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Hosted by johnny black
5 episodes with johnny black
2 episodes with johnny black
2 episodes with johnny black
2 episodes with johnny black
2 episodes with johnny black
2 episodes with johnny black
S18E1: Newscaster, DJ Radio, Mild Stroke! – Constantine Anthony aka Johnny Black! New season whuddup! And Yes! We bring in Constantine Anthony aka Johnny Black of Kinabalu Kings! For years of plannings and scheduling, at last, we got him in the studio! Ini adalah episode kolaborasi bersama US Embassy Kuala Lumpur, iaitu American Corner Sabah Podcast. Untuk full visual experience bolehlah ke youtube mereka di American Corner Sabah. Kinabalu Podcast x ACS Podcast - Episode kali ini sangat Istimewa kerana kami bawa masuk Pembaca berita terkenal asal Sabah Constantine Anthony.- Dia juga adalah ex DJ of Traxx Fm, dan TV hosts for many big occasions all over the world.- Kisah dia juga berkisar dengan early age of HipHop scene di Sabah. Siapa kenal Kinabalu Kings pasti tahu bagaimana OG nya dia.- Beliau fighting Mild Stroke dan in an almost full recovery. - Jom dengar episode padu ini bersama Constantine Anthony! Bah bagi yang belum mengenali American Corner Sabah ini bolehlah kamiu follow semua social media mereka di American Corner Sabah on Instagram dan juga Youtube.Atau paling padu lagi, kamu sendiri datang terus ke Tingkat 2 Sabah Statye Library Tanjung Aru dan terus berjumpa dengan pegawai mereka di sana. *American Corner Sabah This podcast proudly brought to u by the American Corner Sabah by the US embassy KL in collaboration with Sabah State Library, Tanjung Aru. At American Corner Sabah, we are bridging cultures between Sabah and the United States, fostering education, sustainability, and a shared future in a safe and welcoming space. It is a corner where diverse cultures come together, knowledge expands, and communities unite to create a greener, more connected world. So, whether you're looking to learn, collaborate, or simply explore, this is the place where everyone is welcome. To know more follow us at ACS.Sabah on Instagram,and American Corner Sabah on Facebook and YouTube, #kinabalupodcast #cancerfighter #fyp #fy #viral #cancer
1. “Ay Ay (Mihalis Raftopoulos & Apostolis Mpeis Remix Prod BlueRoomStudios Athens)" - "Aspa" 2. "ΚΟΡΝΑΡΩ (REMIX)" - "JOSEPHINE × IVAN GREKO × ΣΤΑΘΗΣ ΞΕΝΟΣ" 3. "OLD BUT GOLD (Private Club Megamix 2k24)" - “Dj STAiF " 4. "Θελω κι αλλη" - “Λεπα x Ypo x Ayman x Sugar boy x Dj Valentino" 5. "ΑΧ ΕΡΩΤΕΥΤΗΚΑ" - “ΙΩΑΝΝΑ ΣΤΡΙΓΓΑ & AXTIPITOS MC" 6. "SHIK SHAK SHOCK" - “ANDREAS HABIBI X TAKINIO FEAT ΠΑΝΟΣ ΚΙΑΜΟΣ" 7. "ΥΠΕΡΒΟΛΕΣ" - "DROULIAS BROTHERS X ΡΙΑ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΔΟΥ" 8. "Δωσ' Μου Το Χέρι Σου" - “Tus & Johnny Black" 9. "Εγώ δεν συμμορφώνομα" - "Βαλεντίνος Βαλέας" 10. "ΔΕ ΜΑΣ ΧΩΡΙΖΕΙ ΤΙΠΟΤΑ (SERGIO T REMIX)" - "ΑΝΔΡΟΜΑΧΗ & ΓΙΩΡΓΟΣ ΛΙΒΑΝΗΣ" 11. "ΤΡΕΛΑΙΝΟΜΑΙ " - "ΘΟΔΩΡΗΣ ΜΑΡΑΝΤΙΝΗΣ" 12. "ΘΑ ΣΚΙΣΩ ΤΑ ΠΤΥΧΙΑ ΜΟΥ " - "ΧΡΗΣΤΟΣ ΔΑΝΤΗΣ FEAT. ΓΙΩΡΓΟΣ ΒΕΛΙΣΣΑΡΗΣ" 13. "Ακυβέρνητο Καράβι (Όσα Ορκιστήκαμε)” - "Κώστας Σαφέτης" 14. "ΣΤΗΝ ΥΓΕΙΑ ΜΑΣ" - "ΚΑΤΕΡΙΝΑ ΣΤΑΝΙΣΗ" 15. "ΠΙΣΩ ΣΤΟ ΧΩΡΙΌ ΜΟΥ ΠΗΓΑ” - "ΓΙΩΤΑ ΓΡΙΒΑ" 16. "ΝΑ ΣΟΥ ΠΩ” - "ΧΑΡΑ ΒΕΡΡΑ" 17. "ΚΟΥΝΙΑ ΠΟΥ ΣΕ ΚΟΥΝΑΓΕ" - "ΤΖΕΝΗ ΚΑΤΣΙΓΙΑΝΝΗ" 18. "Μπερδέματα (Prod by OtherView)" - "Josephine " 19. "ΑΝΤΕ ΓΕΙΑ" - "ΜΑΡΙΑ ΠΑΣΑΛΙΔΟΥ" 20. "TAK-TAK" - "ΚΥΡΙΑΚΟΣ ΓΕΩΡΓΙΟΥ" 21. "Γυναίκες Με Αισθήματα " - "Ivan Greko & Χάρης Κωστόπουλος" 22. "Ψάξε παππά αμαρτωλό" - "Μάκης Δημάκης" 23. "ΤΑ ΤΣΙΓΑΡΑ ,ΤΑ ΠΟΤΑ ΚΑΙ ΤΑ ΞΕΝΥΧΤΙΑ (VALENTINO 2K24 MIX)" - “ΘΑΝΟΣ ΤΖΑΝΗΣ" 24. "Σαββάτο σε γνώρισα" - "Έλενα Γεωργαντά" 25. "ΓΙΝΕΤΑΙ (SAMMY FLASH REMIX)" - "ΠΑΝΤΕΛΗΣ ΠΑΝΤΕΛΙΔΗΣ" 26. "LA LUNA (STAIF SUMMER CLUB MASHUP 2K24)" - "MELISSES" 27. "Αλήτισσα Μεγάλη (Oriental Version)" - "Σάκκης Βέρρος" 28. "ΤΕΤΟΙΑ ΩΡΑ, ΤΕΤΟΙΑ ΛΟΓΙΑ” - "ΓΙΩΡΓΟΣ ΚΑΚΟΣΑIOΣ" 29. "ΤΙ ΝΑ ΠΕΙΣ" - "ΣΤΑΜΑΤΗΣ ΓΟΝΙΔΗΣ" 30. "Όλα τα ξεχνάς" - "Σταμάτης Γονίδης"
Welcome to Episode 46. We've got a movie with less kung fu treachery but a lot more bullets. The Movie: The Outlaw Johnny Black from director Michael Jai White. Intro Song by Greg Bennett. Title Art by Devious.Pixel. Additional Audio: Audio from the Official Trailer Podcast produced and edited by Andrew Owsley. The Internet: Twitter(X) Facebook Lock Stock and Two Smoking Controllers Podcast Blake's Story "They Come This Night" sodmoviepodcast@gmail.com The End --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/suspensionofdisbelief/support
Jim, Jack, Johnny Red, Johnny Black, and Jose; all my favorite men. You can have it any way you like it, as long as it's in a shot glass. It's time to tighten up those boots and let your hair down because Amanda and Zach are going back to the year 2000 and discussing the surprisingly heartwarming film Coyote Ugly. A product of it's time, this movie doesn't necessarily have a specific audience in mind. But does that mean it still hold up to this day? Take a listen and don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Make sure to leave a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts. Have questions or comments? Shoot an email to dbcrazypod@gmail.com and we will answer them on the next podcast. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Amazon Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, or Google Podcasts and remember to rate and leave a comment. The feedback helps us tremendously!
On this episode of Recommend or Refute, Ryan pays tribute to the late Carl Weathers by bringing Action Jackson (1985) to the episode. John finally follows up that Black Dynamite episode we posted by talking about his experience with Michael Jai White's latest homage to Black Cinema: Outlaw Johnny Black (2023). And Dixon takes a film trip to Argentina to see how they do heist films with the The Delinquents (2023). Plus a bonus tangent about streaming services that quickly devolves into old men yelling at clouds!
Christian Zyp interviews Kevin Martin (The Lobby DVD Shop - 10815 82 Ave NW, Edm, AB) about some new releases at the store: OUTLAW JOHNNY BLACK - Cowboy Johnny Black (Michael Jai White) vows to gun down the man responsible for the death of his father. SUITABLE FLESH - Psychiatrist Elizabeth Derby (Heather Graham) becomes obsessed with helping a young patient who is suffering from extreme personality disorder. However, it soon leads her into occult danger.Clive Barker's UNDERWORLD - A crime boss (Steven Berkoff) pits a private eye (Larry Lamb) against underground mutants who crave more of a mad doctor's (Denholm Elliott) drug.
