Podcasts about The Gaslight Cafe

GGACP marks the 30th anniversary of Frank Darabont's classic Stephen King adaptation, "The Shawshank Redemption" (released September 23, 1994) by presenting this ENCORE of a 2020 interview with Oscar-winning actor, musician and activist Tim Robbins. In this episode, Tim joins the boys for a lively discussion on a wide range of topics, including the “New Hollywood” of the '70s, the genius and generosity of Robert Altman and the timeliness of Depression-era screwball comedies. Also, Gore Vidal steals the show, Richard Pryor plays The Gaslight Cafe, Orson Welles runs afoul of William Randolph Hearst and Tim (fondly) remembers Paul Newman, Don Rickles and Robin Williams. PLUS: “Bobbo Supreme”! “Howard the Duck”! Monty Python comes calling! In praise of “The Hudsucker Proxy”! And Tim weighs in on the future of movie theaters! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In der zweiten Folge unseres 2010er Rückblicks erinnern wir uns an wichtige Ereignisse und wie sich Wohnen und Reisen verändert haben, wie uns Superhelden im Kino verzaubert und genervt haben, wie eine Familie in einem Roman sich besser verstehen lernt, wie uns virale Phänomene auf Trab gehalten haben und wie die Coen Brüder eine musikalische Filmperle geschaffen haben.    Music Videos without Music: PSY - Gangnam Style https://youtu.be/f6ZSZbNfSpk?si=j8TgIJ9m8Ll-iPxd The obsession with mid-century furniture design, explained https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi6A618dI_Y Marie Kondo Tidies Up Stephen's 'Late Show' Desk  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1aBqpF6mwQ The ‘Instagram Effect' Is Driving Too Many Tourists To Some Destinations | Sunday TODAY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVqR0Jfjsj8 How Airbnb is transforming the travel industry https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSFP4aq0Fyw Klima kippt - Kreuzfahrt boomt | Panorama | NDR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZM94qPZ7UM ZDF Ferienprogramm 1983  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeZw0x0fLzg Madonna - Holiday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Rswx2Z7SDw Was ist eigentlich das MCU? - Marvel Basics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTlXpZ0LDIk Der MCU Zeitstrahl vollständig erklärt  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS7XDJEi8rU&t=13s Firmen am Abgrund - Marvel: Imperium der Superhelden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqh9WgopGkE Der Untergang des MCU…. und seine Zukunft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwUSAtmu71Y Bruno Mars & Mark Ronson vs Michael Jackson - Uptown Criminal https://youtu.be/nrnzLzKZGl0?si=Td_PJDwdqqf8_wbn Was ich euch nicht erzählte / Everything I never told you - Celeste Ng https://www.dtv.de/buch/was-ich-euch-nicht-erzaehlte-14599 Kirkus TV Interview with Bestselling Author Celeste NG  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNmRgZuG6kw Sturgill Simpson - In Bloom (Cover) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpDYfkymaSE Meme Culture - How Memes took over the World https://youtu.be/fnqJaFxp7Xk?si=24YCKyekhvxC3gxP What is the History of Memes? https://youtu.be/xmZx2Fgfc4Q?si=raSc9UkQlawmuhk1 Internet Meme Culture - Mackenzie Finklea - TEDxUTAustin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MLjFNxi9Yo Katy Perry vs Coldplay - Fireclocks https://youtu.be/ZOJ4HN62Mak?si=JUZRF9qh3_lAzbNp Inside Llewyn Davis Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXMuR-Nsylg Academy Conversations: Inside Llewyn Davis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV6JyZ-ff_M Inside Llewyn Davis: Oscar Isaac and F. Murray Abraham Interviewed by Sasha Perl-Raver https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4oMostAedk How Inside Llewyn Davis Explores Depression Through Folk Music  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scC9A9XhewQ Rare Footage of the Gaslight Cafe in 1962 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph03iTtxCwE Oscar Isaak - Hang Me Oh Hang Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTzH4he7hP8 Justin Timberlake, Carey Mulligan, Stark Sands - 500 Miles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY_S0Xoo02A

