city where fame and fortune may await, given talent, drive, privilege, connections, and sometimes it comes down to luck. Our three stories feature: horseshoes, normally associated with good luck, but not this time,counteracting the bad luck of the number 13, and, when what seems like bad luck can be the best fortune yet. Along the way, we'll visit an iconic location synonymous with luxury and spend time with some of the most famous people in modern history.  Follow along on our SHOW NOTES. You'll find photos, recordings, sources, and ways to find us. Enjoy playing Underground Roulette. With a little luck, you'll have a lot of fun!

If you were a game show fan in your youth, you'll remember Garry Moore. It was on this day in 1952 that the TV panel game “I've Got a Secret” premiered.  Garry hosted that show and “To Tell the Truth.” He also had his own program, “The Garry Moore Show.” At that time, he introduced comedienne Carol Burnett. After the show ended, Burnett became a star on her own with “The Carol Burnett Show.” Moore started his career as a radio announcer on WBAL in Baltimore. His popularity on the game shows led to a cameo appearance in a film with Doris Day, named “It Happened to Jane.” Garry also made some radio monologues for Decca Records, including “Hugh, The Blue Gnu” and a triple speed reading of “Little Red Riding Hood.”

Matt Sergiou – The Beatles, The Stones, the 60's and Mind Control.Dec 6, 2022Matt Sergiou has made a big effort to research not only the Beatles and their occult references and connections, but also the infiltration of the 60s counter culture and psychodelic influences.Were the Beatles and the Stones involved, albeit indirectly, in Decca Records funnelling money into military research? Were they coerced into giving an illusion that the peace movement could achieve it's stated aims? How were the drugs which were responsible for one of the most creative and anarchic periods in music and art, so readily available to so many people?In a concise interview, Matt puts forward his case that much of the more successful music and acts were unwitting pawns in a game of distraction; at best they were innocent contributors for sinister operators, at worst they were willingly complicit in a mind control operation which altered the course of history.Website: Conspiro Media/ Occult BeatlesTwitter: Matt SergiouFacebook: Conspiro MediaBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

Show #1053 From Choices To Decisions 01. Big Dave McLean - I Best Choose to Pick the Blues (4:41) (Faded But Not Gone, Black Hen Music, 2014) 02. John "Juke" Logan - Life on the Center Divider (Go Figure) (4:38) (Juke Rhythm, Sky Ranch Records, 1995) 03. Coyote Kings - Bad Decision (4:15) (Hot Mess, TwinLion Records, 2023) 04. Jeff Finlin - Crossing The Great Divide (4:16) (Soul On The Line, Bentwheel Records, 2022) 05. Eddie Martin - Too Much Choice (4:27) (Black White And Blue, BlueBlood Records, 2016) 06. Coco Robicheaux - Decision Blues (4:22) (Hoodoo Party, Sky Ranch Records, 2000) 07. Jan James - Dangerous Decision (3:26) (Justify, Blue Palace Records, 2020) 08. James Harman - Decisions (5:25) (Takin' Chances, Cannonball Records, 1998) 09. Duster Bennett - I Choose To Sing The Blues/Just Like I Treat You (6:46) (I Choose To Sing The Blues, Indigo Records, 1998) 10. Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes - I Choose to Sing the Blues (2:40) (I Don't Want to Go Home, Epic Records, 1976) 11. Derrick Procell - Why I Choose To Sing The Blues (6:05) (Why I Choose To Sing The Blues, Hear And Now Music, 2016) 12. The Band - Across The Great Divide (2:54) (The Band, Capitol Records, 1969) 13. Jim Allchin - Bad Decisions (3:06) (Decisions, Sandy Key Music, 2017) 14. Anthony Geraci - Too Many Bad Decisions (4:06) (Why Did You Have To Go, Shining Stone Records, 2018) 15. Marion Abernathy - Undecided [1948] (2:06) (Rare Blues Girls From King, Sing Records, 1988) 16. John Kirby & the Onyx Club Boys - Undecided (2:57) (78 RPM Shellac, Decca Records, 1938) 17. Ames Brothers (with Les Brown & his Band Of Renown) - Undecided (2:57) (45 RPM Single, Coral Records, 1951) 18. Chick Webb & his Orchestra (with vocal by Ella Fitzgerald) - Undecided (3:18) (78 RPM Shellac, Decca Records, 1939) 19. Django Reinhardt & le Quintette du Hot Club de France - Undecided (2:35) (78 RPM Shellac, Decca Records, 1939) 20. Al Hirt (with Henri René & his Orchestra) - Undecided (2:19) (The Greatest Horn In The World, RCA Victor, 1961) 21. Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Last Hope's Gone (4:50) (In My Own Dream, Elektra Records, 1968) 22. Michael Stanley Band - Choice And Sanborn (2:24) (Ladies' Choice, Epic Records, 1976) 23. Sideshow Tramps - Buck Dansers Choice (1:00) (Medicine Show, self-release, 2007) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

My guest, Eddie Ray, is truly a giant, a pioneer in the music industry. He started working at Decca Records in 1943, he worked with such diverse at from R & B giant Fats Domino to teen idol Ricky Nelson to Country Star Slim Whitman. He become Chairman of the US Copyright Royalty Tribunal, appointed by President Ronald Reagan. He was Vice Chairman/ Operation Director of the NC Music hall of Fame. A wonder Video. Mr Ray is join by Logan Westbrooks, Hiliary Johnson, Deborah McPhatter and Michael FrisbyProduced, directed, written and hosted by Stephen E Davis.

Show #1051 What A Shame 01. The Rolling Stones - What A Shame (3:06) (The Rolling Stones No. 2, Decca Records, 1965) 02. Curtis Salgado - Low Down Dirty Shame (3:18) (The Beautiful Lowdown, Alligator Records, 2016) 03. Mighty Reapers - It's A Shame (7:00) (Trouble People, Terra Nova Records, 1996) 04. Billy T. Band - Shame Shame (3:33) (Reckoning, Big H Records, 2016) 05. Teskey Brothers - Crying Shame (3:52) (Half Mile Harvest, Decca Records, 2018) 06. Stinky Lou & the Goon Mat - It's A Shame (2:26) (Fat Sausage For Dinner, Voodoo Rhythm Records, 2004) 07. Bridget Kelly Band - It's A Shame (3:58) (Blues Warrior, Alpha Sun Records, 2018) 08. Veldman Brothers - Cryin' Shame (4:32) (Livin' By The Dat, self-release, 2014) 09. Billy Jones - Ain't That A Shame (3:50) (Tha' Bluez, Black And Tan Records, 2005) 10. Nick Curran & the Nitelifes - Low Down Dirty Shame (2:30) (Nitelife Boogie, Texas Jamboree Records, 2001) 11. Sugar Ray Norcia - It's A Low Down Dirty Shame (4:17) (Sweet & Swingin', Bullseye Blues, 1998) 12. Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five - It's A Low Down Dirty Shame (2:49) (78 RPM Shellac, Decca Records, 1942) 13. Ollie Shepard & His Kentucky Boys - It's A Low Down Dirty Shame (3:18) (78 RPM Shellac, Decca Records, 1937) 14. Moanin' Bernice Edwards - Low Down Dirty Shame Blues (2:57) (78 RPM Shellac, Paramount Records, 1929) 15. Big Bill Broonzy - It's A Low Down Dirty Shame (2:56) (78 RPM Shellac, Vocalion Records, 1938) 16. George Barnes - I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me (2:58) (78 RPM Shellac, Okeh Records, 1940) 17. Shari Puorto - It's A Damn Shame (4:08) (My Obsession, Blues Rock Music, 2015) 18. Dyer Davis - Cryin' Shame (4:47) (Dog Bites Back, Wildroots Records, 2023) 19. Phantom Blues Band - Shame Shame (4:16) (Inside Out, VizzTone Records, 2012) 20. Omar & the Howlers - Shame Shame Shame (3:44) (Too Much Is Not Enough, Big Guitar Music, 2012) 21. Screamin' John & TD Lind - Shame Shame Shame (3:11) (Mr Little Big Man, Down In The Alley Records, 2019) 22. Sunday Wilde - Crying Shame (5:20) (He Digs Me, self-release, 2014) 23. R&B Caravan - What A Shame (3:53) (Completely Locked In, Styx Records, 2006) 24. George Barnes - I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles (2:54) (78 RPM Shellac, Okeh Records, 1940) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

Matt Sergiou – The Beatles, The Stones, the 60's and Mind Control.Matt Sergiou has made a big effort to research not only the Beatles and their occult references and connections, but also the infiltration of the 60s counter culture and psychodelic influences.Were the Beatles and the Stones involved, albeit indirectly, in Decca Records funnelling money into military research? Were they coerced into giving an illusion that the peace movement could achieve it's stated aims? How were the drugs which were responsible for one of the most creative and anarchic periods in music and art, so readily available to so many people?In a concise interview, Matt puts forward his case that much of the more successful music and acts were unwitting pawns in a game of distraction; at best they were innocent contributors for sinister operators, at worst they were willingly complicit in a mind control operation which altered the course of history.Website: Conspiro Media/ Occult BeatlesTwitter: Matt SergiouFacebook: Conspiro MediaBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

Show #1048 With Some Side Steppin' Kind of regular, but Spinner also does some side steppin' to pay tribute to Duane Eddie who passed away on April 30. 01. Bart Bryant - Whiskey Beer And Wine (4:53) (Backstage II, Horizon Music Group, 2024) 02. JC Covey - Brothers First Not Last (3:41) (Strumcussion Blues, self-release, 2024) 03. Judy Sings The Blues  - Tricks (6:59) (Backstage Pass Live, self-release, 2024) 04. Rick Estrin & The Nightcats - I Finally Hit The Bottom (5:09) (The Hits Keep Coming, Alligator Records, 2024) 05. Muddy Husky Duo - I Can't Be Satisfied (3:22) (Single, Luppa Records, 2024) 06. Billy Price - Change Your Mind (5:31) (Person of Interest, Little Village Records, 2024) 07. Roy Buchanan - Rodney's Song (4:29) (That's What I Am Here For, Polydor Records, 1973) 08. Canned Heat - One Last Boogie (3:58) (Finyl Vinyl, Ruf Records, 2024) 09. Val Starr & The Blues Rocket - The Blues That Move Me (4:21) (To The Blues and Back Again, Sandwich Factory Records, 2024) 10. Robert Jon & the Wreck - Give Love (4:57) (Red Moon Rising, Journeyman Records, 2024) 11. Matthew Chaffey - Waiting On You (2:56) (Hotel Texas, Gypsy Soul Records, 2024) 12. Bastards Of Soul - Woman Of Hell (6:46) (Give It Right Back, Skylark Soul Co., 2024) 13. Anthony Geraci - Owl's Nest (3:05) (Tears In My Eyes, Blue Heart Records, 2024) 14. The B. Christopher Band - Everybody Needs Somebody To Love (3:51) (106 Miles To Chicago, Guitar One Records, 2024) 15. Solomon Burke - Everybody Needs Somebody To Love (2:50) (45 RPM Single, Atlantic Records, 1964) 16. Rolling Stones - Everybody Needs Somebody To Love (3:00) (The Rolling Stones No. 2, Decca Records, 1965) 17. Wilson Pickett - Everybody Needs Somebody To Love (2:20) (45 RPM Single, Atlantic Records, 1967) 18. Small Faces - Whatcha Gonna Do About It (2:00) (45 RPM Single, Decca Records, 1965) 19. The Blues Brothers Band - Peter Gunn Theme (3:48) (The Blues Brothers Soundtrack, Atlantic Records, 1980) 20. Henry Mancini - Peter Gunn (2:05) (45 RPM Single, RCA Victor, 1959) 21. Duane Eddie - Peter Gunn (2:30) (Especially For You, Jamie Records, 1959) 22. Duane Eddie - Movin' 'n' Groovin' (2:06) (Have 'Twangy' Guitar Will Travel, Jamie Records, 1958) 23. Duane Eddie - Rebel-'Rouser (2:21) (Have 'Twangy' Guitar Will Travel, Jamie Records, 1958) 24. Duane Eddie - Because They're Young (2:08) (45 RPM Single, Jamie Records, 1960) 25. Karate Boogaloo - Incredible Wonderful (3:10) (Hold Your Horses, Colemine Records, 2024) 26. The Blues Brothers Band - Closing - I Can't Turn You Loose (0:32) (Briefcase Full Of Blues, Atlantic Records, 1978) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

Label: Decca 32362Year: 1968Condition: M-Price: $32.00This is a particularly nice copy of this especially great Who single. Besides the classic A side that everyone knows and loves, you get a superfine, quite catchy Entwistle rocker that hardly anyone knows on the flip side. Check it out! Note: This copy comes in a vintage Decca Records factory sleeve. It has pristine Mint sound. (This scan is a representative image from our archives; this copy does not have a drillhole.)

This season on my podcast, Baring It All with Call Me Adam, I am highlighting My Entertainment Idols.Today, I am going back in time and Behind-The-Curtain to bring you this blast from the past, my 2019 interview with Olivia Newton-John, 4-time Grammy award winner and Sandy from the mega hit movie musical Grease.This was my third, and what turned out to be my final time interviewing Olivia. I was given 10 minutes to conduct a telephone interview with her. Now, here's a little Behind-The-Curtain Story….When this interview took place, I did not have a podcast, so I had to transcribe the interview into print format. Now I do have a podcast, and I am so excited to share with you my original phone conversation with the one, the only Olivia Newton-John.At the time of this interview, Olivia's autobiography, Don't Stop Believin' was recently released, which is what brought us back together.In this interview, Olivia is Baring It All with Call Me Adam about:How she keeps her positive outlookWhat she learned about herself from writing her autobiographyHow she has adapted to the changes in the music industryWhat she still hopes to achieveSo much moreIf you want to read the interview, and see some photos of Olivia, you can do that here!Special Thanks:Michael Caprio, Caprio Media DesignTheme Song by Bobby CroninPodcast Logo by Liam O'DonnellEdited by Adam RothenbergConnect with Me:Website: www.callmeadam.comFacebook: @CallMeAdamNYCInstagram: @CallMeAdamNYCMore on Olivia Newton-John:Olivia Newton-John's appeal seems to be timeless. With a career spanning more than five decades she is still a vibrant, creative individual adored by fans around the globe. Born in Cambridge, England in 1948, the youngest child of Professor Brin Newton-John and Irene, daughter of Nobel Prize winning physicist, Max Born, Olivia moved to Melbourne, Australia with her family when she was five. Her first big break was winning a talent contest on the popular TV show, Sing, Sing, Sing, which earned Olivia a trip to London. By the age of fifteen she had formed an all-girl group called Sol 4 and, in 1963, Olivia was appearing on local daytime TV shows and weekly pop music programs in Australia. When she eventually took her prize-winning trip to London, she teamed up with her friend from Melbourne, Pat Carroll (now Pat Farrar), to create a double act, “Pat & Olivia,” and the duo toured army bases and clubs throughout the UK and Europe. Olivia cut her first single for Decca Records in 1966, a version of Jackie DeShannon's "Till You Say You'll Be Mine,” and in 1971, she recorded a cover of Bob Dylan's "If Not For You," co-produced by Bruce Welch and fellow Aussie and friend, John Farrar, whom she continues to collaborate with today.Olivia's U.S. album debut, Let Me Be There, produced her first top ten single of the same name, with Olivia being honored by the Academy Of Country Music as “Most Promising Female Vocalist” and a Grammy Award as “Best Country Vocalist.” This proved to be only the beginning of a very exciting career. With more than 100 million albums sold, Olivia's successes include...