Join the TruVue Podcast as they saddle up to review the new film Outlaw Johnny Black. Get their take on the action, comedy, and overall entertainment value of this western flick. Ride along to see if Outlaw Johnny Black is worth the watch! Hell bent on avenging the death of his father, Johnny Black vows to gun down Brett Clayton and becomes a wanted man in the process while posing as a preacher in a small mining town that's been taken over by a notorious Land Baron. Join the TruVue Podcast as they give their honest and entertaining review of the movie Outlaw Johnny Black. This is a must-watch for any movie lover! Thanks for watching! Subscribe to “TruVue Podcast” wherever you listen to podcasts and follow along on social media. We bring the barbershop to the box office. https://www.truvuepodcast.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/truvuepodcastofficial?igshid=NGVhN2U2NjQ0Yg== Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068470732382&mibextid=LQQJ4d Twitter: https://twitter.com/truvue_ TruVueSocial@gmail.com #outlaws #outlaw #outlawjohnnyblack #michaeljaiwhite #AnikaNoniRose #EricaAsh #ByronMinns #randycouture #KymWhitley #tommydavidson #tonybaker #tonybakercomedy #donaldcerrone #EmeIkwuakor #jillscott #western #blaxploitation #action #adventure #scifi #drama #thriller #romantic #romance #netflix #netflixrecommendation #netflixkorea #netflixreview #netflixmovies #netflixrecommendations #netflixreviews #youtubechannelgrow2023 #youtubechannelpromotion #youtubechannels #youtubechannel #youtubechannelgrow #youtubechannelgrowth #youtube #moviereview #seriesreview #truvuepodcast #blackpodcast #podcast #subscribe #subscribers #subscribetomychannel #subscriber #subscrib #podcastshow #podcasting #moviereview #truvuepodcast #blackpodcast #podcast #movie #truvue #blackpodcasters #youtube #subscribe #subscribers #subscribetomychannel #sub #subscriber #follow #followers #followme #like #likes #moviecritic #movie #movies #filmreview #film #filmcriticisms #critic #critics #channelgrow #channel #graphicnovel #graphicnovels #anime #comicbooks #thebreakfastclub #brilliantidiots #flagrant #flagrant2 #flagrantpodcast #85south #wgci #hoodcomedy #hood #hbomax #hbo #amazon #amazonprime #showtime #boxoffice #theatre #theater #hulu #hulumovies #huluoriginal #hbomax #hbo #disney #disneyplus #amazonmovies #tubi #quibi #paramount #paramountplus #max #redbox #vudu #bet #betplus
In this week's episode, Matthew and Ricardo discuss Diddy's allegations centered on his ex-partner Cassie Ventura, the surprise instrumental album from Andre 3000 "New Blue Sun", the first two episodes of Apple TV's MonsterVerse TV series "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters", the Netflix animated series "Onimusha" and "Scott Pilgrim Takes Off", the blaxploitation-inspired Western "Outlaw Johnny Black" and the Hunger Games prequel "The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes". 00:48 - Diddy Allegations 10:44 - New Blue Sun 38:00 - Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (Episodes 1 & 2) 45:43 - Onimusha 1:06:43 - Scott Pilgrim Takes Off 1:39:59 - Outlaw Johnny Black 2:09:59 - The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes 2:23:18 - Outro Matthew Bailey on Social Media, my Fiverr gigs (MUSIC, MUSIC VIDEO & SHORT FILM REVIEWS) and where you can hear the BBB Radio podcast - https://linktr.ee/beersbeatsandbailey Ricardo Medina on Social Media https://twitter.com/Rmeddy https://facebook.com/ricardo.medina.7169 Music by LumenMedia (Leonid Volkov) Thanks for listening!
Me and Shahid are back with episode #201 of Hood Classics... 2023...Outlaw Johnny Black!!! Twitter @jeffvstheworld - Jeff @philly_drugs - Shahid --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jeffvstheworld/support
John & Heidi share funny stories of people doing weird things... plus we continue our segment #MovieStarMonday as John chats with Michael Jai White - Outlaw Johnny BlackGET AN "AMAZON PRIME" 30 DAY FREE TRIAL HERE > https://zurl.co/xtXhLearn more about our radio program, podcast & blog at www.JohnAndHeidiShow.com
This week we review the new movie from the brothers behind Black Dynamite, The Outlaw Johnny Black! Plus hear about Joey and Markellus trip to Rhode Island Comic Con! Join the fun when you listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or right on our website! Check out our merch store! You can now support us on Patreon and get an extra episode of the podcast every month! Check out our You Tube channel! Follow us on Tik Tok! Follow us on Twitter! Like us on Facebook! Follow us on Instagram
Trae Watch: 4:17The follow-up: 30:50Gaming News: 1:04:57Outlaw Johnny Black : 1:25:58The Saturn Studs Podcast is a banter driven wild ride through the nerd culture entertainment landscape. Each week your hosts Kurt, Peter, and Jake engage in entertaining discussions about the latest trailers, box office winners and losers, the latest happenings in the world of video games, and whatever off-topic nonsense pops into their heads Support the show by donating: https://app.redcircle.com/shows/902676cb-9b03-4021-9042-cf79635436f9/donations. Visit Saturnstuds.com for links to all of your Saturn Studs side projects,social media, and more. Join the Saturn Studs discord server at https://discord.gg/kgdnhJd. Follow @StudsSaturn on twitter or visit facebook.com/saturnstuds to stay up to date on the latest news episode releases and audio highlights from each show.
Bitten by the acting bug in college, while teaching, Michael Jai White began auditioning for commercials and acting gigs on weekends and summer breaks. Michael landed the lead role of Tom Robinson in the first Off-Broadway adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird. Before long, Michael would go on to guest star on such hit television shows as Saved by the Bell, Martin, NYPT Blue, and CSI. Proving his acting ability, Michael would soon be cast for the lead role of legendary boxer Mike Tyson in the HBO biopic Tyson which solidified his legitimacy as a dramatic actor in Hollywood. Michael was then cast to play the title character in the movie Spawn which came with the distinction of being the first black superhero in a major motion picture. As he cemented his Hollywood status as a bonafide action star, more diverse roles emerged that allowed him to showcase his physical prowess as well as display his on-screen charisma and comedic ability in such films as Exit Wounds, Undisputed 2, Silver Hawk, Blood & Bone, Black Dynamite and Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married and Why Did I Get Married Too playing opposite Tasha Smith. He's currently the star and director of Outlaw Johnny Black. The plot reads, “Hell bent on avenging the death of his father, Johnny Black vows to gun down Brett Clayton and becomes a wanted man in the process. He goes into hiding, posing as a preacher in a small mining town that's been taken over by a notorious Land Baron.” This is a special interview associated with my first documentary, Daredevil Society, a series about the history of stunt performers, including everyone from Buster Keaton to Jackie Chan to Zoe Bell to Keanu Reeves. Learn more or become an investor here: www.daredevilsociety.com/docuseries Want more? Steal my first book, Ink by the Barrel - Secrets From Prolific Writers right now for free. Simply head over to www.brockswinson.com to get your free digital download and audiobook. If you find value in the book, please share it with a friend as we're giving away 100,000 copies this year. It's based on over 400 interviews here at Creative Principles. Enjoy! If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts? It only takes about 60 seconds and it really helps convince some of the hard-to-get guests to sit down and have a chat (simply scroll to the bottom of your iTunes Podcast app and click “Write Review"). Enjoy the show!
Matt & Todd produce a spoiler-free review after seeing Outlaw Johnny Black (2023) starring Michael Jai White, Anika Noni Rose, and Erica Ash. Special Guest Podcaster: Tim Davis
Thank you for being part of the conversation. This is Play It Forward. Real people. Real stories. The struggle to Play It Forward Episode 590 With Actor Writer And Producer Michael Jai White From Outlaw Johnny Black Hell bent on avenging the death of his father, Johnny Black vows to gun down Brett Clayton and becomes a wanted man in the process. He goes into hiding, posing as a preacher in a small mining town that's been taken over by a notorious Land Baron. "I hope this movie, inspired by the late Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, creates for others, the kind of joy I felt as a child when I could watch movies over and over with my family and get something new each time!" said writer and director & star White. White stars opposite Anika Noni Rose ("The Princess and the Frog"), Erica Ash ("We Have a Ghost"), Byron Minns ("Black Dynamite"), Kym Whitley ("Act Your Age)," and Tony Baker.
Sonny throws on his cowboy boots and hat and rides into the sun set to review the newest movie Outlaw Johnny Black. Coming from the IMDB website "Hell bent on avenging the death of his father, Johnny Black vows to gun down Brett Clayton and becomes a wanted man in the process while posing as a preacher in a small mining town that's been taken over by a notorious Land Baron".
The Outlaw Johnny Black Movie Review and Spoiler Discussion with Jay and Captain Keith. Hell bent on avenging the death of his father, Johnny Black vows to gun down Brett Clayton and becomes a wanted man in the process while posing as a preacher in a small mining town that's been taken over by a notorious Land Baron. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moviebenchquarterbacking/message
OUTLAW JOHNNY BLACK MOVIE REVIEW In 2009, Michael Jai White gave cinema one of the best homages and genre sendups of all-time with Black Dynamite. It wasn't just a great comedy, it was an outstanding film, which at every step was elevated by the committed performance (and jacked physique) of co-writer and lead Michael Jai… Read More »Screener Squad: Outlaw Johnny Black
OUTLAW JOHNNY BLACK MOVIE REVIEW In 2009, Michael Jai White gave cinema one of the best homages and genre sendups of all-time with Black Dynamite. It wasn't just a great comedy, it was an outstanding film, which at every step was elevated by the committed performance (and jacked physique) of co-writer and lead Michael Jai… Read More »Screener Squad: Outlaw Johnny Black
Thank you for being part of the conversation. This is Play It Forward. Real people. Real stories. The struggle to Play It Forward Episode 590 With Actor Writer And Producer Michael Jai White From Outlaw Johnny Black Hell bent on avenging the death of his father, Johnny Black vows to gun down Brett Clayton and becomes a wanted man in the process. He goes into hiding, posing as a preacher in a small mining town that's been taken over by a notorious Land Baron. "I hope this movie, inspired by the late Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, creates for others, the kind of joy I felt as a child when I could watch movies over and over with my family and get something new each time!" said writer and director & star White. White stars opposite Anika Noni Rose ("The Princess and the Frog"), Erica Ash ("We Have a Ghost"), Byron Minns ("Black Dynamite"), Kym Whitley ("Act Your Age)," and Tony Baker.
This week on the First Run, the Chris and Matt call an audible and abandon Agatha Christie for Michael Jai White in ‘The Outlaw Johnny Black'. When one of the most anticipated films of a podcast host becomes an option to cover on said podcast, one takes the opportunity. Then the show slips on down to Chile, eats some hearts, and dusts just a nudge of Wes Anderson whimsy and twee onto the vampire genre with ‘El Conde'. As always, Chris will tell you all about the upcoming releases on Physical Media, give you the Straight To DVD and Streaming Picks of the Week. Then Matt and Chris wrap this all up with another edition of What are the Odds?!? So sit back, relax, and get ready for a really ill-advised indigenous wedding with The Outlaw Johnny Black.00:00-13:39: Intro/The Outlaw Johnny Black13:40-22:10: Physical Media Picks22:11-31:42: El Conde31:43-52:09: What Are The Odds?!?52:10-55:46: Wrap-UpTheme music by Jamal Malachi Ford-Bey
On Today's Show Vince will Rate and Review: Major League (1989), Knocked Up (2007), Black Dynamite (2009), Outlaw Johnny Black (2023), A Haunting in Venice (2023) If you'd like to become a Producer or see more content, check out thedailyratings.com TimeCodes: Major League: 3:48 Knocked Up: 22:57 Black Dynamite: 33:53 Outlaw Johnny Black: 57:09 A Haunting in Venice: 1:12:05 Executive Producers: - Sean Dunleavy - Brandon Beebe
Christian Perez is a surprise guest for this episode because he chaperoned Randy into the world of Neil Breen. Clark loves Al Snow and Russell reviews one of his double-gifted copies of “The Last Horror Movie”. Films: How to with John Wilson (Series), Telemarketers (Series), Cade: The Tortured Crossing (2023), Twisted Pair (2018), Outlaw Johnny Black (2023), Black Dynamite (2009), Machete (2010), Wrestlers (2023), The Wrestler (2008), Asylum Blackout (2011), Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017), Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (2018), Dragged Across Concrete (2018), It Lives Inside (2023), Caverna (2023), The Last Horror Movie (2003), The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007), Fateful Findings (2013), Big Shark (2023), The Neighbors (Series), The Tommy Wi-Show (Series), Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), Skinamarink (2022), Fangs Out (2023), Studio 666 (2022), The Possession (2012), America's Deadliest Home Video (1993) Hey, we're on YouTube! Listening on an iPhone? Don't forget to rate us on iTunes! Fill our fe-mailbag by emailing us at OverlookHour@gmail.com Reach us on Instagram (@theoverlooktheatre) Facebook (@theoverlookhour) Twitter (@OverlookHour)
#661: Outlaw Johnny Black by C.W.A
The Outlaw Johnny Black Film Review --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/caverncorner0/message
Q&A on the film Outlaw Johnny Black with director/co-writer/producer/actor Michael Jai White. Moderated by Mara Webster, In Creative Company. This film has an interim SAG-AFTRA agreement. Cowboy Johnny Black vows to gun down Brett Clayton, the man responsible for the death of his father. He soon becomes a wanted outlaw while posing as a preacher in a small mining town that's been taken over by a notorious land baron.