GGACP marks the 30th anniversary of 1994's "The Hudsucker Proxy" (released March 11,1994) with this ENCORE presentation of a 2020 interview with Oscar-winning actor, director and musician Tim Robbins. In this episode, Tim talks about the "New Hollywood" of the '70s, the genius and generosity of Robert Altman, the timeliness of Depression-era screwball comedies and the enduring appeal of "The Shawshank Redemption." Also, Gore Vidal steals the show, Richard Pryor plays The Gaslight Cafe, Orson Welles locks horns with William Randolph Hearst and Tim (fondly) remembers Paul Newman, Don Rickles and Robin Williams. PLUS: "Cradle Will Rock"! "Howard the Duck"! Monty Python comes calling! And Tim weighs in on the future of movie theaters! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the end of the road for an Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning comedy series. “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” is back for its fifth and final season, with episodes dropping weekly starting April 14 on Amazon Prime Video.  For this episode of Streamed & Screened, hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz, provide a (mostly) spoiler-free analysis of the the program, which is a favorite of both. Also hear from the stars, including clips from Rachel Brosnahan (Miriam "Midge" Maisel), Alex Borstein (Susie Myerson), Tony Shalhoub (Abraham "Abe" Weissman) and Kevin Pollak (Moishe Maisel) who reflect on the characters, the series and whether we might see them all reprise their roles in the future as part of a feature-length movie. Bruce also has an interview with Michael Zegen, who plays Midge's ex-husband Joel Maisel, who offers thoughts of his own on the program. Whether you're a longtime fan of the show or looking for an introduction before you binge the whole thing over a long weekend, you'll want to give this episode a listen. About the show Read more: REVIEW: 'Mrs. Maisel' ends with marvelous update Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video Cast: Rachel Brosnahan as Miriam "Midge" Maisel Alex Borstein as Susie Myerson Michael Zegen as Joel Maisel Marin Hinkle as Rose Weissman Tony Shalhoub as Abraham "Abe" Weissman Kevin Pollak as Moishe Maisel Caroline Aaron as Shirley Maisel Luke Kirby as Lenny Bruce Jane Lynch as Sophie Lennon Created by: Amy Sherman-Palladino Executive producers: Amy Sherman-Palladino, Daniel Palladino Producers: Dhana Gilbert, Matthew Shapiro, Salvatore Carino, Sheila Lawrence About the show Streamed & Screened is a podcast about movies and TV hosted by Bruce Miller, a longtime entertainment reporter who is now the editor of the Sioux City Journal in Iowa and Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer for Lee Enterprises based in Madison, Wisconsin. Episode transcript Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically: A lot of young women trying standup comedy for the first time, which is so awesome and long overdue. It's been incredible to hear how his legacy has already affected people, and I'm really excited to see how she lives on. That voice you just heard was Rachel Brosnahan, who stars as Miriam ‘Midge' Maisel in ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel' I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee Enterprises and a co-host of Streamed and Screened, an entertainment podcast about movies and TV. Joining me, as always, is the incomparable Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is back for its fifth and final season with episodes dropping weekly starting April 14th on Amazon Prime Video. Bruce It will be an end of an era for one of the most popular shows on that platform. Certainly big shoes to fill. First of all, why was it not the marvelous Bruce Miller? This is now this is how this should be. This is how he introduced me. Right. It's interesting because this is a show that I think people lost track of because of the big gaps between seasons. Was it over? Is it over? And when they see this fifth season and I've seen the whole thing, they will go, Oh my God, there's so much in that fifth season because they do a lot of time jumps. So you're not going to just see one season, one year play out. It goes into the future and you find out things about her children. You find out things about her husband, her ex-husband, her friends, Susie. All of those people come into play at some point. And so it flashes back and forth and it's I think it pays. It rewards the people who have been loyal. And you get to see a lot of fun. So there is and I you know, I'm really I should say nothing. But there is one kind of cute thing where they're showing, you know, did she have a lot of dresses? And they show the racks of her clothes all. My God, what is this? She did have it because I don't think she ever wore anything twice. No, I don't remember it. And you also, I think, see growth in Mrs. Maysles comedy career, how she's able to tell, you know, I always thought, is she making this crap up on the fly? And every night, is she not writing this down so that she can, you know, retell it at another place? It seemed like every every routine she did was just of the moment. And you see how she does all that. And there is a scene in the last episode that is on Be Livable, and that's as much as I can tell you on the spoiler end of things. But okay, no spoilers. You know, when you first watched it, what surprised you most about it? For me personally, I was sucked in because I'm a native of New York City, okay? And for me, my wife is from just outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin. And it's been an interesting ride because she's she's Catholic. I was raised Catholic, but my dad was Jewish. But for me, it's kind of seeing that cultural the cultural phenomenon of New York, the Jewish culture, even though I'm I didn't grow up in the fifties or sixties, I was born in the mid seventies, but for me I could relate to it. And I thought that they kept this show like it's fiction, but it's also really easy. And I think it was that reality that kind of kept bringing me back. So a couple of things, if you don't mind me throwing these out, because we're going to be talking a lot about I mean, we're basically going to just talk about the show with Mrs. Basil. Yes, this is the Mrs. Maisel episode. So first off, the beauty of streaming is if you have not watched this show yet, just go back and watch it. You know, go get Amazon Prime if you don't have it already and start cranking through them. My wife and I didn't start this until the 2020 lockdown. There was already in between season three and seven season for that really long gap they were talking about. But we had nothing to watch during it. So we're kind of crushing through Netflix and Hulu and anything we could find. And we hopped into Mrs. Maisel and for some reason I didn't know much about it at the time. I was saying, What is this like some superhero thing? Because it kind of played with some of those Marvel titles that you hear. But it's a it's a comedy. It takes place, I guess, you know, like late 1950s, early 1960s. Rachael Brosnahan plays Miriam Midge Maisel. She's a housewife with very strong Jewish personalities in her life. Between her her husband and her parents and her in-laws. Alex Borstein plays Susie Myerson. She manages The Gaslight Cafe. Becomes a manager. She wants to be a manager. She's there. Michael Zegen is Joel Maseil while her husband and there's a Tony Shalhoub is in it as her father. There's a lot of actors you will know. Kevin Pollak is her father in law. It was a Jane. Lynch turned up as. Jane Lynch. Yeah. So it's it's an awesome ensemble cast. So and it's also a lot of reality. So Luke Kirby plays Lenny. Bruce. Right? So he's a real person, very controversial comic of the time, but becomes Midge's friend over time and helps guide her career. Midge Maisel, a fictional character, but she's based on Joan Rivers, who had a relationship with Lenny Bruce and started at the Gaslight Cafe, which was a real location. It's where, if you've ever heard of a musician named Bob Dylan, you've heard of Bob Dylan before.Bruce Never heard of him. Never heard of him. So he was a young man. Robert Zimmerman out of Hibbing, Minnesota. Probably did. Well, is he did. He did well. So he came to New York City and was kind of brought under the wing of a folk singer named Dave Van Ronk, who is who is the mayor of MacDougal Street down in the village of New York City. They performed at the Gaslight. This is a real location. So it's the beauty of this show is, you know, you're getting a little bit of a history lesson of the time and it but it's still a fictional comedy. It's hilarious. I love it. It's very you know, some of it is kind of on the surface kind of comedy and you pick it up really quick. But some of it's very deep, too, and it kind of gets into, you know, the place of women at the time in the 1950s and, you know, kind of being you're the housewife. Take care of the kids. Joel wants to be the comic. He's the one that's going to be the comedian. And of course, the tables get turned. But yeah, you're right. I mean, with the dresses, even as the show progresses and, you know, she's short on cash, sometimes it's like, how can you afford this apartment? Where are all these dresses coming from? It's ridiculous. The clothing budget does not suffer. She will always have a great outfit. What I find fascinating was each year it got bigger. You know, you start out and it's kind of like, Oh, this is doing a period show is expensive. And they didn't. They just threw it out there. They went to a summer camp, you know, and that can't be easy to recreate, particularly of that era. Then they go to a USO show, which is huge in an airplane hangar. They go to Paris, for God's sakes. This season, you're going to see them in New York and you're going to see a lot of landmarks in New York, particularly Rockefeller Center, which they use like a drum. They are around that building all the time. So that's that's fascinating to see. And the cast, there are so many people over those four seasons that get a return visit in the fifth. So it's it's kind of like a reunion. And you go, Oh my God, That was from remember when they did that? And she was in that. And then there's also a bit of, Oh, how can I how can I say this without saying this? It reminds you of if you saw my favorite year, if you saw laughter on the 23rd floor, if you saw any of those kind of looks at what Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris did during the early days of television. With your show of shows, there are references to those kinds of things, so you get a real sense of the time. I think you really get to see what the fifties and sixties were like. There's a sort of Johnny Carson character. They mentioned Jack Paar in the course of the the series. What I love are these time jumps where you find out exactly what happened to Mrs. Maisel. What did she fizzle out and become? Nothing. Did she come a big star? Was she like Joan Rivers? You know, that is an easy comparison. But there were other female comics of the time, Tony Fields, if you remember that name. I don't know if it moms Mabley, these were all ones who were working that Phyllis Diller. And they kind of had to be aggressive in their approach to comedy because otherwise they were going to just be bulldozed over. And I think that's what you get out of out of Midge, is that she is not going to take no, but she is going to get knocked down. I can't wait to dive into this. It's exciting. I always love those just the characters. They even if they're playing such a really small role, it feels like they're playing a much larger role than it actually turns out to be. There are little in this one, you know. I don't know if you ever remember those kind of industrial shows that used to be big in New York, where it would be like, Oh, soap or whatever. And they do a huge thing for all of their their corporate people around the country. They'd come in for a day or whatever a weekend, and they do an industrial show, which we are. A lot of Broadway people would get on stage and sing the praises of, you know, Lox or whatever it might have been, or a new car. And they did these elaborate stage shows and fact there's a documentary out about them that is just fascinating because it's a world we don't know. We weren't in that industry. We weren't in that that thing. But people made a lot of money off that writing those shows. And you get a sense of that as well. There's a big convention of sorts that that Midge happens to be involved in. So you get another you know, it's this history lesson that you're getting a lot of stuff, even though it's not a real person. You know, if she were real, I think you'd look at it differently. You would say, Oh, well, you've got to have this moment. You've got to have that, and you really don't know what could happen. And Joel does not get shortchanged either. You know, I thought that maybe he would kind of just disappear as the years go by. And he has a very, very strong presence in the final season. That's great. I always loved his character. I always was afraid that as the ex-husband, estranged husband, he might just kind of slowly walk out of the show. And in the fact that not only has he remained at the forefront and kind of done his own thing, too, he's found his place and kind of escaped the shadow of his very overbearing parents. But the fact that he's still in it and that his parents are still in it just really makes the whole program him. And they do interweave those things, too, you know, that he was building a club. He was trying to get a club off the ground. And you'll see more of that in the next season. And his parents are big players with Mrs. Maysles parents. Interestingly, I don't think you see enough of Tony Shalhoub. I think he has a very secondary presence in in this year's show, and that's surprising because he won an Emmy for it, and I would have thought they would have leaned in a little more, maybe he just wasn't available to do a lot more. That's interesting. I also wonder, too, if it's is it part of character development, too, where they they want to highlight certain characters each season kind of give them because he did seem to have a very prominent role last year. When he was doing The Village Voice and he's a critic. And now he's getting the reaction to what life is like as a critic, which is I think, just fascinating. That's your favorite part, isn't it? Yeah, that's the cool part. Yeah. I lean into the critic aspect. I don't do I care about the comic? I don't know if I do, but I do care about the critic. You know, you talk a little bit about the characters and the reality and whatnot. One of my favorite things from the series and this is because, you know, and we've talked about this my my fan of of I'm such a huge fan of music. I have a very large record collection and just I feel like I have a pretty solid knowledge and I'm watching I think it was season it was season three when Midge was out on tour, was Shy Baldwin. Right. So she was doing comedy to open up for his big band performance. So he was performing. He had that ensemble band behind him. There was the one character who kind of became her friend of sorts. Carol Keane, who is a fictional musician. However, she was based on a real person. She played. Carol Kaye, if you at all familiar with her, is a legendary bassist, and she's part of what's known as The Wrecking Crew. The Wrecking Crew in the 1960s was this group of musicians that would come in and they were studio musicians. So you would have performers who weren't necessarily the best bands. They would go out live. But when it came to actually recording the albums, the producers were like, Let's you guys are in quite good enough. And it was even the Beach Boys, like the Beach Boys, didn't perform their own instruments in the studio. In a lot of cases. It was a lot of times it was The Wrecking Crew. So Carol Kaye, the real person was the basis to put down the bass line. That famous bass line in In These Boots by Nancy Sinatra. The bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. So that was Carol Kaye and the fictional character in Mrs. May's All, who is also the bassist in the band and a befriended Midge and that season. So that was for me, another piece that I just really love about this. That's where rewards you for being astute in other areas, correct? If you if you know things like if you you know, if you don't if you don't know these things, that's that's totally fine. You're just going to be entertained for for an hour or however long the episode is. But if you if you're familiar with pop culture in any way, you don't need to just know the real people like Lenny Bruce. But it's knowing little things like The Gaslight Cafe. Carol Kaye, These types of people, you know, they are based on actual folks, even if it's just very loosely. Yeah, it's fun to see who they might be. You know, Sophie Lennon, Who is she referring to? Who is she trying to be that you would know as a fellow comedian? You know, is she somebody that or is she just whole cloth, a fresh character? And that's I think that's kind of picking the brain of Amy Sherman Palladino, the creator of this show. If you know her from Gilmore Girls, you know that she loves dance scripts, she loves the idea that there's there are more words there than really you need to do a half hour or 45 minutes of a show, but she packs it and I would assume it would be very difficult to to learn all those lines, particularly when she wants that kind of rapid fire way of talking. And that's how she is. She's just like that. She usually wears a hat, too. She loves wearing hats. She's short. She's not unlike Susie. I would assume that a lot of Susie's personality comes from Amy, and her husband. Daniel is also a producer on the show, and he writes as well. So they're they're kind of in sync with what this mindset is all about. And I'm sure she had a grand plan as to where she was going to take this whole thing. Now, you can easily see that they might have gone seven or eight years with this, but I think the idea of cutting it off now opens up other opportunities like a movie. And I think for them, let's let's try and make the fifth season as packed as we can and then we can go on and do those other things and not have to worry about time limitations or we've got to meet a deadline to get this on the air by a certain time because it's it's expensive. It is hugely expensive. Bruce, I don't think you know this, but you have just set up the perfect segue way into, oh, wow, some audio here. So we already heard from Rachel. Now we're going to hear from Tony Shalhoub, who plays Midge's father. He talks about how they didn't know how long this series was going to go, but felt that both Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino were able to wrap up the story perfectly the way it was supposed to be. So let's let's cut ahead to that clip. From what I understand, even though we didn't know how many seasons it may go or may not go, Amy and Dan always had, they always had the final scene in their heads. They always they didn't know exactly how we were going to get there, but they knew where we were going to land and then I think we all by osmosis, we all felt that cool. All right, so that was Tony Shalhoub. Bruce, does that sound accurate, like what he's talking about? Does it feel like the series wraps up perfectly? I think it does for me it did anyway. And I thought, like I say, the last episode is one you can't miss because it's and I, I cheated, all right? Because I was afraid I was doing an interview and I thought I better see the end just in case this character is dead. I don't want to end up asking, Well, like, you know, what about those later years are, well, I'm dead, so I won't be in those later years. But that wasn't the case. There wasn't anything. But I did watch the last episode before I finished off the other ones before it, and the last episode is a great example of standalone television. You could take that episode out, not see any of the rest of the series, and you would still get a really good sense of a story. It's like a little mini movie in itself, and it's interesting how they all are able to get friends in. There is a roast at one point that has a lot of comedians that you know, are friends of a lot of the actors that are in the shows. And there are ties. I think Rachel's husband is a character in the show. There are people that are all people who've been on Gilmore Girls, people who've been on Bunheads, people who have been, if you will, loyal over the years. And they repay that loyalty by giving them a shot in this last season. I mean, it's remarkable. If I sat and made a list of all the people that I saw, I, you know, a character that they introduced last season played by Gideon Glick, he's this magician and kind of an offbeat magician. And you go, What is this? I love that character. And he returns this season and he has a lot of really goofy things. He's afraid of flying. So that's a fear factor. And there there is a picture that you'll see out there somewhere that is JFK, the the airport. So you'll be able to see what that looks like inside. And it's just fascinating to see these characters. The last time I saw it was Catch Me if you can, and just to look at that and now there's a hotel there that you can stay at there. It's very commercial where you could go and actually do tourism things there. But it is featured in this season. Again, huge, huge landmarks that they're using in New York. I think it's fascinating to to realize that somebody didn't say no. Nobody was saying them, No, you can't do that. We can't afford to do that. It's like I'm sure she dreamed it. And very much like Susie, where she's not going to let somebody else tell her no, she's just going to keep going ahead and doing it. And I think that's in a nutshell. Amy. Amy Palladino I can't remember the timing of this. Was the JFK airport at the time, or was it still Idlewild? Yeah, it was, Yeah, it was, but as I know it is. I know I always wondered because it transitioned. It was not named. No, it was not named JFK because, you know, and interestingly, I don't remember that they've even mentioned that Kennedy has died at that point. But you'll see the eighties, you'll see the nineties, you'll see the seventies, you'll see various different time frames over the course of the of the of the episodes. Wow. So another character that was mentioned and we talked briefly about her was that of Alex Borstein. She plays Susie Myerson. You know, you had mentioned the connection with her to Amy Sherman-Palladino and whether it's the connection there. But we have a we have a clip of her also. Now, if you're familiar with her, she's also the voice of Lois on Family Guy. She's a comedian. She's been around for a really long time. But I think this is kind of like probably her biggest breakthrough screen role that I can think of on screen role. So we have a short clip of her talking about her relationship with Midge. So let's go to that. For a bit. Like Mutton, Jeff, It makes no sense. And yet there's just this chemistry. There's something that draws these women together and they've got each other's backs and it's not about finding a mate. It's about achieving something in their lives that they want. It's about filling a hole within and they complete each other. All right, Bruce So that was Alex Borstein talking about the relationship that Susie and Midge have. Is that connection? Because that was always one of my favorite things was the interactions between Midge and Susie and kind of the weird polar opposites that they are, but they have this great presence on screen together. Do we get more of that in this first season? We do. And you also get fighting. And that's as much as I can say about that. You know how they it's like on a soap opera where they love to put people together and then they like to tear them apart. And I think this falls into that. You know, there's there's a reason for them to be at each other's throats and maybe they both don't pay attention enough to what the needs are of the other person. But you see how how Susie is just giving her life for this person that maybe she might be a little too protected. You know, Mitch can Mitch has the ability to go and do this because she has her parents to fall back on if she really needs them. Her husband, her ex-husband is still there in the picture for her. She doesn't have that kind of if I don't do this, I don't know what will happen to my life. There is a safety net for her, and we've seen that over the years where she's taken jobs at other places and done other things and she gets a new job this year. And that's a safety net of sorts, too. But there's always this comedy where Susie has nothing. Susie is like she's all in and she will do whatever she needs to do to further the career of her client. Hopefully there will be more clients, but you know, you look at it and you say, Oh my God, she's just doing all this for one person. Is that friendship? Is that is that, you know, just survival? Is it? She's enamored with her. What is the what is the deal for her and why is she doing this? And you get answers to all of that stuff. It's just it's really fascinating. I remember when they went to the to the Catskills and they were staying there and I think she had a hammer or something. And she was like trying to do things with the hammer. And you go, Oh my God, this is unreal. And she's always treated like dirt by everybody. Everybody sees her as like their batboy for anything that goes