Podcast appearances and mentions of John Sebastian

In 1964, Lorey Kaye, a twenty-year-old from New Haven, CT, moved to Manhattan to start a new life in the big city. Lorey was a fresh-faced, dark-haired hippie, who attracted attention as much for her headstrong, determined, street smart attitude as for her striking good looks. She was hired as a waitress in a new nightclub that had just opened in Times Square – called Steve Paul’s ‘The Scene'. The club was an immediate hit with gigs by the likes of BB King, Jimi Hendrix, and Sammy Davis Jr., regular visitors like Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick – and Lorey was at the heart of the action. Another group, The Lovin’ Spoonful, also played there regularly, and their lead singer, John Sebastian, took a shine to her. John and Lorey started seeing each other, and Lorey became his muse, inspiring him to compose a number of the group's hit singles about her, such as ‘She's A Lady' and ‘Rain on the Roof', even mentioning her by name in some of the lyrics. Lorey and John Sebastian (1967) They got hitched in 1966 – by then Lorey had started work as an insider gossip columnist at Hit Parade magazine – and now known as Lorey Sebastian, she became a popular staple in the 1960s Greenwich Village folk-rock music scene. Lorey and John's relationship was glamorous, high-profile, and short-lived. Lorey broke up with John in 1968 when they were in Ireland. The legend is that she fell in with a group of gypsies, and felt compelled to tune in, drop out, and join them instead. It was said that John never fully recovered from the breakup. Lorey (right), with John Sebastian and Mama Cass (1967) Fast forward to the mid 1970s. Lorey was back in New York, now in her mid 30s and looking for a purpose. She'd become a member of the television and film workers union, with the vague ambition of being a still photographer on movie sets. To make a little extra money, she also did work as a crew member on sex films. It was on a Gerry Damiano movie that she met Jamie Gillis. Jamie sidled up to her, pushing her in the back, and exclaiming, “What a place to bump into a girl like you!” It was corny but it worked, and Lorey invited him back to her place. The mutual attraction was instant and sexual – but, for Jamie, there was something more this time. For a confirmed promiscuous bachelor, Jamie confided to friends that, whisper it quietly, Lorey might actually be the one. He spent time with her, encouraged her photography ambitions, taking her to exhibitions and galleries, and was tickled that one of his favorite songs, The Lovin’ Spoonful's ‘Daydream,' had been written for her. Not to suggest that Jamie's relationship with New York magazine's Insatiable Critic, Gael Greene, was over. Far from it. Even if the novelty of Jamie and Gael's physical and emotional relationship had subsided, they were still intent on documenting their lives, in and out of bed, for a proposed joint-autobiographical book. They continued to go the city's restaurants, cultural events, and glamorous parties, while Jamie spent his in-between time wrestling with whether he wanted an acting career, playing poker, going to the occasional audition, and making semi-regular starring appearances in adult films. In short, Jamie wanted to pursue Lorey, but not give up the affair with Gael. This is Part 2 of the story of Jamie Gillis and Gael Greene in 1978. Jamie This podcast is 49 minutes long. Listen to Part 1 of The Porn Star and the Foodie: Jamie Gillis & Gael Greene in 1978 here. * The post The Porn Star and the Foodie: Jamie Gillis & Gael Greene in 1978 Part 2, Lorey Sebastian – Podcast 159 appeared first on The Rialto Report.

Tony Orlando centers today's program on the profound value of friendship. Through a carefully curated selection of iconic songs by artists like the Beatles, Queen, and Bill Withers, Orlando explores how music serves as a universal language of support and connection. A structural highlight of the show is an intimate interview with John Sebastian, where the two veterans discuss the craft of songwriting and the vibrant New York folk scene of the 1960s.

Tim’s officially going back to nights — 6–10pm starting Tuesday, Feb. 17 — and we celebrate the return the right way with the original “Welcome Back, Kotter” theme performed by John Sebastian. BREAKING: In the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie (south of Tucson), authorities say a person of interest has been detained for questioning — early reports are still developing, and officials have not fully confirmed details publicly. Even more breaking: the FBI releases chilling images/video of a masked individual appearing to tamper with the door camera the night Nancy vanished — and investigators say the footage was recovered from previously inaccessible “back-end” data with help from private-sector partners. Developing updates on the detention, what the newly released images show, and what comes next as the investigation intensifies See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This playlist is 72% vinyl friendly. Not bad. The SL-1300G in 2025. Technics keeping it simple with the design, if not with the spec trying to convince punters they need one. ‘Coreless Direct Drive Motor Achieving Stable Rotation The use of a coreless direct-drive motor with no iron core eliminates uneven rotation of the turntable known as cogging. Also, the twin-rotor construction reduces the bearing load while maintaining high torque and reduces minute vibrations during rotation. Furthermore, the SL-1300G's motor was redesigned to eliminate subtle vibrations that could affect sound quality. To improve rigidity, the same reinforcement pattern as the Reference Class SL-1000R/SP-10R was used for the coil mounting base‘. Any track marked * has been given either a tiny or a slightly larger 41 Rooms tweak/edit/chop and the occasional tune might sound a bit dodgy, quality-wise. On top of that, the switch between different decades and production values never helps in the mix here. NB: THIS PLAYLIST INCLUDES EXPLETIVES. Lyric of Playlist 148 For the reality… Courtesy of Crooked Man, Jarvis’ by a country mile, but… For the idyll…John Sebastian. 00.00 (Intro) THE FLAMINGOS – Stars (Edit) – Unreleased demo – 1983. Episode #1 for info. 00.41 NEW ORDER – Turn – Waiting For The Sirens’ Call, 2LP – London – 2005 With Barney’s lilting, slightly forlorn vocal, a little gem nearly lost on one of the band’s least successful albums. 05.02 LITTLE NEMO – A Day Out Of Time – Past And Future, LP – Domestica – 2013 Though the track originally surfaced in 1987 on the 500 run, cassette-only format of the (debut) album. Even back then it could have been seen as yet another ‘sound’ out of Europe that seemed to echo the UK alternative/new wave scene of a few years earlier. 08.48 KIM GORDON – Not Today – Play Me, LP – Matador – 2026 Get past the intro – where it very momentarily sounds (to my ears anyway) like the batteries ran out – and Kim Gordon drifts nicely across the wash of sound. 12.03 THE COMSAT ANGELS – The Eye Dance – Sleep No More, LP – Polydor – 1981 Judging by a known set list for late Nov ’81 and the fact the band were then promoting the recently released, above album, this track was likely in the set list for my Bedford Corn Exchange gig promotion earlier that month. Big smiles when I hear them… though I’ve sadly never heard a tape of the Bedford night. 15.40 BUNNYDRUMS – Holy Moly – Holy Moly, LP – Fundamental – 1984 The short-lived, mid ’80s Philadelphian band with a quirky mix of ‘new wave’ vocal and a belting soul vocal bv in the backdrop of a low slung, punk country’ish workout. Maybe it’s the ‘yippee-ki-yay’ and pseudo peddle steel guitar? The band have been here before – and will be again. 21.30 COSTUME – Once I Loved (Original Mix) – Download only – 2021 Claudia Placanica’s slightly disconcerting delivery is always the thing for me! 23.54 THE IRONSIDES – The Web – Changing Light, LP – Colemine – 2023 Cinematically soundtracking the ’70s like a good’un! The Streets of San Francisco and its like… which is apt… as that’s where The Ironsides are from. 28.57 BABY ROSE – Go – Through and Through, LP – Secretly Canadian – 2023 My fave 21st century track of the show, Jasmine Rose Wilson (to her mum and dad) with a quivering indie soul vocal – on this tune anyway – that Anonhi/Antony and the Johnsons could have penned and rolled out, albeit with a slightly different sound, no doubt. And that really is the sleeve, honest. I could be wrong but I reckon it’s a photographer’s dud that someone subsequently had a weird liking for. I struggle to actually look at it! 31.56 THE DRIFTERS – Like Sister and Brother – 7″ – Bell – 1973 I had this single in the mid ’70s but with the years since maybe ‘softening’ the senses, this made-to-measure ballad (with lead vocalist, Bill Fredericks sounding more like Johnny Mathis than I’d have remembered) sounds better now than it did back then but in the world we now live in there will be few if any songs written like this again. I had to run the idea past one of my teenage years mates but I reckon that, along with Jimmy Ruffin’s What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted (and others, no doubt), this was a last-dance-of-the-night/grab-a-girl-type tune at Bedford Rugby Club’s Saturday night ‘discos’. I’m making this actually sound like the ’40s but it was the era and I was in my late teens… and until I find my membership card, this’ll have to do. ‘Swing to Boomerang’ indeed. I don’t think they came back. 34.52 EYELESS IN GAZA – Flight Of Swallows – Back From The Rains, LP – Cherry Red – 1986 The intro to my 1984 Rorschach Testing article below sums up my thinking on Flight back then – and though the track was being played live at the time it was a couple of years before it surfaced on the above album. EIG article, Rorschach Testing, 1984 39.22 JONI MITCHELL – Eastern Rain – Archives – Volume 1: The Early Years 1963-1967, 5CD – Rhino – 2020 Truly a legend, such is the quality of the lady’s songwriting this beaut – from a Folklore Radio broadcast, of March 19, 1967 – never even made it to an official album and though it was covered by others and turned up in Joni live appearances of the time it took until the above retrospective to be released officially. And she’ll be back here quicker than you might be expecting. 43.13 SÓLEY – I Will Find You (Live, at the KEX Hostel in Reykjavik: 30.10.13) – Stream only – 2013 With a whole different tone to Liam Neeson’s ‘I Will Find You’ :), a production from the classy KEXP and a song only found on Sóley’s 5 track, 10″ EP, Don’t Ever Listen. This take however is a far more endearing version. 45.54 NORMA TANEGA – Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog – 7″ – Stateside – 1966 Was Norma ‘indie’ before there was such a thing? Sadly, she died in 2019 but search out a short Youtube interview and snippets piece (and the comments that followed) from a decade or so earlier. It was meant to be included in a proposed documentary that never then got going. 48.06 THE ELECTRIC FLAG – Look Into My Eyes – A Long Time Comin’, CD only – Columbia – 2003 From a handful of tracks that possibly didn’t make the cut for the initial 1968 release of the Chicago soul rock band’s second album, this is one of two that were first added to the above reissue. 50.52 LOVIN’ SPOONFUL – Summer In The City – 7″ – Kama Sutra – 1966 Maybe the best known tune on the show, with a forceful sounding John Sebastian and his/their ‘city’ being New York and its Greenwich Village hub back then. 53.13 THE FORTUNES – Here It Comes Again – 7″ – Decca – 1965 Innocent ’60s ‘pop’ with a classy arrangement, and another the likes of which will never be made again… and certainly not by anybody aiming for the charts. 56.09 THE MINDBENDERS – Groovy Kind Of Love – 7″ – Fontana – 1965 Wayne Fontana at the helm (and co-written by a pre-Sager Carol Bayer, I’ve just noted) I think this might have subconsciously stuck with me enough in its chart days (I was 8), to then make it to my record collection in the early ’70s. It felt then like a great many happily got rid of their records (certainly singles) after just a few years coz every second hand record shop had loads of chart stuff from just the 5-10 years prior. I was too young to have been buying the height of ’60s ‘pop’ during its time but picking it up a decade later was dead easy. Bet this cost me 10p or thereabouts. 58.05 SPUDDHA – Ton – Unreleased demo – 2014 ‘Recorded in a single take with a pair of £100 analog groove boxes (Korg Volcas) and there's no multi tracking, effects or post processing. One of the boxes is a three voice paraphonic synth and the other is an analogue drum machine. ‘At the time I was interested in making big, immersive music with an organic quality with sparse loops and a minimal setup. There's a lot of live tweaking and you will notice that the limitations of the synth mean that 1) only 3 notes can sound simultaneously and 2) the voices interrupt each other. Also presets couldn't be saved… if I didn't record what I was doing I couldn't move onto making something else without losing it all‘. – Spuddha. ‘Spud’ to me. 01.04.46 LONELADY – Hinterland – Hinterland, LP – Warp – 2015 Julie Lonelady groovin’ a tune and lyric that should have been here before now. c/w Julie ‘helping out’… 01.09.32 JONI MITCHELL – River (acapella) 01.13.30 ATRIC & FRIDA DARKO – Hide & Seek – Download only – 2023 ‘Always trying to combine genre fluid compositions, qualitative mixing and to take the whole process with a good sense of humor‘. – Them, via Bandcamp 01.17.26 A CERTAIN RATIO – Knife Slits Water (Peel session, June ’81) – Sextet, 2LP reissue – Factory Benelux – 2013 Yep, with Martha ‘Tilly’ Tilson’s oh-so-right vocal, the slightly epic Knife Slits Water. Very coincidentally, the day ACR recorded the above Peel session (according to the Keeping It Peel site) I saw them live supporting Cabaret Voltaire at Leicester Uni and the day the session was broadcast my diary says I had a long phone chat with Rob Gretton – no idea about what, other than re what New Order were up to at that point. 01.25.11 EARL16 – Changing World (Remix) – , LP – Merge Records – 2001 I caught this on a late night KISS FM radio show. His conscious sounds here taken up a few BPM. 01.30.05 COURTNEY BUCHANAN – R U Conscious (Album version) – 12″ – Conscious – 1993 And speaking of ‘conscious’… ‘Courtney has one of the most soulful, spiritual voices to come out of the UK. His music here combines jazzy acoustic sounds with delicate use of technology on a rhythmic, down-paced head nodder. I various mixes, the track’s ‘conscious’ lyrics and impressive vocals are a fine showcase for this British talent.‘ – Ralph Tee, Record Mirror (Music Week), 3.7.93 01.34.42 DELTA HOUSE OF FUNK – Lovers & Losers – 12″ EP – Go! Discs – 1996 Decided to playlist this before I remembered it was another of Ashley Beedle’s works. So, this is with a big nod to a top lad who’s been going through the health ringer in the last few years. 01.39.38 DRAX – Middle Earth – Drax Two, 12″EP – Trope – 1993 Clear vinyl gentle German techno. 01.44.51 CROOKED MAN – Cunts – Crooked Stile, 2LP – Viscous Charm – 2026 The reimagining here courtesy of Richard ‘Parrot’ Barratt. ‘Jarvis Cocker released Running The World in 2006The line ‘cunts are still running the world' is more relevant than ever… 20 years on and Crooked Man thought it needed to be said againHis razor-sharp reimagining is a call to arms with added electronic biteHe's skipped the niceties and titled it CUNTS.Out today on Vicious Charm today. The track is accompanied by an Agit-Prop video directed by British contemporary artist Dominic McGill, who, armed with a photocopier and a scalpel, has cut & pasted a perfect accompaniment to the song – breathless and furious. They are still running the world. It’s a work of “northern genius”, Jarvis’ words, not ours‘. – Bandcamp. 01.47.21 DESPERATE JOURNALIST – 7 – No Hero, LP – Fierce Panda – 2024 Driving indie rockers ever present on Simon Williams’ Fierce Panda label, with a nod to Jo Bevan’s confident vocals. 01.50.22 GANZHEIT – Motions – ‘Summer Of ’84’ demos cassette, unreleased – 1984 With a couple of this cassette’s tracks now playlisted on 41 Rooms, there are more to come from this lost Bedford-based band. Show 149 will be here March 1. Dec x The post Post Punk Plus Podcast Playlist 148 – Original upload 1.2.26 appeared first on 41Rooms.