From the minds who brought you Black Dynamite, comes a movie that is not at all like that. Is that a good thing? --- Follow us on Patreon to get access to bonus episodes of other films: https://www.patreon.com/fists_of_fail --- You can follow us on social media here: Will - https://twitter.com/FistsofFail Zero - https://twitter.com/_OnlyNiceThings
Director and star Michael Jai White joins Matthew Pejkovic on the Matt's Movie Reviews Podcast to talk about his new film 'Outlaw Johnny Black', a western comedy that tells the story of a vengeance filled outlaw who while on the run from the law poses as a preacher in a small town. Support Matt's Movie Reviews PayPal: https://tinyurl.com/2x9tn2k4 Patreon: https://tinyurl.com/54jnzpsn TeePublic: https://tinyurl.com/2p9c5kpn Follow Matt's Movie Reviews! Website: http://mattsmoviereviews.net Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Matts-Movie-Reviewsnet/151059409963 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/MattsMovieReviews Twitter: https://twitter.com/MattsMovieRev LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/1036986/admin/ Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-1643285
Larry Mantle and LAist film critics Amy Nicholson, Andy Klein and Charles Solomon review this weekend's new movie releases in theaters, streaming, and on demand platforms. We also hear from our critic Peter Rainer to tell us about his favorite films at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. “A Haunting In Venice” Wide Release “Dumb Money” In Select Theaters “The Inventor” In Select Theaters “Carpet Cowboys” Brain Dead Studios [Fairfax District] “The Retirement Plan” In Select Theaters “Cassandro” In Select Theaters; Streaming on Prime Video Starting September 22 “Outlaw Johnny Black” In Select Theaters “Love At First Sight” Streaming on Netflix “The Mountain” Laemmle Town Center [Encino] & Laemmle Glendale
LoveBabz LoveTalk with Babz Rawls-Ivy: Michael Jai White, New movie “Outlaw Johnny Black” by WNHH Community Radio
Movies covered for the week ending September 15, 2023 are A Million Miles Away, Marisol, Outlaw Johnny Black and Canary. Timestamps(0:00) - Intro (10:39) - Marisol (Now Available on VOD). Stars Esmeralda Camargo. (21:14) - Canary (documentary on the life of Dr. Lonnie Thompson). (31:00) - A Million Miles Away (Michael Peña, Rosa Salazar)(44:59) - Outlaw Johnny Black (directed and starring Michael Jai White)(50:09) - My Last Best Friend (Eric Roberts)(54:46) - Other movies coming out September 15 includle A Haunting in Venice, Camp Hideout, El Conde, Elevator Game, Love at First***We receive a small commission if you purchase items through our Amazon links and Amazon SiteStripe. Thanks for supporting CinemAddicts!**Check out our CinemAddicts/Find Your Film merch site: https://www.findyourfilmpodcast.com/**Rate/review CinemAddicts on Apple Podcasts to support our show. Thank you!1. Subscribe to our CinemAddicts YouTube Channel2. Like Our CinemAddicts Facebook Page3. Join our CinemAddicts Facebook Group for daily movie recommendations!4. Questions/comments on CinemAddicts email Greg Srisavasdi at info@findyourfilms.com.5. Our website for entertainment news, reviews, and podcast coverage is Find Your Film: https://findyourfilms.com/6. Contact Bruce Purkey for some What's in the Box recommendations: brucepurkey@gmail.com8. Eric Holmes can be reached at hamslime@gmail.com9. Anderson Cowan's latest project is Loaded for Bear: The Documentary. For info and support: https://loadedforbeardoc.com/10. Atty's Antiques is on Facebook MarketplaceSupport the show
Thank you for listening to this episode of the FOLLOWING FILMS podcast. A movie podcast that takes you on a weekly journey into the world of cinema and the minds of the talented individuals who shape it. I'm your host, Chris Maynard, and today I'm joined by Michael Jai White. A highly trained martial artist and actor, Michael Jai White has broken barriers as a Hollywood star and international box office sensation. With his dynamic personality, agile abilities and a physique of a bodybuilder, Michael has earned respect for his versatile talents both on and off screen. I had the privilege of speaking with Michael about his latest film OUTLAW JOHNNY BLACK. The film follows a man hell bent on avenging the death of his father and in the process becomes a wanted man. He goes into hiding, posing as a preacher in a small mining town that's been taken over by a notorious Land Baron. OUTLAW JOHNNY BLACK will be in theaters on September 15th --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/followingfilms/support
ABOUT MICHAEL JAI WHITEA highly trained martial artist and actor, Michael Jai White has broken barriers as a Hollywood star and international box office sensation. With his dynamic personality, agile abilities and a physique of a bodybuilder, Michael has earned respect for his versatile talents both on and off screen.Born November 10th in Brooklyn, New York, it was after watching the movie Five Fingers of Death, Michael's interest in the martial arts began. At the tender age seven, Michael started taking weekly Japanese Jujitsu classes to stay focused while growing up on the tough streets of Brooklyn. By age eight, Michael's family relocated to Bridgeport, Connecticut where he studied the Shotokan and Kyokushin forms of karate and earned his first black belt by age 13. Upton graduating from Bridgeport's Central High School, Michael went on to further his education, first attending Southern Connecticut and then UConn. While winning multiple championships as a national martial arts competitor, Michael became a Special Education teacher at Wilbur Cross Elementary School in Bridgeport.Bitten by the acting bug in college, while teaching, Michael began auditioning for commercials and acting gigs on weekends and summer breaks. Michael landed the lead role of Tom Robinson in the first Off-Broadway adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird, starring opposite Tony Award Winner George Grizzard. Shortly after, Michael began landing jobs in commercials and guest starring roles on television shows and films; he eventually left teaching and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career full-time.Before long, Michael would go on to guest star on such hit television shows as Saved by the Bell, Martin, NYPD Blue, and CSI. Proving his acting ability, Michael would soon be cast for the lead role of legendary boxer Mike Tyson in the HBO biopic Tyson which solidified his legitimacy as a dramatic actor in Hollywood. Michael was then cast to play the title character in the movie Spawn which came with the distinction of being the first black superhero in a major motion picture. As white cemented his Hollywood status as a bonafide action star, more diverse roles emerged that allowed him to showcase his physical prowess as well as display his on-screen charisma and comedic ability in such films as Exit Wounds, Undisputed 2, Silver Hawk, Blood & Bone, Black Dynamite and Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married and Why Did I Get Married Too playing opposite Tasha Smith. The two would ignite such on-screen chemistry, they would go on to start together in the long running OWN Network series, For Better or Worse.Having proven himself as an actor, White would make his directorial debut with the action film Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown, in which he also starred. Based on the cult film Black Dynamite which White created and starred, he would go on to write and produce the hit animated television series bearing the same name. He would also win over audiences in a string of films, including Chain of Command, Chocolate City, Skin Trade, and Falcon Rising. He also guest stars in the recurring role of Ben Turner / Bronze Tiger on The CW hit series Arrow. He is currently directing and starring in Sony Pictures third installment of Never Back Down 3: No Surrender, and will also reprise his role as Princeton in the upcoming Chocolate City 2. As a martial artist, in 2013 Michael achieved his 8th black belt from mentor and legendary undefeated kick-boxing champion, Bill "Superfood" Wallace and was honored by Black Belt Magazine as their 2014 Man of the Year. Continuing the legacy of such greats as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme, Michael is now the #1 martial arts action star in in America. Michael Jai White resides in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Gillian White and their three daughters.ABOUT OUTLAW JOHNNY BLACK, IN THEATERS SEPTEMBER 15thOutlaw Johnny Black, only in theaters on September 15th. With 10+ Million Fans on Facebook and 3+ Million Followers on Instagram, writer-director-star Michael Jai White is one of the most influential action stars in the business.Hell bent on avenging the death of his father, Johnny Black vows to gun down Brett Clayton and becomes a wanted man in the process. He goes into hiding, posing as a preacher in a small mining town that's been taken over by a notorious Land Baron."I hope this movie, inspired by the late Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, creates for others, the kind of joy I felt as a child when I could watch movies over and over with my family and get something new each time!" said writer and director & star White.White stars opposite Anika Noni Rose ("The Princess and the Frog"), Erica Ash ("We Have a Ghost"), Byron Minns ("Black Dynamite"), Kym Whitley ("Act Your Age)," and Tony Baker.Here's the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0Oz9CrhYJg
Writer/director/star Michael Jai White talks with Mike White about his latest film, Outlaw Johnny Black, an action/western homage to movies like Take A Hard Ride, Buck and the Preacher Man, Joshua, etc.The film plays select theaters starting September 15, 2023. Check local listings.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/show/the-projection-booth-podcast_2/support.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5513239/advertisement
Writer/director/star Michael Jai White talks with Mike White about his latest film, Outlaw Johnny Black, an action/western homage to movies like Take A Hard Ride, Buck and the Preacher Man, Joshua, etc.The film plays select theaters starting September 15, 2023. Check local listings.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5513239/advertisement
Checkout an All New Episode of The Just Acting Up Show with Special Guest Host Redick Edwards. We talk about the Season 2 of She Hulk on it's way, Outlaw Johnny Black, and finally Horror has come to Thanksgiving, Not to mention we get another health tip at ReRe's CornerPlus we got more in current events, sports, music entertainment and everything Hollywood!!!!!Like, Follow, Comment and Subscribe on all Platforms:@justactingupshow@redick.edwardsiv #justactingupshow #outlawjohnnyblack#shehulk Beat Provided By https://freebeats.ioProduced By White Hot
This week we have the man, the myth, and the legend Dr. Johnny Black with us talking all things The Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street. We talk with the 25-year radio Veteran about all the details that lead the Stones to become Exiles of their home country and the poor conditions band members had to face on the clear, clean waters in the South of France. From their 16-hour-long jam sessions in the molded basement where the music was made to the poor neighbors within a 10-mile radius of the French Villa the band inhabited, we dig into the nitty-gritty that made this one of the Stones best albums to date, warts and all.