wrong. Susie, we're going to go to you. Yeah, She said that season at the Catskills was just incredible. I mean, they basically took it was pretty much the entire season was more or less on location up there. And you still had to work her in somehow. And she obviously she doesn't dress like somebody that belongs there. So she just walked around with that hammer and like, I think a plunger, too, just looking like a maintenance worker and nobody would question it because that's what she did. But that relationship, you know, even though we're we're avoiding spoilers for season five, we had that adversarial give and take relationship between them throughout all the seasons. Because you're right, she didn't have anybody. Susie doesn't have anybody to fall back on, so she has to make a living, which meant at times taking on other clients. You know, she didn't want to be Sophie Lemon's manager, but she needed the money and then kind of had to deal with that abuse as well as the abuse of of Midge, who couldn't believe that she would support Sophie Lennon, who is her her nemesis. Right. Yeah. So, you know, that that to me has been just a great, you know, relationship. But it always comes back to when they meet in the diner, which is such an iconic New York thing. Like, I just love I miss diners so much. Bruce Living in Wisconsin, there's no diners out here. People who think there's diners out here, there is no diners out here that is. Have a drive thru with it, too, right? But it's such a it's just such a new York, New Jersey, East Coast cultural thing where you go to a diner and you get that triple decker club sandwich or the pastrami or whatever it is and a pile of food. You come all the other way, it's on you. Who knows everybody's order. Yeah. You know, you get that big pickle spear which probably sits on every plate, and they just move it from plate to plate so I don't touch it. The end. They do. Go back to the diner. You'll be seeing that and you'll be seeing various and sundry combinations of people talking. So it's a it's a key place. And like I say, these sets that they build the apartments, the business places they go to, it's unbelievable. I don't know how I would love to see what the budget was for this because it had to be huge because it looks good. And I there's a thing and there's this coming season where they mention something as a giveaway, okay? And I thought, oh no, that it's it's wrong. It's not the same time. And I had to look it up to make sure that that was within that time span. It was exactly in that time span. You know how you would say I like a yo I don't want to see what it is because again, this is one of those things. But if it was a yo yo and you say, well, yo, yo, what year was a Rubik's cube? That would be one a Rubik's Cube. Why are they giving away Rubik's cubes? They weren't available in 62 or 61 were they. I don't I think they didn't come until the seventies, but that's not yet. But there is another thing like that. And damn, if they didn't nail it. And I looked it up and it was exactly right, it it fit with the time frame. You'll see stuff like that that it just you want to play gotcha with them and they, they already know they're much better than we are at vetting these kinds of things. Yeah, they, they're really good. It's just nailing history. It is a history. Even though it is fiction, it is a history lesson throughout pop culture, history lesson. Were there characters that you really like that maybe aren't around or have, you know, dropped in for an episode or two? Well, you know, the Carol K one was one that I really liked. The magician that was in there in season four when Midge was working at that theater. And, you know, it's kind of the adult content. It's not quite a strip club, but it's that kind of like a doll that the manager of that club was. It's just a lot of those little characters like that. I really love the characters that I really felt a personal connection to, and we'll kind of kind of move this forward too, with some some clips that we have coming up. So we have Michael Zegen, who plays Joel Maze, all his parents. Kevin Pollack plays Moisi Maisel, his father, and then Caroline Aaron plays Shirley Mays or his mother. So I had mentioned earlier that that my mom was Catholic, my dad is Jewish. His parents, um, his mother died. My, my paternal grandmother died. I was probably about 15 years old when she passed away. She wasn't a very devout Jewish person. My grandfather was he was it could be. Yes, it was. That was probably about it. My grandfather was always a little bit more religious. And then after my grandmother died, he got remarried a year or two later is very quick. And the woman that he married, her name was Mildred. We all called her Millie and they became very devout again. He would go to temple. They kept kosher, but but Millie had a very unique personality. So when the show started and I started watching it, and when Joel's parents were finally introduced and Shirley Hazel comes on screen, I turned to my wife immediately and I'm like, Oh my goodness, that is Millie. That's Bella. Is Millie. Looks like Millie. Sounds like Millie. Acts like Millie. This is not like you can think that that there's there's acting here and we're over the top and there's no way people could be like this in real life. Surely Basil is Millie or Millie was Shirley. Mabel, whichever reality. So it to me there was just that personal connection that that strong, very strong personality with her. And in the father, I would I don't think my grandfather was any way like my she they had certain crossovers but you know Shirley and Millie were two peas in a pod. Shirley is a big fan of pop culture, and she knows all the names that Midge might throw out there. She has like she could give you an encyclopedia about the person, and she's so excited about everything. And of course, when Midge invites them to come to various and sundry things, oh, she's right there. She's ready to come. Whereas her own mother is like, well, this interrupt with what I'm doing. I don't know if I want to come and see you perform in front row is always Shirley. Shirley is there. She's all, This is wonderful. You're doing a great job. I love you, you're great. And you'll see they do a lot with them during this next year, so you'll enjoy that. I'm looking forward to that because that interaction with them and in some ways to my my maternal grandparents who were Catholic, they never interacted that often with each other. But there is always a very strange relationship between like my mom and her parents and my dad and his parents when they would interact. It was very I don't know if his adversarial is quite the way, but culturally very different. And I kind of get that with this show, like like Midge and her parents were very much one way, and Joel and his parents are very much another. And there is that that onscreen dynamic that I just love. And it kind of clicks with me a bit. Yeah, and they're together a lot. The four of them do a lot of things together. You'll be you'll be thrilled. You know, speaking of Moisi, Mazal, we do have one more clip of Kevin Pollak, and he's talking a little bit about the future of Mrs. Maisel. So let's go to that. Yeah, we're not going to ever say goodbye. And I predict now for you, in 4.3 years we'll be here talking about the amazing movie. There I said it. Kevin Pollak leaves a little bit of that door open. Could we see Mrs. May's old movie? I think it's the door has been cracked. Look, the way they need content these days and you know that it'd be an Amazon film in a minute. And, you know, so they put it in theaters. They could get a lot of attention for it. And then you just put it on streaming again. I think we've seen the model for all of this. And like I said, it would help pay the bills for all that expensive stuff that they're using because it looks like a Cinemascope film. It's shot. Well, it has great I mean, the scoring, they created original songs for this. Now, really for a half hour you're going to do that. And the sets, the costumes, the whole and, you know, the first season they won a lot of Emmys for those kind of below the line things. And I think this year they're going to be well rewarded for what they've done because it is so vast and so unbelievable. But, you know, it did not go unnoticed by the actors. I think they believe that they landed into a great situation. And I don't think it was by chance either that they were selected. I think these people, they knew who were the hard workers, they knew who the ones that would deliver for them. And it it it seems like it's a brutal show to do because it isn't just getting up and saying a line against somebody. You know, what's interesting is you'll see a little a clip of a TV show that stars Hank Azaria and Sutton Foster within the show. It looks it has a bit of Dick Van Dike to the quality of it. And Sutton Foster kind of seems like a mary Tyler Moore. And you think the idea that they would write this script for a show within a show that really isn't seen that much, you get a couple of lines out of it. And, you know, they did you know, they probably wrote the whole script or this sitcom that they were trying to reference in some way. And it's done in black and white. And you get all of that that kind of little homage. But clearly they are fans of the medium. They are ones who want to make sure that it comes across and you do get that sense of what the time was like. You know, it was not easy being a female comedian in New York, Hollywood, wherever. And I don't I think now it just seems too easy because we see comedians all over the place, you know, doing a one hour special on Netflix. But the idea that somebody would have had that or got that an unreal, unreal. And if I was able to interview Joan Rivers Times and she net, you know, as much as she was kind of oh what's the term I want to use not boisterous but she was you know, she seemed like a very like she would just tell it like it is and not worry about the consequences. That was not Joan. It was a character that she was portraying. She was the most loving, wonderful person who would would take you under her arms and just treat you like a friend. And that's the I think that's the same kind of disconnect you get here with Mrs. Maisel. She is two different people, but I can see easily that she is the the Joan Rivers is the template for Mrs. Maisel, even though their lives are much different. They don't they don't wind up the same way. They don't have the same dynamics. There aren't the same, you know, cards being played. But there is that kind of idea that I'm alone. I really am alone in this venture and I've got to do what I want to. Another series that it kind of seems similar to is Hacks, because you see Jean Smart showing what a comedian's like after the big days are over and how does she keep that going? And there's a glimpse of that with this fascinating because I think I think Joan Rivers is the mothership for all these kinds of things because of what she did do and the idea that look at Joan went to QVC and sold crap just to make money, you know, and what she had to do, she alienated Johnny Carson at one point and then she had her own show. But the one thing that she valued most was The Tonight Show. And there was no way they were going to let her back on with that because she had, you know, went as she had. She'd gone against the master and she wasn't sorry enough for Johnny to make this really work. And I think that was a big failing in Joan's life, is that she felt that somehow that relationship was not really repaired and she never got The Tonight Show. She didn't get things she wanted, but in the end, she did get a lot. And she is viewed as somebody they all look up to. You know, they say, well, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for Joan Rivers. And I think that's the path that you're looking at with Mrs. Maisel as well. So with Mrs. May's all leaving Prime Well, not really leaving. It's going to be there, but but this is a big tentpole production for them. What's left for Prime. They do have a lot of shows, but I also don't find myself going to Prime very often for original programing. It feels like a weird, weird platform to me compared some of the others in some ways, maybe a little bit like Apple Tv+, which has several big productions. But when there's nothing there, you know, when you run out of something like Ted Lasso, it feels like there's a long gap until something else comes. What what's your thinking on on Prime right now? I think, though, they're doing movies and a lot of those movies will draw the attention. And so I think that's where they'll get whatever. And they also have a lot of limited series that are ten and down or eight and done. And I think that for them is a better model then a series that who knows if you know the the the suits the executives who are in power may not like that series. And there it's just like network TV. As soon as one regime is out, there's do we have support? You know, unless you're the number one show on television they'll be looking to dump. Yeah. So we've been sprinkling clips throughout this episode, which has been fun because we don't always have audio from so many different people. But we do have one more and it's a little bit more than just a 1015 second clip. We have an interview. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I got to talk to it to Michael Zegen, who plays Mr. Maisel. And it's fascinating because I was always under the impression that his job could be gone at any minute. I really thought that Joel is not necessary to this show. He was important in the first year, but would you stick around? And so we got to talk about that and what this last season was like and what, you know, what what comes next. He is working on the Penguin, which is the new I think his HBO Max series with Colin Farrell, and he's a mobster in that. And so that's an excellent he'll be doing it Fascinating. And he feels very blessed, very blessed that he was a part of this because he knows it's magic in a bottle and you don't get that many times. Michael, how is it to say goodbye to this? I would think that would be very, very difficult. It is You're you're correct in you're you're sentiments. Yeah it's it's it's definitely difficult but it's some I don't know it doesn't feel like it's ended just yet especially you know we we still have all this and we're going to France together and I you know we still have this group text chain. So it's I don't think it'll ever quite feel over over. But I, I, you know, I know the reality of it. And we're not going to be filming anymore, which is devastating. Well, the last season is so stuffed with information. I mean, there's a lot there to unpack. What was it like when you were doing it? Did you say, Oh, my God, I can't believe this happened? And that happened. And, you know, there's a lot. There is, but there's always a lot. I feel like, yeah. And, you know, there's a lot of dialog. I actually think this year the scripts, they're always long, you know and I guess in our show is is supposed to be like, you know, 55 to 60 pages, our scripts are like 90 pages to 100 pages. So they're always long. I do feel like this this season, though, they were longer than most. And the locations, I mean, you're everywhere, you're doing the years, the whole all of it. That's why I thought it seemed like an awful lot. But maybe it's let's get it done and then move on to something else. Well, the show is big. It's been big from the beginning. You know, we went to Paris in the in the second season and the Catskills and Miami. So it's it's it's always been very big. And yeah, I mean, there's a lot of stuff, but somehow it just it still flows just as nicely as ever. And it's, you know, it's still. Mazal. When it started, did you feel, oh, they're going to get rid of my character at some point. I, I was just saying this in a in a previous interview. Yeah. In the first episode when I read it, I thought that was it for Joel and I thought it was going to be a guest star. I didn't even I, I looked at the you know, I was auditioning for it. They send you the cast breakdown and it said that he was a series regular. So I was like, Oh, even better. I had no idea. I really honestly thought this is it for him. And later. But but, you know, luckily that wasn't the case. And they were able to to create this this whole journey for and this evolution for this character. And there have been so many subplots of his that he just kind of owns. That must be a real cool feeling to have them kind of right for you, if you will. Yeah, we all get our subplots. But yeah, I mean, I think Joel's is is probably, I guess the most separate from from everybody else is they all kind of I mean, look, he's still in Midge's orbit, obviously, but but I think, you know, he's probably the he's like Pluto as opposed to, you know. Tony's not Venus. Right. What were you miss about this show? Because you had such a huge cast and of really great people? Well, that's what I mean. That's in that's it in a nutshell is the cast I, I, I, I'll miss everyone terribly isn't. And really, it's not just the cast, it's the crew. It's it's you know, our writers, Amy and Dan, obviously, I I'll miss everything about this show. Literally everything. This has been the greatest experience of my life so far, you know, work wise. I don't I was just talking to Tony and Kevin Pollak and they were saying, you know, by the way, no way, you're going to top this. So, like, they felt bad for me because they they were saying they're like, you have like years and years left. We only have like three and, you know, and I'm on it. It's over for me, basically. But I mean, I don't believe that, but I do I do believe that it's going to be very hard to top something like this. Do you think it's because of the writing that made it such an iconic show or was it something else? Is it spending a lot of money and doing a lot of things, making it bigger than normal? I think that the money is certainly helps. You know, luckily we had Amazon behind us and anything really Amy and Dan wanted they got because I think, you know, Amazon loved the show just as much as we did. But what was the first part of the question? Well, did did you think that it was going to be this this big, this kind of whatever, or was it the writing that really kind of sold all of this thing? It's really everything. It's the writing. It's like I said before, the crew, I mean, we had, you know, people at the top of their game in every, you know, whether it's lighting or set design or acting. I mean, it was just the whole the whole project was just lightning in a bottle. And and I think that's that's really just what made it so special. But yeah, did I have any idea I, I didn't know that it was going to be this big. I knew people were going to like it. I liked it. So, you know, I, I think I've got pretty good taste. And, you know, my if you look at my resume like I've done really good shows before and I've done shows that people watch. But but this was this took it to a new level. And, you know, right out of the gate, we we got nominated for all these awards and we won and we won the Golden Globe, you know, And that that was like, okay, yeah, we were right. Like, this is something special. And and now, you know, then we had to top that. And you got the Emmy. So there you go. Yes, We did. Talk about, though, Amy, as a as a force. I have my views of what she'd be like. I always see her in a hat and I always think she's like, she's marshaling troops. But is it like that or what is she like on on set? She's honestly just the best. You know, you talked about the writing. It doesn't get better than that. And and honestly, like, I'm a little sore about the fact that for, you know, the past couple of years at the Emmys, she's not even nominated for writing. I mean, this is the best written show on TV, you know. Yes. There's succession. There's all these other shows. But like in terms of comedy, it doesn't get better than this. And, you know, it's so rare for me to read something, especially when I'm home alone and I laugh out loud. That doesn't happen. And that's been happening on this show from day one. The minute I read the pilot, I was I was laughing. And and so, yeah, she's she's just, you know, there's there's a level of trust involved with her that that is unparalleled that I haven't I haven't experienced with anybody else. She shows up to set. I mean she's a former dancer, you know, and she thinks like a dancer. So, so even even our background actors, a lot of them are dancers. I don't know if you know that, but it's true. A lot of them are dancers and it's it's always a dance when we're rehearsing a scene because we don't have rehearsals, like prior to showing up to set and doing the scene. We, we, we get there on the day like, you know, 530 in the morning, whatever it is, and then we start blocking it out. And sometimes they're huge scenes. But I mean, you know, she's she's obviously in charge and there's this level of trust that I'll just do anything she wants because, you know, she knows what she wants. And to have a director who knows what they want is sometimes I mean, honestly, in my experience, it's rare. So what is it like watching Rachel do stand up? I mean, Rachel can do anything. You know, she's she always talks about how nervous she is. Like, I don't buy it. Like she's she's a she can do anything. She she's that type of actor where again, it's that level of trust. Like, I mean, any time I got to work with her was a joy and all of our I think you know all of our scenes that we got to do together were always my favorite. And yeah, I mean, you know, she talks about how nervous she is, how the audiences keep growing and growing for her character. And honestly, like, that stuff doesn't faze her. She was born to perform. And, you know, I don't I don't know if she would be a standup comedian, but but I'm sure she can handle that as well if she wanted to. Hey, and you can, too. So that might be even the next step. So. Hey, thank you so much, Michael. I appreciate it. And I thank you for all those years of really great television. Oh, thanks so much. I appreciate it. Thanks, Bruce, for that interview with Michael Zegen. What do we have on tap? Well, I'll tell you, I do. And tell me if you don't agree when you start watching this, this series by, because I think it's going to be in for a lot of Emmys, you know how they come and go. And they kind of had a down year. Never. They weren't getting nominated. And the things I think this year they're coming back with a vengeance. And I don't know how you could deny Rachel Brosnahan, the Emmy for best actress. Really? There are there is a moment there that you will go, Oh, my God, I'm glad I watch this series because it builds to this moment and it's unbelievable. And you'll, as you heard from Michael, you know, watching her was just unbelievable. But next week, we're going to talk about dead ringers. Here's another opportunity. And you wondered, where is Amazon going? Well, this is another series they've got, but it's a limited series. It's based off a movie. If you remember the movie by David Cronenberg, starring Jeremy Irons, he played brothers, twin brothers who were odd, to say the least, and they were involved in obstetrics and making all kinds of weird tools and instruments and whatnot. And they had freaky obsessions. They I mean, watch the movie. You'll see what I mean. It was one of those movies. Take me out for the longest time. Well, they've redone the movie and it's now a limited series, and it features two women as twins. Beverly and Elliot Mantle are now played by Rachel Weisz and Rachel really digs into it. She's and she has lots of fun. And you'll see a different Beverly and a different Elliot. And then it's at one point they play each other to try and dupe their friends. So it's a fascinating look at characters, but I do think they made a horrible land. I just kind of have that feeling knowing how the movie went. But that's next. We were talking to people who were involved in Dead Ringers, and that'll be coming as a limited series later this month. All right, Bruce, thanks again, as always. And tune in again next week for another episode of Streaming & Screened.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Visit the pivotal developments of Bob Dylan's professional life in August and September of 1962 as we travel "A Highway of Diamonds" back 60 years ago. Dylan takes a trip back to Minnesota and, missing his girlfriend who was in Italy, calls up Dave Van Ronk in New York and tells John Cohen that he may never  return there without her. He legally changes his name to Bob Dylan, signs with Albert Grossman, plays parties for friends and joins the Carnegie Hall Hootenanny sixty years ago to the night of this episode's broadcast, where he unveils "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" to the world (he had debuted it before a small crowd at the Gaslight Cafe a few days earlier). A 60th anniversary is a diamond anniversary, so this week, and throughout the year, we will periodically take a trip on "a highway of diamonds," exploring the events of Bob Dylan's career sixty years ago. In "20 Pounds of Headlines," we bring you news from the world of Bob Dylan, both in August & September of 1962 and September of 2022. In "Who Did It Better?" we ask you to vote and tell us who did "Tomorrow is a Long Time" better: Ian & Sylvia or The Seldom Scene? Listen to the episode, then go to our Twitter page @RainTrains to vote!

