Podcast appearances and mentions of Geoff Muldaur

Born in New Orleans in 1899, Alonzo "Lonnie" Johnson was one of America's great blues and jazz artists, touring with Bessie Smith, recording with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, with Charlie Christian and Eddie Lang, with stride piano giant James P. Johnson and so many more.He was a guitar pioneer. In fact, blues historian Gérard Herzhaft believes Johnson was "undeniably the creator of the guitar solo played note by note with a pick, which has become the standard in jazz, blues, country and rock.”He started that style as early as 1927 with his solo on "6/88 Glide" for Okeh Records.More Chops Than ThatBut while his guitar innovations reached both Delta blues and urban players who adapted and developed them into the modern electric blues style, Johnson also was known in the 1920s as a sophisticated and urbane singer and composer. In fact, "of the 40 ads for his records that appeared in The Chicago Defender between 1926 and 1931,” music historian Elijah Wald notes, “not one even mentioned that he played guitar."But when record sales plunged in the Depression, Johnson's output dwindled and he worked for a while at a Cleveland radio station, among other jobs, just to make ends meet. Things started looking up again in 1937 when he went to Chicago to begin recording for Decca. Two years later he joined Lester Melrose's roster at the new Bluebird Records, for which Lonnie recorded 34 tracks over the next five years.The SongA solo hit from one for the last of the Bluebird sessions was Johnson's composition, “He's a Jelly Roll Baker,” recorded Feb. 13, 1942, with Blind John Davis on piano and Andrew Harris on bass.In addition to its scintillating guitar break, the track's lyrics demonstrate Lonnie Johnson's growth as a savvy songwriter. “Jelly Roll Baker” presents a swaggering protagonist who proclaims his love-making prowess with women from all walks of society, from a judge's wife to a hospital nurse.InfluencesLonnie's second career — which included “I Know It's Love” on which he switched to the electric guitar that would be his signature instrument from then on — eventually disappeared under an avalanche of rock 'n' roll in the early ‘50s. Ironically, “Tomorrow Night,” a Johnson hit on King Records, was one of Elvis Presley's earliest pressings for Sam Phillips at the Sun studios. (Presley recorded it in September 1954, though it wasn't released for another dozen year.) Meanwhile, Lonnie Johnson gained acclaim with a new crowd 10 years later during the folk music revival. The Flood learned its version of “Jelly Roll Baker” from Tom Rush's debut Elektra album, released in 1965. Rush, who picked up the tune from fellow folkie Geoff Muldaur, recorded it with Bill Lee on bass and John Sebastian on harmonica.Lonnie's Last YearsJohnson life was cut short when he was hit by a car while walking on a sidewalk in Toronto in March 1969. Seriously injured, he suffered a broken hip and kidney damage. A benefit concert was held on in May 1969, with two dozen acts, including Ian and Sylvia, John Lee Hooker and Hagood Hardy. Never fully recovering from a subsequent stroke, Johnson died 13 months later.Our Take on the TuneAs noted, while this sassy song as written and recorded 80 years ago as a rhythm and blues hit, we owe our version to our folk music heroes of the 1960s.To this day, it's one of those perfect warmup tunes for us, because it provides plenty of stretching-out room for solos by everyone in the house, Danny and Sam, Randy and Jack.More Blues?If you're not ready to end today's blues infusion, you can get a big dose of Floodishness with the Blues Channel on our free Radio Floodango music streaming service. Click here to tune in and enjoy the jelly roll. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Judy Carmichael interviews Geoff Muldaur 