Show #1047 Ramblin' (Man) On My Mind Spinner plays mostly new music and pays tribute to Dicket Betts who passed away on April 18. 01. The Allman Brothers Band - Jessica (7:03) (Brothers And Sisters, Capricorn Records, 1973) 02. John Mayall with Eric Clapton - Ramblin' On My Mind (3:09) (Bluesbreakers, Decca Records, 1966) 03. Big Harp George - Awkward Me (3:43) (Cooking With Gas, Blues Mountain Records, 2024) 04. Misty Blues - Shake These Blues (4:28) (Silver Lining, Guitar One Records, 2024) 05. Guy Verlinde - My Little Girl (3:48) (Single, R&S Music, 2024) 06. Bad Boy Leroy - Cast A Spell (2:50) (Single, Barbed Wire Music, 2024) 07. Alastair Greene - Am I To Blame? (3:42) (Standing Out Loud, Ruf Records, 2024) 08. Vintage Dutch - Mister People (3:48) (Single, self-release, 2024) 09. Jeff Slate - Movin' On (3:03) (The Last Day Of Summer, Schnitzel Records, 2024) 10. Gary Cain - I Don't Care What You Say (3:20) (Outside The Lines, self-release, 2024) 11. Deb Ryder - Guilty As Sin (5:21) (Live And Havin' Fun, VizzTone Records, 2024) 12. The Reverend Shawn Amos - Cicles (3:22) (Soul Brother No. 1, Immediate Family Records, 2024) 13. Altered Five Blues Band - Whiskey Got Me Married (3:53) (Testifyin', Blind Pig Records, 2024) 14. The Commoners - See You Again (4:43) (Single, Gypsy Soul Records, 2024) 15. Krissy Matthews - Mr. Brown's Blues (6:20) (Krissy Matthews & Friends, Ruf Records, 2024) 16. Lady Adrena - Beautiful Disaster (4:02) (Single, Sweet Success Records, 2024) 17. Left Lane Cruiser - Big Momma Shake (3:08) (Bayport BBQ Blues, Alive Naturalsound Records, 2024) 18. Paul Steward - You Can Dance to My Blues (3:38) (Single, 2XG Records, 2024) 19. Beau Gris Gris & the Apocalypse - Middle Of The Night (3:20) (Hot Nostalgia Radio, Grow Vision Music & Records, 2024) 20. Bywater Call - Roll (4:33) (Shepherd, Gypsy Soul Records, 2024) 21. John Akapo - Ramblin' On My Mind (3:24) (Paradise Blues, Mensch House Records, 2018) 22. The Allman Brothers Band - Pegasus (7:32) (Enlightened Rogues, Capricorn Records, 1979) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

This week on Echoes of Indiana Avenue, learn about the life and music of Enoch “Sonny Boy” Williams, a rhythm & blues pianist and vocalist from Indianapolis.  Williams cut a series of popular R&B recordings for Decca Records during the early 1940s. He's best remembered for his 1943 single “Reverse the Charges”. That song was a minor hit for Williams and was covered by artists including Bud Powell and Etta Jones.  Williams was born in London, Kentucky in 1917, but he was raised in Indianapolis. Williams began performing in 1935. He appeared often at Avenue venues, including The Cotton Club, The Rhumboogie, and Sunset Terrace.

Label: Decca 32896 djYear: 1971Condition: MPrice: $14.00Here's a beautiful promo copy of this amazing single by Who bassist John Entwistle. If you haven't heard the amazing hard-rocker on the A side, you're definitely missing out on one of the best rarities in classic rock! Have a listen to the mp3 snippet in our jukebox to hear what I'm talking about. The flip is a more typical Who-sounding outing. Note: This copy comes in a vintage Decca Records factory sleeve. It has pristine Mint vinyl and audio, and the labels grade very close to Mint. (Note: This scan is a representative image from our archives.)

En MetalProgPop Cast nos juntamos 4 amigos para hablar y discutir sobre música. Guido Vilariño (el Rey Tut) es el fanático del Metal, Angel Appiani es el fanático del Rock Progresivo, Gonzalo Ares (El Colo, El Colorado, ex-Bombi) es el fanático del Pop, y Santi Grillo es el fanático del podcast.  Nosotros la pasamos muy bien, y esperamos que Uds también. En el día de hoy analizamos.... Mirage es el segundo álbum de estudio del grupo británico de rock progresivo Camel con nueva discográfica, el sello Deram perteneciente a Decca Records. Con el tiempo sería uno de los álbumes más emblemáticos del grupo que llegó a editarse en una versión doble junto a su siguiente The Snow Goose. 

