Podcasts about I Wonder

Celebramos nuestro segundo aniversario compartiendo con vosotros un regalo muy especial: la entrevista que nos concedió hace unos días la mismísima SUSAN ROGERS, ingeniera de sonido de Prince desde Purple Rain hasta Sign O' The Times. Más de una hora de entrevista en la que nos cuenta un montón de cosas apasionantes y muy emocionantes. Gracias a la maravillosa de Paloma Pomares aka Lady Palo, podréis escuchar la entrevista a Susan traducida al castellano. Después Saiber, Shocka y Starr charlan acerca de su encuentro con Susan y reflexionan sobre esta segunda temporada que termina. Para finalizar, os invitamos a participar en nuestro juego "U KNOW" y ganar uno de los premios exclusivos que Purple Music tiene para vosotros. U KNOW: https://bit.ly/U-Know-Purple-Music-Trivia Como siempre, retaremos a nuestros oyentes en nuestras secciones Can I Play With U y I Wonder. Purple Music Podcast somos Saiber, StarrChild y Shockadelica. Puedes encontrarnos en: iVoox: https://bit.ly/31qkaqX iTunes: https://apple.co/2SGQ3IN Instagram: @purplemusicpodcast Facebook: @purplemusicpodcast y el grupo Purple Music: Un podcast sobre Prince Twitter: @PurpleMusicPod1 Correo electrónico: purplemusicpod@gmail.com ¡Envíanos tus comentarios! Stay tuned, stay funky! Música de sintonía: Purple Music (Prince), remix by PMP. Canción de despedida: 'Pop Life', Nueva York 1986. The Estate of Prince Rogers Nelson is not affiliated, associated, or connected with Purple Music Podcast nor has it endorsed or sponsored Purple Music Podcast. Further, the Estate of Prince Rogers Nelson has not licensed any of its intellectual property to the producers of Purple Music Podcast. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED. We just want to share our love for Prince music.

"He who laughs last laughs best." Or, "All's well that ends well." We have a number of old, "trite and true" sayings to remind us that it is in fact not the journey, but the destination, that's all-important. Today we'll conclude our series of questions, called I Wonder. And at least some of them have been questions for God, or challenges to Him. How does He defend the suffering and injustice that we have to live in? The Bible is the only place for answers to these questions, and especially that book at the back that tells us about the End. Here's Pastor Jim to complete his sermon, The Final Satisfaction. Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand. You can purchase a copy of this message, unsegmented for broadcasting and in its entirety, for $7 on a single CD by calling +1 (800) 984-2313, and of course you can always listen online or download the message for free. RS07012021_0.mp3Scripture References: Revelation 1:1-10

Jesus could say, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" but we cannot. On His cross the Son of God suffered alone, except for a few friends who couldn't be of much comfort. We on our crosses may feel like we're alone - and the Enemy will try to intensify that feeling - but God is with us. We've asked some tough questions in this series, I Wonder. Some of the toughest have to do with human pain, and what it means to have a God who allows that to continue - for now. Jim will address the ultimate answer today. Here's Part 1 of The Final Satisfaction. Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand. You can purchase a copy of this message, unsegmented for broadcasting and in its entirety, for $7 on a single CD by calling +1 (800) 984-2313, and of course you can always listen online or download the message for free. RS06302021_0.mp3Scripture References: Revelation 1:1-10

Today it's great to have Annaka Harris on the podcast. Annaka is an author whose work touches on neuroscience, meditation, philosophy of mind, and consciousness. She is author of two books: Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind and the children's book I Wonder. Annaka is also a volunteer for InnerKids, teaching mindfulness meditation to children in schools. Topics · The hard problem of consciousness · Why Annaka wrote Conscious · Annaka discusses "panpsychism" · How to think more creatively about consciousness · The function of consciousness · The experience of agnosia · What consciousness has to do with free will · Consciousness from an evolutionary perspective · Annaka's thoughts on the free will debate · Annaka's goals in writing I Wonder --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-psychology-podcast/support

God doesn't believe in atheists. We're here for Jim's sermon, Is There a God? as part of our series on the Big Questions called, I Wonder. And we'll see right away that we have overwhelming evidence for God's existence - the problem between Him and the disbeliever lies elsewhere. The giveaway is the hatred towards this "imaginary" Being. But before we're finished, Jim will acknowledge that the atheist has at least one thing right. We'll begin, as you may have guessed, in the first chapter of Romans. Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand. You can purchase a copy of this message, unsegmented for broadcasting and in its entirety, for $7 on a single CD by calling +1 (800) 984-2313, and of course you can always listen online or download the message for free. RS06092021_0.mp3Scripture References: Romans 1

Even Christians sometimes struggle with "our purpose in life." If that's a familiar feeling, this is for you. Paul was talking to nonbelievers in Acts 17, but even believers can get a little "fuzzy" on these things sometimes. Yesterday Jim began to bring out 4 points from Paul's sermon at the Areopagus. The first reason for your existence is that God wanted you to exist. There's no stronger reason than that! Now we'll rewind a bit, to hear the rest of the list. You've joined us very early in our series I Wonder. Here's the second half of Pastor Jim's sermon, Why Do I Exist? Listen to Right Start Radio every Monday through Friday on WCVX 1160AM (Cincinnati, OH) at 9:30am, WHKC 91.5FM (Columbus, OH) at 5:00pm, WRFD 880AM (Columbus, OH) at 9:00am. Right Start can also be heard on One Christian Radio 107.7FM & 87.6FM in New Plymouth, New Zealand. You can purchase a copy of this message, unsegmented for broadcasting and in its entirety, for $7 on a single CD by calling +1 (800) 984-2313, and of course you can always listen online or download the message for free. RS06082021_0.mp3Scripture References: Acts 17:22-32

En Música de Contrabando, revista diaria de música en Onda Regional de Murcia(orm.es; 00,00h a 02,00h). Para celebrar 50 años de fantásticos, atemporales y a veces subestimados álbumes de The Beach Boys, Capitol/UME editará una completa caja (también en digital) de 5 CD titulada Feel Flows – The Sunflower and Surf's Up Sessions 1969-1971 que sirve como crónica y explora en profundidad el metamórfico e influyente periodo que va de 1969-1971 en la carrera de la legendaria banda californiana. Seanuncia hoy con el estreno de una joya inédita, “Big Sur”, una preciosa carta de amor musical a esta ciudad costera de California. Sinéad O'Connor ha anunciado en Twitter que se retira de la música y que ‘No Veteran Dies Alone', su nuevo disco, sobre el que ha hablado en exclusiva con The New York Times en una entrevista reciente y cuyo lanzamiento se espera en realidad para enero de 2022, será el último de su carrera. Neil Young ha confirmado de forma oficial que sacará un nuevo álbum junto a Crazy Horse. La banda americana de rock y el músico canadiense llevan colaborando desde finales de los sesenta, pero parece que la colaboración todavía dará más frutos. ¿Lo mejor de no poder salir de fiesta? Probablemente ahorrarte esa copa de más que te lleva de cabeza al bajón que has intentado ocultar toda la noche. Y de eso sabe un poco Brigitte Laverne, que además tiene la capacidad de convertir ese concepto en un single plagado de estribillos pegadizos y ritmos bailables. The Crooks publican su nuevo sencillo “I Wonder”, que llega después del lanzamiento de “Frankie” el pasado mes de marzo. La canción resume el espíritu de lo que fue el britpop. El 8 de junio es el día mundial de los océanos y, con el fin de alertar acerca del desastre ecológico que arrastra el Mar Menor, Bosco y Rozalén estrenan el video de la canción “Poseidonia”. Mañana es también La Noche de Arde Bogotá. A un mes de la salida de "La Noche", y unas pocas horas antes de su estreno a lo grande en la plaza de toros, charlamos con Antonio García, de Arde Bogotá , sobre el viaje nocturno, crónica generacional , que les ha convertido en grupo del momento . El rock de Murcia alimenta al mundo. Desde Filadelfia, Hurry despliegan su alta sensibilidad pop rock en "where i go, you go", primer adelanto de su disco-libro Fake ideas. Fetén Fetén nos trasladan junto a Coque Malla a la América de los felices años '20 en "No necesito", tan cerca del swing como de la chanson. Todrick Hall anuncia Femuline, su nuevo disco, con el refrescante pop estival de "boys in the ocean", perfecto para irse de vacaciones. Night Beats publican hoy Outlaw r&b, su energético nuevo disco, y estrenan vídeo para la pegadiza y psicodélica "stuck in the morning". Los pájaros' es la segunda canción de Lea Leone, la que completará junto con ‘Oxígeno'el primer single de siete pulgadas de esta artista que es a la vez muy joven, muy de ahora, y muy del pop clásico. John Mayer publica hoy su nuevo single 'Last Train Home'. Este es la carta de presentación del que será su octavo álbum de estudio. Su nuevo disco tendrá por título Sob Rock y saldrá a la venta el próximo 16 de julio. Quickly Quickly anuncia The long and short of it, su nuevo disco, con la digerible acidez hip pop de "everything is different to me", nuevo adelanto crossover. Real Life es la canción que precede al nuevo álbum "Fly and Sigh" de Elure, que presentarán en Live Mar Menor. Del festival, que llevará, música en directo, y otras actividades culturales, a Los Alcázares, del 30 al 31 de julio, hablamos con Tonny Serrano y Antonio Luis López Campos (Amaral, La M.O.D.A., Nunatak ft Silvina Moreno). "Noche de otoño 2" es Phil Connors en Atrapado en el tiempo (Bill Murray en El día de la marmota, para entendernos todos). Una persona incapaz de salir de su bucle infinito particular, un eterno 2 de febrero en Pensilvania o en Murcia, sin dejar de pensar en aquella época en que sí vivió de verdad.”. Es el segundo single que nos presenta BIGOTE CHINO, adelanto de lo que será su primer 7 pulgadas que verá la luz después de verano. Willy Mason estrena "outwit the devil", intenso y rítmico nuevo adelanto de Already dead, su nuevo disco. La artista pop Ana Cano vuelve con una sutil composición, 'Las cosas importantes' , producida por Guille Solano. Perdón nos vuelve hacer saltar de alegría con 'Te Invito a mi Fiesta', una revisión de temas que van desde Marisol hasta Bad Gyal, que oscila entre el Cutepop y el Hyperpop que verá la luz en formato físico gracias al sello Jeanne d'Arc. Coincidiendo con el aniversario de la muerte de Carlos Berlanga, Angelpopdj ha grabado una excelente versión de la canción Estrellas y Planetas, de su último disco, Impermeable.

Hoy 7 de junio de 2021 Prince hubiera cumplido 63 años. Purple Music quiere celebrarlo con un proyecto experimental denominado “la Cápsula del Tiempo”. El principal objetivo de esta iniciativa es el de crear un espacio común donde los fans puedan expresar su admiración por Prince y llenarlo de recuerdos. Purple Music aporta a la cápsula, por un lado, este programa, al que hemos invitado a varios colaboradores para confeccionar una lista de 18 canciones que definan a Prince como persona y artista. Por otro, una mixtape con estas 18 canciones que podéis escuchar en este enlace de Mixcloud: https://www.mixcloud.com/PurpleMusicPodcast/celebrando-a-prince-la-cápsula-del-tiempo/ A partir del 1 de agosto Purple Music recopilará todas vuestras aportaciones (pueden ser fotos, archivos de audio, textos, dibujos…), guardándolas a buen recaudo en una cápsula del tiempo virtual. Dentro de diez años, el 7 de junio de 2031, recibiréis un email desde el pasado de parte de Purple Music, podréis abrir la cápsula y descubrir todos los recuerdos que los fans compartieron diez años atrás. ¿Quieres participar? Haz clic en este enlace y entra en nuestra cápsula: https://bit.ly/purple-music-capsula-del-tiempo Como siempre, retaremos a nuestros oyentes en nuestras secciones Can I Play With U y I Wonder. Purple Music Podcast somos Saiber, StarrChild y Shockadelica. Puedes encontrarnos en: iVoox: https://bit.ly/31qkaqX iTunes: https://apple.co/2SGQ3IN Instagram: @purplemusicpodcast Facebook: @purplemusicpodcast y el grupo Purple Music: Un podcast sobre Prince Twitter: @PurpleMusicPod1 Correo electrónico: purplemusicpod@gmail.com ¡Envíanos tus comentarios! Stay tuned, stay funky! Música de sintonía: Purple Music (Prince), remix by PMP. Canción de despedida: 'Still Would Stand All Time', aftershow La Haya 1988. The Estate of Prince Rogers Nelson is not affiliated, associated, or connected with Purple Music Podcast nor has it endorsed or sponsored Purple Music Podcast. Further, the Estate of Prince Rogers Nelson has not licensed any of its intellectual property to the producers of Purple Music Podcast. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED. We just want to share our love for Prince music.

Watch the full video interview on YouTube here: http://bit.ly/annakaharris412 Annaka Harris (IG: @annakaharrisprojects) is the New York Times bestselling author of CONSCIOUS: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind. She is an editor and consultant for science writers, specializing in neuroscience and physics, and her work has appeared in The New York Times. Annaka is the author of the children’s book I Wonder, a collaborator on the Mindful Games Activity Cards, and a volunteer mindfulness teacher for the Inner Kids organization. In this episode, we discuss: As a kid, Annaka had a deeper sense of reality How Annaka got involved teaching meditation to children Integrating mindfulness into the school system Children learn to meditate easier than adults Practice meditating in the midst of everyday life Annaka’s early influence into meditation Why people have a hard time sticking to a meditation practice The emotions Annaka experienced on her first 5-day silent meditation retreat A radical shift is timeless Consciousness... the fundamental mystery of the mind Moving beyond panpsychism Consciousness as a felt experience The Integrated Information Theory The combination problem What is binding? Our conscious experience is lagging behind Free will vs. conscious will Brain processing is another part of nature When you see conscious will as an illusion How COVID is physically affecting the brain Your brain is always processing The location of consciousness Show sponsor: Organifi

A finales de 1988, en plena vorágine Lovesexy, Warner Brothers y el director de cine Tim Burton propusieron a Prince embarcarse en una nueva aventura: ni más ni menos que crear la banda sonora de la película Batman. Un atractivo desafío que por supuesto Prince no no tardó en aceptar. Como si del mismísimo Bruce Wayne se tratara, se enfundó su traje púrpura, se encerró en su batestudio y dio forma a un emblemático disco, importantísimo para toda una generación de fans. En el programa de hoy hablaremos sobre la creación de este álbum, el impacto que tuvo para público y medios y realizaremos un análisis canción a canción. Como siempre, retaremos a nuestros oyentes en nuestras secciones Can I Play With U y I Wonder. Purple Music Podcast somos Saiber, StarrChild y Shockadelica. Puedes encontrarnos en: iVoox: https://bit.ly/31qkaqX iTunes: https://apple.co/2SGQ3IN Instagram: @purplemusicpodcast Facebook: @purplemusicpodcast y el grupo Purple Music: Un podcast sobre Prince Twitter: @PurpleMusicPod1 Correo electrónico: purplemusicpod@gmail.com ¡Envíanos tus comentarios! Stay tuned, stay funky! Música de sintonía: Purple Music (Prince), remix by PMP. Canción de despedida: 'The Future', live 1989. The Estate of Prince Rogers Nelson is not affiliated, associated, or connected with Purple Music Podcast nor has it endorsed or sponsored Purple Music Podcast. Further, the Estate of Prince Rogers Nelson has not licensed any of its intellectual property to the producers of Purple Music Podcast. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED. We just want to share our love for Prince music.

Do you know what it means to find your dreams come true? Kanye West sure does. But back in 2007, it came at a cost for Ye—and it all started with I Wonder. On this episode, Chris and Travis break down this beautiful-yet-tragic track that serves as a huge turning point on the narrative of Graduation. If you'd like to hear the show ad-free, then support us over on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/KanyePodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you write about loss? What do you choose to say? What do you learn from writing about grief? How can writing about a lost loved one heal you? On today's episode of the Tuesday People podcast, host Mitch Albom and producer Lisa Goich talk about the therapeutic healing that can come from writing through loss. Mitch discusses the techniques he's used to write his bestselling memoirs, and Lisa discusses her new book, "I Wonder...: A Guided Grief Journal." Whether you are a daily journal keeper, or you have a memoir idea that you'd like to see come to fruition, this show will guide you on your path as you put pen to paper. For more information on Lisa's new book, visit her website: guidedgriefjournal.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lyd the SBW goes down a Herb Alpert shaped rabbit hole that takes her into 60’s and 70’s rock, 90s hip hop and the childhood of Generation-X.LINKS:A Sample, A Cover playlistFacebookEmail: spacetimemusicpodcast@gmail.comSONG CREDITS:In order of appearanceDamageH.E.R.2020Making Love in the RainKeep Your Eye on MeHerb Alpert feat. Lisa Keith and Janet Jackson1987Just Another DayBlack ReignQueen Latifah1993Won’t You Be My NeighborMister Rogers’ NeighborhoodMister Rogers1967Hip-Hop Hooray19 Naughty IIINaughty by Nature1992Fever for the Flavor of New PringlesPringles (1980s jingle)Flavor of the MonthA Wolf in Sheep’s ClothingBlack Sheep1991I WonderThe Bubble Gum MachineBubble Gum Machine1967Upon This RockUpon This RockJoe Farrell1974In a Little Spanish TownSounds Like…Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass1967

David Carruthers is an author, entertainer, motivational speaker and the co-founder of Your House Social Enterprise, a creative 'Social Purpose Corporation' whose goal is to motivate kids and youth through books, shows, festivals, multicultural events, inspirational and educational programs, documentaries and movies all under one roof. David has written many beloved children’s books including “Gordie the Golf Ball,” “Fat Cat, Fat Cat,” “The Bird That Wanted to Fly” and “I Wonder,” among many others.