Farewell to former High School New appointments/reappointments on city boards Cuyahoga Falls woman victim to Facebook hacking gets back at hacker Measles return Giant Rubber Duck festival coming to the Falls this April.  Cuyahoga Valley National Park is looking for input on their new wayside exhibit plan for Brandywine Falls, Ledges, Octagon, Kendall Lake, and Happy Days Lodge. Bald Eagle sightings Funny Stop for sale The Workz files for bankruptcy Rye & Shine's Box Wine Prom Winter Goddess Night at the Artful Cricket 2026 student-directed one-act play festival at the new CFHS Black Box Theatre Snap Together Thank you for listening. We are always in the market for article submissions and suggestions for podcast interviews. If you are interested in volunteering with on The Falls Free Press or the Fallscast, or are a musician wishing to showcase your music on the podcast, drop us a line on facebook or at fallsfreepress@gmail.com. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts to let others know to listen. Fallscast theme composed and performed by Alex Hall. Interim music: “Welcome Back” by John Sebastian (1976) Technical Difficulties: “Spanish Flea” by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass (1966)

Educated ears in the summer of 1957 were still trying to decide if this new rock 'n' roll thing was really music's future or was just a passing fancy.Two summers had passed by then since the new sound burst upon the American scene. The ear-opening “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley & His Comets was quickly followed by Chuck Berry's “Maybellene” and Little Richard's “”Tutti Frutti.”The following summer the rock kept rolling, when The King arrived. This new kid, Elvis Presley, topped the charts for weeks on end with “Heartbreak Hotel,” with “Hound Dog,” with “Don't Be Cruel.”But by 1957, the cigar-chomping bigwigs in the record company boardrooms still weren't sure. Not sure sure, you understand.The Summer DoldrumsAfter all, traditional pop crooners seemed to be staging a comeback. Perry Como (of all people!) hit No. 1 with “Round and Round.” Pat Boone scored with the languid “Love Letters in the Sand.” Debby Reynolds had a hit with “Tammy.” Holy schlock, Batman, even Elvis seemed to be getting goo-goo eyed all of a sudden with “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear.”So, the question in ‘57: where were summertime's rebels? That year the cool kids had already packed up their beach towel and gone on back to school by the time rock's Next Big Wave hit:— Sept. 9, 1957, Buddy Holly and The Cricket, “That'll Be the Day.”— Oct. 11, 1957, Everly Brothers, “Wake Up Little Susie.”— Oct. 21, 1957, Elvis, “Jailhouse Rock.”— Dec. 21, 1957, Danny and the Juniors, “At the Hop.”But even before that fall, diehards could dig a little deeper in the radio playlist for up-and-coming rockers. Jerry Lee Lewis was howling away with “A Whole Lot of Shakin'.” Fats Domino was still down there somewhere with “I'm Walkin'.” Jackie Wilson was right on deck with “Reet Petite.”About This Week's SongAnd languishing even further down on the summer music charts — oh, somewhere around No. 24 or so — was the subject of this week's podcast. It's The Flood's favorite souvenir from the Summer of ‘57: The Coasters' wonderful “(When She Wants Good Lovin') My Baby Comes to Me.”As reported here earlier, this winking and nodding Jerry Leiber-Mike Stoller composition was a minor hit for The Coasters. It did resurrect nine years later when a little known group called The Chicago Loop took it for a spin and got to No. 37 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.But in the Floodisphere, we much prefer a different pressing of the song released one year earlier. Favorite folksinger Tom Rush's 1965 self-titled debut Elektra album included a version of the tune accompanied by bassist Bill Lee along with John Sebastian (of The Lovin' Spoonful) and Fritz Richmond (of The Jim Kweskin Jug Band.)This track, captured at last week's rehearsal, features the arrangement we're working up to include on the new album when we start recording in the weeks ahead. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

It's fun to talk about TV theme songs, so that's what Kirk and special guest Leigh Sales did. Does this episode need any more introduction than that? Probably not.Check out Leigh's wonderful podcast Chat 10 Looks 3A YouTube Playlist of many of the themes discussed (and some they didn't get to)DISCUSSED/REFERENCED:The Office Theme - “Handbags and Gladrags” - 1967 by Mike D'Abo, perf. Big George Webley -US theme 2005 by Jay FergusonParks & Recreation - 2009, by Gaby Moreno and Vincent JonesWelcome Back Kotter - by John Sebastian (1974 - 1979)“Suicide is Painless” by Johnny Mandel, from MA_S_HThe Nanny Theme by Ann Hampton CallawayThe Brady Bunch theme by Frank De Vol & Sherwood SchwartzGilligan's Island theme by Sherwood Schwartz (lyrics) & George Wyle (music)Beverley Hillbillies theme by Paul Hennig feat. Lester Flatt & Earl ScruggsMoney For Nothing/Beverley Hillbillies by Weird Al Yankovic from UHF, 1988"Money For Nothing" by Dire Straits from Brothers in Arms, 1985The Americans theme by Nathan Barr"Do Ya Wanna Taste It" by Wig Wam from Peacemaker, 2021The Pi Song from AsapSCIENCESymphony No. 8 in B Minor, D. 759 by Franz Schubert“Green Acres Theme” by Vic Mizzy“Woke Up This Morning” by Alabama 3, from The Sopranos"A Beautiful Mine" from Mad Men by RJD2“Sex and the City Theme” by Douglas J. CuomoSix Feet Under theme by Thomas NewmanBreaking Bad theme by Dave PorterHouse of Cards Theme by Jeff BealTank! by Yoko Kanno and SeatbeltsLEIGH'S MUSIC PICKS:Frank Sinatra Live at the Sands, ‘66 with the Count Basie Orchestra conducted by Quincy JonesINXS - Kick, 1987The Villagers - Becoming a Jackal, 2010----LINKS-----

Shifting the pass-the-parcel of news and removing the wrapping when the music stops. Which this week happens here … … will rock bands get offered the Saudi money? … “there could be no British nightclubs in 2030” … Diane Keaton and why all men were besotted … the day Led Zeppelin played an Aqua Theatre for an audience swimming and in boats … “the optimum number of band members is either three or loads” … did Easy Rider invent the music video? … Trainspotting, Reservoir Dogs, Midnight Cowboy, Almost Famous – soundtrack moments that made their movies … 12 million more UK tickets were sold than in 2019 yet 150 small venues closed in two years: “scale is now part of the appeal” … the genius of John Sebastian … the end of MTV UK and how video changed the landscape … “Here's to you Mrs Roosevelt”: how Simon & Garfunkel got into the Graduate … can anyone fathom Ghost Town Blues by Prefab Sprout? Plus Tim Hardin, Harry Nilsson and birthday guest Matthew Elliott on why three is the magic number.Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shifting the pass-the-parcel of news and removing the wrapping when the music stops. Which this week happens here … … will rock bands get offered the Saudi money? … “there could be no British nightclubs in 2030” … Diane Keaton and why all men were besotted … the day Led Zeppelin played an Aqua Theatre for an audience swimming and in boats … “the optimum number of band members is either three or loads” … did Easy Rider invent the music video? … Trainspotting, Reservoir Dogs, Midnight Cowboy, Almost Famous – soundtrack moments that made their movies … 12 million more UK tickets were sold than in 2019 yet 150 small venues closed in two years: “scale is now part of the appeal” … the genius of John Sebastian … the end of MTV UK and how video changed the landscape … “Here's to you Mrs Roosevelt”: how Simon & Garfunkel got into the Graduate … can anyone fathom Ghost Town Blues by Prefab Sprout? Plus Tim Hardin, Harry Nilsson and birthday guest Matthew Elliott on why three is the magic number.Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shifting the pass-the-parcel of news and removing the wrapping when the music stops. Which this week happens here … … will rock bands get offered the Saudi money? … “there could be no British nightclubs in 2030” … Diane Keaton and why all men were besotted … the day Led Zeppelin played an Aqua Theatre for an audience swimming and in boats … “the optimum number of band members is either three or loads” … did Easy Rider invent the music video? … Trainspotting, Reservoir Dogs, Midnight Cowboy, Almost Famous – soundtrack moments that made their movies … 12 million more UK tickets were sold than in 2019 yet 150 small venues closed in two years: “scale is now part of the appeal” … the genius of John Sebastian … the end of MTV UK and how video changed the landscape … “Here's to you Mrs Roosevelt”: how Simon & Garfunkel got into the Graduate … can anyone fathom Ghost Town Blues by Prefab Sprout? Plus Tim Hardin, Harry Nilsson and birthday guest Matthew Elliott on why three is the magic number.Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

GGACP marks the recent 50th anniversary of ABC's "Welcome Back Kotter" (September 9, 1975) with this ENCORE of an 2020 interview with Rock ‘n' Roll Hall of Famer and The Lovin' Spoonful founder (and singer-composer of the "Welcome Back, Kotter" theme song!) John Sebastian. In this episode, John entertains Gilbert and Frank with anecdotes about Cass Elliott, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Moon and Jim Morrison and reveals the stories and inspirations behind hits like “Daydream,” “Summer in the City,” and “Do You Believe in Magic?” Also, Groucho co-hosts “Music Scene,” Richard Pryor plays the Cafe Au Go Go, Art Garfunkel nails a Spoonful cover version and John remembers legendary bandmate Zal Yanovsky. PLUS: Vivian Vance! “What's Up, Tiger Lily?” John plays Woodstock! Boris Karloff plays Captain Hook! And Ed Sullivan introduces the “American Beatles”! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bob Dylan's fifth studio album - and his first  to incorporate electric instrumentation - 1965's 'Bringing It All Back Home', marked a seismic shift in popular music that can still be felt today. This week's guest, Buffalo, NY-born singer-songwriter and rock-and-roll lifer Willie Nile, joins us to dissect this stunning game-changer of a record. Songs discussed in this episode: Subterranean Homesick Blues (Bob Dylan cover), Vagabond Moon, We Are We Are - Willie Nile; Blowin' In The Wind - Bob Dylan; Peggy Sue - Buddy Holly; 19th Nervous Breakdown - The Rolling Stones; Subterranean Homesick Blues, She Belongs To Me, Maggie's Farm - Bob Dylan; Love Minus Zero/No Limit (Bob Dylan Cover) - Willie Nile; Love Minus Zero/No Limit, Outlaw Blues - Bob Dylan; On The Road Again - Willie Nelson; On The Road Again, Bob Dylan's 115th Dream - Bob Dylan; Mr Tambourine Man - The Byrds; Mr Tambourine Man - Bob Dylan; Don't Worry Baby - The Beach Boys; Gates Of Eden, It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding), It's All Over Now, Baby Blue - Bob Dylan; Wake Up America - Willie Nile

Episode 196: Celebration Of Life 4. Did We Miss Something? July 31, 2025 Hi again and welcome to another Tales Vinyl Tells.  This hour is all about the music of the 60s & 70s, with occasional reaches north or south of those decades, but hopefully it's all good.  Thanks for tuning in.  If you're a boomer, you know what I'm playing here.  If you're not so familiar with the music of that time, stay with me.  I'll give you a teaser.  Over the past few episodes I've been sharing some of the tunes I want played at a time in the future during my celebration of life.  See if you can pick them out.  Thing is, life is happening in a very large way right now and right here, so let's get more of the celebration of life cuts spinning right now.  Today, we'll hear from John Sebastian and the Spoonful, Dr. John, Boston and more.  Headphones are a good option, as always.  I've got mine on.  Enjoy these stories, they are the Tales Vinyl Tells. Today's playlist is below. And thanks for listening today.  My email is talesvinyltells@gmail.com.  If you want to hear a Tales Vinyl Tells when it streams live on RadioFreeNashville.org, we do that at 5 PM central time Wednesdays. The program can also be played and downloaded anytime at podbean.com, iHeart podcasts, Player FM podcasts, Listen Notes podcasts and many other podcast places. And of course you can count on hearing the Tales on studiomillswellness.com/tales-vinyl-tells anytime. Playlist: 196.1 Air-Mike Pinder 196.2 Forever man-Clapton 196.3 When I meet them-Seals and Crofts 196.4 Bird Song-Garcia 196.5 One toke over the line-Brewer & Shipley 196.6 Foreplay/Long time-Boston 196.7 Can't find my way home- Blind Faith 196.8 One of these things first-Nick Drake 196.9 A dream like mine- Bruce Coburn (Cockburn) 196.10 Six oclock-Lovin Spoonful 196.11 Aint got no home-The Band 196.12 Mos' Scocious- Dr. John 196.13 Don't try to lay no boogie woogie on the king of rock and roll- John Baldry 196.14 If you wanna get to heaven-Ozark Mtn Daredevils 196.15 New tune-NRBQ 

John Sebastian joins me on episode 135. John had considerable chart success in the 1960s as part of the folk rock band, The Lovin' Spoonful, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the year 2000. John was also inducted into the songwriters Hall Of Fame. Probably better known as a singer songwriter and guitar player, harmonica was John's first instrument, inspired by his father, also called John Sebastian, who was a renowned classical harmonica player. And we discuss some of his father's music and how this inspired his son to take up the harmonica.John started out playing harmonica in a jug band before his success with The Loving Spoonful, before he then enjoyed a solo career and some notable recording sessions, not least as the harmonica player on The Doors song, Roadhouse Blues.Links:John's website: https://www.johnbsebastian.com/John's children's book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jbs-Harmonica-John-Sebastian/dp/0152400915Videos:John Sebastian senior live performance of Villas Lobos Harmonica Concerto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2EO0SUraGQPlaying ‘Thedy' on chromatic with the New Rhythm Blues Quartet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1f9IGhcGiQQHarmonica duet with Annie Raines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmPOnRUDZAEJohn's Homespun Blues Harmonica course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIVWaVSOoLEJohn's appearance at Woodstock in 1969: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBXL7FaPod4Liam Ward interview with John and a lesson from Liam on how to play Roadhouse Blues: https://www.learntheharmonica.com/post/roadhouse-blues-harmonica-john-sebastianPodcast website:https://www.harmonicahappyhour.comDonations:If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GBSpotify Playlist: Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQPodcast sponsors:This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS--------------------------------Blue Moon Harmonicas: https://bluemoonharmonicas.comSupport the show

Send us a textThe great John Sebastian celebrates his 81st birthday today as we're posting this. We had the good fortune to have a lengthy conversation with John this past fall to discuss John W. Sebastian, his 1970 debut as a solo artist. It's an album which is certainly underrated and if your ears have never had the pleasure of hearing it, today's the day to change that. Our good friend Peter Lubin helped to arrange the time with John and joins us for this discussion, which is one that we'll all remember for a long time. Keep up with John at his official website and thank you for listening!Support the show

My co-host today was 3 Time olympic gold medal winner and Softball Hall Of Famer Leah Amico,  find out more about Leah and her book "The Gold Standard"  https://www.leahamico.com/St Patricks day.  Entertainment from 1990.  Chad give Angola 1000 cows, Californium discovered, Rubber band invented.  Todays birthdays - Nat King Cole, Eunice Gayson, John Sebastian, Patrick Duffy, Kurt Russel, Gary Sinise, Paul Overstreet, Rob Lowe, Billy Corgan.  St. Patrick died.Intro - God did good - Dianna Cocoran  https://www.diannacorcoran.com/  I'm a little leprechaun - The KiboomersEscapade - Janet JacksonHard rock bottom of my heart - Randy TravisBirthdays - In da club - 50 Cent    http://50cent.com/Unforgettable - Nat King ColeDo you believe in magic - The Lovin' SpoonfulBall & Chain - Paul Overstreet1979 - Smashing PumpkinsExit - Ghost town - Deidra Thornell   https://www.deidrethornell.com/ countryundergroundradio.comHistory and Factoids website

New York's Greenwich Village is a compact sanctuary that has attracted a legion of visionaries and non-conformists who had an outsized influence on 20th-century culture – on alternative lifestyles, progressive politics, and the arts, especially music. Within the maze of coffeehouses, nightclubs, and watering holes on its narrow streets, the legends-to-be of folk, jazz, and rock coalesced into tight-knit communities that birthed sound innovations that continue to resonate today. Now veteran music journalist David Browne has expertly chronicled this community's sprawling history and impact in a new book, Talkin' Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America's Bohemian Capital (Hachette Books).Browne is well-equipped to take on this task and to discuss all the ins and outs in this latest episode of Reading Is Funktamental. Presently a senior writer at Rolling Stone Magazine, he is the author of acclaimed biographies of musicians including Sonic Youth, Tim and Jeff Buckley, the Grateful Dead, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.Based on 150 interviews with notables like Judy Collins, John Sebastian, Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, Suzanne Vega, and Terre and Suzzy Roche, Talkin' Greenwich Village lends this saga the epic scope it has long deserved. You can read my extensive review of the book for the culture site PopMatters at this link: https://www.popmatters.com/greenwich-village-david-browne-feature"Reading is Funktamental" is a monthly one-hour show about great books written about music and music-makers. In each episode, host Sal Cataldi speaks to the authors of some of the best reads about rock, jazz, punk, world, experimental music, and much more. From time to time, the host and authors will be joined by notable musicians, writers, and artists who are die-hard fans of the subject matter covered. Expect lively conversation and a playlist of great music to go with it. "Reading Is Funktamental" can be heard the second Wednesday of every month from 10 – 11 AM on Wave Farm: WGXC 90.7 FM and online at wavefarm.org. It can also be found as a podcast on Apple, Spotify and other platforms.Sal Cataldi is a musician and writer based in Saugerties. He is best known for his work with his genre-leaping solo project, Spaghetti Eastern Music, and is also a member of the ambient guitar duo, Guitars A Go Go, the poetry and music duo, Vapor Vespers, and the quartet, Spaceheater. His writing on music, books and film has been featured in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, PopMatters, Seattle Times, Huffington Post, Inside+Out Upstate NY, and NYSMusic.com, where he is the book reviewer.

