Podcasts about Jethro Tull

Lords * Daniel * https://www.cocoongame.com/ * https://kbones.itch.io/dorks * Alexander Topics: * Octopus dreams * Perception of memories. Why does actual recency and percieved recency often seem so at odds * Hike on 58 * https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45087/sonnet-18-shall-i-compare-thee-to-a-summers-day * World of Warcraft over the years / WoW Hardcore Mode * The highest honor you can receive in mathematics is to have your name uncapitalized. * Polywater * My brain is polluted by trochaic trimeter recognition Microtopics: * Preventative care. * COVID lucky streaks. * Being able to go to the ER. * How to spell Cocoon. * Moth guys carrying orbs on their backs. * Boss battles that you wouldn't expect. * Wilford Brimley's agelessness. * Octopus nightmares. * The octopus equivalent of rapid eye movement. * Meeting sapient crows and asking them whether Y or Z should be up. * Which memories stick better. * Perception of time when you have a routine vs. when you don't. * Arranging your life to maximize perceived lifespan. * Different ways to have an adventure. * Shooby doooby doggie. * A sports rule that sounds like a 17776 plot point * Why the Bob Emergency is an emergency. * The best quarterbacks getting stuck in an endless hike and football ending forever. * The one person who hasn't played Frog Fractions but just listens to Topic Lords because they like topics so much. * Summer's lease. * Reading a poem aloud without knowing what "ow'st" means or how to pronounce it. * Words that used to rhyme but don't anymore. * Meter recognize meter. * Writing all your sonnets during COVID lockdown. * A poem about a dude that Shakespeare is not in love with. * Woe is me, etc. * Piss Jugman vs Piss Jugm'n. * Making phonetic reforms that don't take. * Smoothing off any rough edges or peculiarities. * Permadeath taking inspiration from real life. * A fun thing that you wouldn't have expected to see. * Enjoying spending time in the world. * Hold the W key and cruise through it. * The difference between wanting something vs. liking it. * Abelian. * The opposite of how you would think honor works. * Great honors: brands hate them! * Whether to capitalize "lynchian," "kafkaesque" or "quixotic" * Eternal abstract universal objects. * Teaching truck drivers where to put their piss jugs. * The highest honor Piss Jugman can receive. * The surname Piss. * What is the average Piss lifespan? * A real life Bobby Tables moment. * The Polywater Gap. * Water that scientists have sweated in. * Buying a can of Soviet Scientist Sweat in a Japanese vending machine. * Polyester intoxication. * Liquids with a lower freezing temperature than water. * The Polywater Doodle. * A metabolism described by Richard Feynman. * Brain Pollution. * The particular better of the first line of Aqualung by Jethro Tull. * Singing "parallelipiped" to the tune of Aqualung. * Hearing random phrases in your life. * Spelling "yogurt" backwards. * Trying to understand the New York Times' effect on man. * A killer rap album based on alliteration rather than rhyming. * Poetry that rhymes on the second to last syllable rather than the last. * The baffling cosmology of Butter Dorks.

Grey Levitt began his career as a photographer shooting bands such as Jethro Tull, Kinks, Genesis and expanded from there to creating one of the most well-known Nikon camera shops in London, Grey's of Westminster. He researched the history of photography before publishing his books, as well as for each issue of his magazine.

Ma vendégünk volt Kollár Ádám a S.O.O.T. zenekarból. Az elején az új album dalaival foglalkoztunk, majd visszakanyarodtunk a Lomtár zenéihez! Megegyeztünk abban, hogy nincs új a nap alatt, a zenék megismételhetik önmagukat, már mindent IS lejátszottak korábban, hiszen ez a széles paletta ezt adja ki. Ádám a saját zenéit ekézte kicsit, de szóltunk, hogy azt majd tavasszal kell használni a mélyszántáskor! De a Jethro Tull mindenkinek tetszett!

Progressiv rock eller forkortet som prog rock eller blot prog, er en bred genre af rockmusik der primært udviklede sig i Storbritannien og USA op gennem midten af 60'erne og toppede i begyndelsen af 70'erne. Lyt med til Jethro Tull, Yes, Gentle Giant, Robert Wayatt, King Crimson og mange flere.

In April of 2023, Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull released their 23rd album called R

"Across the evening sky, all the birds are leavingBut how can they know it's time for them to go?Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming,I have no thought of timeFor who knows where the time goes?Who knows where the time goes?"Time, our most precious commodity will be an important consideration this weeked as we transition from Daylight Savings back to Standard Time. Please join us on this weeks "Red Eye" musical journey as we explore the passing of Time. Joining us are Bob Seger, Yes, King Crimson, Simply Red, Tim Rose, Jethro Tull, The Association, Critters, Poco, Joni Mitchell, Porcupine Tree, Tim Hardin, U2, Moody Blues, Rolling Stones, Alan Parsons Project, Led Zeppelin, Mamas & Papas, Rascals, Turtles, Little Feat, Tim Buckley, Spanky & Our Gang, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jean Luc Ponty, Counting Crows and The Strawbs...

This week Ian returns, Sean has been watching RWBY, we talk about how the Steelers are doing this year, we discuss Steelers from the past, great drafts, plus a remake of Eliectric Dreams and we go down a rabbit hole about Jethro Tull and concerts we've been to, plus so much more

Programleder i AC/DC-podkasten "Let There Be Pod", Gunnar Gundersen er på besøk for å ta oss gjennom festivalopplevelsen fra Powertrip i California nylig, med Brian Johnson & CO på scenen, Iron Maiden, Guns N' Roses, Judas Priest, Metallica og TOOL. Om Bruce Dickinson vaska scenegulvet med Axl Rose? Svaret er ja.Her dukker det også opp no' gammal Eurotrance fra Gunnars karriere i bandet Reset, herlige barndomsminner, første møte med Live After Death og Dickinson-eposet Revelations. Hør salmen låta er inspirert av, litt kirkesang fra Bruce sammen med Ian Anderson fra Jethro Tull og ikke minst:Leverer AC/DC i comebacket?

This week: the Prog-Watch Halloween 2023 Special! With songs concerning things spooky and creepy from White Willow, The Strawbs, Blue Oyster Cult, Asia, Uriah Heep, Pattern-Seeking Animals, Agents Of Mercy, Ken Hensley, The Syn, Atomic Rooster, Jethro Tull, Kansas, Rush, Anthony Phillips, and Spock's Beard! Join me...if you dare!

Neste episódio, Luiz Antonio Mello fala sobre o Show do Guitarrista Martin Barre, integrante da super banda Jethro Tull, que está comemorando 50 anos do álbum Aqualung.

8-8-23 - Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull by Hosted by the voices of WYRZ

Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull playing to local shows Casino Ballroom 10/27, MGM Fenway 10/28.

Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson joins the I-95 Morning Show or a 2-part chat about his new album, legacy and his connection to the Walking Dead TV Series. Danbury Mayoral candidate Roberto Alves says he demands an apology from rival candidate, Danbury Mayor Dean Esposito. Look pulls an archived Morning Show bit from 2006 where people were wrestling on the front lawn of the radio station. Lou explains to the audience why the Jewish Felon will never appear on the show again.

REM are often viewed by casual listeners as a lighter-style rock band.  This is deceptive, with the band offering complex songs with obscure lyrics, brilliant playing, covers, and an incredible refusal to compromise.  The boys talk through REM's development from their rock cliche start – the singer, Michael Stipe, met guitarist Peter Buck in the record shop where Buck worked - to their becoming one of the biggest-ever bands in the world – all without selling out.   MOJO Magazine called them an ensemble growl adorned with heavenly harmonies  which describes perfectly how their beautiful melodies, with disaffected, jaded lyrics, were influenced by The Velvet Underground. In turn they influenced such key bands as Nirvana and Pavement, as well as Radiohead, Coldplay, Pearl Jam, The Pixies and The Smiths.  Our “Album You Must Hear before You Die” is 1971's “Aqualung” by Jethro Tull.  It's a special album of contrast full of brave variations – from gentle acoustic breaks to Martin Barre's power chords and Ian Anderson's tough vocals.  The Dickensian quality of many of the lyrics challenges organised religion. Mick & Jeff both have great memories of this album, including the night that Jeff's keyboard player from his band, Ocean, blew the crowd away with the piano intro lifted from “Locomotive Breath” during a show south of Sydney.   We look at The Stones' new album, “Hackney Diamonds”, their first in 18 years. Jeff thinks it's pretty good, but Mick still keeps comparing every new Stones record to “Exiles on Main Street”.  Jeff brings some bad news.  The Bored Ape Yacht Club, famed distributor of NFTs (as credible as digital currency!) has gone belly-up, driving another nail into the digital con artist industry. References:  Rolling Stones, ‘Hackney Diamonds', ‘Angry', ‘A Bigger Bang', Bored Ape Yacht Club, “1001 Albums You Must Hear before You Die”, Robert Dimery, Jethro Tull, “Aqualung”, Martin Barre, Ian Anderson, “Locomotive Breath”, “Hymn 43”, REM, Athens Georgia, Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe, Wuxtry Records, Patti Smith, Television, The Velvet Underground, Dr. William Dement, Mandolin, “Out of Time”, Hofner bass, "Monster”, “Lifes Rich Pageant”, “Document”, “Femme Fatale”, “Pale Blue Eyes”, "So. Central Rain", alternative rock, Don Gehman, “The Flowers of Guatemala”, “Strange”, “Murmur”, “Fables of the Reconstruction”, "The One I Love", "Exhuming McCarthy", “Finest Worksong”, “The End of the World As We Know it”, “Green”, “World Leader Pretend”, “Out of Time“, “Automatic for the People”, John Paul Jones, "Everybody Hurts", "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?", "Bang and Blame"Rolling Stones Angry Start Me UpEpisode PlaylistTony Martin REMDavid Essex V REM

This episode of Big Blend Radio features Ray who discusses the new eclectic album project by innovative band Fly To The Sun.WATCH THIS PODCAST ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/aZEQOMKtlPU Releasing on October 27, 2023, the selt-titled album crosses over into several musical genres, including prog rock, progressive pop, art rock, R&B, and more. Flying to the Sun features Ray (Universe Records), Jennifer Batten (Jeff Beck, Michael Jackson), Billy Sheehan (David Lee Roth, Mr. Big, The Winery Dogs), Andrew Giddings (Jethro Tull, The Animals), Gregg Bissonette (Ringo Starr, ELO, David Lee Roth), Joe Deninzon (Kansas), JJ Sansaverino and other very notable musicians. The outstanding production work by Andrew Giddings (16-year keyboardist/producer with Jethro Tull) has brought a wealth of expertise, arrangement experience, and keyboard excellence into the project. More: https://www.flytothesun.com/ Special thanks to DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun in Tucson, Arizona. More: https://degrazia.org/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Big Blend Radio features Ray who discusses the new eclectic album project by innovative band Fly To The Sun. WATCH THIS PODCAST ON YOUTUBE:  https://youtu.be/aZEQOMKtlPU  Releasing on October 27, 2023, the selt-titled album crosses over into several musical genres, including prog rock, progressive pop, art rock, R&B, and more.  Flying to the Sun features Ray (Universe Records), Jennifer Batten (Jeff Beck, Michael Jackson), Billy Sheehan (David Lee Roth, Mr. Big, The Winery Dogs), Andrew Giddings (Jethro Tull, The Animals), Gregg Bissonette (Ringo Starr, ELO, David Lee Roth), Joe Deninzon (Kansas), JJ Sansaverino and other very notable musicians. The outstanding production work by Andrew Giddings (16-year keyboardist/producer with Jethro Tull) has brought a wealth of expertise, arrangement experience, and keyboard excellence into the project.  More: https://www.flytothesun.com/  Special thanks to DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun in Tucson, Arizona. More: https://degrazia.org/ 