It's the Season Seven finale episode featuring the one and only Dominque Maldonado, a director of A&R at Warner Music & the founder of the Leaders of the New Cool concert series.   Dominique comes correct with two hip hop offerings — South Carolina up & comer Lul Bob & his testimony “the real definition of fake” as well as the masterful lyricism of Brooklyn’s own Akai Solo.   We get the exclusive on an explosive unreleased single from Harry Edohoukwa called “Zombie.” We find peace in Naomi Sharon’s “1991.” And float on soon-to-be-superstar Q’s masterful melodies. Amongst more!   01 "Weak For Your Love" by Thee Sacred Souls 02 "The Real Definition of Fake" by Lul Bob (Bob Sheisty No Flow) 03 "Garage Rooftop" by Q 04 "1991" by Naomi Sharon 05 "Zombies" by Harry Edohoukwa 06 "94' The Dog Year" by Akai Solo 07 "I Wonder" by Al-Doms 08 "21" by Miley! 09 "Ön" by Cosima Olu   Art: Jordan Moss   Follow Not 97: ▶ Twitter: https://twitter.com/_NOT97 ▶ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_not97 *Not 97 is powered by the innovative music company Amuse.io, making distribution effortless for independent artists everywhere. © NOT 97. All music ℗ & © their rights holders, used by NOT 97 with explicit permission.

Dream Beam discusses her sometimes difficult relationship with opportunity and success. EPISODE PLAYLIST 1. People Get Up And Drive Your Funky Soul by James Brown (INTRO) 2. I Wonder by Kanye West 3. 19.10 by Childish Gambino 4. We All Try by Frank Ocean 5. Smile (f. Tupac & Johnny P.) by Scarface 6. Real (f. Anna Wise) by Kendrick Lamar 7. Conversations by Mac Miller 8. Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood by Nina Simone 9. The Lung by Hiatus Kaiyote 10. Yes, I'm Changing by Tame Impala 11. Green Tea (f. Angelica Bess) by Giraffage 12. Black Is... by Fertile Ground 13. Natural Mystic by Bob Marley (OUTRO) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jadestonevintagesoul/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jadestonevintagesoul/support

Hoy dedicaremos nuestro programa a analizar el disco Dirty Mind, un álbum con el que Prince dio un giro radical a su carrera y que supuso un cambio definitivo no solo en la actitud y la estética de Prince sino también en el estilo de las melodías y el tono de sus canciones, que adquirieron un carácter mucho más erótico e incluso controvertido. Como siempre, retaremos a nuestros oyentes en las secciones Can I Play With U y I Wonder. Purple Music Podcast somos Saiber, StarrChild y Shockadelica. Puedes encontrarnos en: iVoox: https://bit.ly/31qkaqX iTunes: https://apple.co/2SGQ3IN Instagram: @purplemusicpodcast Facebook: @purplemusicpodcast y el grupo Purple Music: Un podcast sobre Prince Twitter: @PurpleMusicPod1 Correo electrónico: purplemusicpod@gmail.com ¡Envíanos tus comentarios! Stay tuned, stay funky! Música de sintonía: Purple Music (Prince), remix by PMP. Canción de despedida: 'Party Up', live at First Avenue 1982, con Morris Day a la batería. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED. We just want to share our love for Prince music.

Join us as we celebrate the holidays with The Jimmys on this week's edition of Sessions from Studio A. The Wisconsin blues band joined us for a live performance in Studio A with music from their latest record, Gotta Have It, as well as some Christmas tunes. You can pick up a copy of that new album, and find more music from The Jimmys, on their website . Merry Christmas and happy holidays! The Jimmys perform "Christmas Comes But Once A Year" live in WNIJ's Studio A The Jimmys perform "I Wonder" live in WNIJ's Studio A The Jimmys perform "Take You Back" live in WNIJ's Studio A

As Christmas approaches, Soul Music leads you through Advent with the Appalachian carol "I Wonder as I Wander". Written by American folklorist and singer John Jacob Niles, its origins come from a song fragment collected in 1933. Mysterious, inspiring, this traditional Christmas carol reflects on the nativity and the nature of wondering. While in the town of Murphy in Appalachian North Carolina, Niles attended a fundraising meeting held by evangelicals who had been ordered out of town by the police. He wrote of hearing the song: “A girl had stepped out to the edge of the little platform attached to the automobile. She began to sing. Her clothes were unbelievably dirty and ragged, and she, too, was unwashed. Her ash-blond hair hung down in long skeins. ... she was beautiful, and in her untutored way, she could sing. She smiled as she sang, smiled rather sadly, and sang only a single line of a song”. The girl, named Annie Morgan, repeated the fragment seven times in exchange for a quarter per performance, and Niles left with "three lines of verse, and a magnificent idea". Based on this fragment, Niles composed the version of "I Wonder as I Wander" that is known today. This most unusual of carols touches people in different ways. With childhood memories from a 1960s RAF base in Oxfordshire, a Nigerian schoolgirl who found her place in Winchester Cathedral, reflections from a candlelit vigil in an Appalachian town, and a Christmas gift as described by world renowned singer Melanie Marshall. Guests: Performer Melanie Marshall, Ron Pen (biographer John Jacob Niles), Viva Choir member Louise Sheaves, author Chibundu Onuzo and music scholar John McClain. Featuring music from John Rutter and Burl Ives. Consultant: Ted Olson. Producer: Nicola Humphries

Andrea Segre su “Molecole”; Emma Dante e Donatella Finocchiaro su “Le sorelle Macaluso”. Francesco Virga e Carlo Sigon presentano “La prima onda. Milano al tempo del Covid19”. I Wonderfull, la nuova piattaforma di I Wonder con Andrea Romeo.

Have you heard the Christmas song “I Wonder as I Wander”? Listen to Kendra explain the history and theology of the song, then give it a listen!

The Hastings College Choir performs I Wonder as I Wander.

Two guys talking about questions girls have for guys... What can go wrong here?

 This sermon was recorded at a special "Christmas in the Spring" service where we marked God's entrance into "The Story" with chapter 22.  The mission of Jesus includes adopting us into His family and that gives us something to celebrate! Going with the "Christmas" theme, C2W (Created 2 Worship) offers the instrumental "I Wonder as I Wander." 

ROAD DAWGS EDITION EPISODE PLAYLIST 1. People Get Up and Drive Your Funky Soul (INTRO) by James Brown 2. A Fifth of Beethoven by Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band 3. Magic Bird of Fire by Salsoul Orchestra 4. Expressway to Your Heart by Margo Thunder 5. I Can't Quit Your Love by Jackson 5 6. Is That Enough? by Marvin Gaye 7. Heaven by Prince 8. I Wonder (f. IAMDDB & Fox) by The Mouse Outfit 9. Save Urself (f. Nubya Gracia) by Amy True 10. Protect Your Queen by Sampa the Great 11. Can't Hide Love by Carmen McRae 12. Theme to the Motion Picture “Cleopatra Jones” (OUTRO) by Joe Simon & Mainstreeters --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jadestonevintagesoul/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jadestonevintagesoul/support

In today's episode the host Jason poses the concept: "Out of sight, still in mind" - you know those times where we don't see something we are comfortable with but we know its there; so if it's not bothering us, why can't we just let that $#!+ be!? This revelation arose from a recent traffic stop he encountered with a police officer. Tune in to find out how it can be applied to all areas of your life Discussed in this episode: https://anchor.fm/wakeupwithwonder/episodes/I-Wonder-how-much-its-going-to-cost-you----WUWW-Ep-63-ehs0i1 In the above episode at the very end of the episode you will hear a quick 10 second exercise you can do to be more mindful and to keep yourself immersed in the present moment during important conversations. Credits: Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Follow on Spotify so that you catch all new episodes as they are released. To learn more about the host or to connect and share your experience of wonder you can DM him on Instagram or Facebook @Jasonbgodoy To learn more about the Podcast you can visit www.wakeupwithwonder.com To learn more about the Wake Up With Wonder Community simply Follow us on our Facebook Page Wake Up With Wonder Have a wondrous day and remember to never stop wondering for you are the wonder in the world! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wakeupwithwonder/message

Which new music artist are you? Just kidding - but incase you wanted to pick one, here's two hours full of some of the best of them. Also please arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor. Enjoying the show? Please support BFF.FM with a donation. Playlist 0′0″ Cookie Scene by The Go! Team on Cookie Scene (Memphis Industries) 2′38″ Fall Back by Hoops on Halo (Fat Possum) 11′27″ Care by Beabadoobee on Fake It Flowers (Dirty Hit) 14′28″ I Would Find You by Oceanator on Things I Never Said (Plastic Miracles) 20′37″ Weapon Of You by Tales In Space on Weapon Of You (Self Released) 24′16″ Daily Jobs by Bee Bee Sea on Day Ripper (Wild Honey) 31′45″ Four by No Joy on Motherhood (Joyful Noise/Hand Drawn Dracula) 35′51″ Fit N Full by Samia on The Baby (Grand Jury) 39′10″ name & place by dad sports on name & place (dad zone) 43′4″ Something Silver by Pure Bathing Culture on Corrido EP (Infinite Companion) 50′34″ Plum by Widowspeak on Plum (Captured Tracks) 54′47″ Runner by Hovvdy on Runner (Self Released) 58′38″ Footnotes by Land Of Talk on Indistinct Conversations (Saddle Creek) 62′5″ Like So Much Desire by Flock Of Dimes on Like So Much Desire (Sub Pop) 69′42″ Trials by Cults on Host (Sinderlyn) 73′1″ I'm Going Under by Frills on I'm Going Under (Grand Theft) 76′18″ 30% Off! by Best Frenz on 30% Off! (Self Released) 79′45″ Lylz by Helena Deland on Lylz (Luminelle Recordings) 87′49″ Honey by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard on Honey (Flightless) 91′52″ Heat Waves by Glass Animals on Dreamland (Wolf Tone) 95′56″ What If by Sylvan Esso on What If (Loma Vista) 97′18″ Flying by Dehd on Flower Of Devotion (Fire Talk) 105′24″ I Wonder by Shamir on Shamir (Self Released) 108′4″ Sunrise by MICHELLE on Sunrise (Atlantic) 114′8″ Weird Fishes by Lianne La Havas on Lianne La Havas (Nonesuch) The next I Rock I Roll Radio is on Monday, August 31st at 6:00 pm. Check out the full archives on the website.

This week I'm bringing you my chat with long-time camp director Ariella Rogge of Sanborn Western Camps. Ariella has a TON of amazing ideas for activities we can do to encourage our kids to explore nature. She also shares connection tips families can use to stay close during COVID-19. About Ariella Ariella began her career at Sanborn when she was twelve. After five years as a camper and five years as a staff member she continued her work with young people as a high school teacher. She and her family returned to camp in 2001 and she became Program Director at High Trails. In 2013, she became Director. Ariella received a B.A. in English from Colorado College and is a certified secondary English educator and WEMT. She has been active in developing Outcomes-Based Research for the ACA and often presents at national and regional conferences. Watch our Chat Links to Instructions & Downloads for Activities we Discussed NATURE NUGGETS #2: Nature Bingo NATURE NUGGETS #4: 100 Inch Hike NATURE NUGGETS #5: Nature Scavenger Hunt Question Strategy: "I THINK, I NOTICE, IT REMINDS ME OF, I WONDER..." "... makes them feel different about the world around them." quote Maintaining & Building Connections Virtual dinner get -togethers "real" letters Keeping a record of this historical time - journals, recordings Find Your Summer Self - Fun, laughter, being outside, engaging with other people, eating good food, having really long, full days packed with all sorts of adventure. "How do we capitalize on the spaces we do have?" "It's recalibrating how we are connecting with people in interesting ways." Audrey: This is a time I think that we can all use to sort of reconnect with what's important and regroup, kind of like a refresh of our lives because we have to, we don't really have any other options. Ariella: I think that's a huge part of this experience is everybody has to have a sense of humor. "Everybody has to have a sense of humor." CAMP VALUE 18:43-19:05 (CAMPS as a resource) 19:39-20:00 - OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWTH "It's only in challenge that we grow. And this is definitely a challenging time for all of us, and yet I think it provides us with a lot of opportunities, too." Resources/Links "My Corona" by Chris Mann Sanborn Western Camps  People of Sanborn: Ariella  Book: 101 Nature Activities for Kids by Jane Sanborn and Elizabeth Rundle  Nature Bingo 100 Inch Hike  Nature Sculptures  Andy Goldsworthy Nature Sculptures Inspiration Nature Scavenger Hunt  Mental Health Practices for Everyone  Additional Ideas at the Sanborn Western Camps Blog Be You - GAC Summer Theme  One Simple Thing: A List of Little Things Learning to Enjoy the Little Things My Favorite Deep Work: Rules For Focused Success in a Distracted World  

Our heroes deal with the aftermath of their loss against the witches. They have one last chance to save Sammie's mom, but can the Dragon Knights allow it? (Please direct hate mail to @KeeperSusannah on Twitter) CW: Immolation Theme Music: Baba Yaga by Kevin MacLeod (www.incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. Art by: Nightsi. Find her on Instagram @nightskei. Join us on the CastJunkie Discord Server: https://discord.gg/4ztYRmA. Become a member on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/thornvale. Find out how to support us: https://www.thornvalepodcast.com/support-us. Other sounds and music: Calm in the Night by MusicFiles from www.filmmusic.io. Shores of Avalon by Kevin MacLeod from www.filmmusic.io. I Wonder by Dreamhaven from www.filmmusic.io. Deeplistening by Lilo Sound from www.filmmusic.io. Xipetotec by Lilo Sound from www.filmmusic.io. Assassin by Rafael Krux from www.filmmusic.io. Big Water Splash Sound Effect by Alexander from http://www.orangefreesounds.com. Runningaway by Lilo Sound from www.filmmusic.io. Ending Hours by Rafael Krux from www.filmmusic.io. Virtutes Instrumenti by Kevin MacLeod from www.filmmusic.io. At Rest by Kevin MacLeod from www.filmmusic.io. Unnatural Situation by Kevin MacLeod from www.filmmusic.io. Sleepers by Sascha Ende from www.filmmusic.io. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thornvale/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thornvale/support

We decided to have a little bit of fun for our 50th episode. [rick ross grunt] Slap City picks: "I Wonder" by Kanye West, "Ultralight Beam" by Kanye West. Listen to our playlist here With the Funpoint Fifty behind us, we're kicking off phase 2 right. Join us in 2 weeks for Brooks' pick (I want to be very clear, Brooks picked this one) Aaron Carter's Aaron's Party.

Today on the Honest AF Show, we're getting a little serious, and taking a look at grief. During this time of quarantine, loss comes in all sorts of forms: The loss of activities we once knew, the loss of jobs, and, sadly, the loss of people we love. How can you get through this period while still keeping perspective and looking to the future for a brighter tomorrow? Barbaranne Wylde & Daniella Clarke talk to producer Lisa Goich about her memoir 14 Days: A Mother, A Daughter, A Two-Week Goodbye, and her forthcoming guided grief journal, "I Wonder..." and delve into this very personal subject.  

Moulz & Mel kick this whole thing off properly by getting one of the most controversial and influential artists in hip-hop history, Kanye West, on The Board! ------------------------- Intro (0:00) -- The Rating System, Explained (5:54) -- Graduation Info (33:18) -- Track 1: "Good Morning" (1:10:59) -- Track 2: "Champion" (1:31:02) -- Track 3: "Stronger" (1:46:08) -- Track 4: "I Wonder" (2:12:58) -- Track 5: "Good Life" (2:28:02) -- Track 6: "Can't Tell Me Nothing" (2:43:50) -- Track 7: "Barry Bonds" (3:00:01) -- Track 8: "Drunk and Hot Girls" (3:11:43) -- Track 9: "Flashing Lights" (3:26:53) -- Track 10: "Everything I Am" (3:43:21) -- Track 11: "The Glory" (3:53:43) -- Track 12: "Homecoming" (4:01:36) -- Track 13: "Big Brother" (4:16:34) -- Track 14: "Good Night" (4:32:32) -- Ranking Graduation (4:42:12) -- Outro (4:52:39) Support this podcast

In times of crisis our minds can easily wander to unhealthy places. Help us, Lord, to focus on “what is good” in times of distress. Help us, Lord, to focus on loving others when we are caught up in our own heads. Help us, Lord, to focus . . . on You. This episode includes: 1. I Wonder… (new) 2. Fix Your Eyes on Jesus (new) 3. Thoughtfulness (new) God bless you and thanks for listening! - Peter --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/prayimprov/support

1. Define Success for Yourself 2. I Wonder if they'd be Proud 3. Don't care what others think if...

Michael Berkeley talks to author Chibundu Onuzo about the challenge of writing novels while studying for her A-levels, and the role of music and faith in her life. At the age of nineteen Chibundu became the youngest female writer ever to be signed by Faber and Faber. She started writing aged ten while growing up in Lagos, Nigeria and was working on her first novel, ‘The Spider King’s Daughter’, while doing her A levels at boarding school in England. It was published while she was still at university and was shortlisted for a host of prizes – winning a 2013 Betty Trask Award. Her second novel, ‘Welcome to Lagos’, was published in 2017 to great acclaim. Chibundu talks to Michael Berkeley about growing up in Lagos, and the challenge of adapting to life at boarding school in Britain. She chooses a carol, ‘I Wonder as I Wander’, that she sang with her school choir in Winchester Cathedral. The soundtrack to a Nigerian television advert from the 1990s speaks to her about the tensions between Western and traditional values in Nigeria. We hear a miniature by Christian Petzold that will be familiar to anyone who has ever learned the piano, alongside music from Handel and from Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, ‘From the New World’. And, in a special moment for Private Passions, Chibundu is joined in the studio by members of her family to sing a setting of Psalm 23 by her uncle, Bishop Ken Okeke. Produced by Jane Greenwood. A Loftus production for BBC Radio 3.