Jimmy Vivino Live on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson It had been six long, 4 1/2 COVID years since last I sat down with my old friend, multi-instrumentalist, producer, composer, and long-time musical director for Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Vivino. It was like coming home. Almost the same age, we have many shared (unbeknownst to us at the time) memories of concerts at The Filmore East, Watkins Glen, the glory daze of the NY club scene, and a bounty of mutual friends. Talk about being in one's comfort zone. Jimmy talked growing up in New Jersey, his carpenter trumpet-playing father, his talented brothers, Jerry and Floyd, and how they began and evolved - he talked Conan, Laura Nyro, Phoebe Snow, Donald Fagen, John Sebastian, Al Kooper, Levon Helm, The Allman Brothers, Albert King, Tom Petty, Prince, Bruno Mars, Michael McDonald, Johnny Johnson, Hubert Sumlin, Stevie Wonder, Muddy Waters, Pinetop Perkins, John Sebastian, The Dead, The Band, Harry Shearer, Paul Shaffer, whom he credits as his mentor, Leader of the Pack, Broadway, Ronnie Spector, Felix Cavaliere, The Rascals, Frankie Valli, Slash, Sly Stone, The J. Geils Band, Elvis Costello, and the James Brown and Friends Set Fire To The Soul with Aretha, Robert Palmer, and Joe Cocker, that he orchestrated. Incredible stories all around, and this special is available on YouTube… wow - Snuff and I just watched it. Spectacular. We talked about COVID and Jimmy joining Canned Heat, currently touring with them, and Bill Murray, as well as still doing shows with Will Lee and The Fab Faux. His first all-original album, Gonna Be 2 of Those Days, is due to drop in February, signed copies are available for pre-sale at jimmyvmusic.com He treated us to a track to close the show. Life is busy, busy. busy… just the way Jimmy likes it. And so do we who follow and adore him. I so enjoyed every second of this. Jimmy needs to write a book and get all these stories down. He knows and has played with everyone. Such fun! Jimmy Vivino Live on Game Changers With Vicki Abelson Wednesday, 12/11/24, 5 PM PT, 8 PM ET Streamed Live on my Facebook Replay here: https://bit.ly/49vuRwT

Singer, songwriter, musician and founder of The Lovin' Spoonful John Sebastian joins Frank Mackay on this episode of The Frank Mackay Show!

Singer, songwriter, musician and founder of The Lovin' Spoonful John Sebastian joins Frank Mackay on this episode of The Frank Mackay Show!

Interview with Arlen Roth 2024 Arlen Roth is a true guitar legend; part of the list of who he's recorded and toured with contains folks like Simon & Garfunkel (together and individually), John Prine, Phoebe Snow, Bob Dylan, Bee Gees, Don McLean, Levon Helm, Ry Cooder, Duane Eddy, Danny Gatton, Janis Ian, Dusty Springfield, John Sebastian, Johnny Winter and countless more. He also appeared with Ramblin' Jack Elliot and Patti Smith in the Martin Scorcese Rolling Thunder film, created the guitar parts and was consultant and teacher to Ralph Macchio for the legendary blues film, Crossroads. In 2016, he wrote and performed an acoustic guitar piece with Daveed Diggs and Leslie Odom, Jr. of Hamilton for ESPN. Arlen was voted in the Top 100 most Influential guitarists of all time by Vintage Guitar Magazine and top 50 all-time acoustic guitarists by Gibson.com. Now, on Arlen Roth's 20th solo album and his fifth all-acoustic offering, he's bringing rootsy acoustic music to new heights on Playing Out the String, set for release September 27 and distributed by MVD. The new album was recorded, mixed and mastered by Alex Salzman, who also contributes keyboards to the mix.  Arlen's previous album, Super Soul Session, with bass legend Jerry Jemmott, sat atop the Blues and Soul charts for 22 straight weeks, and was in the Top 5 for 55 straight weeks this past year. Arlen has also been at the forefront of guitar and music education, with 10 best-selling books, and he was the first-ever to offer video instruction with the giants of the music industry through his “Hot Licks” company, which he started in 1979, and has had millions of students worldwide. His column for Guitar Player magazine was voted #1 by the largest margin of readers from 1982 to 1992, and was also turned into a best-selling book, Hot Guitar. On Playing Out the String,  this all-acoustic, mostly solo album is very personal to Arlen and is really like getting an up-close "at home" concert in your living room. On it, he paints with broad strokes across several genres of music he loves. From "Old Timey" Norman Blake material to country blues from Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee and Tampa Red; he even makes you feel at home with Nilsson's "Everybody's Talkin'" and gives his 12-string guitar a workout on the archetypical, "Walk Right In." https://www.arlenroth.com  

Cindy Cashdollar has been called the Wonder Woman of the Dobro, Lap Steel Guitar and Steel Guitar. She's a 5x Grammy winner for her work with Asleep At The Wheel. She's played with Paul Butteerfield and with Levon Helm and Rick Danko of The Band. She's performed with Bob Dylan, George Strait, Willie Nelson and others. Her latest album, Waltz For Abilene, features a slew of great guest artists including John Sebastian, Albert Lee and Amy Helm.My featured song is “My Love” from the album Bobby M and the Paisley Parade. Spotify link.---------------------------------------------The Follow Your Dream Podcast:Top 1% of all podcasts with Listeners in 200 countries!For more information and other episodes of the podcast click here. To subscribe to the podcast click here .To subscribe to our weekly Follow Your Dream Podcast email click here.To Rate and Review the podcast click here.“Dream With Robert”. Click here.—----------------------------------------“THE GIFT” is Robert's new single featuring his song arranged by Grammy winning arranger Michael Abene. Praised by David Amram, John Helliwell, Joe La Barbera, Tony Carey, Fay Claassen, Antonio Farao, Danny Gottlieb and Leslie Mandoki.Click HERE for all links.—-------------------------------------“LOU'S BLUES” is Robert's recent single. Called “Fantastic! Great playing and production!” (Mark Egan - Pat Metheny Group/Elements) and “Digging it!” (Peter Erskine - Weather Report)!Click HERE for all links.—----------------------------------------“THE RICH ONES”. Robert's recent single. With guest artist Randy Brecker (Blood Sweat & Tears) on flugelhorn. Click HERE for all links.—---------------------------------------“MILES BEHIND”, Robert's debut album, recorded in 1994, was “lost” for the last 30 years. It's now been released for streaming. Featuring Randy Brecker (Blood Sweat & Tears), Anton Fig (The David Letterman Show), Al Foster (Miles Davis), Tim Ries (The Rolling Stones), Jon Lucien and many more. Called “Hip, Tight and Edgy!” Click here for all links.—--------------------------------------“IT'S ALIVE!” is Robert's latest Project Grand Slam album. Featuring 13 of the band's Greatest Hits performed “live” at festivals in Pennsylvania and Serbia.Reviews:"An instant classic!" (Melody Maker)"Amazing record...Another win for the one and only Robert Miller!" (Hollywood Digest)"Close to perfect!" (Pop Icon)"A Masterpiece!" (Big Celebrity Buzz)"Sterling effort!" (Indie Pulse)"Another fusion wonder for Project Grand Slam!" (MobYorkCity)Click here for all links.Click here for song videos—-----------------------------------------Audio production:Jimmy RavenscroftKymera Films Connect with Cindy at:www.cindycashdollar.com Connect with the Follow Your Dream Podcast:Website - www.followyourdreampodcast.comEmail Robert - robert@followyourdreampodcast.com Follow Robert's band, Project Grand Slam, and his music:Website - www.projectgrandslam.comYouTubeSpotify MusicApple MusicEmail - pgs@projectgrandslam.com 

Eric Parker is a world class drummer, producer and composer. For the last 40 years he has toured the world and made countless records and drummed at sold out stadiums, theaters and concert halls. Eric has played with many musical legends including; Joe Cocker, Steve Winwood, Bonnie Raitt , Lou Reed, Ian Hunter , John Sebastian and many others.

The legendary singer, songwriter and musician, John Sebastian, formerly of The Lovin Spoonful, discusses his career and interesting stories. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/gary-stuckey/support

Harvey Brooks is one of the most important and heralded bass players of the entire rock era. Starting in the 1960s he played on so many seminal albums and singles including Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited", "Super Session" with Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper and Stephen Stills, Bloomfield's band, The Electric Flag, and even Miles Davis's groundbreaking album "Bitches Brew". He also played on hits by The Doors, John Sebastian, Seals and Crofts and Fontella Bass to name just a few.My featured song is “Out Of Tahini” from the album Play by my band Project Grand Slam. Spotify link.---------------------------------------------The Follow Your Dream Podcast:Top 1% of all podcasts with Listeners in 200 countries!For more information and other episodes of the podcast click here. To subscribe to the podcast click here.To subscribe to our weekly Follow Your Dream Podcast email click here.To Rate and Review the podcast click here.“Dream With Robert”. Click here.—----------------------------------------“LOU'S BLUES” is Robert's new single. Called “Fantastic! Great playing and production!” (Mark Egan - Pat Metheny Group/Elements) and “Digging it!” (Peter Erskine - Weather Report)!Click HERE for all links.—----------------------------------------“THE RICH ONES”. Robert's recent single. With guest artist Randy Brecker (Blood Sweat & Tears) on flugelhorn. Click HERE for all links.—---------------------------------------“MILES BEHIND”, Robert's debut album, recorded in 1994, was “lost” for the last 30 years. It's now been released for streaming. Featuring Randy Brecker (Blood Sweat & Tears), Anton Fig (The David Letterman Show), Al Foster (Miles Davis), Tim Ries (The Rolling Stones), Jon Lucien and many more. Called “Hip, Tight and Edgy!” Click here for all links.—--------------------------------------“IT'S ALIVE!” is Robert's latest Project Grand Slam album. Featuring 13 of the band's Greatest Hits performed “live” at festivals in Pennsylvania and Serbia.Reviews:"An instant classic!" (Melody Maker)"Amazing record...Another win for the one and only Robert Miller!" (Hollywood Digest)"Close to perfect!" (Pop Icon)"A Masterpiece!" (Big Celebrity Buzz)"Sterling effort!" (Indie Pulse)"Another fusion wonder for Project Grand Slam!" (MobYorkCity)Click here for all links.Click here for song videos—-----------------------------------------Audio production:Jimmy RavenscroftKymera Films Connect with Harvey at:Harvey Brooks on Bass - YouTube Connect with the Follow Your Dream Podcast:Website - www.followyourdreampodcast.comEmail Robert - robert@followyourdreampodcast.com Follow Robert's band, Project Grand Slam, and his music:Website - www.projectgrandslam.comYouTubeSpotify MusicApple MusicEmail - pgs@projectgrandslam.com

Love's official biographer John Einarson tells David Hepworth the star-crossed tale of the band who made the least psychedelic album of the psychedelic era. Their conversation takes in:….Lee's growing up between Memphis and L.A., dealing with the problems of looking more like Johnny Mathis than Otis Redding.….how being indulged as a youngster by his family made him a tyrant as a band leader.….growing up with a prodigious musical talent but without the mastery of a single instrument.….refusing to put up with the inconvenience of touring and bearing personal grudges which prevented him taking up life-changing offers.….their competition with The Doors, who would do all the things that Love wouldn't.…how Arthur Lee heard Forever Changes in his head and how he transferred that knowledge to an arranger who'd never heard a pop record.….why Brian Wilson, John Sebastian and Arthur Lee “never got past 1967”.….the gun charges that put Arthur Lee in jail and the third act he enjoyed when he came out.You can order the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forever-Changes-Authorized-Biography-Arthur/dp/1916829120/Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love's official biographer John Einarson tells David Hepworth the star-crossed tale of the band who made the least psychedelic album of the psychedelic era. Their conversation takes in:….Lee's growing up between Memphis and L.A., dealing with the problems of looking more like Johnny Mathis than Otis Redding.….how being indulged as a youngster by his family made him a tyrant as a band leader.….growing up with a prodigious musical talent but without the mastery of a single instrument.….refusing to put up with the inconvenience of touring and bearing personal grudges which prevented him taking up life-changing offers.….their competition with The Doors, who would do all the things that Love wouldn't.…how Arthur Lee heard Forever Changes in his head and how he transferred that knowledge to an arranger who'd never heard a pop record.….why Brian Wilson, John Sebastian and Arthur Lee “never got past 1967”.….the gun charges that put Arthur Lee in jail and the third act he enjoyed when he came out.You can order the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forever-Changes-Authorized-Biography-Arthur/dp/1916829120/Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love's official biographer John Einarson tells David Hepworth the star-crossed tale of the band who made the least psychedelic album of the psychedelic era. Their conversation takes in:….Lee's growing up between Memphis and L.A., dealing with the problems of looking more like Johnny Mathis than Otis Redding.….how being indulged as a youngster by his family made him a tyrant as a band leader.….growing up with a prodigious musical talent but without the mastery of a single instrument.….refusing to put up with the inconvenience of touring and bearing personal grudges which prevented him taking up life-changing offers.….their competition with The Doors, who would do all the things that Love wouldn't.…how Arthur Lee heard Forever Changes in his head and how he transferred that knowledge to an arranger who'd never heard a pop record.….why Brian Wilson, John Sebastian and Arthur Lee “never got past 1967”.….the gun charges that put Arthur Lee in jail and the third act he enjoyed when he came out.You can order the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forever-Changes-Authorized-Biography-Arthur/dp/1916829120/Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a Text Message.Step back in time as we journey through 10 transformative days of August 1969 that forever altered the landscape of music and culture. Ever wondered about the story behind the Beatles' Abbey Road album cover shot? Join us to uncover the captivating details of that iconic photoshoot on August 8th, including the involvement of Paul's late wife, Linda McCartney, and its lasting cultural impact. Delve into the dark side of those days as we examine the chilling events of the Manson Family murders, exploring connections to notable figures like Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys and producer Terry Melcher.What made Woodstock the legendary festival it is today? Experience the magic and spontaneity of Woodstock through unforgettable performances and moments that defined the counterculture movement. From Richie Havens' improvised "Freedom" to Santana's electrifying set, and John Sebastian's impromptu performance, relive the highlights that made this festival a historical milestone. Reflect on the logistical chaos, the community spirit, and the unique performance schedule with acts like Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Sha Na Na, and Jimi Hendrix's iconic rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner during the dwindling crowd on Monday morning.Finally, join me for a retrospective look at the highs and lows of humanity during those pivotal days in 1969. We tie together historical insights with personal reflections, offering a comprehensive view of these significant events.Learn Something New orRemember Something OldPlease Like and Follow our Facebook page Music In My Shoes. You can contact us at musicinmyshoes@gmail.com.