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Episode 165 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Dark Stat” and the career of the Grateful Dead. This is a long one, even longer than the previous episode, but don't worry, that won't be the norm. There's a reason these two were much longer than average. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-minute bonus episode available, on "Codine" by the Charlatans. Errata I mispronounce Brent Mydland's name as Myland a couple of times, and in the introduction I say "Touch of Grey" came out in 1988 -- I later, correctly, say 1987. (I seem to have had a real problem with dates in the intro -- I also originally talked about "Blue Suede Shoes" being in 1954 before fixing it in the edit to be 1956) Resources No Mixcloud this week, as there are too many songs by the Grateful Dead, and Grayfolded runs to two hours. I referred to a lot of books for this episode, partly because almost everything about the Grateful Dead is written from a fannish perspective that already assumes background knowledge, rather than to provide that background knowledge. Of the various books I used, Dennis McNally's biography of the band and This Is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead by Blair Jackson and David Gans are probably most useful for the casually interested. Other books on the Dead I used included McNally's Jerry on Jerry, a collection of interviews with Garcia; Deal, Bill Kreutzmann's autobiography; The Grateful Dead FAQ by Tony Sclafani; So Many Roads by David Browne; Deadology by Howard F. Weiner; Fare Thee Well by Joel Selvin and Pamela Turley; and Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads by David Shenk and Steve Silberman. Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is the classic account of the Pranksters, though not always reliable. I reference Slaughterhouse Five a lot. As well as the novel itself, which everyone should read, I also read this rather excellent graphic novel adaptation, and The Writer's Crusade, a book about the writing of the novel. I also reference Ted Sturgeon's More Than Human. For background on the scene around Astounding Science Fiction which included Sturgeon, John W. Campbell, L. Ron Hubbard, and many other science fiction writers, I recommend Alec Nevala-Lee's Astounding. 1,000 True Fans can be read online, as can the essay on the Californian ideology, and John Perry Barlow's "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace". The best collection of Grateful Dead material is the box set The Golden Road, which contains all the albums released in Pigpen's lifetime along with a lot of bonus material, but which appears currently out of print. Live/Dead contains both the live version of "Dark Star" which made it well known and, as a CD bonus track, the original single version. And archive.org has more live recordings of the group than you can possibly ever listen to. Grayfolded can be bought from John Oswald's Bandcamp Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript [Excerpt: Tuning from "Grayfolded", under the warnings Before we begin -- as we're tuning up, as it were, I should mention that this episode contains discussions of alcoholism, drug addiction, racism, nonconsensual drugging of other people, and deaths from drug abuse, suicide, and car accidents. As always, I try to deal with these subjects as carefully as possible, but if you find any of those things upsetting you may wish to read the transcript rather than listen to this episode, or skip it altogether. Also, I should note that the members of the Grateful Dead were much freer with their use of swearing in interviews than any other band we've covered so far, and that makes using quotes from them rather more difficult than with other bands, given the limitations of the rules imposed to stop the podcast being marked as adult. If I quote anything with a word I can't use here, I'll give a brief pause in the audio, and in the transcript I'll have the word in square brackets. [tuning ends] All this happened, more or less. In 1910, T. S. Eliot started work on "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", which at the time was deemed barely poetry, with one reviewer imagining Eliot saying "I'll just put down the first thing that comes into my head, and call it 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.'" It is now considered one of the great classics of modernist literature. In 1969, Kurt Vonnegut wrote "Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death", a book in which the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, comes unstuck in time, and starts living a nonlinear life, hopping around between times reliving his experiences in the Second World War, and future experiences up to 1976 after being kidnapped by beings from the planet Tralfamadore. Or perhaps he has flashbacks and hallucinations after having a breakdown from PTSD. It is now considered one of the great classics of modernist literature or of science fiction, depending on how you look at it. In 1953, Theodore Sturgeon wrote More Than Human. It is now considered one of the great classics of science fiction. In 1950, L. Ron Hubbard wrote Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. It is now considered either a bad piece of science fiction or one of the great revelatory works of religious history, depending on how you look at it. In 1994, 1995, and 1996 the composer John Oswald released, first as two individual CDs and then as a double-CD, an album called Grayfolded, which the composer says in the liner notes he thinks of as existing in Tralfamadorian time. The Tralfamadorians in Vonnegut's novels don't see time as a linear thing with a beginning and end, but as a continuum that they can move between at will. When someone dies, they just think that at this particular point in time they're not doing so good, but at other points in time they're fine, so why focus on the bad time? In the book, when told of someone dying, the Tralfamadorians just say "so it goes". In between the first CD's release and the release of the double-CD version, Jerry Garcia died. From August 1942 through August 1995, Jerry Garcia was alive. So it goes. Shall we go, you and I? [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, "Dark Star (Omni 3/30/94)"] "One principle has become clear. Since motives are so frequently found in combination, it is essential that the complex types be analyzed and arranged, with an eye kept single nevertheless to the master-theme under discussion. Collectors, both primary and subsidiary, have done such valiant service that the treasures at our command are amply sufficient for such studies, so extensive, indeed, that the task of going through them thoroughly has become too great for the unassisted student. It cannot be too strongly urged that a single theme in its various types and compounds must be made predominant in any useful comparative study. This is true when the sources and analogues of any literary work are treated; it is even truer when the bare motive is discussed. The Grateful Dead furnishes an apt illustration of the necessity of such handling. It appears in a variety of different combinations, almost never alone. Indeed, it is so widespread a tale, and its combinations are so various, that there is the utmost difficulty in determining just what may properly be regarded the original kernel of it, the simple theme to which other motives were joined. Various opinions, as we shall see, have been held with reference to this matter, most of them justified perhaps by the materials in the hands of the scholars holding them, but none quite adequate in view of later evidence." That's a quote from The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk Story, by Gordon Hall Gerould, published in 1908. Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five opens with a chapter about the process of writing the novel itself, and how difficult it was. He says "I would hate to tell you what this lousy little book cost me in money and anxiety and time. When I got home from the Second World War twenty-three years ago, I thought it would be easy for me to write about the destruction of Dresden, since all I would have to do would be to report what I had seen. And I thought, too, that it would be a masterpiece or at least make me a lot of money, since the subject was so big." This is an episode several of my listeners have been looking forward to, but it's one I've been dreading writing, because this is an episode -- I think the only one in the series -- where the format of the podcast simply *will not* work. Were the Grateful Dead not such an important band, I would skip this episode altogether, but they're a band that simply can't be ignored, and that's a real problem here. Because my intent, always, with this podcast, is to present the recordings of the artists in question, put them in context, and explain why they were important, what their music meant to its listeners. To put, as far as is possible, the positive case for why the music mattered *in the context of its time*. Not why it matters now, or why it matters to me, but why it matters *in its historical context*. Whether I like the music or not isn't the point. Whether it stands up now isn't the point. I play the music, explain what it was they were doing, why they were doing it, what people saw in it. If I do my job well, you come away listening to "Blue Suede Shoes" the way people heard it in 1956, or "Good Vibrations" the way people heard it in 1966, and understanding why people were so impressed by those records. That is simply *not possible* for the Grateful Dead. I can present a case for them as musicians, and hope to do so. I can explain the appeal as best I understand it, and talk about things I like in their music, and things I've noticed. But what I can't do is present their recordings the way they were received in the sixties and explain why they were popular. Because every other act I have covered or will cover in this podcast has been a *recording* act, and their success was based on records. They may also have been exceptional live performers, but James Brown or Ike and Tina Turner are remembered for great *records*, like "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" or "River Deep, Mountain High". Their great moments were captured on vinyl, to be listened back to, and susceptible of analysis. That is not the case for the Grateful Dead, and what is worse *they explicitly said, publicly, on multiple occasions* that it is not possible for me to understand their art, and thus that it is not possible for me to explain it. The Grateful Dead did make studio records, some of them very good. But they always said, consistently, over a thirty year period, that their records didn't capture what they did, and that the only way -- the *only* way, they were very clear about this -- that one could actually understand and appreciate their music, was to see them live, and furthermore to see them live while on psychedelic drugs. [Excerpt: Grateful Dead crowd noise] I never saw the Grateful Dead live -- their last UK performance was a couple of years before I went to my first ever gig -- and I have never taken a psychedelic substance. So by the Grateful Dead's own criteria, it is literally impossible for me to understand or explain their music the way that it should be understood or explained. In a way I'm in a similar position to the one I was in with La Monte Young in the last episode, whose music it's mostly impossible to experience without being in his presence. This is one reason of several why I placed these two episodes back to back. Of course, there is a difference between Young and the Grateful Dead. The Grateful Dead allowed -- even encouraged -- the recording of their live performances. There are literally thousands of concert recordings in circulation, many of them of professional quality. I have listened to many of those, and I can hear what they were doing. I can tell you what *I* think is interesting about their music, and about their musicianship. And I think I can build up a good case for why they were important, and why they're interesting, and why those recordings are worth listening to. And I can certainly explain the cultural phenomenon that was the Grateful Dead. But just know that while I may have found *a* point, *an* explanation for why the Grateful Dead were important, by the band's own lights and those of their fans, no matter how good a job I do in this episode, I *cannot* get it right. And that is, in itself, enough of a reason for this episode to exist, and for me to try, even harder than I normally do, to get it right *anyway*. Because no matter how well I do my job this episode will stand as an example of why this series is called "*A* History", not *the* history. Because parts of the past are ephemeral. There are things about which it's true to say "You had to be there". I cannot know what it was like to have been an American the day Kennedy was shot, I cannot know what it was like to be alive when a man walked on the Moon. Those are things nobody my age or younger can ever experience. And since August the ninth, 1995, the experience of hearing the Grateful Dead's music the way they wanted it heard has been in that category. And that is by design. Jerry Garcia once said "if you work really hard as an artist, you may be able to build something they can't tear down, you know, after you're gone... What I want to do is I want it here. I want it now, in this lifetime. I want what I enjoy to last as long as I do and not last any longer. You know, I don't want something that ends up being as much a nuisance as it is a work of art, you know?" And there's another difficulty. There are only two points in time where it makes sense to do a podcast episode on the Grateful Dead -- late 1967 and early 1968, when the San Francisco scene they were part of was at its most culturally relevant, and 1988 when they had their only top ten hit and gained their largest audience. I can't realistically leave them out of the story until 1988, so it has to be 1968. But the songs they are most remembered for are those they wrote between 1970 and 1972, and those songs are influenced by artists and events we haven't yet covered in the podcast, who will be getting their own episodes in the future. I can't explain those things in this episode, because they need whole episodes of their own. I can't not explain them without leaving out important context for the Grateful Dead. So the best I can do is treat the story I'm telling as if it were in Tralfamadorian time. All of it's happening all at once, and some of it is happening in different episodes that haven't been recorded yet. The podcast as a whole travels linearly from 1938 through to 1999, but this episode is happening in 1968 and 1972 and 1988 and 1995 and other times, all at once. Sometimes I'll talk about things as if you're already familiar with them, but they haven't happened yet in the story. Feel free to come unstuck in time and revisit this time after episode 167, and 172, and 176, and 192, and experience it again. So this has to be an experimental episode. It may well be an experiment that you think fails. If so, the next episode is likely to be far more to your taste, and much shorter than this or the last episode, two episodes that between them have to create a scaffolding on which will hang much of the rest of this podcast's narrative. I've finished my Grateful Dead script now. The next one I write is going to be fun: [Excerpt: Grateful Dead, "Dark Star"] Infrastructure means everything. How we get from place to place, how we transport goods, information, and ourselves, makes a big difference in how society is structured, and in the music we hear. For many centuries, the prime means of long-distance transport was by water -- sailing ships on the ocean, canal boats and steamboats for inland navigation -- and so folk songs talked about the ship as both means of escape, means of making a living, and in some senses as a trap. You'd go out to sea for adventure, or to escape your problems, but you'd find that the sea itself brought its own problems. Because of this we have a long, long tradition of sea shanties which are known throughout the world: [Excerpt: A. L. Lloyd, "Off to Sea Once More"] But in the nineteenth century, the railway was invented and, at least as far as travel within a landmass goes, it replaced the steamboat in the popular imaginary. Now the railway was how you got from place to place, and how you moved freight from one place to another. The railway brought freedom, and was an opportunity for outlaws, whether train robbers or a romanticised version of the hobo hopping onto a freight train and making his way to new lands and new opportunity. It was the train that brought soldiers home from wars, and the train that allowed the Great Migration of Black people from the South to the industrial North. There would still be songs about the riverboats, about how ol' man river keeps rolling along and about the big river Johnny Cash sang about, but increasingly they would be songs of the past, not the present. The train quickly replaced the steamboat in the iconography of what we now think of as roots music -- blues, country, folk, and early jazz music. Sometimes this was very literal. Furry Lewis' "Kassie Jones" -- about a legendary train driver who would break the rules to make sure his train made the station on time, but who ended up sacrificing his own life to save his passengers in a train crash -- is based on "Alabamy Bound", which as we heard in the episode on "Stagger Lee", was about steamboats: [Excerpt: Furry Lewis, "Kassie Jones"] In the early episodes of this podcast we heard many, many, songs about the railway. Louis Jordan saying "take me right back to the track, Jack", Rosetta Tharpe singing about how "this train don't carry no gamblers", the trickster freight train driver driving on the "Rock Island Line", the mystery train sixteen coaches long, the train that kept-a-rollin' all night long, the Midnight Special which the prisoners wished would shine its ever-loving light on them, and the train coming past Folsom Prison whose whistle makes Johnny Cash hang his head and cry. But by the 1960s, that kind of song had started to dry up. It would happen on occasion -- "People Get Ready" by the Impressions is the most obvious example of the train metaphor in an important sixties record -- but by the late sixties the train was no longer a symbol of freedom but of the past. In 1969 Harry Nilsson sang about how "Nobody Cares About the Railroads Any More", and in 1968 the Kinks sang about "The Last of the Steam-Powered Trains". When in 1968 Merle Haggard sang about a freight train, it was as a memory, of a child with hopes that ended up thwarted by reality and his own nature: [Excerpt: Merle Haggard, "Mama Tried"] And the reason for this was that there had been another shift, a shift that had started in the forties and accelerated in the late fifties but had taken a little time to ripple through the culture. Now the train had been replaced in the popular imaginary by motorised transport. Instead of hopping on a train without paying, if you had no money in your pocket you'd have to hitch-hike all the way. Freedom now meant individuality. The ultimate in freedom was the biker -- the Hell's Angels who could go anywhere, unburdened by anything -- and instead of goods being moved by freight train, increasingly they were being moved by truck drivers. By the mid-seventies, truck drivers took a central place in American life, and the most romantic way to live life was to live it on the road. On The Road was also the title of a 1957 novel by Jack Kerouac, which was one of the first major signs of this cultural shift in America. Kerouac was writing about events in the late forties and early fifties, but his book was also a precursor of the sixties counterculture. He wrote the book on one continuous sheet of paper, as a stream of consciousness. Kerouac died in 1969 of an internal haemmorage brought on by too much alcohol consumption. So it goes. But the big key to this cultural shift was caused by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, a massive infrastructure spending bill that led to the construction of the modern American Interstate Highway system. This accelerated a program that had already started, of building much bigger, safer, faster roads. It also, as anyone who has read Robert Caro's The Power Broker knows, reinforced segregation and white flight. It did this both by making commuting into major cities from the suburbs easier -- thus allowing white people with more money to move further away from the cities and still work there -- and by bulldozing community spaces where Black people lived. More than a million people lost their homes and were forcibly moved, and orders of magnitude more lost their communities' parks and green spaces. And both as a result of deliberate actions and unconscious bigotry, the bulk of those affected were Black people -- who often found themselves, if they weren't forced to move, on one side of a ten-lane highway where the park used to be, with white people on the other side of the highway. The Federal-Aid Highway Act gave even more power to the unaccountable central planners like Robert Moses, the urban planner in New York who managed to become arguably the most powerful man in the city without ever getting elected, partly by slowly compromising away his early progressive ideals in the service of gaining more power. Of course, not every new highway was built through areas where poor Black people lived. Some were planned to go through richer areas for white people, just because you can't completely do away with geographical realities. For example one was planned to be built through part of San Francisco, a rich, white part. But the people who owned properties in that area had enough political power and clout to fight the development, and after nearly a decade of fighting it, the development was called off in late 1966. But over that time, many of the owners of the impressive buildings in the area had moved out, and they had no incentive to improve or maintain their properties while they were under threat of demolition, so many of them were rented out very cheaply. And when the beat community that Kerouac wrote about, many of whom had settled in San Francisco, grew too large and notorious for the area of the city they were in, North Beach, many of them moved to these cheap homes in a previously-exclusive area. The area known as Haight-Ashbury. [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, "Grayfolded"] Stories all have their starts, even stories told in Tralfamadorian time, although sometimes those starts are shrouded in legend. For example, the story of Scientology's start has been told many times, with different people claiming to have heard L. Ron Hubbard talk about how writing was a mug's game, and if you wanted to make real money, you needed to get followers, start a religion. Either he said this over and over and over again, to many different science fiction writers, or most science fiction writers of his generation were liars. Of course, the definition of a writer is someone who tells lies for money, so who knows? One of the more plausible accounts of him saying that is given by Theodore Sturgeon. Sturgeon's account is more believable than most, because Sturgeon went on to be a supporter of Dianetics, the "new science" that Hubbard turned into his religion, for decades, even while telling the story. The story of the Grateful Dead probably starts as it ends, with Jerry Garcia. There are three things that everyone writing about the Dead says about Garcia's childhood, so we might as well say them here too. The first is that he was named by a music-loving father after Jerome Kern, the songwriter responsible for songs like "Ol' Man River" (though as Oscar Hammerstein's widow liked to point out, "Jerome Kern wrote dum-dum-dum-dum, *my husband* wrote 'Ol' Man River'" -- an important distinction we need to bear in mind when talking about songwriters who write music but not lyrics). The second is that when he was five years old that music-loving father drowned -- and Garcia would always say he had seen his father dying, though some sources claim this was a false memory. So it goes. And the third fact, which for some reason is always told after the second even though it comes before it chronologically, is that when he was four he lost two joints from his right middle finger. Garcia grew up a troubled teen, and in turn caused trouble for other people, but he also developed a few interests that would follow him through his life. He loved the fantastical, especially the fantastical macabre, and became an avid fan of horror and science fiction -- and through his love of old monster films he became enamoured with cinema more generally. Indeed, in 1983 he bought the film rights to Kurt Vonnegut's science fiction novel The Sirens of Titan, the first story in which the Tralfamadorians appear, and wrote a script based on it. He wanted to produce the film himself, with Francis Ford Coppola directing and Bill Murray starring, but most importantly for him he wanted to prevent anyone who didn't care about it from doing it badly. And in that he succeeded. As of 2023 there is no film of The Sirens of Titan. He loved to paint, and would continue that for the rest of his life, with one of his favourite subjects being Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster. And when he was eleven or twelve, he heard for the first time a record that was hugely influential to a whole generation of Californian musicians, even though it was a New York record -- "Gee" by the Crows: [Excerpt: The Crows, "Gee"] Garcia would say later "That was an important song. That was the first kind of, like where the voices had that kind of not-trained-singer voices, but tough-guy-on-the-street voice." That record introduced him to R&B, and soon he was listening to Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, to Ray Charles, and to a record we've not talked about in the podcast but which was one of the great early doo-wop records, "WPLJ" by the Four Deuces: [Excerpt: The Four Deuces, "WPLJ"] Garcia said of that record "That was one of my anthem songs when I was in junior high school and high school and around there. That was one of those songs everybody knew. And that everybody sang. Everybody sang that street-corner favorite." Garcia moved around a lot as a child, and didn't have much time for school by his own account, but one of the few teachers he did respect was an art teacher when he was in North Beach, Walter Hedrick. Hedrick was also one of the earliest of the conceptual artists, and one of the most important figures in the San Francisco arts scene that would become known as the Beat Generation (or the Beatniks, which was originally a disparaging term). Hedrick was a painter and sculptor, but also organised happenings, and he had also been one of the prime movers in starting a series of poetry readings in San Francisco, the first one of which had involved Allen Ginsberg giving the first ever reading of "Howl" -- one of a small number of poems, along with Eliot's "Prufrock" and "The Waste Land" and possibly Pound's Cantos, which can be said to have changed twentieth-century literature. Garcia was fifteen when he got to know Hedrick, in 1957, and by then the Beat scene had already become almost a parody of itself, having become known to the public because of the publication of works like On the Road, and the major artists in the scene were already rejecting the label. By this point tourists were flocking to North Beach to see these beatniks they'd heard about on TV, and Hedrick was actually employed by one cafe to sit in the window wearing a beret, turtleneck, sandals, and beard, and draw and paint, to attract the tourists who flocked by the busload because they could see that there was a "genuine beatnik" in the cafe. Hedrick was, as well as a visual artist, a guitarist and banjo player who played in traditional jazz bands, and he would bring records in to class for his students to listen to, and Garcia particularly remembered him bringing in records by Big Bill Broonzy: [Excerpt: Big Bill Broonzy, "When Things Go Wrong (It Hurts Me Too)"] Garcia was already an avid fan of rock and roll music, but it was being inspired by Hedrick that led him to get his first guitar. Like his contemporary Paul McCartney around the same time, he was initially given the wrong instrument as a birthday present -- in Garcia's case his mother gave him an accordion -- but he soon persuaded her to swap it for an electric guitar he saw in a pawn shop. And like his other contemporary, John Lennon, Garcia initially tuned his instrument incorrectly. He said later "When I started playing the guitar, believe me, I didn't know anybody that played. I mean, I didn't know anybody that played the guitar. Nobody. They weren't around. There were no guitar teachers. You couldn't take lessons. There was nothing like that, you know? When I was a kid and I had my first electric guitar, I had it tuned wrong and learned how to play on it with it tuned wrong for about a year. And I was getting somewhere on it, you know… Finally, I met a guy that knew how to tune it right and showed me three chords, and it was like a revelation. You know what I mean? It was like somebody gave me the key to heaven." He joined a band, the Chords, which mostly played big band music, and his friend Gary Foster taught him some of the rudiments of playing the guitar -- things like how to use a capo to change keys. But he was always a rebellious kid, and soon found himself faced with a choice between joining the military or going to prison. He chose the former, and it was during his time in the Army that a friend, Ron Stevenson, introduced him to the music of Merle Travis, and to Travis-style guitar picking: [Excerpt: Merle Travis, "Nine-Pound Hammer"] Garcia had never encountered playing like that before, but he instantly recognised that Travis, and Chet Atkins who Stevenson also played for him, had been an influence on Scotty Moore. He started to realise that the music he'd listened to as a teenager was influenced by music that went further back. But Stevenson, as well as teaching Garcia some of the rudiments of Travis-picking, also indirectly led to Garcia getting discharged from the Army. Stevenson was not a well man, and became suicidal. Garcia decided it was more important to keep his friend company and make sure he didn't kill himself than it was to turn up for roll call, and as a result he got discharged himself on psychiatric grounds -- according to Garcia he told the Army psychiatrist "I was involved in stuff that was more important to me in the moment than the army was and that was the reason I was late" and the psychiatrist thought it was neurotic of Garcia to have his own set of values separate from that of the Army. After discharge, Garcia did various jobs, including working as a transcriptionist for Lenny Bruce, the comedian who was a huge influence on the counterculture. In one of the various attacks over the years by authoritarians on language, Bruce was repeatedly arrested for obscenity, and in 1961 he was arrested at a jazz club in North Beach. Sixty years ago, the parts of speech that were being criminalised weren't pronouns, but prepositions and verbs: [Excerpt: Lenny Bruce, "To is a Preposition, Come is a Verb"] That piece, indeed, was so controversial that when Frank Zappa quoted part of it in a song in 1968, the record label insisted on the relevant passage being played backwards so people couldn't hear such disgusting filth: [Excerpt: The Mothers of Invention, "Harry You're a Beast"] (Anyone familiar with that song will understand that the censored portion is possibly the least offensive part of the whole thing). Bruce was facing trial, and he needed transcripts of what he had said in his recordings to present in court. Incidentally, there seems to be some confusion over exactly which of Bruce's many obscenity trials Garcia became a transcriptionist for. Dennis McNally says in his biography of the band, published in 2002, that it was the most famous of them, in autumn 1964, but in a later book, Jerry on Jerry, a book of interviews of Garcia edited by McNally, McNally talks about it being when Garcia was nineteen, which would mean it was Bruce's first trial, in 1961. We can put this down to the fact that many of the people involved, not least Garcia, lived in Tralfamadorian time, and were rather hazy on dates, but I'm placing the story here rather than in 1964 because it seems to make more sense that Garcia would be involved in a trial based on an incident in San Francisco than one in New York. Garcia got the job, even though he couldn't type, because by this point he'd spent so long listening to recordings of old folk and country music that he was used to transcribing indecipherable accents, and often, as Garcia would tell it, Bruce would mumble very fast and condense multiple syllables into one. Garcia was particularly impressed by Bruce's ability to improvise but talk in entire paragraphs, and he compared his use of language to bebop. Another thing that was starting to impress Garcia, and which he also compared to bebop, was bluegrass: [Excerpt: Bill Monroe, "Fire on the Mountain"] Bluegrass is a music that is often considered very traditional, because it's based on traditional songs and uses acoustic instruments, but in fact it was a terribly *modern* music, and largely a postwar creation of a single band -- Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys. And Garcia was right when he said it was "white bebop" -- though he did say "The only thing it doesn't have is the harmonic richness of bebop. You know what I mean? That's what it's missing, but it has everything else." Both bebop and bluegrass evolved after the second world war, though they were informed by music from before it, and both prized the ability to improvise, and technical excellence. Both are musics that involved playing *fast*, in an ensemble, and being able to respond quickly to the other musicians. Both musics were also intensely rhythmic, a response to a faster paced, more stressful world. They were both part of the general change in the arts towards immediacy that we looked at in the last episode with the creation first of expressionism and then of pop art. Bluegrass didn't go into the harmonic explorations that modern jazz did, but it was absolutely as modern as anything Charlie Parker was doing, and came from the same impulses. It was tradition and innovation, the past and the future simultaneously. Bill Monroe, Jackson Pollock, Charlie Parker, Jack Kerouac, and Lenny Bruce were all in their own ways responding to the same cultural moment, and it was that which Garcia was responding to. But he didn't become able to play bluegrass until after a tragedy which shaped his life even more than his father's death had. Garcia had been to a party and was in a car with his friends Lee Adams, Paul Speegle, and Alan Trist. Adams was driving at ninety miles an hour when they hit a tight curve and crashed. Garcia, Adams, and Trist were all severely injured but survived. Speegle died. So it goes. This tragedy changed Garcia's attitudes totally. Of all his friends, Speegle was the one who was most serious about his art, and who treated it as something to work on. Garcia had always been someone who fundamentally didn't want to work or take any responsibility for anything. And he remained that way -- except for his music. Speegle's death changed Garcia's attitude to that, totally. If his friend wasn't going to be able to practice his own art any more, Garcia would practice his, in tribute to him. He resolved to become a virtuoso on guitar and banjo. His girlfriend of the time later said “I don't know if you've spent time with someone rehearsing ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown' on a banjo for eight hours, but Jerry practiced endlessly. He really wanted to excel and be the best. He had tremendous personal ambition in the musical arena, and he wanted to master whatever he set out to explore. Then he would set another sight for himself. And practice another eight hours a day of new licks.” But of course, you can't make ensemble music on your own: [Excerpt: Jerry Garcia and Bob Hunter, "Oh Mary Don't You Weep" (including end)] "Evelyn said, “What is it called when a person needs a … person … when you want to be touched and the … two are like one thing and there isn't anything else at all anywhere?” Alicia, who had read books, thought about it. “Love,” she said at length." That's from More Than Human, by Theodore Sturgeon, a book I'll be quoting a few more times as the story goes on. Robert Hunter, like Garcia, was just out of the military -- in his case, the National Guard -- and he came into Garcia's life just after Paul Speegle had left it. Garcia and Alan Trist met Hunter ten days after the accident, and the three men started hanging out together, Trist and Hunter writing while Garcia played music. Garcia and Hunter both bonded over their shared love for the beats, and for traditional music, and the two formed a duo, Bob and Jerry, which performed together a handful of times. They started playing together, in fact, after Hunter picked up a guitar and started playing a song and halfway through Garcia took it off him and finished the song himself. The two of them learned songs from the Harry Smith Anthology -- Garcia was completely apolitical, and only once voted in his life, for Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to keep Goldwater out, and regretted even doing that, and so he didn't learn any of the more political material people like Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, and Bob Dylan were doing at the time -- but their duo only lasted a short time because Hunter wasn't an especially good guitarist. Hunter would, though, continue to jam with Garcia and other friends, sometimes playing mandolin, while Garcia played solo gigs and with other musicians as well, playing and moving round the Bay Area and performing with whoever he could: [Excerpt: Jerry Garcia, "Railroad Bill"] "Bleshing, that was Janie's word. She said Baby told it to her. She said it meant everyone all together being something, even if they all did different things. Two arms, two legs, one body, one head, all working together, although a head can't walk and arms can't think. Lone said maybe it was a mixture of “blending” and “meshing,” but I don't think he believed that himself. It was a lot more than that." That's from More Than Human In 1961, Garcia and Hunter met another young musician, but one who was interested in a very different type of music. Phil Lesh was a serious student of modern classical music, a classically-trained violinist and trumpeter whose interest was solidly in the experimental and whose attitude can be summed up by a story that's always told about him meeting his close friend Tom Constanten for the first time. Lesh had been talking with someone about serialism, and Constanten had interrupted, saying "Music stopped being created in 1750 but it started again in 1950". Lesh just stuck out his hand, recognising a kindred spirit. Lesh and Constanten were both students of Luciano Berio, the experimental composer who created compositions for magnetic tape: [Excerpt: Luciano Berio, "Momenti"] Berio had been one of the founders of the Studio di fonologia musicale di Radio Milano, a studio for producing contemporary electronic music where John Cage had worked for a time, and he had also worked with the electronic music pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Lesh would later remember being very impressed when Berio brought a tape into the classroom -- the actual multitrack tape for Stockhausen's revolutionary piece Gesang Der Juenglinge: [Excerpt: Karlheinz Stockhausen, "Gesang Der Juenglinge"] Lesh at first had been distrustful of Garcia -- Garcia was charismatic and had followers, and Lesh never liked people like that. But he was impressed by Garcia's playing, and soon realised that the two men, despite their very different musical interests, had a lot in common. Lesh was interested in the technology of music as well as in performing and composing it, and so when he wasn't studying he helped out by engineering at the university's radio station. Lesh was impressed by Garcia's playing, and suggested to the presenter of the station's folk show, the Midnight Special, that Garcia be a guest. Garcia was so good that he ended up getting an entire solo show to himself, where normally the show would feature multiple acts. Lesh and Constanten soon moved away from the Bay Area to Las Vegas, but both would be back -- in Constanten's case he would form an experimental group in San Francisco with their fellow student Steve Reich, and that group (though not with Constanten performing) would later premiere Terry Riley's In C, a piece influenced by La Monte Young and often considered one of the great masterpieces of minimalist music. By early 1962 Garcia and Hunter had formed a bluegrass band, with Garcia on guitar and banjo and Hunter on mandolin, and a rotating cast of other musicians including Ken Frankel, who played banjo and fiddle. They performed under different names, including the Tub Thumpers, the Hart Valley Drifters, and the Sleepy Valley Hog Stompers, and played a mixture of bluegrass and old-time music -- and were very careful about the distinction: [Excerpt: The Hart Valley Drifters, "Cripple Creek"] In 1993, the Republican political activist John Perry Barlow was invited to talk to the CIA about the possibilities open to them with what was then called the Information Superhighway. He later wrote, in part "They told me they'd brought Steve Jobs in a few weeks before to indoctrinate them in modern information management. And they were delighted when I returned later, bringing with me a platoon of Internet gurus, including Esther Dyson, Mitch Kapor, Tony Rutkowski, and Vint Cerf. They sealed us into an electronically impenetrable room to discuss the radical possibility that a good first step in lifting their blackout would be for the CIA to put up a Web site... We told them that information exchange was a barter system, and that to receive, one must also be willing to share. This was an alien notion to them. They weren't even willing to share information among themselves, much less the world." 1962 brought a new experience for Robert Hunter. Hunter had been recruited into taking part in psychological tests at Stanford University, which in the sixties and seventies was one of the preeminent universities for psychological experiments. As part of this, Hunter was given $140 to attend the VA hospital (where a janitor named Ken Kesey, who had himself taken part in a similar set of experiments a couple of years earlier, worked a day job while he was working on his first novel) for four weeks on the run, and take different psychedelic drugs each time, starting with LSD, so his reactions could be observed. (It was later revealed that these experiments were part of a CIA project called MKUltra, designed to investigate the possibility of using psychedelic drugs for mind control, blackmail, and torture. Hunter was quite lucky in that he was told what was going to happen to him and paid for his time. Other subjects included the unlucky customers of brothels the CIA set up as fronts -- they dosed the customers' drinks and observed them through two-way mirrors. Some of their experimental subjects died by suicide as a result of their experiences. So it goes. ) Hunter was interested in taking LSD after reading Aldous Huxley's writings about psychedelic substances, and he brought his typewriter along to the experiment. During the first test, he wrote a six-page text, a short excerpt from which is now widely quoted, reading in part "Sit back picture yourself swooping up a shell of purple with foam crests of crystal drops soft nigh they fall unto the sea of morning creep-very-softly mist ... and then sort of cascade tinkley-bell-like (must I take you by the hand, ever so slowly type) and then conglomerate suddenly into a peal of silver vibrant uncomprehendingly, blood singingly, joyously resounding bells" Hunter's experience led to everyone in their social circle wanting to try LSD, and soon they'd all come to the same conclusion -- this was something special. But Garcia needed money -- he'd got his girlfriend pregnant, and they'd married (this would be the first of several marriages in Garcia's life, and I won't be covering them all -- at Garcia's funeral, his second wife, Carolyn, said Garcia always called her the love of his life, and his first wife and his early-sixties girlfriend who he proposed to again in the nineties both simultaneously said "He said that to me!"). So he started teaching guitar at a music shop in Palo Alto. Hunter had no time for Garcia's incipient domesticity and thought that his wife was trying to make him live a conventional life, and the two drifted apart somewhat, though they'd still play together occasionally. Through working at the music store, Garcia got to know the manager, Troy Weidenheimer, who had a rock and roll band called the Zodiacs. Garcia joined the band on bass, despite that not being his instrument. He later said "Troy was a lot of fun, but I wasn't good enough a musician then to have been able to deal with it. I was out of my idiom, really, 'cause when I played with Troy I was playing electric bass, you know. I never was a good bass player. Sometimes I was playing in the wrong key and didn't even [fuckin'] know it. I couldn't hear that low, after playing banjo, you know, and going to electric...But Troy taught me the principle of, hey, you know, just stomp your foot and get on it. He was great. A great one for the instant arrangement, you know. And he was also fearless for that thing of get your friends to do it." Garcia's tenure in the Zodiacs didn't last long, nor did this experiment with rock and roll, but two other members of the Zodiacs will be notable later in the story -- the harmonica player, an old friend of Garcia's named Ron McKernan, who would soon gain the nickname Pig Pen after the Peanuts character, and the drummer, Bill Kreutzmann: [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, "Drums/Space (Skull & Bones version)"] Kreutzmann said of the Zodiacs "Jerry was the hired bass player and I was the hired drummer. I only remember playing that one gig with them, but I was in way over my head. I always did that. I always played things that were really hard and it didn't matter. I just went for it." Garcia and Kreutzmann didn't really get to know each other then, but Garcia did get to know someone else who would soon be very important in his life. Bob Weir was from a very different background than Garcia, though both had the shared experience of long bouts of chronic illness as children. He had grown up in a very wealthy family, and had always been well-liked, but he was what we would now call neurodivergent -- reading books about the band he talks about being dyslexic but clearly has other undiagnosed neurodivergences, which often go along with dyslexia -- and as a result he was deemed to have behavioural problems which led to him getting expelled from pre-school and kicked out of the cub scouts. He was never academically gifted, thanks to his dyslexia, but he was always enthusiastic about music -- to a fault. He learned to play boogie piano but played so loudly and so often his parents sold the piano. He had a trumpet, but the neighbours complained about him playing it outside. Finally he switched to the guitar, an instrument with which it is of course impossible to make too loud a noise. The first song he learned was the Kingston Trio's version of an old sea shanty, "The Wreck of the John B": [Excerpt: The Kingston Trio, "The Wreck of the John B"] He was sent off to a private school in Colorado for teenagers with behavioural issues, and there he met the boy who would become his lifelong friend, John Perry Barlow. Unfortunately the two troublemakers got on with each other *so* well that after their first year they were told that it was too disruptive having both of them at the school, and only one could stay there the next year. Barlow stayed and Weir moved back to the Bay Area. By this point, Weir was getting more interested in folk music that went beyond the commercial folk of the Kingston Trio. As he said later "There was something in there that was ringing my bells. What I had grown up thinking of as hillbilly music, it started to have some depth for me, and I could start to hear the music in it. Suddenly, it wasn't just a bunch of ignorant hillbillies playing what they could. There was some depth and expertise and stuff like that to aspire to.” He moved from school to school but one thing that stayed with him was his love of playing guitar, and he started taking lessons from Troy Weidenheimer, but he got most of his education going to folk clubs and hootenannies. He regularly went to the Tangent, a club where Garcia played, but Garcia's bluegrass banjo playing was far too rigorous for a free spirit like Weir to emulate, and instead he started trying to copy one of the guitarists who was a regular there, Jorma Kaukonnen. On New Year's Eve 1963 Weir was out walking with his friends Bob Matthews and Rich Macauley, and they passed the music shop where Garcia was a teacher, and heard him playing his banjo. They knocked and asked if they could come in -- they all knew Garcia a little, and Bob Matthews was one of his students, having become interested in playing banjo after hearing the theme tune to the Beverly Hillbillies, played by the bluegrass greats Flatt and Scruggs: [Excerpt: Flatt and Scruggs, "The Beverly Hillbillies"] Garcia at first told these kids, several years younger than him, that they couldn't come in -- he was waiting for his students to show up. But Weir said “Jerry, listen, it's seven-thirty on New Year's Eve, and I don't think you're going to be seeing your students tonight.” Garcia realised the wisdom of this, and invited the teenagers in to jam with him. At the time, there was a bit of a renaissance in jug bands, as we talked about back in the episode on the Lovin' Spoonful. This was a form of music that had grown up in the 1920s, and was similar and related to skiffle and coffee-pot bands -- jug bands would tend to have a mixture of portable string instruments like guitars and banjos, harmonicas, and people using improvised instruments, particularly blowing into a jug. The most popular of these bands had been Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers, led by banjo player Gus Cannon and with harmonica player Noah Lewis: [Excerpt: Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers, "Viola Lee Blues"] With the folk revival, Cannon's work had become well-known again. The Rooftop Singers, a Kingston Trio style folk group, had had a hit with his song "Walk Right In" in 1963, and as a result of that success Cannon had even signed a record contract with Stax -- Stax's first album ever, a month before Booker T and the MGs' first album, was in fact the eighty-year-old Cannon playing his banjo and singing his old songs. The rediscovery of Cannon had started a craze for jug bands, and the most popular of the new jug bands was Jim Kweskin's Jug Band, which did a mixture of old songs like "You're a Viper" and more recent material redone in the old style. Weir, Matthews, and Macauley had been to see the Kweskin band the night before, and had been very impressed, especially by their singer Maria D'Amato -- who would later marry her bandmate Geoff Muldaur and take his name -- and her performance of Leiber and Stoller's "I'm a Woman": [Excerpt: Jim Kweskin's Jug Band, "I'm a Woman"] Matthews suggested that they form their own jug band, and Garcia eagerly agreed -- though Matthews found himself rapidly moving from banjo to washboard to kazoo to second kazoo before realising he was surplus to requirements. Robert Hunter was similarly an early member but claimed he "didn't have the embouchure" to play the jug, and was soon also out. He moved to LA and started studying Scientology -- later claiming that he wanted science-fictional magic powers, which L. Ron Hubbard's new religion certainly offered. The group took the name Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions -- apparently they varied the spelling every time they played -- and had a rotating membership that at one time or another included about twenty different people, but tended always to have Garcia on banjo, Weir on jug and later guitar, and Garcia's friend Pig Pen on harmonica: [Excerpt: Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions, "On the Road Again"] The group played quite regularly in early 1964, but Garcia's first love was still bluegrass, and he was trying to build an audience with his bluegrass band, The Black Mountain Boys. But bluegrass was very unpopular in the Bay Area, where it was simultaneously thought of as unsophisticated -- as "hillbilly music" -- and as elitist, because it required actual instrumental ability, which wasn't in any great supply in the amateur folk scene. But instrumental ability was something Garcia definitely had, as at this point he was still practising eight hours a day, every day, and it shows on the recordings of the Black Mountain Boys: [Excerpt: The Black Mountain Boys, "Rosa Lee McFall"] By the summer, Bob Weir was also working at the music shop, and so Garcia let Weir take over his students while he and the Black Mountain Boys' guitarist Sandy Rothman went on a road trip to see as many bluegrass musicians as they could and to audition for Bill Monroe himself. As it happened, Garcia found himself too shy to audition for Monroe, but Rothman later ended up playing with Monroe's Blue Grass Boys. On his return to the Bay Area, Garcia resumed playing with the Uptown Jug Champions, but Pig Pen started pestering him to do something different. While both men had overlapping tastes in music and a love for the blues, Garcia's tastes had always been towards the country end of the spectrum while Pig Pen's were towards R&B. And while the Uptown Jug Champions were all a bit disdainful of the Beatles at first -- apart from Bob Weir, the youngest of the group, who thought they were interesting -- Pig Pen had become enamoured of another British band who were just starting to make it big: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Not Fade Away"] 29) Garcia liked the first Rolling Stones album too, and he eventually took Pig Pen's point -- the stuff that the Rolling Stones were doing, covers of Slim Harpo and Buddy Holly, was not a million miles away from the material they were doing as Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions. Pig Pen could play a little electric organ, Bob had been fooling around with the electric guitars in the music shop. Why not give it a go? The stuff bands like the Rolling Stones were doing wasn't that different from the electric blues that Pig Pen liked, and they'd all seen A Hard Day's Night -- they could carry on playing with banjos, jugs, and kazoos and have the respect of a handful of folkies, or they could get electric instruments and potentially have screaming girls and millions of dollars, while playing the same songs. This was a convincing argument, especially when Dana Morgan Jr, the son of the owner of the music shop, told them they could have free electric instruments if they let him join on bass. Morgan wasn't that great on bass, but what the hell, free instruments. Pig Pen had the best voice and stage presence, so he became the frontman of the new group, singing most of the leads, though Jerry and Bob would both sing a few songs, and playing harmonica and organ. Weir was on rhythm guitar, and Garcia was the lead guitarist and obvious leader of the group. They just needed a drummer, and handily Bill Kreutzmann, who had played with Garcia and Pig Pen in the Zodiacs, was also now teaching music at the music shop. Not only that, but about three weeks before they decided to go electric, Kreutzmann had seen the Uptown Jug Champions performing and been astonished by Garcia's musicianship and charisma, and said to himself "Man, I'm gonna follow that guy forever!" The new group named themselves the Warlocks, and started rehearsing in earnest. Around this time, Garcia also finally managed to get some of the LSD that his friend Robert Hunter had been so enthusiastic about three years earlier, and it was a life-changing experience for him. In particular, he credited LSD with making him comfortable being a less disciplined player -- as a bluegrass player he'd had to be frighteningly precise, but now he was playing rock and needed to loosen up. A few days after taking LSD for the first time, Garcia also heard some of Bob Dylan's new material, and realised that the folk singer he'd had little time for with his preachy politics was now making electric music that owed a lot more to the Beat culture Garcia considered himself part of: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Subterranean Homesick Blues"] Another person who was hugely affected by hearing that was Phil Lesh, who later said "I couldn't believe that was Bob Dylan on AM radio, with an electric band. It changed my whole consciousness: if something like that could happen, the sky was the limit." Up to that point, Lesh had been focused entirely on his avant-garde music, working with friends like Steve Reich to push music forward, inspired by people like John Cage and La Monte Young, but now he realised there was music of value in the rock world. He'd quickly started going to rock gigs, seeing the Rolling Stones and the Byrds, and then he took acid and went to see his friend Garcia's new electric band play their third ever gig. He was blown away, and very quickly it was decided that Lesh would be the group's new bass player -- though everyone involved tells a different story as to who made the decision and how it came about, and accounts also vary as to whether Dana Morgan took his sacking gracefully and let his erstwhile bandmates keep their instruments, or whether they had to scrounge up some new ones. Lesh had never played bass before, but he was a talented multi-instrumentalist with a deep understanding of music and an ability to compose and improvise, and the repertoire the Warlocks were playing in the early days was mostly three-chord material that doesn't take much rehearsal -- though it was apparently beyond the abilities of poor Dana Morgan, who apparently had to be told note-by-note what to play by Garcia, and learn it by rote. Garcia told Lesh what notes the strings of a bass were tuned to, told him to borrow a guitar and practice, and within two weeks he was on stage with the Warlocks: [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, “Grayfolded"] In September 1995, just weeks after Jerry Garcia's death, an article was published in Mute magazine identifying a cultural trend that had shaped the nineties, and would as it turned out shape at least the next thirty years. It's titled "The Californian Ideology", though it may be better titled "The Bay Area Ideology", and it identifies a worldview that had grown up in Silicon Valley, based around the ideas of the hippie movement, of right-wing libertarianism, of science fiction authors, and of Marshall McLuhan. It starts "There is an emerging global orthodoxy concerning the relation between society, technology and politics. We have called this orthodoxy `the Californian Ideology' in honour of the state where it originated. By naturalising and giving a technological proof to a libertarian political philosophy, and therefore foreclosing on alternative futures, the Californian Ideologues are able to assert that social and political debates about the future have now become meaningless. The California Ideology is a mix of cybernetics, free market economics, and counter-culture libertarianism and is promulgated by magazines such as WIRED and MONDO 2000 and preached in the books of Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly and others. The new faith has been embraced by computer nerds, slacker students, 30-something capitalists, hip academics, futurist bureaucrats and even the President of the USA himself. As usual, Europeans have not been slow to copy the latest fashion from America. While a recent EU report recommended adopting the Californian free enterprise model to build the 'infobahn', cutting-edge artists and academics have been championing the 'post-human' philosophy developed by the West Coast's Extropian cult. With no obvious opponents, the global dominance of the Californian ideology appears to be complete." [Excerpt: Grayfolded] The Warlocks' first gig with Phil Lesh on bass was on June the 18th 1965, at a club called Frenchy's with a teenage clientele. Lesh thought his playing had been wooden and it wasn't a good gig, and apparently the management of Frenchy's agreed -- they were meant to play a second night there, but turned up to be told they'd been replaced by a band with an accordion and clarinet. But by September the group had managed to get themselves a residency at a small bar named the In Room, and playing there every night made them cohere. They were at this point playing the kind of sets that bar bands everywhere play to this day, though at the time the songs they were playing, like "Gloria" by Them and "In the Midnight Hour", were the most contemporary of hits. Another song that they introduced into their repertoire was "Do You Believe in Magic" by the Lovin' Spoonful, another band which had grown up out of former jug band musicians. As well as playing their own sets, they were also the house band at The In Room and as such had to back various touring artists who were the headline acts. The first act they had to back up was Cornell Gunter's version of the Coasters. Gunter had brought his own guitarist along as musical director, and for the first show Weir sat in the audience watching the show and learning the parts, staring intently at this musical director's playing. After seeing that, Weir's playing was changed, because he also picked up how the guitarist was guiding the band while playing, the small cues that a musical director will use to steer the musicians in the right direction. Weir started doing these things himself when he was singing lead -- Pig Pen was the frontman but everyone except Bill sang sometimes -- and the group soon found that rather than Garcia being the sole leader, now whoever was the lead singer for the song was the de facto conductor as well. By this point, the Bay Area was getting almost overrun with people forming electric guitar bands, as every major urban area in America was. Some of the bands were even having hits already -- We Five had had a number three hit with "You Were On My Mind", a song which had originally been performed by the folk duo Ian and Sylvia: [Excerpt: We Five, "You Were On My Mind"] Although the band that was most highly regarded on the scene, the Charlatans, was having problems with the various record companies they tried to get signed to, and didn't end up making a record until 1969. If tracks like "Number One" had been released in 1965 when they were recorded, the history of the San Francisco music scene may have taken a very different turn: [Excerpt: The Charlatans, "Number One"] Bands like Jefferson Airplane, the Great Society, and Big Brother and the Holding Company were also forming, and Autumn Records was having a run of success with records by the Beau Brummels, whose records were produced by Autumn's in-house A&R man, Sly Stone: [Excerpt: The Beau Brummels, "Laugh Laugh"] The Warlocks were somewhat cut off from this, playing in a dive bar whose clientele was mostly depressed alcoholics. But the fact that they were playing every night for an audience that didn't care much gave them freedom, and they used that freedom to improvise. Both Lesh and Garcia were big fans of John Coltrane, and they started to take lessons from his style of playing. When the group played "Gloria" or "Midnight Hour" or whatever, they started to extend the songs and give themselves long instrumental passages for soloing. Garcia's playing wasn't influenced *harmonically* by Coltrane -- in fact Garcia was always a rather harmonically simple player. He'd tend to play lead lines either in Mixolydian mode, which is one of the most standard modes in rock, pop, blues, and jazz, or he'd play the notes of the chord that was being played, so if the band were playing a G chord his lead would emphasise the notes G, B, and D. But what he was influenced by was Coltrane's tendency to improvise in long, complex, phrases that made up a single thought -- Coltrane was thinking musically in paragraphs, rather than sentences, and Garcia started to try the same kind of th