For those who haven't heard the announcement I just posted , songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the first part of a multi-episode look at the Byrds in 1966-69 and the birth of country rock. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a half-hour bonus episode on "My World Fell Down" by Sagittarius. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources No Mixcloud at this time as there are too many Byrds songs in this chunk, but I will try to put together a multi-part Mixcloud when all the episodes for this song are up. My main source for the Byrds is Timeless Flight Revisited by Johnny Rogan, I also used Chris Hillman's autobiography, the 331/3 books on The Notorious Byrd Brothers and The Gilded Palace of Sin, For future parts of this multi-episode story I used Barney Hoskyns' Hotel California and John Einarson's Desperadoes as general background on Californian country-rock, Calling Me Hone, Gram Parsons and the Roots of Country Rock by Bob Kealing for information on Parsons, and Requiem For The Timeless Vol 2 by Johnny Rogan for information about the post-Byrds careers of many members. Information on Gary Usher comes from The California Sound by Stephen McParland. And this three-CD set is a reasonable way of getting most of the Byrds' important recordings. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript When we left the Byrds at the end of the episode on "Eight Miles High", they had just released that single, which combined folk-rock with their new influences from John Coltrane and Ravi Shankar, and which was a group composition but mostly written by the group's lead singer, Gene Clark. And also, as we mentioned right at the end of the episode, Clark had left the group. There had been many, many factors leading to Clark's departure. Clark was writing *far* more material than the other band members, of whom only Roger McGuinn had been a writer when the group started, and as a result was making far more money than them, especially with songs like "She Don't Care About Time", which had been the B-side to their number one single "Turn! Turn! Turn!" [Excerpt: The Byrds, "She Don't Care About Time"] Clark's extra income was making the rest of the group jealous, and they also didn't think his songs were particularly good, though many of his songs on the early Byrds albums are now considered classics. Jim Dickson, the group's co-manager, said "Gene would write fifteen to twenty songs a week and you had to find a good one whenever it came along because there were lots of them that you couldn't make head or tail of.  They didn't mean anything. We all knew that. Gene would write a good one at a rate of just about one per girlfriend." Chris Hillman meanwhile later said more simply "Gene didn't really add that much." That is, frankly, hard to square with the facts. There are ten original songs on the group's first two albums, plus one original non-album B-side. Of those eleven songs, Clark wrote seven on his own and co-wrote two with McGuinn. But as the other band members were starting to realise that they had the possibility of extra royalties -- and at least to some extent were starting to get artistic ambitions as far as writing goes -- they were starting to disparage Clark's work as a result, calling it immature. Clark had, of course, been the principal writer for "Eight Miles High", the group's most experimental record to date: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Eight Miles High"] But there he'd shared co-writing credit with David Crosby and Roger McGuinn, in part because that was the only way he could be sure they would agree to release it as a single. There were also internal rivalries within the band unrelated to songwriting -- as we've touched on, Crosby had already essentially bullied Clark off the guitar and into just playing tambourine (and McGuinn would be dismissive even of Clark's tambourine abilities). Crosby's inability to get on with any other member of any band he was in would later become legendary, but at this point Clark was the major victim of his bullying. According to Dickson "David understood when Gene left that ninety-five percent of why Gene left could be brought back to him." The other five percent, though, came from Clark's fear of flying. Clark had apparently witnessed a plane crash in his youth and been traumatised by it, and he had a general terror of flying and planes -- something McGuinn would mock him for a little, as McGuinn was an aviation buff. Eventually, Clark had a near-breakdown boarding a plane from California to New York for a promotional appearance with Murray the K, and ended up getting off the plane. McGuinn and Michael Clarke almost did the same, but in the end they decided to stay on, and the other four Byrds did the press conference without Gene. When asked where Gene was, they said he'd "broken a wing". He was also increasingly having mental health and substance abuse problems, which were exacerbated by his fear, and in the end he decided he just couldn't be a Byrd any more. Oddly, of all the band members, it was David Crosby who was most concerned about Clark's departure, and who did the most to try to persuade him to stay, but he still didn't do much, and the group decided to carry on as a four-piece and not even make a proper announcement of Clark's departure -- they just started putting out photos with four people instead of five. The main change as far as the group were concerned was that Hillman was now covering Clark's old vocal parts, and so Crosby moved to Clark's old centre mic while Hillman moved from his position at the back of the stage with Michael Clarke to take over Crosby's mic. The group now had three singer-instrumentalists in front, two of whom, Crosby and McGuinn, now thought of themselves as songwriters. So despite the loss of their singer/songwriter/frontman, they moved on to their new single, the guaranteed hit follow-up to "Eight Miles High": [Excerpt: The Byrds, "5D (Fifth Dimension)"] "5D" was written by McGuinn, inspired by a book of cartoons called 1-2-3-4 More More More More by Don Landis, which I haven't been able to track down a copy of, but which seems to have been an attempt to explain the mathematical concept of higher dimensions in cartoon form. McGuinn was inspired by this and by Einstein's theory of relativity -- or at least by his understanding of relativity, which does not seem to have been the most informed take on the topic. McGuinn has said in the past that the single should really have come with a copy of Landis' booklet, so people could understand it. Sadly, without the benefit of the booklet we only have the lyrics plus McGuinn's interviews to go on to try to figure out what he means. As far as I'm able to understand, McGuinn believed -- completely erroneously -- that Einstein had proved that along with the four dimensions of spacetime there is also a fifth dimension which McGuinn refers to as a "mesh", and that "the reason for the speed of light being what it is is because of that mesh." McGuinn then went on to identify this mesh with his own conception of God, influenced by his belief in Subud, and with a Bergsonian idea of a life force. He would talk about how most people are stuck in a materialist scientific paradigm which only admits to  the existence of three dimensions, and how there are people out there advocating for a five-dimensional view of the world. To go along with this mystic view of the universe, McGuinn wanted some music inspired by the greatest composer of sacred music, and he asked Van Dyke Parks, who was brought in to add keyboards on the session, to play something influenced by Bach -- and Parks obliged, having been thinking along the same lines himself: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "5D (Fifth Dimension)"] Unfortunately for the group, McGuinn's lyrical intention wasn't clear enough and the song was assumed to be about drugs, and was banned by many radio stations. That plus the track's basically uncommercial nature meant that it reached no higher than number forty-four in the charts. Jim Dickson, the group's co-manager, pointed to a simpler factor in the record's failure, saying that if the organ outro to the track had instead been the intro, to set a mood for the track rather than starting with a cold vocal open, it would have had more success. The single was followed by an album, called Fifth Dimension, which was not particularly successful. Of the album's eleven songs, two were traditional folk songs, one was an instrumental -- a jam called "Captain Soul" which was a version of Lee Dorsey's "Get Out My Life Woman" credited to the four remaining Byrds, though Gene Clark is very audible on it playing harmonica -- and one more was a jam whose only lyrics were "gonna ride a Lear jet, baby", repeated over and over. There was also "Eight Miles High" and the group's inept and slightly-too-late take on "Hey Joe". It also included a third single, a country track titled "Mr. Spaceman": [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Mr. Spaceman"] McGuinn and, particularly, Hillman, had some country music background, and both were starting to think about incorporating country sounds into the group's style, as after Clark's departure from the group they were moving away from the style that had characterised their first two albums. But the interest in "Mr. Spaceman" was less about the musical style than about the lyrics. McGuinn had written the song in the hopes of contacting extraterrestrial life -- sending them a message in his lyrics so that any aliens listening to Earth radio would come and visit, though he was later disappointed to realise that the inverse-square law means that the signals would be too faint to make out after a relatively short distance: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Mr. Spaceman"] "Mr. Spaceman" did better on the charts than its predecessor, scraping the lower reaches of the top forty, but it hardly set the world alight, and neither did the album -- a typical review was the one by Jon Landau, which said in part "This album then cannot be considered up to the standards set by the Byrds' first two and basically demonstrates that they should be thinking in terms of replacing Gene Clark, instead of just carrying on without him." Fifth Dimension would be the only album that Allen Stanton would produce for the Byrds, and his replacement had actually just produced an album that was a Byrds record by any other name: [Excerpt: Gene Clark, "So You Say You've Lost Your Baby"] We've looked at Gary Usher before, but not for some time, and not in much detail. Usher was one of several people who were involved in the scene loosely centred on the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean, though he never had much time for Jan Berry and he had got his own start in the music business slightly before the Beach Boys. As a songwriter, his first big successes had come with his collaborations with Brian Wilson -- he had co-written "409" for the Beach Boys, and had also collaborated with Wilson on some of his earliest more introspective songs, like "The Lonely Sea" and "In My Room", for which Usher had written the lyrics: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "In My Room"] Usher had built a career as a producer and writer for hire, often in collaboration with Roger Christian, who also wrote with Brian Wilson and Jan Berry. Usher, usually with Christian, and very occasionally Wilson wrote the songs for several of American International Pictures' Beach Party films: [Excerpt: Donna Loren, "Muscle Bustle"] And Usher and Christian had also had bit parts in some of the films, like Bikini Beach, and Usher had produced records for Annette Funicello, the star of the films, often with the Honeys (a group consisting of Brian Wilson's future wife Marilyn plus her sister and cousin) on backing vocals. He had also produced records for the Surfaris, as well as a whole host of studio-only groups like the Four Speeds, the Super Stocks, and Mr. Gasser and the Weirdoes, most of whom were Usher and the same small group of vocalist friends along with various selections of Wrecking Crew musicians making quick themed albums. One of these studio groups, the Hondells, went on to be a real group of sorts, after Usher and the Beach Boys worked together on a film, The Girls on the Beach. Usher liked a song that Wilson and Mike Love had written for the Beach Boys to perform in the film, "Little Honda", and after discovering that the Beach Boys weren't going to release their version as a single, he put together a group to record a soundalike version: [Excerpt: The Hondells, "Little Honda"] "Little Honda" made the top ten, and Usher produced two albums for the Hondells, who had one other minor hit with a cover version of the Lovin' Spoonful's "Younger Girl". Oddly, Usher's friend Terry Melcher, who would shortly produce the Byrds' first few hits, had also latched on to "Little Honda", and produced his own version of the track, sung by Pat Boone of all people, with future Beach Boy Bruce Johnston on backing vocals: [Excerpt: Pat Boone, "Little Honda"] But when Usher had got his version out first, Boone's was relegated to a B-side. When the Byrds had hit, and folk-rock had started to take over from surf rock, Usher had gone with the flow and produced records like the Surfaris' album It Ain't Me Babe, with Usher and his usual gang of backing vocalists augmenting the Surfaris as they covered hits by Dylan, the Turtles, the Beach Boys and the Byrds: [Excerpt: The Surfaris, "All I Really Want to Do"] Usher was also responsible for the Surfaris being the first group to release a version of "Hey Joe" on a major label, as we heard in the episode on that song: [Excerpt: The Surfaris, "Hey Joe"] After moving between Capitol, Mercury, and Decca Records, Usher had left Decca after a round of corporate restructuring and been recommended for a job at Columbia by his friend Melcher, who at that point was producing Paul Revere and the Raiders and the Rip Chords and had just finished his time as the Byrds' producer. Usher's first work at Columbia was actually to prepare new stereo mixes of some Byrds tracks that had up to that point only been issued in mono, but his first interaction with the Byrds themselves came via Gene Clark: [Excerpt: Gene Clark, "So You Say You've Lost Your Baby"] On leaving the Byrds, Clark had briefly tried to make a success of himself as a songwriter-for-hire in much the same mould as Usher, attempting to write and produce a single for two Byrds fans using the group name The Cookie Fairies, while spending much of his time romancing Michelle Phillips, as we talked about in the episode on "San Francisco". When the Cookie Fairies single didn't get picked up by a label, Clark had put together a group with Bill Rinehart from the Leaves, Chip Douglas of the Modern Folk Quartet, and Joel Larson of the Grass Roots. Just called Gene Clark & The Group, they'd played around the clubs in LA and cut about half an album's worth of demos produced by Jim Dickson and Ed Tickner, the Byrds' management team, before Clark had fired first Douglas and then the rest of the group. Clark's association with Douglas did go on to benefit him though -- Douglas went on, as we've seen in other episodes, to produce hits for the Turtles and the Monkees, and he later remembered an old song by Clark and McGuinn that the Byrds had demoed but never released, "You Showed Me", and produced a top ten hit version of it for the Turtles: [Excerpt: The Turtles, "You Showed Me"] Clark had instead started working with two country singers, Vern and Rex Gosdin, who had previously been with Chris Hillman in the country band The Hillmen. When that band had split up, the Gosdin Brothers had started to perform together as a duo, and in 1967 they would have a major country hit with "Hangin' On": [Excerpt: The Gosdin Brothers, "Hangin' On"] At this point though, they were just Gene Clark's backing vocalists, on an album that had been started with producer Larry Marks, who left Columbia half way through the sessions, at which point Usher took over. The album, titled Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers, featured a mix of musicians from different backgrounds. There were Larson and Rinehart from Gene Clark and the Group, there were country musicians -- a guitarist named Clarence White and the banjo player Doug Dillard. Hillman and Michael Clarke, the Byrds' rhythm section, played on much of the album as a way of keeping a united front, Glen Campbell, Jerry Cole, Leon Russell and Jim Gordon of the Wrecking Crew contributed, and Van Dyke Parks played most of the keyboards. The lead-off single for Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers, "Echoes", is one of the tracks produced by Marks, but in truth the real producer of that track is Leon Russell, who wrote the orchestral arrangement that turned Clark's rough demo into a baroque pop masterpiece: [Excerpt: Gene Clark, "Echoes"] Despite Clark having quit the band, relations between him and the rest were still good enough that in September 1966 he temporarily rejoined the band after Crosby lost his voice, though he was gone again as soon as Crosby was well. But that didn't stop the next Byrds album, which Usher went on to produce straight after finishing work on Clark's record, coming out almost simultaneously with Clark's and, according to Clark, killing its commercial potential. Upon starting to work with the group, Usher quickly came to the conclusion that Chris Hillman was in many ways the most important member of the band. According to Usher "There was also quite a divisive element within the band at that stage which often prevented them working well together. Sometimes everything would go smoothly, but other times it was a hard road. McGuinn and Hillman were often more together on musical ideas. This left Crosby to fend for himself, which I might add he did very well." Usher also said "I quickly came to understand that Hillman was a good stabilising force within the Byrds (when he wanted to be). It was around the time that I began working with them that Chris also became more involved in the songwriting. I think part of that was the fact that he realised how much more money was involved if you actually wrote the songs yourself. And he was a good songwriter." The first single to be released from the new sessions was one that was largely Hillman's work. Hillman and Crosby had been invited by the great South African jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela to play on some demos for another South African jazzer, singer Letta Mbulu. Details are sparse, but one presumes this was for what became her 1967 album Letta Mbulu Sings, produced by David Axelrod: [Excerpt: Letta Mbulu, "Zola (MRA)"] According to Hillman, that session was an epiphany for him, and he went home and started writing his own songs for the first time. He took one of the riffs he came up with to McGuinn, who came up with a bridge inspired by a song by yet another South African musician, Miriam Makeba, who at the time was married to Masekela, and the two wrote a lyric inspired by what they saw as the cynical manipulation of the music industry in creating manufactured bands like the Monkees -- though they have both been very eager to say that they were criticising the industry, not the Monkees themselves, with whom they were friendly. As Hillman says in his autobiography, "Some people interpreted it as a jab at The Monkees. In reality, we had immense respect for all of them as singers and musicians. We weren't skewering the members of the Monkees, but we were taking a shot at the cynical nature of the entertainment business that will try to manufacture a group like The Monkees as a marketing strategy. For us, it was all about the music, and we were commenting on the pitfalls of the industry rather than on any of our fellow musicians." [Excerpt: The Byrds, "So You Want to be a Rock 'n' Roll Star?"] The track continued the experimentation with sound effects that they had started with the Lear jet song on the previous album. That had featured recordings of a Lear jet, and "So You Want to be a Rock 'n' Roll Star?" featured recordings of audience screams. Those screams were, according to most sources, recorded by Derek Taylor at a Byrds gig in Bournemouth in 1965, but given reports of the tepid response the group got on that tour, that doesn't seem to make sense. Other sources say they're recordings of a *Beatles* audience in Bournemouth in *1963*, the shows that had been shown in the first US broadcast of Beatles footage, and the author of a book on links between the Beatles and Bournemouth says on his blog "In the course of researching Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth I spoke to two people who saw The Byrds at the Gaumont that August and neither recalled any screaming at all, let alone the wall of noise that can be heard on So You Want To Be A Rock 'n' Roll Star." So it seems likely that screaming isn't for the Byrds, but of course Taylor had also worked for the Beatles. According to Usher "The crowd sound effects were from a live concert that Derek Taylor had taped with a little tape recorder in London. It was some outrageous crowd, something like 20,000 to 30,000 people. He brought the tape in, ran it off onto a big tape, re- EQ'd it, echoed it, cleaned it up and looped it." So my guess is that the audience screams in the Byrds song about the Monkees are for the Beatles, but we'll probably never know for sure: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "So You Want to be a Rock 'n' Roll Star?"] The track also featured an appearance by Hugh Masekela, the jazz trumpeter whose invitation to take part in a session had inspired the song: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "So You Want to be a Rock 'n' Roll Star?"] While Hillman was starting to lean more towards folk and country music -- he had always been the member of the band least interested in rock music -- and McGuinn was most interested in exploring electronic sounds, Crosby was still pushing the band more in the direction of the jazz experimentation they'd tried on "Eight Miles High", and one of the tracks they started working on soon after "So You Want to be a Rock 'n' Roll Star?" was inspired by another jazz trumpet great. Miles Davis had been partly responsible for getting the Byrds signed to Columbia, as we talked about in the episode on "Mr. Tambourine Man", and so the group wanted to pay him tribute, and they started working on a version of his classic instrumental "Milestones": [Excerpt: Miles Davis, "Milestones"] Sadly, while the group worked on their version for several days -- spurred on primarily by Crosby -- they eventually chose to drop the track, and it has never seen release or even been bootlegged, though there is a tiny clip of it that was used in a contemporaneous documentary, with a commentator talking over it: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Milestones (TV)"] It was apparently Crosby who decided to stop work on the track, just as working on it was also apparently his idea. Indeed, while the biggest change on the album that would become Younger Than Yesterday was that for the first time Chris Hillman was writing songs and taking lead vocals, Crosby was also writing more than before. Hillman wrote four of the songs on the album, plus his co-write with McGuinn on "So You Want to be a Rock 'n' Roll Star?", but Crosby also supplied two new solo compositions, plus a cowrite with McGuinn, and Crosby and McGuinn's "Why?", the B-side to "Eight Miles High", was also dug up and rerecorded for the album. Indeed, Gary Usher would later say "The album was probably 60% Crosby. McGuinn was not that involved, nor was Chris; at least as far as performing was concerned." McGuinn's only composition on the album other than the co-writes with Crosby and Hillman was another song about contacting aliens, "CTA-102", a song about a quasar which at the time some people were speculating might have been evidence of alien life. That song sounds to my ears like it's had some influence from Joe Meek's similar records, though I've never seen McGuinn mention Meek as an influence: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "CTA-102"] Crosby's growing dominance in the studio was starting to rankle with the other members. In particular two tracks were the cause of conflict. One was Crosby's song "Mind Gardens", an example of his increasing experimentation, a freeform song that ignores conventional song structure, and which he insisted on including on the album despite the rest of the group's objections: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Mind Gardens"] The other was the track that directly followed "Mind Gardens" on the album. "My Back Pages" was a song from Dylan's album Another Side of Bob Dylan, a song many have seen as Dylan announcing his break with the folk-song and protest movements he'd been associated with up to that point, and his intention to move on in a new direction: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "My Back Pages"] Jim Dickson, the Byrds' co-manager, was no longer on speaking terms with the band and wasn't involved in their day-to-day recording as he had been, but he'd encountered McGuinn on the street and rolled down his car window and suggested that the group do the song. Crosby was aghast. They'd already recorded several songs from Another Side of Bob Dylan, and Fifth Dimension had been their first album not to include any Dylan covers. Doing a jangly cover of a Dylan song with a McGuinn lead vocal was something they'd moved on from, and he didn't want to go back to 1964 at the end of 1966. He was overruled, and the group recorded their version, a track that signified something very different for the Byrds than the original had for Dylan: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "My Back Pages"] It was released as the second single from the album, and made number thirty. It was the last Byrds single to make the top forty. While he was working with the Byrds, Usher continued his work in the pop field, though as chart pop moved on so did Usher, who was now making records in a psychedelic sunshine pop style with acts like the Peanut Butter Conspiracy: [Excerpt: The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, "It's a Happening Thing"] and he produced Chad and Jeremy's massive concept album Of Cabbages and Kings, which included a five-song "Progress Suite" illustrating history from the start of creation until the end of the world: [Excerpt: Chad and Jeremy, "Editorial"] But one of the oddest projects he was involved in was indirectly inspired by Roger McGuinn. According to Usher "McGuinn and I had a lot in common. Roger would always say that he was "out of his head," which he thought was good, because he felt you had to go out of your head before you could really find your head! That sums up McGuinn perfectly! He was also one of the first people to introduce me to metaphysics, and from that point on I started reading everything I could get my hands on. His viewpoints on metaphysics were interesting, and, at the time, useful. He was also into Marshall McLuhan; very much into the effects of electronics and the electronic transformation. He was into certain metaphysical concepts before I was, but I was able to turn him onto some abstract concepts as well" These metaphysical discussions led to Usher producing an album titled The Astrology Album, with discussions of the meaning of different star signs over musical backing: [Excerpt: Gary Usher, "Leo"] And with interviews with various of the artists he was working with talking about astrology. He apparently interviewed Art Garfunkel -- Usher was doing some uncredited production work on Simon and Garfunkel's Bookends album at the time -- but Garfunkel declined permission for the interview to be used. But he did get both Chad and Jeremy to talk, along with John Merrill of the Peanut Butter Conspiracy -- and David Crosby: [Excerpt: Gary Usher, "Leo"] One of the tracks from that album, "Libra", became the B-side of a single by a group of studio musicians Usher put together, with Glen Campbell on lead vocals and featuring Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys prominently on backing vocals. "My World Fell Down" was credited to Sagittarius, again a sign of Usher's current interest in astrology, and featured some experimental sound effects that are very similar to the things that McGuinn had been doing on recent Byrds albums: [Excerpt: Sagittarius, "My World Fell Down"] While Usher was continuing with his studio experimentation, the Byrds were back playing live -- and they were not going down well at all. They did a UK tour where they refused to play most of their old hits and went down as poorly as on their previous tour, and they were no longer the kings of LA. In large part this was down to David Crosby, whose ego was by this point known to *everybody*, and who was becoming hugely unpopular on the LA scene even as he was starting to dominate the band. Crosby was now the de facto lead vocalist on stage, with McGuinn being relegated to one or two songs per set, and he was the one who would insist that they not play their older hit singles live. He was dominating the stage, leading to sarcastic comments from the normally placid Hillman like "Ladies and gentlemen, the David Crosby show!", and he was known to do things like start playing a song then stop part way through a verse to spend five minutes tuning up before restarting. After a residency at the Whisky A-Go-Go where the group were blown off the stage by their support act, the Doors, their publicist Derek Taylor quit, and he was soon followed by the group's co-managers Jim Dickson and Eddie Tickner, who were replaced by Crosby's friend Larry Spector, who had no experience in rock management but did represent Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, two young film stars Crosby was hanging round with. The group were particularly annoyed by Crosby when they played the Monterey Pop Festival. Crosby took most lead vocals in that set, and the group didn't go down well, though instrumentally the worst performer was Michael Clarke, who unlike the rest of the band had never become particularly proficient on his instrument: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "So You Want to be a Rock 'n' Roll Star (live at Monterey)"] But Crosby also insisted on making announcements from the stage advocating LSD use and describing conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination: [Excerpt: David Crosby on the Warren Commission, from the end of "Hey Joe" Monterey] But even though Crosby was trying to be the Byrds' leader on stage, he was also starting to think that they maybe didn't deserve to have him as their leader. He'd recently been spending a lot of time hanging out with Stephen Stills of the Buffalo Springfield, and McGuinn talks about one occasion where Crosby and Stills were jamming together, Stills played a blues lick and said to McGuinn "Can you play that?" and when McGuinn, who was not a blues musician, said he couldn't, Stills looked at him with contempt. McGuinn was sure that Stills was trying to poach Crosby, and Crosby apparently wanted to be poached. The group had rehearsed intensely for Monterey, aware that they'd been performing poorly and not wanting to show themselves up in front of the new San Francisco bands, but Crosby had told them during rehearsals that they weren't good enough to play with him. McGuinn's suspicions about Stills wanting to poach Crosby seemed to be confirmed during Monterey when Crosby joined Buffalo Springfield on stage, filling in for Neil Young during the period when Young had temporarily quit the group, and performing a song he'd helped Stills write about Grace Slick: [Excerpt: Buffalo Springfield, "Rock 'n' Roll Woman (live at Monterey)"] Crosby was getting tired not only of the Byrds but of the LA scene in general. He saw the new San Francisco bands as being infinitely cooler than the Hollywood plastic scene that was LA -- even though Crosby was possibly the single most Hollywood person on that scene, being the son of an Oscar-winning cinematographer and someone who hung out with film stars. At Monterey, the group had debuted their next single, the first one with an A-side written by Crosby, "Lady Friend": [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Lady Friend"] Crosby had thought of that as a masterpiece, but when it was released as a single, it flopped badly, and the rest of the group weren't even keen on the track being included on the next album. To add insult to injury as far as Crosby was concerned, at the same time as the single was released, a new album came out -- the Byrds' Greatest Hits, full of all those singles he was refusing to play live, and it made the top ten, becoming far and away the group's most successful album. But despite all this, the biggest conflict between band members when they came to start sessions for their next album wasn't over Crosby, but over Michael Clarke. Clarke had never been a particularly good drummer, and while that had been OK at the start of the Byrds' career, when none of them had been very proficient on their instruments, he was barely any better at a time when both McGuinn and Hillman were being regarded as unique stylists, while Crosby was writing metrically and harmonically interesting material. Many Byrds fans appreciate Clarke's drumming nonetheless, saying he was an inventive and distinctive player in much the same way as the similarly unskilled Micky Dolenz, but on any measure of technical ability he was far behind his bandmates. Clarke didn't like the new material and wasn't capable of playing it the way his bandmates wanted. He was popular with the rest of the band as a person, but simply wasn't playing well, and it led to a massive row in the first session: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Universal Mind Decoder (alternate backing track)"] At one point they joke that they'll bring in Hal Blaine instead -- a reference to the recording of "Mr. Tambourine Man", when Clarke and Hillman had been replaced by Blaine and Larry Knechtel -- and Clarke says "Do it. I don't mind, I really don't." And so that ended up happening. Clarke was still a member of the band -- and he would end up playing on half the album's tracks -- but for the next few sessions the group brought in session drummers Hal Blaine and Jim Gordon to play the parts they actually wanted. But that wasn't going to stop the bigger problem in the group, and that problem was David Crosby's relationship with the rest of the band. Crosby was still at this point thinking of himself as having a future in the group, even as he was increasingly convinced that the group themselves were bad, and embarrassed by their live sound. He even, in a show of unity, decided to ask McGuinn and Hillman to collaborate on a couple of songs with him so they would share the royalties equally. But there were two flash-points in the studio. The first was Crosby's song "Triad", a song about what we would now call polyamory, partly inspired by Robert Heinlein's counterculture science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. The song was meant to portray a progressive, utopian, view of free love, but has dated very badly -- the idea that the *only* reason a woman might be unhappy with her partner sleeping with another woman is because of her mother's disapproval possibly reveals more about the mindset of hippie idealists than was intended. The group recorded Crosby's song, but refused to allow it to be released, and Crosby instead gave it to his friends Jefferson Airplane, whose version, by having Grace Slick sing it, at least reverses the dynamics of the relationship: [Excerpt: Jefferson Airplane, "Triad"] The other was a song that Gary Usher had brought to the group and suggested they record, a Goffin and King song released the previous year by Dusty Springfield: [Excerpt: Dusty Springfield, "Goin' Back"] Crosby was incandescent. The group wanted to do this Brill Building pap?! Hell, Gary Usher had originally thought that *Chad and Jeremy* should do it, before deciding to get the Byrds to do it instead. Did they really want to be doing Chad and Jeremy cast-offs when they could be doing his brilliant science-fiction inspired songs about alternative relationship structures? *Really*? They did, and after a first session, where Crosby reluctantly joined in, when they came to recut the track Crosby flat-out refused to take part, leading to a furious row with McGuinn. Since they were already replacing Michael Clarke with session drummers, that meant the only Byrds on "Goin' Back", the group's next single, were McGuinn and Hillman: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Goin' Back"] That came out in late October 1967, and shortly before it came out, McGuinn and Hillman had driven to Crosby's home. They told him they'd had enough. He was out of the band. They were buying him out of his contract. Despite everything, Crosby was astonished. They were a *group*. They fought, but only the way brothers fight. But McGuinn and Hillman were adamant. Crosby ended up begging them, saying "We could make great music together." Their response was just "And we can make great music without you." We'll find out whether they could or not in two weeks' time.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a British children's television drama first broadcast by the BBC in 1988.   It was the first series of The Chronicles of Narnia that ran from 1988 to 1990.​   Narnia is the home of the great lion Aslan. During his long absence, his arch-enemy, the evil White Witch places Narnia in an eternal winter. However, with the return of Aslan and the arrival of the four Pevensie children, the Narnians are given a hope to end the tyranny of the Witch.   Opening Credits; Introduction (1.22); The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe 1988 BBC Trailer (2.24); Lights, Camera, Action (3.02); How Many Stars (16.18); End Credits (18.09); Closing Credits (19.02)   Opening Credits– Epidemic Sound – Copyright . All rights reserved   Closing Credits:  A Merry Christmas at Grandmother's by Danny Kaye and The Andrew Sisters.  Taken from the Album Christmas Cheer.  Copyright 1950 Decca Records. Original Music copyrighted 2020 Dan Hughes Music and the Literary License Podcast.    All rights reserved.  Used by Kind Permission.   All songs available through Amazon Music.  