Checkout our latest episode of The Just Acting Up Show with Special Guest Actor Ronnie Hudson II. On this episode we talk the writers, Michael jai White is back with another classic Johnny Walker, Mortal Kombat Sequel and more. Plus we got more in current events, sports, music entertainment and everything Hollywood!!!!!#justactingupshow #writersstrike #johnnywalker
Johnny Black is fondly remembered for his time at The Showgrounds despite only being at the club for a single season. The full-back was this week's guest on the Official Coleraine Podcast - sponsored by Radio Taxis - and spoke about his sole campaign on the Ballycastle Road, where he scored eight goals in 30 appearances. Johnny discussed some of those memorable goals, netting in the League Cup semi-final at Solitude and why his time at Coleraine was the most enjoyable of his career. The Monkstown man delved into his time at Linfield and Glentoran, moving to Australia and why he wanted to return to The Showgrounds. Hosted by Damian Mullan and Johnny McNabb, the trio also remark on the poor weather as games are postponed across the country this weekend. Please note there is bad language throughout the podcast.
On this week's Sheer Isolation we play out the second part of our Johnny Black interview. In this part, the Devizes based music journalist talks about the time he joined a new team of writers to create the Smash Hits brand. The publication team, which launched it's first magazine in 1978, went on to produce other titles such as Mojo and Q. Johnny tells us about his Time Machine feature for Mojo - an 'On This Day' section which still lives on through his personal website. We also play the new single from The Streets which features Jazz Morley; a singer and pianist who's been performing in venues across the south west for years, but more recently has been supporting household names in cities across Europe. Our other tune is from alt rockers InAir who are performing at this year's Swindon Shuffle. Jon and Kieran also mention Wiltshire musician, Kirsty Clinch, who's new album is lighting up the iTunes charts.. We also have an update on Bristol icon Big Jeff who is on the road to recovery following a house fire.
40 years ago, our guest on this week's Sheer Isolation was hanging out with the likes of The Beach Boys and Tammy Wynette, and writing features for magazines such as Smash Hits! Johnny Black has gone from village life in rural Scotland, to the bustle of London's music industry in the 80s, and now lives among the rolling hills of Wiltshire. In this first of two parts, we talk to Johnny about his history, including how he became the press officer of some of the most iconic names on the CBS label. Music choices this week include a punk rock artist, Arms and Hearts, who's stopping off in Wiltshire on his mini-tour, and Johnny picks one of his own tracks because, in his own words, musicians make songs for them to be heard. In our news section we pay respect to KTor Stretch - a young Bristol rapper who was recently killed in London. We also cover the latest festival news in the region.
Johnny Black is the Director of EpicIT Pty Ltd where he works with leaders to facilitate the journey from strategy to measurable performance. He is a registered psychologist with experience in business development specializing in Strategy, Leadership, Organizational Development, and Performance Management. Residing on a small farm in the KZN Midlands, Johnny has helped a wide range of clients ranging from large corporations to small family-owned businesses. He is passionate about helping organizations and leaders translate their strategy into execution. Johnny joins me today to discuss how to lead through leaders and take the journey from strategy development to creating measurable, sustainable leadership performance. We discuss why Johnny believes its more important for organizations to focus on lead metrics over lag metrics and how they impact the overall health and sustainability of your company. We explain the four disciplines of execution and why your strategy should be concise yet informative. We also discuss some of the common challenges many organization leaders face when developing a sustainable strategy, why many businesses often fail to meet their strategic goals, and why a top-down approach to measuring leadership performance can be ineffective. “It's not about building a great strategy. It's about how do you take that strategy, filter it down, get everyone focused on it, and deliver on that strategy.” - Johnny Black This week on Engage Relate Perform: ● The connection between leadership development and building a sustainable business● Focusing on lead measures vs lag measures● The four disciplines of execution● How many strategic objectives should your strategy have● How to measure your strategy's success● The biggest challenge many leaders face when developing a sustainable strategy● Why a ‘top down' approach to leadership may be ineffective when measuring a leader's performance● Understanding accountability performance and how to build a system around it● Where leadership ‘fits into' good strategic planning and execution● The necessary narratives that Johnny believes leaders of the 21st century should focus on Resources Mentioned: ● Book: Closing the Execution Gap by Richard Lepsinger● Book: Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan Connect with Johnny Black: ● EpicIT Pty Ltd● EpicIT Pty Ltd on LinkedIn● EpicIT Pty Ltd on Facebook● Johnny Black on LinkedInEngage, Relate, Perform! Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Engage Relate Perform. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.Stitcher I TuneIn I Spotify I Google I Apple I iHeart RadioBe sure to share your favorite episodes on social media to help me reach more amazing listeners, like you. Join me on Facebook and LinkedIn. For more exclusive content and information, visit my website. While you're there, be sure to download your free copy of my ebook: Engage, Relate, Perform – 90 Days to Conscious Leadership and Performance Culture, an effective guide to getting inspired for your leadership journey to guarantee that you give (and get) the best out of your existing relationships for long-term results.
EPISODE 82: We hope you all had your fill on Thanksgiving! And how cool was it to watch West Ham spank Vienna on turkey day in Europa? We reflect on the Europa match in What Was That and also discuss the snowy away day to Manchester Shitty. Wayne and John Black then go full blizzard into Social Shenanigans and talk about your posts and discuss a great Hammers Poll. Finally another installment of our Quiz the West Ham A to Z as Johnny Black challenges for the Crown! Lots of talk about booze this episode and keeping faith in the future! Thanks to Our Partners, Our Brilliant Fans, & Contributors: Hammers Polls (@HammersPolls), COYIrons.com (@COYIrons_com), American Hammers Network(@americanhammer3), KeN17 (@SaxyKeN17), Lena Starr WHU (@LenaWHU), Bootsie on FB. RETURN TO WEST HAM IS WHY WE DRINK HOME PAGE
EPISODE 75: Wayne and Johnny Black preview the match vs Everton in a way only these two could. Find out a bit of history about our past meetings and some fun facts about how Everton got their name! Plus a special couple announcements in this episode about a charitable cause and the West Ham Way USA Event in Las Vegas. All of this and you even get predictions from the Dynamic Drunken Duo. #CheersWHU Thanks to Our Sponsors, Partners, Our Brilliant Fans, & Contributors: McSwiggan's Irish Pub, Hammers Polls (@HammersPolls), COYIrons.com (@COYIrons_com), American Hammers Network(@americanhammer3). WATCH THIS SPACE FOR BREAKING NEWS!!! RETURN TO WEST HAM IS WHY WE DRINK HOME PAGE
This week's special guest is Crusaders new boy Johnny Black. Johnny joins Gareth Fullerton and Barry Johnston in the Belfast Live virtual studio. The 33-year-old chats about returning to the Irish League after spending eight years in Australia. We also hear about his rigorous training regime as he looks to get back to full fitness, and when he expects to be in first-team contention. There's also a brilliant story involving Jonny Frazer and Jeff Spiers...
Versatile singer songwriter Kaya Black is in the studio today and we talk about the reggae music scene, recording music in Nashville and Jamaica, his family, his new single "Missing You" and more! Named after a Bob Marley album (and song), and musically inspired by both his mother and his father, entertainment photographer Johnny Black (who's photo credits include Bob Marley and Black Uhuru plus album covers for Ziggy Marley), Kaya also discusses what it was like to be one of the youngest concert goers at Reggae Sunsplash and how an Instagram post gave him an opportunity to work in the studio with Grammy award winning engineer Errol Brown, country music producer Tyler Cain and Kyle Cook, guitarist from Matchbox 20. Join us!