This week on Comes A Time Mike and Oteil sit down with a hippie icon and a legend of the counterculture movement- the one and only Wavy Gravy! You'll hear Wavy tell the guys about his friendship with Bob Dylan when they lived atop the Gaslight Cafe in New York City, opening for John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk, and taking walks with Albert Einstein. The guys also discuss Wavy's Seva Foundation which helps develop self-sustaining programs that preserve and restore sight for the blind, the early days of the Grateful Dead, and Wavy's circus and arts summer camp, Camp Winnarainbow.Wavy Gravy is an American entertainer and peace activist best known for his role at Woodstock, as well as for his contributions to the counterculture movement in the 1960s. But these accolades barely scratch the surface in telling the whole story about the positive impact that he's had on the planet. Along with Jahanara, his wife of over fifty years, Wavy has brought joy and helped to relieve suffering for countless people around the globe, largely through his favorite projects- the Seva Foundation and Camp Winnarainbow. Wavy has been called “clown prince of the counterculture” by Entertainment Weekly, “a saint in a clown suit” by Bob Weir, and “the illegitimate son of Harpo Marx and Mother Teresa” by Paul Krassner. Tune in to hear all about the wondrous life and creative activism of Wavy Gravy!-----------*DISCLAIMER: This podcast does NOT provide medical advice. The information contained in this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. No material in this podcast is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment and before undertaking a new health care regimen*-----------This podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please leave us a rating or review on iTunes!Comes A Time is brought to you by Osiris Media. Hosted and Produced by Oteil Burbridge and Mike Finoia. Executive Producers are Christina Collins and RJ Bee. Production, Editing and Mixing by Eric Limarenko and Matt Dwyer. Theme music by Oteil Burbridge. Production assistance by Matt Bavuso. To discover more podcasts that connect you more deeply to the music you love, check out osirispod.com-------Visit SunsetlakeCBD.com and use the promo code TIME for 20% off premium CBD products See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on Comes A Time Mike and Oteil sit down with a hippie icon and a legend of the counterculture movement- the one and only Wavy Gravy! You'll hear Wavy tell the guys about his friendship with Bob Dylan when they lived atop the Gaslight Cafe in New York City, opening for John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk, and taking walks with Albert Einstein. The guys also discuss Wavy's Seva Foundation which helps develop self-sustaining programs that preserve and restore sight for the blind, the early days of the Grateful Dead, and Wavy's circus and arts summer camp, Camp Winnarainbow. Wavy Gravy is an American entertainer and peace activist best known for his role at Woodstock, as well as for his contributions to the counterculture movement in the 1960s. But these accolades barely scratch the surface in telling the whole story about the positive impact that he's had on the planet. Along with Jahanara, his wife of over fifty years, Wavy has brought joy and helped to relieve suffering for countless people around the globe, largely through his favorite projects- the Seva Foundation and Camp Winnarainbow. Wavy has been called “clown prince of the counterculture” by Entertainment Weekly, “a saint in a clown suit” by Bob Weir, and “the illegitimate son of Harpo Marx and Mother Teresa” by Paul Krassner. Tune in to hear all about the wondrous life and creative activism of Wavy Gravy! ----------- *DISCLAIMER: This podcast does NOT provide medical advice. The information contained in this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. No material in this podcast is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment and before undertaking a new health care regimen* ----------- Visit SunsetlakeCBD.com and use the promo code TIME for 20% off premium CBD products Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