A native of Vancouver but currently residing in Nashville, where he works as a solo artist, sideman, and record producer,  Steve has forged an impressive career full of highlights and awards, including:  7 Juno Awards as artist/producer, 18 times nominated 3 times named "Producer Of The Year" at Western Canadian Music Awards 4 times named "Producer Of The Year" at Canadian Folk Music Awards Recipient of many other awards including Maple Blues Awards, Grand Prix De Jazz De Montreal, Blues Blast Awards, and many Western Canadian Music Awards and Canadian Folk Awards as an artist and producer Steve's multi-faceted career has brought him to countless international festivals, working on the stage and in the studio with an extensive cast of musicians, including John Hammond, Sonny Landreth, Van Dyke Parks, David Hidalgo, Colin James, Jim Byrnes, Jill Barber, Dave Alvin, Joe Henry, Tim O'Brien, Fats Kaplin, Colin James, The McCrary Sisters, Matt Chamberlain, Del Rey, Birds of Chicago, Allison Russell, Long John Baldry, Bruce Cockburn, Kelly Joe Phelps, Linda McRae, CR Avery, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Geoff Muldaur, Scott Amendola, Danny Barnes, The Deep Dark Woods, Colin Linden, Big Dave McLean, and many others. Steve's studio, The Henhouse, located in Nashville (and previously in Vancouver)  has hosted countless artists and been the home to over 80 releases. With a beautifully warm and organic setting to stay and record, it promises to become a destination for many more to come. His groundbreaking work with Jesse Zubot in Zubot and Dawson kicked things off in 1998, leading to 2 albums with Toronto jazz stalwarts Andrew Downing and Kevin Turcotte in the award-winning Great Uncles of the Revolution. Steve's solo recording output started with 2001's award-winning acoustic “Bug Parade”, he next explored blues and Hawaiian influences in depth with “We Belong To The Gold Coast” in 2005. 2008 saw the release of 2 albums – “Telescope” which was the culmination of studies with Greg Leisz and featured music written for the pedal steel guitar, and “Waiting For The Lights To Come Up”, a collection of new songs. He followed that with 2011's acclaimed "Nightshade", which Acoustic Guitar magazine named to it's Top-10 guitar albums of the year. 2014's “Rattlesnake Cage” – was an award-winning exploration of solo acoustic and slide guitar. Dawson's 2018 release “Lucky Hand” is a mesmerizing collection of original fingerstyle and slide guitar instrumentals, 5 of which feature Dawson reuniting with his old cohort Jesse Zubot, who arranged incredible string quartet parts to flow with the music. Recorded live off the floor it brings together the American Primitive style Steve has often explored and cutting-edge strings to create music unlike anything you've heard before. Birds of Chicago, Allison Russell, Matt Anderson, etc.  Steve is also host and producer of the podcast Music Makers and Soul Shakers. 135 episodes in 6 years. Steven has worked with artists from all over the world, and continues to work as a side-person and freelance musician both on stage and in the studio. Steve is also the creator of the well-loved Music Makers and Soul Shakers podcast, which has been going for over 6 years and 135 episodes. He spent the last few years pre-pandemic on the road playing guitar, steel and dobro with Allison Russell's band Birds of Chicago, and Canadian powerhouse Matt Andersen. He has produced, engineered and mixed over 100 albums for many artists from all over the world, and continues to work as a side-person and freelance musician both on stage and in the studio. Steve is also the creator of the well-loved Music Makers and Soul Shakers podca In 2022/2023, Steve released 3 albums throughout the year - “Gone, Long Gone” is the first. From gentle fingerstyle folk tunes to blazing, funky Americana grooves, to Hawaiian-style slide guitar instrumentals, this album covers a lot of sonic territory. The second album, “Phantom Threshold” came out on August 12, 2022 and is an all-instrumental sonic trip featuring the Telescope Three - Jay Bellerose on drums, Jeremy Holmes on bass, and Chris Gestrin on keyboards. All driven by the melodies and improvisations of Steve's pedal steel guitar. Now comes the promised third album Eyes Closed, Dreaming.  It's filled with Albertan friend  Matt Patershuk co-writes and well chosen covers. Bobby Charles Small Town Talk, Ian Tyson's  Long time to get old, Cowboy Jack Clements Guess things happen that way and the classic Singing the Blues. Lots to talk about with long time friend Steve Dawson. Steve's current tour dates April 20  Dream Cafe  Penticton April 21 Rogue Folk Club Vancouver April 22 Bozzini's Chilliwack April 28  First Church of Christ Scientist Victoria May 3 The Basement Saskatoon May 4 The Aviary Edmonton May 5 Festival Hall Calgary

Show #974 The Shape We're In 01. Kenny Wayne Shepherd - Everything Is Broken (3:48) (Trouble Is…, Giant Records, 1997) 02. Travellin' Blue Kings - About This World (3:39) (Wired Up, Naked Productions, 2019) 03. Bob Wineland & the House Band - Trouble All Over The World (3:27) (Backyard Blues, Blue Heart Records, 2021) 04. Danny Brooks - Broken (4:06) (Are You Ready? The Mississippi Sessions, His House Records, 2020) 05. Bad Brad & The Fat Cats - This World Is Insane (4:53) (Eyes On The Prize, self-release, 2013) 06. Scott Van Zen - In A World Gone Crazy (4:47) (Trouble, Love Conquered Records, 2022) 07. Shemekia Copeland - Broken World (3:41) (Never Going Back, Telarc Records, 2009) 08. Ally Venable - Broken (3:33) (Texas Honey, Ruf Records, 2019) 09. Ben Reel - Broken (3:31) (The Nashville Calling, B.Reel Records, 2020) 10. Alex Lopez - World On Fire (4:04) (Nasty Crime, Maremil Records, 2022) 11. Rick Berthod - Broken Middle Finger (5:41) (Peripheral Visions, self-release, 2020) 12. Bob Corritore & Friends - The World's In A Bad Situation (3:22) (You Shocked Me, VizzTone Records, 2022) 13. Steve Dawson - Broken Future Blues (4:17) (Solid States & Loose Ends, Black Hen Music, 2016) 14. Geoff Muldaur and the Texas Sheiks – The World Is Going Wrong (3:08) (Texas Sheiks, Tradition & Moderne, 2009) 15. Mighty Mike Schermer - World Gone Crazy (4:32) (Blues In Good Hands, VizzTone Records, 2016) 16. Rick Vito - World On Fire (4:43) (Soulshaker, VizzTone Records, 2019) 17. King King - Broken (4:42) (Exile & Grace, Manhaton Records, 2017) 18. Trevor B. Power - World Gone Madd (3:46) (What Is Real, Farm 189 Records, 2021) 19. William Lee Ellis - Dark World Coming (2:59) (The Full Catastrophe, Bellwether Records, 1999) 20. Micki Free - World On Fire (4:48) (Turquoise Blue, Native Music Rocks Records, 2021) 21. Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram - Another Life Goes By (4:20) (662, Alligator Records, 2021) 22. Jeff Healey Band - Shapes of Things (4:38) (Cover To Cover, BMG International, 1995) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

Another edition of Blues is the Truth is here and ready to stream exactly when you want it... It's packed with excellent tunes and blues news. So hit the play button and enjoy songs from the likes of Eric Clapton, Ged Wilson, Geoff Muldaur, Family Fortune with Black Betty, Professor Longhair, Little Walter, Sunjay, Supersonic Blues Machine feat Joe Louis Walker, John Primer, The Nick Moss Band Feat. Dennis Greunling, Buddy Guy, Billy Price, Angela Strehli, Detonics, Mark Pocket Goldberg, Erja Lyytinnen, Altered Five Blues Band, Håkon Høye, JD Simo, Henri Herbert, Dave Keyes, Eric Bibb, Cliff Stevens, Lil' Red and the Rooster, Ivor SK, Colin James and Paul Rishell. Don't forget to like share and subscribe to make sure you don't miss the next show and join our Facebook group on facebook.com/groups/bluesisthetruth

Judy Carmichael interviews Geoff Muldaur

Geoff Muldaur is a master of American blues, roots, jazz and jug band music. In his new box set "His Last Letter," he has classical musicians in Amsterdam give these quintessential American tunes the chamber music treatment. And, funerals for Ray Liotta, Paul Sorvino, James Caan and Tony Sirico took place all in one month. It's the passing of a generation of Hollywood's most celebrated "mobsters." NPR's Bob Mondello reports.

Commonwealth Games in Brum; England Women's Football; Lord Trimble; Fake Cricket; Five ways to improve your speech; Play nicely; How to use the news; An interview with and music from Geoff Muldaur

The singer, composer and guitarist has had a lifelong passion for the jazz and blues of the '20s and '30s. In the '60s and '70s, he made a series of influential recordings with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Paul Butterfield's Better Days, and Maria Muldaur. His new double CD, titled His Last Letter, traces the musical influences of his life, and is arranged for, and performed with, Dutch chamber musicians. He spoke with Terry Gross in 2009. Justin Chang reviews the new thriller The Gray Man, starring Ryan Gosling.

The singer, composer and guitarist has had a lifelong passion for the jazz and blues of the '20s and '30s. In the '60s and '70s, he made a series of influential recordings with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Paul Butterfield's Better Days, and Maria Muldaur. His new double CD, titled His Last Letter, traces the musical influences of his life, and is arranged for, and performed with, Dutch chamber musicians. He spoke with Terry Gross in 2009. Justin Chang reviews the new thriller The Gray Man, starring Ryan Gosling.