Welcome our first anonymous guest! You know you're doing something right as hosts when your guest doesn't want their identity revealed. Crack open a fresh bottle of Johnny Walker Black and enjoy!FOLLOWInstagram @BRPdrinkalongFacebook @BRPdrinkalongTwitter @BRPdrinkalongSnapchat @BRPdrinkalongSUPPORTMerch: prodigydtg.com/bartenderrant/shop/homeLEAVE A TIPPaypal: TheBartenderRantPodcast@gmail.com
It's always a joy for me to see when someone is blessed with musical talent and then decides to share her blessings with others. I am very delighted to be joined today by a musician with a good heart - Megan Nadin! Today we will have a glimpse of Megan's life, music, and her debut album “This Was Then”. All the way from Thunder Bay, Canada, Megan moved to the music city last January. This emerging artist has a very unique and original sound, with her voice being her main instrument, it is a surprise to many that she only started her music career in 2017. Her mission is to change lives by being an honest and authentic voice to those in need and providing hope through altruistic platforms. This is very palpable to Megan's life because she was a teacher before she pursued her career and passion for music. Wanting her music to be so real, she masterfully uses lyrics and melody that help paint the picture of the story, Megan is lucky enough to work with some really great creatives in the industry. Producer/songwriter Johnny Black has helped her create a demo. From there, she has built it up with the producer, Keith Thomas, who has worked with incredible people like Whitney Houston and Amy Grant. With this wonderful team, the production is stellar. The brilliance of how it was crafted around the subtleties of Megan's voice is very evident. Weight loss journey Megan is not only an inspiration in her music career but also her weight loss journey. She has lost 61 pounds! Knowing family and friends with medical conditions, and wanting to be around for a really long-time inspired Megan to make sure that she has a healthy body and mind. She apprenticed to be a chef for two years and started making her meals from scratch. It did not happen in an instant. It also helped that Megan is surrounded by strong and empowering women helping her not to view her weight as a struggle. As an artist, she wants us to stand up for who we are as people. That it's all about a good mindset and how people treat themselves. Inspirations behind her songs Beautiful Things was written when her friend gifted her the Rumours album by Fleetwood Mac. Megan and her friend were talking about the success and everything good that came from the album, but the band was suffering as a group. Unexpectedly, the lyrics came out from her mouth: “it's crazy that some of the most beautiful things come together when things are falling apart, like the sweetest song written by a broken heart”. While the album inspired the main lyric, the actual verses are built upon a series of journal entries written down by Megan. Heart of a Lion was Megan's first opportunity to work with the producer, Keith Thomas. It was her first writing session with Keith, and he just started playing the piano and Megan began singing into the air. Voila! Lyrics and melodies are coming out, and the song was created within that day. This has set the precedence of their future projects together. In fact, he ended up being the executive producer of this new album. The song was influenced by the notes that Keith was playing. It painted a picture in Megan's head where she envisioned a person that had it all together but deep down, this person is falling apart. The Joker was literally from the movie “Joker”. The movie unmasked and unveiled a lot of the things people deal with in society. She was so moved and inspired that she was able to write the song in one night. She painted the life of this beautiful person who had been jaded and treated unfairly. Learn more about Megan Get to know more about Megan's life, music, and even blogs by visiting her website. Her songs are also available on different streaming platforms listed below. Timestamps 4:40 Transition from Thunder Bay, Canada to Nashville 6:31 Listen to “Beautiful Things” by Megan Nadin 13:14 Production process 16:08 Listen to “The Joker” by Megan Nadin 20:58 Megan's weight loss journey and lifestyle change 28:19 Story behind “Heart of a Lion” 30:07 Listen to “Heart of a Lion” by Megan Nadin 34:15 How did Megan feel when she worked for the first time with Keith Thomas 35:47 The milk bath post on Instagram 36:41 Does Megan have tattoos? 41:01 Writing habits and regiments as a songwriter 42:42 What is her preferred instrument 44:22 Who are her most profound music influences 46:03 Listen to “Electric” by Megan Nadin 50:01 “Five Ways to Protect Your Energy That You Need to Try!” a blog by Megan 53:08 Story behind “The Joker” 54:58 Megan's parting advice and message 59:57 Listen to “Connected” by James Kevin O'Connor Quotes I'm hopeful some of the most beautiful things come together when they fall apart, like the sweetest song written by a broken heart. "Because at the end of the day, we all get old. And we know our looks can only take us so far. It's about who we are on the inside. It's about how we treat people, and it's about how we treat ourselves." "I think naturally, you'll be more attractive no matter what weight you are, no matter how you look, or how people will perceive you there will be like an inner beauty that shines out that makes you beautiful, no matter what the physical appearance is." "You are enough. You have a purpose; our purpose is always changing and growing and evolving, but just go with the flow and step into the fear." "Fear comes up when you are on to something good; fear comes up when you are on the verge of something really good." Connect with Megan Website - https://www.megannadin.com/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/megannadin/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/megannadinmusic Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/artist/5I8qJrgqnPQH7TaIgQ1Sgg Deezer - https://www.deezer.com/en/album/62727682 Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/megannadin Twitter - https://twitter.com/megnadin Apple Music - https://music.apple.com/ca/album/gypsy-sea-single/1378348177 Selected links and mentions Fleetwood Mac Johnny Black Keith Thomas Vanessa Williams Whitney Houston Amy Grant “Colors of the Wind” (Pocahontas soundtrack) Joker (2019 film) Celine Dion Bryan Adams Alanis Morisette
We discuss our takes on Edward, a chilling account of a son confessing murder to his mother before fleeing on a bottomless boat. We then discuss the brilliant submissions from listeners (check out the playlist of all versions below!) and introduce next month's tune, The Brisk Lad, a gnarly tale of stealing sheep under moonlight. // TIMESTAMPS // Intro to Edward - 1:49 Our versions - 5:53 Submissions - 20:01 Introducing The Brisk Lad - 45:47 // PLAYLIST // Listen to the full versions of tracks featured in the episode. Featuring Stuart Clark, Ian Jackson, asymptotes, Catapholc, Hevelwood, Jack The Robot, Pomegranate Jones and Winter's, Johnny Black, SMOPH, JIAL and Meg Wassell, Hope House Assemble, John Dom Paiva and Jarv // GET INVOLVED // If you want to take part and learn The Brisk Lad along with us, you can get resources here. To feature, make sure you get your version to us by Monday 13 July. To help you get some ideas we'll be sharing some of the versions we like across our social media pages over the next few weeks, so make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
In this week's episode, Mark, Barney & Jasper talk extensively about one of the great record labels — a hallowed home to such groundbreaking acts as Jimmy Cliff, Nick Drake, Roxy Music, (Bob Marley and) the Wailers and, yes, U2. Listening to clips from John Tobler's 1989 audio interview with Island founder Chris Blackwell, RBP's power trio reflect on what made the label such a powerhouse for non-mainstream genres like folk and reggae. Blackwell talks of its transformation after 1967, as well as his first encounter with Marley in 1972.A neat segue via Lenny Kaye's 1975 overview of the label leads "the team" into a discussion of Sparks, the American art pop duo who've just released their new album, A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip. Mark & Barney reminisce about the Mael brothers' Island years in the '70s, commencing with Kimono My House and its astonishing hit single 'This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us'. We stay in the '70s, moreover, as the RBP troika considers great Disc pieces — about Lou Reed and Chinnichap — by the splendidly-named Ray Fox-Cumming.Mark rounds matters off by talking us through new library pieces about Santana, Hamilton Bohannon, John Fahey (1977), Joni Mitchell and N.W.A., while Jasper adds his tuppenceworth on articles about British folk institution Topic Records, the death of the album and Busta Rhymes. And we go out with a clip from Johnny Black's 1995 audio interview with Pretty Things frontman Phil May, who sadly passed away last week...The Rock's Backpages podcast is proud to be part of the Pantheon podcast network.Pieces discussed: Chris Blackwell audio, Island Records, Sparks, Ron Mael, Lou Reed, The Sweet, Queen, Santana, Hamilton Bohannon, John Fahey, The Pretenders, Sheena Easton, Roxanne Shanté, NWA: Straight Outta Compton, Robert Johnson, Mark Ronson, The T.A.M.I. Show, Cecil Sharp, Folk field recordings, Death of the album, Busta Rhymes and Phil May audio.
In this week's episode, Mark, Barney & Jasper talk extensively about one of the great record labels — a hallowed home to such groundbreaking acts as Jimmy Cliff, Nick Drake, Roxy Music, (Bob Marley and) the Wailers and, yes, U2. Listening to clips from John Tobler's 1989 audio interview with Island founder Chris Blackwell, RBP's power trio reflect on what made the label such a powerhouse for non-mainstream genres like folk and reggae. Blackwell talks of its transformation after 1967, as well as his first encounter with Marley in 1972.A neat segue via Lenny Kaye's 1975 overview of the label leads "the team" into a discussion of Sparks, the American art pop duo who've just released their new album, A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip. Mark & Barney reminisce about the Mael brothers' Island years in the '70s, commencing with Kimono My House and its astonishing hit single 'This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us'. We stay in the '70s, moreover, as the RBP troika considers great Disc pieces — about Lou Reed and Chinnichap — by the splendidly-named Ray Fox-Cumming.Mark rounds matters off by talking us through new library pieces about Santana, Hamilton Bohannon, John Fahey (1977), Joni Mitchell and N.W.A., while Jasper adds his tuppenceworth on articles about British folk institution Topic Records, the death of the album and Busta Rhymes. And we go out with a clip from Johnny Black's 1995 audio interview with Pretty Things frontman Phil May, who sadly passed away last week...The Rock's Backpages podcast is proud to be part of the Pantheon podcast network.Pieces discussed: Chris Blackwell audio, Island Records, Sparks, Ron Mael, Lou Reed, The Sweet, Queen, Santana, Hamilton Bohannon, John Fahey, The Pretenders, Sheena Easton, Roxanne Shanté, NWA: Straight Outta Compton, Robert Johnson, Mark Ronson, The T.A.M.I. Show, Cecil Sharp, Folk field recordings, Death of the album, Busta Rhymes and Phil May audio.
In this week's episode, Mark, Barney & Jasper talk extensively about one of the great record labels — a hallowed home to such groundbreaking acts as Jimmy Cliff, Nick Drake, Roxy Music, (Bob Marley and) the Wailers and, yes, U2. Listening to clips from John Tobler's 1989 audio interview with Island founder Chris Blackwell, RBP's power trio reflect on what made the label such a powerhouse for non-mainstream genres like folk and reggae. Blackwell talks of its transformation after 1967, as well as his first encounter with Marley in 1972. A neat segue via Lenny Kaye's 1975 overview of the label leads "the team" into a discussion of Sparks, the American art pop duo who've just released their new album, A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip. Mark & Barney reminisce about the Mael brothers' Island years in the '70s, commencing with Kimono My House and its astonishing hit single 'This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us'. We stay in the '70s, moreover, as the RBP troika considers great Disc pieces — about Lou Reed and Chinnichap — by the splendidly-named Ray Fox-Cumming. Mark rounds matters off by talking us through new library pieces about Santana, Hamilton Bohannon, John Fahey (1977), Joni Mitchell and N.W.A., while Jasper adds his tuppenceworth on articles about British folk institution Topic Records, the death of the album and Busta Rhymes. And we go out with a clip from Johnny Black's 1995 audio interview with Pretty Things frontman Phil May, who sadly passed away last week... The Rock's Backpages podcast is proud to be part of the Pantheon podcast network. Pieces discussed: Chris Blackwell audio, Island Records, Sparks, Ron Mael, Lou Reed, The Sweet, Queen, Santana, Hamilton Bohannon, John Fahey, The Pretenders, Sheena Easton, Roxanne Shanté, NWA: Straight Outta Compton, Robert Johnson, Mark Ronson, The T.A.M.I. Show, Cecil Sharp, Folk field recordings, Death of the album, Busta Rhymes and Phil May audio.
In this week's episode, Mark, Barney & Jasper talk extensively about one of the great record labels — a hallowed home to such groundbreaking acts as Jimmy Cliff, Nick Drake, Roxy Music, (Bob Marley and) the Wailers and, yes, U2. Listening to clips from John Tobler's 1989 audio interview with Island founder Chris Blackwell, RBP's power trio reflect on what made the label such a powerhouse for non-mainstream genres like folk and reggae. Blackwell talks of its transformation after 1967, as well as his first encounter with Marley in 1972. A neat segue via Lenny Kaye's 1975 overview of the label leads "the team" into a discussion of Sparks, the American art pop duo who've just released their new album, A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip. Mark & Barney reminisce about the Mael brothers' Island years in the '70s, commencing with Kimono My House and its astonishing hit single 'This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us'. We stay in the '70s, moreover, as the RBP troika considers great Disc pieces — about Lou Reed and Chinnichap — by the splendidly-named Ray Fox-Cumming. Mark rounds matters off by talking us through new library pieces about Santana, Hamilton Bohannon, John Fahey (1977), Joni Mitchell and N.W.A., while Jasper adds his tuppenceworth on articles about British folk institution Topic Records, the death of the album and Busta Rhymes. And we go out with a clip from Johnny Black's 1995 audio interview with Pretty Things frontman Phil May, who sadly passed away last week... The Rock's Backpages podcast is proud to be part of the Pantheon podcast network. Pieces discussed: Chris Blackwell audio, Island Records, Sparks, Ron Mael, Lou Reed, The Sweet, Queen, Santana, Hamilton Bohannon, John Fahey, The Pretenders, Sheena Easton, Roxanne Shanté, NWA: Straight Outta Compton, Robert Johnson, Mark Ronson, The T.A.M.I. Show, Cecil Sharp, Folk field recordings, Death of the album, Busta Rhymes and Phil May audio.