In this encore presentation of DriveTime Radio, New York Vinnie begins by sharing about the latest electric vehicles working their way into the market, including the all-new Rolls-Royce Spectre EV Coupe and Cadillac Celestiq. Then, Vinnie goes to the other end of the spectrum to break the news about a micro EV which regurgitates a concept from the '50s and '60s. This week, Vinnie drives the Infiniti QX55. Listen to the Car Tune "Driving Song" by Jethro Tull here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u8Me9lgosc

In this encore presentation of DriveTime Radio, New York Vinnie begins by sharing about the latest electric vehicles working their way into the market, including the all-new Rolls-Royce Spectre EV Coupe and Cadillac Celestiq. Then, Vinnie goes to the other end of the spectrum to break the news about a micro EV which regurgitates a concept from the '50s and '60s. This week, Vinnie drives the Infiniti QX55. Listen to the Car Tune "Driving Song" by Jethro Tull here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u8Me9lgosc

*He is perhaps the biggest name in Russian rock music, famous as the leader of the band Aquarium throughout his homeland and 'Outer Russia' (as the huge and growing number of Russian emigres are called), but he is now listed as a “foreign agent” - basically an anti-patriot, a traitor, for criticising Russia's war *Aquarium were pioneers of the clandestine homegrown rock scene that was born in early '70s USSR before emerging from the underground to become the pied pipers of perestroika, selling millions of albums (but usually getting paid nothing). *After a long and illustrous career, Boris Grebenshikov now lives in London and in response to the conflict has put together an extraordinary compilation aiming to help children in Ukraine - and for the friends and fans he has had to leave behind.   *The album features a star-studded ensemble including Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics, Jethro Tull, Marianne Faithful, Marc Almond, The Waterboys, Jackson Brown, Crowded House and many others.  *We talk of the USSR in the 60s, cultural censorship,the power of music, the KGB arresting your friends, being back on the outside yet again - and we hear selections from the 'Heal the Sky' album.   Thanks to Alex Kan for making this happen.   *For more details and to support the project: Heal The Sky *Let us know where you are at (a few questions about you) *Get Our Bulletin   #counterculture #music #ussr #soho #aquarium #ukraine #russia #war #borisgrebenshikov #perestroika #coldwar #russinemeigre #russianrock  

Arranca la temporada trece de Subterranea con un programa repleto de grandes trabajos. A la cita no han querido faltar Carles Pinós, Fernando Pastor, Juan Francisco Díaz, Ricardo Hernández y David Pintos. Los cinco subterráneos nos hablarán de cinco discos, los nuevos trabajos de Jethro Tull, Isobar, eMolecule, Agusa y The Flower Kings. No te lo pierdas, Subterranea regresa con las pilas cargadas, dispuesto a calentar el ambiente Prog. Y no te olvides de votarnos para ser elegidos cómo el mejor podcast de música. Puedes hacerlo pinchando en este enlace: https://go.ivoox.com/wv/premios23?p=17710 Edición: Jordi Via

Recorded live on KX FM 104.7 in Laguna Beach, California, today's Keith's Music Box features Boston, Jethro Tull, The Capitols, Akio Sakurai, Arlo Guthrie, CSN&Y, Blue Oyster Cult, Gary Glitter, Neil Young, Linda Ronstadt, Green Day, Tame Impala and Eric Clapton.

Fly To The Sun Featuring Members of Jethro Tull, Kansas, Jeff Beck, Mr. Big, Ringo Starr's All-Stars#newmusic #flytothesun #eclecticmusic #progrock #r&bmusic This new eclectic album project by innovative band Fly To The Sun crosses over into several musical genres, including prog rock, progressive pop, art rock, R&B, and more.Featuring Ray (Vocals, flute – Universe Records), Jennifer Batten (Guitar – Jeff Beck, Michael Jackson), Billy Sheehan (Bass – David Lee Roth, Mr. Big, The Winery Dogs), Andrew Giddings (Keyboards – Jethro Tull, The Animals), Gregg Bissonette (Drums – Ringo Starr, ELO, David Lee Roth), Joe Deninzon (Violin – Kansas), JJ Sansaverino (Guitar – #1 Billboard) and other very notable musicians.Ray has always been a staunch follower of progressive rock music icons like Jethro Tull, Yes, Pink Floyd, Queen, and other rock legends that pushed the envelope into uncharted musical territory and had a huge impact on his life.  Assembling this band of world class musicians to join him, Ray decided to produce music that will have a positive impact on listeners, hoping to help them feel good at a time in history when “feel good” songs are sorely needed.Watch the video for “Soaring With Angels”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGOSdggYx1QTo purchase:https://music.apple.com/us/artist/fly-to-the-sun/1703679093https://music.amazon.com/artists/B08CSVB5CK/fly-to-the-sunWebsite: https://www.flytothesun.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flytothesunmusic/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FLYTOTHESUNOFFICIAL/Thanks for tuning in, please be sure to click that subscribe button and give this a thumbs up!!Email: thevibesbroadcast@gmail.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/listen_to_the_vibes_/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thevibesbroadcastnetworkLinktree: https://linktr.ee/the_vibes_broadcastTikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeuTVRv2/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheVibesBrdcstTruth: https://truthsocial.com/@KoyoteFor all our social media and other links, go to: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/the_vibes_broadcastPlease subscribe, like, and share!

This week's Prog-Watch explores the connection between classical music and rock and prog rock music! With fabulous music from the Beatles, the Moody Blues, Procol Harum, Jethro Tull, the Nice, ELO, Rick Wakeman, Fireballet, the Alan Parsons Project, the Enid, and Renaissance!

Will Sergeant's just put out the second volume of his memoirs, both of them Sunday Times best-sellers, Echoes and the first edition, Bunnyman. Here he revisits the Liverpool of the ‘60s and ‘70s in extraordinary detail - the clothes, the records, the gangs, the school days, the early shows he saw - and the many reasons he wanted to form a band. On the agenda … … ‘rockist' cliches the Bunnymen detested.   … why America loved early ‘80s British groups. … the powerful appeal of Jethro Tull, Status Quo, Slade, Roxy Music, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band and rock and roll theatre. … clothes bought from NME small ads in the ‘70s. … absurd rivalries with Simple Minds and the Jesus & Mary Chain. … fond memories of David Thomas of Pere Ubu smashing a pig iron spike with a lump hammer. … the ‘Porcupine' cover shoot in Iceland.   … the charisma of the teenage Mac McCulloch. … bands that borrowed from the Bunnymen. … why the Ramones were “Status Quo with drainpipes”. … and the magic ingredient that held Mac's hair aloft. Order Bunnyman here …https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bunnyman-Memoir-Sunday-Times-bestseller/dp/1472135032 And Echoes here …https://www.amazon.co.uk/Echoes-memoir-continued/dp/1408719304Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21 Soho on October 30th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ysY3FvyFaeSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content here: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will Sergeant's just put out the second volume of his memoirs, both of them Sunday Times best-sellers, Echoes and the first edition, Bunnyman. Here he revisits the Liverpool of the ‘60s and ‘70s in extraordinary detail - the clothes, the records, the gangs, the school days, the early shows he saw - and the many reasons he wanted to form a band. On the agenda … … ‘rockist' cliches the Bunnymen detested.   … why America loved early ‘80s British groups. … the powerful appeal of Jethro Tull, Status Quo, Slade, Roxy Music, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band and rock and roll theatre. … clothes bought from NME small ads in the ‘70s. … absurd rivalries with Simple Minds and the Jesus & Mary Chain. … fond memories of David Thomas of Pere Ubu smashing a pig iron spike with a lump hammer. … the ‘Porcupine' cover shoot in Iceland.   … the charisma of the teenage Mac McCulloch. … bands that borrowed from the Bunnymen. … why the Ramones were “Status Quo with drainpipes”. … and the magic ingredient that held Mac's hair aloft. Order Bunnyman here …https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bunnyman-Memoir-Sunday-Times-bestseller/dp/1472135032 And Echoes here …https://www.amazon.co.uk/Echoes-memoir-continued/dp/1408719304Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21 Soho on October 30th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ysY3FvyFaeSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content here: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's Prog-Watch is a fantasy concert I am calling Night of the Living PROG 2! All live tracks from a dream line up of artists, including ELP, Pink Floyd, Renaissance, Gentle Giant, Traffic, Utopia, Yes, Tears For Fears, Kansas, Jethro Tull, Rush, and Camel!

VRP sits down with the legendary guitarist Martin Barre, former member of Jethro Tull, to discuss his remarkable journey and the highs and lows of his career. Martin Barre's success didn't come easily, and he openly shares the challenges he faced after getting his foot in the door. Despite feeling like he was on his own, Barre remained loyal to his band and appreciated the hard work they put in. He takes us back to the golden age of rock in the 1970s, where albums like "Passion Play," "War Child," "Minstrel in the Gallery," and "Songs from the Wood" reigned supreme. Barre delves into the groundbreaking album "Aqualung", as well as the unique challenges faced during the creation of "Under Wraps." Alongside VRP, Martin Barre discusses his split from Jethro Tull and how he persevered through the difficult times. Known for his honest, humble nature, and immense talent, Barre shares anecdotes from his disastrous audition to sharing a stage with Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. The honest dialogue explores the setbacks, doubts, and ultimate triumphs experienced during the process. Don't miss out on the captivating journey of Martin Barre, as he candidly shares his stories and insights on VRP Rocks. Tune in now to immerse yourself in this riveting episode. Don't forget you can watch some clips from this interview with Martin, as well as hundreds of other guests, on the VRP Rocks YouTube channel! Check it out now! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

El Suave atronando de nuevo, Raul Gallego les saluda desde el sur de España. Comenzamos con el heavy rock de Michael Scheker y y cerramos con el océano progresivo de Marillion, en medio estuvieron Leño, Nightwish, Gamma Ray, Witchtower, Abbath… 1 – Michael Schenker Group- Armed and Ready 2 – Gamma Ray - Gods of Deliverance 3 – Black Flag - Nervous Breakdown 4 – Hammerfall – Venerate me 5 - Leño -Todo es más sencillo 6 – Witchtower - Voyeur 7 - .Jethro Tull - Steel Monkey 8 - Tete Novoa - Vayamos a más 9 – Judas Priest – The Ripper 10 – Virgin Steele - I will come for you 11 –Nightwish – Phantom of the Opera 12 – Abbath - Winter Bane 13 – Marillion – Ocean Cloud

Matt is at Jethro Tull so we read some listener messages, discuss the need for vigilantism and decide if the Barbie movie debate is worth having. Remember to like, subscribe, and leave a review to help us grow the podcast. Go to www.warstoriesofficial.com and  Join our subscriber forums to get access to premium episodes. Support us at https://patron.podbean.com/warstoriesofficial and get a shout-out on an upcoming episode and access to subscriber-only episodes. Follow us on Instagram @war_stories_official and on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/WarStoriesOfficialPodcast 