En este episodio seguiremos aprendiendo acerca de cómo decir frases que comienzan con “I wonder." Pero, hoy veremos frases con el verbo en el pasado. Si dices algo como: “I wonder if Nate got home,” debes decir: ¿Nate habrá llegado a la casa? O, ¿Nate llegaría a la casa? Claro que puedes decir: “Me pregunto si Nate llegó a la casa,” pero no suena muy natural. Ojalá aprendas bastante en este episodio. No olvides escuchar el episodio 187, en el que estudiamos I Wonder + un verbo en el presente. Recuerda que te puedes ser parte a nuestra membresía. Puedes registrarte para tener un plan mensual de estudio estructurado para que mejores tu español. El cual incluye clases en vivo y 8 actividades por el mes. Encuentra todos los detalles y como registrarte aquí Spanishlandschool.com/member.

En este episodio vamos a hacer ejercicios de traducción utilizando frases con "I Wonder." ¿Cómo traduces la frase "I wonder who lives here"?  Si dices, "Me pregunto quien vive aquí" está bien, pero no es la forma en como los nativos lo dicen.  La forma más natural de decir esto es: "Quién vivirá aquí."  Si la frase en inglés utiliza el verbo en el presente, cuando lo traduces al español, debes usar el verbo en el futuro simple. Vamos a traducir varias frases para entender muy bien. Recuerda que te puedes ser parte a nuestra membresía. Puedes registrarte para tener un plan mensual de estudio estructurado para que mejores tu español. El cual incluye clases en vivo y 8 actividades por el mes. Encuentra todos los detalles y como registrarte aquí Spanishlandschool.com/member.

Sunday Morning Service, November 3, 2019 11 a.m., Welcome by The Rev. Dr. Jeremy Rutledge, Introit: I Wonder as I Wonder, Faith Sherman, Unison Call to Worship: by Linda Mayo -Perez Williams, Hymn #5 Supplimental, See Amid the Winter’s Snow, by Congregation, Prayer of Confession by Linda Mayo-Perez Williams, Anthem: Magnificat Movement 1, Magnificat Movement 2, Annette Sherman & Faith Sherman, soloists and Choir, Hymn # 131, It Came Upon the Midnight Clear, vs 1-4, Scripture: Luke 1.46b-55 Hal Truesdale, The Magnificat, Movement 3, Reflection: “Mary’s Song and Our Own”: by the Reverend Dr. Jeremy Rutledge, Musical Meditation: Micah Gangwer, soloist Offertory: Greensleeves by Gangwer, Gangwer, O’Malley# 591, Hammett, Doxology, Choir & Congregation, Prayers for the Church and the World, The Rev. Dr. Jeremy Rutledge, Hymn # 132, vs. 1 & 3 Joy to the world, Choir & Congregation, Benediction the Reverend Dr. Jeremy Rutledge, Choral Amen: The Magnificat, Movements 5 & 6.

Welcome to another Wednesday of WONDERment. It’s WONDERful to have you back for another round or New News. I WONDER what the comicsphere has in store for us today?OK, you get it. Wonder Woman. She had a trailer drop recently. We will get to that. Join Mendte, Mr. Maurer, and Baby Huey as they break down the last week of Comic Related Current Events. Obviously the Wonder Woman trailer, but also the trailers for Black Widow, The Boys, and the Secret World of Alex Mac (that will make sense when you hit play). Plus the Arrow verse Crisis, and Superman says goodbye to his secret identity again. So without further ado, why don’t you just hit play and let’s get into it. Welcome to Fireside.

Episode fifty-six of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Bye Bye Love” by The Everly Brotherss, and at the history of country close harmony. 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 “Short Fat Fannie” by Larry Williams.  —-more—-   Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. There are no first-rate biographies of the Everly Brothers in print, at least in English (apparently there’s a decent one in French, but I don’t speak French well enough for that). Ike’s Boys by Phyllis Karp is the only full-length bio,  and I relied on that in the absence of anything else, but it’s been out of print for nearly thirty years, and is not worth the exorbitant price it goes for second-hand. How Nashville Became Music City by Michael Kosser has a good amount of information on the Bryants. The Everlypedia is a series of PDFs containing articles on anything related to the Everly Brothers, in alphabetical order. There are many, many cheap compilations of the Everly Brothers’ early material available. I’d recommend this one, because as well as all the hits up to 1962 it has the complete Songs our Daddy Taught Us.   Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them?   Transcript [Intro: Ike Everly introducing the Everly Brothers] We’ve talked before about how vocal harmonies are no longer a big part of rock music, but were essential to it in the fifties and sixties. But what we’ve not discussed is that there are multiple different types of harmony that we see in the music of that period. One, which we’ve already seen, is the vocal group sound — the sound of doo-wop. There, there might be a lead singer, but everyone involved has their own important role to play, singing separate backing vocal lines that intertwine. One singer will be taking a bass melody, another will be singing a falsetto line, and so on. It’s the sound of a collection of individual personalities, working together but to their own agendas. Another style which we’re going to look at soon is the girl group sound. There you have a lead singer singing a line on her own, and two or three backing vocalists echoing lines on the chorus — it’s the sound of a couple of friends providing support for someone who’s in trouble. The lead singer will sing her problems, and the friends will respond with something supportive. Then there’s the style which Elvis used — a single lead vocalist over a group of backing vocalists, mostly providing “oohs” and “aahs”. The backing vocals here just work as another instrumental texture. But there’s one style which would be as influential as any of these, and which was brought into rock and roll by a single act — a duo who, more than anyone else in rock music, epitomised vocal harmony: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, “Bye Bye Love”] Don and Phil Everly were brought up in music. Their father, Ike Everly, had been a coalminer in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, but decided to quit coal mining and become a professional musician when he was trapped in his second cave-in, deciding he wasn’t ever going to go through that a third time. He had learned a particular guitar style, which would later become known as “Travis picking” after its most famous exponent, Merle Travis — though Travis himself usually referred to it as “Muhlenberg picking”. Travis and Ike Everly knew each other, and it was Ike Everly, and Ike’s friend Mose Rager, who taught Travis how to play in that style, which they had learned from another friend, Kennedy Jones, who in turn learned it from a black country-blues player named Arnold Schultz, who had invented the style: [Excerpt, Ike Everly, “Blue Smoke”] Ike Everly was widely regarded as one of the greatest country guitarists of all time, and his “Ike Everly’s Rag” was later recorded by Merle Travis and Joe Maphis: [Excerpt: Merle Travis and Joe Maphis, “Ike Everly’s Rag”] But while Ike Everly was known as a country player, Don Everly would always later claim that deep down Ike was a blues man. He played country because that was what the audiences wanted to hear, but his first love was the blues. But even when playing country, he wasn’t just playing the kind of music that was becoming popular at the time, but he was also playing the old Appalachian folk songs, and teaching them to his sons. He would play songs like “Who’s Going to Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?”, which was most famously recorded by Woody Guthrie: [Excerpt: Woody Guthrie, “Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?”] The Everly family travelled all over the South and Midwest, moving between radio stations on which Ike Everly would get himself shows. As they grew old enough, his two sons, Don and Phil, would join him, as would his wife, though Margaret Everly was more of a manager than a performer. Don soon became good enough that he got his own fifteen-minute show, performing as “Little Donnie”, as well as performing with his family. The Everly family would perform their show live, first thing in the morning — they were playing country music and so they were supposed to be playing for the farmers, and their show began at 5AM, with the young boys heading off to school, still in the dark, after the show had finished. The radio show continued for many years, and the boys developed all sorts of tricks for keeping an audience entertained, which would stand them in good stead in future years. One thing they used to do was to have both brothers and their father play the same guitar simultaneously, with Phil fretting the bass notes, Ike Everly playing those notes, and Don playing lead on the top strings. I’ve not found a recording of them doing that together, but some footage does exist of them doing this with Tennessee Ernie Ford on his TV show — Ford, of course, being someone whose biggest hit had been written by Ike Everly’s old friend Merle Travis: [Excerpt: Tennessee Ernie Ford and the Everly Brothers, “Rattlesnake Daddy”] That kind of trick was fairly common among country acts at the time — Buck Owens and Don Rich would do pretty much the same act together in the 1960s, and like the Everlys would play fairly straightforward blues licks while doing it. But while Ike Everly was primarily an instrumentalist, his sons would become known mostly as singers. People often, incorrectly, describe the Everly Brothers as singing “bluegrass harmonies”. This is understandable, as bluegrass music comes from Kentucky, and does often have close harmonies in it. But the Everlys were actually singing in a style that was around for years before Bill Monroe started performing the music that would become known as bluegrass. There was a whole tradition of close harmony in country music that is usually dated back to the 1920s. The first people to really popularise it were a duo who were known as “Mac and Bob” — Lester McFarland and Robert Gardner. The two men met in Kentucky, at the Kentucky School for the Blind, where they were both studying music, in 1916. They started singing close harmony together in the early 1920s, and while they sang in the overly-enunciated way that was popular at the time, you can hear the roots of the Everlys’ style in their harmonies: [Excerpt: McFarland and Gardner, “That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine”] The style is known as “close harmony” because the singers are singing notes that are close to each other in the scale, and it was the foundation of country vocal harmonies. Usually in this style, there are two singers, singing about a third apart. The lower singer will sing the melody, while the higher singer will harmonise, following the melody line closely. This style of harmony was particularly suited to the vocal blend you can get from siblings, who tend to have extremely similar voices — and if done well it can sound like one voice harmonising with itself. And so from the 1930s on there were a lot of brother acts who performed this kind of music. One duo who the Everlys would often point to as a particular influence was the Bailes Brothers: [Excerpt: the Bailes Brothers, “Oh So Many Years”] But at the time the Everly Brothers were coming up, there was one duo, more than any other, who were immensely popular in the close harmony style — the Louvin Brothers: [Excerpt: The Louvin Brothers, “Midnight Special”] The Louvin Brothers, Charlie and Ira, were cousins of John D. Loudermilk, whose “Sittin’ in the Balcony” we heard in the Eddie Cochran episode a few weeks ago. They were country and gospel singers, who are nowadays probably sadly best known for the cover of their album “Satan is Real”, which often makes those Internet listicles about the most ridiculous album covers. But in the mid fifties, they were one of the most popular groups in country music, and influenced everyone — they were particular favourites of Elvis, and regular performers on the Grand Ole Opry. Their style was a model for the Everlys, but sadly so was their personal relationship. Ira and Charlie never got on, and would often get into fights on stage, and the same was true of the Everly Brothers. In 1970, Phil Everly said “We’ve only ever had one argument. It’s lasted twenty-five years”, and that argument would continue for the rest of their lives. There were various explanations offered for their enmity over the years, ranging from them vying to be their father’s favourite, to Don resenting Phil’s sweeter voice upstaging him — he was once quoted as saying “I’ve been a has-been since I was ten”. But fundamentally the two brothers were just too different in everything from temperament to politics — Don is a liberal Democrat, while Phil was a conservative Republican — and their views on how life should be lived. It seems most likely that two such different people resented being forced into constant proximity with each other, and reacted against it. And so the Everlys became another of those sibling rivalries that have recurred throughout rock and roll history. But despite their personal differences, they had a vocal blend that was possibly even better than that of the Louvins, if that’s possible. But talent on its own doesn’t necessarily bring success, and for a while it looked like the Everlys were going to be washed up before the brothers got out of their teens. While they had some success with their radio show, by 1955 there was much less of a market for live music on the radio — it was much cheaper for the radio stations to employ DJs to play records, now that the legal ban on broadcasting recordings had been lifted. The Everly family’s radio show ended, and both Ike and Margaret got jobs cutting hair, while encouraging their sons in their music career. After a few months of this, Margaret decided she was going to move the boys to Nashville, to try to get them a record deal, while Ike remained in nearby Knoxville working as a barber. While the family had not had much success in the music industry, they had made contacts with several people, and Chet Atkins, in particular, was an admirer, not only of Ike Everly’s guitar playing, but of his barbering skills as well — according to at least one account I’ve read, Atkins was a regular customer of Ike’s. Atkins seems to have been, at first, mostly interested in Don Everly as a songwriter and maybe a solo performer — he carried out some correspondence with Don while Don was still in school, and got Kitty Wells, one of the biggest country stars of the fifties, to record one of Don’s songs, “Thou Shalt Not Steal”, when Don was only sixteen: [Excerpt: Kitty Wells, “Thou Shalt Not Steal”] That became a top twenty country hit, and Don looked like he might be on his way to a successful career, especially after another of his songs, “Here We Are Again”, was recorded by Anita Carter of the famous Carter family: [Excerpt: Anita Carter, “Here We Are Again”] But Margaret Everly, the Everlys’ mother and the person who seemed to have the ambition that drove them, didn’t want Don to be a solo star — she wanted the two brothers to be equal in every way, and would make sure they wore the same clothes, had the same toys growing up, and so on. She took Don’s royalties from songwriting, and used them to get both brothers Musicians’ union cards — in the same way, when Don had had his own radio show, Margaret had made Don give Phil half of his five-dollar fee. So solo stardom was never going to be in Don Everly’s future. Margaret wanted the Everly Brothers to be a successful duo, and that was that. Chet Atkins was going to help *both* her sons. Atkins got them a deal with Columbia Records in 1956 for a single, “Keep A-Lovin’ Me”, written by Don: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, “Keep A-Lovin’ Me”] That record flopped, and the Everlys were later very dismissive of it — Phil said of the two songs on that single “they were stinko, boy! Really stinko!” Columbia weren’t interested in putting out anything else by the Everlys, and quickly dropped them. Part of the reason was that they were signed as a country act, but they already wanted to do more, and in particular to incorporate more influence from the rhythm and blues music they were listening to. Don worshipped Hank Williams, and Phil loved Lefty Frizzell, but they both also adored Bo Diddley, and were obsessed with his style. Don, in particular — who was the more accomplished instrumentalist of the two, and who unlike Phil would play rhythm guitar on their records — wanted to learn how Diddley played guitar, and would spend a lot of time with Chet Atkins, who taught him how to play in the open tunings Diddley used, and some of the rhythms he was playing with. Despite the brothers’ lack of success on Columbia, Atkins still had faith in them, and he got in touch with his friend Wesley Rose, who was the president of Acuff-Rose publishing, the biggest music publishing company in Nashville at the time. Rose made a deal with the brothers. If they would sign to Acuff-Rose as songwriters, and if they’d agree to record only Acuff-Rose songs, he would look after their career and get them a record deal. They agreed, and Rose got them signed to Cadence Records, a mid-sized indie label whose biggest star at the time was Andy Williams. The first single they recorded for Cadence was a song that had been rejected by thirty other artists before it was passed on to the Everlys as a last resort. “Bye Bye Love” was written by the husband and wife team Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, who had been writing for a decade, for people such as Carl Smith and Moon Mullican. Their first hit had come in 1948, with “Country Boy”, a song which Little Jimmy Dickens took to number seven on the country charts: [Excerpt: Little Jimmy Dickens, “Country Boy”] But they had not had much chart success after that, though they’d placed songs with various Nashville-based country singers. They were virtual unknowns, and their most recent song, “Bye Bye Love”, had been written for a duo called Johnny and Jack. They hadn’t been interested, so the Bryants had passed the song along to their friend Chet Atkins, who had tried to record it with Porter Wagoner, who had recorded other songs by the Bryants, like “Tryin’ to Forget the Blues”: [Excerpt: Porter Wagoner, “Tryin’ to Forget the Blues”] But when Atkins took the song into the studio, he decided it wasn’t strong enough for Wagoner. Atkins wanted to change a few chords, and Boudleaux Bryant told him that if the song wasn’t strong enough as it was, he just shouldn’t record it at all. But while the song might not have been strong enough for a big country star like Porter Wagoner, it was strong enough for Chet Atkins’ new proteges, who were, after all, hardly going to have a big hit. So Atkins took the multiply-rejected song in for the duo to record as their first single for Cadence. In one of those coincidences that seems too good to be true, Ike Everly was Boudleaux Bryant’s barber, and had been bragging to him for years about how talented his sons were, but Bryant had just dismissed this — around Nashville, everyone is a major talent, or their son or daughter or husband or wife is. Two things happened to change the rather mediocre song into a classic that would change the face of popular music. The first was, simply, the brothers’ harmonies. They had by this point developed an intuitive understanding of each other’s voices, and a superb musicality. It’s interesting to listen to the very first take of the song: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, “Bye Bye Love (take 1)”] That’s Don singing the low lead and Phil taking the high harmony. Now, if you’re familiar with the finished record, you can tell that what Phil’s singing there isn’t the closer harmony part he ended up singing on the final version. There are some note choices there that he decided against for the final record. But what you can tell is that they are instinctively great harmony singers. It’s not the harmony part that would become famous, but it’s a *good* one in its own right. The second thing is that they changed the song from the rather sedate country song the Bryants had come up with, radically rearranging it. Don had written a song called “Give Me a Future”, which he’d intended to be in the Bo Diddley style, and one can hear something of Diddley’s rhythm in the stop-start guitar part: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, “Give Me a Future”] Don took that guitar part, and attached it to the Bryants’ song, and with the help of Chet Atkins’ lead guitar fills turned it into something quite new — a record with a rockabilly feel, but with country close harmony vocals: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, “Bye Bye Love”] The brothers were, at first, worried because almost as soon as it came out, a cover version by Webb Pierce, one of the biggest names in country music, came out: [Excerpt: Webb Pierce, “Bye Bye Love”] But they were surprised to discover that while Pierce’s version did chart — reaching the top ten in the country charts — it was nowhere near as successful as their own version, which went to number one on the country charts and number two in pop, and charted on the R&B charts as well. After that success, the Bryants wrote a string of hits for the brothers, a run of classics starting with “Wake Up Little Suzie”, a song which was banned on many stations because it suggested impropriety — even though, listening to the lyrics, it very clearly states that no impropriety has gone on, and indeed that the protagonist is horrified at the suggestion that it might have: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, “Wake Up Little Suzie”] These records would usually incorporate some of Don’s Bo Diddley influence, while remaining firmly in the country end of rock and roll. The Bryants also started to give the brothers ballads like “Devoted to You” and “All I Have to Do is Dream”, which while they still deal with adolescent concerns, have a sweetness and melody to them quite unlike anything else that was being recorded by rock and roll artists of the time. After the first single, everything else that the Bryants wrote for the Everlys was tailored specifically to them — Boudleaux Bryant, who would attend more of the sessions, would have long conversations with the brothers and try to write songs that fit with their lives and musical tastes, as well as fitting them to their voices. One of the things that’s very noticeable about interviews with the brothers is that they both tend to credit Boudleaux alone with having written the songs that he co-wrote with his wife, even though everything suggests that the Bryants were a true partnership, and both have solo credits for songs that are stylistically indistinguishable from those written as a team. Whether this is pure sexism, or it’s just because Boudleaux is the one who used to demo the songs for them and so they think of him as the primary author, is hard to tell — probably a combination. This was also a perception that Boudleaux Bryant encouraged. While Felice was the person who had originally decided to go into songwriting, and was the one who came up with most of the ideas, Boudleaux was only interested in making money — and he’d often sneak off to write songs by himself so he would get all the money rather than have to share it with his wife. Boudleaux would also on occasion be given incomplete songs by friends like Atkins, and finish them up with Felice — but only Boudleaux and the original writer would get their names on it. The result was that Boudleaux got the credit from people around him, even when they knew better. One of my sources for this episode is an interview with the Bryants’ son, Dane, and at one point in that interview he says “Now, lots of times I will say, ‘My father.’ I mean Dad and Mom”. As the Everly brothers disagreed about almost everything, they of course disagreed about the quality of the material that the Bryants were bringing them. Phil Everly was always utterly unstinting in his praise of them, saying that the Bryants’ songs were some of the best songs ever written. Don, on the other hand, while he definitely appreciated material like “All I Have to Do is Dream”, wasn’t so keen on their writing in general, mostly because it dealt primarily with adolescent concerns. He thought that the material the brothers were writing for themselves — though still immature, as one would expect from people who were still in their teens at the start of their career — was aiming at a greater emotional maturity than the material the Bryants wrote. And on the evidence of their first album, that’s certainly true. The first album is, like many albums of the time, a patchy affair. It pulls together the hit singles the brothers had already released, together with a bunch of rather mediocre cover versions of then-current hits. Those cover versions tend to support Don’s repeated claims that the brothers were as interested in R&B and blues as in country — apart from a version of “Be-Bop-A-Lula”, all the covers are of R&B hits of the time — two by Little Richard, two by Ray Charles, and one by the relatively obscure blues singer Titus Turner. But among those songs, there are also a handful of Don Everly originals, and one in particular, “I Wonder if I Care as Much”, is quite an astonishing piece of songwriting: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, “I Wonder If I Care As Much”] Don’s songs were often B-sides – that one was the B-side to “Bye Bye Love” – and to my mind they’re often rather more interesting than the A-sides. While that first album is rather patchy, the second album, Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, is a minor revelation, and one of the pillars on which the Everly Brothers’ artistic reputation rests. It’s been suggested that the album was done as a way of getting back at the record company for some slight or other, by making a record that was completely uncommercial. That might be the case, but I don’t think so — and if it was, it was a gesture that backfired magnificently, as it’s still, sixty years on, a consistent seller. Songs Our Daddy Taught Us is precisely what it sounds like — an album consisting of songs the brothers had been taught by their father. It’s a mixture of Appalachian folk songs and country standards, performed by the brothers accompanied just by Don’s acoustic guitar and Floyd Chance on upright bass: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, “Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?”] It’s quite possibly the most artistically satisfying album made in the fifties by a rock and roll act, and it’s had such an influence that as recently as 2013 Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day and the jazz-pop singer Norah Jones recorded an album, Foreverly, that’s just a cover version of the whole album: [Excerpt: Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones, “Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?”] So as the 1950s drew to a close, the Everly Brothers were on top of the world. They’d had a run of classic singles, and they’d just released one of the greatest albums of all time. But there was trouble ahead, and when we pick up on their career again, we’ll see exactly how wrong things could go for them.  