Its the final Saturday Extravaganza of July as Ken Broo discusses the election with Kenin Spivak, Kamala Harris and her failures with the border with Todd Bensman, weed being packaged as candy with Jerry Joyner, companies and their relationships with employees with Scott Baradell and talking with music legend John Sebastian

Its the final Saturday Extravaganza of July as Ken Broo discusses the election with Kenin Spivak, Kamala Harris and her failures with the border with Todd Bensman, weed being packaged as candy with Jerry Joyner, companies and their relationships with employees with Scott Baradell and talking with music legend John Sebastian

Welcome to the premiere "Song Dive" bonus episode: a way to hear the story behind a song that has made (or will soon make) our collective mixtapes & playlists! On this "Song Dive" episode, I am joined by Guy Fletcher of Dire Straits, and we're talking about the story behind Mark Knopfler's Guitar Heroes' “Going Home (Theme From Local Hero),” which Guy produced. This new 10-minute rendition was recorded in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust and Teen Cancer America, and features over 60 musical legends on the track.  We also take some time to discuss tracks from Dire Straits' catalog including: Money For Nothing, Walk Of Life, Heavy Fuel & The Bug; working with “Weird Al” Yankovic on his Dire Straits' parody “Money For Nothing / Beverly Hillbillies;” recording the soundtrack for The Princess Bride; the experience of mixing Dire Straits' "Live At The Rainbow, London UK, 12/1979" album from the original tapes; Guy's accreditation as a Dolby ATMOS engineer and how that factored into the new Going Home mix; bringing ATMOS to households via the Airsound Spatial speaker technology; and so much more!  The full list of artists who appear on “Going Home (Theme From Local Hero)” are (in alphabetical order): Joan Armatrading, Jeff Beck, Richard Bennett, Joe Bonamassa, Joe Brown, James Burton, Jonathan Cain, Paul Carrack, Eric Clapton, Ry Cooder, Jim Cox, Steve Cropper, Sheryl Crow, Danny Cummings, Roger Daltrey, Duane Eddy, Sam Fender, Guy Fletcher, Peter Frampton, Audley Freed, Vince Gill, David Gilmour, Buddy Guy, Keiji Haino, Tony Iommi, Joan Jett, John Jorgenson, Mark Knopfler, Sonny Landreth, Albert Lee, Greg Leisz, Alex Lifeson, Steve Lukather, Phil Manzanera, Dave Mason, Hank Marvin, Brian May, Robbie McIntosh, John McLaughlin, Tom Morello, Rick Nielsen, Orianthi, Brad Paisley, Nile Rodgers, Mike Rutherford, Joe Satriani, John Sebastian, Connor Selby, Slash, Bruce Springsteen, Ringo Starr and Zak Starkey, Sting, Andy Taylor, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, Ian Thomas, Pete Townshend, Keith Urban, Steve Vai, Waddy Wachtel, Joe Louis Walker, Joe Walsh, Ronnie Wood, Glenn Worf, & Zucchero. A minimum of 50% of the proceeds from the single are being donated to Teenage Cancer Trust and Teen Cancer America. To purchase the 12" vinyl, CD or digital edition of the single, please visit: https://www.markknopflersguitarheroes.com/ Be sure to visit MyWeeklyMixtape.com to hear all of the songs we discussed in this episode, and join the My Weekly Mixtape Discord Server via the link on the main menu! FOR MORE ON MY WEEKLY MIXTAPE Website: http://www.myweeklymixtape.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/myweeklymixtape Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/myweeklymixtape Twitter: https://twitter.com/myweeklymixtape Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myweeklymixtape TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@myweeklymixtape Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In my opinion, the song was better than the sit-com that spawned it. And, it had staying power, making it to the top of the pop charts.  There is something transcendent being expressed here. As Thomas Wolfe said: “you can't go home again,” Maybe not, but it's something we all long for, and in this joyful three minute tune John Sebastian ties a ribbon around that sentiment. You left home with a desire to see the world and make your fortune; you've been beaten down and turned around, and find yourself back where you started from. But, son, we never left, and we'll welcome you with open arms (and, some gentle teasing). It's so good to have you back.My first ever concert, at age 13, ten years earlier, was the Lovin' Spoonful at Princeton New Jersey. The good-time jug band music of John Sebastian has always been a warming presence in my life. His inclusion at Woodstock was no accident; he is one of the all-time greats. What a coup it was for Hollywood to get him to compose a jaunty theme song for a goofy, yet heart warming show about “sweat-hogs” - those ne'er do well high school students that had to be quarantined in their own remedial class. When approach by the producer to consider the assignment, he composed it in one night, and when asked how he did it so fast, he owned up to the fact that he had been a sweat hog himself. I believe that it was that identification which inspired John Sebastian to go beyond “jaunty” to an honest evocation of romantic universality. I'm not crying; you're crying.

Welcome to the premiere "Song Dive" bonus episode: a way to hear the story behind a song that has made (or will soon make) our collective mixtapes & playlists! On this "Song Dive" episode, I am joined by Guy Fletcher of Dire Straits, and we're talking about the story behind Mark Knopfler's Guitar Heroes' “Going Home (Theme From Local Hero),” which Guy produced. This new 10-minute rendition was recorded in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust and Teen Cancer America, and features over 60 musical legends on the track.  We also take some time to discuss tracks from Dire Straits' catalog including: Money For Nothing, Walk Of Life, Heavy Fuel & The Bug; working with “Weird Al” Yankovic on his Dire Straits' parody “Money For Nothing / Beverly Hillbillies;” recording the soundtrack for The Princess Bride; the experience of mixing Dire Straits' "Live At The Rainbow, London UK, 12/1979" album from the original tapes; Guy's accreditation as a Dolby ATMOS engineer and how that factored into the new Going Home mix; bringing ATMOS to households via the Airsound Spatial speaker technology; and so much more!  The full list of artists who appear on “Going Home (Theme From Local Hero)” are (in alphabetical order): Joan Armatrading, Jeff Beck, Richard Bennett, Joe Bonamassa, Joe Brown, James Burton, Jonathan Cain, Paul Carrack, Eric Clapton, Ry Cooder, Jim Cox, Steve Cropper, Sheryl Crow, Danny Cummings, Roger Daltrey, Duane Eddy, Sam Fender, Guy Fletcher, Peter Frampton, Audley Freed, Vince Gill, David Gilmour, Buddy Guy, Keiji Haino, Tony Iommi, Joan Jett, John Jorgenson, Mark Knopfler, Sonny Landreth, Albert Lee, Greg Leisz, Alex Lifeson, Steve Lukather, Phil Manzanera, Dave Mason, Hank Marvin, Brian May, Robbie McIntosh, John McLaughlin, Tom Morello, Rick Nielsen, Orianthi, Brad Paisley, Nile Rodgers, Mike Rutherford, Joe Satriani, John Sebastian, Connor Selby, Slash, Bruce Springsteen, Ringo Starr and Zak Starkey, Sting, Andy Taylor, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, Ian Thomas, Pete Townshend, Keith Urban, Steve Vai, Waddy Wachtel, Joe Louis Walker, Joe Walsh, Ronnie Wood, Glenn Worf, & Zucchero. A minimum of 50% of the proceeds from the single are being donated to Teenage Cancer Trust and Teen Cancer America. To purchase the 12" vinyl, CD or digital edition of the single, please visit: https://www.markknopflersguitarheroes.com/ Be sure to visit MyWeeklyMixtape.com to hear all of the songs we discussed in this episode, and join the My Weekly Mixtape Discord Server to join in the musical discussions: https://discord.gg/hhDQAnXasm FOR MORE ON MY WEEKLY MIXTAPE Website: http://www.myweeklymixtape.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/myweeklymixtape Discord: https://discord.gg/hhDQAnXasm Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/myweeklymixtape Twitter: https://twitter.com/myweeklymixtape Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myweeklymixtape TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@myweeklymixtape Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dane Clark is an Indiana native who has been honing his instrumental (drums, bass, guitar and keyboards) and songwriting skills from an early age. His early influences of British Invasion rock and Dylan era folk music still resonate in his musical vision. Clark began making a name for himself as a session drummer in the Indianapolis area in the early 1980's. As well as 28 years with John Mellencamp, Dane has recorded with John Prine, Steve Earle, Ian Hunter, Janis Ian, Carrie Newcomer, The Bob And Tom Band and a multitude of others. Dane has released 7 critically acclaimed singer/songwriter projects of his own including 2019's Americana tour-de-force “Rebel Town” (featuring Carlene Carter) in October of 2019. His latest release “Songs From Isolation”, by Dane Clark and the Backroom Boys featuring John Sebastian was released in August of 2020 to widespread acclaim and national press. He has produced and played multiple instruments on releases by rock and roll hall of fame inductee Donovan( Ritual Groove) and Don Stevenson of the legendary 60's band Moby Grape. His eclectic percussive signature has been heard on stage with diverse musical giants such as Dizzy Gillespie, Josh Grobin and John Fogerty. For 20 years he has led his own “full blast rock combo”,The Dane Clark Band, playing in countless regional and local venues as well as opening for artists such as Allman Betts Band, Gin Blossoms, John Waite, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and 38 Special.   Some Things That Came Up:    -2:00 Newest Mellencamp band member has been there 15 years  -2:30 The return of Lisa Germano  -4:45 Working with Nashville bassist Mark Hill at Blackbird Studios  -7:30 Thundersound Studio in Andersen, Indiana  -9:00 Drums are Dave's THIRD instrument  -9:50 The Dane Clark band for 22 years  -10:45 John Prine, Ian Hunter's Janis Ian, and Steve Earle  -11:00 Ian Hunter's “Defiant One”, sharing credits with Ringo Starr, and the late greats Jeff Beck and Taylor Hawkins. Also features Mike Campbell and Waddy Wachtel -16:30 Embracing all of the ways to record remotely  -18:40 Mellencamp's “Orpheus Descending” and “Sad Clowns and Hillbillies”.  -19:20 Standout tracks are: “Hey God”, “Perfect World” (written by Bruce Springsteen), and “Amen” -21:00 The influence of drummer B.J. Wilson (Procol Harum) -23:20 The 1993 audition -31:00 Too many crashes in modern music?  -42:15 The heaviness of Ginger Baker  -44:00 The performance degree  -45:00 The beauty of Steve Gadd. Checkout “Smokin' in the Pit” by Steps Ahead -46:00 Transcribing Vinnie Colaiuta -47:20 Discovering Tony Williams and The New Tony Williams Lifetime -49:00 Wrote, produced, performed and mixed his “Songs From Isolation” record  -60:00 Dane's Podcast: “The Morning Buzzz” -65:10 Seeing Dane at The Greek Theater -66:15 The Gear -73:00 “The Fave 5”  -78:00 Stephen King's work ethic      Follow:  www.daneclark.com X: @daneclarkmusic IG: @daneclarkmusic   The Rich Redmond Show is about all things music, motivation and success. Candid conversations with musicians, actors, comedians, authors and thought leaders about their lives and the stories that shaped them. Rich Redmond is the longtime drummer with Jason Aldean and many other veteran musicians and artists. Rich is also an actor, speaker, author, producer and educator. Rich has been heard on thousands of songs, over 25 of which have been #1 hits!   Rich can also be seen in several films and TV shows and has also written an Amazon Best-Selling book, "CRASH! Course for Success: 5 Ways to Supercharge Your Personal and Professional Life" currently available at:   https://www.amazon.com/CRASH-Course-Success-Supercharge-Professional/dp/B07YTCG5DS/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=crash+redmond&qid=1576602865&sr=8-1   One Book: Three Ways to consume....Physical (delivered to your front door, Digital (download to your kindle, ipad or e-reader), or Audio (read to you by me on your device...on the go)!   Buy Rich's exact gear at www.lessonsquad.com/rich-redmond   Follow Rich: @richredmond www.richredmond.com   Jim McCarthy is the quintessential Blue Collar Voice Guy. Honing his craft since 1996 with radio stations in Illinois, South Carolina, Connecticut, New York, Las Vegas and Nashville, Jim has voiced well over 10,000 pieces since and garnered an ear for audio production which he now uses for various podcasts, commercials and promos. Jim is also an accomplished video producer, content creator, writer and overall entrepreneur.   Follow Jim:   @jimmccarthy www.jimmccarthyvoiceovers.com   RICH REDMOND  Drummer, Speaker, Author, Host, Emcee, Actor www.richredmond.com

John Sebastian in conversation with Rita Ryan of LocalMotion 3.27.24

In this episode of TFTRR your host Steve digs into the music played through the legendary Gibson Les Paul guitar "Lucy." Once owned by John Sebastian, Rick Derringer, Eric Clapton and George Harrison, the rock room traces "Lucy's" journey from Kalamazoo, MI to London, England. We will highlight the guitars storied history with deep cuts, live cuts, and all the rock room gold you expect.Support the show

Illustrator/musician/underground comix legend Robert Armstrong (Mickey Rat, Couch Potato, the Cheap Suit Serenaders!) joins Skip and Jason this week for a very special installment of the Truth About Vintage Amps.  Want to support our show? Join our Patreon!  Some of the topics discussed:  1:38 NOS military-grade green pilot light jewels from Gary Economy (Instagram); leave us an Apple Podcasts review and take a screenshot to enter to win one!; 5879 tubes 3:03 Where is George? (Danger UXB on eBay) 4:48 Rick Estrin and Dennis Gruenling's harmonica workshop, March 16 (link) 6:43 This week's sponsors: Emerald City Guitars; Amplified Parts; Izotope; Stringjoy Strings; and Grez Guitars.  Ordering from StewMac? Use this affiliate link to help us out!  11:26 The 2024 Fretboard Summit, August 23-25 (link) 11:49 What's on Skip's bench: A PA head; blown power transformers 13:44 A discount on Eric Daw's amazing Solid Sound guitar wiring book (use TAVA when you check out): https://www.solidsoundbook.com/ 16:19 Taming the bass frequency on your amplifier 23:15 Resistors: What does Skip use? 27:27 Special guest: Illustrator/musician/friend/Mickey Rat & Couch Potato-inventor/record collector Robert Armstong (link)! Early Hawaiian guitar recordings; growing up in Fender country but gravitating towards the banjo; Coulter guitars; Hugo Ernst guitars; John DeLapp guitars; playing saw on the 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' soundtrack; animator Ward Kimball; 'Man in Space' (YouTube link); not working at Disneyland; seeing David Lindley at the Topanga Banjo & Fiddle contest; coining the term "Couch Potato;" Bob's tweed Fender Deluxe; Supro Dual Tones; Pee Wee's Playhouse; playing with Sourdough Slim; sheepherder conventions; touring Japan; Ben Pollack's "Two Tickets to Georgia" (YouTube link); playing 78 records today; Al Dodge 1:38:10 John Sebastian gets his dad's PA head back; a Disneyland tube PA

Time to step up on that high horse for a second. Ahem... there's a severe lack of bands these days, and in our sad estimation, the concept of the band has been devalued to the detriment of modern music. We know some of the biggest rock stars of all time from their bands, and while some band members have been able to make a go at it as solo artists, others... not as much. These are the most famous one hit wonders ever, but we're glad they at least had the one. Sir Jeff Axelrod, our expatriate friend joins for the conclusion of our discussion of the greatest SOLO ONE HIT WONDERS of all time. Picks 5-1 are featured in Part 2.If you missed Top Ten Solo One Hit Wonders Part 1, get it wherever you get podcasts or here on Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-604-top-ten-solo-one-hit-wonders-part-1-w-jeff-axelrod/id573735994?i=1000645859965Please enjoy this convenient playlist on Spotify. It's all of the songs featured in Parts 1 & 2, bumper songs included:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1iTAwzOnVLehQfZs9Z3Wqr?si=b423c04672cd4a15If you're not following the progress of the reveal of the mega-list that is the ATTT1000, like, follow or just keep an eye on the ever-growing playlist on Spotify and YouTube:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1dmYMmJDAAK1B6CxS9msYO?si=2d88833bc0b643e6https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TydZ4NAXMic&list=PL2Sj57_93sSc5g3NUhDTwU-_JBMJg385G