Neil Storey is an old pal from our magazine days who worked in the press office at Island. He looked after U2, Bob Marley, Steel Pulse, the B-52's and many others. About 15 years ago he began the mammoth task of compiling a series of books telling the story of virtually every record the label released in its pioneering history, tracking down and talking to all those involved - musicians, producers, designers, photographers, label staff – and collecting old music press ads and ephemera from the time. The book's almost a foot square so LP sleeves can be reproduced ‘actual size'. The first volume is just out, The Island Book Of Records 1959-1968, a thing of very great beauty. As David says, “it's like entering the record shop of your dreams.” We talked to Neil at his home in France about this and much else besides …   … Chris Blackwell's involvement in the making of Dr No and the single Jamaican beach shot that told them they had a hit movie. … the album they released that no-one involved could remember. … Shotgun Wedding by Roy ‘C', Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, Lance Hayward, Millie Small's ‘My Boy Lollipop' … … the letter Blackwell sent to the workshy Spooky Tooth with threats of wage deductions. … the lucrative ascent of Jethro Tull. … the little-known compilations of Rugby songs, ‘Bawdy British Ballads' and risqué adult comedy that “saved the label's bacon” in the mid-‘60s. … the time Neil stumbled across Traffic's fabled Aston Tirrold cottage on a school camping trip. … the highly collectable “Birth of Ska' album that was never released.   … one immortal week at the Marquee Club. … and why Island were banned for Olympic Studios. Order the Island Book of Records Vol 1 here …https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/product/neil-storey/the-island-book-of-records-volume-i-1959-68?channable=409d926964003230353632383608&gclid=Cj0KCQjw06-oBhC6ARIsAGuzdw1pbKtxLGkjgkiJfcAll84H65dVQ1r_h7obky-QWlVtpr21UgiQP54aAk1BEALw_wcB#hardback-signed-plusTickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21 Soho on October 30th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ysY3FvyFaeSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyouear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Neil Storey is an old pal from our magazine days who worked in the press office at Island. He looked after U2, Bob Marley, Steel Pulse, the B-52's and many others. About 15 years ago he began the mammoth task of compiling a series of books telling the story of virtually every record the label released in its pioneering history, tracking down and talking to all those involved - musicians, producers, designers, photographers, label staff – and collecting old music press ads and ephemera from the time. The book's almost a foot square so LP sleeves can be reproduced ‘actual size'. The first volume is just out, The Island Book Of Records 1959-1968, a thing of very great beauty. As David says, “it's like entering the record shop of your dreams.” We talked to Neil at his home in France about this and much else besides …   … Chris Blackwell's involvement in the making of Dr No and the single Jamaican beach shot that told them they had a hit movie. … the album they released that no-one involved could remember. … Shotgun Wedding by Roy ‘C', Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, Lance Hayward, Millie Small's ‘My Boy Lollipop' … … the letter Blackwell sent to the workshy Spooky Tooth with threats of wage deductions. … the lucrative ascent of Jethro Tull. … the little-known compilations of Rugby songs, ‘Bawdy British Ballads' and risqué adult comedy that “saved the label's bacon” in the mid-‘60s. … the time Neil stumbled across Traffic's fabled Aston Tirrold cottage on a school camping trip. … the highly collectable “Birth of Ska' album that was never released.   … one immortal week at the Marquee Club. … and why Island were banned for Olympic Studios. Order the Island Book of Records Vol 1 here …https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/product/neil-storey/the-island-book-of-records-volume-i-1959-68?channable=409d926964003230353632383608&gclid=Cj0KCQjw06-oBhC6ARIsAGuzdw1pbKtxLGkjgkiJfcAll84H65dVQ1r_h7obky-QWlVtpr21UgiQP54aAk1BEALw_wcB#hardback-signed-plusTickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21 Soho on October 30th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ysY3FvyFaeSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyouear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

BAND / ARTIST TRACK'S NAME TIME This is The Prog & Roll Radio Show 0:51 JETHRO TULL Jack-A-Lynn 4:42 20 Years of Jethro Tull (1988) CAMEL West Berlin 5:09 Stationary Traveller (1984) ASIA Only Time will Tell 4:47 Asia (1982) EMERSON, LAKE & POWEL (E,L,P) Learning to Fly 3:51 Emerson, Lake & Powel (1986) PINK […]

Dick Wagner & The Frost - SunshineMovie Club - CrocodileBilly Nicholls - Would You BelieveVolume - Joy of Navigation (Live)Winston's Fumbs - Snow WhiteThe Grateful Dead - Friend Of The Devil>Candyman  6/7/70Bootleg 77 - I Walked With a ZombieCrystal Circus - Sweet HighFlying Caravan - wind riverIcecross - Jesus FreaksOrgan Fairchild - Chamelonious MonkKingfish - SupplicationSoft Machine - All WhiteBodhi Mojo - midnight sunCoven - White Witch Of Rose HallUncle Acid & the Deadbeats - death's doorThe West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band - Shifting SandsThe Grateful Dead - Mississippi Half Step 3/26/73Bob Dylan - Spanish Is The Loving TonguePaul Revere & The Raiders - Him Or Me - What's It Gonna Be?Jethro Tull - too old to rock n roll: too young to die!Jigsaw - Tumblin'The Good Humour Band - You'll Get BySupport the showSubscribe and Support this program with a monthly donation:https://www.buzzsprout.com/1427200/supporters/new

What if we told you that the summer of 1967 could hold the secrets to some of the greatest music ever? With our old pals, Scott, Mark and Lou of the Music Relish Show, we rewind time to this iconic year, unearthing fascinating stories and dissecting pivotal moments in music history. From The Doors' groundbreaking debut album to the first Shafa music festival in Central Park, our conversation takes unexpected twists, even as we navigate technical glitches, sharing laughs, and profound insights along the way.Drum roll, please! We explore the importance of drumming in setting the tone of a song, using The Doors' debut album as a case study. Our banter veers from the arrest of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to the Beatles' promotional film for Strawberry Fields Forever. But it's not all music - we also dive into the movies, TV shows, and pop culture moments that defined 1967. Elvis Presley's Clambake, the anti-war movie You Only Live Twice, and TV classics like Hill Street Blues and Kojak are all up for discussion.Finally, our conversation circles back to the bands that shaped the sound of '67, featuring Credence Clearwater Revival, Fleetwood Mac, and Earth, Wind, and Fire, among others. We debate the controversy surrounding Bob Welch's exclusion from Fleetwood Mac and reflect on the Grammy Award win of Jethro Tull. It's a vibrant, exhaustive discussion that doesn't shy away from personal anecdotes and playful banter. So, sit back, relax, and let us take you on a sonic journey through 1967 - a year that forever changed the face of music and pop culture.

We head back to a hot London summer at the end of the hippy era, as Jethro Tull's “Nureyev with a flute” Ian Anderson talks vividly about Roy Harper, folk versus rock, musicians versus the music biz, and much more. Plus Andrew Male and Danny Eccleston dig MOJO's compilation of unheard Stax demos, and yet more great Arthur Russell finds.Tracklisting: 1. Locomotive Breath from Aqualung originally released on the Chrysalis label in 19712. In A beautiful rambling Mess, from Come Out Fighting Genghis Smith, originally released on CBS in 19673. The Boy With a Smile, from Picture of Bunny Rabbit LP, written by Arthur Russell, and released on Audio Records originally in 19854. MOJO covermount, Mack Rice's demo of Respect Yourself, written by Mack Rice and Luther Ingram and first covered by The Staple Singers in 1971

This week's Prog-Watch is another edition of EPIX! Just a handful of lengthy tunes will carry us through our time together and I'll spread the love across the decades of our favorite genre! Tune in to hear great music from Porcupine Tree, The Pineapple Thief, Citizen Cain, Jethro Tull, Tinyfish, and The Enid!This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/3136310/advertisement

The Jeremy White Show welcomes Journalist and Author Steve Rosen! Steve Rosen is a professional music journalist with a career spanning 50 years. During this period, he has published well over 1,000 articles in major periodicals originating from around the globe. Rosen was the West Coast correspondent for Guitar World magazine for four years during the seminal mid-‘80s, when he wrote eight cover stories—including three lead features on Edward Van Halen recognized as pivotal pieces on the legendary guitarist.    As a contributor to Guitar Player magazine, Rosen also wrote a prodigious 16 covers in a six-year span. A recognized authority on the eclectic world of Rock, Rosen has been tapped seven times to write books on several high-profile musicians, including Jeff Beck, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Black Sabbath, Free/Bad Company and Randy Rhoads.    The traveling troubadour's work has taken him to distant vistas in search of mysterious stories and elusive sagas—hand-selected to accompany numerous bands as a traveling wordsmith for the likes of Led Zeppelin, The Who, Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, Loggins & Messina, ZZ Top, Aerosmith, Lenny Kravitz, Alice Cooper, The Firm, Van Halen, and others.    Recently, Rosen's main focus has been organizing his incredibly extensive and rare collection of audio interviews dating back to 1973. The entire library represents well over 1,500 hours of content, with hundreds and hundreds of classic rock's most-engaging, enraging and entrancing characters, including Edward Van Halen. This archival process led to the unearthing of what Rosen called “The Twilight Tapes”—50 interviews representing hours of late-night phone calls with the Van Halen guitarist, who happened to become a very close friend over the years. “The Twilight Tapes” sparked the idea to sit down to write TONECHASER in 2020 and the rest, as they say, is rock and roll history.

Pierre Robert chats with Paul Rodgers, who's lent his voice to Free, Bad Company, the Firm, the Law, and Queen. Paul Rodgers is also a solo artist; 'Midnight Rose' is out September 22nd is Paul's first solo album in 25 years. They chat about the new songs including "Take Love" and "Living It Up", from the album and how the cover art came about... his wife Cynthia even came on to tell how it actually happened. Pierre takes Paul back 20 years to the show he did at the Spectrum with Jethro Tull, The Hooters, Jeffrey Gaines, David Crosby & Warren Zevon for WMMR's 25th Anniversary, and even jogs his memory about the backup harmonizers, the Sisters of Compassion.  

Aqualung from Jethro Tull is re-visitedNew Music from:Cruzadoshttps://cruzadosband.bandcamp.com/album/land-of-the-endless-sunPodstarhttps://podstar.bandcamp.comThe Mad Starlingshttps://madstarlings.bandcamp.com

This week's Prog-Watch is a straight-up variety program with lots of diverse, new progressive rock for your listening enjoyment! Tune in to hear great stuff from PROG Magazine artists Ihlo, The Anchoret, and They Watch Us From The Moon! Plus lots of other fabulous music from Jethro Tull, Unitopia, United Progressive Fraternity, Lifesigns, I Am The Manic Whale, Head Spin, and Comedy of Errors!This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/3136310/advertisement

August 14th - Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull

The vacationing Kornflake is flopped on a hammock somewhere, but the Mayor of Chickentown is here to celebrate the year 1988. After a quick look at some of the year's least popular movies (Kevin and the Mayor each saw just one of them), we turn to music. Specifically we're looking at the 1988 concert schedule at Great Woods, a beloved outdoor venue that dominated southern New England's summer concert landscape back in the day. The 1988 lineup at Great Woods featured classic rock (here comes Jethro Tull with that crazy flute), hair metal (Def Leppard, Europe, and a blindingly white combo show with Whitesnake and Great White), new wave (we should not have missed Depeche Mode with OMD), and Top 40 (George Michael, Huey Lewis, and more). Guns 'n' Roses opened for Aerosmith. Roy Orbison opened for the Beach Boys. Santana and Herbie Hancock were part of something called "Jazz Explosion," which sounds absolutely terrifying. And Kevin went to Great Woods for the very first time that summer, to see an Australian band that found massive success in the 80s. (And we don't mean Air Supply, or Men at Work, or Midnight Oil. Keep guessing.) Also: Last week we forgot to mention a certain giant robot from 1987. We apologize to giant robots everywhere. The Flopcast website! The ESO Network! The Flopcast on Facebook! The Flopcast on Instagram! The Flopcast on Mastadon! Please rate and review The Flopcast on Apple Podcasts! Email: info@flopcast.net Our music is by The Sponge Awareness Foundation! This week's promo: Earth Station Who!  