GGACP marks the 30th anniversary of 1992's "The Player" with this encore presentation of a 2020 interview with Oscar-winning actor, musician and activist Tim Robbins. In this episode, Tim talks about the "New Hollywood" of the '70s, the genius and generosity of Robert Altman, the timeliness of Depression-era screwball comedies and the enduring appeal of "The Shawshank Redemption." Also, Gore Vidal steals the show, Richard Pryor plays The Gaslight Cafe, Orson Welles locks horns with William Randolph Hearst and Tim (fondly) remembers Paul Newman, Don Rickles and Robin Williams. PLUS: "Bobbo Supreme"! "Howard the Duck"! Monty Python comes calling! In praise of "The Hudsucker Proxy"! And Tim weighs in on the future of movie theaters! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode one hundred and thirty-five of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel, and the many records they made, together and apart, before their success. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on "Blues Run the Game" by Jackson C. Frank. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Errata I talk about a tour of Lancashire towns, but some of the towns I mention were in Cheshire at the time, and some are in Greater Manchester or Merseyside now. They're all very close together though. I say Mose Rager was Black. I was misremembering, confusing Mose Rager, a white player in the Muhlenberg style, with Arnold Schultz, a Black player who invented it. I got this right in the episode on "Bye Bye Love". Also, I couldn't track down a copy of the Paul Kane single version of “He Was My Brother” in decent quality, so I used the version on The Paul Simon Songbook instead, as they're basically identical performances. Resources As usual, I've created a Mixcloud playlist of the music excerpted here. This compilation collects all Simon and Garfunkel's studio albums, with bonus tracks, plus a DVD of their reunion concert. There are many collections of the pre-S&G recordings by the two, as these are now largely in the public domain. This one contains a good selection. I've referred to several books for this episode: Simon and Garfunkel: Together Alone by Spencer Leigh is a breezy, well-researched, biography of the duo. Paul Simon: The Life by Robert Hilburn is the closest thing there is to an authorised biography of Simon. And What is it All But Luminous? is Art Garfunkel's memoir. It's not particularly detailed, being more a collection of thoughts and poetry than a structured narrative, but gives a good idea of Garfunkel's attitude to people and events in his life. Roots, Radicals, and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World by Billy Bragg has some great information on the British folk scene of the fifties and sixties. And Singing From the Floor is an oral history of British folk clubs, including a chapter on Dylan's 1962 visit to London. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Today, we're going to take a look at a hit record that almost never happened -- a record by a duo who had already split up, twice, by the time it became a hit, and who didn't know it was going to come out. We're going to look at how a duo who started off as an Everly Brothers knockoff, before becoming unsuccessful Greenwich Village folkies, were turned into one of the biggest acts of the sixties by their producer. We're going to look at Simon and Garfunkel, and at "The Sound of Silence": [Excerpt: Simon and Garfunkel, "The Sound of Silence"] The story of Simon and Garfunkel starts with two children in a school play.  Neither Paul Simon or Art Garfunkel had many friends when they met in a school performance of Alice in Wonderland, where Simon was playing the White Rabbit and Garfunkel the Cheshire Cat. Simon was well-enough liked, by all accounts, but he'd been put on an accelerated programme for gifted students which meant he was progressing through school faster than his peers. He had a small social group, mostly based around playing baseball, but wasn't one of the popular kids. Art Garfunkel, another gifted student, had no friends at all until he got to know Simon, who he described later as his "one and only friend" in this time period. One passage in Garfunkel's autobiography seems to me to sum up everything about Garfunkel's personality as a child -- and indeed a large part of his personality as it comes across in interviews to this day. He talks about the pleasure he got from listening to the chart rundown on the radio -- "It was the numbers that got me. I kept meticulous lists—when a new singer like Tony Bennett came onto the charts with “Rags to Riches,” I watched the record jump from, say, #23 to #14 in a week. The mathematics of the jumps went to my sense of fun." Garfunkel is, to this day, a meticulous person -- on his website he has a list of every book he's read since June 1968, which is currently up to one thousand three hundred and ten books, and he has always had a habit of starting elaborate projects and ticking off every aspect of them as he goes. Both Simon and Garfunkel were outsiders at this point, other than their interests in sport, but Garfunkel was by far the more introverted of the two, and as a result he seems to have needed their friendship more than Simon did. But the two boys developed an intense, close, friendship, initially based around their shared sense of humour. Both of them were avid readers of Mad magazine, which had just started publishing when the two of them had met up, and both could make each other laugh easily. But they soon developed a new interest, when Martin Block on the middle-of-the-road radio show Make Believe Ballroom announced that he was going to play the worst record he'd ever heard. That record was "Gee" by the Crows: [Excerpt: The Crows, "Gee"] Paul Simon later said that that record was the first thing he'd ever heard on that programme that he liked, and soon he and Garfunkel had become regular listeners to Alan Freed's show on WINS, loving the new rock and roll music they were discovering. Art had already been singing in public from an early age -- his first public performance had been singing Nat "King" Cole's hit "Too Young" in a school talent contest when he was nine -- but the two started singing together. The first performance by Simon and Garfunkel was at a high school dance and, depending on which source you read, was a performance either of "Sh'Boom" or of Big Joe Turner's "Flip, Flop, and Fly": [Excerpt: Big Joe Turner, "Flip, Flop, and Fly"] The duo also wrote at least one song together as early as 1955 -- or at least Garfunkel says they wrote it together. Paul Simon describes it as one he wrote. They tried to get a record deal with the song, but it was never recorded at the time -- but Simon has later performed it: [Excerpt: Paul Simon, "The Girl For Me"] Even at this point, though, while Art Garfunkel was putting all his emotional energy into the partnership with Simon, Simon was interested in performing with other people. Al Kooper was another friend of Simon's at the time, and apparently Simon and Kooper would also perform together. Once Elvis came on to Paul's radar, he also bought a guitar, but it was when the two of them first heard the Everly Brothers that they realised what it was that they could do together. Simon fell in love with the Everly Brothers as soon as he heard "Bye Bye Love": [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, "Bye Bye Love"] Up to this point, Paul hadn't bought many records -- he spent his money on baseball cards and comic books, and records just weren't good value. A pack of baseball cards was five cents, a comic book was ten cents, but a record was a dollar. Why buy records when you could hear music on the radio for free? But he needed that record, he couldn't just wait around to hear it on the radio. He made an hour-long two-bus journey to a record shop in Queens, bought the record, took it home, played it... and almost immediately scratched it. So he got back on the bus, travelled for another hour, bought another copy, took it home, and made sure he didn't scratch that one. Simon and Garfunkel started copying the Everlys' harmonies, and would spend hours together, singing close together watching each other's mouths and copying the way they formed words, eventually managing to achieve a vocal blend through sheer effort which would normally only come from familial closeness. Paul became so obsessed with music that he sold his baseball card collection and bought a tape recorder for two hundred dollars. They would record themselves singing, and then sing back along with it, multitracking themselves, but also critiquing the tape, refining their performances. Paul's father was a bass player -- "the family bassman", as he would later sing -- and encouraged his son in his music, even as he couldn't see the appeal in this new rock and roll music. He would critique Paul's songs, saying things like "you went from four-four to a bar of nine-eight, you can't do that" -- to which his son would say "I just did" -- but this wasn't hostile criticism, rather it was giving his son a basic grounding in song construction which would prove invaluable. But the duo's first notable original song -- and first hit -- came about more or less by accident. In early 1956, the doo-wop group the Clovers had released the hit single "Devil or Angel". Its B-side had a version of "Hey Doll Baby", a song written by the blues singer Titus Turner, and which sounds to me very inspired by Hank Williams' "Hey, Good Lookin'": [Excerpt: The Clovers, "Hey, Doll Baby"] That song was picked up by the Everly Brothers, who recorded it for their first album: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, "Hey Doll Baby"] Here is where the timeline gets a little confused for me, because that album wasn't released until early 1958, although the recording session for that track was in August 1957. Yet that track definitely influenced Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel to record a song that they released in November 1957. All I can imagine is that they heard the brothers perform it live, or maybe a radio station had an acetate copy. Because the way everyone has consistently told the story is that at the end of summer 1957, Simon and Garfunkel had both heard the Everly Brothers perform "Hey Doll Baby", but couldn't remember how it went. The two of them tried to remember it, and to work a version of it out together, and their hazy memories combined to reconstruct something that was completely different, and which owed at least as much to "Wake Up Little Suzie" as to "Hey Doll Baby". Their new song, "Hey Schoolgirl", was catchy enough that they thought if they recorded a demo of it, maybe the Everly Brothers themselves would record the song. At the demo studio they happened to encounter Sid Prosen, who owned a small record label named Big Records. He heard the duo perform and realised he might have his own Everly Brothers here. He signed the duo to a contract, and they went into a professional studio to rerecord "Hey Schoolgirl", this time with Paul's father on bass, and a couple of other musicians to fill out the sound: [Excerpt: Tom and Jerry, "Hey Schoolgirl"] Of course, the record couldn't be released under their real names -- there was no way anyone was going to buy a record by Simon and Garfunkel. So instead they became Tom and Jerry. Paul Simon was Jerry Landis -- a surname he chose because he had a crush on a girl named Sue Landis. Art became Tom Graff, because he liked drawing graphs. "Hey Schoolgirl" became a local hit. The two were thrilled to hear it played on Alan Freed's show (after Sid Prosen gave Freed two hundred dollars), and were even more thrilled when they got to perform on American Bandstand, on the same show as Jerry Lee Lewis. When Dick Clark asked them where they were from, Simon decided to claim he was from Macon, Georgia, where Little Richard came from, because all his favourite rock and roll singers were from the South. "Hey Schoolgirl" only made number forty-nine nationally, because the label didn't have good national distribution, but it sold over a hundred thousand copies, mostly in the New York area. And Sid Prosen seems to have been one of a very small number of independent label owners who wasn't a crook -- the two boys got about two thousand dollars each from their hit record. But while Tom and Jerry seemed like they might have a successful career, Simon and Garfunkel were soon to split up, and the reason for their split was named True Taylor. Paul had been playing some of his songs for Sid Prosen, to see what the duo's next single should be, and Prosen had noticed that while some of them were Everly Brothers soundalikes, others were Elvis soundalikes. Would Paul be interested in recording some of those, too? Obviously Art couldn't sing on those, so they'd use a different name, True Taylor. The single was released around the same time as the second Tom and Jerry record, and featured an Elvis-style ballad by Paul on one side, and a rockabilly song written by his father on the other: [Excerpt: True Taylor, "True or False"] But Paul hadn't discussed that record with Art before doing it, and the two had vastly different ideas about their relationship. Paul was Art's only friend, and Art thought they had an indissoluble bond and that they would always work together. Paul, on the other hand, thought of Art as one of his friends and someone he made music with, but he could play at being Elvis if he wanted, as well as playing at being an Everly brother. Garfunkel, in his memoir published in 2017, says "the friendship was shattered for life" -- he decided then and there that Paul Simon was a "base" person, a betrayer. But on the other hand, he still refers to Simon, over and over again, in that book as still being his friend, even as Simon has largely been disdainful of him since their last performance together in 2010. Friendships are complicated. Tom and Jerry struggled on for a couple more singles, which weren't as successful as "Hey Schoolgirl" had been, with material like "Two Teenagers", written by Rose Marie McCoy: [Excerpt: Tom and Jerry, "Two Teenagers"] But as they'd stopped being friends, and they weren't selling records, they drifted apart and didn't really speak for five years, though they would occasionally run into one another. They both went off to university, and Garfunkel basically gave up on the idea of having a career in music, though he did record a couple of singles, under the name "Artie Garr": [Excerpt: Artie Garr, "Beat Love"] But for the most part, Garfunkel concentrated on his studies, planning to become either an architect or maybe an academic. Paul Simon, on the other hand, while he was technically studying at university too, was only paying minimal attention to his studies. Instead, he was learning the music business. Every afternoon, after university had finished, he'd go around the Brill Building and its neighbouring buildings, offering his services both as a songwriter and as a demo performer. As Simon was competent on guitar, bass, and drums, could sing harmonies, and could play a bit of piano if it was in the key of C, he could use primitive multitracking to play and sing all the parts on a demo, and do it well: [Excerpt: Paul Simon, "Boys Were Made For Girls"] That's an excerpt from a demo Simon recorded for Burt Bacharach, who has said that he tried to get Simon to record as many of his demos as possible, though only a couple of them have surfaced publicly. Simon would also sometimes record demos with his friend Carole Klein, sometimes under the name The Cosines: [Excerpt: The Cosines, "Just to Be With You"] As we heard back in the episode on "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?", Carole Klein went on to change her name to Carole King, and become one of the most successful songwriters of the era -- something which spurred Paul Simon on, as he wanted to emulate her success. Simon tried to get signed up by Don Kirshner, who was publishing Goffin and King, but Kirshner turned Simon down -- an expensive mistake for Kirshner, but one that would end up benefiting Simon, who eventually figured out that he should own his own publishing. Simon was also getting occasional work as a session player, and played lead guitar on "The Shape I'm In" by Johnny Restivo, which made the lower reaches of the Hot One Hundred: [Excerpt: Johnny Restivo, "The Shape I'm In"] Between 1959 and 1963 Simon recorded a whole string of unsuccessful pop singles. including as a member of the Mystics: [Excerpt: The Mystics, "All Through the Night"] He even had a couple of very minor chart hits -- he got to number 99 as Tico and the Triumphs: [Excerpt: Tico and the Triumphs, "Motorcycle"] and number ninety-seven as Jerry Landis: [Excerpt: Jerry Landis, "The Lone Teen Ranger"] But he was jumping around, hopping onto every fad as it passed, and not getting anywhere. And then he started to believe that he could do something more interesting in music. He first became aware that the boundaries of what could be done in music extended further than "ooh-bop-a-loochy-ba" when he took a class on modern music at university, which included a trip to Carnegie Hall to hear a performance of music by the avant-garde composer Edgard Varese: [Excerpt: Edgard Varese, "Ionisation"] Simon got to meet Varese after the performance, and while he would take his own music in a very different, and much more commercial, direction than Varese's, he was nonetheless influenced by what Varese's music showed about the possibilities that existed in music. The other big influence on Simon at this time was when he heard The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Girl From the North Country"] Simon immediately decided to reinvent himself as a folkie, despite at this point knowing very little about folk music other than the Everly Brothers' Songs Our Daddy Taught Us album. He tried playing around Greenwich Village, but found it an uncongenial atmosphere, and inspired by the liner notes to the Dylan album, which talked about Dylan's time in England, he made what would be the first of several trips to the UK, where he was given a rapturous reception simply on the grounds of being an American and owning a better acoustic guitar -- a Martin -- than most British people owned. He had the showmanship that he'd learned from watching his father on stage and sometimes playing with him, and from his time in Tom and Jerry and working round the studios, and so he was able to impress the British folk-club audiences, who were used to rather earnest, scholarly, people, not to someone like Simon who was clearly ambitious and very showbiz. His repertoire at this point consisted mostly of songs from the first two Dylan albums, a Joan Baez record, Little Willie John's "Fever", and one song he'd written himself, an attempt at a protest song called "He Was My Brother", which he would release on his return to the US under yet another stage name, Paul Kane: [Excerpt: Paul Kane, "He Was My Brother"] Simon has always stated that that song was written about a friend of his who was murdered when he went down to Mississippi with the Freedom Riders -- but while Simon's friend was indeed murdered, it wasn't until about a year after he wrote the song, and Simon has confused the timelines in his subsequent recollections. At the time he recorded that, when he had returned to New York at the end of the summer, Simon had a job as a song plugger for a publishing company, and he gave the publishing company the rights to that song and its B-side, which led to that B-side getting promoted by the publisher, and ending up covered on one of the biggest British albums of 1964, which went to number two in the UK charts: [Excerpt: Val Doonican, "Carlos Dominguez"] Oddly, that may not end up being the only time we feature a Val Doonican track on this podcast. Simon continued his attempts to be a folkie, even teaming up again with Art Garfunkel, with whom he'd re-established contact, to perform in Greenwich Village as Kane and Garr, but they went down no better as a duo than Simon had as a solo artist. Simon went back to the UK again over Christmas 1963, and while he was there he continued work on a song that would become such a touchstone for him that of the first six albums he would be involved in, four would feature the song while a fifth would include a snippet of it. "The Sound of Silence" was apparently started in November 1963, but not finished until February 1964, by which time he was once again back in the USA, and back working as a song plugger. It was while working as a song plugger that Simon first met Tom Wilson, Bob Dylan's producer at Columbia. Simon met up with Wilson trying to persuade him to use some of the songs that the publishing company were putting out. When Wilson wasn't interested, Simon played him a couple of his own songs. Wilson took one of them, "He Was My Brother", for the Pilgrims, a group he was producing who were supposed to be the Black answer to Peter, Paul, and Mary: [Excerpt: The Pilgrims, "He Was My Brother"] Wilson was also interested in "The Sound of Silence", but Simon was more interested in getting signed as a performer than in having other acts perform his songs. Wilson was cautious, though -- he was already producing one folkie singer-songwriter, and he didn't really need a second one. But he *could* probably do with a vocal group... Simon mentioned that he had actually made a couple of records before, as part of a duo. Would Wilson be at all interested in a vocal *duo*? Wilson would be interested. Simon and Garfunkel auditioned for him, and a few days later were in the Columbia Records studio on Seventh Avenue recording their first album as a duo, which was also the first time either of them would record under their own name. Wednesday Morning, 3AM, the duo's first album, was a simple acoustic album, and the only instrumentation was Simon and Barry Kornfeld, a Greenwich Village folkie, on guitars, and Bill Lee, the double bass player who'd played with Dylan and others, on bass. Tom Wilson guided the duo in their song selection, and the eventual album contained six cover versions and six originals written by Simon. The cover versions were a mixture of hootenanny staples like "Go Tell it on the Mountain", plus Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'", included to cross-promote Dylan's new album and to try to link the duo with the more famous writer, and one unusual one, "The Sun is Burning", written by Ian Campbell, a Scottish folk singer who Simon had got to know on his trips to the UK: [Excerpt: Simon and Garfunkel, "The Sun is Burning"] But the song that everyone was keenest on was "The Sound of Silence", the first song that Simon had written that he thought would stand up in comparison with the sort of song that Dylan was writing: [Excerpt: Simon and Garfunkel, "The Sound of Silence (Wednesday Morning 3AM version)"] In between sessions for the album, Simon and Garfunkel also played a high-profile gig at Gerde's Folk City in the Village, and a couple of shows at the Gaslight Cafe. The audiences there, though, regarded them as a complete joke -- Dave Van Ronk would later relate that for weeks afterwards, all anyone had to do was sing "Hello darkness, my old friend", for everyone around to break into laughter. Bob Dylan was one of those who laughed at the performance -- though Robert Shelton later said that Dylan hadn't been laughing at them, specifically, he'd just had a fit of the giggles -- and this had led to a certain amount of anger from Simon towards Dylan. The album was recorded in March 1964, and was scheduled for release  in October. In the meantime, they both made plans to continue with their studies and their travels. Garfunkel was starting to do postgraduate work towards his doctorate in mathematics, while Simon was now enrolled in Brooklyn Law School, but was still spending most of his time travelling, and would drop out after one semester. He would spend much of the next eighteen months in the UK. While he was occasionally in the US between June 1964 and November 1965, Simon now considered himself based in England, where he made several acquaintances that would affect his life deeply. Among them were a young woman called Kathy Chitty, with whom he would fall in love and who would inspire many of his songs, and an older woman called Judith Piepe (and I apologise if I'm mispronouncing her name, which I've only ever seen written down, never heard) who many people believed had an unrequited crush on Simon. Piepe ran her London flat as something of a commune for folk musicians, and Simon lived there for months at a time while in the UK. Among the other musicians who stayed there for a time were Sandy Denny, Cat Stevens, and Al Stewart, whose bedroom was next door to Simon's. Piepe became Simon's de facto unpaid manager and publicist, and started promoting him around the British folk scene. Simon also at this point became particularly interested in improving his guitar playing. He was spending a lot of time at Les Cousins, the London club that had become the centre of British acoustic guitar. There are, roughly, three styles of acoustic folk guitar -- to be clear, I'm talking about very broad-brush categorisations here, and there are people who would disagree and say there are more, but these are the main ones. Two of these are American styles -- there's the simple style known as Carter scratching, popularised by Mother Maybelle Carter of the Carter family, and for this all you do is alternate bass notes with your thumb while scratching the chord on the treble strings with one finger, like this: [Excerpt: Carter picking] That's the style played by a lot of country and folk players who were primarily singers accompanying themselves. In the late forties and fifties, though, another style had become popularised -- Travis picking. This is named after Merle Travis, the most well-known player in the style, but he always called it Muhlenberg picking, after Muhlenberg County, where he'd learned the style from Ike Everly -- the Everly Brothers' father -- and Mose Rager, a Black guitarist. In Travis picking, the thumb alternates between two bass notes, but rather than strumming a chord, the index and middle fingers play simple patterns on the treble strings, like this: [Excerpt: Travis picking] That's, again, a style primarily used for accompaniment, but it can also be used to play instrumentals by oneself. As well as Travis and Ike Everly, it's also the style played by Donovan, Chet Atkins, James Taylor, and more. But there's a third style, British baroque folk guitar, which was largely the invention of Davey Graham. Graham, you might remember, was a folk guitarist who had lived in the same squat as Lionel Bart when Bart started working with Tommy Steele, and who had formed a blues duo with Alexis Korner. Graham is now best known for one of his simpler pieces, “Anji”, which became the song that every British guitarist tried to learn: [Excerpt: Davey Graham, "Anji"] Dozens of people, including Paul Simon, would record versions of that. Graham invented an entirely new style of guitar playing, influenced by ragtime players like Blind Blake, but also by Bach, by Moroccan oud music, and by Celtic bagpipe music. While it was fairly common for players to retune their guitar to an open major chord, allowing them to play slide guitar, Graham retuned his to a suspended fourth chord -- D-A-D-G-A-D -- which allowed him to keep a drone going on some strings while playing complex modal counterpoints on others. While I demonstrated the previous two styles myself, I'm nowhere near a good enough guitarist to demonstrate British folk baroque, so here's an excerpt of Davey Graham playing his own arrangement of the traditional ballad "She Moved Through the Fair", recast as a raga and retitled "She Moved Thru' the Bizarre": [Excerpt: Davey Graham, "She Moved Thru' the Bizarre"] Graham's style was hugely influential on an entire generation of British guitarists, people who incorporated world music and jazz influences into folk and blues styles, and that generation of guitarists was coming up at the time and playing at Les Cousins. People who started playing in this style included Jimmy Page, Bert Jansch, Roy Harper, John Renbourn, Richard Thompson, Nick Drake, and John Martyn, and it also had a substantial influence on North American players like Joni Mitchell, Tim Buckley, and of course Paul Simon. Simon was especially influenced at this time by Martin Carthy, the young British guitarist whose style was very influenced by Graham -- but while Graham applied his style to music ranging from Dave Brubeck to Lutheran hymns to Big Bill Broonzy songs, Carthy mostly concentrated on traditional English folk songs. Carthy had a habit of taking American folk singers under his wing, and he taught Simon several songs, including Carthy's own arrangement of the traditional "Scarborough Fair": [Excerpt: Martin Carthy, "Scarborough Fair"] Simon would later record that arrangement, without crediting Carthy, and this would lead to several decades of bad blood between them, though Carthy forgave him in the 1990s, and the two performed the song together at least once after that. Indeed, Simon seems to have made a distinctly negative impression on quite a few of the musicians he knew in Britain at this time, who seem to, at least in retrospect, regard him as having rather used and discarded them as soon as his career became successful. Roy Harper has talked in liner notes to CD reissues of his work from this period about how Simon used to regularly be a guest in his home, and how he has memories of Simon playing with Harper's baby son Nick (now himself one of the greats of British guitar) but how as soon as he became successful he never spoke to Harper again. Similarly, in 1965 Simon started a writing partnership with Bruce Woodley of the Seekers, an Australian folk-pop band based in the UK, best known for "Georgy Girl". The two wrote "Red Rubber Ball", which became a hit for the Cyrkle: [Excerpt: The Cyrke, "Red Rubber Ball"] and also "Cloudy", which the Seekers recorded as an album track: [Excerpt: The Seekers, "Cloudy"] When that was recorded by Simon and Garfunkel, Woodley's name was removed from the writing credits, though Woodley still apparently received royalties for it. But at this point there *was* no Simon and Garfunkel. Paul Simon was a solo artist working the folk clubs in Britain, and Simon and Garfunkel's one album had sold a minuscule number of copies. They did, when Simon briefly returned to the US in March, record two tracks for a prospective single, this time with an electric backing band. One was a rewrite of the title track of their first album, now titled "Somewhere They Can't Find Me" and with a new chorus and some guitar parts nicked from Davey Graham's "Anji"; the other a Twist-beat song that could almost be Manfred Mann or Georgie Fame -- "We Got a Groovy Thing Goin'". That was also influenced by “Anji”, though by Bert Jansch's version rather than Graham's original. Jansch rearranged the song and stuck in this phrase: [Excerpt: Bert Jansch, “Anji”] Which became the chorus to “We Got a Groovy Thing Goin'”: [Excerpt: Simon and Garfunkel, "We Got a Groovy Thing Goin'"] But that single was never released, and as far as Columbia were concerned, Simon and Garfunkel were a defunct act, especially as Tom Wilson, who had signed them, was looking to move away from Columbia. Art Garfunkel did come to visit Simon in the UK a couple of times, and they'd even sing together occasionally, but it was on the basis of Paul Simon the successful club act occasionally inviting his friend on stage during the encore, rather than as a duo, and Garfunkel was still seeing music only as a sideline while Simon was now utterly committed to it. He was encouraged in this commitment by Judith Piepe, who considered him to be the greatest songwriter of his generation, and who started a letter-writing campaign to that effect, telling the BBC they needed to put him on the radio. Eventually, after a lot of pressure, they agreed -- though they weren't exactly sure what to do with him, as he didn't fit into any of the pop formats they had. He was given his own radio show -- a five-minute show in a religious programming slot. Simon would perform a song, and there would be an introduction tying the song into some religious theme or other. Two series of four episodes of this were broadcast, in a plum slot right after Housewives' Choice, which got twenty million listeners, and the BBC were amazed to find that a lot of people phoned in asking where they could get hold of the records by this Paul Simon fellow. Obviously he didn't have any out yet, and even the Simon and Garfunkel album, which had been released in the US, hadn't come out in Britain. After a little bit of negotiation, CBS, the British arm of Columbia Records, had Simon come in and record an album of his songs, titled The Paul Simon Songbook. The album, unlike the Simon and Garfunkel album, was made up entirely of Paul Simon originals. Two of them were songs that had previously been recorded for Wednesday Morning 3AM -- "He Was My Brother" and a new version of "The Sound of Silence": [Excerpt: Paul Simon, "The Sound of Silence"] The other ten songs were newly-written pieces like "April Come She Will", "Kathy's Song", a parody of Bob Dylan entitled "A Simple Desultory Philippic", and the song that was chosen as the single, "I am a Rock": [Excerpt: Paul Simon, "I am a Rock"] That song was also the one that was chosen for Simon's first TV appearance since Tom and Jerry had appeared on Bandstand eight years earlier. The appearance on Ready, Steady, Go, though, was not one that anyone was happy with. Simon had been booked to appear on  a small folk music series, Heartsong, but that series was cancelled before he could appear. Rediffusion, the company that made the series, also made Ready, Steady, Go, and since they'd already paid Simon they decided they might as well stick him on that show and get something for their money. Unfortunately, the episode in question was already running long, and it wasn't really suited for introspective singer-songwriter performances -- the show was geared to guitar bands and American soul singers. Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the director, insisted that if Simon was going to do his song, he had to cut at least one verse, while Simon was insistent that he needed to perform the whole thing because "it's a story". Lindsay-Hogg got his way, but nobody was happy with the performance. Simon's album was surprisingly unsuccessful, given the number of people who'd called the BBC asking about it -- the joke went round that the calls had all been Judith Piepe doing different voices -- and Simon continued his round of folk clubs, pubs, and birthday parties, sometimes performing with Garfunkel, when he visited for the summer, but mostly performing on his own. One time he did perform with a full band, singing “Johnny B Goode” at a birthday party, backed by a band called Joker's Wild who a couple of weeks later went into the studio to record their only privately-pressed five-song record, of them performing recent hits: [Excerpt: Joker's Wild, "Walk Like a Man"] The guitarist from Joker's Wild would later join the other band who'd played at that party, but the story of David Gilmour joining Pink Floyd is for another episode. During this time, Simon also produced his first record for someone else, when he was responsible for producing the only album by his friend Jackson C Frank, though there wasn't much production involved as like Simon's own album it was just one man and his guitar. Al Stewart and Art Garfunkel were also in the control room for the recording, but the notoriously shy Frank insisted on hiding behind a screen so they couldn't see him while he recorded: [Excerpt: Jackson C Frank, "Blues Run the Game"] It seemed like Paul Simon was on his way to becoming a respected mid-level figure on the British folk scene, releasing occasional albums and maybe having one or two minor hits, but making a steady living. Someone who would be spoken of in the same breath as Ralph McTell perhaps. Meanwhile, Art Garfunkel would be going on to be a lecturer in mathematics whose students might be surprised to know he'd had a minor rock and roll hit as a kid. But then something happened that changed everything. Wednesday Morning 3AM hadn't sold at all, and Columbia hadn't promoted it in the slightest. It was too collegiate and polite for the Greenwich Village folkies, and too intellectual for the pop audience that had been buying Peter, Paul, and Mary, and it had come out just at the point that the folk boom had imploded. But one DJ in Boston, Dick Summer, had started playing one song from it, "The Sound of Silence", and it had caught on with the college students, who loved the song. And then came spring break 1965. All those students went on holiday, and suddenly DJs in places like Cocoa Beach, Florida, were getting phone calls requesting "The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel. Some of them with contacts at Columbia got in touch with the label, and Tom Wilson had an idea. On the first day of what turned out to be his last session with Dylan, the session for "Like a Rolling Stone", Wilson asked the musicians to stay behind and work on something. He'd already experimented with overdubbing new instruments on an acoustic recording with his new version of Dylan's "House of the Rising Sun", now he was going to try it with "The Sound of Silence". He didn't bother asking the duo what they thought -- record labels messed with people's records all the time. So "The Sound of Silence" was released as an electric folk-rock single: [Excerpt: Simon and Garfunkel, "The Sound of Silence"] This is always presented as Wilson massively changing the sound of the duo without their permission or knowledge, but the fact is that they had *already* gone folk-rock, back in March, so they were already thinking that way. The track was released as a single with “We Got a Groovy Thing Going” on the B-side, and was promoted first in the Boston market, and it did very well. Roy Harper later talked about Simon's attitude at this time, saying "I can remember going into the gents in The Three Horseshoes in Hempstead during a gig, and we're having a pee together. He was very excited, and he turns round to me and and says, “Guess what, man? We're number sixteen in Boston with The Sound of Silence'”. A few days later I was doing another gig with him and he made a beeline for me. “Guess what?” I said “You're No. 15 in Boston”. He said, “No man, we're No. 1 in Boston”. I thought, “Wow. No. 1 in Boston, eh?” It was almost a joke, because I really had no idea what that sort of stuff meant at all." Simon was even more excited when the record started creeping up the national charts, though he was less enthused when his copy of the single arrived from America. He listened to it, and thought the arrangement was a Byrds rip-off, and cringed at the way the rhythm section had to slow down and speed up in order to stay in time with the acoustic recording: [Excerpt: Simon and Garfunkel, "The Sound of Silence"] I have to say that, while the tempo fluctuations are noticeable once you know to look for them, it's a remarkably tight performance given the circumstances. As the record went up the charts, Simon was called back to America, to record an album to go along with it. The Paul Simon Songbook hadn't been released in the US,  and they needed an album *now*, and Simon was a slow songwriter, so the duo took six songs from that album and rerecorded them in folk-rock versions with their new producer Bob Johnston, who was also working with Dylan now, since Tom Wilson had moved on to Verve records. They filled out the album with "The Sound of Silence", the two electric tracks from March, one new song, "Blessed", and a version of "Anji", which came straight after "Somewhere They Can't Find Me", presumably to acknowledge Simon lifting bits of it. That version of “Anji” also followed Jansch's arrangement, and so included the bit that Simon had taken for “We Got a Groovy Thing Going” as well. They also recorded their next single, which was released on the British version of the album but not the American one, a song that Simon had written during a thoroughly depressing tour of Lancashire towns (he wrote it in Widnes, but a friend of Simon's who lived in Widnes later said that while it was written in Widnes it was written *about* Birkenhead. Simon has also sometimes said it was about Warrington or Wigan, both of which are so close to Widnes and so similar in both name and atmosphere that it would be the easiest thing in the world to mix them up.) [Excerpt: Simon and Garfunkel, "Homeward Bound"] These tracks were all recorded in December 1965, and they featured the Wrecking Crew -- Bob Johnston wanted the best, and didn't rate the New York players that Wilson had used, and so they were recorded in LA with Glen Campbell, Joe South, Hal Blaine, Larry Knechtel, and Joe Osborne. I've also seen in some sources that there were sessions in Nashville with A-team players Fred Carter and Charlie McCoy. By January, "The Sound of Silence" had reached number one, knocking "We Can Work it Out" by the Beatles off the top spot for two weeks, before the Beatles record went back to the top. They'd achieved what they'd been trying for for nearly a decade, and I'll give the last word here to Paul Simon, who said of the achievement: "I had come back to New York, and I was staying in my old room at my parents' house. Artie was living at his parents' house, too. I remember Artie and I were sitting there in my car one night, parked on a street in Queens, and the announcer said, "Number one, Simon & Garfunkel." And Artie said to me, "That Simon & Garfunkel, they must be having a great time.""