Episode fifty-six of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Bye Bye Love” by The Everly Brotherss, and at the history of country close harmony. 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 “Short Fat Fannie” by Larry Williams.  —-more—-   Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. There are no first-rate biographies of the Everly Brothers in print, at least in English (apparently there’s a decent one in French, but I don’t speak French well enough for that). Ike’s Boys by Phyllis Karp is the only full-length bio,  and I relied on that in the absence of anything else, but it’s been out of print for nearly thirty years, and is not worth the exorbitant price it goes for second-hand. How Nashville Became Music City by Michael Kosser has a good amount of information on the Bryants. The Everlypedia is a series of PDFs containing articles on anything related to the Everly Brothers, in alphabetical order. There are many, many cheap compilations of the Everly Brothers’ early material available. I’d recommend this one, because as well as all the hits up to 1962 it has the complete Songs our Daddy Taught Us.   Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them?   Transcript [Intro: Ike Everly introducing the Everly Brothers] We’ve talked before about how vocal harmonies are no longer a big part of rock music, but were essential to it in the fifties and sixties. But what we’ve not discussed is that there are multiple different types of harmony that we see in the music of that period. One, which we’ve already seen, is the vocal group sound — the sound of doo-wop. There, there might be a lead singer, but everyone involved has their own important role to play, singing separate backing vocal lines that intertwine. One singer will be taking a bass melody, another will be singing a falsetto line, and so on. It’s the sound of a collection of individual personalities, working together but to their own agendas. Another style which we’re going to look at soon is the girl group sound. There you have a lead singer singing a line on her own, and two or three backing vocalists echoing lines on the chorus — it’s the sound of a couple of friends providing support for someone who’s in trouble. The lead singer will sing her problems, and the friends will respond with something supportive. Then there’s the style which Elvis used — a single lead vocalist over a group of backing vocalists, mostly providing “oohs” and “aahs”. The backing vocals here just work as another instrumental texture. But there’s one style which would be as influential as any of these, and which was brought into rock and roll by a single act — a duo who, more than anyone else in rock music, epitomised vocal harmony: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, “Bye Bye Love”] Don and Phil Everly were brought up in music. Their father, Ike Everly, had been a coalminer in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, but decided to quit coal mining and become a professional musician when he was trapped in his second cave-in, deciding he wasn’t ever going to go through that a third time. He had learned a particular guitar style, which would later become known as “Travis picking” after its most famous exponent, Merle Travis — though Travis himself usually referred to it as “Muhlenberg picking”. Travis and Ike Everly knew each other, and it was Ike Everly, and Ike’s friend Mose Rager, who taught Travis how to play in that style, which they had learned from another friend, Kennedy Jones, who in turn learned it from a black country-blues player named Arnold Schultz, who had invented the style: [Excerpt, Ike Everly, “Blue Smoke”] Ike Everly was widely regarded as one of the greatest country guitarists of all time, and his “Ike Everly’s Rag” was later recorded by Merle Travis and Joe Maphis: [Excerpt: Merle Travis and Joe Maphis, “Ike Everly’s Rag”] But while Ike Everly was known as a country player, Don Everly would always later claim that deep down Ike was a blues man. He played country because that was what the audiences wanted to hear, but his first love was the blues. But even when playing country, he wasn’t just playing the kind of music that was becoming popular at the time, but he was also playing the old Appalachian folk songs, and teaching them to his sons. He would play songs like “Who’s Going to Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?”, which was most famously recorded by Woody Guthrie: [Excerpt: Woody Guthrie, “Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?”] The Everly family travelled all over the South and Midwest, moving between radio stations on which Ike Everly would get himself shows. As they grew old enough, his two sons, Don and Phil, would join him, as would his wife, though Margaret Everly was more of a manager than a performer. Don soon became good enough that he got his own fifteen-minute show, performing as “Little Donnie”, as well as performing with his family. The Everly family would perform their show live, first thing in the morning — they were playing country music and so they were supposed to be playing for the farmers, and their show began at 5AM, with the young boys heading off to school, still in the dark, after the show had finished. The radio show continued for many years, and the boys developed all sorts of tricks for keeping an audience entertained, which would stand them in good stead in future years. One thing they used to do was to have both brothers and their father play the same guitar simultaneously, with Phil fretting the bass notes, Ike Everly playing those notes, and Don playing lead on the top strings. I’ve not found a recording of them doing that together, but some footage does exist of them doing this with Tennessee Ernie Ford on his TV show — Ford, of course, being someone whose biggest hit had been written by Ike Everly’s old friend Merle Travis: [Excerpt: Tennessee Ernie Ford and the Everly Brothers, “Rattlesnake Daddy”] That kind of trick was fairly common among country acts at the time — Buck Owens and Don Rich would do pretty much the same act together in the 1960s, and like the Everlys would play fairly straightforward blues licks while doing it. But while Ike Everly was primarily an instrumentalist, his sons would become known mostly as singers. People often, incorrectly, describe the Everly Brothers as singing “bluegrass harmonies”. This is understandable, as bluegrass music comes from Kentucky, and does often have close harmonies in it. But the Everlys were actually singing in a style that was around for years before Bill Monroe started performing the music that would become known as bluegrass. There was a whole tradition of close harmony in country music that is usually dated back to the 1920s. The first people to really popularise it were a duo who were known as “Mac and Bob” — Lester McFarland and Robert Gardner. The two men met in Kentucky, at the Kentucky School for the Blind, where they were both studying music, in 1916. They started singing close harmony together in the early 1920s, and while they sang in the overly-enunciated way that was popular at the time, you can hear the roots of the Everlys’ style in their harmonies: [Excerpt: McFarland and Gardner, “That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine”] The style is known as “close harmony” because the singers are singing notes that are close to each other in the scale, and it was the foundation of country vocal harmonies. Usually in this style, there are two singers, singing about a third apart. The lower singer will sing the melody, while the higher singer will harmonise, following the melody line closely. This style of harmony was particularly suited to the vocal blend you can get from siblings, who tend to have extremely similar voices — and if done well it can sound like one voice harmonising with itself. And so from the 1930s on there were a lot of brother acts who performed this kind of music. One duo who the Everlys would often point to as a particular influence was the Bailes Brothers: [Excerpt: the Bailes Brothers, “Oh So Many Years”] But at the time the Everly Brothers were coming up, there was one duo, more than any other, who were immensely popular in the close harmony style — the Louvin Brothers: [Excerpt: The Louvin Brothers, “Midnight Special”] The Louvin Brothers, Charlie and Ira, were cousins of John D. Loudermilk, whose “Sittin’ in the Balcony” we heard in the Eddie Cochran episode a few weeks ago. They were country and gospel singers, who are nowadays probably sadly best known for the cover of their album “Satan is Real”, which often makes those Internet listicles about the most ridiculous album covers. But in the mid fifties, they were one of the most popular groups in country music, and influenced everyone — they were particular favourites of Elvis, and regular performers on the Grand Ole Opry. Their style was a model for the Everlys, but sadly so was their personal relationship. Ira and Charlie never got on, and would often get into fights on stage, and the same was true of the Everly Brothers. In 1970, Phil Everly said “We’ve only ever had one argument. It’s lasted twenty-five years”, and that argument would continue for the rest of their lives. There were various explanations offered for their enmity over the years, ranging from them vying to be their father’s favourite, to Don resenting Phil’s sweeter voice upstaging him — he was once quoted as saying “I’ve been a has-been since I was ten”. But fundamentally the two brothers were just too different in everything from temperament to politics — Don is a liberal Democrat, while Phil was a conservative Republican — and their views on how life should be lived. It seems most likely that two such different people resented being forced into constant proximity with each other, and reacted against it. And so the Everlys became another of those sibling rivalries that have recurred throughout rock and roll history. But despite their personal differences, they had a vocal blend that was possibly even better than that of the Louvins, if that’s possible. But talent on its own doesn’t necessarily bring success, and for a while it looked like the Everlys were going to be washed up before the brothers got out of their teens. While they had some success with their radio show, by 1955 there was much less of a market for live music on the radio — it was much cheaper for the radio stations to employ DJs to play records, now that the legal ban on broadcasting recordings had been lifted. The Everly family’s radio show ended, and both Ike and Margaret got jobs cutting hair, while encouraging their sons in their music career. After a few months of this, Margaret decided she was going to move the boys to Nashville, to try to get them a record deal, while Ike remained in nearby Knoxville working as a barber. While the family had not had much success in the music industry, they had made contacts with several people, and Chet Atkins, in particular, was an admirer, not only of Ike Everly’s guitar playing, but of his barbering skills as well — according to at least one account I’ve read, Atkins was a regular customer of Ike’s. Atkins seems to have been, at first, mostly interested in Don Everly as a songwriter and maybe a solo performer — he carried out some correspondence with Don while Don was still in school, and got Kitty Wells, one of the biggest country stars of the fifties, to record one of Don’s songs, “Thou Shalt Not Steal”, when Don was only sixteen: [Excerpt: Kitty Wells, “Thou Shalt Not Steal”] That became a top twenty country hit, and Don looked like he might be on his way to a successful career, especially after another of his songs, “Here We Are Again”, was recorded by Anita Carter of the famous Carter family: [Excerpt: Anita Carter, “Here We Are Again”] But Margaret Everly, the Everlys’ mother and the person who seemed to have the ambition that drove them, didn’t want Don to be a solo star — she wanted the two brothers to be equal in every way, and would make sure they wore the same clothes, had the same toys growing up, and so on. She took Don’s royalties from songwriting, and used them to get both brothers Musicians’ union cards — in the same way, when Don had had his own radio show, Margaret had made Don give Phil half of his five-dollar fee. So solo stardom was never going to be in Don Everly’s future. Margaret wanted the Everly Brothers to be a successful duo, and that was that. Chet Atkins was going to help *both* her sons. Atkins got them a deal with Columbia Records in 1956 for a single, “Keep A-Lovin’ Me”, written by Don: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, “Keep A-Lovin’ Me”] That record flopped, and the Everlys were later very dismissive of it — Phil said of the two songs on that single “they were stinko, boy! Really stinko!” Columbia weren’t interested in putting out anything else by the Everlys, and quickly dropped them. Part of the reason was that they were signed as a country act, but they already wanted to do more, and in particular to incorporate more influence from the rhythm and blues music they were listening to. Don worshipped Hank Williams, and Phil loved Lefty Frizzell, but they both also adored Bo Diddley, and were obsessed with his style. Don, in particular — who was the more accomplished instrumentalist of the two, and who unlike Phil would play rhythm guitar on their records — wanted to learn how Diddley played guitar, and would spend a lot of time with Chet Atkins, who taught him how to play in the open tunings Diddley used, and some of the rhythms he was playing with. Despite the brothers’ lack of success on Columbia, Atkins still had faith in them, and he got in touch with his friend Wesley Rose, who was the president of Acuff-Rose publishing, the biggest music publishing company in Nashville at the time. Rose made a deal with the brothers. If they would sign to Acuff-Rose as songwriters, and if they’d agree to record only Acuff-Rose songs, he would look after their career and get them a record deal. They agreed, and Rose got them signed to Cadence Records, a mid-sized indie label whose biggest star at the time was Andy Williams. The first single they recorded for Cadence was a song that had been rejected by thirty other artists before it was passed on to the Everlys as a last resort. “Bye Bye Love” was written by the husband and wife team Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, who had been writing for a decade, for people such as Carl Smith and Moon Mullican. Their first hit had come in 1948, with “Country Boy”, a song which Little Jimmy Dickens took to number seven on the country charts: [Excerpt: Little Jimmy Dickens, “Country Boy”] But they had not had much chart success after that, though they’d placed songs with various Nashville-based country singers. They were virtual unknowns, and their most recent song, “Bye Bye Love”, had been written for a duo called Johnny and Jack. They hadn’t been interested, so the Bryants had passed the song along to their friend Chet Atkins, who had tried to record it with Porter Wagoner, who had recorded other songs by the Bryants, like “Tryin’ to Forget the Blues”: [Excerpt: Porter Wagoner, “Tryin’ to Forget the Blues”] But when Atkins took the song into the studio, he decided it wasn’t strong enough for Wagoner. Atkins wanted to change a few chords, and Boudleaux Bryant told him that if the song wasn’t strong enough as it was, he just shouldn’t record it at all. But while the song might not have been strong enough for a big country star like Porter Wagoner, it was strong enough for Chet Atkins’ new proteges, who were, after all, hardly going to have a big hit. So Atkins took the multiply-rejected song in for the duo to record as their first single for Cadence. In one of those coincidences that seems too good to be true, Ike Everly was Boudleaux Bryant’s barber, and had been bragging to him for years about how talented his sons were, but Bryant had just dismissed this — around Nashville, everyone is a major talent, or their son or daughter or husband or wife is. Two things happened to change the rather mediocre song into a classic that would change the face of popular music. The first was, simply, the brothers’ harmonies. They had by this point developed an intuitive understanding of each other’s voices, and a superb musicality. It’s interesting to listen to the very first take of the song: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, “Bye Bye Love (take 1)”] That’s Don singing the low lead and Phil taking the high harmony. Now, if you’re familiar with the finished record, you can tell that what Phil’s singing there isn’t the closer harmony part he ended up singing on the final version. There are some note choices there that he decided against for the final record. But what you can tell is that they are instinctively great harmony singers. It’s not the harmony part that would become famous, but it’s a *good* one in its own right. The second thing is that they changed the song from the rather sedate country song the Bryants had come up with, radically rearranging it. Don had written a song called “Give Me a Future”, which he’d intended to be in the Bo Diddley style, and one can hear something of Diddley’s rhythm in the stop-start guitar part: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, “Give Me a Future”] Don took that guitar part, and attached it to the Bryants’ song, and with the help of Chet Atkins’ lead guitar fills turned it into something quite new — a record with a rockabilly feel, but with country close harmony vocals: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, “Bye Bye Love”] The brothers were, at first, worried because almost as soon as it came out, a cover version by Webb Pierce, one of the biggest names in country music, came out: [Excerpt: Webb Pierce, “Bye Bye Love”] But they were surprised to discover that while Pierce’s version did chart — reaching the top ten in the country charts — it was nowhere near as successful as their own version, which went to number one on the country charts and number two in pop, and charted on the R&B charts as well. After that success, the Bryants wrote a string of hits for the brothers, a run of classics starting with “Wake Up Little Suzie”, a song which was banned on many stations because it suggested impropriety — even though, listening to the lyrics, it very clearly states that no impropriety has gone on, and indeed that the protagonist is horrified at the suggestion that it might have: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, “Wake Up Little Suzie”] These records would usually incorporate some of Don’s Bo Diddley influence, while remaining firmly in the country end of rock and roll. The Bryants also started to give the brothers ballads like “Devoted to You” and “All I Have to Do is Dream”, which while they still deal with adolescent concerns, have a sweetness and melody to them quite unlike anything else that was being recorded by rock and roll artists of the time. After the first single, everything else that the Bryants wrote for the Everlys was tailored specifically to them — Boudleaux Bryant, who would attend more of the sessions, would have long conversations with the brothers and try to write songs that fit with their lives and musical tastes, as well as fitting them to their voices. One of the things that’s very noticeable about interviews with the brothers is that they both tend to credit Boudleaux alone with having written the songs that he co-wrote with his wife, even though everything suggests that the Bryants were a true partnership, and both have solo credits for songs that are stylistically indistinguishable from those written as a team. Whether this is pure sexism, or it’s just because Boudleaux is the one who used to demo the songs for them and so they think of him as the primary author, is hard to tell — probably a combination. This was also a perception that Boudleaux Bryant encouraged. While Felice was the person who had originally decided to go into songwriting, and was the one who came up with most of the ideas, Boudleaux was only interested in making money — and he’d often sneak off to write songs by himself so he would get all the money rather than have to share it with his wife. Boudleaux would also on occasion be given incomplete songs by friends like Atkins, and finish them up with Felice — but only Boudleaux and the original writer would get their names on it. The result was that Boudleaux got the credit from people around him, even when they knew better. One of my sources for this episode is an interview with the Bryants’ son, Dane, and at one point in that interview he says “Now, lots of times I will say, ‘My father.’ I mean Dad and Mom”. As the Everly brothers disagreed about almost everything, they of course disagreed about the quality of the material that the Bryants were bringing them. Phil Everly was always utterly unstinting in his praise of them, saying that the Bryants’ songs were some of the best songs ever written. Don, on the other hand, while he definitely appreciated material like “All I Have to Do is Dream”, wasn’t so keen on their writing in general, mostly because it dealt primarily with adolescent concerns. He thought that the material the brothers were writing for themselves — though still immature, as one would expect from people who were still in their teens at the start of their career — was aiming at a greater emotional maturity than the material the Bryants wrote. And on the evidence of their first album, that’s certainly true. The first album is, like many albums of the time, a patchy affair. It pulls together the hit singles the brothers had already released, together with a bunch of rather mediocre cover versions of then-current hits. Those cover versions tend to support Don’s repeated claims that the brothers were as interested in R&B and blues as in country — apart from a version of “Be-Bop-A-Lula”, all the covers are of R&B hits of the time — two by Little Richard, two by Ray Charles, and one by the relatively obscure blues singer Titus Turner. But among those songs, there are also a handful of Don Everly originals, and one in particular, “I Wonder if I Care as Much”, is quite an astonishing piece of songwriting: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, “I Wonder If I Care As Much”] Don’s songs were often B-sides – that one was the B-side to “Bye Bye Love” – and to my mind they’re often rather more interesting than the A-sides. While that first album is rather patchy, the second album, Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, is a minor revelation, and one of the pillars on which the Everly Brothers’ artistic reputation rests. It’s been suggested that the album was done as a way of getting back at the record company for some slight or other, by making a record that was completely uncommercial. That might be the case, but I don’t think so — and if it was, it was a gesture that backfired magnificently, as it’s still, sixty years on, a consistent seller. Songs Our Daddy Taught Us is precisely what it sounds like — an album consisting of songs the brothers had been taught by their father. It’s a mixture of Appalachian folk songs and country standards, performed by the brothers accompanied just by Don’s acoustic guitar and Floyd Chance on upright bass: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, “Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?”] It’s quite possibly the most artistically satisfying album made in the fifties by a rock and roll act, and it’s had such an influence that as recently as 2013 Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day and the jazz-pop singer Norah Jones recorded an album, Foreverly, that’s just a cover version of the whole album: [Excerpt: Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones, “Who’s Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?”] So as the 1950s drew to a close, the Everly Brothers were on top of the world. They’d had a run of classic singles, and they’d just released one of the greatest albums of all time. But there was trouble ahead, and when we pick up on their career again, we’ll see exactly how wrong things could go for them.  