Ray, Rich, and Shea discuss games, such as Grounded. Pikmin 4, and some JRPG nerd shit. I don't know what they're called, and I'm too lazy too look up the names. Deal with it. Recorded: 08/01/2023

WTOP Entertainment Reporter Jason Fraley interviews Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull as the band rocks Wolf Trap in Virginia on Aug. 24. They discuss his idea to bring the flute into rock music for a career of hits from “Aqualung” to “Locomotive Breath” to “Bungle in the Jungle." He even shares his thoughts on Will Ferrell's "Aqualung" spoof in "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy." (Theme Music: Scott Buckley's "Clarion") Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Live From Progzilla Towers Edition 483. In this edition we heard music by Peter Gabriel, The Fierce & The Dead, Aerolith, FM, Cap Outrun, Inhalo, They Watch Us From The Moon, Popol Vuh, Jethro Tull, Southern Empire, United Progressive Fraternity, Unitopia, Retreat From Moscow, Solstein, Faint Signal, The Mighty Bard, Visitors, Abel Ganz & Steve Lukather.

For 98 episodes, the pilots of Radical Research have gone it together. Mind you, the hosts have had some curatorial help along the way (Jason William Walton and Forrest Pitts, please take a bow). But on the eve of episode 100, Radical Research has called on two of its most stalwart allies, the estimable Thomas Nul and Brian Grebenz. Over the course of almost two hours, this veritable Roman Senate chews on the hard-hitting issues that occupy the minds of all right-thinking citizens of the Research Republic. We invite you to turn on and tune in to this symposium of sickness.  Note I: Please consider donating if you listen to Radical Research often: https://www.paypal.me/rrpodcast We also have a webstore where you can find shirts, CDs, and books, many of them recently restocked: http://radicalresearch.org/shop/ Music cited in order of appearance: Genesis, “Dodo / Lurker” (Abacab, 1981) Black Sabbath, “The Eternal Idol” (Eternal Idol, 1987) King Crimson, “Discipline” (Discipline, 1981) Celtic Frost, “(Once) They Were Eagles” (Cold Lake, 1988) A Forest of Stars, “Premature Invocation” (Grave Mounds and Grave Mistakes, 2018) Jethro Tull, “Thick as a Brick” (Thick as a Brick, 1971) Slayer, “The Final Command” (Show No Mercy, 1983) Acanthus, “Le Frisson des Vampires” (Le Frisson des Vampires, 1971) Journey, “Of a Lifetime” (Journey, 1975) Unearthly Trance, “Penta(grams)” (In the Red, 2004) episode 100 preview: Voivod, “Temps Mort” (Phobos, 1997) Radical Research is a conversation about the inner- and outer-reaches of rock and metal music. This podcast is conceived and conducted by Jeff Wagner and Hunter Ginn. Though we consume music in a variety of ways, we give particular privilege to the immersive, full-album listening experience. Likewise, we believe that tangible music formats help provide the richest, most rewarding immersions and that music, artwork, and song titles cooperate to produce a singular effect on the listener. Great music is worth more than we ever pay for it.

This week on Prog-Watch it's all Bonus Tracks! From the likes of Tony Banks, Anekdoten, Pendragon, Asia, Uriah Heep, Brian May, Jethro Tull, Steve Hackett, Conspiracy, ELO, Yes, UFO, Fish, ELP, and the Doors! Come along to hear some lost and hidden gems!This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/3136310/advertisement

Minnesota Music Hall of Fame inductee Mary Jane Alm (Mary Jane Alm Band), shares her first concert memories with Dave, seeing a fellow flutist, Jethro Tull, performing at the Met Center. She also talked about her beginnings and her contributions and being a part of the Minnesota music history. This is the eighth episode of the MN Music History series.Sponsored by Aquarius Home Services (https://aquariushomeservices.com/), Star Bank (https://starbank.net), UCare (https://www.ucare.org/) Propane Association (https://discoverpropanemn.com/) - and is recorded in the Aquarius Home Services Studio!Chanhassen Dinner Theater (https://chanhassendt.com)

Ian Anderson is a genius. He really is. What a story what a visit we have to say. Ian brought a new dimension to "frontman" with the arrival of Jethro Tull. He played the flute like a lead guitarist plays a guitar and developed a stage character that could be theatric, entertaining and somewhat even intimidating at times (or as Ian put it, "...the girls really never approached me"). He is a man beyond his flute and his gifts to this planet are beyond his music. We would even suggest going through some of the research like we did before listening. We didn't even know where to begin. A fine British fellow!