Does the blues have the biggest impact on acoustic guitar? Check out this video to see the 10 best acoustic blues albums to ever be recorded — ever! ★ Learn more about starting your Guitar Journey: https://tonypolecastro.com/ ★ FOLLOW on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tac.guitar/ In this video, you're going to see how truly impactful and inspiring acoustic blues can be. Whether you started playing guitar because of the blues or you started listening to the blues because you played, this video is for you. This list of the best acoustic blues albums was incredibly difficult to make. There's so much great acoustic blues out there! So, I had to leave plenty of great albums off the list. If you notice that there's an acoustic blues album that I missed, please let me know in the comments! Here's my list of the top 10 best acoustic blues albums: Mississippi Blues - Bukka White Leadbelly - Lead Belly Lightnin' Hopkins - Lightnin' Hopkins Trouble in Mind - Mance Lipscomb Skip James Today! - Skip James Live at Gaslight Cafe 1965 - Sun House Big Bill's Blues - Big Bill Broonzy Today! - Mississippi John Hurt The Complete Recorded Works Vol. 1- Charley Patton King of the Delta Blues Singers - Robert Johnson If you want to learn more about these artists and their work, I highly encourage you to listen to more of their albums! Immersing yourself in guitar is a great way to stay motivated and keep rocking! In addition to talking about the 10 best acoustic blues albums, you'll also hear about a TAC Family member who was a dabbler for 41 years — and how he finally committed to becoming a guitar player. Last but not least, you'll get my curated collected of acoustic guitar news you can use!