Episode 143 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Summer in the City'”, and at the short but productive career of the Lovin' Spoonful.  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 "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Any More" by the Walker Brothers and the strange career of Scott Walker. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources As usual, all the songs excerpted in the podcast can be heard in full at Mixcloud. This box set contains all four studio albums by the Lovin' Spoonful, plus the one album by "The Lovin' Spoonful featuring Joe Butler", while this CD contains their two film soundtracks (mostly inessential instrumental filler, apart from "Darling Be Home Soon") Information about harmonicas and harmonicists comes from Harmonicas, Harps, and Heavy Breathers by Kim Field. There are only three books about the Lovin' Spoonful, but all are worth reading. Do You Believe in Magic? by Simon Wordsworth is a good biography of the band, while his The Magic's in the Music is a scrapbook of press cuttings and reminiscences. Meanwhile Steve Boone's Hotter Than a Match Head: My Life on the Run with the Lovin' Spoonful has rather more discussion of the actual music than is normal in a musician's autobiography. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Let's talk about the harmonica for a while. The harmonica is an instrument that has not shown up a huge amount in the podcast, but which was used in a fair bit of the music we've covered. We've heard it for example on records by Bo Diddley: [Excerpt: Bo Diddley, "I'm a Man"] and by Bob Dylan: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Blowin' in the Wind"] and the Rolling Stones: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Little Red Rooster"] In most folk and blues contexts, the harmonicas used are what is known as a diatonic harmonica, and these are what most people think of when they think of harmonicas at all. Diatonic harmonicas have the notes of a single key in them, and if you want to play a note in another key, you have to do interesting tricks with the shape of your mouth to bend the note. There's another type of harmonica, though, the chromatic harmonica. We've heard that a time or two as well, like on "Love Me Do" by the Beatles: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Love Me Do"] Chromatic harmonicas have sixteen holes, rather than the diatonic harmonica's ten, and they also have a slide which you can press to raise the note by a semitone, meaning you can play far more notes than on a diatonic harmonica -- but they're also physically harder to play, requiring a different kind of breathing to pull off playing one successfully. They're so different that John Lennon would distinguish between the two instruments -- he'd describe a chromatic harmonica as a harmonica, but a diatonic harmonica he would call a harp, like blues musicians often did: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Love These Goon Shows"] While the chromatic harmonica isn't a particularly popular instrument in rock music, it is one that has had some success in other fields. There have been some jazz and light-orchestral musicians who have become famous playing the instrument, like the jazz musician Max Geldray, who played in those Goon Shows the Beatles loved so much: [Excerpt: Max Geldray, "C-Jam Blues"] And in the middle of the twentieth century there were a few musicians who succeeded in making the harmonica into an instrument that was actually respected in serious classical music. By far the most famous of these was Larry Adler, who became almost synonymous with the instrument in the popular consciousness, and who reworked many famous pieces of music for the instrument: [Excerpt: Larry Adler, "Rhapsody in Blue"] But while Adler was the most famous classical harmonicist of his generation, he was not generally considered the best by other musicians. That was, rather, a man named John Sebastian. Sebastian, who chose to take his middle name as a surname partly to Anglicise his name but also, it seems, at least in part as tribute to Johann Sebastian Bach (which incidentally now makes it really, really difficult to search for copies of his masterwork "John Sebastian Plays Bach", as Internet searches uniformly think you're searching just for the composer...) started out like almost all harmonica players as an amateur playing popular music. But he quickly got very, very, good, and by his teens he was already teaching other children, including at a summer camp run by Albert Hoxie, a musician and entrepreneur who was basically single-handedly responsible for the boom in harmonica sales in the 1920s and 1930s, by starting up youth harmonica orchestras -- dozens or even hundreds of kids, all playing harmonica together, in a semi-militaristic youth organisation something like the scouts, but with harmonicas instead of woggles and knots. Hoxie's group and the various organisations copying it led to there being over a hundred and fifty harmonica orchestras in Chicago alone, and in LA in the twenties and thirties a total of more than a hundred thousand children passed through harmonica orchestras inspired by Hoxie. Hoxie's youth orchestras were largely responsible for the popularity of the harmonica as a cheap instrument for young people, and thus for its later popularity in the folk and blues worlds. That was only boosted in the Second World War by the American Federation of Musicians recording ban, which we talked about in the early episodes of the podcast -- harmonicas had never been thought of as a serious instrument, and so most professional harmonica players were not members of the AFM, but were considered variety performers and were part of the American Guild of Variety Artists, along with singers, ukulele players, and musical saw players. Of course, the war did also create a problem, because the best harmonicas were made in Germany by the Hohner company, but soon a lot of American companies started making cheap harmonicas to fill the gap in the market. There's a reason the cliche of the GI in a war film playing a harmonica in the trenches exists, and it's largely because of Hoxie. And Hoxie was based in Philadelphia, where John Sebastian lived as a kid, and he mentored the young player, who soon became a semi-professional performer. Sebastian's father was a rich banker, and discouraged him from becoming a full-time musician -- the plan was that after university, Sebastian would become a diplomat. But as part of his preparation for that role, he was sent to spend a couple of years studying at the universities of Rome and Florence, learning about Italian culture. On the boat back, though, he started talking to two other passengers, who turned out to be the legendary Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart, the writers of such classic songs as "Blue Moon" and "My Funny Valentine": [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald, "My Funny Valentine"] Sebastian talked to his new friends, and told them that he was feeling torn between being a musician and being in the foreign service like his father wanted. They both told him that in their experience some people were just born to be artists, and that those people would never actually find happiness doing anything else. He took their advice, and decided he was going to become a full-time harmonica player. He started out playing in nightclubs, initially playing jazz and swing, but only while he built up a repertoire of classical music. He would rehearse with a pianist for three hours every day, and would spend the rest of his time finding classical works, especially baroque ones, and adapting them for the harmonica. As he later said “I discovered sonatas by Telemann, Veracini, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Hasse, Marcello, Purcell, and many others, which were written to be played on violin, flute, oboe, musette, even bagpipes... The composer seemed to be challenging each instrument to create the embellishments and ornaments to suit its particular voice. . . . I set about choosing works from this treasure trove that would best speak through my instrument.” Soon his nightclub repertoire was made up entirely of these classical pieces, and he was making records like John Sebastian Plays Bach: [Excerpt: John Sebastian, "Flute Sonata in B Minor BWV1030 (J.S. Bach)"] And while Sebastian was largely a lover of baroque music above all other forms, he realised that he would have to persuade new composers to write new pieces for the instrument should he ever hope for it to have any kind of reputation as a concert instrument, so he persuaded contemporary composers to write pieces like George Kleinsinger's "Street Corner Concerto", which Sebastian premiered with the New York Philharmonic: [Excerpt: John Sebastian, "Street Corner Concerto"] He became the first harmonica player to play an entirely classical repertoire, and regarded as the greatest player of his instrument in the world. The oboe player Jay S Harrison once wrote of seeing him perform "to accomplish with success a program of Mr. Sebastian's scope is nothing short of wizardry. . . . He has vast technical facility, a bulging range of colors, and his intentions are ever musical and sophisticated. In his hands the harmonica is no toy, no simple gadget for the dispensing of homespun tunes. Each single number of the evening was whittled, rounded, polished, and poised. . . . Mr. Sebastian's playing is uncanny." Sebastian came from a rich background, and he managed to earn enough as a classical musician to live the lifestyle of a rich artistic Bohemian. During the forties and fifties he lived in Greenwich Village with his family -- apart from a four-year period living in Rome from 1951 to 55 -- and Eleanor Roosevelt was a neighbour, while Vivian Vance, who played Ethel Mertz on I Love Lucy, was the godmother of his eldest son. But while Sebastian's playing was entirely classical, he was interested in a wider variety of music. When he would tour Europe, he would often return having learned European folk songs, and while he was living in Greenwich Village he would often be visited by people like Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, and other folk singers living in the area. And that early influence rubbed off on Sebastian's son, John Benson Sebastian, although young John gave up trying to learn the harmonica the first time he tried, because he didn't want to be following too closely in his father's footsteps. Sebastian junior did, though, take up the guitar, inspired by the first wave rock and rollers he was listening to on Alan Freed's show, and he would later play the harmonica, though the diatonic harmonica rather than the chromatic. In case you haven't already figured it out, John Benson Sebastian, rather than his father, is a principal focus of this episode, and so to avoid confusion, from this point on, when I refer to "John Sebastian" or "Sebastian" without any qualifiers, I'm referring to the younger man. When I refer to "John Sebastian Sr" I'm talking about the father. But it was John Sebastian Sr's connections, in particular to the Bohemian folk and blues scenes, which gave his more famous son his first connection to that world of his own, when Sebastian Sr appeared in a TV show, in November 1960, put together by Robert Herridge, a TV writer and producer who was most famous for his drama series but who had also put together documentaries on both classical music and jazz, including the classic performance documentary The Sound of Jazz. Herridge's show featured both Sebastian Sr and the country-blues player Lightnin' Hopkins: [Excerpt: Lightnin' Hopkins, "Blues in the Bottle"] Hopkins was one of many country-blues players whose career was having a second wind after his discovery by the folk music scene. He'd been recording for fourteen years, putting out hundreds of records, but had barely performed outside Houston until 1959, when the folkies had picked up on his work, and in October 1960 he had been invited to play Carnegie Hall, performing with Pete Seeger and Joan Baez. Young John Sebastian had come along with his dad to see the TV show be recorded, and had an almost Damascene conversion -- he'd already heard Hopkins' recordings, but had never seen anything like his live performances. He was at that time attending a private boarding school, Blair Academy, and his roommate at the school also had his own apartment, where Sebastian would sometimes stay. Soon Lightnin' Hopkins was staying there as well, as somewhere he could live rent-free while he was in New York. Sebastian started following Hopkins around and learning everything he could, being allowed by the older man to carry his guitar and buy him gin, though the two never became close. But eventually, Hopkins would occasionally allow Sebastian to play with him when he played at people's houses, which he did on occasion. Sebastian became someone that Hopkins trusted enough that when he was performing on a bill with someone else whose accompanist wasn't able to make the gig and Sebastian put himself forward, Hopkins agreed that Sebastian would be a suitable accompanist for the evening. The singer he accompanied that evening was a performer named Valentine Pringle, who was a protege of Harry Belafonte, and who had a similar kind of sound to Paul Robeson. Sebastian soon became Pringle's regular accompanist, and played on his first album, I Hear America Singing, which was also the first record on which the great trumpet player Hugh Masakela played. Sadly, Paul Robeson style vocals were so out of fashion by that point that that album has never, as far as I can tell, been issued in a digital format, and hasn't even been uploaded to YouTube.  But this excerpt from a later recording by Pringle should give you some idea of the kind of thing he was doing: [Excerpt: Valentine Pringle, "Go 'Way From My Window"] After these experiences, Sebastian started regularly going to shows at Greenwich Village folk clubs, encouraged by his parents -- he had an advantage over his peers because he'd grown up in the area and had artistic parents, and so he was able to have a great deal of freedom that other people in their teens weren't. In particular, he would always look out for any performances by the great country blues performer Mississippi John Hurt. Hurt had made a few recordings for Okeh records in 1928, including an early version of "Stagger Lee", titled "Stack O'Lee": [Excerpt: Mississippi John Hurt, "Stack O'Lee Blues"] But those records had been unsuccessful, and he'd carried on working on a farm. and not performed other than in his tiny home town of Avalon, Mississippi, for decades. But then in 1952, a couple of his tracks had been included on the Harry Smith Anthology, and as a result he'd come to the attention of the folk and blues scholar community. They'd tried tracking him down, but been unable to until in the early sixties one of them had discovered a track on one of Hurt's records, "Avalon Blues", and in 1963, thirty-five years after he'd recorded six flop singles, Mississippi John Hurt became a minor star, playing the Newport Folk Festival and appearing on the Tonight Show. By this time, Sebastian was a fairly well-known figure in Greenwich Village, and he had become quite a virtuoso on the harmonica himself, and would walk around the city wearing a holster-belt containing harmonicas in a variety of different keys. Sebastian became a huge fan of Hurt, and would go and see him perform whenever Hurt was in New York. He soon found himself first jamming backstage with Hurt, and then performing with him on stage for the last two weeks of a residency. He was particularly impressed with what he called Hurt's positive attitude in his music -- something that Sebastian would emulate in his own songwriting. Sebastian was soon invited to join a jug band, called the Even Dozen Jug Band. Jug band music was a style of music that first became popular in the 1920s, and had many of the same musical elements as the music later known as skiffle. It was played on a mixture of standard musical instruments -- usually portable, "folky" ones like guitar and harmonica -- and improvised homemade instruments, like the spoons, the washboard, and comb and paper. The reason they're called jug bands is because they would involve someone blowing into a jug to make a noise that sounded a bit like a horn -- much like the coffee pot groups we talked about way back in episode six. The music was often hokum music, and incorporated elements of what we'd now call blues, vaudeville, and country music, though at the time those genres were nothing like as distinct as they're considered today: [Excerpt: Cincinnati Jug Band, "Newport Blues"] The Even Dozen Jug Band actually ended up having thirteen members, and it had a rather remarkable lineup. The leader was Stefan Grossman, later regarded as one of the greatest fingerpicking guitarists in America, and someone who will be coming up in other contexts in future episodes I'm sure, and they also featured David Grisman, a mandolin player who would later play with the Grateful Dead among many others;  Steve Katz, who would go on to be a founder member of Blood, Sweat and Tears and produce records for Lou Reed; Maria D'Amato, who under her married name Maria Muldaur would go on to have a huge hit with "Midnight at the Oasis"; and Joshua Rifkin, who would later go on to become one of the most important scholars of Bach's music of the latter half of the twentieth century, but who is best known for his recordings of Scott Joplin's piano rags, which more or less single-handedly revived Joplin's music from obscurity and created the ragtime revival of the 1970s: [Excerpt: Joshua Rifkin, "Maple Leaf Rag"] Unfortunately, despite the many talents involved, a band as big as that was uneconomical to keep together, and the Even Dozen Jug Band only played four shows together -- though those four shows were, as Muldaur later remembered, "Carnegie Hall twice, the Hootenanny television show and some church". The group did, though, make an album for Elektra records, produced by Paul Rothchild. Indeed, it was Rothchild who was the impetus for the group forming -- he wanted to produce a record of a jug band, and had told Grossman that if he got one together, he'd record it: [Excerpt: The Even Dozen Jug Band, "On the Road Again"] On that album, Sebastian wasn't actually credited as John Sebastian -- because he was playing harmonica on the album, and his father was such a famous harmonica player, he thought it better if he was credited by his middle name, so he was John Benson for this one album. The Even Dozen Jug Band split up after only a few months, with most of the band more interested in returning to university than becoming professional musicians, but Sebastian remained in touch with Rothchild, as they both shared an interest in the drug culture, and Rothchild started using him on sessions for other artists on Elektra, which was rapidly becoming one of the biggest labels for the nascent counterculture. The first record the two worked together on after the Even Dozen Jug Band was sparked by a casual conversation. Vince Martin and Fred Neil saw Sebastian walking down the street wearing his harmonica holster, and were intrigued and asked him if he played. Soon he and his friend Felix Pappalardi were accompanying Martin and Neil on stage, and the two of them were recording as the duo's accompanists: [Excerpt: Vince Martin and Fred Neil, "Tear Down the Walls"] We've mentioned Neil before, but if you don't remember him, he was one of the people around whom the whole Greenwich Village scene formed -- he was the MC and organiser of bills for many of the folk shows of the time, but he's now best known for writing the songs "Everybody's Talkin'", recorded famously by Harry Nilsson, and "The Dolphins", recorded by Tim Buckley. On the Martin and Neil album, Tear Down The Walls, as well as playing harmonica, Sebastian acted essentially as uncredited co-producer with Rothchild, but Martin and Neil soon stopped recording for Elektra. But in the meantime, Sebastian had met the most important musical collaborator he would ever have, and this is the start of something that will become a minor trend in the next few years, of important musical collaborations happening because of people being introduced by Cass Elliot. Cass Elliot had been a singer in a folk group called the Big 3 -- not the same group as the Merseybeat group -- with Tim Rose, and the man who would be her first husband, Jim Hendricks (not the more famous guitarist of a similar name): [Excerpt: Cass Elliot and the Big 3, "The Banjo Song"] The Big 3 had split up when Elliot and Hendricks had got married, and the two married members had been looking around for other musicians to perform with, when coincidentally another group they knew also split up. The Halifax Three were a Canadian group who had originally started out as The Colonials, with a lineup of Denny Doherty, Pat LaCroix and Richard Byrne. Byrne didn't turn up for a gig, and a homeless guitar player, Zal Yanovsky, who would hang around the club the group were playing at, stepped in. Doherty and LaCroix, much to Yanovsky's objections, insisted he bathe and have a haircut, but soon the newly-renamed Halifax Three were playing Carnegie Hall and recording for Epic Records: [Excerpt: The Halifax Three, "When I First Came to This Island"] But then a plane they were in crash-landed, and the group took that as a sign that they should split up. So they did, and Doherty and Yanovsky continued as a duo, until they hooked up with Hendricks and Elliot and formed a new group, the Mugwumps. A name which may be familiar if you recognise one of the hits of a group that Doherty and Elliot were in later: [Excerpt: The Mamas and the Papas, "Creeque Alley"] But we're skipping ahead a bit there. Cass Elliot was one of those few people in the music industry about whom it is impossible to find anyone with a bad word to say, and she was friendly with basically everyone, and particularly good at matching people up with each other. And on February the 7th 1964, she invited John Sebastian over to watch the Beatles' first performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. Like everyone in America, he was captivated by the performance: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I Want to Hold Your Hand (live on the Ed Sullivan Show)"] But Yanovsky was also there, and the two played guitar together for a bit, before retreating to opposite sides of the room. And then Elliot spent several hours as a go-between, going to each man and telling him how much the other loved and admired his playing and wanted to play more with him. Sebastian joined the Mugwumps for a while, becoming one of the two main instrumentalists with Yanovsky, as the group pivoted from performing folk music to performing Beatles-inspired rock. But the group's management team, Bob Cavallo and Roy Silver, who weren't particularly musical people, and whose main client was the comedian Bill Cosby, got annoyed at Sebastian, because he and Yanovsky were getting on *too* well musically -- they were trading blues licks on stage, rather than sticking to the rather pedestrian arrangements that the group was meant to be performing -- and so Silver fired Sebastian fired from the group. When the Mugwumps recorded their one album, Sebastian had to sit in the control room while his former bandmates recorded with session musicians, who he thought were nowhere near up to his standard: [Excerpt: The Mugwumps, "Searchin'"] By the time that album was released, the Mugwumps had already split up. Sebastian had continued working as a session musician for Elektra, including playing on the album The Blues Project, which featured white Greenwich Village folk musicians like Eric Von Schmidt, Dave Van Ronk, and Spider John Koerner playing their versions of old blues records, including this track by Geoff Muldaur, which features Sebastian on harmonica and "Bob Landy" on piano -- a fairly blatant pseudonym: [Excerpt: Geoff Muldaur, "Downtown Blues"] Sebastian also played rhythm guitar and harmonica on the demos that became a big part of Tim Hardin's first album -- and his fourth, when the record company released the remaining demos. Sebastian doesn't appear to be on the orchestrated ballads that made Hardin's name -- songs like "Reason to Believe" and "Misty Roses" -- but he is on much of the more blues-oriented material, which while it's not anything like as powerful as Hardin's greatest songs, made up a large part of his repertoire: [Excerpt: Tim Hardin, "Ain't Gonna Do Without"] Erik Jacobsen, the producer of Hardin's records, was impressed enough by Sebastian that he got Sebastian to record lead vocals, for a studio group consisting of Sebastian, Felix Pappalardi, Jerry Yester and Henry Diltz of the Modern Folk Quartet, and a bass singer whose name nobody could later remember. The group, under the name "Pooh and the Heffalumps", recorded two Beach Boys knockoffs, "Lady Godiva" and "Rooty Toot", the latter written by Sebastian, though he would later be embarrassed by it and claim it was by his cousin: [Excerpt: Pooh and the Heffalumps, "Rooty Toot"] After that, Jacobsen became convinced that Sebastian should form a group to exploit his potential as a lead singer and songwriter. By this point, the Mugwumps had split up, and their management team had also split, with Silver taking Bill Cosby and Cavallo taking the Mugwumps, and so Sebastian was able to work with Yanovsky, and the putative group could be managed by Cavallo. But Sebastian and Yanovsky needed a rhythm section. And Erik Jacobsen knew a band that might know some people. Jacobsen was a fan of a Beatles soundalike group called the Sellouts, who were playing Greenwich Village and who were co-managed by Herb Cohen, the manager of the Modern Folk Quartet (who, as we heard a couple of episodes ago, would soon go on to be the manager of the Mothers of Invention). The Sellouts were ultra-professional by the standards  of rock groups of the time -- they even had a tape echo machine that they used on stage to give them a unique sound -- and they had cut a couple of tracks with Jacobsen producing, though I've not been able to track down copies of them. Their leader Skip Boone, had started out playing guitar in a band called the Blue Suedes, and had played in 1958 on a record by their lead singer Arthur Osborne: [Excerpt: Arthur Osborne, "Hey Ruby"] Skip Boone's brother Steve in his autobiography says that that was produced by Chet Atkins for RCA, but it was actually released on Brunswick records. In the early sixties, Skip Boone joined a band called the Kingsmen -- not the same one as the band that recorded "Louie Louie" -- playing lead guitar with his brother Steve on rhythm, a singer called Sonny Bottari, a saxophone player named King Charles, bass player Clay Sonier, and drummer Joe Butler. Sometimes Butler would get up front and sing, and then another drummer, Jan Buchner, would sit in in his place. Soon Steve Boone would replace Bonier as the bass player, but the Kingsmen had no success, and split up. From the ashes of the Kingsmen had formed the Sellouts, Skip Boone, Jerry Angus, Marshall O'Connell, and Joe Butler, who had switched from playing "Peppermint Twist" to playing "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in February 1964. Meanwhile Steve Boone went on a trip to Europe before starting at university in New York, where he hooked up again with Butler, and it was Butler who introduced him to Sebastian and Yanovsky. Sebastian and Yanovsky had been going to see the Sellouts at the behest of Jacobsen, and they'd been asking if they knew anyone else who could play that kind of material. Skip Boone had mentioned his little brother, and as soon as they met him, even before they first played together, they knew from his appearance that he would be the right bass player for them. So now they had at least the basis for a band. They hadn't played together, but Erik Jacobsen was an experienced record producer and Cavallo an experienced manager. They just needed to do some rehearsals and get a drummer, and a record contract was more or less guaranteed. Boone suggested Jan Buchner, the backup drummer from the Kingsmen, and he joined them for rehearsals. It was during these early rehearsals that Boone got to play on his first real record, other than some unreleased demos the Kingsmen had made. John Sebastian got a call from that "Bob Landy" we mentioned earlier, asking if he'd play bass on a session. Boone tagged along, because he was a fan, and when Sebastian couldn't get the parts down for some songs, he suggested that Boone, as an actual bass player, take over: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Maggie's Farm"] But the new group needed a name, of course. It was John Sebastian who came up with the name they eventually chose, The Lovin' Spoonful, though Boone was a bit hesitant about it at first, worrying that it might be a reference to heroin -- Boone was from a very conservative, military, background, and knew little of drug culture and didn't at that time make much of a distinction between cannabis and heroin, though he'd started using the former -- but Sebastian was insistent. The phrase actually referred to coffee -- the name came from "Coffee Blues" by Sebastian's old idol Mississippi John Hurt – or at least Hurt always *said* it was about coffee, though in live performance he apparently made it clear that it was about cunnilingus: [Excerpt: Mississippi John Hurt, "Coffee Blues"] Their first show, at the Night Owl Club, was recorded, and there was even an attempt to release it as a CD in the 1990s, but it was left unreleased and as far as I can tell wasn't even leaked. There have been several explanations for this, but perhaps the most accurate one is just the comment from the manager of the club, who came up to the group after their two sets and told them “Hey, I don't know how to break this to you, but you guys suck.” There were apparently three different problems. They were underrehearsed -- which could be fixed with rehearsal -- they were playing too loud and hurting the patrons' ears -- which could be fixed by turning down the amps -- and their drummer didn't look right, was six years older than the rest of the group, and was playing in an out-of-date fifties style that wasn't suitable for the music they were playing. That was solved by sacking Buchner. By this point Joe Butler had left the Sellouts, and while Herb Cohen was interested in managing him as a singer, he was willing to join this new group at least for the moment. By now the group were all more-or-less permanent residents at the Albert Hotel, which was more or less a doss-house where underemployed musicians would stay, and which had its own rehearsal rooms. As well as the Spoonful, Cass Elliot and Denny Doherty lived there, as did the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Joe Butler quickly fit into the group, and soon they were recording what became their first single, produced by Jacobsen, an original of Sebastian's called "Do You Believe in Magic?", with Sebastian on autoharp and vocals, Yanovsky on lead guitar and backing vocals, Boone on bass, Butler on drums, and Jerry Yester adding piano and backing vocals: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Do You Believe in Magic?"] For a long time, the group couldn't get a deal -- the record companies all liked the song, but said that unless the group were English they couldn't sell them at the moment. Then Phil Spector walked into the Night Owl Cafe, where the new lineup of the group had become popular, and tried to sign them up. But they turned him down -- they wanted Erik Jacobsen to produce them; they were a team. Spector's interest caused other labels to be interested, and the group very nearly signed to Elektra. But again, signing to Elektra would have meant being produced by Rothchild, and also Elektra were an album label who didn't at that time have any hit single acts, and the group knew they had hit single potential. They did record a few tracks for Elektra to stick on a blues compilation, but they knew that Elektra wouldn't be their real home. Eventually the group signed with Charley Koppelman and Don Rubin, who had started out as songwriters themselves, working for Don Kirshner. When Kirshner's organisation had been sold to Columbia, Koppelman and Rubin had gone along and ended up working for Columbia as executives. They'd then worked for Morris Levy at Roulette Records, before forming their own publishing and record company. Rather than put out records themselves, they had a deal to license records to Kama Sutra Records, who in turn had a distribution deal with MGM Records. Koppelman and Rubin were willing to take the group and their manager and producer as a package deal, and they released the group's demo of "Do You Believe In Magic?" unchanged as their first single: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Do You Believe in Magic?"] The single reached the top ten, and the group were soon in the studio cutting their first album, also titled Do You Believe In Magic? The album was a mix of songs that were part of the standard Greenwich Village folkie repertoire -- songs like Mississippi John Hurt's "Blues in the Bottle" and Fred Neil's "The Other Side of This Life" -- and a couple more originals. The group's second single was the first song that Steve Boone had co-written. It was inspired by a date he'd gone on with the photographer Nurit Wilde, who sadly for him didn't go on a second date, and who would later be the mother of Mike Nesmith's son Jason, but who he was very impressed by. He thought of her when he came up with the line "you didn't have to be so nice, I would have liked you anyway", and he and Sebastian finished up a song that became another top ten hit for the group: [Excerpt: (The Good Time Music of) The Lovin' Spoonful, "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice"] Shortly after that song was recorded, but before it was released, the group were called into Columbia TV with an intriguing proposition. Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson, two young TV producers, were looking at producing a TV show inspired by A Hard Day's Night, and were looking for a band to perform in it. Would the Lovin' Spoonful be up for it? They were interested at first, but Boone and Sebastian weren't sure they wanted to be actors, and also it would involve the group changing its name. They'd already made a name for themselves as the Lovin' Spoonful, did they really want to be the Monkees instead? They passed on the idea. Instead, they went on a tour of the deep South as the support act to the Supremes, a pairing that they didn't feel made much sense, but which did at least allow them to watch the Supremes and the Funk Brothers every night. Sebastian was inspired by the straight four-on-the-floor beat of the Holland-Dozier-Holland repertoire, and came up with his own variation on it, though as this was the Lovin' Spoonful the end result didn't sound very Motown at all: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Daydream"] It was only after the track was recorded that Yanovsky pointed out to Sebastian that he'd unconsciously copied part of the melody of the old standard "Got a Date With an Angel": [Excerpt: Al Bowlly, "Got a Date With an Angel"] "Daydream" became the group's third top ten hit in a row, but it caused some problems for the group. The first was Kama Sutra's advertising campaign for the record, which had the words "Lovin' Spoonful Daydream", with the initials emphasised. While the group were drug users, they weren't particularly interested in being promoted for that rather than their music, and had strong words with the label. The other problem came with the Beach Boys. The group were supporting the Beach Boys on a tour in spring of 1966, when "Daydream" came out and became a hit, and they got on with all the band members except Mike Love, who they definitely did not get on with. Almost fifty years later, in his autobiography, Steve Boone would have nothing bad to say about the Wilson brothers, but calls Love "an obnoxious, boorish braggart", a "marginally talented hack" and worse, so it's safe to say that Love wasn't his favourite person in the world. Unfortunately, when "Daydream" hit the top ten, one of the promoters of the tour decided to bill the Lovin' Spoonful above the Beach Boys, and this upset Love, who understandably thought that his group, who were much better known and had much more hits, should be the headliners. If this had been any of the other Beach Boys, there would have been no problem, but because it was Love, who the Lovin' Spoonful despised, they decided that they were going to fight for top billing, and the managers had to get involved. Eventually it was agreed that the two groups would alternate the top spot on the bill for the rest of the tour. "Daydream" eventually reached number two on the charts (and number one on Cashbox) and also became the group's first hit in the UK, reaching number two here as well, and leading to the group playing a short UK tour. During that tour, they had a similar argument over billing with Mick Jagger as they'd had with Mike Love, this time over who was headlining on an appearance on Top of the Pops, and the group came to the same assessment of Jagger as they had of Love. The performance went OK, though, despite them being so stoned on hash given them by the wealthy socialite Tara Browne that Sebastian had to be woken up seconds before he started playing. They also played the Marquee Club -- Boone notes in his autobiography that he wasn't impressed by the club when he went to see it the day before their date there, because some nobody named David Bowie was playing there. But in the audience that day were George Harrison, John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Spencer Davis, and Brian Jones, most of whom partied with the group afterwards. The Lovin' Spoonful made a big impression on Lennon in particular, who put "Daydream" and "Do You Believe in Magic" in his jukebox at home, and who soon took to wearing glasses in the same round, wiry, style as the ones that Sebastian wore. They also influenced Paul McCartney, who wasn't at that gig, but who soon wrote this, inspired by "Daydream": [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Good Day Sunshine"] Unfortunately, this was more or less the high point of the group's career. Shortly after that brief UK tour, Zal Yanovsky and Steve Boone went to a party where they were given some cannabis -- and they were almost immediately stopped by the police, subjected to an illegal search of their vehicle, and arrested. They would probably have been able to get away with this -- after all, it was an illegal search, even though of course the police didn't admit to that -- were it not for the fact that Yanovsky was a Canadian citizen, and he could be deported and barred from ever re-entering the US just for being arrested. This was the first major drug bust of a rock and roll group, and there was no precedent for the group, their managers, their label or their lawyers to deal with this. And so they agreed to something they would regret for the rest of their lives. In return for being let off, Boone and Yanovsky agreed to take an undercover police officer to a party and introduce him to some of their friends as someone they knew in the record business, so he would be able to arrest one of the bigger dealers. This was, of course, something they knew was a despicable thing to do, throwing friends under the bus to save themselves, but they were young men and under a lot of pressure, and they hoped that it wouldn't actually lead to any arrests. And for almost a year, there were no serious consequences, although both Boone and Yanovsky were shaken up by the event, and Yanovsky's behaviour, which had always been erratic, became much, much worse. But for the moment, the group remained very successful. After "Daydream", an album track from their first album, "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?" had been released as a stopgap single, and that went to number two as well. And right before the arrest, the group had been working on what would be an even bigger hit. The initial idea for "Summer in the City" actually came from John Sebastian's fourteen-year-old brother Mark, who'd written a bossa nova song called "It's a Different World". The song was, by all accounts, the kind of thing that a fourteen-year-old boy writes, but part of it had potential, and John Sebastian took that part -- giving his brother full credit -- and turned it into the chorus of a new song: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Summer in the City"] To this, Sebastian added a new verse, inspired by a riff the session player Artie Schroeck had been playing while the group recorded their songs for the Woody Allen film What's Up Tiger Lily, creating a tenser, darker, verse to go with his younger brother's chorus: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Summer in the City"] In the studio, Steve Boone came up with the instrumental arrangement, which started with drums, organ, electric piano, and guitar, and then proceeded to bass, autoharp, guitar, and percussion overdubs. The drum sound on the record was particularly powerful thanks to the engineer Roy Halee, who worked on most of Simon & Garfunkel's records. Halee put a mic at the top of a stairwell, a giant loudspeaker at the bottom, and used the stairwell as an echo chamber for the drum part. He would later use a similar technique on Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer". The track still needed another section though, and Boone suggested an instrumental part, which led to him getting an equal songwriting credit with the Sebastian brothers. His instrumental piano break was inspired by Gershwin, and the group topped it off with overdubbed city noises: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Summer in the City"] The track went to number one, becoming the group's only number one record, and it was the last track on what is by far their best album, Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful. That album produced two more top ten hits for the group, "Nashville Cats", a tribute to Nashville session players (though John Sebastian seems to have thought that Sun Records was a Nashville, rather than a Memphis, label), and the rather lovely "Rain on the Roof": [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Rain on the Roof"] But that song caused friction with the group, because it was written about Sebastian's relationship with his wife who the other members of the band despised. They also felt that the songs he was writing about their relationship were giving the group a wimpy image, and wanted to make more rockers like "Summer in the City" -- some of them had been receiving homophobic abuse for making such soft-sounding music. The group were also starting to resent Sebastian for other reasons. In a recent contract renegotiation, a "key member" clause had been put into the group's record contract, which stated that Sebastian, as far as the label was concerned, was the only important member of the group. While that didn't affect decision-making in the group, it did let the group know that if the other members did anything to upset Sebastian, he was able to take his ball away with him, and even just that potential affected the way the group thought about each other. All these factors came into play with a song called "Darling Be Home Soon", which was a soft ballad that Sebastian had written about his wife, and which was written for another film soundtrack -- this time for a film by a new director named Francis Ford Coppola. When the other band members came in to play on the soundtrack, including that track, they found that rather than being allowed to improvise and come up with their own parts as they had previously, they had to play pre-written parts to fit with the orchestration. Yanovsky in particular was annoyed by the simple part he had to play, and when the group appeared on the Ed Sullivan show to promote the record, he mugged, danced erratically, and mimed along mocking the lyrics as Sebastian sang. The song -- one of Sebastian's very best -- made a perfectly respectable number fifteen, but it was the group's first record not to make the top ten: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful, "Darling Be Home Soon"] And then to make matters worse, the news got out that someone had been arrested as a result of Boone and Yanovsky's efforts to get themselves out of trouble the year before. This was greeted with horror by the counterculture, and soon mimeographed newsletters and articles in the underground papers were calling the group part of the establishment, and calling for a general boycott of the group -- if you bought their records, attended their concerts, or had sex with any of the band members, you were a traitor. Yanovsky and Boone had both been in a bad way mentally since the bust, but Yanovsky was far worse, and was making trouble for the other members in all sorts of ways. The group decided to fire Yanovsky, and brought in Jerry Yester to replace him, giving him a severance package that ironically meant that he ended up seeing more money from the group's records than the rest of them, as their records were later bought up by a variety of shell companies that passed through the hands of Morris Levy among others, and so from the late sixties through the early nineties the group never got any royalties. For a while, this seemed to benefit everyone. Yanovsky had money, and his friendship with the group members was repaired. He released a solo single, arranged by Jack Nitzsche, which just missed the top one hundred: [Excerpt: Zal Yanovsky, "Just as Long as You're Here"] That song was written by the Bonner and Gordon songwriting team who were also writing hits for the Turtles at this time, and who were signed to Koppelman and Rubin's company. The extent to which Yanovsky's friendship with his ex-bandmates was repaired by his firing was shown by the fact that Jerry Yester, his replacement in the group, co-produced his one solo album, Alive and Well in Argentina, an odd mixture of comedy tracks, psychedelia, and tributes to the country music he loved. His instrumental version of Floyd Cramer's "Last Date" is fairly listenable -- Cramer's piano playing was a big influence on Yanovsky's guitar -- but his version of George Jones' "From Brown to Blue" makes it very clear that Zal Yanovsky was no George Jones: [Excerpt: Zal Yanovsky, "From Brown to Blue"] Yanovsky then quit music, and went into the restaurant business. The Lovin' Spoonful, meanwhile, made one further album, but the damage had been done. Everything Playing is actually a solid album, though not as good as the album before, and it produced three top forty hits, but the highest-charting was "Six O'Clock", which only made number eighteen, and the album itself made a pitiful one hundred and eighteen on the charts. The song on the album that in retrospect has had the most impact was the rather lovely "Younger Generation", which Sebastian later sang at Woodstock: [Excerpt: John Sebastian, "Younger Generation (Live at Woodstock)"] But at Woodstock he performed that alone, because by then he'd quit the group. Boone, Butler, and Yester decided to continue, with Butler singing lead, and recorded a single, "Never Going Back", produced by Yester's old bandmate from the Modern Folk Quartet Chip Douglas, who had since become a successful producer for the Monkees and the Turtles, and written by John Stewart of the Kingston Trio, who had written "Daydream Believer" for the Monkees, but the record only made number seventy-eight on the charts: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful featuring Joe Butler, "Never Going Back"] That was followed by an album by "The Lovin' Spoonful Featuring Joe Butler", Revelation: Revolution 69, a solo album by Butler in all but name -- Boone claims not to have played on it, and Butler is the only one featured on the cover, which shows a naked Butler being chased by a naked woman with a lion in front of them covering the naughty bits. The biggest hit other than "Never Going Back" from the album was "Me About You", a Bonner and Gordon song which only made number ninety-one: [Excerpt: The Lovin' Spoonful Featuring Joe Butler, "Me About You"] John Sebastian went on to have a moderately successful solo career -- as well as his appearance at Woodstock, he released several solo albums, guested on harmonica on records by the Doors, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young and others, and had a solo number one hit in 1976 with "Welcome Back", the theme song from the TV show Welcome Back, Kotter: [Excerpt: John Sebastian, "Welcome Back"] Sebastian continues to perform, though he's had throat problems for several decades that mean he can't sing many of the songs he's best known for. The original members of the Lovin' Spoonful reunited for two performances -- an appearance in Paul Simon's film One Trick Pony in 1980, and a rather disastrous induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. Zal Yanovsky died of a heart attack in 2002. The remaining band members remained friendly, and Boone, Butler, and Yester reunited as the Lovin' Spoonful in 1991, initially with Yester's brother Jim, who had played in The Association, latterly with other members. One of those other members in the 1990s was Yester's daughter Lena, who became Boone's fourth wife (and is as far as I can discover still married to him). Yester, Boone, and Butler continued touring together as the Lovin' Spoonful until 2017, when Jerry Yester was arrested on thirty counts of child pornography possession, and was immediately sacked from the group. The other two carried on, and the three surviving original members reunited on stage for a performance at one of the Wild Honey Orchestra's benefit concerts in LA in 2020, though that was just a one-off performance, not a full-blown reunion. It was also the last Lovin' Spoonful performance to date, as that was in February 2020, but Steve Boone has performed with John Sebastian's most recent project, John Sebastian's Jug Band Village, a tribute to the Greenwich Village folk scene the group originally formed in, and the two played together most recently in December 2021. The three surviving original members of the group all seem to be content with their legacy, doing work they enjoy, and basically friendly, which is more than can be said for most of their contemporaries, and which is perhaps appropriate for a band whose main songwriter had been inspired, more than anything else, to make music with a positive attitude.