Episode fifty-six of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "Bye Bye Love" by The Everly Brotherss, and at the history of country close harmony. 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 "Short Fat Fannie" by Larry Williams.  ----more----   Resources As always, I've created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. There are no first-rate biographies of the Everly Brothers in print, at least in English (apparently there's a decent one in French, but I don't speak French well enough for that). Ike's Boys by Phyllis Karp is the only full-length bio,  and I relied on that in the absence of anything else, but it's been out of print for nearly thirty years, and is not worth the exorbitant price it goes for second-hand. How Nashville Became Music City by Michael Kosser has a good amount of information on the Bryants. The Everlypedia is a series of PDFs containing articles on anything related to the Everly Brothers, in alphabetical order. There are many, many cheap compilations of the Everly Brothers' early material available. I'd recommend this one, because as well as all the hits up to 1962 it has the complete Songs our Daddy Taught Us.   Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them?   Transcript [Intro: Ike Everly introducing the Everly Brothers] We've talked before about how vocal harmonies are no longer a big part of rock music, but were essential to it in the fifties and sixties. But what we've not discussed is that there are multiple different types of harmony that we see in the music of that period. One, which we've already seen, is the vocal group sound -- the sound of doo-wop. There, there might be a lead singer, but everyone involved has their own important role to play, singing separate backing vocal lines that intertwine. One singer will be taking a bass melody, another will be singing a falsetto line, and so on. It's the sound of a collection of individual personalities, working together but to their own agendas. Another style which we're going to look at soon is the girl group sound. There you have a lead singer singing a line on her own, and two or three backing vocalists echoing lines on the chorus -- it's the sound of a couple of friends providing support for someone who's in trouble. The lead singer will sing her problems, and the friends will respond with something supportive. Then there's the style which Elvis used -- a single lead vocalist over a group of backing vocalists, mostly providing "oohs" and "aahs". The backing vocals here just work as another instrumental texture. But there's one style which would be as influential as any of these, and which was brought into rock and roll by a single act -- a duo who, more than anyone else in rock music, epitomised vocal harmony: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, "Bye Bye Love"] Don and Phil Everly were brought up in music. Their father, Ike Everly, had been a coalminer in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, but decided to quit coal mining and become a professional musician when he was trapped in his second cave-in, deciding he wasn't ever going to go through that a third time. He had learned a particular guitar style, which would later become known as "Travis picking" after its most famous exponent, Merle Travis -- though Travis himself usually referred to it as "Muhlenberg picking". Travis and Ike Everly knew each other, and it was Ike Everly, and Ike's friend Mose Rager, who taught Travis how to play in that style, which they had learned from another friend, Kennedy Jones, who in turn learned it from a black country-blues player named Arnold Schultz, who had invented the style: [Excerpt, Ike Everly, "Blue Smoke"] Ike Everly was widely regarded as one of the greatest country guitarists of all time, and his "Ike Everly's Rag" was later recorded by Merle Travis and Joe Maphis: [Excerpt: Merle Travis and Joe Maphis, "Ike Everly's Rag"] But while Ike Everly was known as a country player, Don Everly would always later claim that deep down Ike was a blues man. He played country because that was what the audiences wanted to hear, but his first love was the blues. But even when playing country, he wasn't just playing the kind of music that was becoming popular at the time, but he was also playing the old Appalachian folk songs, and teaching them to his sons. He would play songs like "Who's Going to Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?", which was most famously recorded by Woody Guthrie: [Excerpt: Woody Guthrie, "Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?"] The Everly family travelled all over the South and Midwest, moving between radio stations on which Ike Everly would get himself shows. As they grew old enough, his two sons, Don and Phil, would join him, as would his wife, though Margaret Everly was more of a manager than a performer. Don soon became good enough that he got his own fifteen-minute show, performing as "Little Donnie", as well as performing with his family. The Everly family would perform their show live, first thing in the morning -- they were playing country music and so they were supposed to be playing for the farmers, and their show began at 5AM, with the young boys heading off to school, still in the dark, after the show had finished. The radio show continued for many years, and the boys developed all sorts of tricks for keeping an audience entertained, which would stand them in good stead in future years. One thing they used to do was to have both brothers and their father play the same guitar simultaneously, with Phil fretting the bass notes, Ike Everly playing those notes, and Don playing lead on the top strings. I've not found a recording of them doing that together, but some footage does exist of them doing this with Tennessee Ernie Ford on his TV show -- Ford, of course, being someone whose biggest hit had been written by Ike Everly's old friend Merle Travis: [Excerpt: Tennessee Ernie Ford and the Everly Brothers, "Rattlesnake Daddy"] That kind of trick was fairly common among country acts at the time -- Buck Owens and Don Rich would do pretty much the same act together in the 1960s, and like the Everlys would play fairly straightforward blues licks while doing it. But while Ike Everly was primarily an instrumentalist, his sons would become known mostly as singers. People often, incorrectly, describe the Everly Brothers as singing "bluegrass harmonies". This is understandable, as bluegrass music comes from Kentucky, and does often have close harmonies in it. But the Everlys were actually singing in a style that was around for years before Bill Monroe started performing the music that would become known as bluegrass. There was a whole tradition of close harmony in country music that is usually dated back to the 1920s. The first people to really popularise it were a duo who were known as "Mac and Bob" -- Lester McFarland and Robert Gardner. The two men met in Kentucky, at the Kentucky School for the Blind, where they were both studying music, in 1916. They started singing close harmony together in the early 1920s, and while they sang in the overly-enunciated way that was popular at the time, you can hear the roots of the Everlys' style in their harmonies: [Excerpt: McFarland and Gardner, "That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine"] The style is known as "close harmony" because the singers are singing notes that are close to each other in the scale, and it was the foundation of country vocal harmonies. Usually in this style, there are two singers, singing about a third apart. The lower singer will sing the melody, while the higher singer will harmonise, following the melody line closely. This style of harmony was particularly suited to the vocal blend you can get from siblings, who tend to have extremely similar voices -- and if done well it can sound like one voice harmonising with itself. And so from the 1930s on there were a lot of brother acts who performed this kind of music. One duo who the Everlys would often point to as a particular influence was the Bailes Brothers: [Excerpt: the Bailes Brothers, "Oh So Many Years"] But at the time the Everly Brothers were coming up, there was one duo, more than any other, who were immensely popular in the close harmony style -- the Louvin Brothers: [Excerpt: The Louvin Brothers, "Midnight Special"] The Louvin Brothers, Charlie and Ira, were cousins of John D. Loudermilk, whose "Sittin' in the Balcony" we heard in the Eddie Cochran episode a few weeks ago. They were country and gospel singers, who are nowadays probably sadly best known for the cover of their album "Satan is Real", which often makes those Internet listicles about the most ridiculous album covers. But in the mid fifties, they were one of the most popular groups in country music, and influenced everyone -- they were particular favourites of Elvis, and regular performers on the Grand Ole Opry. Their style was a model for the Everlys, but sadly so was their personal relationship. Ira and Charlie never got on, and would often get into fights on stage, and the same was true of the Everly Brothers. In 1970, Phil Everly said "We've only ever had one argument. It's lasted twenty-five years", and that argument would continue for the rest of their lives. There were various explanations offered for their enmity over the years, ranging from them vying to be their father's favourite, to Don resenting Phil's sweeter voice upstaging him -- he was once quoted as saying "I've been a has-been since I was ten". But fundamentally the two brothers were just too different in everything from temperament to politics -- Don is a liberal Democrat, while Phil was a conservative Republican -- and their views on how life should be lived. It seems most likely that two such different people resented being forced into constant proximity with each other, and reacted against it. And so the Everlys became another of those sibling rivalries that have recurred throughout rock and roll history. But despite their personal differences, they had a vocal blend that was possibly even better than that of the Louvins, if that's possible. But talent on its own doesn't necessarily bring success, and for a while it looked like the Everlys were going to be washed up before the brothers got out of their teens. While they had some success with their radio show, by 1955 there was much less of a market for live music on the radio -- it was much cheaper for the radio stations to employ DJs to play records, now that the legal ban on broadcasting recordings had been lifted. The Everly family's radio show ended, and both Ike and Margaret got jobs cutting hair, while encouraging their sons in their music career. After a few months of this, Margaret decided she was going to move the boys to Nashville, to try to get them a record deal, while Ike remained in nearby Knoxville working as a barber. While the family had not had much success in the music industry, they had made contacts with several people, and Chet Atkins, in particular, was an admirer, not only of Ike Everly's guitar playing, but of his barbering skills as well -- according to at least one account I've read, Atkins was a regular customer of Ike's. Atkins seems to have been, at first, mostly interested in Don Everly as a songwriter and maybe a solo performer -- he carried out some correspondence with Don while Don was still in school, and got Kitty Wells, one of the biggest country stars of the fifties, to record one of Don's songs, "Thou Shalt Not Steal", when Don was only sixteen: [Excerpt: Kitty Wells, "Thou Shalt Not Steal"] That became a top twenty country hit, and Don looked like he might be on his way to a successful career, especially after another of his songs, "Here We Are Again", was recorded by Anita Carter of the famous Carter family: [Excerpt: Anita Carter, "Here We Are Again"] But Margaret Everly, the Everlys' mother and the person who seemed to have the ambition that drove them, didn't want Don to be a solo star -- she wanted the two brothers to be equal in every way, and would make sure they wore the same clothes, had the same toys growing up, and so on. She took Don's royalties from songwriting, and used them to get both brothers Musicians' union cards -- in the same way, when Don had had his own radio show, Margaret had made Don give Phil half of his five-dollar fee. So solo stardom was never going to be in Don Everly's future. Margaret wanted the Everly Brothers to be a successful duo, and that was that. Chet Atkins was going to help *both* her sons. Atkins got them a deal with Columbia Records in 1956 for a single, "Keep A-Lovin' Me", written by Don: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, "Keep A-Lovin' Me"] That record flopped, and the Everlys were later very dismissive of it -- Phil said of the two songs on that single "they were stinko, boy! Really stinko!" Columbia weren't interested in putting out anything else by the Everlys, and quickly dropped them. Part of the reason was that they were signed as a country act, but they already wanted to do more, and in particular to incorporate more influence from the rhythm and blues music they were listening to. Don worshipped Hank Williams, and Phil loved Lefty Frizzell, but they both also adored Bo Diddley, and were obsessed with his style. Don, in particular -- who was the more accomplished instrumentalist of the two, and who unlike Phil would play rhythm guitar on their records -- wanted to learn how Diddley played guitar, and would spend a lot of time with Chet Atkins, who taught him how to play in the open tunings Diddley used, and some of the rhythms he was playing with. Despite the brothers' lack of success on Columbia, Atkins still had faith in them, and he got in touch with his friend Wesley Rose, who was the president of Acuff-Rose publishing, the biggest music publishing company in Nashville at the time. Rose made a deal with the brothers. If they would sign to Acuff-Rose as songwriters, and if they'd agree to record only Acuff-Rose songs, he would look after their career and get them a record deal. They agreed, and Rose got them signed to Cadence Records, a mid-sized indie label whose biggest star at the time was Andy Williams. The first single they recorded for Cadence was a song that had been rejected by thirty other artists before it was passed on to the Everlys as a last resort. "Bye Bye Love" was written by the husband and wife team Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, who had been writing for a decade, for people such as Carl Smith and Moon Mullican. Their first hit had come in 1948, with "Country Boy", a song which Little Jimmy Dickens took to number seven on the country charts: [Excerpt: Little Jimmy Dickens, "Country Boy"] But they had not had much chart success after that, though they'd placed songs with various Nashville-based country singers. They were virtual unknowns, and their most recent song, "Bye Bye Love", had been written for a duo called Johnny and Jack. They hadn't been interested, so the Bryants had passed the song along to their friend Chet Atkins, who had tried to record it with Porter Wagoner, who had recorded other songs by the Bryants, like "Tryin' to Forget the Blues": [Excerpt: Porter Wagoner, "Tryin' to Forget the Blues"] But when Atkins took the song into the studio, he decided it wasn't strong enough for Wagoner. Atkins wanted to change a few chords, and Boudleaux Bryant told him that if the song wasn't strong enough as it was, he just shouldn't record it at all. But while the song might not have been strong enough for a big country star like Porter Wagoner, it was strong enough for Chet Atkins' new proteges, who were, after all, hardly going to have a big hit. So Atkins took the multiply-rejected song in for the duo to record as their first single for Cadence. In one of those coincidences that seems too good to be true, Ike Everly was Boudleaux Bryant's barber, and had been bragging to him for years about how talented his sons were, but Bryant had just dismissed this -- around Nashville, everyone is a major talent, or their son or daughter or husband or wife is. Two things happened to change the rather mediocre song into a classic that would change the face of popular music. The first was, simply, the brothers' harmonies. They had by this point developed an intuitive understanding of each other's voices, and a superb musicality. It's interesting to listen to the very first take of the song: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, "Bye Bye Love (take 1)"] That's Don singing the low lead and Phil taking the high harmony. Now, if you're familiar with the finished record, you can tell that what Phil's singing there isn't the closer harmony part he ended up singing on the final version. There are some note choices there that he decided against for the final record. But what you can tell is that they are instinctively great harmony singers. It's not the harmony part that would become famous, but it's a *good* one in its own right. The second thing is that they changed the song from the rather sedate country song the Bryants had come up with, radically rearranging it. Don had written a song called "Give Me a Future", which he'd intended to be in the Bo Diddley style, and one can hear something of Diddley's rhythm in the stop-start guitar part: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, "Give Me a Future"] Don took that guitar part, and attached it to the Bryants' song, and with the help of Chet Atkins' lead guitar fills turned it into something quite new -- a record with a rockabilly feel, but with country close harmony vocals: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, "Bye Bye Love"] The brothers were, at first, worried because almost as soon as it came out, a cover version by Webb Pierce, one of the biggest names in country music, came out: [Excerpt: Webb Pierce, "Bye Bye Love"] But they were surprised to discover that while Pierce's version did chart -- reaching the top ten in the country charts -- it was nowhere near as successful as their own version, which went to number one on the country charts and number two in pop, and charted on the R&B charts as well. After that success, the Bryants wrote a string of hits for the brothers, a run of classics starting with "Wake Up Little Suzie", a song which was banned on many stations because it suggested impropriety -- even though, listening to the lyrics, it very clearly states that no impropriety has gone on, and indeed that the protagonist is horrified at the suggestion that it might have: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, "Wake Up Little Suzie"] These records would usually incorporate some of Don's Bo Diddley influence, while remaining firmly in the country end of rock and roll. The Bryants also started to give the brothers ballads like "Devoted to You" and "All I Have to Do is Dream", which while they still deal with adolescent concerns, have a sweetness and melody to them quite unlike anything else that was being recorded by rock and roll artists of the time. After the first single, everything else that the Bryants wrote for the Everlys was tailored specifically to them -- Boudleaux Bryant, who would attend more of the sessions, would have long conversations with the brothers and try to write songs that fit with their lives and musical tastes, as well as fitting them to their voices. One of the things that's very noticeable about interviews with the brothers is that they both tend to credit Boudleaux alone with having written the songs that he co-wrote with his wife, even though everything suggests that the Bryants were a true partnership, and both have solo credits for songs that are stylistically indistinguishable from those written as a team. Whether this is pure sexism, or it's just because Boudleaux is the one who used to demo the songs for them and so they think of him as the primary author, is hard to tell -- probably a combination. This was also a perception that Boudleaux Bryant encouraged. While Felice was the person who had originally decided to go into songwriting, and was the one who came up with most of the ideas, Boudleaux was only interested in making money -- and he'd often sneak off to write songs by himself so he would get all the money rather than have to share it with his wife. Boudleaux would also on occasion be given incomplete songs by friends like Atkins, and finish them up with Felice -- but only Boudleaux and the original writer would get their names on it. The result was that Boudleaux got the credit from people around him, even when they knew better. One of my sources for this episode is an interview with the Bryants' son, Dane, and at one point in that interview he says "Now, lots of times I will say, 'My father.' I mean Dad and Mom". As the Everly brothers disagreed about almost everything, they of course disagreed about the quality of the material that the Bryants were bringing them. Phil Everly was always utterly unstinting in his praise of them, saying that the Bryants' songs were some of the best songs ever written. Don, on the other hand, while he definitely appreciated material like "All I Have to Do is Dream", wasn't so keen on their writing in general, mostly because it dealt primarily with adolescent concerns. He thought that the material the brothers were writing for themselves -- though still immature, as one would expect from people who were still in their teens at the start of their career -- was aiming at a greater emotional maturity than the material the Bryants wrote. And on the evidence of their first album, that's certainly true. The first album is, like many albums of the time, a patchy affair. It pulls together the hit singles the brothers had already released, together with a bunch of rather mediocre cover versions of then-current hits. Those cover versions tend to support Don's repeated claims that the brothers were as interested in R&B and blues as in country -- apart from a version of "Be-Bop-A-Lula", all the covers are of R&B hits of the time -- two by Little Richard, two by Ray Charles, and one by the relatively obscure blues singer Titus Turner. But among those songs, there are also a handful of Don Everly originals, and one in particular, "I Wonder if I Care as Much", is quite an astonishing piece of songwriting: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, "I Wonder If I Care As Much"] Don's songs were often B-sides – that one was the B-side to “Bye Bye Love” – and to my mind they're often rather more interesting than the A-sides. While that first album is rather patchy, the second album, Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, is a minor revelation, and one of the pillars on which the Everly Brothers' artistic reputation rests. It's been suggested that the album was done as a way of getting back at the record company for some slight or other, by making a record that was completely uncommercial. That might be the case, but I don't think so -- and if it was, it was a gesture that backfired magnificently, as it's still, sixty years on, a consistent seller. Songs Our Daddy Taught Us is precisely what it sounds like -- an album consisting of songs the brothers had been taught by their father. It's a mixture of Appalachian folk songs and country standards, performed by the brothers accompanied just by Don's acoustic guitar and Floyd Chance on upright bass: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, “Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?”] It's quite possibly the most artistically satisfying album made in the fifties by a rock and roll act, and it's had such an influence that as recently as 2013 Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day and the jazz-pop singer Norah Jones recorded an album, Foreverly, that's just a cover version of the whole album: [Excerpt: Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones, “Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?”] So as the 1950s drew to a close, the Everly Brothers were on top of the world. They'd had a run of classic singles, and they'd just released one of the greatest albums of all time. But there was trouble ahead, and when we pick up on their career again, we'll see exactly how wrong things could go for them.  