#561 - Luke Faust Luke Faust is a special guest on The Paul Leslie Hour. Luke Faust has seen, heard and done a lot. He is a folksinger, songwriter, poet, multi-instrumentalist and performer. In addition to his work as a musical artist, he teaches dance. In the early 1960s, Faust could be seen and heard performing on the banjo at the Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village, New York City. He met and knew many of the musicians such as Dave Von Ronk and Bob Dylan. Dylan wrote about Faust in his book Chronicles Vol. 1. Luke Faust joins The Paul Leslie Hour from New Mexico. With his wife Dena Reynolds, he performs a couple of songs on this episode. Luke Faust is a compelling artist and human being. Meet him here on The Paul Leslie Hour. There's a lot to learn. The Paul Leslie Hour is a talk show dedicated to “Helping People Tell Their Stories.” Some of the most iconic people of all time drop in to chat. Frequent topics include Arts, Entertainment and Culture. This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Oscar-winning actor, musician and activist Tim Robbins joins the boys for a lively discussion on a wide range of topics, including the "New Hollywood" of the '70s, the genius and generosity of Robert Altman, the timeliness of Depression-era screwball comedies and the enduring appeal of "The Shawshank Redemption." Also, Gore Vidal steals the show, Richard Pryor plays The Gaslight Cafe, Orson Welles runs afoul of William Randolph Hearst and Tim (fondly) remembers Paul Newman, Don Rickles and Robin Williams. PLUS: "Bobbo Supreme"! "Howard the Duck"! Monty Python comes calling! In praise of "The Hudsucker Proxy"! And Tim weighs in on the future of movie theaters! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Don McLean was born on October 2nd 1945 in New Rochelle, NY to Elizabeth and Donald McLean. By the age of five he had developed an interest in all forms of music and would spend hours listening to the radio and his father's records. Childhood asthma meant that Don missed long periods of school and while he slipped back in his studies, his love of music was allowed to flourish. He would often perform shows for family and friends.As a teenager, he purchased his first guitar (a Harmony F Hole with a sunburst finish) from the House of Music in New Rochelle and took opera lessons paid for by his sister. These lessons combined with many hours in the swimming pool, helped Don to develop breath control, which would later allow him to sing long, continuous phrases, in songs such as “Crying”, without taking a breath. The exercise also meant his asthma improved. In 1961, Don took his only vacation with his father – a trip to Washington D.C. Sadly, a few months later his father died. Don was just 15 years old. By this time, Don's musical focus was on folk thanks, in part, to The Weavers landmark 1955 recording “Live at Carnegie Hall”. Don was determined to become a professional musician and singer and, as a 16 year old, he was already making contacts in the business. After managing to get his home number from the telephone directory, Don phoned Erik Darling. They become friends and Don visited his apartment in New York. Through Erik Darling, Don recorded his first studio sessions with Lisa Kindred and was invited to join a group with Darling and the other members of the Rooftop Singers. However, even at that time, Don saw himself as a troubadour and turned down the offer. While at Villanova University in 1963 (he stayed for just four months), Don met and became friends with JimCroce and President Kennedy was assassinated. After leaving Villanova, Don worked his ‘apprenticeship' for “Harold Leventhal Management”. This started a six year period during which time Don performed at venues like the Bitter End and Gaslight Café in New York, the Newport Folk Festival, the Cellar Door in Washington, D.C., the Main Point in Philadelphia, the Troubadour and Ash Grove in Los Angeles and over forty colleges throughout New York and New England. He appeared alongside artists like Herbie Mann, Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry, Melanie, Steppenwolf, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Janis Ian, Josh White, Ten Wheel Drive and others. Don also found time to attend night school at Iona College and, in 1968, graduated with a Bachelors degree in Business Administration but turned down a prestigious scholarship to Columbia University Graduate School in favor of becoming resident singer at Caffe Lena in NY. While resident at Caffe Lena, the New York State Council for the Arts invited Don to become their Hudson River Troubadour. He accepted and spent the summer travelling from town to town in the Hudson Valley, giving talks about the environment and singing songs for whoever would turn up to listen. A year later, Don was a member of the first crew of the Sloop Clearwater. With Pete Seeger, they travelled the Atlantic seaboard giving concerts at each port and featuring in the news wherever they went. In 1969, Don recorded his first album, “Tapestry”, in Berkeley, CA. The student riots were going on outside the studio door as Don was singing “And I Love You So” inside. The album was first released by Mediarts and attracted good reviews and achieved some commercial success. The transition to international stardom began in 1971 with the release of “American Pie”. “American Pie” was recorded on 26th May 1971 and a month later received its first radio airplay on New York's WNEW-FM and WPLJ-FM to mark the closing of The Fillmore East, the famous New York concert hall. Thirty years later, “American Pie” was voted number 5 in a poll of the 365 “Songs of the Century” compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Beat Generation Jazz Poetry ​It was John Mitchell, the owner of Gaslight Cafe, wanting to make more money. I read my poetry at the Gaslight and became the poetry director along with John Brent. ​I suggested to John Mitchell, “Hey, why don’t we try a little folk music, between poetry.” He said, “Mr. Romney, I’ve made all my money with poetry!” ​I answered, “C’mon. John, let’s just try it.” ​It was a smash. ​I remember when Bob Dylan came down into the Gaslight. He was wearing Woody Guthrie’s underwear. He had a sign on his guitar that read, “This machine kills fascists.” He said to me, “Hey, man, can I go on?” ​It was a hootenanny. I just grabbed the mic and said, “Here he is, a legend in his own lifetime. What’s your name, kid?” ​We ended up sharing a room above the Gaslight. “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” was written with my typewriter. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jake-feinberg/support