Today, we bring you part 2 of the Big Sur Folk Festival, 1969. The BSFF occurred at Esalen Institute on September 13th and 14th of 1969, just about a month after Woodstock. As related in part one of this two part series, the festival was captured in a documentary called "Celebration at Big Sur," directed by Baird Bryant and Johanna Demetrakas - available on YouTube, a great watch. Set list for part 2: -John Sebastian, formerly of the Lovin Spoonful, with “Rainbows All Over Yours Blues" -"Woodstock" by Joni Mitchell, who accompanies herself on piano. -Some audio of an audience member, a school teacher who identifies as "a freak." - ”Red-Eye Express" performed by John Sebastian with Stephen Stills - “Malagueña Salerosa" by Carol Ann Cisneros - an extended ”Down By the River" by Crosby Stills Nash and Young. -“Sweet Sir Galahad" by Joan Baez - to end the show, "Oh Happy Day" by Dorothy Combs Morrison and the Combs Sisters, accompanied by Joan Baez. Some trivia about some of the musicians: -Joni Mitchell was dating a member of Crosby Stills Nash and Young at the time, Graham Nash. -Joni's song “Woodstock” was in fact inspired by the famous music festival, but she did not attend. Instead she opted to stay in New York City and appear on the Dick Cavett show. -John Sebastian: He was a founding member of the Lovin' Spoonful, known for hits like "Do You Believe in Magic?" and “Summer in the City." The Spoonful imploded after a 1967 marijuana bust. In the 80's Sebastian began writing and recording music for children's TV, including 1983's "Strawberry Shortcake: Housewarming Surprise" and 1985's "Strawberry Shortcake Meets the Berrykins." -Stephen Stills: a founding member of Buffalo Springfield who wrote one of the most recognizable songs of the 1960s, "For What It's Worth." Buffalo Springfield broke up in 1968, and Stills joined with David Crosby of the Byrds and Graham Nash of the Hollies to form early supergroup Crosby Stills and Nash. Neil Young wouldn't join them until August 1969, just a few short weeks before the performance that you're about to listen to. -Dorothy Combs Morrison won a Grammy in 1969 for her song "Oh Happy Day," which ends this episode - it reached #4 in the US and #1 in France that year. It was recorded in a church in Berkeley, California, a couple hours away from Big Sur. George Harrison stated that "Oh Happy Day" was a primary influence for his 1970 hit “My Sweet Lord.” -Joan Baez dated Steve Jobs in the 1980s. He was in his mid twenties and she was in her 40's. DIdn't matter. She was Joan Baez. At the time that Big Sur Folk Festival occurred she was married to an activist named David Harris, who was in prison in 1969 for refusing to serve in the armed forces. (In part one, we hear “Song for David,” written to her man behind bars.) During this performance, Baez is actually seven months pregnant; her son, Gabriel, was born in December 1969. Baez's performance of Pete Seeger's We Shall Overcome during the 1963 March on Washington is one of the most enduring images of the 1960s. In 1964, she publicly endorsed resisting taxes by withholding 60 % of her income. In 1972, Baez traveled to North Vietnam, to address human rights in the region, and was caught in a bombing of Hanoi, North Vietnam, during which the city was bombed for eleven straight days. Al Capp, the cartoonist for the strip Li'l Abner, created a character called "Joanie Phoanie" based on Baez - a communist radical who sang songs about class warfare but also rode in a limousine and charged outrageous performance fees to impoverished orphans. Beyond all of this, Baez is a genius songwriter and performer with a magical voice. She performed at each of the Big Sur Folk Festivals, beginning in 1964 and going until 1971. She still can occasionally be seen in the Carmel and Big Sur area. Ms. Baez, if you're listening now - come on back. There's a space at the Esalen baths with your name on it.

Feast your ears on this little gem from our archives - a partial recording of the Big Sur Folk Festival of 1969, which was also captured in a documentary film called "Celebration at Big Sur," directed by Baird Bryant and Johanna Demetrakas, from which this recording was culled. The Big Sur Folk Festival occurred September 13th and 14th of '69, about a month after Woodstock, and it featured some of the same performers, including Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and John Sebastian, who had left the Lovin' Spoonful the year earlier. The lineup, while not quite at the Woodstock level was still quite impressive, including Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Mimi Fariña , the Flying Burrito Brothers, and Dorothy Combs Morrison, a gospel singer whose song “All God's Children Got Soul,” reached number 95 on the Billboard top 100 in October of 1969. Joan Baez, of course, has a long history with the Big Sur area and with Esalen - before Esalen was even Esalen, when it was still Big Sur Hot Springs or Slate's Hot Springs, she lived in Carmel and often came to the Hot Springs, where she could be heard playing her guitar and singing; she also had a friendship with the former Esalen gate guard Hunter S. Thompson. Baez taught her first workshop at Esalen in 1964, entitled “The New Folk Music,” which became the basis for the first Big Sur Folk Festival. The festival would reoccur each year thereafter until 1971. a couple of albums came out of the various festivals, including Celebration, From the 1970 festival, One Hand Clapping, from the 1971 festival. and Live at the Big Sur Folk Festival, featuring Kris Kristofferson's performance from 1971. This episode will comprise part one of the 1969 festival, and in our next episode we'll get part two. The setlist for this episode goes like this: Joan Baez singing “I Shall Be Released” , then “Mobile Line” by John Sebastian with Stephen Stills, followed by “Song for David” by Baez, and then “All God's Children Got Soul” by Dorothy Combs Morrison and the Combs sisters. Then we have a nice "Sea of Madness" by Crosby Stills Nash and Young, followed by an interesting scene where a heckler interrupts the performance taking place down at the Esalen pool and ultimately gets into a fistfight with Stephen Stills. This scene is pretty wild and you might want to refer to the actual movie for this one; it's available to watch on YouTube. Really a fun watch, especially if you've been to Esalen before and you want to see the property and how it looked in the late 60's overrun by 10,000 friendly young people. Then we get Stills doing "4 and 20," followed by a very young Joni Mitchell accompanying Crosby Stills and Nash with John Sebastian on "Get Together." At this time Joni was dating Graham Nash. You'll also hear her talking about spotting some whales off the coast. Then we'll end with Dorothy Combs Morrison kinda stealing the show with her cover of Put a Little Love in your Heart. I really hope you enjoy this dip into Esalen history and a glimpse back to the days when a rock festival cost four dollars to attend. Yes indeed. It's true.

  John Sebastian wrote the classic song that's been covered by the likes of Tom Petty, Jimmy Buffet and others.  Today, join me and Lisa as we discuss narrative and the stories we can – and often should – tell.  Be well. Do good. Grow great! Check out the Hosts page for our profiles. Connect […] The post The Stories We Can (and should) Tell appeared first on GROW GREAT.

The Trombone Corner Podcast is brought to you by Bob Reeves Brass and The Brass Ark.  Join hosts Noah and John as they interview John Sebastian Vera and Nick Schwartz, trombonists and podcast hosts of The Trombone Retreat.  After you listen to this episode, head on over to The Trombone Retreat feed for the second half of this episode.  You can come see us at Booth #271 at the TMEA Convention, February 8th thru 10th, 2024 in San Antonio Texas.   About John Sebastian Vera John Sebastian Vera, a native of Texas, became the principal trombonist of the Pittsburgh Opera in 2010 and also joined the River City Brass as principal Trombone in 2015. He is also professor of trombone at Duquesne University and faculty member at the Cleveland Institute of Music where he teaches a course on Music Entrepreneurship and Digital Media as well as coach chamber music. In addition to the Pittsburgh Opera, Mr. Vera has played with the symphonies of Dallas, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Buffalo, Kennedy Center Opera House, Malaysian Philharmonic, New York City Ballet, Vermont, Harrisburg, Charleston, American Ballet Theatre, and Orquesta Sinaloa de las Artes in Mexico amongst others.  He began his studies with Jon Bohls in Texas and continued his education at Southern Methodist University where he studied with John Kitzman of the Dallas Symphony. He then spent a year studying with Ed Zadrozny as a graduate assistant at the University of Akron, and finished his graduate work in New York City at the Mannes College of Music studying with David Finlayson and James Markey of the New York Philharmonic.     In 2011, he spent the summer in Haiti volunteer teaching and performing in the Orchestre Philharmonique Sainte Trinite as well as the Ecole de Musique Dessaix Baptiste which became one of the more profound experiences of his life.   A dedicated chamber musician, he also was a founding member of the critically acclaimed Guidonian Hand Trombone Quartet in which he played from 2008-2014. With the quartet, John performed over 100 concerts and gave master classes all over the country. Heralded by the New York Times for their "expertly played performances" they have been recipients of numerous national grants which have enabled them to commission countless composers to create new and innovative works for four trombones.  In 2014 was the premiere of River of Fundament, a movie by film artist Matthew Barney, in which John recorded for and acted in along with the quartet.  Mr. Vera can also be heard on the HBO documentary The Words that Built America as well as on euphonium in the PBS documentary Abraham and Mary Lincoln, A House Divided as well as many commercial and video game soundtracks as well as James Markey's solo release, “On Base”. John is an Artist for Edwards Instruments and resides in Pittsburgh.  His favorite musicians include Sigur Ros, Radiohead, the Books, and Efterklang. When he can get away from the trombone he most enjoys basketball, traveling and reading about psychology and social science.  Check out his podcast he hosts with Nick Schwartz called the Trombone Retreat available everywhere you download your podcasts. Follow him on Instagram @js.vera.   About Nicholas Schwartz Nicholas Schwartz has a diverse career performing across North America, Europe, and Asia. After studying at The Juilliard School with then New York Philharmonic bass trombonist Don Harwood, he moved to San Francisco where he began freelancing throughout the Bay Area.  Since 2010, he has been the principal bass trombonist of the New York City Ballet Orchestra. He has also performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, The Metropolitan Opera, The Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Ballet, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, St. Lukes Chamber Orchestra, the New York City Opera,  Atlanta Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, The Malaysia Philharmonic, Mostly Mozart Festival, and Classical Tahoe.  Follow him on instagram @basstrombone444   About Third Coast Retreat The Third Coast Trombone Retreat is an 7-day trombone immersion welcoming talented college, high school, and amateur trombonists from across the country to the beautiful shores of Lake Michigan.   The Retreat takes place in the charming small town of Montague, MI. Truly an escape from the distractions of everyday life, the festival is nestled in a dense forest along the coast where happening across roaming deer is a common occurrence. The Retreat utilizes facilities all over the town from churches to coffee houses to historic barns to the beach.  We will perform not only for ourselves, but for the community. A fulfilling life of being a musician does not simply begin and end with winning an orchestral or teaching position. Mastering the instrument is only the first step.  Being an artist in the 21st century requires discovering one's unique voice and finding new ways to present the art-form to communicate and contribute to society.   Core to the retreat will be guest artist and faculty recitals, topical master classes including personal finance, performance anxiety and wellness as well as private lessons, orchestral section seminar, ensemble coachings, a trombone choir, a mock orchestral audition, and much more. In addition to the performance elements, the curriculum is expanded to include a talks about career-building, faculty bonfire Q&A, discussions on the mental approach to auditions and performances, wellness, meditation, and more.    

Dedicamos este tiempo de radio a The Lovin' Spoonful, la banda liderada por John Sebastian desde el Greenwich Village de Nueva York. Repasamos los tres discos que en menos de dos años editó la formación original de este grupo que supo arropar los sonidos de raíces con las más brillantes melodías. (Foto del podcast por Don Paulsen; The Lovin' Spoonful en Central Park, New York, 1966)Playlist;(sintonía) THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “Other side of this life” (instrumental)THE LOVIN’ SPOONFUL “Good time music”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “Blues in the bottle”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “Did you ever have to make up your mind?”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “Do you believe in magic?”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “Younger girl”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “My gal”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “You didn’t have to be so nice”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “Daydream”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “It’s not time now”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “Warm baby”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “Didn’t want to have to do it”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “Jug band music”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “Lovin’ you”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “Summer in the city”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “Rain on the roof”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “Darlin’ companion”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “Nashville cats”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “Henry Thomas”THE LOVIN SPOONFUL “Full measure”Escuchar audio

Ready for a road trip down the laid-back, beachy paths of Jimmy Buffett's musical journey? Buckle up! We're hitting the A1A highway with a joyous celebration of Buffett's soul-soothing music, his famous Big Eight songs, and the unique blend of country, folk, and pop that defined his style. Expect enticing stories, laughter, and a deep-dive into the melodies and lyrics that continue to reverberate in the hearts of countless fans. From the critics' take on his relaxed style to a rank-all showdown of his songs, we're leaving no seashell unturned in this tribute to Buffett!Wondering how Buffett's tropical vibes and clever lyrics have touched the heartstrings of millions? Our lively discussions will paint a vivid picture, as we decipher his song stories, like "Tire Swing" and "Tin Cup Chalice." Join us as we explore the musical contributions of the likes of John Sebastian and Reggie Young and the cultural phenomenon of the Parrot Head Movement. Here's to celebrating the boot stuck in the sand, the nautical wheelers, and yes, the oyster eaters too! So come, dip your toes in the warm waters of Buffett's music with us. It's going to be a memorable ride.Support the show

Episode 18 of Saturday Night may not have as many jokes about the host's body as some of the writers wanted to include, but that doesn't mean there aren't a lot of them. Raquel Welch does her best to go along with the repeated calls for her to disrobe, but you can't help but think that maybe they could have done more? Phoebe Snow returns as musical guest and John Sebastian is on to perform his #1 hit single of the time! There are 2 classic sketches on this show, one which will require an on-air apology during the following episode and the other that was such a monumental moment in pop culture that a movie was made to consider the possibilities.Also, the MUPPETS get meta?Subscribe today! And follow us on social media on X (Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook.