Holiday albums have existed since at least 1945, when Bing Crosby released “Merry Christmas,” a collection of 8 Christmas songs for Decca Records. Since then, countless popular music artists have released full holiday albums to share their love of the sounds of the season… or simply to satisfy a record contract, or pay their mortgages. It's a Christmas miracle! There have been dozens of iconic holiday albums released since Bing's nearly 80 years ago. And now, the Great Pop Culture Debate podcast wants to determine: what IS the best holiday album of all time? Join Eric Rezsnyak, Derek Mekita, Jake Pitochelli, and Jonny Minogue as they debate 16 of their favorite holiday albums, ultimately naming the best of all time. Love Pop Culture? Subscribe to Our Free Weekly Newsletter! Every Monday we tell you about the new movies, TV shows, albums, and video games coming up this week, PLUS we spotlight podcast episodes, polls, and more! Subscribe today! EPISODE CREDITS Host: Eric Rezsnyak Panel: Derek Mekita, Jake Pitochelli, Jonny Minogue Producer: Curtis Creekmore Editor: Jeffery Perry Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Show #1026 Once More It May All Be Mayall Celebrating John Mayall's 90th birthday this week on November 29. 01. John Mayall - Got To Find A Better Way (5:00) (The Sun Is Shining Down, Forty Below Records, 2022) 02. John Mayall - Don't Hang Me Up (4:14) (Ten Years Are Gone, Polydor Records, 1973) 03. John Mayall - Groupie Girl (3:50) (Back To The Roots, Polydor Records, 1971) 04. John Mayall - Dream About The Blues (5:59) (Chicago Line, Island Records, 1988) 05. John Mayall - One Of The Few (2:42) (The Latest Edition, Polydor Records, 1974) 06. John Mayall - Double Crossing Time (3:03) (Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton, Decca Records, 1966) 07. Eric Clapton - When You Got A Good Friend (3:20) (Me And Mr. Johnson, Reprise Records, 2004) 08. John Mayall - It's Over (2:50) (A Hard Road, Decca Records, 1967) 09. John Mayall - Out Of Reach [1967] (4:40) (A Hard Road (reissue), Decca Records, 2006) 10. Fleetwood Mac - No Place To Go (3:24) (Fleetwood Mac, Blue Horizon Records, 1968) 11. Peter Green - A Fool No More (7:43) (In The Skies, PVK Records, 1979) 12. John Mayall - Long Gone Midnight (3:29) (Blues From Laurel Canyon, Decca Records, 1968) 13. Mick Taylor - Blind Willie McTell (8:33) (A Stone's Throw, Cannonball Records, 2000) 14. John Mayall - Taxman Blues (3:08) (New Year New Band New Company, ABC Records, 1975) 15. John Mayall - Loaded Dice (4:27) (Wake Up Call, Silvertone Records, 1993) 16. Coco Montoya - I Was Wrong (3:49) (Writing On The Wall, Alligator Records, 2023) 17. John Mayall - The Mists Of Time (7:56) (Stories, Eagle Records, 2002) 18. Buddy Whittington - Deadwood And Wire (4:17) (Six String Svengali, Manhaton Records, 2011) 19. John Mayall - So Many Roads (8:47) (Live At Montreux Jazz Festival 2008, YouTube) 20. John Mayall - War We Wage (4:14) (Find A Way To Care, Forty Below Records, 2015) 21. Rocky Athas' Lightning - I Will Love Again (3:35) (Lightning Strikes Twice, Armadillo Records, 2007) 22. John Mayall - That's What Love Will Make You Do (3:54) (Nobody Told Me, Forty Below Records, 2019) 23. John Mayall - Snowy Wood (3:32) (Crusade, Decca Records, 1967) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

M: 7. E: 7.

In this week's episode, Tim and Jeremy welcome writer and academic Gayle Wald to the show to tell us about the life and times of Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Christened on social media ‘the queer black woman who invented rock'n'roll', yet derided in 1970 as ‘a blacked up Elvis in drag', Sister Rosetta's story disrupts the received narrative of rock history. We hear about her religious upbringing, hitting the road with her evangelist mother; playing in the Cotton Club, the Decca Records studios, and from the centre field of a football stadium (in her wedding dress!); and being feted by Johnny Cash at the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame. Sister Rosetta's story concerns misogyny, Pentecostalism, the evolution of the electric guitar, gossip, Little Richard and more, and Gayle is the perfect person to share it with us. This is an edited version of the full interview. To hear more about Sister Rosetta as well as about Gayle's book on the television programme ‘Soul!' - a groundbreaking piece of public broadcasting that brought black thinkers, activists and musicians to the TV screen - and her forthcoming work on the eminent children's musician Ella Jenkins, become a patron. Gayle Wald  is a professor of English and American Studies at George Washington University and a Guggenheim Fellow. She is the author of 'Crossing the Line: Racial Passing in U.S. Literature and Culture', ‘Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe' and ‘It's Been Beautiful: Soul! and Black Power Television'. Produced by Matt Huxley.Become a patron at Patreon.com/LoveMessagePod Check out the back catalog, reading lists, playlists and more at our website: https://www.loveisthemessagepod.co.uk/ Produced by Matt Huxley. Tracklist: Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Rock MeSister Rosetta Tharpe - Up Above My Head Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight - Didn't It RainSister Rosetta Tharpe - Strange Things Happening Every DayMahalia Jackson - Move On Up a Little HigherSister Rosetta Tharpe - Move On Up a Little Higher

Matt Sergiou – The Beatles, The Stones, the 60's and Mind Control.Matt Sergiou has made a big effort to research not only the Beatles and their occult references and connections, but also the infiltration of the 60s counter culture and psychodelic influences.Were the Beatles and the Stones involved, albeit indirectly, in Decca Records funnelling money into military research? Were they coerced into giving an illusion that the peace movement could achieve it's stated aims? How were the drugs which were responsible for one of the most creative and anarchic periods in music and art, so readily available to so many people?In a concise interview, Matt puts forward his case that much of the more successful music and acts were unwitting pawns in a game of distraction; at best they were innocent contributors for sinister operators, at worst they were willingly complicit in a mind control operation which altered the course of history.Website: Conspiro Media/ Occult BeatlesTwitter: Matt SergiouFacebook: Conspiro Media4 months agoThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

In a series of four Decca Icons podcasts, Gramophone's James Jolly explores the artistry of four major recording musicians with Rob Cowan, Jed Distler and Richard Fairman. Focusing on recordings in the Decca catalogue, the series turns the spotlight on Bernard Haitink, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Georg Solti and, this week, Benjamin Britten. Each podcast is accompanied by a special Apple Music playlist.  In this final podcast, James talks to the Financial Times and Gramophone critic Richard Fairman about this towering figure in British musical life. Britten recorded for Decca, as composer, pianist and conductor, for most of his adult life and left a peerless catalogue of recordings, including one of the classics of the gramophone, the War Requiem.