Taking Care of Business... we reconvene a panel of small business owners in Cape Breton for an update on how they're weathering the economic storm. Bryden Mombourquette is the co-owner with his partner, of the Gaslight Cafe in Sydney. Scott Morrison is the owner of the Flavor Restaurant Group. And Brittany Woodworth is the owner of Timeless Moments, a formal dress shop in Sydney.

★ All show notes and links: https://acousticlife.tv/at136 ★ Get the show: https://tonypolecastro.com/get-acoustic-tuesday   Tony Rice is one of the most important bluegrass guitarists in history. Why? On today's episode of Acoustic Tuesday, I'm answering that question in the best way I know how: by playing the 6 degrees of Tony Rice. The thing is, the best way to understand Tony Rice's impact is to look at his influences, to see how much he borrowed and blended to create some unforgettable music. Now, I'd feature Tony Rice's covers on this episode of Acoustic Tuesday, but copyright laws be darned, I can't. So, instead, I'll feature other covers of the songs that Tony Rice covered! If you want links to the actual Tony Rice covers, be sure to head to www.acousticlife.tv/at136 To kick things off, let's talk about the 6 most influential guitar players in Tony Rice's music. 6) Clarence WhiteFrom his flatpicking to owning his actual guitar, Tony Rice was heavily influenced by Clarence White. Tony Rice went as far as owning the exact Martin D-28 that Clarence White owned. Now, for those of you who don't know Clarence White was a member of The Kentucky Colonels, The Byrds, and many more bands. As you listen to Clarence White, you can absolutely hear how the rolling flatpicking sounds influenced Tony Rice. 5) Tom PaxtonFor those of you who don't know, Tom Paxton is an incredible songwriter. Paxton led the charge on the folk revival. Born in Chicago, he relocated to New York City and frequented the Gaslight Cafe. Tony Rice pays homage to Tom Paxton by covering "The Last Thing on My Mind," on Church Street Blues. If you listen to the acoustic tone and song selection, Tom Paxton was a huge influence on Tony Rice. 4) Jim CroceIn 1994, Tony Rice covered Jim Croce's "Age" on the Bluegrass Band Vol. 4 album. Now, besides this album featuring some of the best musicians out there, Jim Croce's influence on Tony Rice is apparent. And, while I can't feature the Croce original or Rice's cover, I can show you Seth Avett's cover of "Operator," so be sure to listen to it today! 3) Ian TysonIan Tyson is a huge influence on Tony Rice. In fact, Tony Rice covered his song "Summer Wages" not once but twice. The time Tony Rice covered it was on Native American and the second time was on J.D. Crowe and the New South's self-titled album. If you haven't heard that album, you need to hear it! 2) Joni MitchellIn Tony Rices 1992 album Native American, he covered Joni Mitchell's gentle seasonal ballad "Urge for Going." Now, if you haven't heard the original, I highly recommend it. The lyrics are great, the phrasing is fantastic, and I love Joni's voice. All of this is to say that Tony Rice definitely tried to borrow from Joni Mitchell's lyricism. To help illustrate it and show the profound impact that Joni Mitchell had on the scene and how it further influenced Tony Rice, I've featured a clip of Dave Van Ronk covering "Urge for Going." 1) Gordon LightfootThe first degree of influence, of course, is Gordon Lightfoot. Lightfoot's influence on Tony Rice can be seen in his songwriting, flatpicking, and overall style and tone. See, Lightfoot led the charge on the folk revival in Canada. As such, Tony Rice actually dedicated an entire album to Gordon Lightfoot.

Brittany Woodworth, owner of Timeless Moments Bridal Salon on Charlotte St. in Sydney, and Bryden Mombourquette, owner of the Gaslight Cafe on George St., offer their reaction to yesterday's government stimulus package, as we develop a snapshot of what many of the Island's small business owners are currently facing... and will be facing... in the weeks to come.

After Don takes a trip on Mother's Day, he receives a lesson in etymology and gets into the scene at The Gaslight Cafe. Roger has something for Joan, and Peggy has an idea. Follow the show on Twitter: @stillgreatpod Visit the show: stillgreatpod.com Please remember to rate and review the show! Podcast Edited by Melissa Music: Bummin on Tremelo Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

After Don takes a trip on Mother’s Day, he receives a lesson in etymology and gets into the scene at The Gaslight Cafe. Roger has something for Joan, and Peggy has an idea. Follow the show on Twitter: @stillgreatpod Visit the show: stillgreatpod.com Please remember to rate and review the show! Podcast Edited by Melissa Music: Bummin on Tremelo Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Ruminate was a spoken word event organised by Poet X in February 2017 where we showcased among the biggest talents of the contemporary poetry scene. In the third episode of the Ruminate series, we present you a true force of nature who lives in words and breathes words into life. A captivating performer, she oozes confidence on stage. Her level of performance poetry was on full display at Ruminate as she left jaws hanging in her wake. Yohanna Yusrinal is an established poetry educator and spoken word artist who facilitates poetry and drama workshops in schools and universities as part of Poetry Cafe KL. She was part of the team that represented Malaysia in the Singapore vs Malaysia Causeway Exchange Slam, winning gold in the group slam division. She is also part of the spoken word cabaret: Tongue Tied 2, that showcased at Iskarnival Naratif and Sama- Sama. She has performed countless open mics in Singapore, Johor, Sabah, Langkawi, Penang, Australia and is no stranger to local stages like Gaslight Cafe, Merdekarya and The Bee. Facebook: facebook.com/poetxpodcast Instagram: @poetxpodcast

Guy Branum (@guybranum) joins the Maisel Goys to gab all about the season finale Episode 210 - All AloneLIVE SHOW:LOS ANGELES! On 3/23, Maisel Goys is bringing the Gaslight Cafe to life at the Dynasty Typewriter. Part stand-up show, part live podcast, all marvelous. Click here to buy tickets: MAISEL GOYS LIVE

In this episode the Maisel Goys are joined by special guest Ben Siemon (@BenjaminJS) to gab all about Episode 209 - Vote For Kennedy, Vote For Kennedy!LIVE SHOW:LOS ANGELES! On 3/23, Maisel Goys is bringing the Gaslight Cafe to life at the Dynasty Typewriter. Part stand-up show, part live podcast, all marvelous. Click here to buy tickets: MAISEL GOYS LIVE

In this episode the Maisel Goys gab all about Episode 208 - Someday...LIVE SHOW:LOS ANGELES! On 3/23, Maisel Goys is bringing the Gaslight Cafe to life at the Dynasty Typewriter. Part stand-up show, part live podcast, all marvelous. Click here to buy tickets: MAISEL GOYS LIVE

Yedoye Travis (@ProfessorDoye) joins the Maisel Goys to gab all about Episode 207 - Look, She Made a Hat!LIVE SHOW:LOS ANGELES! On 3/23, Maisel Goys is bringing the Gaslight Cafe to life at the Dynasty Typewriter. Part stand-up show, part live podcast, all marvelous. Click here to buy tickets: MAISEL GOYS LIVE

Caitlin Weierhauser (@UncleCait) joins the Maisel Goys to gab all about Episode 206 - Let's Face the Music and Dance!LIVE SHOW:LOS ANGELES! On 3/23, Maisel Goys is bringing the Gaslight Cafe to life at the Dynasty Typewriter. Part stand-up show, part live podcast, all marvelous. Click here to buy tickets: MAISEL GOYS LIVE

Carrie Rosen (@carrierosen) joins the Maisel Goys to gab all about Episode 205 - Midnight at the Concord!LIVE SHOW: LOS ANGELES! On 3/23, Maisel Goys is bringing the Gaslight Cafe to life at the Dynasty Typewriter. Part stand-up show, part live podcast, all marvelous. Click here to buy tickets: MAISEL GOYS LIVE

From Washington Square Park and the Gaslight Cafe to WNYC Radio and Folkways Records, New York City's cultural, artistic, and commercial assets helped to shape a distinctively urban breeding ground for the folk music revival of the 1950s and 60s. Folk City explores New York's central role in fueling the nationwide craze for folk music in postwar America. It involves the efforts of record company producers and executives, club owners, concert promoters, festival organizers, musicologists, agents and managers, editors and writers - and, of course, musicians and audiences.  In Folk City, authors Stephen Petrus and Ron Cohen capture the exuberance of the times and introduce readers to a host of characters who brought a new style to the biggest audience in the history of popular music. Among the savvy New York entrepreneurs committed to promoting folk music were Izzy Young of the Folklore Center, Mike Porco of Gerde's Folk City, and John Hammond of Columbia Records. While these and other businessmen developed commercial networks for musicians, the performance venues provided the artists space to test their mettle. The authors portray Village coffee houses not simply as lively venues but as incubators of a burgeoning counterculture, where artists from diverse backgrounds honed their performance techniques and challenged social conventions. Accessible and engaging, fresh and provocative, rich in anecdotes and primary sources, Folk City is lavishly illustrated with images collected for the accompanying major exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York in 2015.

Amazon Studios gave a two-season order for their period comedy show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel starring Rachel Brosnahan and created by Amy Sherman-Palladino and they shouldn't stop there. The show follows Midge Maisel as a 1950s Jewish Upper Westside in NYC housewife who through some tragic circumstances in her marriage finds herself single and back living with her parents with two young children. Midge is bitten by the stand-up comedy bug when she drunkenly gets on stage at The Gaslight Cafe and performs an impromptu set. An employee at the cafe, Susie (Alex Borstein) sees potential in Midge and helps her hone her newfound passion. Midge's life isn't all roses as she has to navigate 1950 ideals (some she holds and some she fights), her parents in Tony Shalhoub and Marin Hinkle who play Abe and Rose Weissman respectively, and her former life of privilege.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5939723/advertisement

Amazon Studios gave a two-season order for their period comedy show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel starring Rachel Brosnahan and created by Amy Sherman-Palladino and they shouldn't stop there. The show follows Midge Maisel as a 1950s Jewish Upper Westside in NYC housewife who through some tragic circumstances in her marriage finds herself single and back living with her parents with two young children. Midge is bitten by the stand-up comedy bug when she drunkenly gets on stage at The Gaslight Cafe and performs an impromptu set. An employee at the cafe, Susie (Alex Borstein) sees potential in Midge and helps her hone her newfound passion. Midge's life isn't all roses as she has to navigate 1950 ideals (some she holds and some she fights), her parents in Tony Shalhoub and Marin Hinkle who play Abe and Rose Weissman respectively, and her former life of privilege.

We head to snipe the hype at Pleasant Ridge's renowned dive bar Gaslight Cafe.