Inside an unknown VR environment, Kirito spends his days as a child with his friends Eugeo and Alice. One day the three explore a cave in the outskirts of the Human Territory and get lost, ending up at the boundary of the Dark Territory. Alice trips and falls with her hand accidentally touching the Dark Territory. For this violation, she is sentenced to execution by the Integrity Knights. Kirito attempts to stop Alice from being taken away, while Eugeo stands motionless despite Kirito's pleas. Soon after, Kirito awakens in the real world with no memory of what happened. Later in Gun Gale Online, Sinon, Kirito, Asuna, Silica, Lisbeth, and Klein confront a mysterious squad that flees after one of them is taken down. After the battle, Sinon thanks the others for joining her against them, and back in the real world at Agil's café, she invites Kirito and Asuna to join her in the upcoming edition of the BoB tournament. They agree, and Kirito reveals that he is working part-time for the Rath Company as a tester for a new Full-Dive technology known as "Soul Translator", or STL. On their way home, Kirito and Asuna are attacked by Johnny Black, the final survivor of the Death Gun incident, who succeeds in injecting Kirito with a poison syringe. *Via WikiPedia Be sure to check out the After Show hosted by: Kari Lane as she interviews Alice Von David! Follow us on http://www.Twitter.com/AfterBuzzTV "Like" Us on http://www.Facebook.com/AfterBuzzTV For more After Shows for your favorite TV shows and the latest news in TV, Film, and exclusive celebrity interviews, visit http://www.AfterBuzzTV.com
Today we are live with producer/Actor Micheal Jai White, who you've seen is an American actor, director, and martial artist. He is the first African American to portray a major comic book superhero in a major motion picture, having starred as Al Simmons, the protagonist in the 1997 film Spawn. White appeared as Marcus Williams in the Tyler Perry films Why Did I Get Married? and Why Did I Get Married Too?, and starred as the character on the TBS/OWN comedy-drama television series Tyler Perry's For Better or Worse. White portrayed Jax Briggs in Mortal Kombat: Legacy. He portrayed boxer Mike Tyson in the 1995 HBO television movie Tyson. He also played the title role in the blaxploitation parody film Black Dynamite, as well as the animated series of the same name. Now White is officially in Pre-Production for his new movie "The Outlaw Johnny Black."Please Like, Share, and Subscribe‼️For Booking Purposes, To Send Donations, or Become a Star Sponsor email firetoinspirepod@gmail.comWe are Grateful for your Support! Tune in each week! Checkout www.angelyasmin.comFollow IG: @iamangelyasminFB: Fire to Inspire YouTube: I am Angel YasminI Send You Love and Rich Blessings!
CMO rocks out with the greatest rock biographies. Brian Frank, Johnny Black, and Amy Hart discuss their fascination with the salacious details of their favorite rockers lives. Books discussed: Life by Keith Richards, Kicking and Dreaming by Ann and Nancy Wilson, Does This Noise In My Head Bother You? By Steven Tyler
Episode forty-four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "Train Kept A-Rollin'" by Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, and how a rockabilly trio from Memphis connect a novelty cowboy song by Ella Fitzgerald to Motorhead and Aerosmith. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on "Jump, Jive, an' Wail", by Louis Prima. ----more---- Resources For biographical information on the Burnettes, I've mostly used Billy Burnette's self-published autobiography, Craxy Like Me. It's a flawed source, but the only other book on Johnny Burnette I've been able to find is in Spanish, and while I go to great lengths to make this podcast accurate I do have limits, and learning Spanish for a single lesson is one of them. The details about the Burnettes' relationship with Elvis Presley come from Last Train To Memphis by Peter Guralnick. Before Elvis by Larry Birnbaum has a chapter on "Train Kept A-Rollin'", and its antecedents in earlier blues material, that goes into far more detail than I could here, but which was an invaluable reference. And this three-CD set contains almost everything Johnny Burnette released up to 1962. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript There are some records that have had such an effect on the history of rock music that the record itself becomes almost divorced from its context. Who made it, and how, doesn't seem to matter as much as that it did exist, and that it reverberated down the generations. Today, we're going to look at one of those records, and at how a novelty song about cowboys written for an Abbot and Costello film became a heavy metal anthem performed by every group that ever played a distorted riff. There's a tradition in rock and roll music of brothers who fight constantly making great music together, and we'll see plenty of them as we go through the next few decades -- the Everly Brothers, Ray and Dave Davies, the Beach Boys... rock and roll would be very different without sibling rivalry. But few pairs of brothers have fought as violently and as often as Johnny and Dorsey Burnette. The first time Roy Orbison met them, he was standing in a Memphis radio station, chatting with Elvis Presley, and waiting for a lift. When the lift doors opened, inside the lift were the Burnette brothers, in the middle of a fist-fight. When Dorsey was about eight years old and Johnny six, their mother bought them both guitars. By the end of the day, both guitars had been broken -- over each other's heads. And their fights were not just the minor fights one might expect from young men, but serious business. Both of them were trained boxers, and in Dorsey Burnette's case he was a professional who became Golden Gloves champion of the South in 1950, and had once fought Sonny Liston. A fight between the Burnette brothers was a real fight. They'd grown up around Lauderdale Court, the same apartment block where Elvis Presley spent his teenage years, and they used to hang around together and sing with a gang of teenage boys that included Bill Black's brother Johnny. Elvis would, as a teenager, hang around on the outskirts of their little group, singing along with them, but not really part of the group -- the Burnette brothers were as likely to bully him as they were to encourage him to be part of the gang, and while they became friendly later on, Elvis was always more of a friend-of-friends than he was an actual friend of theirs, even when he was a colleague of Dorsey's at Crown Electric. He was a little bit younger than them, and not the most sociable of people, and more importantly he didn't like their aggression – Elvis would jokingly refer to them as the Daltons, after the outlaw gang, Another colleague at Crown Electric was a man named Paul Burlison, who also boxed, and had been introduced to Dorsey by Lee Denson, who had taught both Dorsey and Elvis their first guitar chords. Burlison also played the guitar, and had played in many small bands over the late forties and early fifties. In particular, one of the bands he was in had had its own regular fifteen-minute show on a local radio station, and their show was on next to a show presented by the blues singer Howlin' Wolf. Burlison's guitar playing would later show many signs of being influenced by Wolf's electric blues, just as much as by the country and western music his early groups were playing. Some sources even say that Burlison played on some of Wolf's early recordings at the Sun studios, though most of the sessionographies I've seen for Wolf say otherwise. The three of them formed a group in 1952, the Rhythm Rangers, with Burlison on lead guitar, Dorsey Burnette on double bass, and Johnny Burnette on rhythm guitar and lead vocals. A year later, they changed their name to the Rock & Roll Trio. While they were called the Rock & Roll Trio, they were still basically a country band, and their early setlists included songs like Hank Snow's "I'm Moving On": [Excerpt: Hank Snow, "I'm Moving On"] That one got dropped from their setlist after an ill-fated trip to Nashville. They wanted to get on the Grand Ole Opry, and so they drove up, found Snow, who was going to be on that night's show, and asked him if he could get them on to the show. Snow explained to them that it had taken him twenty years in the business to work his way up to being on the Grand Ole Opry, and he couldn't just get three random people he'd never met before on to the show. Johnny Burnette replied with two words, the first of which would get this podcast bumped into the adult section in Apple Podcasts, and the second of which was "you", and then they turned round and drove back to Memphis. They never played a Hank Snow song live again. It wasn't long after that, in 1953, that they recorded their first single, "You're Undecided", for a tiny label called Von Records in Boonville, Mississippi; [Excerpt: The Rock and Roll Trio, "You're Undecided", Von Records version] Around this time they also wrote a song called "Rockabilly Boogie", which they didn't get to record until 1957: [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio, "Rockabilly Boogie"] That has been claimed as the first use of the word "rockabilly", and Billy Burnette, Dorsey's son, says they coined the word based on his name and that of Johnny's son Rocky. Now, it seems much more likely to me that the origin of the word is the obvious one -- that it's a portmanteau of the words "rock" and "hillbilly", to describe rocking hillbilly music -- but those were the names of their kids, so I suppose it's just about possible. Their 1953 single was not a success, and they spent the next few years playing in honky-tonks. They also regularly played the Saturday Night Jamboree at the Goodwyn Institute Auditorium, a regular country music show that was occasionally broadcast on the same station that Burlison's old bands had performed on, KWEM. Most of the musicians in Memphis who went on to make important early rockabilly records would play at the Jamboree, but more important than the show itself was the backstage area, where musicians would jam, show each other new riffs they'd come up with, and pass ideas back and forth. Those backstage jam sessions were the making of the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, as they were for many of the other rockabilly acts in the area. Their big break came in early 1956, when they appeared on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour and won three times in a row. The Ted Mack Amateur Hour was a TV series that was in many ways the X Factor or American Idol of the 1950s. The show launched the careers of Pat Boone, Ann-Margret, and Gladys Knight among others, and when the Rock and Roll Trio won for the third time (at the same time their old neighbour Elvis was on the Ed Sullivan show on another channel) they got signed to Coral Records, a subsidiary of Decca Records, one of the biggest major labels in the USA at the time. Their first attempt at recording didn't go particularly well. Their initial session for Coral was in New York, and when they got there they were surprised to find a thirty-two piece orchestra waiting for them, none of whom had any more clue about playing rock and roll music than the Rock And Roll Trio had about playing orchestral pieces. They did record one track with the