Chris and Greg have written an A24 movie called "Dish Pit." Every role will be played by Adam Driver. To say that Licorice Pizza sucked, A24 employees had whisper to each other in a parking garage like Watergate informants. ALSO: "Coffee Church" - Chris's plan for community "kindness klatches." An update on Chris's campaign! PLUS: Greg's acupuncture cult, the new Can Do Cold Brew ad - and a song of the week from John Sebastian!John Sebastian - "You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SYS46SrKLEChris's City Council Campaign: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/croftonCan Do Cold Brew: Candocoldbrew.comChannel Nonfiction: Channelnonfiction.comPatreon: Patreon.com/chriscrofton

This week Jessimae discusses the self policing ways of Key West Florida, why we're going to need a draft for medical professionals, and how we are all doing too much. The word the teacher used to describe my NON-ZOOM class: ASYNCHRONOUS...which means "screw learning anything" in Latin. John Sebastian: https://www.instagram.com/p/CRUPkuyj7fB/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D https://www.instagram.com/reel/CdgYKGMDs1t/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D https://www.instagram.com/p/CL-NUa2gBEm/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D Word the teacher used to describe my NON-ZOOM class: Outro music "Breathe" by Tyler Labine , Adanac. CALL AND LEAVE US A VM TO BE PLAYED FOR THE POD: 513-916-0930 SUBMIT YOUR DR.P Qs: Every SUN on IG STORY: http://www.instagram.com/jessimaepelus Follow Jessimae: YT: https://found.ee/jessimae-youtube TOUR: https://found.ee/jessimaetour  FAN CLUB: https://found.ee/JessimaePeluso-Patreon  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