Matt Sergiou – The Beatles, The Stones, the 60's and Mind Control.Matt Sergiou has made a big effort to research not only the Beatles and their occult references and connections, but also the infiltration of the 60s counter culture and psychodelic influences.Were the Beatles and the Stones involved, albeit indirectly, in Decca Records funnelling money into military research? Were they coerced into giving an illusion that the peace movement could achieve it's stated aims? How were the drugs which were responsible for one of the most creative and anarchic periods in music and art, so readily available to so many people?In a concise interview, Matt puts forward his case that much of the more successful music and acts were unwitting pawns in a game of distraction; at best they were innocent contributors for sinister operators, at worst they were willingly complicit in a mind control operation which altered the course of history.Website: Conspiro Media/ Occult BeatlesTwitter: Matt SergiouFacebook: Conspiro MediaThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

Matt Sergiou – The Beatles, The Stones, the 60's and Mind Control.Matt Sergiou has made a big effort to research not only the Beatles and their occult references and connections, but also the infiltration of the 60s counter culture and psychodelic influences.Were the Beatles and the Stones involved, albeit indirectly, in Decca Records funnelling money into military research? Were they coerced into giving an illusion that the peace movement could achieve it's stated aims? How were the drugs which were responsible for one of the most creative and anarchic periods in music and art, so readily available to so many people?In a concise interview, Matt puts forward his case that much of the more successful music and acts were unwitting pawns in a game of distraction; at best they were innocent contributors for sinister operators, at worst they were willingly complicit in a mind control operation which altered the course of history.Website: Conspiro Media/ Occult BeatlesTwitter: Matt SergiouFacebook: Conspiro MediaThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/1198501/advertisement

Forget everything you think you know about how George Harrison helped to sign The Rolling Stones to Decca Records in May 1963. I am joined once again by Dafydd Rees to discuss our new research, which calls this well-known story into question and revises not only Beatles' history but also Stones' history. Listen to the end to hear some bonus research stories from Dafydd about his book The Beatles 1963 - A Year In The Life (available here). Season 2 finale episode!

When Their Majesties King Charles III & Queen Camilla are crowned at Westminster Abbey next month, the service, and pre-service music, will be exclusively recorded and released by Decca Records the very same day. The Official Album of the Coronation, to take place on Saturday 6th May 2023, will include all music and spoken word from the global event and will feature an official photograph from the day as cover art. This marks the first time ever a recording of a Coronation ceremony – a tradition that can be traced back more than 1000 years – will be available globally to stream and download on the day of the service itself, thanks to advances in modern technology. This will be an unprecedented event in both recorded music and British royal history.Help support our show by purchasing this album  at:Downloads (classicalmusicdiscoveries.store) Classical Music Discoveries is sponsored by Uber and Apple Classical. @CMDHedgecock#ClassicalMusicDiscoveries #KeepClassicalMusicAlive#CMDGrandOperaCompanyofVenice #CMDParisPhilharmonicinOrléans#CMDGermanOperaCompanyofBerlin#CMDGrandOperaCompanyofBarcelonaSpain#ClassicalMusicLivesOn#Uber#AppleClassical Please consider supporting our show, thank you!Donate (classicalmusicdiscoveries.store) staff@classicalmusicdiscoveries.comThis album is broadcasted with the permission of Crossover Media Music Promotion (Zachary Swanson and Amanda Bloom).

Show #995 From The Attic 01. Dana Fuchs - Rodents In The Attic (4:03) (Songs From The Road, Ruf Records, 2014) 02. Fat James Band - On The Move (3:39) (Mountains In The Sky, Whitewing Music, 2022) 03. Curtis Salgado & Alan Hager - You Got To Move (4:32) (Rough Cut, Alligator Records, 2018) 04. Funky Bluester - Closer To Hell (3:23) (Quality Rock-N-Roll, self-release, 2023) 05. Bad Brad & the Fat Cats - Man On The Move (3:53) (Take A Walk With Me, Tangle Eye Records, 2014) 06. Oscar Benton Blues Band - Gotta Move (2:01) (Feel So Good, Decca Records, 1968) 07. Delta Generators - Mind Eraser (4:28) (The Lost Year Part II, self-release, 2023) 08. Tia Carroll - Move On (4:46) (You Gotta Have It, Little Village Foundation, 2021) 09. Hometown Heroes - Fist Fight (4:04) (Single, self-release, 2023) 10. David Crimmen - Miss Lonely (2:42) (Single, self-release, 2023) 11. Ben Racine Band - Move On (3:27) (Live à Montréal, self-release, 2019) 12. Lisa Mann - Move On (4:32) (Move On, self-release, 2014) 13. Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated - Gotta Move (2:33) (R&B From The Marquee, Ace Of Clubs Records,1962) 14. Deuce 'N A Quarter - Blues Leave Me Alone (4:22) (Keep Moving On, self-release, 2023) 15. Dudley Taft - Old School Rocking (4:57) (Guitar Kingdom, self-release, 2023) 16. Rex Granite Band - Move Along (4:13) (Spirit Matter Truth Lies, self-release, 2017) 17. The Hound Kings - You Gotta Move (3:09) (Unleashed, self-release, 2013) 18. Marble Tones - Got To Move (4:08) (Black Coffee, True Player Records, 2005) 19. Pam Ross - Falling Off The Merry Go Round (3:58) (Falling Off The Merry Go Round, MTS Records, 2023) 20. Fleetwood Mac - Got To Move (3:19) (Fleetwood Mac, Blue Horizon Records, 1968) 21. Jimmie Bratcher - Save Me From Myself (5:31) (Far Enough, Ain't Skeert Tunes, 2023) 22. GeminiiDragon - Good Thang (3:40) (Equinox, Nepotism Recordings, 2023) 23. Rock House All Stars - Sativa (3:11) (Single, Qualified Records, 2023) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

On this episode of The It's Only Rock And Roll Podcast, record promoter / press liaison / artistic director TONY KING discusses his seven decades as a behind the scenes figure in rock & roll, whose work proved vital in both the careers and lives of artists like Roy Orbison, John Lennon, Elton John, and most notably The Rolling Stones, as tour press director for over 20 years. From his days as a young man looking after artists for Decca Records, to attending the infamous live taping of The Beatles “All You Need is Love”, to playing an integral role in John Lennon's last live concert appearance joining Elton John on stage in 1974, Tony recounts his amazing rock & roll adventures, as well as his new autobiography “The Tastemaker: My Life with the Legends and Geniuses of Rock Music”. ----------------------------------- ֎ To order “The Tastemaker: My Life with the Legends and Geniuses of Rock Music” visit https://amzn.to/3LOAXhN/ Visit the 'It's Only Rock And Roll PODCAST' online at: ● Homepage – http://www.ItsOnlyRockAndRollPodcast.com ● Facebook – https://facebook.com/ItsOnlyRockAndRollPodcast/ ● YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/ItsOnlyRockAndRollPODCAST ● Instagram - @itsonlyrockandrollpodcast © 2023 Howlaround Productions. All rights reserved.

In this episode, we revisit the infamous rejection of The Beatles auditioning for Decca Records. We explore the realm of rejection as a catalyst for possibility. This episode was recorded during my morning commute!

I'm joined for this episode by Tony King to discuss his brilliant memoir 'The Tastemaker'. Tony joined Decca Records at 16, and as London started to swing, was one of it's most vital promotion men. Tony got to know The Beatles during the mid 60's, and by the start of the 70s was employed by Apple, and worked on promoting both John and Ringo's solo albums. His friendship with Elton John led him to introduce him to John Lennon - and Tony was directly involved in John's famous Thanksgiving appearance with Elton at Madison Square Garden in 1974.  