orchestra, "Shattered Dreams", although that song didn't get released until many years later: [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette, "Shattered Dreams"] But after recording that song they sent all the musicians home except the drummer, who played on the rest of the session. They'd simply not got the rock and roll sound they wanted when working with all those musicians. They didn't need them. They didn't have quite enough songs for the session, and needed another uptempo number, and so Dorsey went out into the hallway and quickly wrote a song called "Tear It Up", which became the A-side of their first Coral single, with the B-side being a new version of "You're Undecided": [Excerpt: The Rock and Roll Trio, "Tear It Up"] While Dorsey wrote that song, he decided to split the credit, as they always did, four ways between the three members of the band and their manager. This kind of credit-splitting is normal in a band-as-gang, and right then that's what they were -- a gang, all on the same side. That was soon going to change, and credit was going to be one of the main reasons. But that was all to come. For now, the Rock 'n' Roll Trio weren't happy at all about their recordings. They didn't want to make any more records in New York with a bunch of orchestral musicians who didn't know anything about their music. They wanted to make records in Nashville, and so they were booked into Owen Bradley's studio, the same one where Gene Vincent made his first records, and where Wanda Jackson recorded when she was in Nashville rather than LA. Bradley knew how to get a good rockabilly sound, and they were sure they were going to get the sound they'd been getting live when they recorded there. In fact, they got something altogether different, and better than that sound, and it happened entirely by accident. On their way down to Nashville from New York they played a few shows, and one of the first they played was in Philadelphia. At that show, Paul Burlison dropped his amplifier, loosening one of the vacuum tubes inside. The distorted sound it gave was like nothing he'd ever heard, and while he replaced the tube, he started loosening it every time he wanted to get that sound. So when they got to Nashville, they went into Owen Bradley's studio and, for possibly the first time ever, deliberately recorded a distorted guitar. I say possibly because, as so often happens with these things, a lot of people seem to have had the same idea around the same time, but the Rock 'n' Roll Trio's recordings do seem to be the first ones where the distortion was deliberately chosen. Obviously we've already looked at "Rocket 88", which did have a distorted guitar, and again that was caused by an accident, but the difference there was that the accident happened on the day of the recording with no time to fix it. This was Burlison choosing to use the result of the accident at a point where he could have easily had the amplifier in perfect working order, had he wanted to. At these sessions, the trio were augmented by a few studio musicians from the Nashville "A-Team", the musicians who made most of the country hits of the time. While Dorsey Burnette played bass live, he preferred playing guitar, so in the studio he was on an additional rhythm guitar while Bob Moore played the bass. Buddy Harmon was on drums, while session guitarist Grady Martin added another electric guitar to complement Burlison's. The presence of these musicians has led some to assume that they played everything on the records, and that the Rock 'n' Roll Trio only added their voices, but that seems to be very far from the case. Certainly Burlison's guitar style is absolutely distinctive, and the effect he puts on his guitar is absolutely unlike anything else that you hear from Grady Martin at this point. Martin did, later, introduce the fuzztone to country music, with his playing on records like Marty Robbins' "Don't Worry": [Excerpt: Marty Robbins, "Don't Worry"] But that was a good five years after the Rock 'n' Roll Trio sessions, and the most likely explanation is that Martin was inspired to add fuzz to his guitar by Paul Burlison, rather than deciding to add it on one session and then not using it again for several years. The single they recorded at that Nashville session was one that would echo down the decades, influencing everyone from the Beatles to Aerosmith to Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages. The A-side, "Honey Hush", was originally written and recorded by Big Joe Turner three years earlier: [Excerpt: Big Joe Turner, "Honey Hush"] It's not one of Turner's best, to be honest -- leaning too heavily on the misogyny that characterised too much of his work -- but over the years it has been covered by everyone from Chuck Berry to Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello to Jerry Lee Lewis. The Rock 'n' Roll Trio's cover version is probably the best of these, and certainly the most exciting: [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, "Honey Hush"] This is the version of the song that inspired most of those covers, but the song that really mattered to people was the B-side, a track called "Train Kept A-Rollin'". "Train Kept A-Rollin'", like many R&B songs, has a long history, and is made up of elements that one can trace back to the 1920s, or earlier in some cases. But the biggest inspiration for the track is a song called "Cow Cow Boogie", which was originally recorded by Ella Mae Morse in 1942, but which was written for Ella Fitzgerald to sing in an Abbot and Costello film, but cut from her appearance. Fitzgerald eventually recorded her own hit version of the song in 1943, backed by the Ink Spots, with the pianist Bill Doggett accompanying them: [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots, "Cow Cow Boogie"] That was in turn adapted by the jump band singer Tiny Bradshaw, under the title "Train Kept A-Rollin'": [Excerpt: Tiny Bradshaw, "The Train Kept A-Rollin'"] And that in turn was the basis for the Rock 'n' Roll Trio's version of the song, which they radically rearranged to feature an octave-doubled guitar riff, apparently invented by Dorsey Burnette, but played simultaneously by Burlison and Martin, with Burlison's guitar fuzzed up and distorted. This version of the song would become a classic: [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, "Train Kept A-Rollin'"] The single wasn't a success, but its B-side got picked up by the generation of British guitar players that came after, and from then it became a standard of rock music. It was covered by Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages: [Excerpt: Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, "Train Kept A-Rollin'"] The Yardbirds: [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, "Train Kept A-Rollin'"] Shakin' Stevens and the Sunsets: [Excerpt: Shakin' Stevens and the Sunsets, "Train Kept A-Rollin'"] Aerosmith: [Excerpt: Aerosmith, "Train Kept A-Rollin'"] Motorhead: [Excerpt: Motorhead: "Train Kept A-Rollin'"] You get the idea. By adding a distorted guitar riff, the Rock 'n' Roll Trio had performed a kind of alchemy, which turned a simple novelty cowboy song into something that would make the repertoire of every band that ever wanted to play as loud as possible and to scream at the top of their voices the words "the train kept rolling all night long". Sadly, the Rock 'n' Roll Trio didn't last much longer. While they had always performed as the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, Coral Records decided to release their recordings as by "Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio", and the other two members were understandably furious. They were a band, not just Johnny Burnette's backing musicians. Dorsey was the first to quit -- he left the band a few days before they were due to appear in Rock! Rock! Rock!, a cheap exploitation film starring Alan Freed. They got Johnny Black in to replace him for the film shoot, and Dorsey rejoined shortly afterwards, but the cracks had already appeared. They recorded one further session, but the tracks from that weren't even released as by Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, just by Johnny Burnette, and that was the final straw. The group split up, and went their separate ways. Johnny remained signed to Coral Records as a solo artist, but when he and Dorsey both moved, separately, to LA, they ended up working together as songwriters. Dorsey was contracted as a solo artist to Imperial Records, who had a new teen idol star who needed material -- Ricky Nelson had had an unexpected hit after singing on his parents' TV show, and as a result he was suddenly being promoted as a rock and roll star. Dorsey and Johnny wrote a whole string of top ten hits for Nelson, songs like "Believe What You Say", "Waiting In School", "It's Late", and "Just A Little Too Much": [Excerpt: Ricky Nelson, "Just a Little Too Much"] They also started recording for Imperial as a duo, under the name "the Burnette Brothers": [Excerpt: The Burnette Brothers, "Warm Love"] But that was soon stopped by Coral, who wanted to continue marketing Johnny as a solo artist, and they both started pursuing separate solo careers. Dorsey eventually had a minor hit of his own, "There Was a Tall Oak Tree", which made the top thirty in 1960. He made a few more solo records in the early sixties, and after becoming a born-again Christian in the early seventies he started a new, successful, career as a country singer, eventually receiving a "most promising newcomer" award from the Academy of Country Music in 1973, twenty years after his career started. He died in 1979 of a heart attack. Johnny Burnette eventually signed to Liberty Records, and had a string of hits that, like Dorsey's, were in a very different style from the Rock 'n' Roll Trio records. His biggest hit, and the one that most people associate with him to this day, was "You're Sixteen, You're Beautiful, And You're Mine": [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette, "You're Sixteen"] That song is, of course, a perennial hit that most people still know almost sixty years later, but none of Johnny's solo records had anything like the power and passion of the Rock 'n' Roll Trio recordings. And sadly we'll never know if he would regain that passion, as in 1964 he died in a boating accident. Paul Burlison, the last member of the trio, gave up music once the trio split up, and became an electrician again. He briefly joined Johnny on one tour in 1963, but otherwise stayed out of the music business until the 1980s. He then got back into performing, and started a new lineup of the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, featuring Johnny Black, who had briefly replaced Dorsey in the group, and Tony Austin, the drummer who had joined with them on many tour dates after they got a recording contract. He later joined "the Sun Rhythm Section", a band made up of many of the musicians who had played on classic rockabilly records, including Stan Kessler, Jimmy Van Eaton, Sonny Burgess, and DJ Fontana. Burlison released his only solo album in 1997. That album was called Train Kept A-Rollin', and featured a remake of that classic song, with Rocky and Billy Burnette -- Johnny and Dorsey's sons -- on vocals: [Excerpt: Paul Burlison, "Train Kept A-Rollin'"] He kept playing rockabilly until he died in 2003, aged seventy-four.