Episode 166 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Crossroads", Cream, the myth of Robert Johnson, and whether white men can sing the blues. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-eight-minute bonus episode available, on “Tip-Toe Thru' the Tulips" by Tiny Tim. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Errata I talk about an interview with Clapton from 1967, I meant 1968. I mention a Graham Bond live recording from 1953, and of course meant 1963. I say Paul Jones was on vocals in the Powerhouse sessions. Steve Winwood was on vocals, and Jones was on harmonica. Resources As I say at the end, the main resource you need to get if you enjoyed this episode is Brother Robert by Annye Anderson, Robert Johnson's stepsister. There are three Mixcloud mixes this time. As there are so many songs by Cream, Robert Johnson, John Mayall, and Graham Bond excerpted, and Mixcloud won't allow more than four songs by the same artist in any mix, I've had to post the songs not in quite the same order in which they appear in the podcast. But the mixes are here -- one, two, three. This article on Mack McCormick gives a fuller explanation of the problems with his research and behaviour. The other books I used for the Robert Johnson sections were McCormick's Biography of a Phantom; Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson, by Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow; Searching for Robert Johnson by Peter Guralnick; and Escaping the Delta by Elijah Wald. I can recommend all of these subject to the caveats at the end of the episode. The information on the history and prehistory of the Delta blues mostly comes from Before Elvis by Larry Birnbaum, with some coming from Charley Patton by John Fahey. The information on Cream comes mostly from Cream: How Eric Clapton Took the World by Storm by Dave Thompson. I also used Ginger Baker: Hellraiser by Ginger Baker and Ginette Baker, Mr Showbiz by Stephen Dando-Collins, Motherless Child by Paul Scott, and  Alexis Korner: The Biography by Harry Shapiro. The best collection of Cream's work is the four-CD set Those Were the Days, which contains every track the group ever released while they were together (though only the stereo mixes of the albums, and a couple of tracks are in slightly different edits from the originals). You can get Johnson's music on many budget compilation records, as it's in the public domain in the EU, but the double CD collection produced by Steve LaVere for Sony in 2011 is, despite the problems that come from it being associated with LaVere, far and away the best option -- the remasters have a clarity that's worlds ahead of even the 1990s CD version it replaced. And for a good single-CD introduction to the Delta blues musicians and songsters who were Johnson's peers and inspirations, Back to the Crossroads: The Roots of Robert Johnson, compiled by Elijah Wald as a companion to his book on Johnson, can't be beaten, and contains many of the tracks excerpted in this episode. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before we start, a quick note that this episode contains discussion of racism, drug addiction, and early death. There's also a brief mention of death in childbirth and infant mortality. It's been a while since we looked at the British blues movement, and at the blues in general, so some of you may find some of what follows familiar, as we're going to look at some things we've talked about previously, but from a different angle. In 1968, the Bonzo Dog Band, a comedy musical band that have been described as the missing link between the Beatles and the Monty Python team, released a track called "Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?": [Excerpt: The Bonzo Dog Band, "Can Blue Men Sing the Whites?"] That track was mocking a discussion that was very prominent in Britain's music magazines around that time. 1968 saw the rise of a *lot* of British bands who started out as blues bands, though many of them went on to different styles of music -- Fleetwood Mac, Ten Years After, Jethro Tull, Chicken Shack and others were all becoming popular among the kind of people who read the music magazines, and so the question was being asked -- can white men sing the blues? Of course, the answer to that question was obvious. After all, white men *invented* the blues. Before we get any further at all, I have to make clear that I do *not* mean that white people created blues music. But "the blues" as a category, and particularly the idea of it as a music made largely by solo male performers playing guitar... that was created and shaped by the actions of white male record executives. There is no consensus as to when or how the blues as a genre started -- as we often say in this podcast "there is no first anything", but like every genre it seems to have come from multiple sources. In the case of the blues, there's probably some influence from African music by way of field chants sung by enslaved people, possibly some influence from Arabic music as well, definitely some influence from the Irish and British folk songs that by the late nineteenth century were developing into what we now call country music, a lot from ragtime, and a lot of influence from vaudeville and minstrel songs -- which in turn themselves were all very influenced by all those other things. Probably the first published composition to show any real influence of the blues is from 1904, a ragtime piano piece by James Chapman and Leroy Smith, "One O' Them Things": [Excerpt: "One O' Them Things"] That's not very recognisable as a blues piece yet, but it is more-or-less a twelve-bar blues. But the blues developed, and it developed as a result of a series of commercial waves. The first of these came in 1914, with the success of W.C. Handy's "Memphis Blues", which when it was recorded by the Victor Military Band for a phonograph cylinder became what is generally considered the first blues record proper: [Excerpt: The Victor Military Band, "Memphis Blues"] The famous dancers Vernon and Irene Castle came up with a dance, the foxtrot -- which Vernon Castle later admitted was largely inspired by Black dancers -- to be danced to the "Memphis Blues", and the foxtrot soon overtook the tango, which the Castles had introduced to the US the previous year, to become the most popular dance in America for the best part of three decades. And with that came an explosion in blues in the Handy style, cranked out by every music publisher. While the blues was a style largely created by Black performers and writers, the segregated nature of the American music industry at the time meant that most vocal performances of these early blues that were captured on record were by white performers, Black vocalists at this time only rarely getting the chance to record. The first blues record with a Black vocalist is also technically the first British blues record. A group of Black musicians, apparently mostly American but led by a Jamaican pianist, played at Ciro's Club in London, and recorded many tracks in Britain, under a name which I'm not going to say in full -- it started with Ciro's Club, and continued alliteratively with another word starting with C, a slur for Black people. In 1917 they recorded a vocal version of "St. Louis Blues", another W.C. Handy composition: [Excerpt: Ciro's Club C**n Orchestra, "St. Louis Blues"] The first American Black blues vocal didn't come until two years later, when Bert Williams, a Black minstrel-show performer who like many Black performers of his era performed in blackface even though he was Black, recorded “I'm Sorry I Ain't Got It You Could Have It If I Had It Blues,” [Excerpt: Bert Williams, "I'm Sorry I Ain't Got It You Could Have It If I Had It Blues,”] But it wasn't until 1920 that the second, bigger, wave of popularity started for the blues, and this time it started with the first record of a Black *woman* singing the blues -- Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues": [Excerpt: Mamie Smith, "Crazy Blues"] You can hear the difference between that and anything we've heard up to that point -- that's the first record that anyone from our perspective, a hundred and three years later, would listen to and say that it bore any resemblance to what we think of as the blues -- so much so that many places still credit it as the first ever blues record. And there's a reason for that. "Crazy Blues" was one of those records that separates the music industry into before and after, like "Rock Around the Clock", "I Want to Hold Your Hand", Sgt Pepper, or "Rapper's Delight". It sold seventy-five thousand copies in its first month -- a massive number by the standards of 1920 -- and purportedly went on to sell over a million copies. Sales figures and market analysis weren't really a thing in the same way in 1920, but even so it became very obvious that "Crazy Blues" was a big hit, and that unlike pretty much any other previous records, it was a big hit among Black listeners, which meant that there was a market for music aimed at Black people that was going untapped. Soon all the major record labels were setting up subsidiaries devoted to what they called "race music", music made by and for Black people. And this sees the birth of what is now known as "classic blues", but at the time (and for decades after) was just what people thought of when they thought of "the blues" as a genre. This was music primarily sung by female vaudeville artists backed by jazz bands, people like Ma Rainey (whose earliest recordings featured Louis Armstrong in her backing band): [Excerpt: Ma Rainey, "See See Rider Blues"] And Bessie Smith, the "Empress of the Blues", who had a massive career in the 1920s before the Great Depression caused many of these "race record" labels to fold, but who carried on performing well into the 1930s -- her last recording was in 1933, produced by John Hammond, with a backing band including Benny Goodman and Jack Teagarden: [Excerpt: Bessie Smith, "Give Me a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer"] It wouldn't be until several years after the boom started by Mamie Smith that any record companies turned to recording Black men singing the blues accompanied by guitar or banjo. The first record of this type is probably "Norfolk Blues" by Reese DuPree from 1924: [Excerpt: Reese DuPree, "Norfolk Blues"] And there were occasional other records of this type, like "Airy Man Blues" by Papa Charlie Jackson, who was advertised as the “only man living who sings, self-accompanied, for Blues records.” [Excerpt: Papa Charlie Jackson, "Airy Man Blues"] But contrary to the way these are seen today, at the time they weren't seen as being in some way "authentic", or "folk music". Indeed, there are many quotes from folk-music collectors of the time (sadly all of them using so many slurs that it's impossible for me to accurately quote them) saying that when people sang the blues, that wasn't authentic Black folk music at all but an adulteration from commercial music -- they'd clearly, according to these folk-music scholars, learned the blues style from records and sheet music rather than as part of an oral tradition. Most of these performers were people who recorded blues as part of a wider range of material, like Blind Blake, who recorded some blues music but whose best work was his ragtime guitar instrumentals: [Excerpt: Blind Blake, "Southern Rag"] But it was when Blind Lemon Jefferson started recording for Paramount records in 1926 that the image of the blues as we now think of it took shape. His first record, "Got the Blues", was a massive success: [Excerpt: Blind Lemon Jefferson, "Got the Blues"] And this resulted in many labels, especially Paramount, signing up pretty much every Black man with a guitar they could find in the hopes of finding another Blind Lemon Jefferson. But the thing is, this generation of people making blues records, and the generation that followed them, didn't think of themselves as "blues singers" or "bluesmen". They were songsters. Songsters were entertainers, and their job was to sing and play whatever the audiences would want to hear. That included the blues, of course, but it also included... well, every song anyone would want to hear.  They'd perform old folk songs, vaudeville songs, songs that they'd heard on the radio or the jukebox -- whatever the audience wanted. Robert Johnson, for example, was known to particularly love playing polka music, and also adored the records of Jimmie Rodgers, the first country music superstar. In 1941, when Alan Lomax first recorded Muddy Waters, he asked Waters what kind of songs he normally played in performances, and he was given a list that included "Home on the Range", Gene Autry's "I've Got Spurs That Jingle Jangle Jingle", and Glenn Miller's "Chattanooga Choo-Choo". We have few recordings of these people performing this kind of song though. One of the few we have is Big Bill Broonzy, who was just about the only artist of this type not to get pigeonholed as just a blues singer, even though blues is what made him famous, and who later in his career managed to record songs like the Tin Pan Alley standard "The Glory of Love": [Excerpt: Big Bill Broonzy, "The Glory of Love"] But for the most part, the image we have of the blues comes down to one man, Arthur Laibley, a sales manager for the Wisconsin Chair Company. The Wisconsin Chair Company was, as the name would suggest, a company that started out making wooden chairs, but it had branched out into other forms of wooden furniture -- including, for a brief time, large wooden phonographs. And, like several other manufacturers, like the Radio Corporation of America -- RCA -- and the Gramophone Company, which became EMI, they realised that if they were going to sell the hardware it made sense to sell the software as well, and had started up Paramount Records, which bought up a small label, Black Swan, and soon became the biggest manufacturer of records for the Black market, putting out roughly a quarter of all "race records" released between 1922 and 1932. At first, most of these were produced by a Black talent scout, J. Mayo Williams, who had been the first person to record Ma Rainey, Papa Charlie Jackson, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, but in 1927 Williams left Paramount, and the job of supervising sessions went to Arthur Laibley, though according to some sources a lot of the actual production work was done by Aletha Dickerson, Williams' former assistant, who was almost certainly the first Black woman to be what we would now think of as a record producer. Williams had been interested in recording all kinds of music by Black performers, but when Laibley got a solo Black man into the studio, what he wanted more than anything was for him to record the blues, ideally in a style as close as possible to that of Blind Lemon Jefferson. Laibley didn't have a very hands-on approach to recording -- indeed Paramount had very little concern about the quality of their product anyway, and Paramount's records are notorious for having been put out on poor-quality shellac and recorded badly -- and he only occasionally made actual suggestions as to what kind of songs his performers should write -- for example he asked Son House to write something that sounded like Blind Lemon Jefferson, which led to House writing and recording "Mississippi County Farm Blues", which steals the tune of Jefferson's "See That My Grave is Kept Clean": [Excerpt: Son House, "Mississippi County Farm Blues"] When Skip James wanted to record a cover of James Wiggins' "Forty-Four Blues", Laibley suggested that instead he should do a song about a different gun, and so James recorded "Twenty-Two Twenty Blues": [Excerpt: Skip James, "Twenty-Two Twenty Blues"] And Laibley also suggested that James write a song about the Depression, which led to one of the greatest blues records ever, "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues": [Excerpt: Skip James, "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues"] These musicians knew that they were getting paid only for issued sides, and that Laibley wanted only blues from them, and so that's what they gave him. Even when it was a performer like Charlie Patton. (Incidentally, for those reading this as a transcript rather than listening to