Podcasts about Fats Waller

For those who haven't heard the announcement I posted, songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the second part of a two-episode look at the song “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” by Fairport Convention, and the intertwining careers of Joe Boyd, Sandy Denny, and Richard Thompson. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-one-minute bonus episode available, on Judy Collins’ version of this song. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by editing, 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/ Erratum For about an hour this was uploaded with the wrong Elton John clip in place of “Saturday Sun”. This has now been fixed. Resources Because of the increasing problems with Mixcloud’s restrictions, I have decided to start sharing streaming playlists of the songs used in episodes instead of Mixcloud ones. This Tunemymusic link will let you listen to the playlist I created on your streaming platform of choice — however please note that not all the songs excerpted are currently available on streaming. The songs missing from the Tidal version are “Shanten Bells” by the Ian Campbell Folk Group, “Tom’s Gone to Hilo” by A.L. Lloyd, two by Paul McNeill and Linda Peters, three by Elton John & Linda Peters, “What Will I Do With Tomorrow” by Sandy Denny and “You Never Know” by Charlie Drake, but the other fifty-nine are there. Other songs may be missing from other services. The main books I used on Fairport Convention as a whole were Patrick Humphries' Meet On The Ledge, Clinton Heylin's What We Did Instead of Holidays, and Kevan Furbank's Fairport Convention on Track. Rob Young's Electric Eden is the most important book on the British folk-rock movement. Information on Richard Thompson comes from Patrick Humphries' Richard Thompson: Strange Affair and Thompson's own autobiography Beeswing.  Information on Sandy Denny comes from Clinton Heylin's No More Sad Refrains and Mick Houghton's I've Always Kept a Unicorn. I also used Joe Boyd's autobiography White Bicycles and Chris Blackwell's The Islander.  And this three-CD set is the best introduction to Fairport's music currently in print. Transcript Before we begin, this episode contains reference to alcohol and cocaine abuse and medical neglect leading to death. It also starts with some discussion of the fatal car accident that ended last episode. There’s also some mention of child neglect and spousal violence. If that’s likely to upset you, you might want to skip this episode or read the transcript. One of the inspirations for this podcast when I started it back in 2018 was a project by Richard Thompson, which appears (like many things in Thompson’s life) to have started out of sheer bloody-mindedness. In 1999 Playboy magazine asked various people to list their “songs of the Millennium”, and most of them, understanding the brief, chose a handful of songs from the latter half of the twentieth century. But Thompson determined that he was going to list his favourite songs *of the millennium*. He didn’t quite manage that, but he did cover seven hundred and forty years, and when Playboy chose not to publish it, he decided to turn it into a touring show, in which he covered all his favourite songs from “Sumer Is Icumen In” from 1260: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Sumer is Icumen In”] Through numerous traditional folk songs, union songs like “Blackleg Miner”, pieces by early-modern composers, Victorian and Edwardian music hall songs, and songs by the Beatles, the Ink Spots, the Kinks, and the Who, all the way to “Oops! I Did It Again”: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Oops! I Did it Again”] And to finish the show, and to show how all this music actually ties together, he would play what he described as a “medieval tune from Brittany”, “Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt”: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt”] We have said many times in this podcast that there is no first anything, but there’s a reason that Liege and Lief, Fairport Convention’s third album of 1969, and the album other than Unhalfbricking on which their reputation largely rests, was advertised with the slogan “The first (literally) British folk rock album ever”. Folk-rock, as the term had come to be known, and as it is still usually used today, had very little to do with traditional folk music. Rather, the records of bands like The Byrds or Simon and Garfunkel were essentially taking the sounds of British beat groups of the early sixties, particularly the Searchers, and applying those sounds to material by contemporary singer-songwriters. People like Paul Simon and Bob Dylan had come up through folk clubs, and their songs were called folk music because of that, but they weren’t what folk music had meant up to that point — songs that had been collected after being handed down through the folk process, changed by each individual singer, with no single identifiable author. They were authored songs by very idiosyncratic writers. But over their last few albums, Fairport Convention had done one or two tracks per album that weren’t like that, that were instead recordings of traditional folk songs, but arranged with rock instrumentation. They were not necessarily the first band to try traditional folk music with electric instruments — around the same time that Fairport started experimenting with the idea, so did an Irish band named Sweeney’s Men, who brought in a young electric guitarist named Henry McCullough briefly. But they do seem to have been the first to have fully embraced the idea. They had done so to an extent with “A Sailor’s Life” on Unhalfbricking, but now they were going to go much further: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Matty Groves” (from about 4:30)] There had been some doubt as to whether Fairport Convention would even continue to exist — by the time Unhalfbricking, their second album of the year, was released, they had been through the terrible car accident that had killed Martin Lamble, the band’s drummer, and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson’s girlfriend. Most of the rest of the band had been seriously injured, and they had made a conscious decision not to discuss the future of the band until they were all out of hospital. Ashley Hutchings was hospitalised the longest, and Simon Nicol, Richard Thompson, and Sandy Denny, the other three surviving members of the band, flew over to LA with their producer and manager, Joe Boyd, to recuperate there and get to know the American music scene. When they came back, the group all met up in the flat belonging to Denny’s boyfriend Trevor Lucas, and decided that they were going to continue the band. They made a few decisions then — they needed a new drummer, and as well as a drummer they wanted to get in Dave Swarbrick. Swarbrick had played violin on several tracks on Unhalfbricking as a session player, and they had all been thrilled to work with him. Swarbrick was one of the most experienced musicians on the British folk circuit. He had started out in the fifties playing guitar with Beryl Marriott’s Ceilidh Band before switching to fiddle, and in 1963, long before Fairport had formed, he had already appeared on TV with the Ian Campbell Folk Group, led by Ian Campbell, the father of Ali and Robin Campbell, later of UB40: [Excerpt: The Ian Campbell Folk Group, “Shanten Bells (medley on Hullaballoo!)”] He’d sung with Ewan MacColl and A.L. Lloyd: [Excerpt: A.L. Lloyd, “Tom’s Gone to Hilo” ] And he’d formed his hugely successful duo with Martin Carthy, releasing records like “Byker Hill” which are often considered among the best British folk music of all time: [Excerpt: Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick, “Byker Hill”] By the time Fairport had invited him to play on Unhalfbricking, Swarbrick had already performed on twenty albums as a core band member, plus dozens more EPs, singles, and odd tracks on compilations. They had no reason to think they could actually get him to join their band. But they had three advantages. The first was that Swarbrick was sick of the traditional folk scene at the time, saying later “I didn’t like seven-eighths of the people involved in it, and it was extremely opportune to leave. I was suddenly presented with the possibilities of exploring the dramatic content of the songs to the full.” The second was that he was hugely excited to be playing with Richard Thompson, who was one of the most innovative guitarists of his generation, and Martin Carthy remembers him raving about Thompson after their initial sessions. (Carthy himself was and is no slouch on the guitar of course, and there was even talk of getting him to join the band at this point, though they decided against it — much to the relief of rhythm guitarist Simon Nicol, who is a perfectly fine player himself but didn’t want to be outclassed by *two* of the best guitarists in Britain at the same time). And the third was that Joe Boyd told him that Fairport were doing so well — they had a single just about to hit the charts with “Si Tu Dois Partir” — that he would only have to play a dozen gigs with Fairport in order to retire. As it turned out, Swarbrick would play with the group for a decade, and would never retire — I saw him on his last tour in 2015, only eight months before he died. The drummer the group picked was also a far more experienced musician than any of the rest, though in a very different genre. Dave Mattacks had no knowledge at all of the kind of music they played, having previously been a player in dance bands. When asked by Hutchings if he wanted to join the band, Mattacks’ response was “I don’t know anything about the music. I don’t understand it… I can’t tell one tune from another, they all sound the same… but if you want me to join the group, fine, because I really like it. I’m enjoying myself musically.” Mattacks brought a new level of professionalism to the band, thanks to his different background. Nicol said of him later “He was dilligent, clean, used to taking three white shirts to a gig… The application he could bring to his playing was amazing. With us, you only played well when you were feeling well.” This distinction applied to his playing as well. Nicol would later describe the difference between Mattacks’ drumming and Lamble’s by saying “Martin’s strength was as an imaginative drummer. DM came in with a strongly developed sense of rhythm, through keeping a big band of drunken saxophone players in order. A great time-keeper.” With this new line-up and a new sense of purpose, the group did as many of their contemporaries were doing and “got their heads together in the country”. Joe Boyd rented the group a mansion, Farley House, in Farley Chamberlayne, Hampshire, and they stayed there together for three months. At the start, the group seem to have thought that they were going to make another record like Unhalfbricking, with some originals, some songs by American songwriters, and a few traditional songs. Even after their stay in Farley Chamberlayne, in fact, they recorded a few of the American songs they’d rehearsed at the start of the process, Richard Farina’s “Quiet Joys of Brotherhood” and Bob Dylan and Roger McGuinn’s “Ballad of Easy Rider”: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Ballad of Easy Rider”] Indeed, the whole idea of “getting our heads together in the country” (as the cliche quickly became in the late sixties as half of the bands in Britain went through much the same kind of process as Fairport were doing — but usually for reasons more to do with drug burnout or trend following than recovering from serious life-changing trauma) seems to have been inspired by Bob Dylan and the Band getting together in Big Pink. But very quickly they decided to follow the lead of Ashley Hutchings, who had had something of a Damascene conversion to the cause of traditional English folk music. They were listening mostly to Music From Big Pink by the Band, and to the first album by Sweeney’s Men: [Excerpt: Sweeney’s Men, “The Handsome Cabin Boy”] And they decided that they were going to make something that was as English as those records were North American and Irish (though in the event there were also a few Scottish songs included on the record). Hutchings in particular was becoming something of a scholar of traditional music, regularly visiting Cecil Sharp House and having long conversations with A.L. Lloyd, discovering versions of different traditional songs he’d never encountered before. This was both amusing and bemusing Sandy Denny, who had joined a rock group in part to get away from traditional music; but she was comfortable singing the material, and knew a lot of it and could make a lot of suggestions herself. Swarbrick obviously knew the repertoire intimately, and Nicol was amenable, while Mattacks was utterly clueless about the folk tradition at this point but knew this was the music he wanted to make. Thompson knew very little about traditional music, and of all the band members except Denny he was the one who has shown the least interest in the genre in his subsequent career — but as we heard at the beginning, showing the least interest in the genre is a relative thing, and while Thompson was not hugely familiar with the genre, he *was* able to work with it, and was also more than capable of writing songs that fit in with the genre. Of the eleven songs on the album, which was titled Liege and Lief (which means, roughly, Lord and Loyalty), there were no cover versions of singer-songwriters. Eight were traditional songs, and three were originals, all written in the style of traditional songs. The album opened with “Come All Ye”, an introduction written by Denny and Hutchings (the only time the two would ever write together): [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Come All Ye”] The other two originals were songs where Thompson had written new lyrics to traditional melodies. On “Crazy Man Michael”, Swarbrick had said to Thompson that the tune to which he had set his new words was weaker than the lyrics, to which Thompson had replied that if Swarbrick felt that way he should feel free to write a new melody. He did, and it became the first of the small number of Thompson/Swarbrick collaborations: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Crazy Man Michael”] Thompson and Swarbrick would become a brief songwriting team, but as much as anything else it was down to proximity — the two respected each other as musicians, but never got on very well. In 1981 Swarbrick would say “Richard and I never got on in the early days of FC… we thought we did, but we never did. We composed some bloody good songs together, but it was purely on a basis of “you write that and I’ll write this, and we’ll put it together.” But we never sat down and had real good chats.” The third original on the album, and by far the most affecting, is another song where Thompson put lyrics to a traditional tune. In this case he thought he was putting the lyrics to the tune of “Willie O'Winsbury”, but he was basing it on a recording by Sweeney’s Men. The problem was that Sweeney’s Men had accidentally sung the lyrics of “Willie O'Winsbury'” to the tune of a totally different song, “Fause Foodrage”: [Excerpt: Sweeney’s Men, “Willie O’Winsbury”] Thompson took that melody, and set to it lyrics about loss and separation. Thompson has never been one to discuss the meanings of his lyrics in any great detail, and in the case of this one has said “I really don't know what it means. This song came out of a dream, and I pretty much wrote it as I dreamt it (it was the sixties), and didn't spend very long analyzing it. So interpret as you wish – or replace with your own lines.” But in the context of the traffic accident that had killed his tailor girlfriend and a bandmate, and injured most of his other bandmates, the lyrics about lonely travellers, the winding road, bruised and beaten sons, saying goodbye, and never cutting cloth, seem fairly self-explanatory: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Farewell, Farewell”] The rest of the album, though, was taken up by traditional tunes. There was a long medley of four different fiddle reels; a version of “Reynardine” (a song about a seductive man — or is he a fox? Or perhaps both — which had been recorded by Swarbrick and Carthy on their most recent album); a 19th century song about a deserter saved from the firing squad by Prince Albert; and a long take on “Tam Lin”, one of the most famous pieces in the Scottish folk music canon, a song that has been adapted in different ways by everyone from the experimental noise band Current 93 to the dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah to the comics writer Grant Morrison: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Tam Lin”] And “Matty Groves”, a song about a man killing his cheating wife and her lover, which actually has a surprisingly similar story to that of “1921” from another great concept album from that year, the Who’s Tommy. “Matty Groves” became an excuse for long solos and shows of instrumental virtuosity: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Matty Groves”] The album was recorded in September 1969, after their return from their break in the country and a triumphal performance at the Royal Festival Hall, headlining over fellow Witchseason artists John and Beverly Martyn and Nick Drake. It became a classic of the traditional folk genre — arguably *the* classic of the traditional folk genre. In 2007 BBC Radio 2’s Folk Music Awards gave it an award for most influential folk album of all time, and while such things are hard to measure, I doubt there’s anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of British folk and folk-rock music who would not at least consider that a reasonable claim. But once again, by the time the album came out in November, the band had changed lineups yet again. There was a fundamental split in the band – on one side were Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson, whose stance was, roughly, that Liege and Lief was a great experiment and a fun thing to do once, but really the band had two first-rate songwriters in themselves, and that they should be concentrating on their own new material, not doing these old songs, good as they were. They wanted to take the form of the traditional songs and use that form for new material — they wanted to make British folk-rock, but with the emphasis on the rock side of things. Hutchings, on the other hand, was equally sure that he wanted to make traditional music and go further down the rabbit hole of antiquity. With the zeal of the convert he had gone in a couple of years from being the leader of a band who were labelled “the British Jefferson Airplane” to becoming a serious scholar of traditional folk music. Denny was tired of touring, as well — she wanted to spend more time at home with Trevor Lucas, who was sleeping with other women when she was away and making her insecure. When the time came for the group to go on a tour of Denmark, Denny decided she couldn’t make it, and Hutchings was jubilant — he decided he was going to get A.L. Lloyd into the band in her place and become a *real* folk group. Then Denny reconsidered, and Hutchings was crushed. He realised that while he had always been the leader, he wasn’t going to be able to lead the band any further in the traditionalist direction, and quit the group — but not before he was delegated by the other band members to fire Denny. Until the publication of Richard Thompson’s autobiography in 2022, every book on the group or its members said that Denny quit the band again, which was presumably a polite fiction that the band agreed, but according to Thompson “Before we flew home, we decided to fire Sandy. I don't remember who asked her to leave – it was probably Ashley, who usually did the dirty work. She was reportedly shocked that we would take that step. She may have been fragile beneath the confident facade, but she still knew her worth.” Thompson goes on to explain that the reasons for kicking her out were that “I suppose we felt that in her mind she had already left” and that “We were probably suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, though there wasn't a name for it back then.” They had considered inviting Trevor Lucas to join the band to make Denny more comfortable, but came to the (probably correct) conclusion that while he was someone they got on well with personally, he would be another big ego in a band that already had several, and that being around Denny and Lucas’ volatile relationship would, in Thompson’s phrasing, “have not always given one a feeling of peace and stability.” Hutchings originally decided he was going to join Sweeney’s Men, but that group were falling apart, and their first rehearsal with Hutchings would also be