Episode 159 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Itchycoo Park” by the Small Faces, and their transition from Mod to psychedelia. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-five-minute bonus episode available, on "The First Cut is the Deepest" by P.P. Arnold. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources As so many of the episodes recently have had no Mixcloud due to the number of songs by one artist, I've decided to start splitting the mixes of the recordings excerpted in the podcasts into two parts. Here's part one and part two. I've used quite a few books in this episode. The Small Faces & Other Stories by Uli Twelker and Roland Schmit is definitely a fan-work with all that that implies, but has some useful quotes. Two books claim to be the authorised biography of Steve Marriott, and I've referred to both -- All Too Beautiful by Paolo Hewitt and John Hellier, and All Or Nothing by Simon Spence. Spence also wrote an excellent book on Immediate Records, which I referred to. Kenney Jones and Ian McLagan both wrote very readable autobiographies. I've also used Andrew Loog Oldham's autobiography Stoned, co-written by Spence, though be warned that it casually uses slurs. P.P. Arnold's autobiography is a sometimes distressing read covering her whole life, including her time at Immediate. There are many, many, collections of the Small Faces' work, ranging from cheap budget CDs full of outtakes to hundred-pound-plus box sets, also full of outtakes. This three-CD budget collection contains all the essential tracks, and is endorsed by Kenney Jones, the band's one surviving member. And if you're intrigued by the section on Immediate Records, this two-CD set contains a good selection of their releases. ERRATUM-ISH: I say Jimmy Winston was “a couple” of years older than the rest of the band. This does not mean exactly two, but is used in the vague vernacular sense equivalent to “a few”. Different sources I've seen put Winston as either two or four years older than his bandmates, though two seems to be the most commonly cited figure. Transcript For once there is little to warn about in this episode, but it does contain some mild discussions of organised crime, arson, and mental illness, and a quoted joke about capital punishment in questionable taste which may upset some. One name that came up time and again when we looked at the very early years of British rock and roll was Lionel Bart. If you don't remember the name, he was a left-wing Bohemian songwriter who lived in a communal house-share which at various times was also inhabited by people like Shirley Eaton, the woman who is painted gold at the beginning of Goldfinger, Mike Pratt, the star of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), and Davey Graham, the most influential and innovative British guitarist of the fifties and early sixties. Bart and Pratt had co-written most of the hits of Britain's first real rock and roll star, Tommy Steele: [Excerpt: Tommy Steele, "Rock with the Caveman"] and then Bart had gone solo as a writer, and written hits like "Living Doll" for Britain's *biggest* rock and roll star, Cliff Richard: [Excerpt: Cliff Richard, "Living Doll"] But Bart's biggest contribution to rock music turned out not to be the songs he wrote for rock and roll stars, and not even his talent-spotting -- it was Bart who got Steele signed by Larry Parnes, and he also pointed Parnes in the direction of another of his biggest stars, Marty Wilde -- but the opportunity he gave to a lot of child stars in a very non-rock context. Bart's musical Oliver!, inspired by the novel Oliver Twist, was the biggest sensation on the West End stage in the early 1960s, breaking records for the longest-running musical, and also transferred to Broadway and later became an extremely successful film. As it happened, while Oliver! was extraordinarily lucrative, Bart didn't see much of the money from it -- he sold the rights to it, and his other musicals, to the comedian Max Bygraves in the mid-sixties for a tiny sum in order to finance a couple of other musicals, which then flopped horribly and bankrupted him. But by that time Oliver! had already been the first big break for three people who went on to major careers in music -- all of them playing the same role. Because many of the major roles in Oliver! were for young boys, the cast had to change frequently -- child labour laws meant that multiple kids had to play the same role in different performances, and people quickly grew out of the roles as teenagerhood hit. We've already heard about the career of one of the people who played the Artful Dodger in the original West End production -- Davy Jones, who transferred in the role to Broadway in 1963, and who we'll be seeing again in a few episodes' time -- and it's very likely that another of the people who played the Artful Dodger in that production, a young lad called Philip Collins, will be coming into the story in a few years' time. But the first of the artists to use the Artful Dodger as a springboard to a music career was the one who appeared in the role on the original cast album of 1960, though there's very little in that recording to suggest the sound of his later records: [Excerpt: Steve Marriott, "Consider Yourself"] Steve Marriott is the second little Stevie we've looked at in recent episodes to have been born prematurely. In his case, he was born a month premature, and jaundiced, and had to spend the first month of his life in hospital, the first few days of which were spent unsure if he was going to survive. Thankfully he did, but he was a bit of a sickly child as a result, and remained stick-thin and short into adulthood -- he never grew to be taller than five foot five. Young Steve loved music, and especially the music of Buddy Holly. He also loved skiffle, and managed to find out where Lonnie Donegan lived. He went round and knocked on Donegan's door, but was very disappointed to discover that his idol was just a normal man, with his hair uncombed and a shirt stained with egg yolk. He started playing the ukulele when he was ten, and graduated to guitar when he was twelve, forming a band which performed under a variety of different names. When on stage with them, he would go by the stage name Buddy Marriott, and would wear a pair of horn-rimmed glasses to look more like Buddy Holly. When he was twelve, his mother took him to an audition for Oliver! The show had been running for three months at the time, and was likely to run longer, and child labour laws meant that they had to have replacements for some of the cast -- every three months, any performing child had to have at least ten days off. At his audition, Steve played his guitar and sang "Who's Sorry Now?", the recent Connie Francis hit: [Excerpt: Connie Francis, "Who's Sorry Now?"] And then, ignoring the rule that performers could only do one song, immediately launched into Buddy Holly's "Oh Boy!" [Excerpt: Buddy Holly, "Oh Boy!"] His musical ability and attitude impressed the show's producers, and he was given a job which suited him perfectly -- rather than being cast in a single role, he would be swapped around, playing different small parts, in the chorus, and occasionally taking the larger role of the Artful Dodger. Steve Marriott was never able to do the same thing over and over, and got bored very quickly, but because he was moving between roles, he was able to keep interested in his performances for almost a year, and he was good enough that it was him chosen to sing the Dodger's role on the cast album when that was recorded: [Excerpt: Steve Marriott and Joyce Blair, "I'd Do Anything"] And he enjoyed performance enough that his parents pushed him to become an actor -- though there were other reasons for that, too. He was never the best-behaved child in the world, nor the most attentive student, and things came to a head when, shortly after leaving the Oliver! cast, he got so bored of his art classes he devised a plan to get out of them forever. Every art class, for several weeks, he'd sit in a different desk at the back of the classroom and stuff torn-up bits of paper under the floorboards. After a couple of months of this he then dropped a lit match in, which set fire to the paper and ended up burning down half the school. His schoolfriend Ken Hawes talked about it many decades later, saying "I suppose in a way I was impressed about how he had meticulously planned the whole thing months in advance, the sheer dogged determination to see it through. He could quite easily have been caught and would have had to face the consequences. There was no danger in anybody getting hurt because we were at the back of the room. We had to be at the back otherwise somebody would have noticed what he was doing. There was no malice against other pupils, he just wanted to burn the damn school down." Nobody could prove it was him who had done it, though his parents at least had a pretty good idea who it was, but it was clear that even when the school was rebuilt it wasn't a good idea to send him back there, so they sent him to the Italia Conti Drama School; the same school that Anthony Newley and Petula Clark, among many others, had attended. Marriott's parents couldn't afford the school's fees, but Marriott was so talented that the school waived the fees -- they said they'd get him work, and take a cut of his wages in lieu of the fees. And over the next few years they did get him a lot of work. Much of that work was for TV shows, which like almost all TV of the time no longer exist -- he was in an episode of the Sid James sitcom Citizen James, an episode of Mr. Pastry's Progress, an episode of the police drama Dixon of Dock Green, and an episode of a series based on the Just William books, none of which survive. He also did a voiceover for a carpet cleaner ad, appeared on the radio soap opera Mrs Dale's Diary playing a pop star, and had a regular spot reading listeners' letters out for the agony aunt Marje Proops on her radio show. Almost all of this early acting work wa s utterly ephemeral, but there are a handful of his performances that do survive, mostly in films. He has a small role in the comedy film Heavens Above!, a mistaken-identity comedy in which a radical left-wing priest played by Peter Sellers is given a parish intended for a more conservative priest of the same name, and upsets the well-off people of the parish by taking in a large family of travellers and appointing a Black man as his churchwarden. The film has some dated attitudes, in the way that things that were trying to be progressive and antiracist sixty years ago invariably do, but has a sparkling cast, with Sellers, Eric Sykes, William Hartnell, Brock Peters, Roy Kinnear, Irene Handl, and many more extremely recognisable faces from the period: [Excerpt: Heavens Above!] Marriott apparently enjoyed working on the film immensely, as he was a fan of the Goon Show, which Sellers had starred in and which Sykes had co-written several episodes of. There are reports of Marriott and Sellers jamming together on banjos during breaks in filming, though these are probably *slightly* inaccurate -- Sellers played the banjolele, a banjo-style instrument which is played like a ukulele. As Marriott had started on ukulele before switching to guitar, it was probably these they were playing, rather than banjoes. He also appeared in a more substantial role in a film called Live It Up!, a pop exploitation film starring David Hemmings in which he appears as a member of a pop group. Oddly, Marriott plays a drummer, even though he wasn't a drummer, while two people who *would* find fame as drummers, Mitch Mitchell and Dave Clark, appear in smaller, non-drumming, roles. He doesn't perform on the soundtrack, which is produced by Joe Meek and features Sounds Incorporated, The Outlaws, and Gene Vincent, but he does mime playing behind Heinz Burt, the former bass player of the Tornadoes who was then trying for solo stardom at Meek's instigation: [Excerpt: Heinz Burt, "Don't You Understand"] That film was successful enough that two years later, in 1965 Marriott came back for a sequel, Be My Guest, with The Niteshades, the Nashville Teens, and Jerry Lee Lewis, this time with music produced by Shel Talmy rather than Meek. But that was something of a one-off. After making Live It Up!, Marriott had largely retired from acting, because he was trying to become a pop star. The break finally came when he got an audition at the National Theatre, for a job touring with Laurence Olivier for a year. He came home and told his parents he hadn't got the job, but then a week later they were bemused by a phone call asking why Steve hadn't turned up for rehearsals. He *had* got the job, but he'd decided he couldn't face a year of doing the same thing over and over, and had pretended he hadn't. By this time he'd already released his first record. The work on Oliver! had got him a contract with Decca Records, and he'd recorded a Buddy Holly knock-off, "Give Her My Regards", written for him by Kenny Lynch, the actor, pop star, and all-round entertainer: [Excerpt: Steve Marriott, "Give Her My Regards"] That record wasn't a hit, but Marriott wasn't put off. He formed a band who were at first called the Moonlights, and then the Frantiks, and they got a management deal with Tony Calder, Andrew Oldham's junior partner in his management company. Calder got former Shadow Tony Meehan to produce a demo for the group, a version of Cliff Richard's hit "Move It", which was shopped round the record labels with no success (and which sadly appears no longer to survive). The group also did some recordings with Joe Meek, which also don't circulate, but which may exist in the famous "Teachest Tapes" which are slowly being prepared for archival releases. The group changed their name to the Moments, and added in the guitarist John Weider, who was one of those people who seem to have been in every band ever either just before or just after they became famous -- at various times he was in Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Family, Eric Burdon and the Animals, and the band that became Crabby Appleton, but never in their most successful lineups. They continued recording unsuccessful demos, of which a small number have turned up: [Excerpt: Steve Marriott and the Moments, "Good Morning Blues"] One of their demo sessions was produced by Andrew Oldham, and while that session didn't lead to a release, it did lead to Oldham booking Marriott as a session harmonica player for one of his "Andrew Oldham Orchestra" sessions, to play on a track titled "365 Rolling Stones (One For Every Day of the Year)": [Excerpt: The Andrew Oldham Orchestra, "365 Rolling Stones (One For Every Day of the Year)"] Oldham also produced a session for what was meant to be Marriott's second solo single on Decca, a cover version of the Rolling Stones' "Tell Me", which was actually scheduled for release but pulled at the last minute. Like many of Marriott's recordings from this period, if it exists, it doesn't seem to circulate publicly. But despite their lack of recording success, the Moments did manage to have a surprising level of success on the live circuit. Because they were signed to Calder and Oldham's management company, they got a contract with the Arthur Howes booking agency, which got them support slots on package tours with Billy J Kramer, Freddie and the Dreamers, the Kinks, and other major acts, and the band members were earning about thirty pounds a week each -- a very, very good living for the time. They even had a fanzine devoted to them, written by a fan named Stuart Tuck. But as they weren't making records, the band's lineup started changing, with members coming and going. They did manage to get one record released -- a soundalike version of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me", recorded for a budget label who rushed it out, hoping to get it picked up in the US and for it to be the hit version there: [Excerpt: The Moments, "You Really Got Me"] But the month after that was released, Marriott was sacked from the band, apparently in part because the band were starting to get billed as Steve Marriott and the Moments rather than just The Moments, and the rest of them didn't want to be anyone's backing band. He got a job at a music shop while looking around for other bands to perform with. At one point around this time he was going to form a duo with a friend of his, Davy Jones -- not the one who had also appeared in Oliver!, but another singer of the same name. This one sang with a blues band called the Mannish Boys, and both men were well known on the Mod scene in London. Marriott's idea was that they call themselves David and Goliath, with Jones being David, and Marriott being Goliath because he was only five foot five. That could have been a great band, but it never got past the idea stage. Marriott had become friendly with another part-time musician and shop worker called Ronnie Lane, who was in a band called the Outcasts who played the same circuit as the Moments: [Excerpt: The Outcasts, "Before You Accuse Me"] Lane worked in a sound equipment shop and Marriott in a musical instrument shop, and both were customers of the other as well as friends -- at least until Marriott came into the shop where Lane worked and tried to persuade him to let Marriott have a free PA system. Lane pretended to go along with it as a joke, and got sacked. Lane had then gone to the shop where Marriott worked in the hope that Marriott would give him a good deal on a guitar because he'd been sacked because of Marriott. Instead, Marriott persuaded him that he should switch to bass, on the grounds that everyone was playing guitar since the Beatles had come along, but a bass player would always be able to find work. Lane bought the bass. Shortly after that, Marriott came to an Outcasts gig in a pub, and was asked to sit in. He enjoyed playing with Lane and the group's drummer Kenney Jones, but got so drunk he smashed up the pub's piano while playing a Jerry Lee Lewis song. The resulting fallout led to the group being barred from the pub and splitting up, so Marriott, Lane, and Jones decided to form their own group. They got in another guitarist Marriott knew, a man named Jimmy Winston who was a couple of years older than them, and who had two advantages -- he was a known Face on the mod scene, with a higher status than any of the other three, and his brother owned a van and would drive the group and their equipment for ten percent of their earnings. There was a slight problem in that Winston was also as good on guitar as Marriott and looked like he might want to be the star, but Marriott neutralised that threat -- he moved Winston over to keyboards. The fact that Winston couldn't play keyboards didn't matter -- he could be taught a couple of riffs and licks, and he was sure to pick up the rest. And this way the group had the same lineup as one of Marriott's current favourites, Booker T and the MGs. While he was still a Buddy Holly fan, he was now, like the rest of the Mods, an R&B obsessive. Marriott wasn't entirely sure that this new group would be the one that would make him a star though, and was still looking for other alternatives in case it didn't play out. He auditioned for another band, the Lower Third, which counted Stuart Tuck, the writer of the Moments fanzine, among its members. But he was unsuccessful in the audition -- instead his friend Davy Jones, the one who he'd been thinking of forming a duo with, got the job: [Excerpt: Davy Jones and the Lower Third, "You've Got a Habit of Leaving"] A few months after that, Davy Jones and the Lower Third changed their name to David Bowie and the Lower Third, and we'll be picking up that story in a little over a year from now... Marriott, Lane, Jones, and Winston kept rehearsing and pulled together a five-song set, which was just about long enough to play a few shows, if they extended the songs with long jamming instrumental sections. The opening song for these early sets was one which, when they recorded it, would be credited to Marriott and Lane -- the two had struck up a writing partnership and agreed to a Lennon/McCartney style credit split, though in these early days Marriott was doing far more of the writing than Lane was. But "You Need Loving" was... heavily inspired... by "You Need Love", a song Willie Dixon had written for Muddy Waters: [Excerpt: Muddy Waters, "You Need Love"] It's not precisely the same song, but you can definitely hear the influence in the Marriott/Lane song: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "You Need Loving"] They did make some changes though, notably to the end of the song: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "You Need Loving"] You will be unsurprised to learn that Robert Plant was a fan of Steve Marriott. The new group were initially without a name, until after one of their first gigs, Winston's girlfriend, who hadn't met the other three before, said "You've all got such small faces!" The name stuck, because it had a double meaning -- as we've seen in the episode on "My Generation", "Face" was Mod slang for someone who was cool and respected on the Mod scene, but also, with the exception of Winston, who was average size, the other three members of the group were very short -- the tallest of the three was Ronnie Lane, who was five foot six. One thing I should note about the group's name, by the way -- on all the labels of their records in the UK while they were together, they were credited as "Small Faces", with no "The" in front, but all the band members referred to the group in interviews as "The Small Faces", and they've been credited that way on some reissues and foreign-market records. The group's official