it, Patton's name is more usually spelled ending in ey, but as far as I can tell ie was his preferred spelling and that's what I'm using). Charlie Patton was best known as an entertainer, first and foremost -- someone who would do song-and-dance routines, joke around, play guitar behind his head. He was a clown on stage, so much so that when Son House finally heard some of Patton's records, in the mid-sixties, decades after the fact, he was astonished that Patton could actually play well. Even though House had been in the room when some of the records were made, his memory of Patton was of someone who acted the fool on stage. That's definitely not the impression you get from the Charlie Patton on record: [Excerpt: Charlie Patton, "Poor Me"] Patton is, as far as can be discerned, the person who was most influential in creating the music that became called the "Delta blues". Not a lot is known about Patton's life, but he was almost certainly the half-brother of the Chatmon brothers, who made hundreds of records, most notably as members of the Mississippi Sheiks: [Excerpt: The Mississippi Sheiks, "Sitting on Top of the World"] In the 1890s, Patton's family moved to Sunflower County, Mississippi, and he lived in and around that county until his death in 1934. Patton learned to play guitar from a musician called Henry Sloan, and then Patton became a mentor figure to a *lot* of other musicians in and around the plantation on which his family lived. Some of the musicians who grew up in the immediate area around Patton included Tommy Johnson: [Excerpt: Tommy Johnson, "Big Road Blues"] Pops Staples: [Excerpt: The Staple Singers, "Will The Circle Be Unbroken"] Robert Johnson: [Excerpt: Robert Johnson, "Crossroads"] Willie Brown, a musician who didn't record much, but who played a lot with Patton, Son House, and Robert Johnson and who we just heard Johnson sing about: [Excerpt: Willie Brown, "M&O Blues"] And Chester Burnett, who went on to become known as Howlin' Wolf, and whose vocal style was equally inspired by Patton and by the country star Jimmie Rodgers: [Excerpt: Howlin' Wolf, "Smokestack Lightnin'"] Once Patton started his own recording career for Paramount, he also started working as a talent scout for them, and it was him who brought Son House to Paramount. Soon after the Depression hit, Paramount stopped recording, and so from 1930 through 1934 Patton didn't make any records. He was tracked down by an A&R man in January 1934 and recorded one final session: [Excerpt, Charlie Patton, "34 Blues"] But he died of heart failure two months later. But his influence spread through his proteges, and they themselves influenced other musicians from the area who came along a little after, like Robert Lockwood and Muddy Waters. This music -- or that portion of it that was considered worth recording by white record producers, only a tiny, unrepresentative, portion of their vast performing repertoires -- became known as the Delta Blues, and when some of these musicians moved to Chicago and started performing with electric instruments, it became Chicago Blues. And as far as people like John Mayall in Britain were concerned, Delta and Chicago Blues *were* the blues: [Excerpt: John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, "It Ain't Right"] John Mayall was one of the first of the British blues obsessives, and for a long time thought of himself as the only one. While we've looked before at the growth of the London blues scene, Mayall wasn't from London -- he was born in Macclesfield and grew up in Cheadle Hulme, both relatively well-off suburbs of Manchester, and after being conscripted and doing two years in the Army, he had become an art student at Manchester College of Art, what is now Manchester Metropolitan University. Mayall had been a blues fan from the late 1940s, writing off to the US to order records that hadn't been released in the UK, and by most accounts by the late fifties he'd put together the biggest blues collection in Britain by quite some way. Not only that, but he had one of the earliest home tape recorders, and every night he would record radio stations from Continental Europe which were broadcasting for American service personnel, so he'd amassed mountains of recordings, often unlabelled, of obscure blues records that nobody else in the UK knew about. He was also an accomplished pianist and guitar player, and in 1956 he and his drummer friend Peter Ward had put together a band called the Powerhouse Four (the other two members rotated on a regular basis) mostly to play lunchtime jazz sessions at the art college. Mayall also started putting on jam sessions at a youth club in Wythenshawe, where he met another drummer named Hughie Flint. Over the late fifties and into the early sixties, Mayall more or less by himself built up a small blues scene in Manchester. The Manchester blues scene was so enthusiastic, in fact, that when the American Folk Blues Festival, an annual European tour which initially featured Willie Dixon, Memhis Slim, T-Bone Walker, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, and John Lee Hooker, first toured Europe, the only UK date it played was at the Manchester Free Trade Hall, and people like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones and Jimmy Page had to travel up from London to see it. But still, the number of blues fans in Manchester, while proportionally large, was objectively small enough that Mayall was captivated by an article in Melody Maker which talked about Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies' new band Blues Incorporated and how it was playing electric blues, the same music he was making in Manchester. He later talked about how the article had made him think that maybe now people would know what he was talking about. He started travelling down to London to play gigs for the London blues scene, and inviting Korner up to Manchester to play shows there. Soon Mayall had moved down to London. Korner introduced Mayall to Davey Graham, the great folk guitarist, with whom Korner had recently recorded as a duo: [Excerpt: Alexis Korner and Davey Graham, "3/4 AD"] Mayall and Graham performed together as a duo for a while, but Graham was a natural solo artist if ever there was one. Slowly Mayall put a band together in London. On drums was his old friend Peter Ward, who'd moved down from Manchester with him. On bass was John McVie, who at the time knew nothing about blues -- he'd been playing in a Shadows-style instrumental group -- but Mayall gave him a stack of blues records to listen to to get the feeling. And on guitar was Bernie Watson, who had previously played with Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages. In late 1963, Mike Vernon, a blues fan who had previously published a Yardbirds fanzine, got a job working for Decca records, and immediately started signing his favourite acts from the London blues circuit. The first act he signed was John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, and they recorded a single, "Crawling up a Hill": [Excerpt: John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, "Crawling up a Hill (45 version)"] Mayall later called that a "clumsy, half-witted attempt at autobiographical comment", and it sold only five hundred copies. It would be the only record the Bluesbreakers would make with Watson, who soon left the band to be replaced by Roger Dean (not the same Roger Dean who later went on to design prog rock album covers). The second group to be signed by Mike Vernon to Decca was the Graham Bond Organisation. We've talked about the Graham Bond Organisation in passing several times, but not for a while and not in any great detail, so it's worth pulling everything we've said about them so far together and going through it in a little more detail. The Graham Bond Organisation, like the Rolling Stones, grew out of Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated. As we heard in the episode on "I Wanna Be Your Man" a couple of years ago, Blues Incorporated had been started by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies, and at the time we're joining them in 1962 featured a drummer called Charlie Watts, a pianist called Dave Stevens, and saxophone player Dick Heckstall-Smith, as well as frequent guest performers like a singer who called himself Mike Jagger, and another one, Roderick Stewart. That group finally found themselves the perfect bass player when Dick Heckstall-Smith put together a one-off group of jazz players to play an event at Cambridge University. At the gig, a little Scottish man came up to the group and told them he played bass and asked if he could sit in. They told him to bring along his instrument to their second set, that night, and he did actually bring along a double bass. Their bluff having been called, they decided to play the most complicated, difficult, piece they knew in order to throw the kid off -- the drummer, a trad jazz player named Ginger Baker, didn't like performing with random sit-in guests -- but astonishingly he turned out to be really good. Heckstall-Smith took down the bass player's name and phone number and invited him to a jam session with Blues Incorporated. After that jam session, Jack Bruce quickly became the group's full-time bass player. Bruce had started out as a classical cellist, but had switched to the double bass inspired by Bach, who he referred to as "the guv'nor of all bass players". His playing up to this point had mostly been in trad jazz bands, and he knew nothing of the blues, but he quickly got the hang of the genre. Bruce's first show with Blues Incorporated was a BBC recording: [Excerpt: Blues Incorporated, "Hoochie Coochie Man (BBC session)"] According to at least one source it was not being asked to take part in that session that made young Mike Jagger decide there was no future for him with Blues Incorporated and to spend more time with his other group, the Rollin' Stones. Soon after, Charlie Watts would join him, for almost the opposite reason -- Watts didn't want to be in a band that was getting as big as Blues Incorporated were. They were starting to do more BBC sessions and get more gigs, and having to join the Musicians' Union. That seemed like a lot of work. Far better to join a band like the Rollin' Stones that wasn't going anywhere. Because of Watts' decision to give up on potential stardom to become a Rollin' Stone, they needed a new drummer, and luckily the best drummer on the scene was available. But then the best drummer on the scene was *always* available. Ginger Baker had first played with Dick Heckstall-Smith several years earlier, in a trad group called the Storyville Jazzmen. There Baker had become obsessed with the New Orleans jazz drummer Baby Dodds, who had played with Louis Armstrong in the 1920s. Sadly because of 1920s recording technology, he hadn't been able to play a full kit on the recordings with Armstrong, being limited to percussion on just a woodblock, but you can hear his drumming style much better in this version of "At the Jazz Band Ball" from 1947, with Mugsy Spanier, Jack Teagarden, Cyrus St. Clair and Hank Duncan: [Excerpt: "At the Jazz Band Ball"] Baker had taken Dobbs' style and run with it, and had quickly become known as the single best player, bar none, on the London jazz scene -- he'd become an accomplished player in multiple styles, and was also fluent in reading music and arranging. He'd also, though, become known as the single person on the entire scene who was most difficult to get along with. He resigned from his first band onstage, shouting "You can stick your band up your arse", after the band's leader had had enough of him incorporating bebop influences into their trad style. Another time, when touring with Diz Disley's band, he was dumped in Germany with no money and no way to get home, because the band were so sick of him. Sometimes this was because of his temper and his unwillingness to suffer fools -- and he saw everyone else he ever met as a fool -- and sometimes it was because of his own rigorous musical ideas. He wanted to play music *his* way, and wouldn't listen to anyone who told him different. Both of these things got worse after he fell under the influence of a man named Phil Seaman, one of the only drummers that Baker respected at all. Seaman introduced Baker to African drumming, and Baker started incorporating complex polyrhythms into his playing as a result. Seaman also though introduced Baker to heroin, and while being a heroin addict in the UK in the 1960s was not as difficult as it later became -- both heroin and cocaine were available on prescription to registered addicts, and Baker got both, which meant that many of the problems that come from criminalisation of these drugs didn't affect addicts in the same way -- but it still did not, by all accounts, make him an easier person to get along with. But he *was* a fantastic drummer. As Dick Heckstall-Smith said "With the advent of Ginger, the classic Blues Incorporated line-up, one which I think could not be bettered, was set" But Alexis Korner decided that the group could be bettered, and he had some backers within the band. One of the other bands on the scene was the Don Rendell Quintet, a group that played soul jazz -- that style of jazz that bridged modern jazz and R&B, the kind of music that Ray Charles and Herbie Hancock played: [Excerpt: The Don Rendell Quintet, "Manumission"] The Don Rendell Quintet included a fantastic multi-instrumentalist, Graham Bond, who doubled on keyboards and saxophone, and Bond had been playing occasional experimental gigs with the Johnny Burch Octet -- a group led by another member of the Rendell Quartet featuring Heckstall-Smith, Bruce, Baker, and a few other musicians, doing wholly-improvised music. Heckstall-Smith, Bruce, and Baker all enjoyed playing with Bond, and when Korner decided to bring him into the band, they were all very keen. But Cyril Davies, the co-leader of the band with Korner, was furious at the idea. Davies wanted to play strict Chicago and Delta blues, and had no truck with other forms of music like R&B and jazz. To his mind it was bad enough that they had a sax player. But the idea that they would bring in Bond, who played sax and... *Hammond* organ? Well, that was practically blasphemy. Davies quit the group at the mere suggestion. Bond was soon in the band, and he, Bruce, and Baker were playing together a *lot*. As well as performing with Blues Incorporated, they continued playing in the Johnny Burch Octet, and they also started performing as the Graham Bond Trio. Sometimes the Graham Bond Trio would be Blues Incorporated's opening act, and on more than one occasion the Graham Bond Trio, Blues Incorporated, and the Johnny Burch Octet all had gigs in different parts of London on the same night and they'd have to frantically get from one to the other. The Graham Bond Trio also had fans in Manchester, thanks to the local blues scene there and their connection with Blues Incorporated, and one night in February 1963 the trio played a gig there. They realised afterwards that by playing as a trio they'd made £70, when they were lucky to make £20 from a gig with Blues Incorporated or the Octet, because there were so many members in those bands. Bond wanted to make real money, and at the next rehearsal of Blues Incorporated he announced to Korner that he, Bruce, and Baker were quitting the band -- which was news to Bruce and Baker, who he hadn't bothered consulting. Baker, indeed, was in the toilet when the announcement was made and came out to find it a done deal. He was going to kick up a fuss and say he hadn't been consulted, but Korner's reaction sealed the deal. As Baker later said "‘he said “it's really good you're doing this thing with Graham, and I wish you the best of luck” and all that. And it was a bit difficult to turn round and say, “Well, I don't really want to leave the band, you know.”'" The Graham Bond Trio struggled at first to get the gigs they were expecting, but that started to change when in April 1963 they became the Graham Bond Quartet, with the addition of virtuoso guitarist John McLaughlin. The Quartet soon became one of the hottest bands on the London R&B scene, and when Duffy Power, a Larry Parnes teen idol who wanted to move into R&B, asked his record label to get him a