In deze aflevering praat Co met de Amerikaanse zanger, gitarist en componist Geoff Muldaur over de prachtige vinylplaat His Last Letter. Ook hoor je live opnames van het afscheidsconcert van Louis van Dijk op het Loosdrecht Jazz Festival in 2018. En natuurlijk weer veel nieuwe muziek en vinyl.

In deze aflevering praat Co met de Amerikaanse zanger, gitarist en componist Geoff Muldaur over de prachtige vinylplaat His Last Letter. Ook hoor je live opnames van het afscheidsconcert van Louis van Dijk op het Loosdrecht Jazz Festival in 2018. En natuurlijk weer veel nieuwe muziek en vinyl.

Dan and Lyra discuss two sci-fi epics with very different vibes. Lyra chooses Denis Villeneuve's brand-new hit Dune (part 1). Dan chooses Terry Gilliam's madcap 1985 satire Brazil. What's in the box? Can Lyra use The Voice? And does anyone have a form 27B/6?! Intro and mid-show music: Hans Zimmer's score for Dune.Outro music: Maria and Geoff Muldaur, "Aquarela do Brasil."

At last, a radio show that casts a warm glow, due to the presence of Captain Beefheart, The Daughters Of Albion, Melanie, Procol Harum, Shirley Bassey, The Motorpsychos, Geoff Muldaur's Futuristic Ensemble and a host (okay, not a full host but certainly a few more) of other musicians. So turn off your electric light and light your candle (best do it the other way round) and listen to the latest edition of The Slightly Different Radio Show, 'Snuff said.

We borrowed the title for this week's program from a wonderful just-published memoir by Mitch Greenhill that chronicles his life as a composer, musician, producer and manager. Mitch inherited Folklore Productions from his dad, Manny, and his life has been involved with many great artists including Doc & Merle Watson, John Renbourn, Rosalie Sorrels, Eric Von Schmidt, Mayne Smith and the Rev. Gary Davis. On this program, we'll feature many of those artists, as well as recordings by Mitch and his friends. Celebrating the Greenhills and Folklore Productions ... this week on The Sing Out! Radio Magazine. Episode #21-11: Raised by Musical Mavericks Host: Tom Druckenmiller Artist/”Song”/CD/Label Pete Seeger / “If I Had A Hammer”(excerpt) / Songs of Hope and Struggle / Smithsonian Folkways String Madness / “Snowy Evening Blues” / Eye of the Beholder / Self-Produced Mitch Greenhill / “Albion Turned Away” / Blues of an Ancient Bard / Folklore Mitch Greenhill / “Mobile and Tennesee Line” / Picking the City Blues / Prestige Mitch Greenhill & Mayne Smith / “Don't You Dee That Train” / Storm Coming / Bay The Lost Frontier / “Freight Train Blues” / The Lost Frontier / Self-Produced Sister Rosetta Tharpe / “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” / The Decca Singles / Verve Paul Robeson / “Ol' Man River” / Single / CTS Rolf Cahn / “The Four Maries” / California Concert / Folkways String Madness / “Merlefest Ramble” / Eye of the Beholder / Self Produced The Rev. Gary Davis / “Death Don't Have No Mercy” / Great Bluesmen-Newport / Vanguard Lightnin' Hopkins w/Sam Lay / “Shake That Thing” / Great Bluesmen-Newport / Vanguard Eric Von Schmidt / “Joshua Gone Barbados” / Living on the Trail / Tomato Jim Kweskin & Geoff Muldaur / “C-H-I-C-K-E-N” / Penny's Farm / Kingswood Ry Cooder / “Long Riders Theme” / The Long Riders / Warner Brothers Rosalie Sorrels / “If I Could Be the Rain” / If I Could Be the Rain / Folk Legacy Pete Seeger / “If I Had A Hammer”(excerpt) / Songs of Hope and Struggle / Smithsonian Folkways

My guest today is the greatest banjo player the world has ever seen. That could be because of the advent of air travel but probably not. He was born in Boston, MA a city rich with history and prose and fiddling. This breadbasket of culture lent itself to my guest who was bubbling with an urge to play burning music- bluegrass music. From the Ash Grove Fiddlers Convention to Farms in Appalachia my guest found himself playing with the father of bluegrass Bill Monroe. In time he recognized Monroe's expectation that he develop his own sound on the banjo, be inventive, lead don't follow, I'll take A Melody. Which is what my guest did developing a style of playing that focused on the melody. Chromatic hits that required listening to his bandmates, taking chances and learning how to improvise melodically. Just like Ed Cassady and the Georgia Corn Stompers or Earl Skruggs or Bill Emerson. With this new style of banjo playing Keith joined Muleskinner with a bunch of pranksters including Richard Greene, David Grisman, Peter Rowan and the late great Clarence White- another inventor. My guest played in road worthy bands and was an in demand session player on both banjo and pedal steel. Might be Ian and Sylvia or a little Pottery Pie with Geoff Muldaur, relaxin his mind with Jim Rooney or playing on the back porch with Tony Trishka. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jake-feinberg/support

Do you know what SRP stands for, it's an acronym for a very sterile system of learning that leads to followers, copy cating, no individuality.....in music SRP stands for Standard Recording Procedure. The way of confining musicians to make music they don't want to create. The ties that bind, the money the 3 record companies remaining in this land.....a squeamish representation of dosing Billy Eckstine with punch on the way down to Vanguard Studios. My guest today is an authentic musician who is comfortable enough to be himself. This carries through the music, which because of the acoustic setup allows my guest's voice to become an instrument....there is no amplification! The output is done by the people themselves - whatever they had to give in front of five people in a barn with a combined total of 3 teeth or in a coffee house in Cambridge, MA which is across the Charles River from Boston University where myself and my guest both went. My guest is unconventional, a jug band junkie when crossed with legal LSD made for a real groovy time. Fellow comrades Geoff Muldaur, who smoked his first joint at Sabino Canyon, Fritz Richmond, Bill Keith, Maria Muldaur and Blind Lemon Jefferson all providing peer and mentor support in an experiential way.....they weren't getting an education in the classroom. This resurgence of regional American roots music was spurred on by independant record labels who saw transracial music as a good thing. This adherence to the acoustic itty by certain labels allowed this music to be heard by DJs who would mix in some Berry Gordy MoTown, Ray Charles from La La land and Tito Puente from the palladium. Their education was faith based with a common understanding that helping others was good, communicating non-verbally is all encompassing and mind expansion is necessary for new art to come into existence. But make no mistake, it has to be authentic, the artist must have creative control and if those back in the game saw any fleeting hash tag of commerciality they ran from it like a wild horse with a relaxed mind. Just back from NYC fresh off some gigs, Jim Kweskin welcome to the JFS. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jake-feinberg/support