GGACP celebrates the birthday (March 17) of Rock ‘n' Roll Hall of Famer and The Lovin' Spoonful founder John Sebastian by revisiting this in-depth interview from 2020. In this episode, John entertains Gilbert and Frank with anecdotes about Cass Elliott, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Moon and Jim Morrison and reveals the stories and inspirations behind hits like "Daydream," "Summer in the City," and "Do You Believe in Magic." Also, Groucho co-hosts "Music Scene," Richard Pryor plays the Cafe Au Go Go, Art Garfunkel nails a Spoonful cover version and John composes a classic sitcom theme. PLUS: Vivian Vance! "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" The legend of Zal Yanovsky! John plays Woodstock! Boris Karloff plays Captain Hook! And Ed Sullivan introduces the "American Beatles"! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode one hundred and fifty-eight of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “White Rabbit”, Jefferson Airplane, and the rise of the San Francisco sound. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-three-minute bonus episode available, on "Omaha" by Moby Grape. 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/ Erratum I refer to Back to Methuselah by Robert Heinlein. This is of course a play by George Bernard Shaw. What I meant to say was Methuselah's Children. Resources I hope to upload a Mixcloud tomorrow, and will edit it in, but have had some problems with the site today. Jefferson Airplane's first four studio albums, plus a 1968 live album, can be found in this box set. I've referred to three main books here. Got a Revolution!: The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane by Jeff Tamarkin is written with the co-operation of the band members, but still finds room to criticise them. Jefferson Airplane On Track by Richard Molesworth is a song-by-song guide to the band's music. And Been So Long: My Life and Music by Jorma Kaukonen is Kaukonen's autobiography. Some information on Skip Spence and Matthew Katz also comes from What's Big and Purple and Lives in the Ocean?: The Moby Grape Story, by Cam Cobb, which I also used for this week's bonus. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I start, I need to confess an important and hugely embarrassing error in this episode. I've only ever seen Marty Balin's name written down, never heard it spoken, and only after recording the episode, during the editing process, did I discover I mispronounce it throughout. It's usually an advantage for the podcast that I get my information from books rather than TV documentaries and the like, because they contain far more information, but occasionally it causes problems like that. My apologies. Also a brief note that this episode contains some mentions of racism, antisemitism, drug and alcohol abuse, and gun violence. One of the themes we've looked at in recent episodes is the way the centre of the musical world -- at least the musical world as it was regarded by the people who thought of themselves as hip in the mid-sixties -- was changing in 1967. Up to this point, for a few years there had been two clear centres of the rock and pop music worlds. In the UK, there was London, and any British band who meant anything had to base themselves there. And in the US, at some point around 1963, the centre of the music industry had moved West. Up to then it had largely been based in New York, and there was still a thriving industry there as of the mid sixties. But increasingly the records that mattered, that everyone in the country had been listening to, had come out of LA Soul music was, of course, still coming primarily from Detroit and from the Country-Soul triangle in Tennessee and Alabama, but when it came to the new brand of electric-guitar rock that was taking over the airwaves, LA was, up until the first few months of 1967, the only city that was competing with London, and was the place to be. But as we heard in the episode on "San Francisco", with the Monterey Pop Festival all that started to change. While the business part of the music business remained centred in LA, and would largely remain so, LA was no longer the hip place to be. Almost overnight, jangly guitars, harmonies, and Brian Jones hairstyles were out, and feedback, extended solos, and droopy moustaches were in. The place to be was no longer LA, but a few hundred miles North, in San Francisco -- something that the LA bands were not all entirely happy about: [Excerpt: The Mothers of Invention, "Who Needs the Peace Corps?"] In truth, the San Francisco music scene, unlike many of the scenes we've looked at so far in this series, had rather a limited impact on the wider world of music. Bands like Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Big Brother and the Holding Company were all both massively commercially successful and highly regarded by critics, but unlike many of the other bands we've looked at before and will look at in future, they didn't have much of an influence on the bands that would come after them, musically at least. Possibly this is because the music from the San Francisco scene was always primarily that -- music created by and for a specific group of people, and inextricable from its context. The San Francisco musicians were defining themselves by their geographical location, their peers, and the situation they were in, and their music was so specifically of the place and time that to attempt to copy it outside of that context would appear ridiculous, so while many of those bands remain much loved to this day, and many made some great music, it's very hard to point to ways in which that music influenced later bands. But what they did influence was the whole of rock music culture. For at least the next thirty years, and arguably to this day, the parameters in which rock musicians worked if they wanted to be taken seriously – their aesthetic and political ideals, their methods of collaboration, the cultural norms around drug use and sexual promiscuity, ideas of artistic freedom and authenticity, the choice of acceptable instruments – in short, what it meant to be a rock musician rather than a pop, jazz, country, or soul artist – all those things were defined by the cultural and behavioural norms of the San Francisco scene between about 1966 and 68. Without the San Francisco scene there's no Woodstock, no Rolling Stone magazine, no Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, no hippies, no groupies, no rock stars. So over the next few months we're going to take several trips to the Bay Area, and look at the bands which, for a brief time, defined the counterculture in America. The story of Jefferson Airplane -- and unlike other bands we've looked at recently, like The Pink Floyd and The Buffalo Springfield, they never had a definite article at the start of their name to wither away like a vestigial organ in subsequent years -- starts with Marty Balin. Balin was born in Ohio, but was a relatively sickly child -- he later talked about being autistic, and seems to have had the chronic illnesses that so often go with neurodivergence -- so in the hope that the dry air would be good for his chest his family moved to Arizona. Then when his father couldn't find work there, they moved further west to San Francisco, in the Haight-Ashbury area, long before that area became the byword for the hippie movement. But it was in LA that he started his music career, and got his surname. Balin had been named Marty Buchwald as a kid, but when he was nineteen he had accompanied a friend to LA to visit a music publisher, and had ended up singing backing vocals on her demos. While he was there, he had encountered the arranger Jimmy Haskell. Haskell was on his way to becoming one of the most prominent arrangers in the music industry, and in his long career he would go on to do arrangements for Bobby Gentry, Blondie, Steely Dan, Simon and Garfunkel, and many others. But at the time he was best known for his work on Ricky Nelson's hits: [Excerpt: Ricky Nelson, "Hello Mary Lou"] Haskell thought that Marty had the makings of a Ricky Nelson style star, as he was a good-looking young man with a decent voice, and he became a mentor for the young man. Making the kind of records that Haskell arranged was expensive, and so Haskell suggested a deal to him -- if Marty's father would pay for studio time and musicians, Haskell would make a record with him and find him a label to put it out. Marty's father did indeed pay for the studio time and the musicians -- some of the finest working in LA at the time. The record, released under the name Marty Balin, featured Jack Nitzsche on keyboards, Earl Palmer on drums, Milt Jackson on vibraphone, Red Callender on bass, and Glen Campbell and Barney Kessell on guitars, and came out on Challenge Records, a label owned by Gene Autry: [Excerpt: Marty Balin, "Nobody But You"] Neither that, nor Balin's follow-up single, sold a noticeable amount of copies, and his career as a teen idol was over before it had begun. Instead, as many musicians of his age did, he decided to get into folk music, joining a vocal harmony group called the Town Criers, who patterned themselves after the Weavers, and performed the same kind of material that every other clean-cut folk vocal group was performing at the time -- the kind of songs that John Phillips and Steve Stills and Cass Elliot and Van Dyke Parks and the rest were all performing in their own groups at the same time. The Town Criers never made any records while they were together, but some archival recordings of them have been released over the decades: [Excerpt: The Town Criers, "900 Miles"] The Town Criers split up, and Balin started performing as a solo folkie again. But like all those other then-folk musicians, Balin realised that he had to adapt to the K/T-event level folk music extinction that happened when the Beatles hit America like a meteorite. He had to form a folk-rock group if he wanted to survive -- and given that there were no venues for such a group to play in San Francisco, he also had to start a nightclub for them to play in. He started hanging around the hootenannies in the area, looking for musicians who might form an electric band. The first person he decided on was a performer called Paul Kantner, mainly because he liked his attitude. Kantner had got on stage in front of a particularly drunk, loud, crowd, and performed precisely half a song before deciding he wasn't going to perform in front of people like that and walking off stage. Kantner was the only member of the new group to be a San Franciscan -- he'd been born and brought up in the city. He'd got into folk music at university, where he'd also met a guitar player named Jorma Kaukonen, who had turned him on to cannabis, and the two had started giving music lessons at a music shop in San Jose. There Kantner had also been responsible for booking acts at a local folk club, where he'd first encountered acts like Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions, a jug band which included Jerry Garcia, Pigpen McKernan, and Bob Weir, who would later go on to be the core members of the Grateful Dead: [Excerpt: Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions, "In the Jailhouse Now"] Kantner had moved around a bit between Northern and Southern California, and had been friendly with two other musicians on the Californian folk scene, David Crosby and Roger McGuinn. When their new group, the Byrds, suddenly became huge, Kantner became aware of the possibility of doing something similar himself, and so when Marty Balin approached him to form a band, he agreed. On bass, they got in a musician called Bob Harvey, who actually played double bass rather than electric, and who stuck to that for the first few gigs the group played -- he had previously been in a band called the Slippery Rock String Band. On drums, they brought in Jerry Peloquin, who had formerly worked for the police, but now had a day job as an optician. And on vocals, they brought in Signe Toley -- who would soon marry and change her name to Signe Anderson, so that's how I'll talk about her to avoid confusion. The group also needed a lead guitarist though -- both Balin and Kantner were decent rhythm players and singers, but they needed someone who was a better instrumentalist. They decided to ask Kantner's old friend Jorma Kaukonen. Kaukonen was someone who was seriously into what would now be called Americana or roots music. He'd started playing the guitar as a teenager, not like most people of his generation inspired by Elvis or Buddy Holly, but rather after a friend of his had shown him how to play an old Carter Family song, "Jimmy Brown the Newsboy": [Excerpt: The Carter Family, "Jimmy Brown the Newsboy"] Kaukonen had had a far more interesting life than most of the rest of the group. His father had worked for the State Department -- and there's some suggestion he'd worked for the CIA -- and the family had travelled all over the world, staying in Pakistan, the Philippines, and Finland. For most of his childhood, he'd gone by the name Jerry, because other kids beat him up for having a foreign name and called him a Nazi, but by the time he turned twenty he was happy enough using his birth name. Kaukonen wasn't completely immune to the appeal of rock and roll -- he'd formed a rock band, The Triumphs, with his friend Jack Casady when he was a teenager, and he loved Ricky Nelson's records -- but his fate as a folkie had been pretty much sealed when he went to Antioch College. There he met up with a blues guitarist called Ian Buchanan. Buchanan never had much of a career as a professional, but he had supposedly spent nine years studying with the blues and ragtime guitar legend Rev. Gary Davis, and he was certainly a fine guitarist, as can be heard on his contribution to The Blues Project, the album Elektra put out of white Greenwich Village musicians like John Sebastian and Dave Van Ronk playing old blues songs: [Excerpt: Ian Buchanan, "The Winding Boy"] Kaukonen became something of a disciple of Buchanan -- he said later that Buchanan probably taught him how to play because he was such a terrible player and Buchanan couldn't stand to listen to it -- as did John Hammond Jr, another student at Antioch at the same time. After studying at Antioch, Kaukonen started to travel around, including spells in Greenwich Village and in the Philippines, before settling in Santa Clara, where he studied for a sociology degree and became part of a social circle that included Dino Valenti, Jerry Garcia, and Billy Roberts, the credited writer of "Hey Joe". He also started performing as a duo with a singer called Janis Joplin. Various of their recordings from this period circulate, mostly recorded at Kaukonen's home with the sound of his wife typing in the background while the duo rehearse, as on this performance of an old Bessie Smith song: [Excerpt: Jorma Kaukonen and Janis Joplin, "Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out"] By 1965 Kaukonen saw himself firmly as a folk-blues purist, who would not even think of playing rock and roll music, which he viewed with more than a little contempt. But he allowed himself to be brought along to audition for the new group, and Ken Kesey happened to be there. Kesey was a novelist who had written two best-selling books, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes A Great Notion, and used the financial independence that gave him to organise a group of friends who called themselves the Merry Pranksters, who drove from coast to coast and back again in a psychedelic-painted bus, before starting a series of events that became known as Acid Tests, parties at which everyone was on LSD, immortalised in Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Nobody has ever said why Kesey was there, but he had brought along an Echoplex, a reverb unit one could put a guitar through -- and nobody has explained why Kesey, who wasn't a musician, had an Echoplex to hand. But Kaukonen loved the sound that he could get by putting his guitar through the device, and so for that reason more than any other he decided to become an electric player and join the band, going out and buying a Rickenbacker twelve-string and Vox Treble Booster because that was what Roger McGuinn used. He would later also get a Guild Thunderbird six-string guitar and a Standel Super Imperial amp, following the same principle of buying the equipment used by other guitarists he liked, as they were what Zal Yanovsky of the Lovin' Spoonful used. He would use them for all his six-string playing for the next couple of years, only later to discover that the Lovin' Spoonful despised them and only used them because they had an endorsement deal with the manufacturers. Kaukonen was also the one who came up with the new group's name. He and his friends had a running joke where they had "Bluesman names", things like "Blind Outrage" and "Little Sun Goldfarb". Kaukonen's bluesman name, given to him by his friend Steve Talbot, had been Blind Thomas Jefferson Airplane, a reference to the 1920s blues guitarist Blind Lemon Jefferson: [Excerpt: Blind Lemon Jefferson, "Match Box Blues"] At the band meeting where they were trying to decide on a name, Kaukonen got frustrated at the ridiculous suggestions that were being made, and said "You want a stupid name? Howzabout this... Jefferson Airplane?" He said in his autobiography "It was one of those rare moments when everyone in the band agreed, and that was that. I think it was the only band meeting that ever allowed me to come away smiling." The newly-named Jefferson Airplane started to rehearse at the Matrix Club, the club that Balin had decided to open. This was run with three sound engineer friends, who put in the seed capital for the club. Balin had stock options in the club, which he got by trading a share of the band's future earnings to his partners, though as the group became bigger he eventually sold his stock in the club back to his business partners. Before their first public performance, they started working with a manager, Matthew Katz, mostly because Katz had access to a recording of a then-unreleased Bob Dylan song, "Lay Down Your Weary Tune": [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Lay Down Your Weary Tune"] The group knew that the best way for a folk-rock band to make a name for themselves was to perform a Dylan song nobody else had yet heard, and so they agreed to be managed by Katz. Katz started a pre-publicity blitz, giving out posters, badges, and bumper stickers saying "Jefferson Airplane Loves You" all over San Francisco -- and insisting that none of the band members were allowed to say "Hello" when they answered the phone any more, they had to say "Jefferson Airplane Loves You!" For their early rehearsals and gigs, they were performing almost entirely cover versions of blues and folk songs, things like Fred Neil's "The Other Side of This Life" and Dino Valenti's "Get Together" which were the common currency of the early folk-rock movement, and songs by their friends, like one called "Flower Bomb" by David Crosby, which Crosby now denies ever having written. They did start writing the odd song, but at this point they were more focused on performance than on writing. They also hired a press agent, their friend Bill Thompson. Thompson was friends with the two main music writers at the San Francisco Chronicle, Ralph Gleason, the famous jazz critic, who had recently started also reviewing rock music, and John Wasserman. Thompson got both men to come to the opening night of the Matrix, and both gave the group glowing reviews in the Chronicle. Record labels started sniffing around the group immediately as a result of this coverage, and according to Katz he managed to get a bidding war started by making sure that when A&R men came to the club there were always two of them from different labels, so they would see the other person and realise they weren't the only ones interested. But before signing a record deal they needed to make some personnel changes. The first member to go was Jerry Peloquin, for both musical and personal reasons. Peloquin was used to keeping strict time and the other musicians had a more free-flowing idea of what tempo they should be playing at, but also he had worked for the police while the other members were all taking tons of illegal drugs. The final break with Peloquin came when he did the rest of the group a favour -- Paul Kantner's glasses broke during a rehearsal, and as Peloquin was an optician he offered to take them back to his shop and fix them. When he got back, he found them auditioning replacements for him. He beat Kantner up, and that was the end of Jerry Peloquin in Jefferson Airplane. His replacement was Skip Spence, who the group had met when he had accompanied three friends to the Matrix, which they were using as a rehearsal room. Spence's friends went on to be the core members of Quicksilver Messenger Service along with Dino Valenti: [Excerpt: Quicksilver Messenger Service, "Dino's Song"] But Balin decided that Spence looked like a rock star, and told him that he was now Jefferson Airplane's drummer, despite Spence being a guitarist and singer, not a drummer. But Spence was game, and learned to play the drums. Next they needed to get rid of Bob Harvey. According to Harvey, the decision to sack him came after David Crosby saw the band rehearsing and said "Nice song, but get rid of the bass player" (along with an expletive before the word bass which I can't say without incurring the wrath of Apple). Crosby denies ever having said this. Harvey had started out in the group on double bass, but to show willing he'd switched in his last few gigs to playing an electric bass. When he was sacked by the group, he returned to double bass, and to the Slippery Rock String Band, who released one single in 1967: [Excerpt: The Slippery Rock String Band, "Tule Fog"] Harvey's replacement was Kaukonen's old friend Jack Casady, who Kaukonen knew was now playing bass, though he'd only ever heard him playing guitar when they'd played together. Casady was rather cautious about joining a rock band, but then Kaukonen told him that the band were getting fifty dollars a week salary each from Katz, and Casady flew over from Washington DC to San Francisco to join the band. For the first few gigs, he used Bob Harvey's bass, which Harvey was good enough to lend him despite having been sacked from the band. Unfortunately, right from the start Casady and Kantner didn't get on. When Casady flew in from Washington, he had a much more clean-cut appearance than the rest of the band -- one they've described as being nerdy, with short, slicked-back, side-parted hair and a handlebar moustache. Kantner insisted that Casady shave the moustache off, and he responded by shaving only one side, so in profile on one side he looked clean-shaven, while from the other side he looked like he had a full moustache. Kantner also didn't like Casady's general attitude, or his playing style, at all -- though most critics since this point have pointed to Casady's bass playing as being the most interesting and distinctive thing about Jefferson Airplane's style. This lineup seems to have been the one that travelled to LA to audition for various record companies -- a move that immediately brought the group a certain amount of criticism for selling out, both for auditioning for record companies and for going to LA at all, two things that were already anathema on the San Francisco scene. The only audition anyone remembers them having specifically is one for Phil Spector, who according to Kaukonen was waving a gun around during the audition, so he and Casady walked out. Around this time as well, the group performed at an event billed as "A Tribute to Dr. Strange", organised by the radical hippie collective Family Dog. Marvel Comics, rather than being the multi-billion-dollar Disney-owned corporate juggernaut it is now, was regarded as a hip, almost underground, company -- and around this time they briefly started billing their comics not as comics but as "Marvel Pop Art Productions". The magical adventures of Dr. Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts, and in particular the art by far-right libertarian artist Steve Ditko, were regarded as clear parallels to both the occult dabblings and hallucinogen use popular among the hippies, though Ditko had no time for either, following as he did an extreme version of Ayn Rand's Objectivism. It was at the Tribute to Dr. Strange that Jefferson Airplane performed for the first time with a band named The Great Society, whose lead singer, Grace Slick, would later become very important in Jefferson Airplane's story: [Excerpt: The Great Society, "Someone to Love"] That gig was also the first one where the band and their friends noticed that large chunks of the audience were now dressing up in costumes that were reminiscent of the Old West. Up to this point, while Katz had been managing the group and paying them fifty dollars a week even on weeks when they didn't perform, he'd been doing so without a formal contract, in part because the group didn't trust him much. But now they were starting to get interest from record labels, and in particular RCA Records desperately wanted them. While RCA had been the label who had signed Elvis Presley, they had otherwise largely ignored rock and roll, considering that since they had the biggest rock star in the world they didn't need other ones, and concentrating largely on middle-of-the-road acts. But by the mid-sixties Elvis' star had faded somewhat, and they were desperate to get some of the action for the new music -- and unlike the other major American labels, they didn't have a reciprocal arrangement with a British label that allowed them to release anything by any of the new British stars. The group were introduced to RCA by Rod McKuen, a songwriter and poet who later became America's best-selling poet and wrote songs that sold over a hundred million copies. At this point McKuen was in his Jacques Brel phase, recording loose translations of the Belgian songwriter's songs with McKuen translating the lyrics: [Excerpt: Rod McKuen, "Seasons in the Sun"] McKuen thought that Jefferson Airplane might be a useful market for his own songs, and brought the group to RCA. RCA offered Jefferson Airplane twenty-five thousand dollars to sign with them, and Katz convinced the group that RCA wouldn't give them this money without them having signed a management contract with him. Kaukonen, Kantner, Spence, and Balin all signed without much hesitation, but Jack Casady didn't yet sign, as he was the new boy and nobody knew if he was going to be in the band for the long haul. The other person who refused to sign was Signe Anderson. In her case, she had a much better reason for refusing to sign, as unlike the rest of the band she had actually read the contract, and she found it to be extremely worrying. She did eventually back down on the day of the group's first recording session, but she later had the contract renegotiated. Jack Casady also signed the contract right at the start of the first session -- or at least, he thought he'd signed the contract then. He certainly signed *something*, without having read it. But much later, during a court case involving the band's longstanding legal disputes with Katz, it was revealed that the signature on the contract wasn't Casady's, and was badly forged. What he actually *did* sign that day has never been revealed, to him or to anyone else. Katz also signed all the group as songwriters to his own publishing company, telling them that they legally needed to sign with him if they wanted to make records, and also claimed to RCA that he had power of attorney for the band, which they say they never gave him -- though to be fair to Katz, given the band members' habit of signing things without reading or understanding them, it doesn't seem beyond the realms of possibility that they did. The producer chosen for the group's first album was Tommy Oliver, a friend of Katz's who had previously been an arranger on some of Doris Day's records, and whose next major act after finishing the Jefferson Airplane album was Trombones Unlimited, who released records like "Holiday for Trombones": [Excerpt: Trombones Unlimited, "Holiday For Trombones"] The group weren't particularly thrilled with this choice, but were happier with their engineer, Dave Hassinger, who had worked on records like "Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones, and had a far better understanding of the kind of music the group were making. They spent about three months recording their first album, even while continually being attacked as sellouts. The album is not considered their best work, though it does contain "Blues From an Airplane", a collaboration between Spence and Balin: [Excerpt: Jefferson Airplane, "Blues From an Airplane"] Even before the album came out, though, things were starting to change for the group. Firstly, they started playing bigger venues -- their home base went from being the Matrix club to the Fillmore, a large auditorium run by the promoter Bill Graham. They also started to get an international reputation. The British singer-songwriter Donovan released a track called "The Fat Angel" which namechecked the group: [Excerpt: Donovan, "The Fat Angel"] The group also needed a new drummer. Skip Spence decided to go on holiday to Mexico without telling the rest of the band. There had already been some friction with Spence, as he was very eager to become a guitarist and songwriter, and the band already had three songwriting guitarists and didn't really see why they needed a fourth. They sacked Spence, who went on to form Moby Grape, who were also managed by Katz: [Excerpt: Moby Grape, "Omaha"] For his replacement they brought in Spencer Dryden, who was a Hollywood brat like their friend David Crosby -- in Dryden's case he was Charlie Chaplin's nephew, and his father worked as Chaplin's assistant. The story normally goes that the great session drummer Earl Palmer recommended Dryden to the group, but it's also the case that Dryden had been in a band, the Heartbeats, with Tommy Oliver and the great blues guitarist Roy Buchanan, so it may well be that Oliver had recommended him. Dryden had been primarily a jazz musician, playing with people like the West Coast jazz legend Charles Lloyd, though like most jazzers he would slum it on occasion by playing rock and roll music to pay the bills. But then he'd seen an early performance by the Mothers of Invention, and realised that rock music could have a serious artistic purpose too. He'd joined a band called The Ashes, who had released one single, the Jackie DeShannon song "Is There Anything I Can Do?" in December 1965: [Excerpt: The Ashes, "Is There Anything I Can Do?"] The Ashes split up once Dryden left the group to join Jefferson Airplane, but they soon reformed without him as The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, who hooked up with Gary Usher and released several albums of psychedelic sunshine pop. Dryden played his first gig with the group at a Republican Party event on June the sixth, 1966. But by the time Dryden had joined, other problems had become apparent. The group were already feeling like it had been a big mistake to accede to Katz's demands to sign a formal contract with