their last as a group, with only Hutchings and guitarist and mandolin player Terry Woods left in the band. They added Woods’ wife Gay, and another couple, Tim Hart and Maddy Prior, and formed a group called Steeleye Span, a name given them by Martin Carthy. That group, like Fairport, went to “get their heads together in the country” for three months and recorded an album of electric versions of traditional songs, Hark the Village Wait, on which Mattacks and another drummer, Gerry Conway, guested as Steeleye Span didn’t at the time have their own drummer: [Excerpt: Steeleye Span, “Blackleg Miner”] Steeleye Span would go on to have a moderately successful chart career in the seventies, but by that time most of the original lineup, including Hutchings, had left — Hutchings stayed with them for a few albums, then went on to form the first of a series of bands, all called the Albion Band or variations on that name, which continue to this day. And this is something that needs to be pointed out at this point — it is impossible to follow every single individual in this narrative as they move between bands. There is enough material in the history of the British folk-rock scene that someone could do a 500 Songs-style podcast just on that, and every time someone left Fairport, or Steeleye Span, or the Albion Band, or Matthews’ Southern Comfort, or any of the other bands we have mentioned or will mention, they would go off and form another band which would then fission, and some of its members would often join one of those other bands. There was a point in the mid-1970s where the Albion Band had two original members of Fairport Convention while Fairport Convention had none. So just in order to keep the narrative anything like wieldy, I’m going to keep the narrative concentrated on the two figures from Fairport — Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson — whose work outside the group has had the most influence on the wider world of rock music more broadly, and only deal with the other members when, as they often did, their careers intersected with those two. That doesn’t mean the other members are not themselves hugely important musicians, just that their importance has been primarily to the folk side of the folk-rock genre, and so somewhat outside the scope of this podcast. While Hutchings decided to form a band that would allow him to go deeper and deeper into traditional folk music, Sandy Denny’s next venture was rather different. For a long time she had been writing far more songs than she had ever played for her bandmates, like “Nothing More”, a song that many have suggested is about Thompson: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “Nothing More”] When Joe Boyd heard that Denny was leaving Fairport Convention, he was at first elated. Fairport’s records were being distributed by A&M in the US at that point, but Island Records was in the process of opening up a new US subsidiary which would then release all future Fairport product — *but*, as far as A&M were concerned, Sandy Denny *was* Fairport Convention. They were only interested in her. Boyd, on the other hand, loved Denny’s work intensely, but from his point of view *Richard Thompson* was Fairport Convention. If he could get Denny signed directly to A&M as a solo artist before Island started its US operations, Witchseason could get a huge advance on her first solo record, while Fairport could continue making records for Island — he’d have two lucrative acts, on different labels. Boyd went over and spoke to A&M and got an agreement in principle that they would give Denny a forty-thousand-dollar advance on her first solo album — twice what they were paying for Fairport albums. The problem was that Denny didn’t want to be a solo act. She wanted to be the lead singer of a band. She gave many reasons for this — the one she gave to many journalists was that she had seen a Judy Collins show and been impressed, but noticed that Collins’ band were definitely a “backing group”, and as she put it “But that's all they were – a backing group. I suddenly thought, If you're playing together on a stage you might as well be TOGETHER.” Most other people in her life, though, say that the main reason for her wanting to be in a band was her desire to be with her boyfriend, Trevor Lucas. Partly this was due to a genuine desire to spend more time with someone with whom she was very much in love, partly it was a fear that he would cheat on her if she was away from him for long periods of time, and part of it seems to have been Lucas’ dislike of being *too* overshadowed by his talented girlfriend — he didn’t mind acknowledging that she was a major talent, but he wanted to be thought of as at least a minor one. So instead of going solo, Denny formed Fotheringay, named after the song she had written for Fairport. This new band consisted at first of Denny on vocals and occasional piano, Lucas on vocals and rhythm guitar, and Lucas’ old Eclection bandmate Gerry Conway on drums. For a lead guitarist, they asked Richard Thompson who the best guitarist in Britain was, and he told them Albert Lee. Lee in turn brought in bass player Pat Donaldson, but this lineup of the band barely survived a fortnight. Lee *was* arguably the best guitarist in Britain, certainly a reasonable candidate if you could ever have a singular best (as indeed was Thompson himself), but he was the best *country* guitarist in Britain, and his style simply didn’t fit with Fotheringay’s folk-influenced songs. He was replaced by American guitarist Jerry Donahue, who was not anything like as proficient as Lee, but who was still very good, and fit the band’s style much better. The new group rehearsed together for a few weeks, did a quick tour, and then went into the recording studio to record their debut, self-titled, album. Joe Boyd produced the album, but admitted himself that he only paid attention to those songs he considered worthwhile — the album contained one song by Lucas, “The Ballad of Ned Kelly”, and two cover versions of American singer-songwriter material with Lucas singing lead. But everyone knew that the songs that actually *mattered* were Sandy Denny’s, and Boyd was far more interested in them, particularly the songs “The Sea” and “The Pond and the Stream”: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “The Pond and the Stream”] Fotheringay almost immediately hit financial problems, though. While other Witchseason acts were used to touring on the cheap, all packed together in the back of a Transit van with inexpensive equipment, Trevor Lucas had ambitions of being a rock star and wanted to put together a touring production to match, with expensive transport and equipment, including a speaker system that got nicknamed “Stonehenge” — but at the same time, Denny was unhappy being on the road, and didn’t play many gigs. As well as the band itself, the Fotheringay album also featured backing vocals from a couple of other people, including Denny’s friend Linda Peters. Peters was another singer from the folk clubs, and a good one, though less well-known than Denny — at this point she had only released a couple of singles, and those singles seemed to have been as much as anything else released as a novelty. The first of those, a version of Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” had been released as by “Paul McNeill and Linda Peters”: [Excerpt: Paul McNeill and Linda Peters, “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”] But their second single, a version of John D. Loudermilk’s “You’re Taking My Bag”, was released on the tiny Page One label, owned by Larry Page, and was released under the name “Paul and Linda”, clearly with the intent of confusing particularly gullible members of the record-buying public into thinking this was the McCartneys: [Excerpt: Paul and Linda, “You’re Taking My Bag”] Peters was though more financially successful than almost anyone else in this story, as she was making a great deal of money as a session singer. She actually did another session involving most of Fotheringay around this time. Witchseason had a number of excellent songwriters on its roster, and had had some success getting covers by people like Judy Collins, but Joe Boyd thought that they might possibly do better at getting cover versions if they were performed in less idiosyncratic arrangements. Donahue, Donaldson, and Conway went into the studio to record backing tracks, and vocals were added by Peters and another session singer, who according to some sources also provided piano. They cut songs by Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band: [Excerpt: Linda Peters, “You Get Brighter”] Ed Carter, formerly of The New Nadir but by this time firmly ensconced in the Beach Boys’ touring band where he would remain for the next quarter-century: [Excerpt: Linda Peters, “I Don’t Mind”] John and Beverly Martyn, and Nick Drake: [Excerpt: Elton John, “Saturday Sun”] There are different lineups of musicians credited for those sessions in different sources, but I tend to believe that it’s mostly Fotheringay for the simple reason that Donahue says it was him, Donaldson and Conway who talked Lucas and Denny into the mistake that destroyed Fotheringay because of these sessions. Fotheringay were in financial trouble already, spending far more money than they were bringing in, but their album made the top twenty and they were getting respect both from critics and from the public — in September, Sandy Denny was voted best British female singer by the readers of Melody Maker in their annual poll, which led to shocked headlines in the tabloids about how this “unknown” could have beaten such big names as Dusty Springfield and Cilla Black. Only a couple of weeks after that, they were due to headline at the Albert Hall. It should have been a triumph. But Donahue, Donaldson, and Conway had asked that singing pianist to be their support act. As Donahue said later “That was a terrible miscast. It was our fault. He asked if [he] could do it. Actually Pat, Gerry and I had to talk Sandy and Trevor into [it]… We'd done these demos and the way he was playing – he was a wonderful piano player – he was sensitive enough. We knew very little about his stage-show. We thought he'd be a really good opener for us.” Unfortunately, Elton John was rather *too* good. As Donahue continued “we had no idea what he had in mind, that he was going to do the most incredible rock & roll show ever. He pretty much blew us off the stage before we even got on the stage.” To make matters worse, Fotheringay’s set, which was mostly comprised of new material, was underrehearsed and sloppy, and from that point on no matter what they did people were counting the hours until the band split up. They struggled along for a while though, and started working on a second record, with Boyd again producing, though as Boyd later said “I probably shouldn't have been producing the record. My lack of respect for the group was clear, and couldn't have helped the atmosphere. We'd put out a record that had sold disappointingly, A&M was unhappy. Sandy's tracks on the first record are among the best things she ever did – the rest of it, who cares? And the artwork, Trevor's sister, was terrible. It would have been one thing if I'd been unhappy with it and it sold, and the group was working all the time, making money, but that wasn't the case … I knew what Sandy was capable of, and it was very upsetting to me.” The record would not be released for thirty-eight years: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “Wild Mountain Thyme”] Witchseason was going badly into debt. Given all the fissioning of bands that we’ve already been talking about, Boyd had been stretched thin — he produced sixteen albums in 1970, and almost all of them lost money for the company. And he was getting more and more disillusioned with the people he was producing. He loved Beverly Martyn’s work, but had little time for her abusive husband John, who was dominating her recording and life more and more and would soon become a solo artist while making her stay at home (and stealing her ideas without giving her songwriting credit). The Incredible String Band were great, but they had recently converted to Scientology, which Boyd found annoying, and while he was working with all sorts of exciting artists like Vashti Bunyan and Nico, he was finding himself less and less important to the artists he mentored. Fairport Convention were a good example of this. After Denny and Hutchings had left the group, they’d decided to carry on as an electric folk group, performing an equal mix of originals by the Swarbrick and Thompson songwriting team and arrangements of traditional songs. The group were now far enough away from the “British Jefferson Airplane” label that they decided they didn’t need a female vocalist — and more realistically, while they’d been able to replace Judy Dyble, nobody was going to replace Sandy Denny. Though it’s rather surprising when one considers Thompson’s subsequent career that nobody seems to have thought of bringing in Denny’s friend Linda Peters, who was dating Joe Boyd at the time (as Denny had been before she met Lucas) as Denny’s replacement. Instead, they decided that Swarbrick and Thompson were going to share the vocals between them. They did, though, need a bass player to replace Hutchings. Swarbrick wanted to bring in Dave Pegg, with whom he had played in the Ian Campbell Folk Group, but the other band members initially thought the idea was a bad one. At the time, while they respected Swarbrick as a musician, they didn’t think he fully understood rock and roll yet, and they thought the idea of getting in a folkie who had played double bass rather than an electric rock bassist ridiculous. But they auditioned him to mollify Swarbrick, and found that he was exactly what they needed. As Joe Boyd later said “All those bass lines were great, Ashley invented them all, but he never could play them that well. He thought of them, but he was technically not a terrific bass player. He was a very inventive, melodic, bass player, but not a very powerful one technically. But having had the part explained to him once, Pegg was playing it better than Ashley had ever played it… In some rock bands, I think, ultimately, the bands that sound great, you can generally trace it to the bass player… it was at that point they became a great band, when they had Pegg.” The new lineup of Fairport decided to move in together, and found a former pub called the Angel, into which all the band members moved, along with their partners and children (Thompson was the only one who was single at this point) and their roadies. The group lived together quite happily, and one gets the impression that this was the period when they were most comfortable with each other, even though by this point they were a disparate group with disparate tastes, in music as in everything else. Several people have said that the only music all the band members could agree they liked at this point was the first two albums by The Band. With the departure of Hutchings from the band, Swarbrick and Thompson, as the strongest personalities and soloists, became in effect the joint leaders of the group, and they became collaborators as songwriters, trying to write new songs that were inspired by traditional music. Thompson described the process as “let’s take one line of this reel and slow it down and move it up a minor third and see what that does to it; let’s take one line of this ballad and make a whole song out of it. Chopping up the tradition to find new things to do… like a collage.” Generally speaking, Swarbrick and Thompson would sit by the fire and Swarbrick would play a melody he’d been working on, the two would work on it for a while, and Thompson would then go away and write the lyrics. This is how the two came up with songs like the nine-minute “Sloth”, a highlight of the next album, Full House, and one that would remain in Fairport’s live set for much of their career: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sloth”] “Sloth” was titled that way because Thompson and Swarbrick were working on two tunes, a slow one and a fast one, and they jokingly named them “Sloth” and “Fasth”, but the latter got renamed to “Walk Awhile”, while “Sloth” kept its working title. But by this point, Boyd and Thompson were having a lot of conflict in the studio. Boyd was never the most technical of producers — he was one of those producers whose job is to gently guide the artists in the studio and create a space for the music to flourish, rather than the Joe Meek type with an intimate technical knowledge of the studio — and as the artists he was working with gained confidence in their own work they felt they had less and less need of him. During the making of the Full House album, Thompson and Boyd, according to Boyd, clashed on everything — every time Boyd thought Thompson had done a good solo, Thompson would say to erase it and let him have another go, while every time Boyd thought Thompson could do better, Thompson would say that was the take to keep. One of their biggest clashes was over Thompson’s song “Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman”, which was originally intended for release on the album, and is included in current reissues of it: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman”] Thompson had written that song inspired by what he thought was the unjust treatment of Alex Bramham, the driver in Fairport’s fatal car crash, by the courts — Bramham had been given a prison sentence of a few months for dangerous driving, while the group members thought he had not been at fault. Boyd thought it was one of the best things recorded for the album, but Thompson wasn’t happy with his vocal — there was one note at the top of the melody that he couldn’t quite hit — and insisted it be kept off the record, even though that meant it would be a shorter album than normal. He did this at such a late stage that early copies of the album actually had the title printed on the sleeve, but then blacked out. He now says in his autobiography “I could have persevered, double-tracked the voice, warmed up for longer – anything. It was a good track, and the record was lacking without it. When the album was re-released, the track was restored with a more confident vocal, and it has stayed there ever since.” During the sessions for Full House the group also recorded one non-album single, Thompson and Swarbrick’s “Now Be Thankful”: [Excerpt, Fairport Convention, “Now Be Thankful”] The B-side to that was a medley of two traditional tunes plus a Swarbrick original, but was given the deliberately ridiculous title “Sir B. McKenzie’s Daughter’s Lament For The 77th Mounted Lancers Retreat From The Straits Of Loch Knombe, In The Year Of Our Lord 1727, On The Occasion Of The Announcement Of Her Marriage To The Laird Of Kinleakie”: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sir B. McKenzie’s Daughter’s Lament For The 77th Mounted Lancers Retreat From The Straits Of Loch Knombe, In The Year Of Our Lord 1727, On The Occasion Of The Announcement Of Her Marriage To The Laird Of Kinleakie”] The B. McKenzie in the title was a reference to the comic-strip character Barry McKenzie, a stereotype drunk Australian created for Private Eye magazine by the comedian Barry Humphries (later to become better known for his Dame Edna Everage character) but the title was chosen for one reason only — to get into the Guinness Book of Records for the song with the longest title. Which they did, though they were later displaced by the industrial band Test Dept, and their song “Long Live British Democracy Which Flourishes and Is Constantly Perfected Under the Immaculate Guidance of the Great, Honourable, Generous and Correct Margaret Hilda Thatcher. She Is the Blue Sky in the Hearts of All Nations. Our People Pay Homage and Bow in Deep Respect and Gratitude to Her. The Milk of Human Kindness”. Full House got excellent reviews in the music press, with Rolling Stone saying “The music shows that England has finally gotten her own equivalent to The Band… By calling Fairport an English equivalent of the Band, I meant that they have soaked up enough of the tradition of their countryfolk that it begins to show all over, while they maintain their roots in rock.” Off the back of this, the group went on their first US tour, culminating in a series of shows at the Troubadour in LA, on the same bill as Rick Nelson, which were recorded and later released as a live album: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sloth (live)”] The Troubadour was one of the hippest venues at the time, and over their residency there the group got seen by many celebrities, some of whom joined them on stage. The first was Linda Ronstadt, who initially demurred, saying she didn’t know any of their songs. On being told they knew all of hers, she