website is thesmallfaces.com but all the posts on the website refer to them as "Small Faces" with no "the". The use  of the word "the" or not at the start of a group's name at this time was something of a shibboleth -- for example both The Buffalo Springfield and The Pink Floyd dropped theirs after their early records -- and its status in this case is a strange one. I'll be referring to the group throughout as "The Small Faces" rather than "Small Faces" because the former is easier to say, but both seem accurate. After a few pub gigs in London, they got some bookings in the North of England, where they got a mixed reception -- they went down well at Peter Stringfellow's Mojo Club in Sheffield, where Joe Cocker was a regular performer, less well at a working-man's club, and reports differ about their performance at the Twisted Wheel in Manchester, though one thing everyone is agreed on is that while they were performing, some Mancunians borrowed their van and used it to rob a clothing warehouse, and gave the band members some very nice leather coats as a reward for their loan of the van. It was only on the group's return to London that they really started to gel as a unit. In particular, Kenney Jones had up to that point been a very stiff, precise, drummer, but he suddenly loosened up and, in Steve Marriott's tasteless phrase, "Every number swung like Hanratty" (James Hanratty was one of the last people in Britain to be executed by hanging). Shortly after that, Don Arden's secretary -- whose name I haven't been able to find in any of the sources I've used for this episode, sadly, came into the club where they were rehearsing, the Starlight Rooms, to pass a message from Arden to an associate of his who owned the club. The secretary had seen Marriott perform before -- he would occasionally get up on stage at the Starlight Rooms to duet with Elkie Brooks, who was a regular performer there, and she'd seen him do that -- but was newly impressed by his group, and passed word on to her boss that this was a group he should investigate. Arden is someone who we'll be looking at a lot in future episodes, but the important thing to note right now is that he was a failed entertainer who had moved into management and promotion, first with American acts like Gene Vincent, and then with British acts like the Nashville Teens, who had had hits with tracks like "Tobacco Road": [Excerpt: The Nashville Teens, "Tobacco Road"] Arden was also something of a gangster -- as many people in the music industry were at the time, but he was worse than most of his contemporaries, and delighted in his nickname "the Al Capone of pop". The group had a few managers looking to sign them, but Arden convinced them with his offer. They would get a percentage of their earnings -- though they never actually received that percentage -- twenty pounds a week in wages, and, the most tempting part of it all, they would get expense accounts at all the Carnaby St boutiques and could go there whenever they wanted and get whatever they wanted. They signed with Arden, which all of them except Marriott would later regret, because Arden's financial exploitation meant that it would be decades before they saw any money from their hits, and indeed both Marriott and Lane would be dead before they started getting royalties from their old records. Marriott, on the other hand, had enough experience of the industry to credit Arden with the group getting anywhere at all, and said later "Look, you go into it with your eyes open and as far as I was concerned it was better than living on brown sauce rolls. At least we had twenty quid a week guaranteed." Arden got the group signed to Decca, with Dick Rowe signing them to the same kind of production deal that Andrew Oldham had pioneered with the Stones, so that Arden would own the rights to their recordings. At this point the group still only knew a handful of songs, but Rowe was signing almost everyone with a guitar at this point, putting out a record or two and letting them sink or swim. He had already been firmly labelled as "the man who turned down the Beatles", and was now of the opinion that it was better to give everyone a chance than to make that kind of expensive mistake again. By this point Marriott and Lane were starting to write songs together -- though at this point it was still mostly Marriott writing, and people would ask him why he was giving Lane half the credit, and he'd reply "Without Ronnie's help keeping me awake and being there I wouldn't do half of it. He keeps me going." -- but for their first single Arden was unsure that they were up to the task of writing a hit. The group had been performing a version of Solomon Burke's "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love", a song which Burke always claimed to have written alone, but which is credited to him, Jerry Wexler, and Bert Berns (and has Bern's fingerprints, at least, on it to my ears): [Excerpt: Solomon Burke, "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love"] Arden got some professional writers to write new lyrics and vocal melody to their arrangement of the song -- the people he hired were Brian Potter, who would later go on to co-write "Rhinestone Cowboy", and Ian Samwell, the former member of Cliff Richard's Drifters who had written many of Richard's early hits, including "Move It", and was now working for Arden. The group went into the studio and recorded the song, titled "Whatcha Gonna Do About It?": [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "Whatcha Gonna Do About It?"] That version, though was deemed too raucous, and they had to go back into the studio to cut a new version, which came out as their first single: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "Whatcha Gonna Do About It?"] At first the single didn't do much on the charts, but then Arden got to work with teams of people buying copies from chart return shops, bribing DJs on pirate radio stations to play it, and bribing the person who compiled the charts for the NME. Eventually it made number fourteen, at which point it became a genuinely popular hit. But with that popularity came problems. In particular, Steve Marriott was starting to get seriously annoyed by Jimmy Winston. As the group started to get TV appearances, Winston started to act like he should be the centre of attention. Every time Marriott took a solo in front of TV cameras, Winston would start making stupid gestures, pulling faces, anything to make sure the cameras focussed on him rather than on Marriott. Which wouldn't have been too bad had Winston been a great musician, but he was still not very good on the keyboards, and unlike the others didn't seem particularly interested in trying. He seemed to want to be a star, rather than a musician. The group's next planned single was a Marriott and Lane song, "I've Got Mine". To promote it, the group mimed to it in a film, Dateline Diamonds, a combination pop film and crime caper not a million miles away from the ones that Marriott had appeared in a few years earlier. They also contributed three other songs to the film's soundtrack. Unfortunately, the film's release was delayed, and the film had been the big promotional push that Arden had planned for the single, and without that it didn't chart at all. By the time the single came out, though, Winston was no longer in the group. There are many, many different stories as to why he was kicked out. Depending on who you ask, it was because he was trying to take the spotlight away from Marriott, because he wasn't a good enough keyboard player, because he was taller than the others and looked out of place, or because he asked Don Arden where the money was. It was probably a combination of all of these, but fundamentally what it came to was that Winston just didn't fit into the group. Winston would, in later years, say that him confronting Arden was the only reason for his dismissal, saying that Arden had manipulated the others to get him out of the way, but that seems unlikely on the face of it. When Arden sacked him, he kept Winston on as a client and built another band around him, Jimmy Winston and the Reflections, and got them signed to Decca too, releasing a Kenny Lynch song, "Sorry She's Mine", to no success: [Excerpt: Jimmy Winston and the Reflections, "Sorry She's Mine"] Another version of that song would later be included on the first Small Faces album. Winston would then form another band, Winston's Fumbs, who would also release one single, before he went into acting instead. His most notable credit was as a rebel in the 1972 Doctor Who story Day of the Daleks, and he later retired from showbusiness to run a business renting out sound equipment, and died in 2020. The group hired his replacement without ever having met him or heard him play. Ian McLagan had started out as the rhythm guitarist in a Shadows soundalike band called the Cherokees, but the group had become R&B fans and renamed themselves the Muleskinners, and then after hearing "Green Onions", McLagan had switched to playing Hammond organ. The Muleskinners had played the same R&B circuit as dozens of other bands we've looked at, and had similar experiences, including backing visiting blues stars like Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, and Howlin' Wolf. Their one single had been a cover version of "Back Door Man", a song Willie Dixon had written for Wolf: [Excerpt: The Muleskinners, "Back Door Man"] The Muleskinners had split up as most of the group had day jobs, and McLagan had gone on to join a group called Boz and the Boz People, who were becoming popular on the live circuit, and who also toured backing Kenny Lynch while McLagan was in the band. Boz and the Boz People would release several singles in 1966, like their version of the theme for the film "Carry on Screaming", released just as by "Boz": [Excerpt: Boz, "Carry on Screaming"] By that time, McLagan had left the group -- Boz Burrell later went on to join King Crimson and Bad Company. McLagan left the Boz People in something of a strop, and was complaining to a friend the night he left the group that he didn't have any work lined up. The friend joked that he should join the Small Faces, because he looked like them, and McLagan got annoyed that his friend wasn't taking him seriously -- he'd love to be in the Small Faces, but they *had* a keyboard player. The next day he got a phone call from Don Arden asking him to come to his office. He was being hired to join a hit pop group who needed a new keyboard player. McLagan at first wasn't allowed to tell anyone what band he was joining -- in part because Arden's secretary was dating Winston, and Winston hadn't yet been informed he was fired, and Arden didn't want word leaking out until it had been sorted. But he'd been chosen purely on the basis of an article in a music magazine which had praised his playing with the Boz People, and without the band knowing him or his playing. As soon as they met, though, he immediately fit in in a way Winston never had. He looked the part, right down to his height -- he said later "Ronnie Lane and I were the giants in the band at 5 ft 6 ins, and Kenney Jones and Steve Marriott were the really teeny tiny chaps at 5 ft 5 1/2 ins" -- and he was a great player, and shared a sense of humour with them. McLagan had told Arden he'd been earning twenty pounds a week with the Boz People -- he'd actually been on five -- and so Arden agreed to give him thirty pounds a week during his probationary month, which was more than the twenty the rest of the band were getting. As soon as his probationary period was over, McLagan insisted on getting a pay cut so he'd be on the same wages as the rest of the group. Soon Marriott, Lane, and McLagan were all living in a house rented for them by Arden -- Jones decided to stay living with his parents -- and were in the studio recording their next single. Arden was convinced that the mistake with "I've Got Mine" had been allowing the group to record an original, and again called in a team of professional songwriters. Arden brought in Mort Shuman, who had recently ended his writing partnership with Doc Pomus and struck out on his own, after co-writing songs like "Save the Last Dance for Me", "Sweets For My Sweet", and "Viva Las Vegas" together, and Kenny Lynch, and the two of them wrote "Sha-La-La-La-Lee", and Lynch added backing vocals to the record: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "Sha-La-La-La-Lee"] None of the group were happy with the record, but it became a big hit, reaching number three in the charts. Suddenly the group had a huge fanbase of screaming teenage girls, which embarrassed them terribly, as they thought of themselves as serious heavy R&B musicians, and the rest of their career would largely be spent vacillating between trying to appeal to their teenybopper fanbase and trying to escape from it to fit their own self-image. They followed "Sha-La-La-La-Lee" with "Hey Girl", a Marriott/Lane song, but one written to order -- they were under strict instructions from Arden that if they wanted to have the A-side of a single, they had to write something as commercial as "Sha-La-La-La-Lee" had been, and they managed to come up with a second top-ten hit. Two hit singles in a row was enough to make an album viable, and the group went into the studio and quickly cut an album, which had their first two hits on it -- "Hey Girl" wasn't included, and nor was the flop "I've Got Mine" -- plus a bunch of semi-originals like "You Need Loving", a couple of Kenny Lynch songs, and a cover version of Sam Cooke's "Shake". The album went to number three on the album charts, with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the number one and two spots, and it was at this point that Arden's rivals really started taking interest. But that interest was quelled for the moment when, after Robert Stigwood enquired about managing the band, Arden went round to Stigwood's office with four goons and held him upside down over a balcony, threatening to drop him off if he ever messed with any of Arden's acts again. But the group were still being influenced by other managers. In particular, Brian Epstein came round to the group's shared house, with Graeme Edge of the Moody Blues, and brought them some slices of orange -- which they discovered, after eating them, had been dosed with LSD. By all accounts, Marriott's first trip was a bad one, but the group soon became regular consumers of the drug, and it influenced the heavier direction they took on their next single, "All or Nothing". "All or Nothing" was inspired both by Marriott's breakup with his girlfriend of the time, and his delight at the fact that Jenny Rylance, a woman he was attracted to, had split up with her then-boyfriend Rod Stewart. Rylance and Stewart later reconciled, but would break up again and Rylance would become Marriott's first wife in 1968: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "All or Nothing"] "All or Nothing" became the group's first and only number one record -- and according to the version of the charts used on Top of the Pops, it was a joint number one with the Beatles' double A-side of "Yellow Submarine" and "Eleanor Rigby", both selling exactly as well as each other. But this success caused the group's parents to start to wonder why their kids -- none of whom were yet twenty-one, the legal age of majority at the time -- were not rich. While the group were on tour, their parents came as a group to visit Arden and ask him where the money was, and why their kids were only getting paid twenty pounds a week when their group was getting a thousand pounds a night. Arden tried to convince the parents that he had been paying the group properly, but that they had spent their money on heroin -- which was very far from the truth, the band were only using soft drugs at the time. This put a huge strain on the group's relationship with Arden, and it wasn't the only thing Arden did that upset them. They had been spending a lot of time in the studio working on new material, and Arden was convinced that they were spending too much time recording, and that they were just faffing around and not producing anything of substance. They dropped off a tape to show him that they had been working -- and the next thing they knew, Arden had put out one of the tracks from that tape, "My Mind's Eye", which had only been intended as a demo, as a single: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "My Mind's Eye"] That it went to number four on the charts didn't make up for the fact that the first the band heard of the record coming out at all was when they heard it on the radio. They needed rid of Arden. Luckily for them, Arden wasn't keen on continuing to work with them either. They were unreliable and flakey, and he also needed cash quick to fund his other ventures, and he agreed to sell on their management and recording contracts. Depending on which version of the story you believe, he may have sold them on to an agent called Harold Davison, who then sold them on to Andrew Oldham and Tony Calder, but according to Oldham what happened is that in December 1966 Arden demanded the highest advance in British history -- twenty-five thousand pounds -- directly from Oldham. In cash. In a brown paper bag. The reason Oldham and Calder were interested was that in July 1965 they'd started up their own record label, Immediate Records, which had been announced by Oldham in his column in Disc and Music Echo, in which he'd said "On many occasions I have run down the large record companies over issues such as pirate stations, their promotion, and their tastes. And many readers have written in and said that if I was so disturbed by the state of the existing record companies why didn't I do something about it.  I have! On the twentieth of this month the first of three records released by my own company, Immediate Records, is to be launched." That first batch of three records contained one big hit, "Hang on Sloopy" by the McCoys, which Immediate licensed from Bert Berns' new record label BANG in the US: [Excerpt: The McCoys, "Hang on Sloopy"] The two other initial singles featured the talents of Immediate's new in-house producer, a session player who had previously been known as "Little Jimmy" to distinguish him from "Big" Jim Sullivan, the other most in-demand session guitarist, but who was now just known as Jimmy Page. The first was a version of Pete Seeger's "The Bells of Rhymney", which Page produced and played guitar on, for a group called The Fifth Avenue: [Excerpt: The Fifth Avenue, "The Bells of Rhymney"] And the second was a Gordon Lightfoot song performed by a girlfriend of Brian Jones', Nico. The details as to who was involved in the track have varied -- at different times the production has been credited to Jones, Page, and Oldham -- but it seems to be the case that both Jones and Page play on the track, as did session bass player John Paul Jones: [Excerpt: Nico, "I'm Not Sayin'"] While "Hang on Sloopy" was a big hit, the other two singles were flops, and The Fifth Avenue split up, while Nico used the publicity she'd got as an entree into Andy Warhol's Factory, and we'll be hearing more about how that went in a future episode. Oldham and Calder were trying to follow the model of the Brill Building, of Phil Spector, and of big US independents like Motown and Stax. They wanted to be a one-stop shop where they'd produce the records, manage the artists, and own the publishing -- and they also licensed the publishing for the Beach Boys' songs for a couple of years, and started publicising their records over here in a big way, to exploit the publishing royalties, and that was a major factor in turning the Beach Boys from minor novelties to major stars in the UK. Most of Immediate's records were produced by Jimmy Page, but other people got to have a go as well. Giorgio Gomelsky and Shel Talmy both produced tracks for the label, as did a teenage singer then known as Paul Raven, who would later become notorious under his later stage-name Gary Glitter. But while many of these records were excellent -- and Immediate deserves to be talked about in the same terms as Motown or Stax when it comes to the quality of the singles it released, though not in terms of commercial success -- the only ones to do well on the charts in the first few months of the label's existence were "Hang on Sloopy" and an EP by Chris Farlowe. It was Farlowe who provided Immediate Records with its first home-grown number one, a version of the Rolling Stones' "Out of Time" produced by Mick Jagger, though according to Arthur Greenslade, the arranger on that and many other Immediate tracks, Jagger had given up on getting a decent performance out of Farlowe and Oldham ended up producing the vocals. Greenslade later said "Andrew must have worked hard in there, Chris Farlowe couldn't sing his way out of a paper bag. I'm sure Andrew must have done it, where you get an artist singing and you can do a sentence at a time, stitching it all together. He must have done it in pieces." But however hard it was to make, "Out of Time" was a success: [Excerpt: Chris Farlowe, "Out of Time"] Or at least, it was a success in the UK. It did also make the top forty in the US for a week, but then it hit a snag -- it had charted without having been released in the US at all, or even being sent as a promo to DJs. Oldham's new business manager Allen Klein had been asked to work his magic on the US charts, but the people he'd bribed to hype the record into the charts had got the release date wrong and done it too early. When the record *did* come out over there, no radio station would play it in case it looked like they were complicit in the scam. But still, a UK number one