good R&B band to back him on a Beatles cover, it was the Graham Bond Quartet who obliged: [Excerpt: Duffy Power, "I Saw Her Standing There"] The Quartet also backed Power on a package tour with other Parnes acts, but they were also still performing their own blend of hard jazz and blues, as can be heard in this recording of the group live in June 1953: [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Quartet, "Ho Ho Country Kicking Blues (Live at Klooks Kleek)"] But that lineup of the group didn't last very long. According to the way Baker told the story, he fired McLaughlin from the group, after being irritated by McLaughlin complaining about something on a day when Baker was out of cocaine and in no mood to hear anyone else's complaints. As Baker said "We lost a great guitar player and I lost a good friend." But the Trio soon became a Quartet again, as Dick Heckstall-Smith, who Baker had wanted in the band from the start, joined on saxophone to replace McLaughlin's guitar. But they were no longer called the Graham Bond Quartet. Partly because Heckstall-Smith joining allowed Bond to concentrate just on his keyboard playing, but one suspects partly to protect against any future lineup changes, the group were now The Graham Bond ORGANisation -- emphasis on the organ. The new lineup of the group got signed to Decca by Vernon, and were soon recording their first single, "Long Tall Shorty": [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Long Tall Shorty"] They recorded a few other songs which made their way onto an EP and an R&B compilation, and toured intensively in early 1964, as well as backing up Power on his follow-up to "I Saw Her Standing There", his version of "Parchman Farm": [Excerpt: Duffy Power, "Parchman Farm"] They also appeared in a film, just like the Beatles, though it was possibly not quite as artistically successful as "A Hard Day's Night": [Excerpt: Gonks Go Beat trailer] Gonks Go Beat is one of the most bizarre films of the sixties. It's a far-future remake of Romeo and Juliet. where the two star-crossed lovers are from opposing countries -- Beatland and Ballad Isle -- who only communicate once a year in an annual song contest which acts as their version of a war, and is overseen by "Mr. A&R", played by Frank Thornton, who would later star in Are You Being Served? Carry On star Kenneth Connor is sent by aliens to try to bring peace to the two warring countries, on pain of exile to Planet Gonk, a planet inhabited solely by Gonks (a kind of novelty toy for which there was a short-lived craze then). Along the way Connor encounters such luminaries of British light entertainment as Terry Scott and Arthur Mullard, as well as musical performances by Lulu, the Nashville Teens, and of course the Graham Bond Organisation, whose performance gets them a telling-off from a teacher: [Excerpt: Gonks Go Beat!] The group as a group only performed one song in this cinematic masterpiece, but Baker also made an appearance in a "drum battle" sequence where eight drummers played together: [Excerpt: Gonks Go Beat drum battle] The other drummers in that scene included, as well as some lesser-known players, Andy White who had played on the single version of "Love Me Do", Bobby Graham, who played on hits by the Kinks and the Dave Clark Five, and Ronnie Verrell, who did the drumming for Animal in the Muppet Show. Also in summer 1964, the group performed at the Fourth National Jazz & Blues Festival in Richmond -- the festival co-founded by Chris Barber that would evolve into the Reading Festival. The Yardbirds were on the bill, and at the end of their set they invited Bond, Baker, Bruce, Georgie Fame, and Mike Vernon onto the stage with them, making that the first time that Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Jack Bruce were all on stage together. Soon after that, the Graham Bond Organisation got a new manager, Robert Stigwood. Things hadn't been working out for them at Decca, and Stigwood soon got the group signed to EMI, and became their producer as well. Their first single under Stigwood's management was a cover version of the theme tune to the Debbie Reynolds film "Tammy". While that film had given Tamla records its name, the song was hardly an R&B classic: [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Tammy"] That record didn't chart, but Stigwood put the group out on the road as part of the disastrous Chuck Berry tour we heard about in the episode on "All You Need is Love", which led to the bankruptcy of  Robert Stigwood Associates. The Organisation moved over to Stigwood's new company, the Robert Stigwood Organisation, and Stigwood continued to be the credited producer of their records, though after the "Tammy" disaster they decided they were going to take charge themselves of the actual music. Their first album, The Sound of 65, was recorded in a single three-hour session, and they mostly ran through their standard set -- a mixture of the same songs everyone else on the circuit was playing, like "Hoochie Coochie Man", "Got My Mojo Working", and "Wade in the Water", and originals like Bruce's "Train Time": [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Train Time"] Through 1965 they kept working. They released a non-album single, "Lease on Love", which is generally considered to be the first pop record to feature a Mellotron: [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Lease on Love"] and Bond and Baker also backed another Stigwood act, Winston G, on his debut single: [Excerpt: Winston G, "Please Don't Say"] But the group were developing severe tensions. Bruce and Baker had started out friendly, but by this time they hated each other. Bruce said he couldn't hear his own playing over Baker's loud drumming, Baker thought that Bruce was far too fussy a player and should try to play simpler lines. They'd both try to throw each other during performances, altering arrangements on the fly and playing things that would trip the other player up. And *neither* of them were particularly keen on Bond's new love of the Mellotron, which was all over their second album, giving it a distinctly proto-prog feel at times: [Excerpt: The Graham Bond Organisation, "Baby Can it Be True?"] Eventually at a gig in Golders Green, Baker started throwing drumsticks at Bruce's head while Bruce was trying to play a bass solo. Bruce retaliated by throwing his bass at Baker, and then jumping on him and starting a fistfight which had to be broken up by the venue security. Baker fired Bruce from the band, but Bruce kept turning up to gigs anyway, arguing that Baker had no right to sack him as it was a democracy. Baker always claimed that in fact Bond had wanted to sack Bruce but hadn't wanted to get his hands dirty, and insisted that Baker do it, but neither Bond nor Heckstall-Smith objected when Bruce turned up for the next couple of gigs. So Baker took matters into his own hands, He pulled out a knife and told Bruce "If you show up at one more gig, this is going in you." Within days, Bruce was playing with John Mayall, whose Bluesbreakers had gone through some lineup changes by this point. Roger Dean had only played with the Bluesbreakers for a short time before Mayall had replaced him. Mayall had not been impressed with Eric Clapton's playing with the Yardbirds at first -- even though graffiti saying "Clapton is God" was already starting to appear around London -- but he had been *very* impressed with Clapton's playing on "Got to Hurry", the B-side to "For Your Love": [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, "Got to Hurry"] When he discovered that Clapton had quit the band, he sprang into action and quickly recruited him to replace Dean. Clapton knew he had made the right choice when a month after he'd joined, the group got the word that Bob Dylan had been so impressed with Mayall's single "Crawling up a Hill" -- the one that nobody liked, not even Mayall himself -- that he wanted to jam with Mayall and his band in the studio. Clapton of course went along: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan and the Bluesbreakers, "If You Gotta Go, Go Now"] That was, of course, the session we've talked about in the Velvet Underground episode and elsewhere of which little other than that survives, and which Nico attended. At this point, Mayall didn't have a record contract, his experience recording with Mike Vernon having been no more successful than the Bond group's had been. But soon he got a one-off deal -- as a solo artist, not with the Bluesbreakers -- with Immediate Records. Clapton was the only member of the group to play on the single, which was produced by Immediate's house producer Jimmy Page: [Excerpt: John Mayall, "I'm Your Witchdoctor"] Page was impressed enough with Clapton's playing that he invited him round to Page's house to jam together. But what Clapton didn't know was that Page was taping their jam sessions, and that he handed those tapes over to Immediate Records -- whether he was forced to by his contract with the label or whether that had been his plan all along depends on whose story you believe, but Clapton never truly forgave him. Page and Clapton's guitar-only jams had overdubs by Bill Wyman, Ian Stewart, and drummer Chris Winter, and have been endlessly repackaged on blues compilations ever since: [Excerpt: Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, "Draggin' My Tail"] But Mayall was having problems with John McVie, who had started to drink too much, and as soon as he found out that Jack Bruce was sacked by the Graham Bond Organisation, Mayall got in touch with Bruce and got him to join the band in McVie's place. Everyone was agreed that this lineup of the band -- Mayall, Clapton, Bruce, and Hughie Flint -- was going places: [Excerpt: John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Jack Bruce, "Hoochie Coochie Man"] Unfortunately, it wasn't going to last long. Clapton, while he thought that Bruce was the greatest bass player he'd ever worked with, had other plans. He was going to leave the country and travel the world as a peripatetic busker. He was off on his travels, never to return. Luckily, Mayall had someone even better waiting in the wings. A young man had, according to Mayall, "kept coming down to all the gigs and saying, “Hey, what are you doing with him?” – referring to whichever guitarist was onstage that night – “I'm much better than he is. Why don't you let me play guitar for you?” He got really quite nasty about it, so finally, I let him sit in. And he was brilliant." Peter Green was probably the best blues guitarist in London at that time, but this lineup of the Bluesbreakers only lasted a handful of gigs -- Clapton discovered that busking in Greece wasn't as much fun as being called God in London, and came back very soon after he'd left. Mayall had told him that he could have his old job back when he got back, and so Green was out and Clapton was back in. And soon the Bluesbreakers' revolving door revolved again. Manfred Mann had just had a big hit with "If You Gotta Go, Go Now", the same song we heard Dylan playing earlier: [Excerpt: Manfred Mann, "If You Gotta Go, Go Now"] But their guitarist, Mike Vickers, had quit. Tom McGuinness, their bass player, had taken the opportunity to switch back to guitar -- the instrument he'd played in his first band with his friend Eric Clapton -- but that left them short a bass player. Manfred Mann were essentially the same kind of band as the Graham Bond Organisation -- a Hammond-led group of virtuoso multi-instrumentalists who played everything from hardcore Delta blues to complex modern jazz -- but unlike the Bond group they also had a string of massive pop hits, and so made a lot more money. The combination was irresistible to Bruce, and he joined the band just before they recorded an EP of jazz instrumental versions of recent hits: [Excerpt: Manfred Mann, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"] Bruce had also been encouraged by Robert Stigwood to do a solo project, and so at the same time as he joined Manfred Mann, he also put out a solo single, "Drinkin' and Gamblin'" [Excerpt: Jack Bruce, "Drinkin' and Gamblin'"] But of course, the reason Bruce had joined Manfred Mann was that they were having pop hits as well as playing jazz, and soon they did just that, with Bruce playing on their number one hit "Pretty Flamingo": [Excerpt: Manfred Mann, "Pretty Flamingo"] So John McVie was back in the Bluesbreakers, promising to keep his drinking under control. Mike Vernon still thought that Mayall had potential, but the people at Decca didn't agree, so Vernon got Mayall and Clapton -- but not the other band members -- to record a single for a small indie label he ran as a side project: [Excerpt: John Mayall and Eric Clapton, "Bernard Jenkins"] That label normally only released records in print runs of ninety-nine copies, because once you hit a hundred copies you had to pay tax on them, but there was so much demand for that single that they ended up pressing up five hundred copies, making it the label's biggest seller ever. Vernon eventually convinced the heads at Decca that the Bluesbreakers could be truly big, and so he got the OK to record the album that would generally be considered the greatest British blues album of all time -- Blues Breakers, also known as the Beano album because of Clapton reading a copy of the British kids' comic The Beano in the group photo on the front. [Excerpt: John Mayall with Eric Clapton, "Ramblin' On My Mind"] The album was a mixture of originals by Mayall and the standard repertoire of every blues or R&B band on the circuit -- songs like "Parchman Farm" and "What'd I Say" -- but what made the album unique was Clapton's guitar tone. Much to the chagrin of Vernon, and of engineer Gus Dudgeon, Clapton insisted on playing at the same volume that he would on stage. Vernon later said of Dudgeon "I can remember seeing his face the very first time Clapton plugged into the Marshall stack and turned it up and started playing at the sort of volume he was going to play. You could almost see Gus's eyes meet over the middle of his nose, and it was almost like he was just going to fall over from the sheer power of it all. But after an enormous amount of fiddling around and moving amps around, we got a sound that worked." [Excerpt: John Mayall with Eric Clapton, "Hideaway"] But by the time the album cane out. Clapton was no longer with the Bluesbreakers. The Graham Bond Organisation had struggled on for a while after Bruce's departure. They brought in a trumpet player, Mike Falana, and even had a hit record -- or at least, the B-side of a hit record. The Who had just put out a hit single, "Substitute", on Robert Stigwood's record label, Reaction: [Excerpt: The Who, "Substitute"] But, as you'll hear in episode 183, they had moved to Reaction Records after a falling out with their previous label, and with Shel Talmy their previous producer. The problem was, when "Substitute" was released, it had as its B-side a song called "Circles" (also known as "Instant Party -- it's been released under both names). They'd recorded an earlier version of the song for Talmy, and just as "Substitute" was starting to chart, Talmy got an injunction against the record and it had to be pulled. Reaction couldn't afford to lose the big hit record they'd spent money promoting, so they needed to put it out with a new B-side. But the Who hadn't got any unreleased recordings. But the Graham Bond Organisation had, and indeed they had an unreleased *instrumental*. So "Waltz For a Pig" became the B-side to a top-five single, credited to The Who Orchestra: [Excerpt: The Who Orchestra, "Waltz For a Pig"] That record provided the catalyst for the formation of Cream, because Ginger Baker had written the song, and got £1,350 for it, which he used to buy a new car. Baker had, for some time, been wanting to get out of the Graham Bond Organisation. He was trying to get off heroin -- though he would make many efforts to get clean over the decades, with little success -- while Bond was starting to use it far more heavily, and was also using acid and getting heavily into mysticism, which Baker despised. Baker may have had the idea for what he did next from an article in one of the music papers. John Entwistle of the Who would often tell a story about an article