joined in with a rendition of “Silver Threads and Golden Needles”. Thompson was later asked to join Ronstadt’s backing band, who would go on to become the Eagles, but he said later of this offer “I would have hated it. I’d have hated being on the road with four or five miserable Americans — they always seem miserable. And if you see them now, they still look miserable on stage — like they don’t want to be there and they don’t like each other.” The group were also joined on stage at the Troubadour on one memorable night by some former bandmates of Pegg’s. Before joining the Ian Campbell Folk Group, Pegg had played around the Birmingham beat scene, and had been in bands with John Bonham and Robert Plant, who turned up to the Troubadour with their Led Zeppelin bandmate Jimmy Page (reports differ on whether the fourth member of Zeppelin, John Paul Jones, also came along). They all got up on stage together and jammed on songs like “Hey Joe”, “Louie Louie”, and various old Elvis tunes. The show was recorded, and the tapes are apparently still in the possession of Joe Boyd, who has said he refuses to release them in case he is murdered by the ghost of Peter Grant. According to Thompson, that night ended in a three-way drinking contest between Pegg, Bonham, and Janis Joplin, and it’s testament to how strong the drinking culture is around Fairport and the British folk scene in general that Pegg outdrank both of them. According to Thompson, Bonham was found naked by a swimming pool two days later, having missed two gigs. For all their hard rock image, Led Zeppelin were admirers of a lot of the British folk and folk-rock scene, and a few months later Sandy Denny would become the only outside vocalist ever to appear on a Led Zeppelin record when she duetted with Plant on “The Battle of Evermore” on the group’s fourth album: [Excerpt: Led Zeppelin, “The Battle of Evermore”] Denny would never actually get paid for her appearance on one of the best-selling albums of all time. That was, incidentally, not the only session that Denny was involved in around this time — she also sang on the soundtrack to a soft porn film titled Swedish Fly Girls, whose soundtrack was produced by Manfred Mann: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “What Will I Do With Tomorrow?”] Shortly after Fairport’s trip to America, Joe Boyd decided he was giving up on Witchseason. The company was now losing money, and he was finding himself having to produce work for more and more acts as the various bands fissioned. The only ones he really cared about were Richard Thompson, who he was finding it more and more difficult to work with, Nick Drake, who wanted to do his next album with just an acoustic guitar anyway, Sandy Denny, who he felt was wasting her talents in Fotheringay, and Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band, who was more distant since his conversion to Scientology. Boyd did make some attempts to keep the company going. On a trip to Sweden, he negotiated an agreement with the manager and publisher of a Swedish band whose songs he’d found intriguing, the Hep Stars. Boyd was going to publish their songs in the UK, and in return that publisher, Stig Anderson, would get the rights to Witchseason’s catalogue in Scandinavia — a straight swap, with no money changing hands. But before Boyd could get round to signing the paperwork, he got a better offer from Mo Ostin of Warners — Ostin wanted Boyd to come over to LA and head up Warners’ new film music department. Boyd sold Witchseason to Island Records and moved to LA with his fiancee Linda Peters, spending the next few years working on music for films like Deliverance and A Clockwork Orange, as well as making his own documentary about Jimi Hendrix, and thus missed out on getting the UK publishing rights for ABBA, and all the income that would have brought him, for no money. And it was that decision that led to the breakup of Fotheringay. Just before Christmas 1970, Fotheringay were having a difficult session, recording the track “John the Gun”: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “John the Gun”] Boyd got frustrated and kicked everyone out of the session, and went for a meal and several drinks with Denny. He kept insisting that she should dump the band and just go solo, and then something happened that the two of them would always describe differently. She asked him if he would continue to produce her records if she went solo, and he said he would. According to Boyd’s recollection of the events, he meant that he would fly back from California at some point to produce her records. According to Denny, he told her that if she went solo he would stay in Britain and not take the job in LA. This miscommunication was only discovered after Denny told the rest of Fotheringay after the Christmas break that she was splitting the band. Jerry Donahue has described that as the worst moment of his life, and Denny felt very guilty about breaking up a band with some of her closest friends in — and then when Boyd went over to the US anyway she felt a profound betrayal. Two days before Fotheringay’s final concert, in January 1971, Sandy Denny signed a solo deal with Island records, but her first solo album would not end up produced by Joe Boyd. Instead, The North Star Grassman and the Ravens was co-produced by Denny, John Wood — the engineer who had worked with Boyd on pretty much everything he’d produced, and Richard Thompson, who had just quit Fairport Convention, though he continued living with them at the Angel, at least until a truck crashed into the building in February 1971, destroying its entire front wall and forcing them to relocate. The songs chosen for The North Star Grassman and the Ravens reflected the kind of choices Denny would make on her future albums, and her eclectic taste in music. There was, of course, the obligatory Dylan cover, and the traditional folk ballad “Blackwaterside”, but there was also a cover version of Brenda Lee’s “Let’s Jump the Broomstick”: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Let’s Jump the Broomstick”] Most of the album, though, was made up of originals about various people in Denny’s life, like “Next Time Around”, about her ex-boyfriend Jackson C Frank: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Next Time Around”] The album made the top forty in the UK — Denny’s only solo album to do so — and led to her once again winning the “best female singer” award in Melody Maker’s readers’ poll that year — the male singer award was won by Rod Stewart. Both Stewart and Denny appeared the next year on the London Symphony Orchestra’s all-star version of The Who’s Tommy, which had originally been intended as a vehicle for Stewart before Roger Daltrey got involved. Stewart’s role was reduced to a single song, “Pinball Wizard”, while Denny sang on “It’s a Boy”: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “It’s a Boy”] While Fotheringay had split up, all the band members play on The North Star Grassman and the Ravens. Guitarists Donahue and Lucas only play on a couple of the tracks, with Richard Thompson playing most of the guitar on the record. But Fotheringay’s rhythm section of Pat Donaldson and Gerry Conway play on almost every track. Another musician on the album, Ian Whiteman, would possibly have a profound effect on the future direction of Richard Thompson’s career and life. Whiteman was the former keyboard player for the mod band The Action, having joined them just before they became the blues-rock band Mighty Baby. But Mighty Baby had split up when all of the band except the lead singer had converted to Islam. Richard Thompson was on his own spiritual journey at this point, and became a Sufi – the same branch of Islam as Whiteman – soon after the session, though Thompson has said that his conversion was independent of Whiteman’s. The two did become very close and work together a lot in the mid-seventies though. Thompson had supposedly left Fairport because he was writing material that wasn’t suited to the band, but he spent more than a year after quitting the group working on sessions rather than doing anything with his own material, and these sessions tended to involve the same core group of musicians. One of the more unusual was a folk-rock supergroup called The Bunch, put together by Trevor Lucas. Richard Branson had recently bought a recording studio, and wanted a band to test it out before opening it up for commercial customers, so with this free studio time Lucas decided to record a set of fifties rock and roll covers. He gathered together Thompson, Denny, Whiteman, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Pat Donaldson, Gerry Conway, pianist Tony Cox, the horn section that would later form the core of the Average White Band, and Linda Peters, who had now split up with Joe Boyd and returned to the UK, and who had started dating Thompson. They recorded an album of covers of songs by Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Johnny Otis and others: [Excerpt: The Bunch, “Willie and the Hand Jive”] The early seventies was a hugely productive time for this group of musicians, as they all continued playing on each other’s projects. One notable album was No Roses by Shirley Collins, which featured Thompson, Mattacks, Whiteman, Simon Nicol, Lal and Mike Waterson, and Ashley Hutchings, who was at that point married to Collins, as well as some more unusual musicians like the free jazz saxophonist Lol Coxhill: [Excerpt: Shirley Collins and the Albion Country Band, “Claudy Banks”] Collins was at the time the most respected female singer in British traditional music, and already had a substantial career including a series of important records made with her sister Dolly, work with guitarists like Davey Graham, and time spent in the 1950s collecting folk songs in the Southern US with her then partner Alan Lomax – according to Collins she did much of the actual work, but Lomax only mentioned her in a single sentence in his book on this work. Some of the same group of musicians went on to work on an album of traditional Morris dancing tunes, titled Morris On, credited to “Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson, Dave Mattacks, John Kirkpatrick and Barry Dransfield”, with Collins singing lead on two tracks: [Excerpt: Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson, Dave Mattacks, John Kirkpatrick and Barry Dransfield with Shirley Collins, “The Willow Tree”] Thompson thought that that album was the best of the various side projects he was involved in at the time, comparing it favourably to Rock On, which he thought was rather slight, saying later “Conceptually, Fairport, Ashley and myself and Sandy were developing a more fragile style of music that nobody else was particularly interested in, a British Folk Rock idea that had a logical development to it, although we all presented it our own way. Morris On was rather more true to what we were doing. Rock On was rather a retro step. I'm not sure it was lasting enough as a record but Sandy did sing really well on the Buddy Holly songs.” Hutchings used the musicians on No Roses and Morris On as the basis for his band the Albion Band, which continues to this day. Simon Nicol and Dave Mattacks both quit Fairport to join the Albion Band, though Mattacks soon returned. Nicol would not return to Fairport for several years, though, and for a long period in the mid-seventies Fairport Convention had no original members. Unfortunately, while Collins was involved in the Albion Band early on, she and Hutchings ended up divorcing, and the stress from the divorce led to Collins developing spasmodic dysphonia, a stress-related illness which makes it impossible for the sufferer to sing. She did eventually regain her vocal ability, but between 1978 and 2016 she was unable to perform at all, and lost decades of her career. Richard Thompson occasionally performed with the Albion Band early on, but he was getting stretched a little thin with all these sessions. Linda Peters said later of him “When I came back from America, he was working in Sandy’s band, and doing sessions by the score. Always with Pat Donaldson and Dave Mattacks. Richard would turn up with his guitar, one day he went along to do a session with one of those folkie lady singers — and there were Pat and DM. They all cracked. Richard smashed his amp and said “Right! No more sessions!” In 1972 he got round to releasing his first solo album, Henry the Human Fly, which featured guest appearances by Linda Peters and Sandy Denny among others: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “The Angels Took My Racehorse Away”] Unfortunately, while that album has later become regarded as one of the classics of its genre, at the time it was absolutely slated by the music press. The review in Melody Maker, for example, read in part “Some of Richard Thompson’s ideas sound great – which is really the saving grace of this album, because most of the music doesn’t. The tragedy is that Thompson’s “British rock music” is such an unconvincing concoction… Even the songs that do integrate rock and traditional styles of electric guitar rhythms and accordion and fiddle decoration – and also include explicit, meaningful lyrics are marred by bottle-up vocals, uninspiring guitar phrases and a general lack of conviction in performance.” Henry the Human Fly was released in the US by Warners, who had a reciprocal licensing deal with Island (and for whom Joe Boyd was working at the time, which may have had something to do with that) but according to Thompson it became the lowest-selling record that Warners ever put out (though I’ve also seen that claim made about Van Dyke Parks’ Song Cycle, another album that has later been rediscovered). Thompson was hugely depressed by this reaction, and blamed his own singing. Happily, though, by this point he and Linda had become a couple — they would marry in 1972 — and they started playing folk clubs as a duo, or sometimes in a trio with Simon Nicol. Thompson was also playing with Sandy Denny’s backing band at this point, and played on every track on her second solo album, Sandy. This album was meant to be her big commercial breakthrough, with a glamorous cover photo by David Bailey, and with a more American sound, including steel guitar by Sneaky Pete Kleinow of the Flying Burrito Brothers (whose overdubs were supervised in LA by Joe Boyd): [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Tomorrow is a Long Time”] The album was given a big marketing push by Island, and “Listen, Listen” was made single of the week on the Radio 1 Breakfast show: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Listen, Listen”] But it did even worse than the previous album, sending her into something of a depression. Linda Thompson (as the former Linda Peters now was) said of this period “After the Sandy album, it got her down that her popularity didn't suddenly increase in leaps and bounds, and that was the start of her really fretting about the way her career was going. Things only escalated after that. People like me or Martin Carthy or Norma Waterson would think, ‘What are you on about? This is folk music.'” After Sandy’s release, Denny realised she could no longer afford to tour with a band, and so went back to performing just acoustically or on piano. The only new music to be released by either of these ex-members of Fairport Convention in 1973 was, oddly, on an album by the band they were no longer members of. After Thompson had left Fairport, the group had managed to release two whole albums with the same lineup — Swarbrick, Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks. But then Nicol and Mattacks had both quit the band to join the Albion Band with their former bandmate Ashley Hutchings, leading to a situation where the Albion Band had two original members of Fairport plus their longtime drummer while Fairport Convention itself had no original members and was down to just Swarbrick and Pegg. Needing to fulfil their contracts, they then recruited three former members of Fotheringay — Lucas on vocals and rhythm guitar, Donahue on lead guitar, and Conway on drums. Conway was only a session player at the time, and Mattacks soon returned to the band, but Lucas and Donahue became full-time members. This new lineup of Fairport Convention released two albums in 1973, widely regarded as the group’s most inconsistent records, and on the title track of the first, “Rosie”, Richard Thompson guested on guitar, with Sandy Denny and Linda Thompson on backing vocals: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Rosie”] Neither Sandy Denny nor Richard Thompson released a record themselves in 1973, but in neither case was this through the artists’ choice. The record industry was changing in the early 1970s, as we’ll see in later episodes, and was less inclined to throw good money after bad in the pursuit of art. Island Records prided itself on being a home for great artists, but it was still a business, and needed to make money. We’ll talk about the OPEC oil crisis and its effect on the music industry much more when the podcast gets to 1973, but in brief, the production of oil by the US peaked in 1970 and started to decrease, leading to them importing more and more oil from the Middle East. As a result of this, oil prices rose slowly between 1971 and 1973, then very quickly towards the end of 1973 as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict that year. As vinyl is made of oil, suddenly producing records became much more expensive, and in this period a lot of labels decided not to release already-completed albums, until what they hoped would be a brief period of shortages passed. Both Denny and Thompson recorded albums at this point that got put to one side by Island. In the case of Thompson, it was the first album by Richard and Linda as a duo, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight”] Today, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time, and as one of the two masterpieces that bookended Richard and Linda’s career as a duo and their marriage. But when they recorded the album, full of Richard’s dark songs, it was the opposite of commercial. Even a song that’s more or less a boy-girl song, like “Has He Got a Friend for Me?” has lyrics like “He wouldn’t notice me passing by/I could be in the gutter, or dangling down from a tree” [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “Has He got a Friend For Me?”] While something like “The Calvary Cross” is oblique and haunted, and seems to cast a pall over the entire album: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “The Calvary Cross”] The album itself had been cheap to make — it had been recorded in only a week, with Thompson bringing in musicians he knew well and had worked with a lot previously to cut the tracks as-live in only a handful of takes — but Island didn’t think it was worth releasing. The record stayed on the shelf for nearly a year after recording, until Island got a new head of A&R, Richard Williams. Williams said of the album’s release “Muff Winwood had been doing A&R, but he was more interested in production… I had a conversation with Muff as soon as I got there, and he said there are a few hangovers, some outstanding problems. And one of them was Richard Thompson. He said there’s this album we gave him the money to make — which was I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight — and nobody’s very interested in it. Henry the Human Fly had been a bit of a commercial disappointment, and although Island was altruistic and independent and known for only recording good stuff, success was important… Either a record had to do well or somebody had to believe in it a lot. And it seemed as if neither of those things were true at that point of Richard.” Williams, though, was hugely impressed when he listened to the album. He compared Richard Thompson’s guitar playing to John Coltrane’s sax, and called Thompson “the folk poet of the rainy streets”, but also said “Linda brightened it, made it more commercial. and I thought that “Bright Lights” itself seemed a really commercial song.” The rest of the management at Island got caught up in Williams’ enthusiasm, and even decided to release the title track as a single: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight”] Neither single nor album charted — indeed it would not be until 1991 that Richard Thompson would make a record that made the top forty in the UK — but the album got enough critical respect that Richard and Linda released two albums the year after. The first of these, Hokey Pokey, is a much more upbeat record than their previous one — Richard Thompson has called it “quite a music-hall influenced record” and cited the influence of George Formby and Harry Lauder. For once, the claim of music hall influence is audible in the music. Usually when a British musician is claimed to have a music ha