On this Special Episode, the guys breakdown Louis York’s newly released debut full-length album: American Griots! Get Louis York's American Griots - The Album here:  https://smarturl.it/ly-americangriots Listen every Tuesday as music business veterans Phil Thornton, Tamone Bacon, and Louis York's Claude Kelly and Chuck Harmony give their coveted, comical opinions on today’s music, yesterday’s music and the music of tomorrow in a fast-paced format. Subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or your favorite platform: http://smarturl.it/4mcrrw Follow the We Sound Crazy Spotify Playlist and hear songs featured in each episode: https://smarturl.it/wsc-spotifyplaylist Like We Sound Crazy on Facebook: http://smarturl.it/wsc-facebook Follow We Sound Crazy on Twitter: http://smarturl.it/wsc-twitter Follow We Sound Crazy on Instagram: http://smarturl.it/wsc-instagram 00:19 - 01:53 What song reminds you of Louis York? 01:55 - 03:58 American Griots - The Album. 04:00 - 07:24 Intro 07:26 - 11:34 All In My Feelings. 11:36 - 15:46 No Regrets. 15:48 - 19:42 Electric Blue. 19:44 - 26:24 Teach Me a Song. 26:26 - 28:55 Glow. 28:57 - 32:47 How Will I Feel. 32:49 - 34:44 Don't You Forget. 34:46 - 38:29 Velvet. 38:31 - 42:23 I Wonder. 42:25 - 47:37 Love Takeover. 47:39 - 48:19  Don’t Look Mom! 48:21 - 59:55 You Gotta Be.

“Sometimes, we have to completely let go of intuitions that are actually giving us false information about reality.” Annaka HarrisWhat is consciousness? How does it arise? And why does it exist?We take ‘experience' for granted. But the very existence of consciousness raises profound questions: Why would any collection of matter in the universe be conscious? How are we able to think about this? And why should we?Our guide for today's philosophic and scientific exploration of these mysteries is Annaka Harris.An editor and consultant for science writers specializing in neuroscience and physics, Annaka is the author of the children's book I Wonder, a collaborator on the Mindful Games Activity Cards, by Susan Kaiser Greenland, and a volunteer mindfulness teacher for the Inner Kids organization.Annaka's work has appeared in The New York Times and all of her guided meditations and lessons for children are available on the Waking Up app, the digital meditation platform created by her husband Sam Harris — the renown author, public intellectual, blogger, and podcast host.Annaka’s latest book — which recently hit the New York Times bestseller list and provides the focus for today’s conversation — is entitled, Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind. A must-read for any and all curious about one of the Universe's great mysteries, it's a brief yet mind-bending read that challenges our assumptions about the nature, origin and purpose of consciousness.Equal parts nerdy and fun, this is a deeply profound conversation that tackles the very nature of consciousness itself — and what it means to be a living being having ‘an experience'.We discuss how Annaka became interested in this field and the path undertaken to writing this book.Parsing instinct from scientific fact, we deconstruct our assumptions about consciousness and grapple with its essential nature — what is consciousness exactly? And where does it physically reside?We discuss meditation and artificial intelligence. We dive into plant consciousness. We explore panpsychism (a theory I quite fancy). And we muse about the role of spirituality in scientific inquiry.All told, this tackles the current limits of science and human understanding and leaves us wondering, is it possible to truly understand everything?The visually inclined can watch our entire conversation on YouTube here: bit.ly/annakaharris460 (please subscribe!) and the podcast is of course available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.An intellectual delight from start to finish, I thoroughly enjoyed talking to Annaka and I sincerely hope you enjoy the listen. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hunter talks to Annaka Harris about Teaching Kids Mindfulness. What does one do when fascinated about the nature of experience itself? If you are my podcast guest, Annaka Harris, you write a children’s book, teach mindfulness to children, and write about this mystery of the universe for adults in her latest book, Conscious. Hear how she began her own mindfulness practice, how it relates to parenting her children, and get a taste of the mystery of consciousness. Some big takeaways from this episode include: 1. Best practices for sharing the power of mindfulness with kids 2. It’s okay to say “I don’t know” to our children and can in fact be beneficial 3. Getting curious about our experience can relieve suffering Annaka Harris is the author of CONSCIOUS. She is the author of the children's book I Wonder, a collaborator on the Mindful Games Activity Cards, by Susan Kaiser Greenland. She is a consultant for science writers and a volunteer mindfulness teacher for the Inner Kids organization. Website: annakaharris.com Social Media Links: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Annaka-Harris-Projects/192898777423401, https://twitter.com/annakaharris, https://www.instagram.com/annakaharrisprojects/ Fan of the Mindful Mama Podcast? Support it by leaving a quick review -----> Apple Podcasts or on Stitcher (or wherever you listen!) ABOUT HUNTER CLARKE-FIELDS: Hunter Clarke-Fields is a mindful mama mentor. She coaches overstressed moms on how to cultivate mindfulness in their daily lives. Hunter has over 20 years of experience in yoga & mindfulness practices. She has taught thousands worldwide, and is the creator of the Mindful Parenting course. Download the audio training, Mindfulness For Moms (The Superpower You Need) for free! It's at mindfulmomguide.com. Find more podcasts, blog posts, free resources, and how to work with Hunter at MindfulMamaMentor.com.

Join us as we count our way down through the biggest #1 R&B hits of the late 1940s. It was a period dominated by Blues shouters, wailing saxes, and piano-playing balladeers -- and Louis Jordan was king of the charts. But times were a changing, with independent record producers making inroads into previously uncharted waters. One iconic record that helped pave the way for what would become the burgeoning independent record scene of the late 1940s was "I Wonder," by Private Cecil Gant. It was just the right record, at just the right time, hitting upon the zeitgeist of World War II and homesick soldiers who would soon be stationed "a million miles away" from their gal back home. The original version was recorded in June 1944 by Leroy Hurte for his independent Bronze label, but when Hurte couldn't keep up with demand, it was quietly recorded again, for yet another independent label, Gilt-Edge. And as events played out, it was Gilt-Edge — not Bronze — that had the Billboard smash hit with it. It was such a huge seller that Gilt-Edge had trouble keeping up with orders as well, even into the early days of March 1945, months after its release. But it set the record industry on its ear, so to speak. As a massive hit with broad crossover appeal, it was a clarion call to the newly emerging independent record industry that success was possible in a market mostly dominated by the major labels up until that time. By far, though, Louis Jordan was one of the biggest stars of the era, turning in almost 50 top ten performances on the Billboard charts between 1942 and late 1949, with most of those making it into the top 5, or higher. With cleverly crafted songs and a band that cooked, it's pretty easy to see how he would go on to influence Rhythm & Blues rockers like Chuck Berry the following decade (One main difference between the '40s and the '50s? Louis Jordan's instrument of choice was the saxophone. Chuck Berry wielded an electric guitar.... need we say more?). To come up with our list of the biggest #1 R&B hits of the late 1940s, we devised a special super-secret formula, giving weight to the number of weeks a record was on the Billboard charts, with bonus points given for number of weeks held in the top position. After hearing the show and seeing the playlist, however, some might wonder why some all time classics didn't make the cut. One of the most widely heard records of the late 1940s had to be "Open The Door, Richard!" by Jack McVea. Essentially a comedy record cut for the L.A.-based Black & White label, it entered the charts on February 8th, 1947, but only enjoyed a seven week run, topping out at number two, where it stayed for two weeks. "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee," Stick McGhee's homage to good times and cheap booze that helped put a fledgling Atlantic Records on the map, befell a similar fate. After a healthy run of 23 weeks on the charts, it stalled out at number two (a position it held for four weeks), but was unable to penetrate the grasp of three of the hugest hits of the decade that were making a run on the charts at exactly the same time -- "The Hucklebuck" by Paul Williams, "Trouble Blues," by Charles Brown, and "Ain't Nobody's Business," by Jimmy Witherspoon. And speaking of classics by Charles Brown, "Drifting Blues" -- cut in 1946 with Johnny Moore's Three Blazers, and one of his most widely covered songs -- hit a similar brick wall when it ran up against Lionel Hampton's version of "Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop," which was enjoying a 16 week run at the top slot that spring and summer. On the charts for 23 weeks, "Drifting Blues" finally topped out at number two, for two weeks. Although Billboard chart statistics don't always tell us "the whole story" (so to speak), in any case, here are the hits that a generation of R&B fans danced to, heard on the radio, sung along to, and put their nickels in juke boxes all across America to hear again, and again, and again. Join us then, as we count our way down through the biggest #1 R&B hit records of the late 1940s. Pictured: At 32 weeks on the charts, “The Hucklebuck,” by Paul Williams, was one of the biggest hits of the decade. This episode is available commercial free and in its original full-fidelity high quality audio exclusively to our subscribers at Bandcamp. Your annual subscription of $27 a year will go directly to support this radio show, and you’ll gain INSTANT DOWNLOAD ACCESS to this and more than 170 other episodes from our extensive archive as well. More info is at http://bluesunlimited.bandcamp.com/subscribe

As a child Annaka Harris suffered from migraines. Searching for ways to cope with that pain, she became curious - wondering "what is this pain" and "where is it coming from?" The line of questioning shifted her perspective and propelled her into a quest of understanding the mystery of consciousness. Harris takes us with her on this quest in our interview and in her book Conscious, which looks at the many definitions of consciousness and challenges long-held assumptions about this complicated concept. The Plug Zone Website: https://annakaharris.com/about/ Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind: https://annakaharris.com/conscious/ I Wonder: https://annakaharris.com/i-wonder/ Twitter: @annakaharris Meditation From Joseph Goldstein on Ten Percent Happier "Turbo-Charge Your Meditation" aka, Busy Life Meditation: https://10percenthappier.app.link/o431sZ4XWW ***VOICEMAILS*** Have a question for Dan? Leave us a voicemail: 646-883-8326

Mike and Gus review the nominees for Best Performance by a Team, Most Valuable Player, and Best Performance by a Coach. Then? Gus plays "I Wonder..."Follow us @STheSPodcast on Twitter.  Rate and subscribe on Spreaker, iTunes, Stitcher, and TuneIn Radio!Subscribe to our YouTube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0r14k3YJBdOaT9Lz6RJTEwEmail the show StheSPodcast@gmail.com