in Melody Maker -- though I've not been able to track down the article itself to get the full details -- in which musicians were asked to name which of their peers they'd put into a "super-group". He didn't remember the full details, but he did remember that the consensus choice had had Eric Clapton on lead guitar, himself on bass, and Ginger Baker on drums. As he said later "I don't remember who else was voted in, but a few months later, the Cream came along, and I did wonder if somebody was maybe believing too much of their own press". Incidentally, like The Buffalo Springfield and The Pink Floyd, Cream, the band we are about to meet, had releases both with and without the definite article, and Eric Clapton at least seems always to talk about them as "the Cream" even decades later, but they're primarily known as just Cream these days. Baker, having had enough of the Bond group, decided to drive up to Oxford to see Clapton playing with the Bluesbreakers. Clapton invited him to sit in for a couple of songs, and by all accounts the band sounded far better than they had previously. Clapton and Baker could obviously play well together, and Baker offered Clapton a lift back to London in his new car, and on the drive back asked Clapton if he wanted to form a new band. Clapton was as impressed by Baker's financial skills as he was by his musicianship. He said later "Musicians didn't have cars. You all got in a van." Clearly a musician who was *actually driving a new car he owned* was going places. He agreed to Baker's plan. But of course they needed a bass player, and Clapton thought he had the perfect solution -- "What about Jack?" Clapton knew that Bruce had been a member of the Graham Bond Organisation, but didn't know why he'd left the band -- he wasn't particularly clued in to what the wider music scene was doing, and all he knew was that Bruce had played with both him and Baker, and that he was the best bass player he'd ever played with. And Bruce *was* arguably the best bass player in London at that point, and he was starting to pick up session work as well as his work with Manfred Mann. For example it's him playing on the theme tune to "After The Fox" with Peter Sellers, the Hollies, and the song's composer Burt Bacharach: [Excerpt: The Hollies with Peter Sellers, "After the Fox"] Clapton was insistent. Baker's idea was that the band should be the best musicians around. That meant they needed the *best* musicians around, not the second best. If Jack Bruce wasn't joining, Eric Clapton wasn't joining either. Baker very reluctantly agreed, and went round to see Bruce the next day -- according to Baker it was in a spirit of generosity and giving Bruce one more chance, while according to Bruce he came round to eat humble pie and beg for forgiveness. Either way, Bruce agreed to join the band. The three met up for a rehearsal at Baker's home, and immediately Bruce and Baker started fighting, but also immediately they realised that they were great at playing together -- so great that they named themselves the Cream, as they were the cream of musicians on the scene. They knew they had something, but they didn't know what. At first they considered making their performances into Dada projects, inspired by the early-twentieth-century art movement. They liked a band that had just started to make waves, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band -- who had originally been called the Bonzo Dog Dada Band -- and they bought some props with the vague idea of using them on stage in the same way the Bonzos did. But as they played together they realised that they needed to do something different from that. At first, they thought they needed a fourth member -- a keyboard player. Graham Bond's name was brought up, but Clapton vetoed him. Clapton wanted Steve Winwood, the keyboard player and vocalist with the Spencer Davis Group. Indeed, Winwood was present at what was originally intended to be the first recording session the trio would play. Joe Boyd had asked Eric Clapton to round up a bunch of players to record some filler tracks for an Elektra blues compilation, and Clapton had asked Bruce and Baker to join him, Paul Jones on vocals, Winwood on Hammond and Clapton's friend Ben Palmer on piano for the session. Indeed, given that none of the original trio were keen on singing, that Paul Jones was just about to leave Manfred Mann, and that we know Clapton wanted Winwood in the band, one has to wonder if Clapton at least half-intended for this to be the eventual lineup of the band. If he did, that plan was foiled by Baker's refusal to take part in the session. Instead, this one-off band, named The Powerhouse, featured Pete York, the drummer from the Spencer Davis Group, on the session, which produced the first recording of Clapton playing on the Robert Johnson song originally titled "Cross Road Blues" but now generally better known just as "Crossroads": [Excerpt: The Powerhouse, "Crossroads"] We talked about Robert Johnson a little back in episode ninety-seven, but other than Bob Dylan, who was inspired by his lyrics, we had seen very little influence from Johnson up to this point, but he's going to be a major influence on rock guitar for the next few years, so we should talk about him a little here. It's often said that nobody knew anything about Robert Johnson, that he was almost a phantom other than his records which existed outside of any context as artefacts of their own. That's... not really the case. Johnson had died a little less than thirty years earlier, at only twenty-seven years old. Most of his half-siblings and step-siblings were alive, as were his son, his stepson, and dozens of musicians he'd played with over the years, women he'd had affairs with, and other assorted friends and relatives. What people mean is that information about Johnson's life was not yet known by people they consider important -- which is to say white blues scholars and musicians. Indeed, almost everything people like that -- people like *me* -- know of the facts of Johnson's life has only become known to us in the last four years. If, as some people had expected, I'd started this series with an episode on Johnson, I'd have had to redo the whole thing because of the information that's made its way to the public since then. But here's what was known -- or thought -- by white blues scholars in 1966. Johnson was, according to them, a field hand from somewhere in Mississippi, who played the guitar in between working on the cotton fields. He had done two recording sessions, in 1936 and 1937. One song from his first session, "Terraplane Blues", had been a very minor hit by blues standards: [Excerpt: Robert Johnson, "Terraplane Blues"] That had sold well -- nobody knows how well, but maybe as many as ten thousand copies, and it was certainly a record people knew in 1937 if they liked the Delta blues, but ten thousand copies total is nowhere near the sales of really successful records, and none of the follow-ups had sold anything like that much -- many of them had sold in the hundreds rather than the thousands. As Elijah Wald, one of Johnson's biographers put it "knowing about Johnson and Muddy Waters but not about Leroy Carr or Dinah Washington was like knowing about, say, the Sir Douglas Quintet but not knowing about the Beatles" -- though *I* would add that the Sir Douglas Quintet were much bigger during the sixties than Johnson was during his lifetime. One of the few white people who had noticed Johnson's existence at all was John Hammond, and he'd written a brief review of Johnson's first two singles under a pseudonym in a Communist newspaper. I'm going to quote it here, but the word he used to talk about Black people was considered correct then but isn't now, so I'll substitute Black for that word: "Before closing we cannot help but call your attention to the greatest [Black] blues singer who has cropped up in recent years, Robert Johnson. Recording them in deepest Mississippi, Vocalion has certainly done right by us and by the tunes "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" and "Terraplane Blues", to name only two of the four sides already released, sung to his own guitar accompaniment. Johnson makes Leadbelly sound like an accomplished poseur" Hammond had tried to get Johnson to perform at the Spirituals to Swing concerts we talked about in the very first episodes of the podcast, but he'd discovered that he'd died shortly before. He got Big Bill Broonzy instead, and played a couple of Johnson's records from a record player on the stage. Hammond introduced those recordings with a speech: "It is tragic that an American audience could not have been found seven or eight years ago for a concert of this kind. Bessie Smith was still at the height of her career and Joe Smith, probably the greatest trumpet player America ever knew, would still have been around to play obbligatos for her...dozens of other artists could have been there in the flesh. But that audience as well as this one would not have been able to hear Robert Johnson sing and play the blues on his guitar, for at that time Johnson was just an unknown hand on a Robinsonville, Mississippi plantation. Robert Johnson was going to be the big surprise of the evening for this audience at Carnegie Hall. I know him only from his Vocalion blues records and from the tall, exciting tales the recording engineers and supervisors used to bring about him from the improvised studios in Dallas and San Antonio. I don't believe Johnson had ever worked as a professional musician anywhere, and it still knocks me over when I think of how lucky it is that a talent like his ever found its way onto phonograph records. We will have to be content with playing two of his records, the old "Walkin' Blues" and the new, unreleased, "Preachin' Blues", because Robert Johnson died last week at the precise moment when Vocalion scouts finally reached him and told him that he was booked to appear at Carnegie Hall on December 23. He was in his middle twenties and nobody seems to know what caused his death." And that was, for the most part, the end of Robert Johnson's impact on the culture for a generation. The Lomaxes went down to Clarksdale, Mississippi a couple of years later -- reports vary as to whether this was to see if they could find Johnson, who they were unaware was dead, or to find information out about him, and they did end up recording a young singer named Muddy Waters for the Library of Congress, including Waters' rendition of "32-20 Blues", Johnson's reworking of Skip James' "Twenty-Two Twenty Blues": [Excerpt: Muddy Waters, "32-20 Blues"] But Johnson's records remained unavailable after their initial release until 1959, when the blues scholar Samuel Charters published the book The Country Blues, which was the first book-length treatment ever of Delta blues. Sixteen years later Charters said "I shouldn't have written The Country Blues when I did; since I really didn't know enough, but I felt I couldn't afford to wait. So The Country Blues was two things. It was a romanticization of certain aspects of black life in an effort to force the white society to reconsider some of its racial attitudes, and on the other hand it was a cry for help. I wanted hundreds of people to go out and interview the surviving blues artists. I wanted people to record them and document their lives, their environment, and their music, not only so that their story would be preserved but also so they'd get a little money and a little recognition in their last years." Charters talked about Johnson in the book, as one of the performers who played "minor roles in the story of the blues", and said that almost nothing was known about his life. He talked about how he had been poisoned by his common-law wife, about how his records were recorded in a pool hall, and said "The finest of Robert Johnson's blues have a brooding sense of torment and despair. The blues has become a personified figure of despondency." Along with Charters' book came a compilation album of the same name, and that included the first ever reissue of one of Johnson's tracks, "Preaching Blues": [Excerpt: Robert Johnson, "Preaching Blues"] Two years later, John Hammond, who had remained an ardent fan of Johnson, had Columbia put out the King of the Delta Blues Singers album. At the time no white blues scholars knew what Johnson looked like and they had no photos of him, so a generic painting of a poor-looking Black man with a guitar was used for the cover. The liner note to King of the Delta Blues Singers talked about how Johnson was seventeen or eighteen when he made his recordings, how he was "dead before he reached his twenty-first birthday, poisoned by a jealous girlfriend", how he had "seldom, if ever, been away from the plantation in Robinsville, Mississippi, where he was born and raised", and how he had had such stage fright that when he was asked to play in front of other musicians, he'd turned to face a wall so he couldn't see them. And that would be all that any of the members of the Powerhouse would know about Johnson. Maybe they'd also heard the rumours that were starting to spread that Johnson had got his guitar-playing skills by selling his soul to the devil at a crossroads at midnight, but that would have been all they knew when they recorded their filler track for Elektra: [Excerpt: The Powerhouse, "Crossroads"] Either way, the Powerhouse lineup only lasted for that one session -- the group eventually decided that a simple trio would be best for the music they wanted to play. Clapton had seen Buddy Guy touring with just a bass player and drummer a year earlier, and had liked the idea of the freedom that gave him as a guitarist. The group soon took on Robert Stigwood as a manager, which caused more arguments between Bruce and Baker. Bruce was convinced that if they were doing an all-for-one one-for-all thing they should also manage themselves, but Baker pointed out that that was a daft idea when they could get one of the biggest managers in the country to look after them. A bigger argument, which almost killed the group before it started, happened when Baker told journalist Chris Welch of the Melody Maker about their plans. In an echo of the way that he and Bruce had been resigned from Blues Incorporated without being consulted, now with no discussion Manfred Mann and John Mayall were reading in the papers that their band members were quitting before those members had bothered to mention it. Mayall was furious, especially since the album Clapton had played on hadn't yet come out. Clapton was supposed to work a month's notice while Mayall found another guitarist, but Mayall spent two weeks begging Peter Green to rejoin the band. Green was less than eager -- after all, he'd been fired pretty much straight away earlier -- but Mayall eventually persuaded him. The second he did, Mayall turned round to Clapton and told him he didn't have to work the rest of his notice -- he'd found another guitar player and Clapton was fired: [Excerpt: John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, "Dust My Blues"] Manfred Mann meanwhile took on the Beatles' friend Klaus Voorman to replace Bruce. Voorman would remain with the band until the end, and like Green was for Mayall, Voorman was in some ways a better fit for Manfred Mann than Bruce was. In particular he could double on flute, as he did for example on their hit version of Bob Dylan's "The Mighty Quinn": [Excerpt: Manfred Mann "The Mighty Quinn"] The new group, The Cream, were of course signed in the UK to Stigwood's Reaction label. Other than the Who, who only stuck around for one album, Reaction was not a very successful label. Its biggest signing was a former keyboard player for Screaming Lord Sutch, who recorded for them under the names Paul Dean and Oscar, but who later became known as Paul Nicholas and had a successful career in musical theatre and sitcom. Nicholas never had any hits for Reaction, but he did release one interesting record, in 1967: [Excerpt: Oscar, "Over the Wall We Go"] That was one of the earliest songwriting attempts by a young man who had recently named himself David Bowie. Now the group were public, they started inviting journalists to their rehearsals, which were mostly spent trying to combine their disparate musical influences --