Protests against President Trump's immigration policies and deportations are happening across the country. Over the weekend, raids from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers sparked massive protests in Los Angeles. President Trump called in the National Guard, and later, the Marines.There have also been protests in New Orleans, with demonstrators demanding the release of people detained in local ICE raids, as well as people held in Louisiana, like Mahmoud Khalil.The Gulf States Newsroom's Drew Hawkins has covered a couple of recent protests in the city. He joins us to discuss them.Last week, Le Petit Theatre debuted “Ain't Misbehavin: The Fats Waller Musical Show.” The musical review of the iconic jazz musician takes viewers into 1920s Harlem with an all-local cast.Cast member and musician Rahim Glaspy joins us to talk about the musical tribute performance.“Too Many Notes,” a classical concert performance from New Resonance Orchestra and Musical Arts Society of New Orleans, kicks off with two performances this weekend. It features the world premiere of New Orleans composer Tucker Fuller's piano concerto with soloist Brian Hsu and Mozart's Jupiter Symphony. Fuller joins us alongside New Resonance Orchestra founder and music director, Francis Scully. __Today's episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Diane Mack. Our managing producer is Alana Schreiber and our assistant producer is Aubry Procell. Our engineer is Garrett Pittman.You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at noon and 7 p.m. It's available on Spotify, the NPR App, and wherever you get your podcasts. Louisiana Considered wants to hear from you! Please fill out our pitch line to let us know what kinds of story ideas you have for our show. And while you're at it, fill out our listener survey! We want to keep bringing you the kinds of conversations you'd like to listen to.Louisiana Considered is made possible with support from our listeners. Thank you!