Welcome to episode seven of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. Today we’re looking at Wynonie Harris and “Good Rockin’ Tonight” —-more—-  Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. All the music I talk about here is now in the public domain, and there are a lot of good cheap compilations available. This four-CD set of Wynonie Harris is probably the definitive one. This two-CD set of Roy Brown material has all his big hits, as well as the magnificently disturbing “Butcher Pete Parts 1 & 2”, my personal favourite of his. Lucky Millinder isn’t as well served by compilations, but this one has all the songs I talk about here, plus a couple I talked about in the Sister Rosetta Tharpe episode. There is only one biography of Wynonie Harris that I know of — Rock Mr Blues by Tony Collins — and that is out of print, though you can pick up expensive second-hand copies here. Some of the information on Lucky Millinder comes from Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe by Gayle F Wald, which I also used for the episode on Rosetta Tharpe. There are articles on Wynonie Harris, Roy Brown, and Cecil Gant in Unsung Heroes of Rock ‘n’ Roll by Nick Tosches. This book is considered a classic, and will probably be of interest to anyone who finds this episode and the next few interesting, but a word of caution — it was written in the 70s, and Tosches is clearly of the Lester Bangs/underground/gonzo school of rock journalism, which in modern terms means he’s a bit of an edgelord who’ll be needlessly offensive to get a laugh. The quotes from Harris I use here are from an article in Tan magazine, which Tosches quotes. Before Elvis, a book I’ve mentioned many times before, covers all the artists I talk about here. And again, archive.org’s collection of digitised 78 records was very useful. Patreon Admin Note I have updated the details on my Patreon to better reflect the fact that it backs this podcast as well as my other work, and to offer podcast-related rewards. I’ll be doing ebooks for Patreons based on the scripts for the podcasts (the first of those, Savoy Stompers and Kings of Swing should be up in a week or so), and if the Patreon hits $500 a month I’ll start doing monthly bonus episodes for backers only. Those episodes won’t be needed to follow the story in the main show, but I think they’d be fun to do. To find out more, check out my Patreon.   Transcript There’s a comic called Phonogram, and in it there are people called “phonomancers”. These are people who aren’t musicians, but who can tap into the power of music other people have made, and use it to do magic.   I think “phonomancers” is actually a very useful concept for dealing with the real world as well. There are people in the music industry who don’t themselves play an instrument or sing or any of the normal musician things, but who manage to get great records made — records which are their creative work — by moulding and shaping the work of others. Sometimes they’re record producers, sometimes they’re managers, sometimes they’re DJs or journalists. But there are a lot of people out there who’ve shaped music enormously without being musicians in the normal sense. Brian Eno, Sam Phillips, Joe Meek, Phil Spector, Malcolm McLaren, Simon Napier-Bell… I’m sure you can add more to the list yourself. People — almost always men, to be honest — who have a vision, and a flair for self-publicity, and an idea of how to get musicians to turn that idea into a reality. Men who have the power to take some spotty teenager with a guitar and turn him into a god, at least for the course of a three minute pop song.   And there have always been spaces in the music industry for this sort of person. And in the thirties and forties, that place was often in front of the band.   Most of the big band leaders we remember now were themselves excellent musicians — Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, you could put those people up against most others on their instruments. They might not have been the best, but they could hold their own.   But plenty of other band leaders were mediocre musicians or couldn’t play at all. Glenn Miller was a competent enough trombone player, but no-one listens to the Glenn Miller band and thinks “wow, one of those four trombone players is fantastic!” And other band leaders were much less involved in the music. Kay Kyser — the most successful bandleader of the period, who had eleven number one records and thirty-five in the top ten — never played an instrument, didn’t write songs, didn’t sing. He acted as onstage MC, told jokes, and was the man at the front of the stage. And there were many other bandleaders like that — people who didn’t have any active involvement in the music they were credited with. Bob Crosby, Bing’s brother, for example, was a bandleader and would sing on some tracks, but his band performed plenty of instrumentals without him having anything to do with them.    Most non-playing bandleaders would sing, like Bob Crosby, but even then they often did so rarely. And yet some of them had an immense influence on the music world.   Because a good bandleader’s talent wasn’t in playing an instrument or writing songs. It was having an idea for a sound, and getting together the right people who could make that sound, and creating a work environment in which they could make that sound well. It was a management role, or an editorial one. But those roles can be important. And one of the most important people to do that job was Lucky Millinder, who we’ve talked about a couple of times already in passing.   Lucky Millinder is a largely forgotten figure now, but he was one of the most important figures in black music in the 1940s. He was a fascinating figure — one story about how he got his name is that Al Capone was down ten thousand dollars playing dice, Millinder offered to rub the dice for luck, and Capone ended the night fifty thousand dollars up and called him Lucky from then on.   (I think it’s more likely that Lucky was short for his birth name, Lucius, but I think the story shows the kind of people Millinder was hanging around with).   He didn’t play an instrument or read music or sing much. What Millinder could definitely do was recognise talent. He’d worked with Bill Doggett, before Doggett went off to join the Ink Spots’ backing band, and the trumpet player on his first hit was Dizzy Gillespie, who Millinder had hired after Gillespie had been sacked from Cab Calloway’s band after stabbing Calloway in the leg. He had Rosetta Tharpe as his female singer at the beginning of the forties, and Ruth Brown — who we’ll talk about later — later on.   He’d started out as the leader of the Mills Blue Rhythm Band, the house band in the Cotton Club, before moving on to lead, as his own band, one of the main bands in residence at the Savoy, along with occasionally touring the chitlin circuit — the rather derogatory name for the clubs and theatres that were regular tour stops for almost all major black artists at the time.   Slowly, during the 1940s, Millinder transitioned his band from the kind of swing music that had been popular in the thirties, to the jump band style that was becoming more popular. And if you want to point to one band that you can call the first rhythm and blues band, you probably want to look at Millinder’s band, who more than any other band of the era were able to combine all the boogie, jump, and jive sounds with a strong blues feeling and get people dancing. Listen, for example, to “Savoy” from 1943: [Excerpt: “Savoy” by Lucky Millinder]   In 1944, after Rosetta Tharpe had left his band, Millinder needed a new second singer, to take the occasional lead as Tharpe had. And he found one — one who later became the most successful rhythm and blues artist of the late 1940s. Wynonie Harris.   Harris was already known as “Mr. Blues” when Millinder first saw him playing in Chicago and invited him to join the band. He was primarily a blues shouter, inspired by people like Big Joe Turner and Jimmy Rushing, but he could also perform in a subtler style, close to the jive singing of a Cab Calloway or Louis Jordan.   Harris joined the Millinder band and started performing with them in their residency at the Savoy. Shortly after this, the band went into the studio to record “Who Threw The Whiskey In The Well?”   [excerpt “Who Threw The Whiskey in the Well?”]   You’ll note that that song has a backbeat. One of the things we talked about right back in episode two was that the combination of the backbeat and the boogie bass is what really makes rock and roll, and we’re now getting to the point that that combination was turning up more and more.   That was recorded in May 1944, almost straight after the end of the musicians union strike, but it wasn’t released straight away. Records, at that time, were released on discs made out of shellac, which is a resin made from insect secretions. Unfortunately, the insects in question were native to Vietnam, which was occupied by Japan, and India, which was going through its own problems at the time, so shellac was strictly rationed. There was a new product, vinylite, being made which seemed promising for making records, but that was also used for lifejackets, which were obviously given a higher priority during a war than making records was. So the record wasn’t released until nearly a year after it was recorded. And during that time, Wynonie Harris had become a much more important part of Millinder’s band, and was starting to believe that maybe he deserved a bit more credit.   Harris, you see, was an absolutely astonishing stage presence. Lots of people who spoke about Elvis Presley in later years said that his performances, hip thrusts and leg shaking and all, were just a watered-down version of what Wynonie Harris had been doing. Harris thought of himself as a big star straight away,   This belief was made stronger when “Who Threw The Whiskey In The Well” was finally released. It became a massive hit, and the only money Harris saw from it was a flat $37.50 session fee. Millinder, on the other hand, was getting the royalties. Harris decided that it was his vocal, not anything to do with the rest of the band, that had made the record a success, and that he could make more money on his own.   (In case you hadn’t realised, yet, Wynonie Harris was never known as the most self-effacing of people, and that confidence gave him a huge amount of success on stage, but didn’t win him many friends in his personal life).   Harris went solo, and Lucky Millinder replaced him with a trumpet player and singer called Henry Glover. Harris started making records for various small labels.   His first record as a solo artist was “Around the Clock Blues”, one of the most influential records ever made:   [Excerpt “Around the Clock Blues” by Wynonie Harris]   If that sounds familiar, maybe it’s because you’ve heard this song by Arthur Crudup that Elvis later covered:   [excerpt of “So Glad You’re Mine” by Arthur Crudup, showing it’s more or less identical]   Or maybe you know “Reelin’ and Rockin'” by Chuck Berry…   [excerpt of “Reelin’ and Rockin'” by Chuck Berry, showing it’s also more or less identical]   And of course there was another song with “Around the Clock” in the title, and we’ll get to that pretty soon…   The band on “Around the Clock”, incidentally, was led by a session drummer called Johnny Otis.   That record, in fact, is one of the milestones in the development of rock and roll. And yet it’s not the most important record Wynonie Harris made in the late 1940s.   Harris recorded for many labels over the next couple of years, including King Records, whose A&R man Ralph Bass we’ll also be hearing more about, and Bullet Records, whose founder Jim Bulleit went on to bigger things as well. And just as a brief diversion, we’ll take a listen to one of the singles he made around this time, “Dig this Boogie”:   [excerpt “Dig This Boogie”, Wynonie Harris]   I played that just because of the pianist on that record — Herman “Sonny” Blount later became rather better known as Sun Ra, and while he didn’t have enough to do with rock music for me to do an episode on him, I had to include him here when I could.   Wynonie Harris became a big star within the world of rhythm and blues, and that was in large part because of the extremely sexual performances he put on, and the way he aimed them at women, not at the young girls many other singers would target. As he said himself, the reason he was making fifteen hundred dollars a week when most famous singers were getting fifty or seventy-five dollars a night was “The crooners star on the Great White Way and get swamped with Coca-Cola-drinking bobby-soxers and other ‘jail bait’. I star in Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, and Missouri and get those who have money to buy stronger stuff and my records to play while they drink it. I like to sing to women with meat on their bones and that long green stuff in their pocketbook”.   And he certainly made enough of that long green stuff, but he spent it just as fast as he made it. When he got a ten thousand dollar royalty cheque, he bought himself two Cadillacs and hired two chauffeurs, and every night at the end of his show they’d both arrive at the venue and he’d pick which one he was riding home in that night.   Now, having talked about Wynonie Harris for a little bit, let’s pause for a moment and talk about one of his fans. Roy Brown was a big fan of Harris, and was a blues singer himself, in something like the same style. Brown had originally been hired as “a black singer who sounds white”, which is odd because he used a lot of melisma in his vocals, which was normally a characteristic of black singing. But other than that, Brown’s main vocal influences when he started were people like Bing Crosby and other crooners, rather than blues music.    However, he soon became very fond of jump blues, and started writing songs in the style himself. In particular, one, called “Good Rockin’ Tonight”, he thought might be popular with other audiences, since it always went down so well in his own shows. Indeed, he thought it might be suitable for Wynonie Harris — and when Harris came to town, Brown suggested the song to him.   And Harris wasn’t interested. But after Brown moved back to New Orleans from Galveston, Texas, where he’d been performing — there was a girl, and a club owner, and these things happen and sometimes you have to move —  Brown took his song to Cecil Gant instead. Gant was another blues singer, and if Harris wasn’t up for recording the song, maybe Gant would be.    Cecil Gant was riding high off his biggest hit, “I Wonder”, which was a ballad, and he might have seemed a strange choice to record “Good Rockin’ Tonight”, but while Gant’s A-sides were ballads, his B-sides were boogie rockers, and very much in the style of Brown’s song — like this one, the B-side to “I Wonder”   [excerpt “Cecil Boogie” by Cecil Gant]   But Gant wasn’t the best person for Brown to ask to record a song. According to Jim Bulleit, who produced Gant’s records, everything Gant recorded was improvised in one take, and he could never remember what it was he’d just done, and could never repeat a song. So Gant wasn’t really in the market for other people’s songs.   But he was so impressed by Brown’s singing, as well as his song, that he phoned the head of his record company, at 2:30AM, and got Brown to sing down the phone. After hearing the song, the record company head asked to hear it a second time. And then he told Gant “give him fifty dollars and don’t let him out of your sight!”   And so Roy Brown ended up recording his song, on Deluxe Records, and having a minor hit with it:   [excerpt “Good Rocking Tonight” by Roy Brown]   When you listen back to that, now, it doesn’t sound all that innovative at all. In fact it wears its influences on its sleeve so much that it namechecks Sweet Lorraine, Sioux City Sue, Sweet Georgia Brown, and Caldonia, all of whom were characters who’d appeared in other popular R&B songs around that time — we talked about Caldonia, in fact, in the episode about “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” and Louis Jordan.   It might also sound odd to anyone who’s familiar with later cover versions by Elvis Presley, or by Paul McCartney and others who followed the pattern of Elvis’ version. Brown only sings the opening line once, before singing “I’m gonna hold my baby as tight as I can”. Those other versions restructure the song into a fairly conventional sixteen-bar blues form by adding in a repeat of the first line and a chord change along with it. Roy Brown’s original, on the other hand, just holds the first chord, and keeps playing the same riff, for almost the entire verse and chorus — the chord changes are closer to passing chords than to anything else, and the song ends up having some of the one-chord feel that people like John Lee Hooker had, where the groove is all and harmonic change is thrown out of the window. Even though you’d think, from the melody line, that it was a twelve-bar blues, it’s something altogether different.   This is something that you need to realise — the more chords something has, in general, the harder it is to dance to. And there will always, always, be a tension between music that’s all about the rhythm, and which is there for you to dance to, and music which is all about the melody line, and which treats harmonic interest as an excuse to write more interesting melodies. You can either be Burt Bacharach or you can be Bo Diddley, and the closer you get to one, the further you get from the other. And on that spectrum, “Good Rockin’ Tonight” is absolutely in the Diddley corner.   But at the time, this was an absolutely phenomenal record, and it immediately started to take off in the New Orleans market.   And then Wynonie Harris realised that maybe he’d made a mistake. Maybe he should have recorded that song after all. And so he did — cutting his own, almost identical, cover version of Brown’s song:   [excerpt from “Good Rocking Tonight” by Wynonie Harris]   There are a few differences between the two, of course. In particular, Harris introduced those “hoy hoy” vocals we just heard, which weren’t part of Roy Brown’s original. That’s a line which comes from “The Honeydripper”, another massively important R&B record.  Harris also included a different instrumental introduction — playing “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In” at the start, a song whose melody bears a slight resemblance to Brown’s song.    Harris also adds that backbeat again, and it’s for that reason that Wynonie Harris’ version of the song, not Roy Brown’s original, is the one that people call “the first rock and roll record”.    Other than those changes, Harris’ version is a carbon copy of Roy Brown’s version. Except, of course, that Wynonie Harris was one of the biggest stars in R&B, while Roy Brown was an unknown who’d just released his first single. That makes a lot of difference, and Harris had the big hit with the song.   And “Good Rocking Tonight”, in Harris’ version, became one of those records that was *everywhere*. Roy Brown’s version of the song made number thirteen on the R&B charts, and two years later it would re-enter the charts and go to number eleven – but Harris’ was a world-changing hit, at least in the R&B market.   Harris’ version, in fact, started off a whole chain of soundalikes and cash-ins, records that were trying to be their own version of “Good Rockin’ Tonight”. Harris himself recorded a sequel, “All She Wants to Do is Rock”, but for the next two years everyone was recording songs with “rock” in the title.  There was Roy Brown’s own sequel, “Rockin’ at Midnight”:   [Excerpt “Rockin’ at Midnight” by Roy Brown]   There was Cecil Gant’s “We’re Gonna Rock”   [Excerpt]   There was “Rock the Joint” by Jimmy Preston   [Excerpt]   From 1948 through about 1951, if you listened to rhythm and blues records at all you couldn’t escape this new rock craze. Record after record with “rock” in the title, with a boogie woogie bassline, with a backbeat, and with someone singing about how they were going to rock and roll.    This was, in fact, the real start of the rock and roll music fad. We’re still six years away from it coming to the notice of the white mainstream audience, but all the pieces are there together, and while we’re still three years away even from the canonical “first rock and roll record”, Jackie Brenston’s “Rocket 88”, 1948 is when rock and roll first became a cohesive, unified, whole, something that was recognisable and popular, a proper movement in music rather than odd individuals making their own separate music.   Of course, it was still missing some of the ingredients that would later be added. First-wave rock and roll is a music that’s based on the piano and horn sections rather than guitars, and it wouldn’t be until it merged with hillbilly boogie in the early fifties that the electric guitar started to be an important instrument in it. But… we’ve talked before and will talk again about how there’s no real “first rock and roll record”, but if you insist on looking for one then “Good Rocking Tonight” is as good a candidate as any.   Neither of its creators did especially well from the rock and roll craze they initiated though. Roy Brown got a reputation for being difficult after he went to the musicians’ union to try to get some of the money the record company owed him — in the 1950s, as today, record companies thought it was unreasonable for musicians and singers to actually want them to pay the money that was written in their contract — and so after a period of success in the late forties and very early fifties he spent a couple of decades unable to get a hit. He eventually started selling encyclopaedias door to door — with the unique gimmick that when he was in black neighbourhoods he could offer the people whose doors he was knocking on an autographed photo of himself. He sold a lot of encyclopaedias that way, apparently. He continued making the occasional great R&B record, but he made more money from sales. He died in 1981.   Wynonie Harris wasn’t even that lucky. He basically stopped having hits by 1953, and he more or less gave up performing by the early sixties. The new bands couldn’t play his kind of boogie, and in his last few performances, by all accounts, he cut a sad and pitiful figure. He died in 1969 after more or less drinking himself to death.   The music business is never friendly towards originals, especially black originals. But we’re now finally into the rock era. We’ll be looking over the next few weeks at a few more “first rock and roll songs” as well as at some music that still doesn’t quite count as rock but was influential on it, but if you’ve ever listened to a rock and roll record and enjoyed it, a tiny part of the pleasure you got you owe to Roy Brown and Wynonie Harris.