There was a time in this country when a younger generation chose to buck the realities of linear life and carve their own paths. Legacy paths if you will. This generation had been inundated with Frank Sinatra and Doris Day, and were bored to death.What was resonating inside them was the sounds they were hearing and emulating from the smokey blues players who sung about real life and played acoustic instruments. Everything was in mono. It's not easy for white folks to comp Blind Lemon Jefferson, Reverend Gary Davis and Shakey Jake. For it to be an authentic emulation this generation had to understand the stories and the regional sophistication of these masters. They had to be eclectic and musicologists in their own way scouring for those obscure LPs at Village Music run by John Goddard My guest today was part of this generation who set out to learn from these masters and add their own accent. The messages and stories came through in their own cadence with washtub basses, mandolin's, dobro's and pottery pie. Old folkies like Eric Von Schmidt, Dave Van Ronk and my guest were the precursors to psychedelic electric music. These jug bands were looking to turn back the hands of time. Singing about being sleepy or having been all around this world, performing @ folk city and coffee houses with the likes of Bill Monroe, Tex Logan and other forefathers of traditional American Music. My guest today is a prolific singer, song writer and multiple instrumentalist. He plays the guitar, organ and saxophone, started his making albums on Prestige Folklore and Reprise and playing with all the heavies. Butterfield, Bobby Charles, Gene Dinwiddie,  Maria D'amato the aforementioned  mentioned Van Ronk, David Grisman and John Kahn Fritz Richmond and Bill Keith. It's an honor to welcome Geoff Muldaur to the JFS --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jake-feinberg/support

Bruce. Some new releases. Bob Dylan, Ruth Purves Smith and Utah Phillips. North African tunes celebrating the end of Ramadan. And more.Playlist: The Servants' Ball - Number One Step DanceClayton Cavallo - MercyJess Knights - Cover Your EyesRuth Purves Smith & The 581 - Where Does This Thing EndCharlotte Cornfield - In My CornerJoe Nolan - RiverJake Ian - The Lucky OnesBukka White - Parchman Farm BluesGeoff Muldaur and the Texas Sheiks - The World Is Going WrongBob Wills & His Texas Playboys - Sittin' On Top Of The WorldBob Dylan - Arthur McBrideSteve Earle & The Dukes - She Ain't Going NowhereUtah Phillips - The Telling Takes Me HomeTuulikki Bartosik - Tempest In A TeapotTidiame Thiam - Yeery-MayoNaseer Shamma - Min Ashur ila Ishbiliyya/D'Assur a SevilleSaleh Khairy - Alashan Al Malih

Show 67 – Recorded 2-15-20 This podcast provides 13 performances of blues songs performed by 13 blues artists or groups whose tremendous talent is highlighted here. Performances range from 1937 to 2019. The blues artists featured are: John Primer, Jesse Mae Hemphill, Big Jack Johnson, Kim Wilson, Pinetop Perkins, Speckled Red, Paul Butterfield, Geoff Muldaur, Maria Muldaur, Libby Rae Watson, Muddy Waters, Sammy Lawhorn, Pee Wee Madison, Calvin Fuzz Jones, Willie Big Eyes Smith, Paul Oscher, Robert Johnson, Lucinda Williams, Little Walter, Baby Face LeRoy Foster, Shy Perry, Bill Perry, Jimmy Rogers, Sunnyland Slim, Ernest Lawlers, Ernest Big Crawford and Rory Block.  

Show 67 – Recorded 2-15-20 This podcast provides 13 performances of blues songs performed by 13 blues artists or groups whose tremendous talent is highlighted here. Performances range from 1937 to 2019. The blues artists featured are: John Primer, Jesse Mae Hemphill, Big Jack Johnson, Kim Wilson, Pinetop Perkins, Speckled Red, Paul Butterfield, Geoff Muldaur, Maria Muldaur, Libby Rae Watson, Muddy Waters, Sammy Lawhorn, Pee Wee Madison, Calvin Fuzz Jones, Willie Big Eyes Smith, Paul Oscher, Robert Johnson, Lucinda Williams, Little Walter, Baby Face LeRoy Foster, Shy Perry, Bill Perry, Jimmy Rogers, Sunnyland Slim, Ernest Lawlers, Ernest Big Crawford and Rory Block.  

Show #814 Some Blues & Some More An episode with blues from a few new & recent releases and some more stuff that might tickle your ears. 01. Teresa James & The Rhythm Tramps - In The Pink (4:00) (Live!, Jesi-lu Records, 2019) 02. Los Lonely Boys - Cruel (3:44) (Forgiven, Epic Records, 2008) 03. Eddie 9V - Bottle And The Blues (3:59) (Left My Soul In Memphis, self-release, 2019) 04. Geoff Muldaur and the Texas Sheiks – Blues In The Bottle (3:48) (Texas Sheiks, Tradition & Moderne, 2009) 05. Jacqui Brown - Brought The House Down (4:27) (Love Love Love, Woodward Avenue Records, 2019) 06. Albert Castiglia - Same Old Game (3:32) (Don't Pass Me By, A Tribute To Sean Costello, Landslide Records, 2019) 07. Victor Wainwright - Don't Pass Me By (6:26) (Don't Pass Me By, A Tribute To Sean Costello, Landslide Records, 2019) 08. Sean Costello - She Loves Another Man (3:35) (Not Released, 2000) 09. Bill Filipiak - Go So Soon (3:40) (Digital Single, self-release, 2019) 10. Billie Williams - Drink From My Cup (2:34) (Hell To Pay, self-release, 2019) 11. Myles Goodwyn - I Love My Guitar (6:44) (Friends of the Blues 2, Linus Entertainment, 2019) 12. Nico Wayne Toussaint - Cheaper To Keep Her (4:08) (My Kind Of Blues, Dixiefrog Records, 1998) 13. David Raitt & Jimmy Thackery - Cheaper To Keep Her (3:47) (That's It!, Blue Rock'It Records, 2000) 14. Lizanne Knott - Hurricane (3:02) (Bones And Gravity, self-release, 2019) 15. Jersey Swamp Cats - I Get Evil (3:32) (Go Cat Go!, self-release, 2019) 16. Troy Gonyea - Jumping At Shadows (5:34) (Click Click Spark, Lotus Eater Records, 2019) 17. Steve Strongman - Tell Me Like It Is (4:19) (Tired Of Talkin', self-release, 2019) 18. Slim Harpo - We're Two Of A Kind [1964] (2:52) (Shake Your Hips, Ace Records, 1995) 19. Dawn Tyler Watson - Masochistic Heart (5:00) (Mad Love, self-release, 2019) 20. Jim Cofey - Bricks & Tiles (3:47) (Black Box Allegations, Naked, 2008) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

Jim Kweskin is the founder of the legendary 1960s Jim Kweskin Jug Band with Fritz Richmond, Geoff Muldaur, Maria Muldaur, Mel Lyman and Bruno Wolfehttps://www.jimkweskin.com

Show #793 Again, We Lost Some... In this episode of Bandana Blues Spinner pays respect to a few artists who passed away recently. And ofcourse there's the usual eclectic mix of great music, old and new. 01. Los Lonely Boys - Can't Slow Down (3:16) (Revelation, Blue Rose/Playing In Traffic Records, 2014) 02. Christone "Kingfish" Ingram - Hard Times (3:08) (Kingfish, Alligator Records, 2019) 03. Ally Venable - Come And Take It (4:50) (Texas Honey, Ruf Records, 2019) 04. Koerner, Ray & Glover - Southbound Train (4:07) (Lots More Blues Rags & Hollers, Elektra Records, 1964) 05. Adam Holt - Give The Dog A Bone (3:25) (Kind Of Blues, Zenith Records, 2019) 06. J.P. Reali - Whiskey For Blood (5:19) (A Highway Cruise, Reali Records, 2019) 07. Geoff Muldaur - The Wild Ox Moan (4:45) (The Secret Handshake, Hightone Records, 1998) 08. Geoff Muldaur and the Texas Sheiks – The World Is Going Wrong (3:08) (Texas Sheiks, Tradition & Moderne, 2009) 09. Rattlebone - World's Gone Crazy (4:43) (World's Gone Crazy, Rattlebone Records, 2019) 10. Kenny Parker - Half Crazy (3:20) (Hellfire, Rock-A-While Records, 2019) 11. Moreland & Arbuckle - Pittsburgh In The Morning, Philadelphia At Night (4:42) (1861, Northern Blues, 2008) 12. Chicken Shack - Pocket (3:19) (Accept, Blue Horizon, 1970) 13. Savoy Brown - Let It Rock (3:17) (Street Corner Talking, Deram Records, 1971) 14. Leon Redbone - Nobody's Sweetheart (2:12) (Double Time, Warner Bros Records, 1977) 15. Leon Redbone - TB Blues (3:53) (Champagne Charlie, Warner Bros Records, 1978) 16. Leon Redbone - You Nearly Lose Your Mind (2:31) (No Regrets, Sugar Hill Records, 1988) 17. Grady Champion - Who You Been Giving It To (2:58) (Steppin' In, Malaco Records, 2019) 18. Bo Ramsey - Burn It Down (2:52) (Fragile, Continental Song City, 2008) 19. Commander Cody - Midnight Man (4:19) (Rock 'N Roll Again, Arista Records, 1977) 20. The Cretins - Haven't Got A Clue (2:55) (Digital Download Single, Dirty Water Records, 2019) 21. Richard van Bergen & Rootbag - Snap! (2:07) (Walk On In, Naked, 2017) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

La oficina de control busca a Robert Benton. Le encontrarán en las nubes, literalmente, dedicándose al deporte favorito nacional: volar. Es el siglo veintimuchísmos y la humanidad por fin ha conseguido alcanzar el sueño de todos: vivir en armonía y acabar con las guerras. Estabilidad es el lema. [semi-spoilers] Probablemente el primer cuento de Dick que se tenga constancia, se cree que lo pudo escribir en 1947 (cuando iba al instituto) aunque no se publicó hasta 1987, en una antología - 35 años después de su primer cuento aceptado (se cree que fue “Roog”, que ya subimos). Creo que es genial y más aún escrito a esa edad pues aparecen varias de los motivos que le vemos desarrollar luego, sobretodo la relación del individuo con la sociedad: temática muy propia del cyberpunk incipiente que él inventó (aunque él no acuñará el término) pues muchas veces el personaje vive en un sociedad totalitaria, despóticamente dirigida bien sea por las empresas, por las máquinas o por la Oficina de Control. Resulta que nos encontramos ante una distopía pero no nos damos cuenta hasta terminar el relato. Por supuesto que nos huele un poco mal eso de la estabilidad. Alcanzar la paz mundial gracias a la homogenización total? ¿Una oficina que se encarga de que no pueda inventarse algo con grandes repercusiones ni pasar nada que se salga de la norma? No, gracias. ¿no? Pero en “Un mundo feliz” la gente también vive “feliz” y sin necesidades. El aspecto gris y ceniciento que sugiere una sociedad así troquelada (homogénea y aburrida, estable) recordaría por ello más a la antítesis, “1984” o incluso al icónico anuncio de Apple contra IBM de 1984 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfqw8nhUwA] que ya forma parte de la historia audiovisual tanto como el de Gorbachov comiendo pizza Hut de 1997 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLYGeRSPfZk]. Digredo. En cualquier caso: qué hace un individuo que vive en una sociedad no ya sólo aburrida, si no que le tiene esclavizado – como vemos al final del cuento: los humanos viven sometidos por máquinas trabajando para ellas. Trata de escapar. Pero ¿y si no puede? Ya sólo le queda un lugar donde refugiarse: su cabeza, la imaginación. Soñar, soñar aunque sea despierto. Eso pasa en muchos cuentos de Dick. Otra interpretacion de otro que subi (Sobre la desolada Tierra) es el duelo del protagonista que le lleva a creer que su amada perdida ha vuelto viendola por todas partes. Así que en mi opinión el cuento va (entre otras cosas) del anhelo de escapar. Robert Benton es un escapista. Porque, ¿qué es eso de moverse volando? Benton se olvida las alas en la oficina de control y tiene un momento muy “ahí vá, los donuts!” (hoy me sale la cosa de anuncios). Pero es que en ese momento (cuando coge el taxi) su suerte ya está echada. El círculo de tiempo ya se ha cerrado, está yendo a su casa con la esfera y pronto el universo en el que los hombres están sometidos a las máquinas se hará realidad. Sobre esa cuestión yo creo que no queda claro si (a) Benton realmente ya vivía en una sociedad tiránica y sueña con todo esto (b) Existe realmente una línea temporal (investigad sobre el Efecto Berenstain si queréis reí) en la que las máquinas son las dueñas y Benton es el responsable de traer dicha realidad a nuestra dimensión en la que comenzamos a existir en cuanto la bola se rompe. Por lo tanto aquí Dick combinaría viajes en el tiempo con universos/dimensiones paralelas. Respecto a viajes en el tiempo nos encontramos con un paradoja muy usada en la literatura, el loop causal, también llamada “bootstrap” paradox. Bootstraps son los cordones de los zapatos y hay una expresión en ingles que es “pull oneself over a fence by one’s bootstraps” algo así como pasar por encima de una valla tirándose de los cordones, o sea, realizar una tarea tan harto difícil como ridícula, usando un referente tan absurdo como imposible. El ejemplo mítico es matar a tu propio abuelo. O darte a luz a ti mismo, como ocurre en “Todos Ustedes Zombies”, cuento que ya subimos y también la encantadora y enormísima Radio Libre Albemuth (corred a disfrutar ese y otros!). Se trata de fenómenos “autocausales”, es necesario viajar en el tiempo para dar origen al futuro y por tanto se forma un círculo cerrado, no un bucle que se repite (como en “Algo para nosotros temponautas” que ya subimos blablablá) sino un loop cerrado donde los eventos están fijos en el tiempo y este continúa avanzando hacia delante. El término lo inventó el propio maestro Heinlein en una novela titulada “By his bootraps” llena de viajes en el tiempo. Yo soy más partidario de la primera opción: todo es un sueño de Benton para escapar de su terrible-terrible realidad. Una coraza, casi una locura, como la que se construyen los locos o la gente que ha vivido episodios de trauma para protegerse (gran ejemplo reciente en la enrome serie Mr Robot). El comienzo del cuento no puede ser más expresivo al respecto: volar… Me recordó desde el principio a la película Brazil y al final del cuento ya estaba convencido que Terry Gilliam probablemente se pudo inspirar en él (1985). Es una peli muy ochentera, es un futuro distópico tipo 1984 donde el gobierno cataloga como “terrorista” y persigue a todo aquel que considera un peligro y mantiene a la gente controlada a través de la prensa/tv. Tiene algún momento un poco lento y como todo lo de Gilliam a veces la imagen es un poco caótica, atiborrada de cosas pero mola mucho y me recordó por dos cosas: Sobretodo dos secuencias en las que el protagonista está volando, literalmente con dos alas muy como de quita y pon, el pelo suelto y vence a un monstruo para rescatar a una chica hermosa pero claro luego se despierta y es un funcionario del ministerio de control (o algo así). Además de las escenas con el tipo volando y que vive en una sociedad en la que nadie puede salirse de la norma uno de los temas esenciales de la peli es la necesidad de “escapar”. Y luego ya más gratuitamente porque es el futuro pero la estética es tipo años 20-50. Hay ordenadores que son máquinas de escribir con pantallas, se comunican rápidamente por tubos pneumáticos (lo más en comunicaciones, un sistema de tubos huecos y por compresión del aire se pueden enviar paquetes dentro de unas cápsulas, lo tengo visto todavía en Hospitales –además de en futurama), la arquitectura es modernista… Cuando Benton entra en la sala principal de la Oficina de Control la gente está tecleando sobre máquinas de escribir, perforando tarjetas (los primeros ordenadores funcionaban con tarjetas con agujeros que la máquina “leía” mecánicamente) y trazando gráficas... encantador! Para estar en el siglo 26 (por lo menos) es raro. En alguna parte del cuento Dick explica que la humanidad lleva mucho tiempo sin inventar cosas. Me voy a ir por las ramas con algo con lo que además sé que no tengo razón pero voy a ello: siempre pensé que el futuro fue en los años 50. Es cierto, se vino internet y el internet de las cosas, viene la inteligencia artificial, la revolución ciberpunk ya está aquí pero… para la gente normal no ha habido muchos cambios cualitativos grandes desde incluso… los años 30. Por entonces ya había televisión y teléfono, la gente tenía sus trabajos en la ciudad, iban a ellos en cercanías o en coche, respiraban contaminación… como nosotros. En los años cincuenta hubo un espíritu de que la sociedad llegaría a disfrutar de vacaciones en la luna y enormes facilidades, sólo era cuestión de tiempo. Es la época del sueño americano y todos esos carteles vintage 50eros tan chulos que tanto me gustan. Y la de consolidación de este género. Nacías en california en los años 50 y vamos, vivías el futuro. Luego el sueño se rompió después de la época hippie y finalmente se remozó por el suelo tras el advenimiento del movimiento neoliberal que hasta nuestros días perdura. No puedo callarme algunas cosas gratuitas más que se me ocurrieron mientras leía el cuento. Además de distopías, viajes en el tiempo e incluso otras dimensiones tenemos un atisbo de Psicohistoria (para quien no lo sepa es la ciencia que inventa Hari Seldon en Fundación que combinando psicología y matemáticas permite crear ecuaciones que predigan la dirección de la evolución de una sociedad (o de todo un imperio galáctico) incluyendo momentos más cruciales e incluso la posibilidad del nacimiento de variables extrañas). Los trabajadores están viendo unas gráficas en las que se predice con una alta probabilidad la aparición de un “Elemento desestabilizador”. Nada más que añadir señoría. Con respecto a la Estabilización, también tengo que traer como referencia un libro, “La patología de la normalidad” de Erich From. Los psicólogos saben (y cuando digo psicólogos incluyo a camareros, porteros, taxistas y escritores) que “loco” es aquel que es raro. Simplemente el que se sale de la norma. Si la mayoría de la gente se comportase como lo hacen los que hoy llamamos “locos”, los locos seríamos nosotros y ellos los cuerdos. Gran verdad. Y se ve mucho en los colegios y en los grupos cerrados, si alguien es un poco raro ya se le trata mal sólo por eso, alejarse de lo normal (fatal me parece). Además de que lo bueno es la diversidad, en el sentido de que fomenta la creatividad, una sociedad estable, sin cambios ni buenos ni malos, realmente sería preferible porque no habría guerra pero estaría estancada. Precisamente se dice en el cuento que llevan muchísimo tiempo (siglos) sin inventarse nada nuevo. Me recordó por supuesto también gratuitamente a esa frase mítica de “El tercer hombre” en la que se quejan de que Suiza lleva siglos sin inventar nada más que el queso suizo y el reloj de cuco precisamente por ser “neutral”. De todos modos medir el “progreso” por los avances científicos también tiene tela… Yo creo que realmente existe mucha dificultad entre separar ciencia ficción y fantasía. Porque, vamos a ver, lo de la bola, que cuando se rompe invade nuestra realidad… ¿Cuál es su mecanismo? Venga de otro tiempo o de otro universo, qué significa la ciudad encerrada? Es fantasía o es ciencia ficción? Si no nos lo explican todo es fantasía? Yo creo que los dos géneros se mezcla y Dick lo hace genial. Luego, algo tiene Dick con los funcionarios. Tantísimos de sus personajes lo son (“Equipo de Ajuste”, por ejemplo) o tienen un trabajo aburrido del que escapar (ejemplo buenísimo “La Maqueta, ambos los subimos ya). El funcionario a veces funciona como una pieza inconsciente de un engranaje maquiavélico. Cuanto están en la Oficina dice algo así como “un hombre inservible apilaba tarjetas en la pila etiquetada “Para Exterminar”. Recuerda irremediablemente a “La banalidad del mal”. Es increíble pero hay más cosas que me molaron del cuento. Mola que nos describe un poco más allá el mundo con frases aparentemente de refilón. Por ejemplo cuando dice que “cerró la puerta, cosa que ya no se solía hacer”. Luego Dick se hace más seco y sus descripciones a veces son muy mecánicas, los rostros son siempre “inexpresivos”, etc. Mola que cuando viajas en el tiempo todo cambia a tu alrededor, de repente la casa en la que estabas ya no existe y ahora todo es una campiña o hay un bosque entero donde antes sólo había aridez… pero el sol sigue siendo el mismo (lo dice más o menos literalmente). Luego dos cosas que no sé de donde vienen y me gustaría mucho saberlo. Primero, viajar en el tiempo como “caída”. En el cuento Dick describe el proceso como si Benton se sintiese caer. Lo hemos visto más veces en otras obras, cuando viajas en el tiempo, o a otra dimensión, en realidad primero “caes” todo a tu alrededor es un vórtice hacia el que caes. ¿Será por los agujeros negros, o los agujeros de gusano? Será por que describe muy bien la sensación de trance psicodélica? Nu se. Y segundo el tema de la ciudad encerrada dentro de la esfera. Esto sí que me gustaría mucho saber de dónde viene, no sé si la leyenda de la que hablan (dios encerró una ciudad de gente mala y perversa en un recipiente para que no pudieran escapar) existe pero sé que esta es una imagen que debe existir en más obras artísticas. Algo parecido salía en un cuento de Ciberíada de Lem (por cierto en los viajes 1 y 7 leímos también ejemplos de paradojas causales). Me suena a leyenda de las mil y una noches, la típica “putada” que te haría un Djinn. Y hablando de leyendas me parece genial la idea de Dick de que, una vez dada la posibilidad de los viajes en el tiempo, las leyendas que proceden sin duda de un tiempo muy muy lejano puedan hacerlo tanto del pasado como… de dentro de muchísimo tiempo en el futuro. Siempre me pareció un puntazo encantador que cunado comienza Star Wars dicen “Hace mucho tiempo en una galaxia muy, muy lejana” en vez de “dentro. Otro detalle de buen gusto de Dick es que la bola tiene un lenguaje mental pero Benton la “oye”. Dice algo así como que en realidad no hablaba pero que Benton “la oía”. Nosotros podríamos percibir otras energías, otras dimensiones incluso pero siempre las tendríamos que adaptar aquellos parámetros que conocemos, a lo que para nosotros en inteligible, lo que forma parte de nuestro “intelecto”. Otra minicosa que me gustó es cuando surge la niebla de dentro de la bola y Dick escribe “que parece algo vivo”. Por último comentar que Dick a veces mezcla al narrador con los personajes, hay varios párrafos que terminan con puntos suspensivos como si en realidad fuese el personaje que está pensando y es interrumpido por una línea de diálogo de otro personaje. Pasa cuando entra en la oficina y cuando está explicando el concepto de estabilidad a lo largo de la historia de la humanidad. Por último de verdad justificar la elección de la música. En la película “Brasil” representa la libertad y la felicidad a la que el héroe escapa en sueños. Sirve genial para contrastar la “depresión” en la que el protagonista debe vivir en ese mundo gris y estable o en ese mundo dominado por las máquinas y el ansia de “felicidad” que tiene. Terry Gilliam utiliza esta canción compuesta originalmente por Ary Barroso en 1933 y realmente titulada “Watercolors of Brasil” en la versión de Geoff Muldaur, que es la que he puesto al final, usando una de Django Reinhardt para las pausas y el principio aunque la del maestro Tom Jobim es también superior. Así que pensé que venía muy a cuento. El cuento tiene pausas y estas son importantes. Espero que no esté muy alta y no moleste (las de las pausas y el final deberían ewstar más bajas que la primera). Aquí un vídeo con una selección de imágenes de la peli que encontré muy bueno [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVDOrlugfBI ]. Sale un Robert de Niro muy curioso y está genial, no lo ver si no visteis la peli “entodavía”. Salud!! Muchas gracias! =^___^= errores de edición? haberlos haylos soymescalito@gmail.com Viajes en el tiempo, física, dimensiones, paranormal, trabajo, aburrido, gris, fantasía, ficción, ciencia, ficción, sueño, ilusión, esperanza, demonio, dios, ciudad, volar, cuento, historia, relato, audiolibro, lectura, narrar, narración, libro