On the May 21 edition of the Music History Today podcast, Drake breaks a record, Chuck Berry starts a revolution, a music video icon premieres, and the Real World starts to get real. Also, happy birthday to Fats Waller and the Notorious B.I.G.For more music history, subscribe to my Spotify Channel or subscribe to the audio version of my music history podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts fromALL MUSIC HISTORY TODAY  PODCAST NETWORK LINKS - ⁠https://allmylinks.com/musichistorytoday

On tonight's show: Fats Waller, Honeysuckle Rose Benny Goodman (Helen Ward vocals), Never Say Never Coleman Hawkins, The Bean Stalks Again Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra, I'll Be Seeing You Frank Sinatra, Come Fly with Me Duke Ellington, C Jam Blues Mundell Lowe, You Don't Know What Love Is Hoagy Carmichael, Two Sleepy People John Coltrane, In A Sentimental Mood Billy Taylor, Paraphrase Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, Panama Ella Fitzgerald, Hello Dolly Big Miller, I Got Rhythm Chet Baker & Gerry Mulligan, For an Unfinished Woman Tomas Einarsson, Rumdrum

Classical meets jazz. Featuring: John Kirby Sextet, George Gershwin, James P. Johnson, Duke Ellington, Carl Maria von Weber, Benny Goodman, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Art Tatum, Fats Waller. Music: Mr. Haydn Gets Hip, Beethoven Riffs On, Rhapsody in Blue, You've Got To Be Modernistic, excerpt from Black, Brown, and Beige, excerpt from Invitation to the Dance, Let's Dance, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (Var. 15), Honeysuckle Rose.

On tonight's show: Fats Waller, After You've Gone Bunny Berigan, Black Bottom Billie Holiday, God Bless the Child Red Garland, I Can't Give You Anything but Love (feat. Paul Chambers & Art Taylor) Milt Jackson, Blues at Twilight Nat Adderley, I've Got a Crush on You (feat. Wes Montgomery & Sam Jones) Barney Kessel, New Rhumba Gia Maione, Louis Prima, Sam Butera & The Witnesses, When a Man Loves a Woman Claude Bolling, Sentimentale Butch Thompson, Home (When Shadows Fall - Red Maddock vocals) Hank Jones, Mads Vinding & Billy Hart, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes  

[Note: Stay tuned at the end for some music from the band!] Thomas “Fats” Waller (born May 21, 1904) grew up the son of a preacher in the vibrant musical community of Harlem. He played the organ for his dad's church as a child, with the organ pumped for him by Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. His prodigious keyboard abilities were soon encouraged by many of the lions of stride piano in the neighborhood, who bought him his first pairs of long pants so he could attend their “cutting” sessions and benefit from their experience and tutelage. From an early age, he started performing his original piano compositions, soon adding his idiosyncratic vocals as well. He became a well-loved entertainer, in addition to adding a number of compositions that have become standard repertoire in the great American songbook. He is often credited with composing the first jazz waltz, Jitterbug Waltz.