wasn't too shabby, and so Immediate Records was back on track, and Oldham wanted to shore things up by bringing in some more proven hit-makers. Immediate signed the Small Faces, and even started paying them royalties -- though that wouldn't last long, as Immediate went bankrupt in 1970 and its successors in interest stopped paying out. The first work the group did for the label was actually for a Chris Farlowe single. Lane and Marriott gave him their song "My Way of Giving", and played on the session along with Farlowe's backing band the Thunderbirds. Mick Jagger is the credited producer, but by all accounts Marriott and Lane did most of the work: [Excerpt: Chris Farlowe, "My Way of Giving"] Sadly, that didn't make the top forty. After working on that, they started on their first single recorded at Immediate. But because of contractual entanglements, "I Can't Make It" was recorded at Immediate but released by Decca. Because the band weren't particularly keen on promoting something on their old label, and the record was briefly banned by the BBC for being too sexual, it only made number twenty-six on the charts. Around this time, Marriott had become friendly with another band, who had named themselves The Little People in homage to the Small Faces, and particularly with their drummer Jerry Shirley. Marriott got them signed to Immediate, and produced and played on their first single, a version of his song "(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me?": [Excerpt: The Apostolic Intervention, "(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me?"] When they signed to Immediate, The Little People had to change their name, and Marriott suggested they call themselves The Nice, a phrase he liked. Oldham thought that was a stupid name, and gave the group the much more sensible name The Apostolic Intervention. And then a few weeks later he signed another group and changed *their* name to The Nice. "The Nice" was also a phrase used in the Small Faces' first single for Immediate proper. "Here Come the Nice" was inspired by a routine by the hipster comedian Lord Buckley, "The Nazz", which also gave a name to Todd Rundgren's band and inspired a line in David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust": [Excerpt: Lord Buckley, "The Nazz"] "Here Come the Nice" was very blatantly about a drug dealer, and somehow managed to reach number twelve despite that: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "Here Come the Nice"] It also had another obstacle that stopped it doing as well as it might. A week before it came out, Decca released a single, "Patterns", from material they had in the vault. And in June 1967, two Small Faces albums came out. One of them was a collection from Decca of outtakes and demos, plus their non-album hit singles, titled From The Beginning, while the other was their first album on Immediate, which was titled Small Faces -- just like their first Decca album had been. To make matters worse, From The Beginning contained the group's demos of "My Way of Giving" and "(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me?", while the group's first Immediate album contained a new recording of  "(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me?", and a version of "My Way of Giving" with the same backing track but a different vocal take from the one on the Decca collection. From this point on, the group's catalogue would be a complete mess, with an endless stream of compilations coming out, both from Decca and, after the group split, from Immediate, mixing tracks intended for release with demos and jam sessions with no regard for either their artistic intent or for what fans might want. Both albums charted, with Small Faces reaching number twelve and From The Beginning reaching number sixteen, neither doing as well as their first album had, despite the Immediate album, especially, being a much better record. This was partly because the Marriott/Lane partnership was becoming far more equal. Kenney Jones later said "During the Decca period most of the self-penned stuff was 99% Steve. It wasn't until Immediate that Ronnie became more involved. The first Immediate album is made up of 50% Steve's songs and 50% of Ronnie's. They didn't collaborate as much as people thought. In fact, when they did, they often ended up arguing and fighting." It's hard to know who did what on each song credited to the pair, but if we assume that each song's principal writer also sang lead -- we know that's not always the case, but it's a reasonable working assumption -- then Jones' fifty-fifty estimate seems about right. Of the fourteen songs on the album, McLagan sings one, which is also his own composition, "Up the Wooden Hills to Bedfordshire". There's one instrumental, six with Marriott on solo lead vocals, four with Lane on solo lead vocals, and two duets, one with Lane as the main vocalist and one with Marriott. The fact that there was now a second songwriter taking an equal role in the band meant that they could now do an entire album of originals. It also meant that their next Marriott/Lane single was mostly a Lane song. "Itchycoo Park" started with a verse lyric from Lane -- "Over bridge of sighs/To rest my eyes in shades of green/Under dreaming spires/To Itchycoo Park, that's where I've been". The inspiration apparently came from Lane reading about the dreaming spires of Oxford, and contrasting it with the places he used to play as a child, full of stinging nettles. For a verse melody, they repeated a trick they'd used before -- the melody of "My Mind's Eye" had been borrowed in part from the Christmas carol "Gloria in Excelsis Deo", and here they took inspiration from the old hymn "God Be in My Head": [Excerpt: The Choir of King's College Cambridge, "God Be in My Head"] As Marriott told the story: "We were in Ireland and speeding our brains out writing this song. Ronnie had the first verse already written down but he had no melody line, so what we did was stick the verse to the melody line of 'God Be In My Head' with a few chord variations. We were going towards Dublin airport and I thought of the middle eight... We wrote the second verse collectively, and the chorus speaks for itself." [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "Itchycoo Park"] Marriott took the lead vocal, even though it was mostly Lane's song, but Marriott did contribute to the writing, coming up with the middle eight. Lane didn't seem hugely impressed with Marriott's contribution, and later said "It wasn't me that came up with 'I feel inclined to blow my mind, get hung up, feed the ducks with a bun/They all come out to groove about, be nice and have fun in the sun'. That wasn't me, but the more poetic stuff was." But that part became the most memorable part of the record, not so much because of the writing or performance but because of the production. It was one of the first singles released using a phasing effect, developed by George Chkiantz (and I apologise if I'm pronouncing that name wrong), who was the assistant engineer for Glyn Johns on the album. I say it was one of the first, because at the time there was not a clear distinction between the techniques now known as phasing, flanging, and artificial double tracking, all of which have now diverged, but all of which initially came from the idea of shifting two copies of a recording slightly out of synch with each other. The phasing on "Itchycoo Park" , though, was far more extreme and used to far different effect than that on, say, Revolver: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "Itchycoo Park"] It was effective enough that Jimi Hendrix, who was at the time working on Axis: Bold as Love, requested that Chkiantz come in and show his engineer how to get the same effect, which was then used on huge chunks of Hendrix's album. The BBC banned the record, because even the organisation which had missed that the Nice who "is always there when I need some speed" was a drug dealer was a little suspicious about whether "we'll get high" and "we'll touch the sky" might be drug references. The band claimed to be horrified at the thought, and explained that they were talking about swings. It's a song about a park, so if you play on the swings, you go high. What else could it mean? [Excerpt: The Small Faces, “Itchycoo Park”] No drug references there, I'm sure you'll agree. The song made number three, but the group ran into more difficulties with the BBC after an appearance on Top of the Pops. Marriott disliked the show's producer, and the way that he would go up to every act and pretend to think they had done a very good job, no matter what he actually thought, which Marriott thought of as hypocrisy rather than as politeness and professionalism. Marriott discovered that the producer was leaving the show, and so in the bar afterwards told him exactly what he thought of him, calling him a "two-faced", and then a four-letter word beginning with c which is generally considered the most offensive swear word there is. Unfortunately for Marriott, he'd been misinformed, the producer wasn't leaving the show, and the group were barred from it for a while. "Itchycoo Park" also made the top twenty in the US, thanks to a new distribution deal Immediate had, and plans were made for the group to tour America, but those plans had to be scrapped when Ian McLagan was arrested for possession of hashish, and instead the group toured France, with support from a group called the Herd: [Excerpt: The Herd, "From the Underworld"] Marriott became very friendly with the Herd's guitarist, Peter Frampton, and sympathised with Frampton's predicament when in the next year he was voted "face of '68" and developed a similar teenage following to the one the Small Faces had. The group's last single of 1967 was one of their best. "Tin Soldier" was inspired by the Hans Andersen story “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”, and was originally written for the singer P.P. Arnold, who Marriott was briefly dating around this time. But Arnold was *so* impressed with the song that Marriott decided to keep it for his own group, and Arnold was left just doing backing vocals on the track: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "Tin Soldier"] It's hard to show the appeal of "Tin Soldier" in a short clip like those I use on this show, because so much of it is based on the use of dynamics, and the way the track rises and falls, but it's an extremely powerful track, and made the top ten. But it was after that that the band started falling apart, and also after that that they made the work generally considered their greatest album. As "Itchycoo Park" had made number one in Australia, the group were sent over there on tour to promote it, as support act for the Who. But the group hadn't been playing live much recently, and found it difficult to replicate their records on stage, as they were now so reliant on studio effects like phasing. The Australian audiences were uniformly hostile, and the contrast with the Who, who were at their peak as a live act at this point, couldn't have been greater. Marriott decided he had a solution. The band needed to get better live, so why not get Peter Frampton in as a fifth member? He was great on guitar and had stage presence, obviously that would fix their problems. But the other band members absolutely refused to get Frampton in. Marriott's confidence as a stage performer took a knock from which it never really recovered, and increasingly the band became a studio-only one. But the tour also put strain on the most important partnership in the band. Marriott and Lane had been the closest of friends and collaborators, but on the tour, both found a very different member of the Who to pal around with. Marriott became close to Keith Moon, and the two would get drunk and trash hotel rooms together. Lane, meanwhile, became very friendly with Pete Townshend, who introduced him to the work of the guru Meher Baba, who Townshend followed. Lane, too, became a follower, and the two would talk about religion and spirituality while their bandmates were destroying things. An attempt was made to heal the growing rifts though. Marriott, Lane, and McLagan all moved in together again like old times, but this time in a cottage -- something that became so common for bands around this time that the phrase "getting our heads together in the country" became a cliche in the music press. They started working on material for their new album. One of the tracks that they were working on was written by Marriott, and was inspired by how, before moving in to the country cottage, his neighbours had constantly complained about the volume of his music -- he'd been particularly annoyed that the pop singer Cilla Black, who lived in the same building and who he'd assumed would understand the pop star lifestyle, had complained more than anyone. It had started as as fairly serious blues song, but then Marriott had been confronted by the members of the group The Hollies, who wanted to know why Marriott always sang in a pseudo-American accent. Wasn't his own accent good enough? Was there something wrong with being from the East End of London? Well, no, Marriott decided, there wasn't, and so he decided to sing it in a Cockney accent. And so the song started to change, going from being an R&B song to being the kind of thing Cockneys could sing round a piano in a pub: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "Lazy Sunday"] Marriott intended the song just as an album track for the album they were working on, but Andrew Oldham insisted on releasing it as a single, much to the band's disgust, and it went to number two on the charts, and along with "Itchycoo Park" meant that the group were now typecast as making playful, light-hearted music. The album they were working on, Ogden's Nut-Gone Flake, was eventually as known for its marketing as its music. In the Small Faces' long tradition of twisted religious references, like their songs based on hymns and their song "Here Come the Nice", which had taken inspiration from a routine about Jesus and made it about a drug dealer, the print ads for the album read: Small Faces Which were in the studios Hallowed be thy name Thy music come Thy songs be sung On this album as they came from your heads We give you this day our daily bread Give us thy album in a round cover as we give thee 37/9d Lead us into the record stores And deliver us Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake For nice is the music The sleeve and the story For ever and ever, Immediate The reason the ad mentioned a round cover is that the original pressings of the album were released in a circular cover, made to look like a tobacco tin, with the name of the brand of tobacco changed from Ogden's Nut-Brown Flake to Ogden's Nut-Gone Flake, a reference to how after smoking enough dope your nut, or head, would be gone. This made more sense to British listeners than to Americans, because not only was the slang on the label British, and not only was it a reference to a British tobacco brand, but American and British dope-smoking habits are very different. In America a joint is generally made by taking the dried leaves and flowers of the cannabis plant -- or "weed" -- and rolling them in a cigarette paper and smoking them. In the UK and much of Europe, though, the preferred form of cannabis is the resin, hashish, which is crumbled onto tobacco in a cigarette paper and smoked that way, so having rolling or pipe tobacco was a necessity for dope smokers in the UK in a way it wasn't in the US. Side one of Ogden's was made up of normal songs, but the second side mixed songs and narrative. Originally the group wanted to get Spike Milligan to do the narration, but when Milligan backed out they chose Professor Stanley Unwin, a comedian who was known for speaking in his own almost-English language, Unwinese: [Excerpt: Stanley Unwin, "The Populode of the Musicolly"] They gave Unwin a script, telling the story that linked side two of the album, in which Happiness Stan is shocked to discover that half the moon has disappeared and goes on a quest to find the missing half, aided by a giant fly who lets him sit on his back after Stan shares his shepherd's pie with the hungry fly. After a long quest they end up at the cave of Mad John the Hermit, who points out to them that nobody had stolen half the moon at all -- they'd been travelling so long that it was a full moon again, and everything was OK. Unwin took that script, and reworked it into Unwinese, and also added in a lot of the slang he heard the group use, like "cool it" and "what's been your hang-up?": [Excerpt: The Small Faces and Professor Stanley Unwin, "Mad John"] The album went to number one, and the group were justifiably proud, but it only exacerbated the problems with their live show. Other than an appearance on the TV show Colour Me Pop, where they were joined by Stanley Unwin to perform the whole of side two of the album with live vocals but miming to instrumental backing tracks, they only performed two songs from the album live, "Rollin' Over" and "Song of a Baker", otherwise sticking to the same live show Marriott was already embarrassed by. Marriott later said "We had spent an entire year in the studios, which was why our stage presentation had not been improved since the previous year. Meanwhile our recording experience had developed in leaps and bounds. We were all keenly interested in the technical possibilities, in the art of recording. We let down a lot of people who wanted to hear Ogden's played live. We were still sort of rough and ready, and in the end the audience became uninterested as far as our stage show was concerned. It was our own fault, because we would have sussed it all out if we had only used our brains. We could have taken Stanley Unwin on tour with us, maybe a string section as well, and it would have been okay. But we didn't do it, we stuck to the concept that had been successful for a long time, which is always the kiss of death." The group's next single would be the last released while they were together. Marriott regarded "The Universal" as possibly the best thing he'd written, and recorded it quickly when inspiration struck. The finished single is actually a home recording of Marriott in his garden, including the sounds of a dog barking and his wife coming home with the shopping, onto which the band later overdubbed percussion, horns, and electric guitars: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "The Universal"] Incidentally, it seems that the dog barking on that track may also be the dog barking on “Seamus” by Pink Floyd. "The Universal" confused listeners, and only made number sixteen on the charts, crushing Marriott, who thought it was the best thing he'd done. But the band were starting to splinter. McLagan isn't on "The Universal", having quit the band before it was recorded after a falling-out with Marriott. He rejoined, but discovered that in the meantime Marriott had brought in session player Nicky Hopkins to work on some tracks, which devastated him. Marriott became increasingly unconfident in his own writing, and the writing dried up. The group did start work on some new material, some of which, like "The Autumn Stone", is genuinely lovely: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "The Autumn Stone"] But by the time that was released, the group had already split up. The last recording they did together was as a backing group for Johnny Hallyday, the French rock star. A year earlier Hallyday had recorded a version of "My Way of Giving", under the title "Je N'Ai Jamais Rien Demandé": [Excerpt: Johnny Hallyday, "Je N'Ai Jamais Rien Demandé"] Now he got in touch with Glyn Johns to see if the Small Faces had any other material for him, and if they'd maybe back him on a few tracks on a new album. Johns and the Small Faces flew to France... as did Peter Frampton, who Marriott was still pushing to get into the band. They recorded three tracks for the album, with Frampton on extra guitar: [Excerpt: Johnny Hallyday, "Reclamation"] These tracks left Marriott more certain than ever that Frampton should be in the band, and the other three members even more certain that he shouldn't. Frampton joined the band on stage at a few shows on their next few gigs, but he was putting together his own band with Jerry Shirley from Apostolic Intervention. On New Year's Eve 1968, Marriott finally had enough. He stormed off stage mid-set, and quit the group. He phoned up Peter Frampton, who was hanging out with Glyn Johns listening to an album Johns had just produced by some of the session players who'd worked for Immediate. Side one had just finished when Marriott phoned. Could he join Frampton's new band? Frampton said of course he could, then put the phone down and listened to side two of Led Zeppelin's first record. The band Marriott and Frampton formed was called Humble Pie, and they were soon releasing stuff on Immediate. According to Oldham, "Tony Calder said to me one day 'Pick a straw'. Then he explained we had a choice. We could either go with the three Faces -- Kenney, Ronnie, and Mac -- wherever they were going to go with their lives, or we could follow Stevie. I didn't regard it as a choice. Neither did Tony. Marriott was our man". Marriott certainly seemed to agree that he was the real talent in the group. He and Lane had fairly recently bought some property together -- two houses on the same piece of land -- and with the group splitting up, Lane moved away and wanted to sell his share in the property to Marriott. Marriott wrote to him saying "You'll get nothing. This was bought with money from hits that I wrote, not that we wrote," and enclosing a PRS statement showing how much each Marriott/Lane