Welcome to episode seven of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. Today we're looking at Wynonie Harris and "Good Rockin' Tonight" ----more----  Resources As always, I've created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. All the music I talk about here is now in the public domain, and there are a lot of good cheap compilations available. This four-CD set of Wynonie Harris is probably the definitive one. This two-CD set of Roy Brown material has all his big hits, as well as the magnificently disturbing "Butcher Pete Parts 1 & 2", my personal favourite of his. Lucky Millinder isn't as well served by compilations, but this one has all the songs I talk about here, plus a couple I talked about in the Sister Rosetta Tharpe episode. There is only one biography of Wynonie Harris that I know of -- Rock Mr Blues by Tony Collins -- and that is out of print, though you can pick up expensive second-hand copies here. Some of the information on Lucky Millinder comes from Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe by Gayle F Wald, which I also used for the episode on Rosetta Tharpe. There are articles on Wynonie Harris, Roy Brown, and Cecil Gant in Unsung Heroes of Rock 'n' Roll by Nick Tosches. This book is considered a classic, and will probably be of interest to anyone who finds this episode and the next few interesting, but a word of caution -- it was written in the 70s, and Tosches is clearly of the Lester Bangs/underground/gonzo school of rock journalism, which in modern terms means he's a bit of an edgelord who'll be needlessly offensive to get a laugh. The quotes from Harris I use here are from an article in Tan magazine, which Tosches quotes. Before Elvis, a book I've mentioned many times before, covers all the artists I talk about here. And again, archive.org's collection of digitised 78 records was very useful. Patreon Admin Note I have updated the details on my Patreon to better reflect the fact that it backs this podcast as well as my other work, and to offer podcast-related rewards. I'll be doing ebooks for Patreons based on the scripts for the podcasts (the first of those, Savoy Stompers and Kings of Swing should be up in a week or so), and if the Patreon hits $500 a month I'll start doing monthly bonus episodes for backers only. Those episodes won't be needed to follow the story in the main show, but I think they'd be fun to do. To find out more, check out my Patreon.   Transcript There's a comic called Phonogram, and in it there are people called "phonomancers". These are people who aren't musicians, but who can tap into the power of music other people have made, and use it to do magic.   I think "phonomancers" is actually a very useful concept for dealing with the real world as well. There are people in the music industry who don't themselves play an instrument or sing or any of the normal musician things, but who manage to get great records made -- records which are their creative work -- by moulding and shaping the work of others. Sometimes they're record producers, sometimes they're managers, sometimes they're DJs or journalists. But there are a lot of people out there who've shaped music enormously without being musicians in the normal sense. Brian Eno, Sam Phillips, Joe Meek, Phil Spector, Malcolm McLaren, Simon Napier-Bell... I'm sure you can add more to the list yourself. People -- almost always men, to be honest -- who have a vision, and a flair for self-publicity, and an idea of how to get musicians to turn that idea into a reality. Men who have the power to take some spotty teenager with a guitar and turn him into a god, at least for the course of a three minute pop song.   And there have always been spaces in the music industry for this sort of person. And in the thirties and forties, that place was often in front of the band.   Most of the big band leaders we remember now were themselves excellent musicians -- Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, you could put those people up against most others on their instruments. They might not have been the best, but they could hold their own.   But plenty of other band leaders were mediocre musicians or couldn't play at all. Glenn Miller was a competent enough trombone player, but no-one listens to the Glenn Miller band and thinks "wow, one of those four trombone players is fantastic!" And other band leaders were much less involved in the music. Kay Kyser -- the most successful bandleader of the period, who had eleven number one records and thirty-five in the top ten -- never played an instrument, didn't write songs, didn't sing. He acted as onstage MC, told jokes, and was the man at the front of the stage. And there were many other bandleaders like that -- people who didn't have any active involvement in the music they were credited with. Bob Crosby, Bing's brother, for example, was a bandleader and would sing on some tracks, but his band performed plenty of instrumentals without him having anything to do with them.    Most non-playing bandleaders would sing, like Bob Crosby, but even then they often did so rarely. And yet some of them had an immense influence on the music world.   Because a good bandleader's talent wasn't in playing an instrument or writing songs. It was having an idea for a sound, and getting together the right people who could make that sound, and creating a work environment in which they could make that sound well. It was a management role, or an editorial one. But those roles can be important. And one of the most important people to do that job was Lucky Millinder, who we've talked about a couple of times already in passing.   Lucky Millinder is a largely forgotten figure now, but he was one of the most important figures in black music in the 1940s. He was a fascinating figure -- one story about how he got his name is that Al Capone was down ten thousand dollars playing dice, Millinder offered to rub the dice for luck, and Capone ended the night fifty thousand dollars up and called him Lucky from then on.   (I think it's more likely that Lucky was short for his birth name, Lucius, but I think the story shows the kind of people Millinder was hanging around with).   He didn't play an instrument or read music or sing much. What Millinder could definitely do was recognise talent. He'd worked with Bill Doggett, before Doggett went off to join the Ink Spots' backing band, and the trumpet player on his first hit was Dizzy Gillespie, who Millinder had hired after Gillespie had been sacked from Cab Calloway's band after stabbing Calloway in the leg. He had Rosetta Tharpe as his female singer at the beginning of the forties, and Ruth Brown -- who we'll talk about later -- later on.   He'd started out as the leader of the Mills Blue Rhythm Band, the house band in the Cotton Club, before moving on to lead, as his own band, one of the main bands in residence at the Savoy, along with occasionally touring the chitlin circuit -- the rather derogatory name for the clubs and theatres that were regular tour stops for almost all major black artists at the time.   Slowly, during the 1940s, Millinder transitioned his band from the kind of swing music that had been popular in the thirties, to the jump band style that was becoming more popular. And if you want to point to one band that you can call the first rhythm and blues band, you probably want to look at Millinder's band, who more than any other band of the era were able to combine all the boogie, jump, and jive sounds with a strong blues feeling and get people dancing. Listen, for example, to "Savoy" from 1943: [Excerpt: "Savoy" by Lucky Millinder]   In 1944, after Rosetta Tharpe had left his band, Millinder needed a new second singer, to take the occasional lead as Tharpe had. And he found one -- one who later became the most successful rhythm and blues artist of the late 1940s. Wynonie Harris.   Harris was already known as "Mr. Blues" when Millinder first saw him playing in Chicago and invited him to join the band. He was primarily a blues shouter, inspired by people like Big Joe Turner and Jimmy Rushing, but he could also perform in a subtler style, close to the jive singing of a Cab Calloway or Louis Jordan.   Harris joined the Millinder band and started performing with them in their residency at the Savoy. Shortly after this, the band went into the studio to record "Who Threw The Whiskey In The Well?"   [excerpt "Who Threw The Whiskey in the Well?"]   You'll note that that song has a backbeat. One of the things we talked about right back in episode two was that the combination of the backbeat and the boogie bass is what really makes rock and roll, and we're now getting to the point that that combination was turning up more and more.   That was recorded in May 1944, almost straight after the end of the musicians union strike, but it wasn't released straight away. Records, at that time, were released on discs made out of shellac, which is a resin made from insect secretions. Unfortunately, the insects in question were native to Vietnam, which was occupied by Japan, and India, which was going through its own problems at the time, so shellac was strictly rationed. There was a new product, vinylite, being made which seemed promising for making records, but that was also used for lifejackets, which were obviously given a higher priority during a war than making records was. So the record wasn't released until nearly a year after it was recorded. And during that time, Wynonie Harris had become a much more important part of Millinder's band, and was starting to believe that maybe he deserved a bit more credit.   Harris, you see, was an absolutely astonishing stage presence. Lots of people who spoke about Elvis Presley in later years said that his performances, hip thrusts and leg shaking and all, were just a watered-down version of what Wynonie Harris had been doing. Harris thought of himself as a big star straight away,   This belief was made stronger when "Who Threw The Whiskey In The Well" was finally released. It became a massive hit, and the only money Harris saw from it was a flat $37.50 session fee. Millinder, on the other hand, was getting the royalties. Harris decided that it was his vocal, not anything to do with the rest of the band, that had made the record a success, and that he could make more money on his own.   (In case you hadn't realised, yet, Wynonie Harris was never known as the most self-effacing of people, and that confidence gave him a huge amount of success on stage, but didn't win him many friends in his personal life).   Harris went solo, and Lucky Millinder replaced him with a trumpet player and singer called Henry Glover. Harris started making records for various small labels.   His first record as a solo artist was "Around the Clock Blues", one of the most influential records ever made:   [Excerpt "Around the Clock Blues" by Wynonie Harris]   If that sounds familiar, maybe it's because you've heard this song by Arthur Crudup that Elvis later covered:   [excerpt of "So Glad You're Mine" by Arthur Crudup, showing it's more or less identical]   Or maybe you know "Reelin' and Rockin'" by Chuck Berry...   [excerpt of "Reelin' and Rockin'" by Chuck Berry, showing it's also more or less identical]   And of course there was another song with "Around the Clock" in the title, and we'll get to that pretty soon...   The band on "Around the Clock", incidentally, was led by a session drummer called Johnny Otis.   That record, in fact, is one of the milestones in the development of rock and roll. And yet it's not the most important record Wynonie Harris made in the late 1940s.   Harris recorded for many labels over the next couple of years, including King Records, whose A&R man Ralph Bass we'll also be hearing more about, and Bullet Records, whose founder Jim Bulleit went on to bigger things as well. And just as a brief diversion, we'll take a listen to one of the singles he made around this time, "Dig this Boogie":   [excerpt "Dig This Boogie", Wynonie Harris]   I played that just because of the pianist on that record -- Herman "Sonny" Blount later became rather better known as Sun Ra, and while he didn't have enough to do with rock music for me to do an episode on him, I had to include him here when I could.   Wynonie Harris became a big star within the world of rhythm and blues, and that was in large part because of the extremely sexual performances he put on, and the way he aimed them at women, not at the young girls many other singers would target. As he said himself, the reason he was making fifteen hundred dollars a week when most famous singers were getting fifty or seventy-five dollars a night was "The crooners star on the Great White Way and get swamped with Coca-Cola-drinking bobby-soxers and other 'jail bait'. I star in Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, and Missouri and get those who have money to buy stronger stuff and my records to play while they drink it. I like to sing to women with meat on their bones and that long green stuff in their pocketbook".   And he certainly made enough of that long green stuff, but he spent it just as fast as he made it. When he got a ten thousand dollar royalty cheque, he bought himself two Cadillacs and hired two chauffeurs, and every night at the end of his show they'd both arrive at the venue and he'd pick which one he was riding home in that night.   Now, having talked about Wynonie Harris for a little bit, let's pause for a moment and talk about one of his fans. Roy Brown was a big fan of Harris, and was a blues singer himself, in something like the same style. Brown had originally been hired as "a black singer who sounds white", which is odd because he used a lot of melisma in his vocals, which was normally a characteristic of black singing. But other than that, Brown's main vocal influences when he started were people like Bing Crosby and other crooners, rather than blues music.    However, he soon became very fond of jump blues, and started writing songs in the style himself. In particular, one, called "Good Rockin' Tonight", he thought might be popular with other audiences, since it always went down so well in his own shows. Indeed, he thought it might be suitable for Wynonie Harris -- and when Harris came to town, Brown suggested the song to him.   And Harris wasn't interested. But after Brown moved back to New Orleans from Galveston, Texas, where he'd been performing -- there was a girl, and a club owner, and these things happen and sometimes you have to move --  Brown took his song to Cecil Gant instead. Gant was another blues singer, and if Harris wasn't up for recording the song, maybe Gant would be.    Cecil Gant was riding high off his biggest hit, "I Wonder", which was a ballad, and he might have seemed a strange choice to record "Good Rockin' Tonight", but while Gant's A-sides were ballads, his B-sides were boogie rockers, and very much in the style of Brown's song -- like this one, the B-side to "I Wonder"   [excerpt "Cecil Boogie" by Cecil Gant]   But Gant wasn't the best person for Brown to ask to record a song. According to Jim Bulleit, who produced Gant's records, everything Gant recorded was improvised in one take, and he could never remember what it was he'd just done, and could never repeat a song. So Gant wasn't really in the market for other people's songs.   But he was so impressed by Brown's singing, as well as his song, that he phoned the head of his record company, at 2:30AM, and got Brown to sing down the phone. After hearing the song, the record company head asked to hear it a second time. And then he told Gant "give him fifty dollars and don't let him out of your sight!"   And so Roy Brown ended up recording his song, on Deluxe Records, and having a minor hit with it:   [excerpt "Good Rocking Tonight" by Roy Brown]   When you listen back to that, now, it doesn't sound all that innovative at all. In fact it wears its influences on its sleeve so much that it namechecks Sweet Lorraine, Sioux City Sue, Sweet Georgia Brown, and Caldonia, all of whom were characters who'd appeared in other popular R&B songs around that time -- we talked about Caldonia, in fact, in the episode about "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie" and Louis Jordan.   It might also sound odd to anyone who's familiar with later cover versions by Elvis Presley, or by Paul McCartney and others who followed the pattern of Elvis' version. Brown only sings the opening line once, before singing "I'm gonna hold my baby as tight as I can". Those other versions restructure the song into a fairly conventional sixteen-bar blues form by adding in a repeat of the first line and a chord change along with it. Roy Brown's original, on the other hand, just holds the first chord, and keeps playing the same riff, for almost the entire verse and chorus -- the chord changes are closer to passing chords than to anything else, and the song ends up having some of the one-chord feel that people like John Lee Hooker had, where the groove is all and harmonic change is thrown out of the window. Even though you'd think, from the melody line, that it was a twelve-bar blues, it's something altogether different.   This is something that you need to realise -- the more chords something has, in general, the harder it is to dance to. And there will always, always, be a tension between music that's all about the rhythm, and which is there for you to dance to, and music which is all about the melody line, and which treats harmonic interest as an excuse to write more interesting melodies. You can either be Burt Bacharach or you can be Bo Diddley, and the closer you get to one, the further you get from the other. And on that spectrum, "Good Rockin' Tonight" is absolutely in the Diddley corner.   But at the time, this was an absolutely phenomenal record, and it immediately started to take off in the New Orleans market.   And then Wynonie Harris realised that maybe he'd made a mistake. Maybe he should have recorded that song after all. And so he did -- cutting his own, almost identical, cover version of Brown's song:   [excerpt from "Good Rocking Tonight" by Wynonie Harris]   There are a few differences between the two, of course. In particular, Harris introduced those "hoy hoy" vocals we just heard, which weren't part of Roy Brown's original. That's a line which comes from "The Honeydripper", another massively important R&B record.  Harris also included a different instrumental introduction -- playing "When the Saints Go Marchin' In" at the start, a song whose melody bears a slight resemblance to Brown's song.    Harris also adds that backbeat again, and it's for that reason that Wynonie Harris' version of the song, not Roy Brown's original, is the one that people call "the first rock and roll record".    Other than those changes, Harris' version is a carbon copy of Roy Brown's version. Except, of course, that Wynonie Harris was one of the biggest stars in R&B, while Roy Brown was an unknown who'd just released his first single. That makes a lot of difference, and Harris had the big hit with the song.   And "Good Rocking Tonight", in Harris' version, became one of those records that was *everywhere*. Roy Brown's version of the song made number thirteen on the R&B charts, and two years later it would re-enter the charts and go to number eleven – but Harris' was a world-changing hit, at least in the R&B market.   Harris' version, in fact, started off a whole chain of soundalikes and cash-ins, records that were trying to be their own version of "Good Rockin' Tonight". Harris himself recorded a sequel, "All She Wants to Do is Rock", but for the next two years everyone was recording songs with “rock” in the title.  There was Roy Brown's own sequel, "Rockin' at Midnight":   [Excerpt "Rockin' at Midnight" by Roy Brown]   There was Cecil Gant's "We're Gonna Rock"   [Excerpt]   There was "Rock the Joint" by Jimmy Preston   [Excerpt]   From 1948 through about 1951, if you listened to rhythm and blues records at all you couldn't escape this new rock craze. Record after record with "rock" in the title, with a boogie woogie bassline, with a backbeat, and with someone singing about how they were going to rock and roll.    This was, in fact, the real start of the rock and roll music fad. We're still six years away from it coming to the notice of the white mainstream audience, but all the pieces are there together, and while we're still three years away even from the canonical "first rock and roll record", Jackie Brenston's "Rocket 88", 1948 is when rock and roll first became a cohesive, unified, whole, something that was recognisable and popular, a proper movement in music rather than odd individuals making their own separate music.   Of course, it was still missing some of the ingredients that would later be added. First-wave rock and roll is a music that's based on the piano and horn sections rather than guitars, and it wouldn't be until it merged with hillbilly boogie in the early fifties that the electric guitar started to be an important instrument in it. But... we've talked before and will talk again about how there's no real "first rock and roll record", but if you insist on looking for one then "Good Rocking Tonight" is as good a candidate as any.   Neither of its creators did especially well from the rock and roll craze they initiated though. Roy Brown got a reputation for being difficult after he went to the musicians' union to try to get some of the money the record company owed him -- in the 1950s, as today, record companies thought it was unreasonable for musicians and singers to actually want them to pay the money that was written in their contract -- and so after a period of success in the late forties and very early fifties he spent a couple of decades unable to get a hit. He eventually started selling encyclopaedias door to door -- with the unique gimmick that when he was in black neighbourhoods he could offer the people whose doors he was knocking on an autographed photo of himself. He sold a lot of encyclopaedias that way, apparently. He continued making the occasional great R&B record, but he made more money from sales. He died in 1981.   Wynonie Harris wasn't even that lucky. He basically stopped having hits by 1953, and he more or less gave up performing by the early sixties. The new bands couldn't play his kind of boogie, and in his last few performances, by all accounts, he cut a sad and pitiful figure. He died in 1969 after more or less drinking himself to death.   The music business is never friendly towards originals, especially black originals. But we're now finally into the rock era. We'll be looking over the next few weeks at a few more "first rock and roll songs" as well as at some music that still doesn't quite count as rock but was influential on it, but if you've ever listened to a rock and roll record and enjoyed it, a tiny part of the pleasure you got you owe to Roy Brown and Wynonie Harris.