 For Patreon subscriber Justly Maya! Fact of the Day: Jazz musician, Fats Waller, was kidnapped by 4 men and “given” to Al Capone as a birthday gift. He performed for 3 days and was found drunk with thousands of dollars in cash stuffed in his pockets. Triple Connections: Cody, Dustin, Dusty THE FIRST TRIVIA QUESTION STARTS AT 01:23 SUPPORT THE SHOW MONTHLY, LISTEN AD-FREE FOR JUST $1 A MONTH: www.Patreon.com/TriviaWithBudds INSTANT DOWNLOAD DIGITAL TRIVIA GAMES ON ETSY, GRAB ONE NOW!  GET A CUSTOM EPISODE FOR YOUR LOVED ONES:  Email ryanbudds@gmail.com Theme song by www.soundcloud.com/Frawsty Bed Music:  "EDM Detection Mode" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://TriviaWithBudds.comhttp://Facebook.com/TriviaWithBudds http://Instagram.com/ryanbudds Book a party, corporate event, or fundraiser anytime by emailing ryanbudds@gmail.com or use the contact form here: https://www.triviawithbudds.com/contact SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL MY AMAZING PATREON SUBSCRIBERS INCLUDING:   Mollie Dominic Vernon Heagy Brian Clough Nathalie Avelar Natasha raina leslie gerhardt Skilletbrew Yves BouyssounouseDiane White Youngblood Evan Lemons Trophy Husband Trivia Rye Josloff Lynnette Keel Lillian Campbell Jerry Loven Ansley Bennett Jamie Greig Jeremy Yoder Adam Jacoby rondell Adam Suzan Chelsea Walker Tiffany Poplin Bill Bavar Sarah Dan  Katelyn Turner Keiva Brannigan Keith Martin Sue First Steve Hoeker Jessica Allen Michael Anthony White Lauren Glassman Brian Williams Henry Wagner Brett Livaudais Linda Elswick Carter A. Fourqurean KC Khoury Tonya Charles  Justly Maya Brandon Lavin Kathy McHale Chuck Nealen Courtney French Nikki Long Mark Zarate Laura Palmer  JT Dean Bratton Kristy Erin Burgess Chris Arneson Trenton Sullivan Jen and Nic Michele Lindemann Ben Stitzel Michael Redman Timothy Heavner Jeff Foust Richard Lefdal Myles Bagby Jenna Leatherman Albert Thomas Kimberly Brown Tracy Oldaker Sara Zimmerman Madeleine Garvey Jenni Yetter JohnB Patrick Leahy Dillon Enderby James Brown Christy Shipley Alexander Calder Ricky Carney Paul McLaughlin Casey OConnor Willy Powell Robert Casey Rich Hyjack Matthew Frost Brian Salyer Greg Bristow Megan Donnelly Jim Fields Mo Martinez Luke Mckay Simon Time Feana Nevel

4/28/25: Jerry & Kara Noble on Fats Waller: “Keepin' Out of Mischief.” Megan Zinn w/ owner Hillary Hoffman of Federal St Books in Greenfield. Prof Amilcar Shabazz w/ Amherst Councilor Ellisha Walker on the need to keep DEI front & Center in Amherst. Amherst Town Mgr. Paul Bockelman updates on the budget, library, elementary school, and festivals.

We are back to share a few more great performances from our team and other friends, and even Abby Taylor joins us to observe to see what's going on and enjoy the show. Beyond the hear out next week as we get to interview her as well, which we are very much looking forward to! Sorry, we meant to say on the lookout for a good interview next week which we are going to conduct with Abby TaylorFor a more descriptive adventure to see what we're getting into. We have paste the YouTube video description below, which you will find by searching vision cast on YouTube powered by story craze network.Get ready to dive headfirst into another hilariously chaotic episode of Vision Cast After Dark – where family-friendly goes to die and the real fun begins! Angela J (aka Cloud 11) is back, attempting to steer this runaway train, flanked by her ever-supportive co-host Phillip, while George, the resident "pain in the butt," provides commentary (and groans) from the virtual sidelines.This week, George makes a miraculous recovery from a pre-show seizure, proving his "resilient doodle" status yet again, much to the feigned chagrin of Angela who was almost free to have Phillip as her undisputed right-hand man for life. Alas, George couldn't bear the thought and showed up anyway, ready for the usual dose of affectionate torment.We're thrilled to welcome our special guest for the next few weeks, the multi-talented Abby Taylor! You might know her from the ACB community karaoke scene. In honor of Jazz Appreciation Month, Abby shares a deeply moving and beautifully performed original poem, "Dad, Fats, and Me," recalling precious memories listening to Fats Waller's "Your Feet's Too Big" with her father. Get ready for goosebumps (and maybe grab a tissue!). Plus, tune in next week when we get to formally interview Abby!Hold onto your keyboards, tech fans! Donald unveils a mind-blowing surprise: a custom note-taking program created with Chat GPT! This slick browser app saves your notes automatically, can use Chat GPT to polish your text, and even integrates with 11 Labs to convert your notes into audio using your API key. The code itself? So complex it apparently makes Angela choke just looking at it! The best part? Donald generously offers a FREE copy to the entire Vision Cast crew (and Angela promises a bonus review episode soon!).The AI magic doesn't stop there! Angela and Phillip share their own creation, the unapologetically proud anthem "Unapologetically Bisexual With You," conjured into existence by the AI text-to-song generator, Udio. Angela also treats us (and possibly tortures George) with her hilarious Udio-generated parody of "Elvira," aptly titled... "Angela." We delve into the rapidly evolving world of AI music, and Angela gives Udio two thumbs up (especially over that other platform, Suno).Big news on the home front: Angela has officially escaped the basement! She's broadcasting live from her brand-new, upstairs studio. Say goodbye to questionable acoustics and (mostly) hello to fewer dog-related interruptions... though her adorable Belgian Malinois, Lulu, still manages a brief, heart-stealing cameo.Of course, it wouldn't be Vision Cast After Dark without the relentless roasting of George. Prepare for laughs as the crew discusses everything from his alleged "Micro Penis" to his new title, "Dime Dick Doodles." It's all in good fun... mostly.From heartfelt poetry and cutting-edge AI demonstrations to studio upgrades and side-splitting banter (mostly at George's expense), this episode is a rollercoaster of tech, talent, and pure Vision Cast chaos. Buckle up and enjoy the ride!

Songs include: Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy by the Andrews Sisters, The Girl I left Behind Me by Fats Waller, Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend by Jo Stafford, Nature Boy by Nat King Cole and Beautiful Girl by Bing Crosby. 

Songs include: Five Guys Named Moe by Louis Jordan, Number Ten Lullabye Lane by Dinah Shore, Pennsylvania 6-5000 by Glenn Miller, One Hundred Years From Today by Ethyl Waters, "T" 99 Blues by Jimmie Nelson and One Hundred Percent For You by Fats Waller. 

Today's show features music performed by the great Fats Waller

M

The band is back! This Sunday at the "Unchained Melodies" show, the Evensong Quintet is playing a live recording concert of tunes in the public domain. Many of the best songwriters of the “Tin Pan Alley” era wrote some of their most enduring songs during the late 1920s, and many of these songs fall into public domain this year. Jazz musicians have long favored the work of these giants: George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Fats Waller, Irving Berlin, Hoagy Carmichael to name a few. For generations, big corporations have controlled the performance rights to this material, now these national treasures are free to be performed and recorded without restrictions. 

The poet Michael Longley, who died on 22nd January 2025 at the age of 85, was described by Seamus Heaney as 'a keeper of the artistic estate, a custodian of griefs and wonders.' He devoted a lifetime to the art of poetry and won numerous poetry prizes.In Episode 1 of this series of The Essay, first broadcast in 2024 and recorded to mark his 85th birthday, he talked with presenter Olivia O'Leary about his home town of Belfast and his love of jazz, saying that, 'Good poetry for me combines two things: meaning and melody.' He also loved the classics, which he studied at Trinity College Dublin, where he met his wife, Edna, a distinguished literary critic. He was one of a group of young poets that emerged from Northern Ireland in the 1960s and he describes the mutual support, rivalry and excitement of that time.He reads his poems Elegy for Fats Waller and an extract from his poem River and Fountain from a new collection, Ash Keys: New Selected Poems (Cape Poetry), published to mark his 85th birthday on 27th July 2024. He also reads Bookshops from his collection Angel Hill and Poem from The Slain Birds.Presenter: Olivia O'Leary Producer: Claire Cunningham Executive Producer: Regan HutchinsMichael Longley's Life of Poetry is a Rockfinch production for BBC Radio 3.

As we continue celebrating Black History Month, actor/playwright/director/producer Wren T. Brown shares the incredible 100-year artistic journey of his family in his new book, A Family Business. From his great-grandfather's belief in music as a universal language to his grandfather's groundbreaking role as the first Black staff musician in Hollywood at Columbia Pictures in 1946, the Brown family's impact on entertainment runs deep. Wren's lineage includes jazz legends, Cotton Club dancers, and Hollywood pioneers, with connections to icons like Nat King Cole, Fats Waller, Ethel Waters, and Cab Calloway. His father, a former child actor and jazz trumpeter, carried on the family tradition, making Wren a fourth-generation artist. His book, A Family Business, is now available in hardcover with rare photos and untold stories from a century of Black excellence in entertainment. This is one you won't want to miss! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Antonia Bennett, acclaimed jazz songstress and daughter of world renowned vocalist Tony Bennett, to release heart-warming version of the 1929 Fats Waller classic “Ain't Misbehavin” on Friday, February 28th 2025, the first single taken from her forthcoming album titled ‘Expressions'.    Antonia's swingin' piano and vocal rendition will be accompanied by a light-filled intimate family-affair video that will feature Antonia, Antonia's daughter, and husband frolicking through sun-drenched rooms of their home, complete with fancy dress-ups and communal cooking moments in the kitchen.   “Ain't Misbehavin” was first recorded by a Bennett in 1964. Antonia's late father, Tony Bennett performed the classic for his album ‘When Lights Are Low'.    The youngest daughter of Tony Bennett and actress Sandra Grant Bennett, Antonia grew up in Los Angeles and started singing with her father by age four. During that time, Antonia was surrounded by some of the greatest vocalists of all time, including Rosemary Clooney, Ella Fitzgerald, and Frank Sinatra – known to get up and sing at her father's parties during the holidays. Antonia's passion for music grew stronger.   In 2008, Antonia recorded "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm" with her father, featured on his album"A Swingin' Christmas". In 2010, she released her own critically acclaimed EP, "Natural," produced by Holly Knight.  All About Jazz praised Antonia's debut, stating the EP "introduces Bennett as a gifted interpreter of jazz classics with an impeccable and accessible vocal style."    Her most recent album "Embrace Me", showcased ten standards from the Great American Songbook, including "All of You," "Embraceable You", "I Can't Give You Anything But Love", and "Nice Work if You Can Get It." 