him, and Balin in particular was getting annoyed that he wouldn't let the band see their finances. All the money was getting paid to Katz, who then doled out money to the band when they asked for it, and they had no idea if he was actually paying them what they were owed or not. The group's first album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, finally came out in September, and it was a comparative flop. It sold well in San Francisco itself, selling around ten thousand copies in the area, but sold basically nothing anywhere else in the country -- the group's local reputation hadn't extended outside their own immediate scene. It didn't help that the album was pulled and reissued, as RCA censored the initial version of the album because of objections to the lyrics. The song "Runnin' Round This World" was pulled off the album altogether for containing the word "trips", while in "Let Me In" they had to rerecord two lines -- “I gotta get in, you know where" was altered to "You shut the door now it ain't fair" and "Don't tell me you want money" became "Don't tell me it's so funny". Similarly in "Run Around" the phrase "as you lay under me" became "as you stay here by me". Things were also becoming difficult for Anderson. She had had a baby in May and was not only unhappy with having to tour while she had a small child, she was also the band member who was most vocally opposed to Katz. Added to that, her husband did not get on well at all with the group, and she felt trapped between her marriage and her bandmates. Reports differ as to whether she quit the band or was fired, but after a disastrous appearance at the Monterey Jazz Festival, one way or another she was out of the band. Her replacement was already waiting in the wings. Grace Slick, the lead singer of the Great Society, had been inspired by going to one of the early Jefferson Airplane gigs. She later said "I went to see Jefferson Airplane at the Matrix, and they were making more money in a day than I made in a week. They only worked for two or three hours a night, and they got to hang out. I thought 'This looks a lot better than what I'm doing.' I knew I could more or less carry a tune, and I figured if they could do it I could." She was married at the time to a film student named Jerry Slick, and indeed she had done the music for his final project at film school, a film called "Everybody Hits Their Brother Once", which sadly I can't find online. She was also having an affair with Jerry's brother Darby, though as the Slicks were in an open marriage this wasn't particularly untoward. The three of them, with a couple of other musicians, had formed The Great Society, named as a joke about President Johnson's programme of the same name. The Great Society was the name Johnson had given to his whole programme of domestic reforms, including civil rights for Black people, the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts, and more. While those projects were broadly popular among the younger generation, Johnson's escalation of the war in Vietnam had made him so personally unpopular that even his progressive domestic programme was regarded with suspicion and contempt. The Great Society had set themselves up as local rivals to Jefferson Airplane -- where Jefferson Airplane had buttons saying "Jefferson Airplane Loves You!" the Great Society put out buttons saying "The Great Society Really Doesn't Like You Much At All". They signed to Autumn Records, and recorded a song that Darby Slick had written, titled "Someone to Love" -- though the song would later be retitled "Somebody to Love": [Excerpt: The Great Society, "Someone to Love"] That track was produced by Sly Stone, who at the time was working as a producer for Autumn Records. The Great Society, though, didn't like working with Stone, because he insisted on them doing forty-five takes to try to sound professional, as none of them were particularly competent musicians. Grace Slick later said "Sly could play any instrument known to man. He could have just made the record himself, except for the singers. It was kind of degrading in a way" -- and on another occasion she said that he *did* end up playing all the instruments on the finished record. "Someone to Love" was put out as a promo record, but never released to the general public, and nor were any of the Great Society's other recordings for Autumn Records released. Their contract expired and they were let go, at which point they were about to sign to Mercury Records, but then Darby Slick and another member decided to go off to India for a while. Grace's marriage to Jerry was falling apart, though they would stay legally married for several years, and the Great Society looked like it was at an end, so when Grace got the offer to join Jefferson Airplane to replace Signe Anderson, she jumped at the chance. At first, she was purely a harmony singer -- she didn't take over any of the lead vocal parts that Anderson had previously sung, as she had a very different vocal style, and instead she just sang the harmony parts that Anderson had sung on songs with other lead vocalists. But two months after the album they were back in the studio again, recording their second album, and Slick sang lead on several songs there. As well as the new lineup, there was another important change in the studio. They were still working with Dave Hassinger, but they had a new producer, Rick Jarrard. Jarrard was at one point a member of the folk group The Wellingtons, who did the theme tune for "Gilligan's Island", though I can't find anything to say whether or not he was in the group when they recorded that track: [Excerpt: The Wellingtons, "The Ballad of Gilligan's Island"] Jarrard had also been in the similar folk group The Greenwood County Singers, where as we heard in the episode on "Heroes and Villains" he replaced Van Dyke Parks. He'd also released a few singles under his own name, including a version of Parks' "High Coin": [Excerpt: Rick Jarrard, "High Coin"] While Jarrard had similar musical roots to those of Jefferson Airplane's members, and would go on to produce records by people like Harry Nilsson and The Family Tree, he wasn't any more liked by the band than their previous producer had been. So much so, that a few of the band members have claimed that while Jarrard is the credited producer, much of the work that one would normally expect to be done by a producer was actually done by their friend Jerry Garcia, who according to the band members gave them a lot of arranging and structural advice, and was present in the studio and played guitar on several tracks. Jarrard, on the other hand, said categorically "I never met Jerry Garcia. I produced that album from start to finish, never heard from Jerry Garcia, never talked to Jerry Garcia. He was not involved creatively on that album at all." According to the band, though, it was Garcia who had the idea of almost doubling the speed of the retitled "Somebody to Love", turning it into an uptempo rocker: [Excerpt: Jefferson Airplane, "Somebody to Love"] And one thing everyone is agreed on is that it was Garcia who came up with the album title, when after listening to some of the recordings he said "That's as surrealistic as a pillow!" It was while they were working on the album that was eventually titled Surrealistic Pillow that they finally broke with Katz as their manager, bringing Bill Thompson in as a temporary replacement. Or at least, it was then that they tried to break with Katz. Katz sued the group over their contract, and won. Then they appealed, and they won. Then Katz appealed the appeal, and the Superior Court insisted that if he wanted to appeal the ruling, he had to put up a bond for the fifty thousand dollars the group said he owed them. He didn't, so in 1970, four years after they sacked him as their manager, the appeal was dismissed. Katz appealed the dismissal, and won that appeal, and the case dragged on for another three years, at which point Katz dragged RCA Records into the lawsuit. As a result of being dragged into the mess, RCA decided to stop paying the group their songwriting royalties from record sales directly, and instead put the money into an escrow account. The claims and counterclaims and appeals *finally* ended in 1987, twenty years after the lawsuits had started and fourteen years after the band had stopped receiving their songwriting royalties. In the end, the group won on almost every point, and finally received one point three million dollars in back royalties and seven hundred thousand dollars in interest that had accrued, while Katz got a small token payment. Early in 1967, when the sessions for Surrealistic Pillow had finished, but before the album was released, Newsweek did a big story on the San Francisco scene, which drew national attention to the bands there, and the first big event of what would come to be called the hippie scene, the Human Be-In, happened in Golden Gate Park in January. As the group's audience was expanding rapidly, they asked Bill Graham to be their manager, as he was the most business-minded of the people around the group. The first single from the album, "My Best Friend", a song written by Skip Spence before he quit the band, came out in January 1967 and had no more success than their earlier recordings had, and didn't make the Hot 100. The album came out in February, and was still no higher than number 137 on the charts in March, when the second single, "Somebody to Love", was released: [Excerpt: Jefferson Airplane, "Somebody to Love"] That entered the charts at the start of April, and by June it had made number five. The single's success also pushed its parent album up to number three by August, just behind the Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and the Monkees' Headquarters. The success of the single also led to the group being asked to do commercials for Levis jeans: [Excerpt: Jefferson Airplane, "Levis commercial"] That once again got them accused of selling out. Abbie Hoffman, the leader of the Yippies, wrote to the Village Voice about the commercials, saying "It summarized for me all the doubts I have about the hippie philosophy. I realise they are just doing their 'thing', but while the Jefferson Airplane grooves with its thing, over 100 workers in the Levi Strauss plant on the Tennessee-Georgia border are doing their thing, which consists of being on strike to protest deplorable working conditions." The third single from the album, "White Rabbit", came out on the twenty-fourth of June, the day before the Beatles recorded "All You Need is Love", nine days after the release of "See Emily Play", and a week after the group played the Monterey Pop Festival, to give you some idea of how compressed a time period we've been in recently. We talked in the last episode about how there's a big difference between American and British psychedelia at this point in time, because the political nature of the American counterculture was determined by the fact that so many people were being sent off to die in Vietnam. Of all the San Francisco bands, though, Jefferson Airplane were by far the least political -- they were into the culture part of the counterculture, but would often and repeatedly disavow any deeper political meaning in their songs. In early 1968, for example, in a press conference, they said “Don't ask us anything about politics. We don't know anything about it. And what we did know, we just forgot.” So it's perhaps not surprising that of all the American groups, they were the one that was most similar to the British psychedelic groups in their influences, and in particular their frequent references to children's fantasy literature. "White Rabbit" was a perfect example of this. It had started out as "White Rabbit Blues", a song that Slick had written influenced by Alice in Wonderland, and originally performed by the Great Society: [Excerpt: The Great Society, "White Rabbit"] Slick explained the lyrics, and their association between childhood fantasy stories and drugs, later by saying "It's an interesting song but it didn't do what I wanted it to. What I was trying to say was that between the ages of zero and five the information and the input you get is almost indelible. In other words, once a Catholic, always a Catholic. And the parents read us these books, like Alice in Wonderland where she gets high, tall, and she takes mushrooms, a hookah, pills, alcohol. And then there's The Wizard of Oz, where they fall into a field of poppies and when they wake up they see Oz. And then there's Peter Pan, where if you sprinkle white dust on you, you could fly. And then you wonder why we do it? Well, what did you read to me?" While the lyrical inspiration for the track was from Alice in Wonderland, the musical inspiration is less obvious. Slick has on multiple occasions said that the idea for the music came from listening to Miles Davis' album "Sketches of Spain", and in particular to Davis' version of -- and I apologise for almost certainly mangling the Spanish pronunciation badly here -- "Concierto de Aranjuez", though I see little musical resemblance to it myself. [Excerpt: Miles Davis, "Concierto de Aranjuez"] She has also, though, talked about how the song was influenced by Ravel's "Bolero", and in particular the way the piece keeps building in intensity, starting softly and slowly building up, rather than having the dynamic peaks and troughs of most music. And that is definitely a connection I can hear in the music: [Excerpt: Ravel, "Bolero"] Jefferson Airplane's version of "White Rabbit", like their version of "Somebody to Love", was far more professional, far -- and apologies for the pun -- slicker than The Great Society's version. It's also much shorter. The version by The Great Society has a four and a half minute instrumental intro before Slick's vocal enters. By contrast, the version on Surrealistic Pillow comes in at under two and a half minutes in total, and is a tight pop song: [Excerpt: Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit"] Jack Casady has more recently said that the group originally recorded the song more or less as a lark, because they assumed that all the drug references would mean that RCA would make them remove the song from the album -- after all, they'd cut a song from the earlier album because it had a reference to a trip, so how could they possibly allow a song like "White Rabbit" with its lyrics about pills and mushrooms? But it was left on the album, and ended up making the top ten on the pop charts, peaking at number eight: [Excerpt: Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit"] In an interview last year, Slick said she still largely lives off the royalties from writing that one song. It would be the last hit single Jefferson Airplane would ever have. Marty Balin later said "Fame changes your life. It's a bit like prison. It ruined the band. Everybody became rich and selfish and self-centred and couldn't care about the band. That was pretty much the end of it all. After that it was just working and living the high life and watching the band destroy itself, living on its laurels." They started work on their third album, After Bathing at Baxter's, in May 1967, while "Somebody to Love" was still climbing the charts. This time, the album was produced by Al Schmitt. Unlike the two previous producers, Schmitt was a fan of the band, and decided the best thing to do was to just let them do their own thing without interfering. The album took months to record, rather than the weeks that Surrealistic Pillow had taken, and cost almost ten times as much money to record. In part the time it took was because of the promotional work the band had to do. Bill Graham was sending them all over the country to perform, which they didn't appreciate. The group complained to Graham in business meetings, saying they wanted to only play in big cities where there were lots of hippies. Graham pointed out in turn that if they wanted to keep having any kind of success, they needed to play places other than San Francisco, LA, New York, and Chicago, because in fact most of the population of the US didn't live in those four cities. They grudgingly took his point. But there were other arguments all the time as well. They argued about whether Graham should be taking his cut from the net or the gross. They argued about Graham trying to push for the next single to be another Grace Slick lead vocal -- they felt like he was trying to make them into just Grace Slick's backing band, while he thought it made sense to follow up two big hits with more singles with the same vocalist. There was also a lawsuit from Balin's former partners in the Matrix, who remembered that bit in the contract about having a share in the group's income and sued for six hundred thousand dollars -- that was settled out of court three years later. And there were interpersonal squabbles too. Some of these were about the music -- Dryden didn't like the fact that Kaukonen's guitar solos were getting longer and longer, and Balin only contributed one song to the new album because all the other band members made fun of him for writing short, poppy, love songs rather than extended psychedelic jams -- but also the group had become basically two rival factions. On one side were Kaukonen and Casady, the old friends and virtuoso instrumentalists, who wanted to extend the instrumental sections of the songs more to show off their playing. On the other side were Grace Slick and Spencer Dryden, the two oldest members of the group by age, but the most recent people to join. They were also unusual in the San Francisco scene for having alcohol as their drug of choice -- drinking was thought of by most of the hippies as being a bit classless, but they were both alcoholics. They were also sleeping together, and generally on the side of shorter, less exploratory, songs. Kantner, who was attracted to Slick, usually ended up siding with her and Dryden, and this left Balin the odd man out in the middle. He later said "I got disgusted with all the ego trips, and the band was so stoned that I couldn't even talk to them. Everybody was in their little shell". While they were still working on the album, they released the first single from it, Kantner's "The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil". The "Pooneil" in the song was a figure that combined two of Kantner's influences: the Greenwich Village singer-songwriter Fred Neil, the writer of "Everybody's Talkin'" and "Dolphins"; and Winnie the Pooh. The song contained several lines taken from A.A. Milne's children's stories: [Excerpt: Jefferson Airplane, "The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil"] That only made number forty-two on the charts. It was the last Jefferson Airplane single to make the top fifty. At a gig in Bakersfield they got arrested for inciting a riot, because they encouraged the crowd to dance, even though local by-laws said that nobody under sixteen was allowed to dance, and then they nearly got arrested again after Kantner's behaviour on the private plane they'd chartered to get them back to San Francisco that night. Kantner had been chain-smoking, and this annoyed the pilot, who asked Kantner to put his cigarette out, so Kantner opened the door of the plane mid-flight and threw the lit cigarette out. They'd chartered that plane because they wanted to make sure they got to see a new group, Cream, who were playing the Fillmore: [Excerpt: Cream, "Strange Brew"] After seeing that, the divisions in the band were even wider -- Kaukonen and Casady now *knew* that what the band needed was to do long, extended, instrumental jams. Cream were the future, two-minute pop songs were the past. Though they weren't completely averse to two-minute pop songs. The group were recording at RCA studios at the same time as the Monkees, and members of the two groups would often jam together. The idea of selling out might have been anathema to their *audience*, but the band members themselves didn't care about things like that. Indeed, at one point the group returned from a gig to the mansion they were renting and found squatters had moved in and were using their private pool -- so they shot at the water. The squatters quickly moved on. As Dryden put it "We all -- Paul, Jorma, Grace, and myself -- had guns. We weren't hippies. Hippies were the people that lived on the streets down in Haight-Ashbury. We were basically musicians and art school kids. We were into guns and machinery" After Bathing at Baxter's only went to number seventeen on the charts, not a bad position but a flop compared to their previous album, and Bill Graham in particular took this as more proof that he had been right when for the last few months he'd been attacking the group as self-indulgent. Eventually, Slick and Dryden decided that either Bill Graham was going as their manager, or they were going. Slick even went so far as to try to negotiate a solo deal with Elektra Records -- as the voice on the hits, everyone was telling her she was the only one who mattered anyway. David Anderle, who was working for the label, agreed a deal with her, but Jac Holzman refused to authorise the deal, saying "Judy Collins doesn't get that much money, why should Grace Slick?" The group did fire Graham, and went one further and tried to become his competitors. They teamed up with the Grateful Dead to open a new venue, the Carousel Ballroom, to compete with the Fillmore, but after a few months they realised they were no good at running a venue and sold it to Graham. Graham, who was apparently unhappy with the fact that the people living around the Fillmore were largely Black given that the bands he booked appealed to mostly white audiences, closed the original Fillmore, renamed the Carousel the Fillmore West, and opened up a second venue in New York, the Fillmore East. The divisions in the band were getting worse -- Kaukonen and Casady were taking more and more speed, which was making them play longer and faster instrumental solos whether or not the rest of the band wanted them to, and Dryden, whose hands often bled from trying to play along with them, definitely did not want them to. But the group soldiered on and recorded their fourth album, Crown of Creation. This album contained several songs that were influenced by science fiction novels. The most famous of these was inspired by the right-libertarian author Robert Heinlein, who was hugely influential on the counterculture. Jefferson Airplane's friends the Monkees had already recorded a song based on Heinlein's The Door Into Summer, an unintentionally disturbing novel about a thirty-year-old man who falls in love with a twelve-year-old girl, and who uses a combination of time travel and cryogenic freezing to make their ages closer together so he can marry her: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "The Door Into Summer"] Now Jefferson Airplane were recording a song based on Heinlein's most famous novel, Stranger in a Strange Land. Stranger in a Strange Land has dated badly, thanks to its casual homophobia and rape-apologia, but at the time it was hugely popular in hippie circles for its advocacy of free love and group marriages -- so popular that a religion, the Church of All Worlds, based itself on the book. David Crosby had taken inspiration from it and written "Triad", a song asking two women if they'll enter into a polygamous relationship with him, and recorded it with the Byrds: [Excerpt: The Byrds, "Triad"] But the other members of the Byrds disliked the song, and it was left unreleased for decades. As Crosby was friendly with Jefferson Airplane, and as members of the band were themselves advocates of open relationships, they recorded their own version with Slick singing lead: [Excerpt: Jefferson Airplane, "Triad"] The other song on the album influenced by science fiction was the title track, Paul Kantner's "Crown of Creation". This song was inspired by The Chrysalids, a novel by the British writer John Wyndham. The Chrysalids is one of Wyndham's most influential novels, a post-apocalyptic story about young children who are born with mutant superpowers and have to hide them from their parents as they will be killed if they're discovered. The novel is often thought to have inspired Marvel Comics' X-Men, and while there's an unpleasant eugenic taste to its ending, with the idea that two species can't survive in the same ecological niche and the younger, "superior", species must outcompete the old, that idea also had a lot of influence in the counterculture, as well as being a popular one in science fiction. Kantner's song took whole lines from The Chrysalids, much as he had earlier done with A.A. Milne: [Excerpt: Jefferson Airplane, "Crown of Creation"] The Crown of Creation album was in some ways a return to the more focused songwriting of Surrealistic Pillow, although the sessions weren't without their experiments. Slick and Dryden collaborated with Frank Zappa and members of the Mothers of Invention on an avant-garde track called "Would You Like a Snack?" (not the same song as the later Zappa song of the same name) which was intended for the album, though went unreleased until a CD box set decades later: [Excerpt: Grace Slick and Frank Zappa, "Would You Like a Snack?"] But the finished album was generally considered less self-indulgent than After Bathing at Baxter's, and did better on the charts as a result. It reached number six, becoming their second and last top ten album, helped by the group's appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in September 1968, a month after it came out. That appearance was actually organised by Colonel Tom Parker, who suggested them to Sullivan as a favour to RCA Records. But another TV appearance at the time was less successful. They appeared on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, one of the most popular TV shows among the young, hip, audience that the group needed to appeal to, but Slick appeared in blackface. She's later said that there was no political intent behind this, and that she was just trying the different makeup she found in the dressing room as a purely aesthetic thing, but that doesn't really explain the Black power salute she gives at one point. Slick was increasingly obnoxious on stage, as her drinking was getting worse and her relationship with Dryden was starting to break down. Just before the Smothers Brothers appearance she was accused at a benefit for the Whitney Museum of having called the audience "filthy Jews", though she has always said that what she actually said was "filthy jewels", and she was talking about the ostentatious jewellery some of the audience were wearing. The group struggled through a performance at Altamont -- an event we will talk about in a future episode, so I won't go into it here, except to say that it was a horrifying experience for everyone involved -- and performed at Woodstock, before releasing their fifth studio album, Volunteers, in 1969: [Excerpt: Jefferson Airplane, "Volunteers"] That album made the top twenty, but was the last album by the classic lineup of the band. By this point Spencer Dryden and Grace Slick had broken up, with Slick starting to date Kantner, and Dryden was also disappointed at the group's musical direction, and left. Balin also left, feeling sidelined in the group. They released several more albums with varying lineups, including at various points their old friend David Frieberg of Quicksilver Messenger Service, the violinist Papa John Creach, and the former drummer of the Turtles, Johnny Barbata. But as of 1970 the group's members had already started working on two side projects -- an acoustic band called Hot Tuna, led by Kaukonen and Casady, which sometimes also featured Balin, and a project called Paul Kantner's Jefferson Starship, which also featured Slick and had recorded an album, Blows Against the Empire, the second side of which was based on the Robert Heinlein novel Back to Methuselah, and which became one of the first albums ever nominated for science fiction's Hugo Awards: [Excerpt: Jefferson Starship, "Have You Seen The Stars Tonite"] That album featured contributions from David Crosby and members of the Grateful Dead, as well as Casady on two tracks, but  in 1974 when Kaukonen and Casady quit Jefferson Airplane to make Hot Tuna their full-time band, Kantner, Slick, and Frieberg turned Jefferson Starship into a full band. Over the next decade, Jefferson Starship had a lot of moderate-sized hits, with a varying lineup that at one time or another saw several members, including Slick, go and return, and saw Marty Balin back with them for a while. In 1984, Kantner left the group, and sued them to stop them using the Jefferson Starship name. A settlement was reached in which none of Kantner, Slick, Kaukonen, or Casady could use the words "Jefferson" or "Airplane" in their band-names without the permission of all the others, and the remaining members of Jefferson Starship renamed their band just Starship -- and had three number one singles in the late eighties with Slick on lead, becoming far more commercially successful than their precursor bands had ever been: [Excerpt: Starship, "We Built This City on Rock & Roll"] Slick left Starship in 1989, and there was a brief Jefferson Airplane reunion tour, with all the classic members but Dryden, but then Slick decided that she was getting too old to perform rock and roll music, and decided to retire from music and become a painter, something she's stuck to for more than thirty years. Kantner and Balin formed a new Jefferson Starship, called Jefferson Starship: The Next Generation, but Kantner died in January 2016, coincidentally on the same day as Signe Anderson, who had occasionally guested with her old bandmates in the new version of the band. Balin, who had quit the reunited Jefferson Starship due to health reasons, died two years later. Dryden had died in 2005. Currently, there are three bands touring that descend directly from Jefferson Airplane. Hot Tuna still continue to perform, there's a version of Starship that tours featuring one original member, Mickey Thomas, and the reunited Jefferson Starship still tour, led by David Frieberg. Grace Slick has given the latter group her blessing, and even co-wrote one song on their most recent album, released in 2020, though she still doesn't perform any more. Jefferson Airplane's period in the commercial spotlight was brief -- they had charting singles for only a matter of months, and while they had top twenty albums for a few years after their peak, they really only mattered to the wider world during that brief period of the Summer of Love. But precisely because their period of success was so short, their music is indelibly associated with that time. To this day there's nothing as evocative of summer 1967 as "White Rabbit", even for those of us who weren't born then. And while Grace Slick had her problems, as I've made very clear in this episode, she inspired a whole generation of women who went on to be singers themselves, as one of the first prominent women to sing lead with an electric rock band. And when she got tired of doing that, she stopped, and got on with her other artistic pursuits, without feeling the need to go back and revisit the past for ever diminishing returns. One might only wish that some of her male peers had followed her example.