La oficina de control busca a Robert Benton. Le encontrarán en las nubes, literalmente, dedicándose al deporte favorito nacional: volar. Es el siglo veintimuchísmos y la humanidad por fin ha conseguido alcanzar el sueño de todos: vivir en armonía y acabar con las guerras. Estabilidad es el lema. [semi-spoilers] Probablemente el primer cuento de Dick que se tenga constancia, se cree que lo pudo escribir en 1947 (cuando iba al instituto) aunque no se publicó hasta 1987, en una antología - 35 años después de su primer cuento aceptado (se cree que fue “Roog”, que ya subimos). Creo que es genial y más aún escrito a esa edad pues aparecen varias de los motivos que le vemos desarrollar luego, sobretodo la relación del individuo con la sociedad: temática muy propia del cyberpunk incipiente que él inventó (aunque él no acuñará el término) pues muchas veces el personaje vive en un sociedad totalitaria, despóticamente dirigida bien sea por las empresas, por las máquinas o por la Oficina de Control. Resulta que nos encontramos ante una distopía pero no nos damos cuenta hasta terminar el relato. Por supuesto que nos huele un poco mal eso de la estabilidad. Alcanzar la paz mundial gracias a la homogenización total? ¿Una oficina que se encarga de que no pueda inventarse algo con grandes repercusiones ni pasar nada que se salga de la norma? No, gracias. ¿no? Pero en “Un mundo feliz” la gente también vive “feliz” y sin necesidades. El aspecto gris y ceniciento que sugiere una sociedad así troquelada (homogénea y aburrida, estable) recordaría por ello más a la antítesis, “1984” o incluso al icónico anuncio de Apple contra IBM de 1984 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfqw8nhUwA] que ya forma parte de la historia audiovisual tanto como el de Gorbachov comiendo pizza Hut de 1997 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLYGeRSPfZk]. Digredo. En cualquier caso: qué hace un individuo que vive en una sociedad no ya sólo aburrida, si no que le tiene esclavizado – como vemos al final del cuento: los humanos viven sometidos por máquinas trabajando para ellas. Trata de escapar. Pero ¿y si no puede? Ya sólo le queda un lugar donde refugiarse: su cabeza, la imaginación. Soñar, soñar aunque sea despierto. Eso pasa en muchos cuentos de Dick. Otra interpretacion de otro que subi (Sobre la desolada Tierra) es el duelo del protagonista que le lleva a creer que su amada perdida ha vuelto viendola por todas partes. Así que en mi opinión el cuento va (entre otras cosas) del anhelo de escapar. Robert Benton es un escapista. Porque, ¿qué es eso de moverse volando? Benton se olvida las alas en la oficina de control y tiene un momento muy “ahí vá, los donuts!” (hoy me sale la cosa de anuncios). Pero es que en ese momento (cuando coge el taxi) su suerte ya está echada. El círculo de tiempo ya se ha cerrado, está yendo a su casa con la esfera y pronto el universo en el que los hombres están sometidos a las máquinas se hará realidad. Sobre esa cuestión yo creo que no queda claro si (a) Benton realmente ya vivía en una sociedad tiránica y sueña con todo esto (b) Existe realmente una línea temporal (investigad sobre el Efecto Berenstain si queréis reí) en la que las máquinas son las dueñas y Benton es el responsable de traer dicha realidad a nuestra dimensión en la que comenzamos a existir en cuanto la bola se rompe. Por lo tanto aquí Dick combinaría viajes en el tiempo con universos/dimensiones paralelas. Respecto a viajes en el tiempo nos encontramos con un paradoja muy usada en la literatura, el loop causal, también llamada “bootstrap” paradox. Bootstraps son los cordones de los zapatos y hay una expresión en ingles que es “pull oneself over a fence by one’s bootstraps” algo así como pasar por encima de una valla tirándose de los cordones, o sea, realizar una tarea tan harto difícil como ridícula, usando un referente tan absurdo como imposible. El ejemplo mítico es matar a tu propio abuelo. O darte a luz a ti mismo, como ocurre en “Todos Ustedes Zombies”, cuento que ya subimos y también la encantadora y enormísima Radio Libre Albemuth (corred a disfrutar ese y otros!). Se trata de fenómenos “autocausales”, es necesario viajar en el tiempo para dar origen al futuro y por tanto se forma un círculo cerrado, no un bucle que se repite (como en “Algo para nosotros temponautas” que ya subimos blablablá) sino un loop cerrado donde los eventos están fijos en el tiempo y este continúa avanzando hacia delante. El término lo inventó el propio maestro Heinlein en una novela titulada “By his bootraps” llena de viajes en el tiempo. Yo soy más partidario de la primera opción: todo es un sueño de Benton para escapar de su terrible-terrible realidad. Una coraza, casi una locura, como la que se construyen los locos o la gente que ha vivido episodios de trauma para protegerse (gran ejemplo reciente en la enrome serie Mr Robot). El comienzo del cuento no puede ser más expresivo al respecto: volar… Me recordó desde el principio a la película Brazil y al final del cuento ya estaba convencido que Terry Gilliam probablemente se pudo inspirar en él (1985). Es una peli muy ochentera, es un futuro distópico tipo 1984 donde el gobierno cataloga como “terrorista” y persigue a todo aquel que considera un peligro y mantiene a la gente controlada a través de la prensa/tv. Tiene algún momento un poco lento y como todo lo de Gilliam a veces la imagen es un poco caótica, atiborrada de cosas pero mola mucho y me recordó por dos cosas: Sobretodo dos secuencias en las que el protagonista está volando, literalmente con dos alas muy como de quita y pon, el pelo suelto y vence a un monstruo para rescatar a una chica hermosa pero claro luego se despierta y es un funcionario del ministerio de control (o algo así). Además de las escenas con el tipo volando y que vive en una sociedad en la que nadie puede salirse de la norma uno de los temas esenciales de la peli es la necesidad de “escapar”. Y luego ya más gratuitamente porque es el futuro pero la estética es tipo años 20-50. Hay ordenadores que son máquinas de escribir con pantallas, se comunican rápidamente por tubos pneumáticos (lo más en comunicaciones, un sistema de tubos huecos y por compresión del aire se pueden enviar paquetes dentro de unas cápsulas, lo tengo visto todavía en Hospitales –además de en futurama), la arquitectura es modernista… Cuando Benton entra en la sala principal de la Oficina de Control la gente está tecleando sobre máquinas de escribir, perforando tarjetas (los primeros ordenadores funcionaban con tarjetas con agujeros que la máquina “leía” mecánicamente) y trazando gráficas... encantador! Para estar en el siglo 26 (por lo menos) es raro. En alguna parte del cuento Dick explica que la humanidad lleva mucho tiempo sin inventar cosas. Me voy a ir por las ramas con algo con lo que además sé que no tengo razón pero voy a ello: siempre pensé que el futuro fue en los años 50. Es cierto, se vino internet y el internet de las cosas, viene la inteligencia artificial, la revolución ciberpunk ya está aquí pero… para la gente normal no ha habido muchos cambios cualitativos grandes desde incluso… los años 30. Por entonces ya había televisión y teléfono, la gente tenía sus trabajos en la ciudad, iban a ellos en cercanías o en coche, respiraban contaminación… como nosotros. En los años cincuenta hubo un espíritu de que la sociedad llegaría a disfrutar de vacaciones en la luna y enormes facilidades, sólo era cuestión de tiempo. Es la época del sueño americano y todos esos carteles vintage 50eros tan chulos que tanto me gustan. Y la de consolidación de este género. Nacías en california en los años 50 y vamos, vivías el futuro. Luego el sueño se rompió después de la época hippie y finalmente se remozó por el suelo tras el advenimiento del movimiento neoliberal que hasta nuestros días perdura. No puedo callarme algunas cosas gratuitas más que se me ocurrieron mientras leía el cuento. Además de distopías, viajes en el tiempo e incluso otras dimensiones tenemos un atisbo de Psicohistoria (para quien no lo sepa es la ciencia que inventa Hari Seldon en Fundación que combinando psicología y matemáticas permite crear ecuaciones que predigan la dirección de la evolución de una sociedad (o de todo un imperio galáctico) incluyendo momentos más cruciales e incluso la posibilidad del nacimiento de variables extrañas). Los trabajadores están viendo unas gráficas en las que se predice con una alta probabilidad la aparición de un “Elemento desestabilizador”. Nada más que añadir señoría. Con respecto a la Estabilización, también tengo que traer como referencia un libro, “La patología de la normalidad” de Erich From. Los psicólogos saben (y cuando digo psicólogos incluyo a camareros, porteros, taxistas y escritores) que “loco” es aquel que es raro. Simplemente el que se sale de la norma. Si la mayoría de la gente se comportase como lo hacen los que hoy llamamos “locos”, los locos seríamos nosotros y ellos los cuerdos. Gran verdad. Y se ve mucho en los colegios y en los grupos cerrados, si alguien es un poco raro ya se le trata mal sólo por eso, alejarse de lo normal (fatal me parece). Además de que lo bueno es la diversidad, en el sentido de que fomenta la creatividad, una sociedad estable, sin cambios ni buenos ni malos, realmente sería preferible porque no habría guerra pero estaría estancada. Precisamente se dice en el cuento que llevan muchísimo tiempo (siglos) sin inventarse nada nuevo. Me recordó por supuesto también gratuitamente a esa frase mítica de “El tercer hombre” en la que se quejan de que Suiza lleva siglos sin inventar nada más que el queso suizo y el reloj de cuco precisamente por ser “neutral”. De todos modos medir el “progreso” por los avances científicos también tiene tela… Yo creo que realmente existe mucha dificultad entre separar ciencia ficción y fantasía. Porque, vamos a ver, lo de la bola, que cuando se rompe invade nuestra realidad… ¿Cuál es su mecanismo? Venga de otro tiempo o de otro universo, qué significa la ciudad encerrada? Es fantasía o es ciencia ficción? Si no nos lo explican todo es fantasía? Yo creo que los dos géneros se mezcla y Dick lo hace genial. Luego, algo tiene Dick con los funcionarios. Tantísimos de sus personajes lo son (“Equipo de Ajuste”, por ejemplo) o tienen un trabajo aburrido del que escapar (ejemplo buenísimo “La Maqueta, ambos los subimos ya). El funcionario a veces funciona como una pieza inconsciente de un engranaje maquiavélico. Cuanto están en la Oficina dice algo así como “un hombre inservible apilaba tarjetas en la pila etiquetada “Para Exterminar”. Recuerda irremediablemente a “La banalidad del mal”. Es increíble pero hay más cosas que me molaron del cuento. Mola que nos describe un poco más allá el mundo con frases aparentemente de refilón. Por ejemplo cuando dice que “cerró la puerta, cosa que ya no se solía hacer”. Luego Dick se hace más seco y sus descripciones a veces son muy mecánicas, los rostros son siempre “inexpresivos”, etc. Mola que cuando viajas en el tiempo todo cambia a tu alrededor, de repente la casa en la que estabas ya no existe y ahora todo es una campiña o hay un bosque entero donde antes sólo había aridez… pero el sol sigue siendo el mismo (lo dice más o menos literalmente). Luego dos cosas que no sé de donde vienen y me gustaría mucho saberlo. Primero, viajar en el tiempo como “caída”. En el cuento Dick describe el proceso como si Benton se sintiese caer. Lo hemos visto más veces en otras obras, cuando viajas en el tiempo, o a otra dimensión, en realidad primero “caes” todo a tu alrededor es un vórtice hacia el que caes. ¿Será por los agujeros negros, o los agujeros de gusano? Será por que describe muy bien la sensación de trance psicodélica? Nu se. Y segundo el tema de la ciudad encerrada dentro de la esfera. Esto sí que me gustaría mucho saber de dónde viene, no sé si la leyenda de la que hablan (dios encerró una ciudad de gente mala y perversa en un recipiente para que no pudieran escapar) existe pero sé que esta es una imagen que debe existir en más obras artísticas. Algo parecido salía en un cuento de Ciberíada de Lem (por cierto en los viajes 1 y 7 leímos también ejemplos de paradojas causales). Me suena a leyenda de las mil y una noches, la típica “putada” que te haría un Djinn. Y hablando de leyendas me parece genial la idea de Dick de que, una vez dada la posibilidad de los viajes en el tiempo, las leyendas que proceden sin duda de un tiempo muy muy lejano puedan hacerlo tanto del pasado como… de dentro de muchísimo tiempo en el futuro. Siempre me pareció un puntazo encantador que cunado comienza Star Wars dicen “Hace mucho tiempo en una galaxia muy, muy lejana” en vez de “dentro. Otro detalle de buen gusto de Dick es que la bola tiene un lenguaje mental pero Benton la “oye”. Dice algo así como que en realidad no hablaba pero que Benton “la oía”. Nosotros podríamos percibir otras energías, otras dimensiones incluso pero siempre las tendríamos que adaptar aquellos parámetros que conocemos, a lo que para nosotros en inteligible, lo que forma parte de nuestro “intelecto”. Otra minicosa que me gustó es cuando surge la niebla de dentro de la bola y Dick escribe “que parece algo vivo”. Por último comentar que Dick a veces mezcla al narrador con los personajes, hay varios párrafos que terminan con puntos suspensivos como si en realidad fuese el personaje que está pensando y es interrumpido por una línea de diálogo de otro personaje. Pasa cuando entra en la oficina y cuando está explicando el concepto de estabilidad a lo largo de la historia de la humanidad. Por último de verdad justificar la elección de la música. En la película “Brasil” representa la libertad y la felicidad a la que el héroe escapa en sueños. Sirve genial para contrastar la “depresión” en la que el protagonista debe vivir en ese mundo gris y estable o en ese mundo dominado por las máquinas y el ansia de “felicidad” que tiene. Terry Gilliam utiliza esta canción compuesta originalmente por Ary Barroso en 1933 y realmente titulada “Watercolors of Brasil” en la versión de Geoff Muldaur, que es la que he puesto al final, usando una de Django Reinhardt para las pausas y el principio aunque la del maestro Tom Jobim es también superior. Así que pensé que venía muy a cuento. El cuento tiene pausas y estas son importantes. Espero que no esté muy alta y no moleste (las de las pausas y el final deberían ewstar más bajas que la primera). Aquí un vídeo con una selección de imágenes de la peli que encontré muy bueno [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVDOrlugfBI ]. Sale un Robert de Niro muy curioso y está genial, no lo ver si no visteis la peli “entodavía”. Salud!! Muchas gracias! =^___^= errores de edición? haberlos haylos soymescalito@gmail.com Viajes en el tiempo, física, dimensiones, paranormal, trabajo, aburrido, gris, fantasía, ficción, ciencia, ficción, sueño, ilusión, esperanza, demonio, dios, ciudad, volar, cuento, historia, relato, audiolibro, lectura, narrar, narración, libro

Recorded in Kingston N.Y. Part 2 of our conversation with Geoff where he discusses his time in the steel business (go figure?) and return to music recording the wonderful personal C D, "The Secret Handshake" , his 8 year classical music project in Antwerp, "Private Astronomy, the C D that features his arrangements of classic Bix Beiderbecke tunes, The Roots of Geoff Muldaur a project that now numbers 8 C Ds of material (the actual source recordings) that have inspired Geoff. Let's hope the notes for this project will become an autobiography and trips to Japan that result in The Martin Guitar Co. producing the Geoff Muldaur Model Martin Guitar. If you caught SLN podcast #16 we know you've been waiting for part 2. 

This edition of Jazz Beat is devoted to Tom Reney’s interview with Geoff Muldaur, the singer/guitarist/banjo player whose associations include the Jim Kweskin Jug Band and Maria Muldaur in the 1960s, and Paul Butterfield’s Better Days in the early ‘70s.

We sit down in Kingston, N y with Geoff and have a far ranging conversation on all things musical. We get into his early fascination Blues and Jazz recordings accompanied by his friend Joe Boyd and Joe's  brother Warwick. Geoff's involvement with the Cambridge scene including his time with the famed Jim Kweskin Jug Band. Geoff and his wife of the time Maria's  2 L Ps followed by his time in Woodstock as vocalist for Paul Butterfield's band Better Days. Just too much to list here plus there will be a part 2 podcast #17. 

show#695 06.10.17 New York Jelly Roll!! 1. Jellyroll - Wait On Time from LIVE At The Can 1983 Bandana Blues Vault (2:52) 2. The Jelly Roll Men - Murder My Baby from Jelly Roll Shuffle 2017 Rhythm Bomb Records (3:04) 3. Taj Mahal - Jellyroll from The Real Blues 1998 Collectables (3:15) 4. Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings - Jellyroll Fool from Double Bill 2001 Koch Records (3:19) 5. Jef Lee Johnson & Blues Anatomy - He's a Jelly Roll Baker with Geoff Muldaur from Rediscovering Lonnie Johnson 2008 Range Records (3:29) 6. Frank Frost & Sam Carr - Jelly Roll King from The Jelly Roll Kings 1999 HMG (2:35) 7. Sean Costello and His Jivebombers - Jelly Roll from Call the Cops 1996 Blue Wave (4:12) 8. Joe Bonamassa - Jelly Roll from Sloe Gin 2007 (2:12) 9. Frank Zappa - Jelly Roll Gum Drop from Greasy Love Songs: An FZ Audio Documentary Project/Object 2010 Zappa Records (2:20) 10. Ben Sidran - New York State Of Mind from Free In America 1976 Arista (4:33) 11. Mason Casey - She's From N.Y.C. from Deep Blue Dream 2004 Dixiefrog (4:13) 12. Ray LaMontagne & the Pariah Dogs - New York City's Killing Me from God Willin' & The Creek Don't Rise 2010 RCA (4:13) 13. Blues Traveler - Dropping Some NYC from Blues Traveler 1990 A&M (3:20) 14. Bluesix - King of the New York Streets from Ready 2008 Tramp (5:37) 15. Omar & The Howlers - Going To New York from Too Much Is Not Enough 2012 Big Guitar Music (2:37) 16. Jason Ricci and the Bad Kind - My Mom's Gonna Yell At You! from Approved By Snakes 2917 Ellersoul (3:38) 17. Jarkka Rissanen & Sons of the Desert - Miss Gumbo from Hybrid Soul 2017 Humu Records (4:42) 18. Blackfoot Gypsies - 03 Under My Skin from Handle It 2015 Plowboy Records (3:34) 19. The Texas Horns - Blues Gotta Holda Me from Blues Gotta Holda Me 2015 Vizztone (2:31) 20. Vintage#18 - Million Miles from Grit 2017 self-release (8:25) 21. John Németh - Kool Aid Pickle from Feelin' Freaky 2017 Memphis Grease (3:43) 22. Pete Haycock - The New York Stakes from Guitar And Son 1987 IRS/ No Speak Records (5:18) 23. Sugar Blue - NYC from Voyage 2016 MC Records (3:13) 24. Danny Marks - Hey New York Town from Cities In Blue 2016 self-release (5:06) 25. Popa Chubby - It's a Sad Day in New York City When There Ain't No Room for the Blues from How'd a White Boy Get the Blues? 2000 Dixiefrog (6:52) 26. James Blood Ulmer - Goin' To New York from No Escape From The Blues 2003 Sindrome/Hyena (4:24) 27. Chase Walker Band - The Walk from Not Quite Legal 2016 Revved Up Records (3:05) 28. Kevin McKendree - Headhunter from Miss Laura's Kitchen 2000 East Folks (3:04) 29. Lee McBee & the Passions - Boogie Twist from 44 1995 Me & My Blues (3:47) 30. 4 Jacks - I Don't Want To Be President from Deal With It 2013 Ellersoul Records (4:08)