Katie Smith is in New Orleans on the eve of Super Bowl LIX to bring you the atmosphere and the stories ahead of Philadelphia Eagles v Kansas City Chiefs. Katie meets Jackie Wallace who had it all, but the three-time Super Bowl star had a demon he could not deal with. After retirement, he slipped into addiction and lost everything. New Orleans is the home of Jazz, and the father of Jazz is Fats Waller. His great grandson, Darren Waller was a big name in the NFL. He retired last year to turn his mind to music. We catch up with him to talk about football, fame and his family's musical heritage. Plus, New Orleans is known as the party capital of the South, but in August 2005 that all changed. Now when people think of New Orleans, they think of Hurricane Katrina. Doug Thornton was, and still is, the manager of the Super Dome, and through his eyes we will learn what it was like to be in the Super Dome when Katrina hit and how it was rebuilt.

Chicago, 1926, l'âge du jazz, de la prohibition et du whisky de contrebande. Ça swingue partout en ville, non seulement dans le South Side mais aussi au Sherman Hotel, downtown. Ce soir-là, Fats Waller s'installe au piano, s'échauffe un peu les doigts, et se lance dans l'un de ces solos dont il a le secret. Tout juste a-t'il remarqué ces quatre hommes en costume sombre qui viennent de s'installer au bar. Les sbires d'Al Capone, le roi des gangsters de Chicago !Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Featuring: Louis Armstrong, California Ramblers, Coon-Sanders Original Nighthawk Orchestra, Art Tatum, Fats Waller, Bix Beiderbecke, Bessie Smith.Songs: Dinah, Gut Bucket Blues, Clap Hands! Here Comes Charlie!, Flamin' Mamie, Tea For Two, Squeeze Me, Davenport Blues, St. Louis Blues.

This is episode 20 of Ben's radio show Red White Blues: an Anthology of America's Music (aired 14 November 2024 on Radio Buena Vida). We're able to share it because the music played is all non-commercial V-Discs taken from the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/V-discs1-991943-1944. On this episode, we look at the history of V-Discs and the rise of vinyl. In August of 1942, the American Federation of Musicians declared a strike: an all-out ban on members going into the studio and recording music. The strike was called to force the big three record companies to increase the royalty rate on recorded music paid to musicians, which had become a substantial part of music workers' business in an American culture structured around the production of consumer goods. The strike would last for two years, in which time no commercial records were made. But the US military and the big labels joined forces to create V-Discs (or Victory Discs)—non-commercial records for the enjoyment of the American soldiers and staff stationed abroad. Records up to this point were made of a rationed material sorely needed in the production of armaments: shellac. With the US having an abundance of oil, the petroleum-based vinyl record came to prominence and it's been that way ever since. Oil-based plastic didn't just shape music manufacture in its own image, though—it shaped American consumerism, which undergirds the world as we know it through mass production and mass communication, the end result of which is masses. It's us. Tracks played (with V-Disc catalog numbers in brackets): 1. “Ain't Misbehaving & Two Sleepy People”, Fats Waller [32] 2. “There's Gonna Be A Hot Time In The Town Of Berlin”, Frank Sinatra [72]—with introduction from side A (“I Only Have Eyes For You”) 3. “Blues in Berlin”, Josh White [44] 4. “Pearl Harbor Blues”, Dr Clayton [82] 5. “Ring Dem Bells”, Duke Ellington and his Orchestra [37] 6. “Redman Blues”, Don Redman Orchestra [104] 7. “A Smooth One”, Benny Goodman, Cootie Williams, Charlie Christian et. al. [187] 8. “Jelly Jelly”, Earl Hines and His Orchestra [308] If you like the show, you can listen to every episode right here on SoundCloud or by following this link: https://soundcloud.com/spaghettiforbrains/sets/red-white-blues

Holiday jazz featuring: Peggy Lee, Ella Logan, Victoria Spivey, Lonnie Johnson, Bessie Smith, Ella Fitzgerald, Julia Lee, Fletcher Henderson, Claude Thornhill, John Kirby, Putney Dandridge, and Fats Waller.Songs include: Jingle Bells, Winter Weather, Santa Claus Came in the Spring, There's Frost on the Moon, Every Day's a Holiday, Snowy Morning Blues, Snowfall, Arab Dance, Bounce of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Christmas Spirits, Chistmas Without Santa Claus.

VV-030 PROGRAM LIST M1 Squeeze Me (Fats Waller) Rec. 2/14/1926, FATS WALLER EARLY UNDISCOVERED SOLOS, Riverside Records RLP 12-103, 1955 (2:55) M2 Handful of Keys (Fats Waller) Rec. 3/1/1929, HANDFUL OF KEYS, FATS WALLER AND HIS RHYTHM, RCA Victor, LPM-1502, 1957 (2:45) M3 Ain't Misbehavin' (Fats Waller, Harry Brooks) Rec. 8/2/1929, AIN'T MISBEHAVIN', FATS WALLER AND HIS RHYTHM, RCA Victor LPM-1246, 1956 (3:00) M4 Tanglefoot  (Fats Waller) Rec. 8/24/1929, THE RAREST FATS WALLER, Volume 1,  RFW-1, 1955. (3:10) M5 Honeysuckle Rose (Fats Waller) Rec 5/13/1941, AIN'T MISBEHAVIN', FATS WALLER AND HIS RHYTHM, RCA Victor LPM-1246, 1956 (3:21) M6 Bouncin' on a V-Disc (Fats Waller) Rec. 9/23/1943, FATS WALLER PLAYS, SINGS AND TALKS, Jazz Treasury JT-1001, 1956 (4:46) Background songs for this episode: M7 Please Take Me Out of Jail (Fats Waller) Rec. 12/1/1927, THE RAREST FATS WALLER, Volume 1, RFW-1, 1955. M8 Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child  (Fats Waller) Rec. 9/23/1943, FATS WALLER PLAYS, SINGS AND TALKS, Jazz Treasury JT-1001, 1956 ABOUT THE ARTIST Today's show features the LATE GREAT Thomas Wright Waller, a jazz pianist and organist, composer and singer, born in New York City in 1904  The 7th of 11 children, his mother was a musician, and his father was a trucker and pastor in NYC.  Fats started playing piano when he was 6. He played the organ at his father's church at age 10. PAUSE He was home-schooled early-on by his mother and worked in a grocery store. He quit high school after just one semester at age 15 to work as an organist at the Lincoln Theater in Harlem. PAUSE At the Lincoln Theater, he earned $32 a week.  That was 1929.  He became known as “Fats Waller” because he was big -- both in body and in mind.  PAUSE Fats Waller laid some of the building blocks for what is NOW ‘modern jazz piano'. He popularized the use of The stride piano style,  which is widely used by jazz pianists today. He toured internationally and two of his biggest hits were Ain't Misbehavin' and Honeysuckle Rose. PAUSE You are listening to Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child by  Fats Waller) Recorded back in 1943.PAUSE Waller copyrighted over 400 songs. He probably composed many more, but, when he was in financial difficulty, he would sell songs to other writers and performers, who would not acknowledge the real composer, claiming the songs as their own.   Today's podcast features Fats Waller and a few of his SOLO piano and organ compositions that were recorded between the years 1926 and 1943, or from the age of 22 to 39.  Some of these songs are not available today, except where they are rediscovered - - - on my old and treasured Fats Waller record collection! SHOW PLUG - SHOW PLUG - DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL ! ! BIT BUCKET Waller is also credited with his composition and performance work in Broadway Musicals. Waller is perhaps the FIRST BLACK composer to write the score and perform for a mostly all-white show on Broadway. That was the 1943 Broadway musical EARLY TO BED, produced by Richard Kollmar – the Broadway Flyer for EARLY TO BED reads “Music by Thomas (“Fats”) Waller”. . M1 M1 Squeeze Me  (Thomas Waller) Rec. 2/14/1926, FATS WALLER EARLY UNDISCOVERED SOLOS, Riverside Records RLP 12-103, 1955 (2:55) Our first recording is titled “SQUEEZE ME” It's a piano solo, and the composer and performer is Thomas Waller.He is not billed as “Fats” Waller yet, as he is not that unusually large at the young age of 22. This song SQUEEZE ME was recorded for production of piano rolls in 1926, making this among Waller's EARLIEST recordings. Waller recorded his piano solos for the production of Piano Rolls between 1926 and 1927.These rolls operate on player pianos. Insert the roll, and the piano plays the song. PAUSE The player piano is a specialty item, affordable by the wealthy, and not a great way to release new music to the masses. Decades later, in 1955,

durée : 00:59:18 - Faites vos jeux ! - par : Nathalie Piolé - Qu'on le fasse avec des dés, qu'on le fasse avec des nombres, qu'on le fasse comme les enfants qu'on était avant, ce soir dans Banzzaï on joue. Et tout à fait sérieusement.