BONUS SHOW!! 05.31.17 Like the FM "Underground" Radio I Grew Up On !!! 1. Hour Glass (an early effort by The Brothers Allman) - Power of Love from Power of Love 1968 Liberty (2:45) 2. John Hammond (with Duane Allman on Slide)- Shake For Me from Southern Fried 1970 Atlantic (2:40) 3. The Siegel - Schwall Band - When I Get The Time from The Siegel - Schwall Band 1966 (2:58) 4. Geoff Muldaur and the Nite Lites - Boogie Chillen' II from (5:25) 5. Geoff Muldaur & Amos Garrett - Sloppy Drunk from Geoff Muldaur & Amos Garrett 1978 (3:14) 6. Johnny Reno and his Sax Maniacs - Hit, Git and Split from (4:17) 7. Jeremy & The Satyrs - (Lets Go to the) Movie Show from Jeremy & The Satyrs 2009 (2:43) 8. Johnny Almond Music Machine - To R.K. from Patent Pending 1969 Deram (2:32) 9. Michael Kamen - 1984 from New York Rock 1973 Atco (2:43) 10. Barry Miles & Silverlight - The Cat from Barry Miles & Silverlight 1974 (4:01) 11. Barry Miles - Magic Theater from Magic Theater 1975 London (11:37) 12. The Belairs - Too Hot To Handle from Need Me A Car 1984 (3:24) 13. Mark Wenner - Too Young To Know from Nothin' But... 1989 Powerhouse (3:15) 14. The Nighthawks - Pretty Girls And Cadillacs from The Nighthawks (Mercury poisoning) Mercury (2:59) 15. The Assassins (Jimmy Thackery & Tom Principato) - Honey Hush from No Previous Record Seymour (7:47) 16. Steven Miller with Elvin Bishop (Grinderswitch) - Pipeliner from Steven Miller 1970 (5:37) 17. Nick Lowe - Stick It Where The Sun Don't Shine from Nick The Knife 1982 Columbia (3:35) 18. Duke Tumatoe and the All Star Frogs - Take Me Home from Naughty Child 1980 Blind Pig (3:07) 19. Michal Urbaniak's Fusion - Atma - Tomorrow from Atma 1974 (6:34) 20. The Amazing Rhythm Aces - Who Will The Next Fool Be from Full House/Aces High 1981 (3:22) 21. Carl Perkins and NRBQ - Sure To Fall (In Love With Yo from Boppin' Blues 1970 (2:18) 22. Howlin' Wilf (Now James Hunter)- Wilf's Wobble from Cry Wilf 1986 Big Beat (4:15) 23. Pete Brown - (Author of many Cream Songs) Walk For Charity, Run from Pete Brown and pibloklo Collection 1969 EMI (5:24) 24. Little Milton - I Feel So Bad from Little Milton's Greatest Hits 1972 (3:58) 25. The Johnny Otis Show - I Can Stand To See You Die from Cuttin' Up 1970 Ace (4:07) 26. Shel Silverstein - You Ain't Here from The Great Conch Train robbery 1980 Flying Fish (2:42)

PODCAST: 08 Jan 2017     01 Too Much Trouble - The Last Pedestrians - Battle Of A Simple Man02 Red Rocking Chair - Red Tail Ring - Mountain Shout03 Tae The Weavers - Robyn Stapleton - Songs Of Robert Burns04 The Tempest - John Brennan and Kevin Burke - The Pound Ridge Sessions05 I Wonder What Is Keeping My True Love This Night? - Pauline Scanlon - Gossamer06 More Fool Me - Chris Wood - So Much To Defend07 John O'Dreams - Éilís Kennedy - Westward08 The Green Cockade - Geoff Lakeman - After All These Years09 I Drew My Ship Into A Harbour - Alistair Anderson & Northlands - Alistair Anderson & Northlands10 The Frozen Logger - The Wakami Wailers - River Through The Pines11 Streams Of Bunclody - Deirdre Starr - Between The Half-Light12 Fromage Antics (Australian Waters/Atlantic Bridge/Humours Of Bandon) - Loïc Bléjean & Tad Sargent - Loïc Bléjean & Tad Sargent13 A Place Where You Can Be - Ribbon Road - Our Streets Are Numbered14 The Right Hon. MP For Self Interest - John Ward - Sargasso15 Pull The Ladder Up - John Ward - Sargasso16 The Great Divide - Jenn & Laura-Beth - Bound17 If The Young Don't March - Keith Christmas - Crazy Dancing Days18 The Sheik Of Araby - Jim Kweskin, Geoff Muldaur, John Sebastian, David Grisman, Maria Muldaur, The Barbecue Orchestra - Jug Band Extravaganza

With the 101st PA Farm Show just around the corner (it's scheduled to run between January 7 and 14 in Harrisburg), much of this week's Song Parlor show is related to music about farms and farm animals — though we've also saved a little time to consider the elephants. Relatively new CDs — Jim Kweskin & Geoff Muldaur, Lisa Null, Dan Schatz, Dave Gunning, the Bills, Evie Laden, the ARC CD with John Kirkpatrick on it, Sver . . . . Among the relatively recent: Pete, the Yellow Room Gang, Dana [!] & Susan Robinson, Charm City Junction. . .

This week Zach learns about Terry Gilliam and his 1985 classic, Brazil. BRAZIL (1985) Brazil is a 1985 British film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard. British National Cinema by Sarah Street describes the film as a "fantasy/satire on bureaucratic society" while John Scalzi's Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies describes it as a "dystopian satire". The film stars Jonathan Pryce and features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm. The film centres on Sam Lowry, a man trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living a life in a small apartment, set in a consumer-driven dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines. Brazil '​s bureaucratic, totalitarian government is reminiscent of the government depicted in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, except that it has a buffoonish, slapstick quality and lacks a Big Brother figure. Jack Mathews, film critic and author of The Battle of Brazil (1987), described the film as "satirizing the bureaucratic, largely dysfunctional industrial world that had been driving Gilliam crazy all his life". Though a success in Europe, the film was unsuccessful in its initial North America release. It has since become a cult film. The film is named after the recurrent theme song, "Aquarela do Brasil", as performed by Geoff Muldaur.

This week Zach learns about Terry Gilliam and his 1985 classic, Brazil. BRAZIL (1985) Brazil is a 1985 British film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard. British National Cinema by Sarah Street describes the film as a "fantasy/satire on bureaucratic society" while John Scalzi's Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies describes it as a "dystopian satire". The film stars Jonathan Pryce and features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm. The film centres on Sam Lowry, a man trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living a life in a small apartment, set in a consumer-driven dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines. Brazil '​s bureaucratic, totalitarian government is reminiscent of the government depicted in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, except that it has a buffoonish, slapstick quality and lacks a Big Brother figure. Jack Mathews, film critic and author of The Battle of Brazil (1987), described the film as "satirizing the bureaucratic, largely dysfunctional industrial world that had been driving Gilliam crazy all his life". Though a success in Europe, the film was unsuccessful in its initial North America release. It has since become a cult film. The film is named after the recurrent theme song, "Aquarela do Brasil", as performed by Geoff Muldaur.

show#50509.01.13John "Juke" Logan leaves us... WAY too soon....1. John "Juke" Logan - Tend to My Bid'ness - 2007 - from Chill (Re-Chilled) (4:05)2. Dave Riley And Bob Corritore - No Cussin' - 2013 - from Hush Your Fuss! (5:10)3. David Gogo - Natchez Dog - 2013 - from Come On Down (4:17)4. 4 Jacks - Bobcat Woman - 2013 - from Deal With It (3:30)5. Sugaray Rayford - I'm Dangerous - 2013 - from Dangerous (4:34)6. Tom Principato - It Ain't Over ('Til It's Over) - 2013 - from Robert Johnson Told Me So (4:18)7. Billy Boy Arnold, Charlie Musselwhite, Mark Hummel, Sugar Ray Norcia, James Harman - Blue Light (Mark Hummel) - 2013 - from Remembering Little Walter (5:15)        Spinner's section:old stuff on vinyl8. Ray Charles: feel so bad (3:41) (Volcanic Action Of My Soul, ABC, 1971)9. Cousin Joe & Sam Price Trio: beggin' woman (1947) (2:51) (Out Came The Blues, Ace Of Hearts, 1964)10. Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks: milk shakin' mama (4:08) (Original Recordings, Epic, 1969)11. Fleetwood Mac: doctor Brown (3:44) (Mr. Wonderful, Blue Horizon, 1968)12. Flavium: bad news (5:00) (No Kiddin', Polydor, 1979)13. Jimmy Reed: boogie in the dark [1953] (2:33) (Got Me Dizzy, Charly, 1981)14. George Smith: blues in the dark [1955] (2:55) (Oopin' Doopin' Doopin', Ace, 1982)15. Nighthawks: got a mind to travel (6:54) (Jacks & Kings, Adelphi, 1978)16. Taj Mahal: ain't nobody's business (2:45) (Satisfied "N Tickled Too, CBS, 1976)17. Cuby+Blizzards & Eddie Boyd: nuttin' but trouble (3:00) (Praise The Blues, Philips, 1967)18. Lovin' Spoonful: fishin' blues (2:00) (You Didn't Have To Be So Nice, Kama Sutra, 1965)19. Bobby Blue Bland: I've got to use my imagination (4:14) (His California Album, Probe, 1973) Back To Beardo: with mo vinyl!!!20. Al Collins Orchestra - I Got The Blues For You - 1998 - from Tuff Enuff - Ace (MS.) Blues Masters Vol. 3 (2:29)21. Nick Jameson - In The Blue - 1977 - from Already Free (6:59)22. Catfish Hodge Band - Record Executive Blues - 1995 - from Eyewitness Blues (60 Minute Edition) (4:23)23. The Nighthawks (Mercury poisoning) - Pretty Girls And Cadillacs - - from The Nighthawks (Mercury poisoning) (2:59)24. Shel Silverstein - So Good To So Bad So Soon - 1980 - from The Great Conch Train Robbery (3:01)25. Geoff Muldaur and the Nite Lites - Nobody Knows (The Way I Feel This Morning) - 1981 - from I Ain't Drunk (4:11)26. Martin Mull - Loser's Samba - 1972 - from Martin Mull (4:29)27. Johnny Reno and his Sax Maniacs - Mellow Saxophone - 1983 - from Born To Blow (4:44)28. Howlin' Wilf - Can't Stand It No More - - from Cry Wilf (3:01)29. John Hammond - I'm Leavin' You - 1970 - from Southern Fried (3:20)

show#47903.02.13Double Shot Weekend!!!!Steve Marriott's - Five Long Years (Packet of Three: Live 1993)Freddie King - Five Long Years (Getting Ready... 1996)Lazy Lester - Sugar Coated Love (Roll Your Moneymaker - Black Rock'n'Roll 1948-58 1958)Lou Ann Barton - Sugar Coated Love (Read My Lips 1989)John Nemeth - She's Looking Good (Magic Touch 2004)Rodger Collins - She's Looking Good (Sweet Soul Music 1967: 30 Scorching Classics From 1967)Nine Below Zero - On The Road Again (LIVE)Katie Melua - On The Road Again (with the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra 2011)Spinner's twinsDella Reese: nobody knows the way I feel 'dis morning (2:08) (I Like It Like Dat!, Jasmine, 1966)Geoff Muldaur: nobody knows (the way I feel this morning) (4:15) (I Ain't Drunk, Hannibal, 1980)Dana Gillespie & Mojo Blues Band: mighty tight woman (4:11) (...And The Boogie Woogie Flu, Bellaphon, 1982)Bonnie Raitt: mighty tight woman (4:21) (-, Warner Bros, 1971)Dr. John: traveling mood (2:52) (In The Right Place, Atco, 1973)Gary Primich: travelin' mood (3:20) (Travelin' Mood, Flying Fish, 1994)Sam Cooke: get yourself another fool [1963] (4:09) (The Rhythm And The Blues, RCA, 1995)Paul deLay Band: get yourself another fool (3:16) (American Voodoo, Criminal, 1984)Rusty Zinn: don't let daddy slow walk you down (4:04) (Sittin' & Waitin', Black Top, 1996)Richard Newell: don't let daddy slow walk you down (3:47) (a.k.a. King Biscuit Boy, Stony Plain, 1988)Rory Block: love TKO (4:26) (I'm Every Woman, Rounder, 2001)Imperial Crowns: love TKO (5:28) (-, Me&My, 2000)Back To Beardo (hic!):Johnny Cash - - Brown-eyed Handsome Man (feat. Carl Perkins) - (Unearthed 5CD Box (2003) Volume 2 - Trouble In Mind)Eddie Hinton - Brown Eyed Handsome Man (Dear Y'all: The Songwriting Sessions 2000)Buddy Guy  - Red House (Stone Free- A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix)JP Cervoni - Red House ( Live, feat. Buddy Miles Blues and Beyond) Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - Nowadays A Woman's Gotta Hit A Man (Clear Spot 1972)Treat Her Right - Hit a Man (Tied to the Tracks 1998)Jeff Simmons - Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up (Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up 1969)The Muffin Men - Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up (The Muffin Men with Ike Willis 1995)Fenton Robinson - Just A Little Bit (I Hear Some Blues Downstairs 1977)Magic Sam - I Just Want A Little Bit (The Magic Sam Legacy 1968)Jeremy Vasques & Ronnie Shellist - Married to the Blues (Chicago Sessions ????)LONG TALL DEB - Married to the Blues (Raise Your Hands 2013)Steve Marriott & the DT's - Don't Lie to Me (Sing the Blues Live 2000)Elvin Bishop - Don't You Lie to Me (Big Fun 1968)

show#45709.29.12 Ry Cooder - The 90 And The 9 (Election Special 2012)J.P. Reali - Biscuit Baking Mama (The Road To Mississippi 2012)Sunny Crownover - Cook In Your Kitchen (Right Here Right Now 2012)Mark Sells Band - Rock n' Hard Place (Missin' You 2012)Johnny Hiland - All Fired Up (All Fired Up 2012)Danny Gatton - Beat of the Night (Cruisin' Deuces 1993)Bill Holloman - Reet Petite (At Last 1997)Henderson, Berlin, Chambers - Wayward Son of Devil Boy (HBC 2012)Finis Tasby - Jump Children (Jump, Children 1998)Red Devils - Better Cut That Out (King King 1992)Spinner's Section:all vinyl againMighty Sam McClain: backstreets (4:43) (Your Perfect Companion, Orleans, 1986)Jimmy Reed: I'm a love you (1:57) (Got Me Dizzy, Charly R&B, 1981)Geoff Muldaur: meanest woman (3:46) (Blues Boy, Flying Fish, 1979)Little Joe Blue: encourage me baby (1972) (3:24) (Blue's Blues, Charly, 1987)Slim Harpo: dream girl (3:17) (Rainin' In My Heart, Excello, 196?)Bonnie Bramlett: oncoming traffic (7:13) (It's Time, Capricorn, 1974)Jimmy Rogers: mistreated baby (3:43) (Sloppy Drunk, Black & Blue, 1973)Christine Perfect: and that's saying a lot (2:51) (-, Blue Horizon, 1970)James Thunderbird Davis: blue monday (1963) (2:56) (If It's Not A Hit I'll Eat My Hat, Ace, 1985)Shakey Jake: let me tell you baby (3:09) (The Key Won't Fit, Murray Brothers, 1983)Charles Brown: my heart is mended (1955) (3:01) (Drifting Blues, Aladdin/Score, 1983)David Bromberg: suffer to sing the blues (4:51) (-, CBS, 1972)Back To Beardo:Little Feat w/Mark Wenner sitiin' in - Long Distance Call David Migden and the Dirty Words - Blues (Killing It 2012)Lee Sankey - She's Not Alone (She's Not Alone 2000 w/David Migden vocal)

show#44306.24.12Final "Twin Toons" show Part 3 Click here for the "Tip Jar" Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention - More Trouble Every Day (Roxy & Elsewhere [Live] 1974)The Nighthawks - Trouble Comin' Every Day (Pain & Paradise 1996)Carolyn Wonderland - I Can Tell (Peace Meal 2011)Billy Hector & The Fairlanes - I Can Tell (And the Crowd Went Wild 1993)James Brown - Cold Sweat, Pt. 1 (20 All Time Greatest Hits! 1967)The Boneshakers - Cold Sweat (Book Of Spells 1997)J.J. Cale with Eric Clapton - Call Me The Breeze (Crossroads Guitar Festival)  Lynyrd Skynyrd - Call Me The Breeze (All Time Greatest Hits 2000)Roy Buchanan - Hey Joe (That's What I Am Here For 1074)Johnny Hallyday (edited) - Hey Joe (Johnny 67 1967 (Volume 23 2011)Mose Allison - Eyesight to the Blind (Allison Wonderland: Anthology Disc 1 1994)The Who - Eyesight to the Blind (Live At Leeds - Disc 2 2001)Bobby Radcliff - Serves You Right to Suffer (There's A Cold Grave In Your Way 2006)The J. Geils Band - Serves You Right to Suffer (The J. Geils Band 1970)Lenny Welch -  Since I Fell For You (Oldies But Goodies Vol. 12 1990)Bonnie Raitt & Freebo - Since I Fell For You (Live at Sigma Sound on WMMR Philadelphia 1972)Eric Burdon & War - Paint It Black Medley (edited) - The Black-Man's Burdon 1970)Chris Farlowe - Paint It Black (The Best Of 2009)Spinner's Section:even more twin toonsSpencer Bohren: drop down mama (3:27) (Snap Your Fingers, Loft, 1989)Geoff Muldaur: drop down mama (3:35) (Password, Hightone, 2000)Nighthawks: hard living (3:37) (Hard Living, Varrick, 1986)Jerry Jeff Walker: hard livin' (3:22) (Gipsy Songman, Sawdust, 1987)Phil Berkowitz: three-handed woman (3:46) (Louis' Blues, Dirty Cat, 2005)Paul deLay Band: three-handed woman (3:15) (Burnin', Criminal, 1988)Nappy Brown: hidden charms (2:23) (Tore Up, Nightflite, 1986)Elvis Costello: hidden charms (3:33) (Kojak Variety, Warner Bros, 1995)Koko Taylor: violent love (2:46) (Basic Soul, Chess, 1972)Dr. Feelgood: violent love (2:18) (A Case Of The Shakes, United Artists, 1980)Robert Johnson: from four until late [1937] (2:25) (The Complete Recordings, Columbia, 1996)Cream: from four until late (2:07) (Fresh Cream, Polydor, 1966)Spencer Bohren: shoppin' for clothes (4:11) (Snap Your Fingers, Loft, 1989)Little Charlie & the Nightcats: clothes line (4:07) (All The Way Crazy, Alligator, 1987)

Bandana Blues show#38204.03.11 http://www.bandanablues.com/donation.html for the Tip Jar Thanks to donators .. in particular Miami.... whos saved us from losing ALL the archived shows!!! Blues Anatomy - He's a Jelly Roll Baker (Rediscovering Lonnie Johnson featuring Jef Lee Johnson and Geoff Muldaur 2008)Jef Lee Johnson - Law and Order (Thisness 2007)Spinner's Section:Roy Rogers & Norton Buffalo: the buffalo cajun mambo (3:41) (Travellin' Tracks, Blind Pig, 1992)Guy Forsyth: tricks of the trade (4:41) (Steak, Antone's, 2000)Duke Robillard & Sunny Crownover: I'm still in love with you (2:25) (Tales From The Tiki Lounge, Blue Duchess, 2009)Ellis Hooks: black nights, blue moon (3:41) (Godson Of Soul, Evidence, 2005)Ian Siegal: kingdom come (4:34) (Broadside, Nugene, 2009)Dave Hole: night cat (5:32) (Short Fuse Blues, Provogue, 1990)Jon Cleary: is it any wonder (5:03) (Pin Your Spin, Basin Street, 2004)Big Blind: natural high (3:24) (Dressed To Win, Cool Buzz, 2007)Th' Legendary Shack Shakers: creek cats (3:20) (Believe, Yep Roc, 2004)Back To Beardo:The Nighthawks - Guard Your Heart (10 Years Live 1981)Mark Hummel - Love Shock (Mark Hummel's Blue Harp Meltdown - Vol. 2 - East Meets West - (Disk 1))Jerry Portnoy And The Streamliners - Charge It (Jerry Portnoy And The Streamliners 2010)Lazy Lester - Sugar Coated Love (Roll Your Moneymaker - Black Rock'n'Roll 1948-58 1958)Johnny Dyer - Johnny's Boogie (Jukin' 1983)The Hollywood Fats Band - Little Girl (Rock This House)Carlos Del Junco - The Crazy Bastard (Mongrel Mash 2011)

Mess o' Music © 2009 by Spider Robinson Music: George Harrison, Leslie Alexander, Jane Siberry, Amos Garrett, Geoff Muldaur, Jim Kweskin, Danielle Miraglia, Cliff Eberhardt, Lou Killen, Stacey Earle, Mark Stuart, Joyce Moreno.

Born in St Petersburg, Russia and having lived in New York City since the mid 1990s, Alex Budovsky is well known for his distinctive style of animated music videos.   These include Bathtime in Clerkenwell for The Real Tuesday Weld and Return I Will  to Old Brazil from Geoff Muldaur. His videos have won a number of awards including from the KROK International Animated Film Festival in Ukraine in addition to Sundance Online and the Ottawa International Animation Festival.He has also worked on a number of other commercial and educational animation projects for Sesame Street and Greenpeace.