The Devil's Music: Halloween Jazz, 1920s, 30s, 40s. Featuring: Louis Armstrong, Marion Harris, Fats Waller, Hot Lips Page, Jelly Roll Morton, Mildred Bailey, Louis Prima, Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday. Songs: The Skeleton in the Closet, I'm a Jazz Vampire, Dry Bones, Skull Duggery, Boogaboo, Ghost of a Chance, Mr. Ghost is Going to Town, The Ghost of Smokey Joe, Haunted House Blues, Ghost of Yesterday,

FLETCHER HENDERSON AND HIS ORCHESTRA New York, May 14, 1926 The stampede, Jackass bluesRussell Smith, Joe Smith (tp) prob Luke Smith (tp) Rex Stewart (cnt) Benny Morton (tb) Buster Bailey (cl,as) Don Redman (cl,as,gfs,arr) Coleman Hawkins (cl,ts,bassax) Fletcher Henderson (p) Charlie Dixon (bj) Ralph Escudero (tu) Kaiser Marshall (d) New York, November 3, 1926 The Henderson stomp, The chantRussell Smith, Joe Smith, Tommy Ladnier (tp) Benny Morton (tb) Buster Bailey (cl,sop,as) Don Redman (cl,as,arr) Coleman Hawkins (cl,ts,bar) Fats Waller (p,org-1) Charlie Dixon (bj) June Cole (tu,vcl) Kaiser Marshall (d) Fletcher Henderson (cond) New York, March 19, 1931 Clarinet marmaladeBenny Morton (tb) Russell Procope (cl,as) Horace Henderson (p-1) replace Jimmy Harrison, Benny Carter, Fletcher Henderson, Coleman Hawkins (cl,ts,bar) Horace Henderson, Fletcher Henderson, Bill Challis (arr) CHICK WEBB “THE JUNGLE BAND” New York, June, 1929 Dog bottom (wp vcl), Jungle mamaWard Pinkett (tp,vcl) Edwin Swayzee (tp) Bob Horton (tb) Hilton Jefferson, Louis Jordan (as,cl) Elmer Williams (bt,cl) Don Kirkpatrick (p) John Trueheart (bj,g) Elmer James (tu) Chick Webb (d) New York, March 30, 1931 Heebie jeebiesShelton Hemphill, Louis Hunt (tp) Louis Bacon (tp,vcl) Jimmy Harrison (tb) Benny Carter (cl,as,arr) Hilton Jefferson (cl,as) Elmer Williams (cl,ts) Don Kirkpatrick (p) John Trueheart (bj,g) Elmer James (tu,b) Chick Webb (d,celeste,bells) New York, June 12, 1935 I'll chase the blues away (ef vcl)Mario Bauza, Bobby Stark, Taft Jordan (tp) poss. Continue reading Puro Jazz 07 de octubre, 2024 at PuroJazz.

Fats Waller is one of the most influential musicians in the history of jazz, and also one of the most loved by the public. His music was at the same time intellectually deep and danceable. The Tony Bailuff Big 3 digs deeply into the Waller catalog on its performances. Tony talked to Phil Nusbaum about the Big 3, and about Fats Waller himself.

Fats Waller is one of the most influential musicians in the history of jazz, and also one of the most loved by the public. His music was at the same time intellectually deep and danceable. The Tony Bailuff Big 3 digs deeply into the Waller catalog on its performances. Tony talked to Phil Nusbaum about the Big 3, and about Fats Waller himself.

Like so many jazz performers, Davina discovered jazz music early on in her life through her father and has loved and studied the music ever since. Davina connected with Sean via phone in advance of her upcoming show at the Dakota to discuss some of her favorite songs including Fats Waller's rendition of "I'm Going To Write Myself a Letter".

durée : 00:59:09 - Le jazz sur France Musique - par : Nathalie Piolé - S'écrire des lettres.

Today's show features music performed by Fats Waller and Ray Charles

Featuring collaborations with: James P. Johnson, Alberta Hunter, Elizabeth Handy, Herman Autrey, Una Mae Carlisle, The Deep River Boys, Myra Johnson, Lee Wiley, Ada Brown.

We celebrate legendary American jazz pianist, organist, composer, violinist, singer, and comedic entertainer Thomas Fats Waller. He laid the groundwork for modern jazz piano and some say he paved the way for rock-n-roll. Waller started playing piano at the age of 6, and copyrighted over 400 songs during his career, including Grammy winners "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Honeysuckle Rose". Waller was a critical and commercial sensation in the United States and Europe. Unfortunately he died from pneumonia at the early age 39 in 1943. We have Fats Waller performing live in 1938, an appearance on the popular Edgar Bergen Show just before his death in 1943, a tribute concert by Eddie Condon in 1944, plus a dramatization of life of Fats Waller on Destination Freedom. More at http://krobcollection.com

Music's big bundle of joy. Featuring: I Ain't Got Nobody, Carolina Shout, That's All, Sugar, Squeeze Me, (What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue, Ain't Misbehavin', Honeysuckle Rose, Then I'll Be Tired of you.

The pianist extraordinaire in solo and with his Rhythm recording extended and uninhibited tracks for Associated Transcriptions in 1939 . . Waller singing and playing along with John "Bugs" Hamilton on trumpet, Gene "Honeybear" Sedric on clarinet and tenor sax, John Smith on guitar, Cedric Wallace on bass and Slick Jones on drums. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/john-clark49/support

Please join me today for this overview of the roller coaster career of Alberta Hunter (01 April 1895 – 17 October 1984), a jazz legend whose surprising and extraordinary life was shaped by a voice that simply personified the Blues. Early in her life, around the time she was 15, she fled her native Memphis for Chicago, where, with tenacity, grit, and ambition, she became the darling of the night club circuit, performing sometimes under tommy-gun-adjacent circumstances. She soon made her way to Broadway and, following the lead of her compatriots, Joséphine Baker, Adelaide Hall, Florence Mills, and Elisabeth Welch, to Paris and London, where she was the toast of the town and appeared as Queenie opposite Paul Robeson in the original London production of Show Boat. Later during and after World War II she became a fixture of the USO circuit. Following the death of her mother, she abandoned her performing career and took up nursing in her sixties. After her enforced retirement twenty years later, through a set of freaky coincidences, she made a miraculous return to live performing at the age of 82 and became an overnight sensation, the toast of three continents. She always returned to her ongoing residency at a club in the Village called The Cookery, the venue where the final chapter of her career began. She continued to perform and record until shortly before her death just before her 90th birthday. Though she lived her life discreetly and never came out overtly, she nevertheless was involved with women throughout her life and formed her strongest emotional and romantic bonds with them. Sassy, raunchy, and gritty on the surface, Hunter possessed a voice and ingratiating style of such honesty, humor, and character, that masked a modesty hidden beneath that brash exterior, and a musical sensibility that dazzles with its ease, subtlety, and complexity. Featured musical excerpts, both studio and live, extend over more than 60 years and include collaborations with such jazz giants as Eubie Blake, Fats Waller, Lovie Austin, Charlie Shavers, and producer John Hammond and includes a clip from her appearance in the British film Radio Parade of 1935. Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel's lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody's core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody's Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.  

Records left off of previous shows, including: It's a Sin to Tell a Lie by the Ink Spots, When Winter Comes by Mary Healy, Swing Them Jingle Bells by Fats Waller, Worried Blues by Gladys Bentley and Prison Cell Blues by Blind Lemon Jefferson. 

Today's show features music performed by Duke Ellington and Fats Waller

Frank Gardner is the BBC's security correspondent, familiar to millions of viewers and listeners from his reports, which regularly take him around the world.He's also written six books, including a memoir about his 25 years in the Middle East, and more recently, four thrillers about the adventures of MI6 operative Luke Carlton. In 2004, while filming in Saudi Arabia, Frank and his cameraman Simon Cumbers were ambushed by al-Qaeda gunmen. Simon was killed and Frank was shot six times and left for dead. He survived, but was partially paralysed. He returned to reporting within a year, using a wheelchair. Frank's music choices range from Schumann and Shostakovich to Fats Waller, and he also includes part of a concerto for oboe and strings written by his father, Neil Gardner, who was a keen and accomplished amateur musician.

Today's show features music performed by Fats Waller, Nat King Cole, and Junior Wells

#98: Today we're celebrating pride by revisiting our deep into the history of Queer LA. Our LA Explained reporter, Caitlin Hernández, took us back in time to explain how West Hollywood became recognized as a mecca for LA's gay community. It was part of their research for the LAist series, Queer LA, where Caitlin's highlighting the joy, culture, and history of queerness in this city. You can find more of their reporting at laist.com/QueerLA Music in this episode composed by: Rae Bourbon, Austin Cross, Kylie Minogue, Masayoshi Takanaka, Fats Waller, Woo. Archival audio courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The first globally famous American musicians weren't part of the 50s rock wave that included Elvis Pressly or Chuck Berry. They were three 3 jazzmen who orchestrated the chords that throb at the soul of twentieth-century America: Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie.While their music is well-known, their background stories aren't. Duke Ellington was the grandson of slaves whose composing, piano playing, and band leading transcended category. Louis Daniel Armstrong was born in a New Orleans slum so tough it was called The Battlefield and, at age seven, got his first musical instrument, a ten-cent tin horn that drew buyers to his rag-peddling wagon and set him on the road to elevating jazz into a pulsating force for spontaneity and freedom. William James Basie was son of a coachman and laundress who dreamed of escaping every time the traveling carnival swept into town, and who finally engineered his getaway with help from Fats Waller.To explore their stories is today's guest, Larry Tye, author of “The Jazz Men: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie Transformed America.

A special, short podcast honoring Thomas "Fats" Waller on his 120th birthday.  Songs include: Honeysuckle Rose, I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Whose Honey Are You.

Finally a vibraphone episode! Nathan Dufresne is a solo percussionist and a member of the Columbia Orchestra.  Today he talks about arranging a jazz standard ("Ain't Misbehavin'") for solo vibraphone, and how he overcomes the challenge of condensing multiple parts to be played wth just 4 mallets.     find Nathan on TikTok at @dufresne_percussion find Nathan on Youtube: Nathan Dufresne Percussion   Other Audio: "Ain't Misbehavin'" by Fats Waller   visit our website asamusicpodcast.com

What do Fats Waller and Jimi Hendrix have in common –– other than both being brilliant musicians who changed the course of American music? The answer is: they were both kidnapped... by the mafia! But it's cool, it's cool... who would ever wanna hurt them?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Songs include: Bubbles In the Wine, Pink Champagne, Abercrombie Had a Zombie, Salty Dog Blues, Rum and Coca-Cola, Scotching With the Soda and Cocktails For Two. Performers include: Lawrence Welk, the King Cole Trio, Glenn Miller, the Andrews Sisters Joe Liggins and Fats Waller. 

 Jazz classics tonight. We'll hear from Art Tatum, Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller.  Big Band by Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Lionel Hampton, and Artie Shaw, and Sidney Bechet. Vocals by Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and the Horace Silver Quintet with Bill Henderson.  Dave Brubeck's Take Five, and then Lena Horne, and Mose Allison.

Jazz classics tonight. We'll hear from Art Tatum, Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller. Big Band by Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Lionel Hampton, and Artie Shaw, and Sidney Bechet. Vocals by Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and the Horace Silver Quintet with Bill Henderson. Dave Brubeck's Take Five, and then Lena Horne, and Mose Allison.

Songs include: Everybody Loves Somebody, Somebody Stole My Gal, I'm Falling In Love With Someone, Someone To Watch Over Me, Somebody Loves Me and Like Someone In Love. Musicians include: George Gershwin, Joni James, Frank Sinatra, Fats Waller, Tommy Dorsey, Jo Stafford, Benny Goodman and Nelson Eddy.