Episode forty-four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Train Kept A-Rollin'” by Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, and how a rockabilly trio from Memphis connect a novelty cowboy song by Ella Fitzgerald to Motorhead and Aerosmith. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Jump, Jive, an’ Wail”, by Louis Prima. —-more—- Resources For biographical information on the Burnettes, I’ve mostly used Billy Burnette’s self-published autobiography, Craxy Like Me. It’s a flawed source, but the only other book on Johnny Burnette I’ve been able to find is in Spanish, and while I go to great lengths to make this podcast accurate I do have limits, and learning Spanish for a single lesson is one of them. The details about the Burnettes’ relationship with Elvis Presley come from Last Train To Memphis by Peter Guralnick. Before Elvis by Larry Birnbaum has a chapter on “Train Kept A-Rollin'”, and its antecedents in earlier blues material, that goes into far more detail than I could here, but which was an invaluable reference. And this three-CD set contains almost everything Johnny Burnette released up to 1962. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript There are some records that have had such an effect on the history of rock music that the record itself becomes almost divorced from its context. Who made it, and how, doesn’t seem to matter as much as that it did exist, and that it reverberated down the generations. Today, we’re going to look at one of those records, and at how a novelty song about cowboys written for an Abbot and Costello film became a heavy metal anthem performed by every group that ever played a distorted riff. There’s a tradition in rock and roll music of brothers who fight constantly making great music together, and we’ll see plenty of them as we go through the next few decades — the Everly Brothers, Ray and Dave Davies, the Beach Boys… rock and roll would be very different without sibling rivalry. But few pairs of brothers have fought as violently and as often as Johnny and Dorsey Burnette. The first time Roy Orbison met them, he was standing in a Memphis radio station, chatting with Elvis Presley, and waiting for a lift. When the lift doors opened, inside the lift were the Burnette brothers, in the middle of a fist-fight. When Dorsey was about eight years old and Johnny six, their mother bought them both guitars. By the end of the day, both guitars had been broken — over each other’s heads. And their fights were not just the minor fights one might expect from young men, but serious business. Both of them were trained boxers, and in Dorsey Burnette’s case he was a professional who became Golden Gloves champion of the South in 1950, and had once fought Sonny Liston. A fight between the Burnette brothers was a real fight. They’d grown up around Lauderdale Court, the same apartment block where Elvis Presley spent his teenage years, and they used to hang around together and sing with a gang of teenage boys that included Bill Black’s brother Johnny. Elvis would, as a teenager, hang around on the outskirts of their little group, singing along with them, but not really part of the group — the Burnette brothers were as likely to bully him as they were to encourage him to be part of the gang, and while they became friendly later on, Elvis was always more of a friend-of-friends than he was an actual friend of theirs, even when he was a colleague of Dorsey’s at Crown Electric. He was a little bit younger than them, and not the most sociable of people, and more importantly he didn’t like their aggression – Elvis would jokingly refer to them as the Daltons, after the outlaw gang, Another colleague at Crown Electric was a man named Paul Burlison, who also boxed, and had been introduced to Dorsey by Lee Denson, who had taught both Dorsey and Elvis their first guitar chords. Burlison also played the guitar, and had played in many small bands over the late forties and early fifties. In particular, one of the bands he was in had had its own regular fifteen-minute show on a local radio station, and their show was on next to a show presented by the blues singer Howlin’ Wolf. Burlison’s guitar playing would later show many signs of being influenced by Wolf’s electric blues, just as much as by the country and western music his early groups were playing. Some sources even say that Burlison played on some of Wolf’s early recordings at the Sun studios, though most of the sessionographies I’ve seen for Wolf say otherwise. The three of them formed a group in 1952, the Rhythm Rangers, with Burlison on lead guitar, Dorsey Burnette on double bass, and Johnny Burnette on rhythm guitar and lead vocals. A year later, they changed their name to the Rock & Roll Trio. While they were called the Rock & Roll Trio, they were still basically a country band, and their early setlists included songs like Hank Snow’s “I’m Moving On”: [Excerpt: Hank Snow, “I’m Moving On”] That one got dropped from their setlist after an ill-fated trip to Nashville. They wanted to get on the Grand Ole Opry, and so they drove up, found Snow, who was going to be on that night’s show, and asked him if he could get them on to the show. Snow explained to them that it had taken him twenty years in the business to work his way up to being on the Grand Ole Opry, and he couldn’t just get three random people he’d never met before on to the show. Johnny Burnette replied with two words, the first of which would get this podcast bumped into the adult section in Apple Podcasts, and the second of which was “you”, and then they turned round and drove back to Memphis. They never played a Hank Snow song live again. It wasn’t long after that, in 1953, that they recorded their first single, “You’re Undecided”, for a tiny label called Von Records in Boonville, Mississippi; [Excerpt: The Rock and Roll Trio, “You’re Undecided”, Von Records version] Around this time they also wrote a song called “Rockabilly Boogie”, which they didn’t get to record until 1957: [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio, “Rockabilly Boogie”] That has been claimed as the first use of the word “rockabilly”, and Billy Burnette, Dorsey’s son, says they coined the word based on his name and that of Johnny’s son Rocky. Now, it seems much more likely to me that the origin of the word is the obvious one — that it’s a portmanteau of the words “rock” and “hillbilly”, to describe rocking hillbilly music — but those were the names of their kids, so I suppose it’s just about possible. Their 1953 single was not a success, and they spent the next few years playing in honky-tonks. They also regularly played the Saturday Night Jamboree at the Goodwyn Institute Auditorium, a regular country music show that was occasionally broadcast on the same station that Burlison’s old bands had performed on, KWEM. Most of the musicians in Memphis who went on to make important early rockabilly records would play at the Jamboree, but more important than the show itself was the backstage area, where musicians would jam, show each other new riffs they’d come up with, and pass ideas back and forth. Those backstage jam sessions were the making of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, as they were for many of the other rockabilly acts in the area. Their big break came in early 1956, when they appeared on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour and won three times in a row. The Ted Mack Amateur Hour was a TV series that was in many ways the X Factor or American Idol of the 1950s. The show launched the careers of Pat Boone, Ann-Margret, and Gladys Knight among others, and when the Rock and Roll Trio won for the third time (at the same time their old neighbour Elvis was on the Ed Sullivan show on another channel) they got signed to Coral Records, a subsidiary of Decca Records, one of the biggest major labels in the USA at the time. Their first attempt at recording didn’t go particularly well. Their initial session for Coral was in New York, and when they got there they were surprised to find a thirty-two piece orchestra waiting for them, none of whom had any more clue about playing rock and roll music than the Rock And Roll Trio had about playing orchestral pieces. They did record one track with the orchestra, “Shattered Dreams”, although that song didn’t get released until many years later: [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette, “Shattered Dreams”] But after recording that song they sent all the musicians home except the drummer, who played on the rest of the session. They’d simply not got the rock and roll sound they wanted when working with all those musicians. They didn’t need them. They didn’t have quite enough songs for the session, and needed another uptempo number, and so Dorsey went out into the hallway and quickly wrote a song called “Tear It Up”, which became the A-side of their first Coral single, with the B-side being a new version of “You’re Undecided”: [Excerpt: The Rock and Roll Trio, “Tear It Up”] While Dorsey wrote that song, he decided to split the credit, as they always did, four ways between the three members of the band and their manager. This kind of credit-splitting is normal in a band-as-gang, and right then that’s what they were — a gang, all on the same side. That was soon going to change, and credit was going to be one of the main reasons. But that was all to come. For now, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio weren’t happy at all about their recordings. They didn’t want to make any more records in New York with a bunch of orchestral musicians who didn’t know anything about their music. They wanted to make records in Nashville, and so they were booked into Owen Bradley’s studio, the same one where Gene Vincent made his first records, and where Wanda Jackson recorded when she was in Nashville rather than LA. Bradley knew how to get a good rockabilly sound, and they were sure they were going to get the sound they’d been getting live when they recorded there. In fact, they got something altogether different, and better than that sound, and it happened entirely by accident. On their way down to Nashville from New York they played a few shows, and one of the first they played was in Philadelphia. At that show, Paul Burlison dropped his amplifier, loosening one of the vacuum tubes inside. The distorted sound it gave was like nothing he’d ever heard, and while he replaced the tube, he started loosening it every time he wanted to get that sound. So when they got to Nashville, they went into Owen Bradley’s studio and, for possibly the first time ever, deliberately recorded a distorted guitar. I say possibly because, as so often happens with these things, a lot of people seem to have had the same idea around the same time, but the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio’s recordings do seem to be the first ones where the distortion was deliberately chosen. Obviously we’ve already looked at “Rocket 88”, which did have a distorted guitar, and again that was caused by an accident, but the difference there was that the accident happened on the day of the recording with no time to fix it. This was Burlison choosing to use the result of the accident at a point where he could have easily had the amplifier in perfect working order, had he wanted to. At these sessions, the trio were augmented by a few studio musicians from the Nashville “A-Team”, the musicians who made most of the country hits of the time. While Dorsey Burnette played bass live, he preferred playing guitar, so in the studio he was on an additional rhythm guitar while Bob Moore played the bass. Buddy Harmon was on drums, while session guitarist Grady Martin added another electric guitar to complement Burlison’s. The presence of these musicians has led some to assume that they played everything on the records, and that the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio only added their voices, but that seems to be very far from the case. Certainly Burlison’s guitar style is absolutely distinctive, and the effect he puts on his guitar is absolutely unlike anything else that you hear from Grady Martin at this point. Martin did, later, introduce the fuzztone to country music, with his playing on records like Marty Robbins’ “Don’t Worry”: [Excerpt: Marty Robbins, “Don’t Worry”] But that was a good five years after the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio sessions, and the most likely explanation is that Martin was inspired to add fuzz to his guitar by Paul Burlison, rather than deciding to add it on one session and then not using it again for several years. The single they recorded at that Nashville session was one that would echo down the decades, influencing everyone from the Beatles to Aerosmith to Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages. The A-side, “Honey Hush”, was originally written and recorded by Big Joe Turner three years earlier: [Excerpt: Big Joe Turner, “Honey Hush”] It’s not one of Turner’s best, to be honest — leaning too heavily on the misogyny that characterised too much of his work — but over the years it has been covered by everyone from Chuck Berry to Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello to Jerry Lee Lewis. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio’s cover version is probably the best of these, and certainly the most exciting: [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, “Honey Hush”] This is the version of the song that inspired most of those covers, but the song that really mattered to people was the B-side, a track called “Train Kept A-Rollin'”. “Train Kept A-Rollin'”, like many R&B songs, has a long history, and is made up of elements that one can trace back to the 1920s, or earlier in some cases. But the biggest inspiration for the track is a song called “Cow Cow Boogie”, which was originally recorded by Ella Mae Morse in 1942, but which was written for Ella Fitzgerald to sing in an Abbot and Costello film, but cut from her appearance. Fitzgerald eventually recorded her own hit version of the song in 1943, backed by the Ink Spots, with the pianist Bill Doggett accompanying them: [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots, “Cow Cow Boogie”] That was in turn adapted by the jump band singer Tiny Bradshaw, under the title “Train Kept A-Rollin'”: [Excerpt: Tiny Bradshaw, “The Train Kept A-Rollin'”] And that in turn was the basis for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio’s version of the song, which they radically rearranged to feature an octave-doubled guitar riff, apparently invented by Dorsey Burnette, but played simultaneously by Burlison and Martin, with Burlison’s guitar fuzzed up and distorted. This version of the song would become a classic: [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”] The single wasn’t a success, but its B-side got picked up by the generation of British guitar players that came after, and from then it became a standard of rock music. It was covered by Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages: [Excerpt: Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”] The Yardbirds: [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”] Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets: [Excerpt: Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”] Aerosmith: [Excerpt: Aerosmith, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”] Motorhead: [Excerpt: Motorhead: “Train Kept A-Rollin'”] You get the idea. By adding a distorted guitar riff, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio had performed a kind of alchemy, which turned a simple novelty cowboy song into something that would make the repertoire of every band that ever wanted to play as loud as possible and to scream at the top of their voices the words “the train kept rolling all night long”. Sadly, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio didn’t last much longer. While they had always performed as the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, Coral Records decided to release their recordings as by “Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio”, and the other two members were understandably furious. They were a band, not just Johnny Burnette’s backing musicians. Dorsey was the first to quit — he left the band a few days before they were due to appear in Rock! Rock! Rock!, a cheap exploitation film starring Alan Freed. They got Johnny Black in to replace him for the film shoot, and Dorsey rejoined shortly afterwards, but the cracks had already appeared. They recorded one further session, but the tracks from that weren’t even released as by Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, just by Johnny Burnette, and that was the final straw. The group split up, and went their separate ways. Johnny remained signed to Coral Records as a solo artist, but when he and Dorsey both moved, separately, to LA, they ended up working together as songwriters. Dorsey was contracted as a solo artist to Imperial Records, who had a new teen idol star who needed material — Ricky Nelson had had an unexpected hit after singing on his parents’ TV show, and as a result he was suddenly being promoted as a rock and roll star. Dorsey and Johnny wrote a whole string of top ten hits for Nelson, songs like “Believe What You Say”, “Waiting In School”, “It’s Late”, and “Just A Little Too Much”: [Excerpt: Ricky Nelson, “Just a Little Too Much”] They also started recording for Imperial as a duo, under the name “the Burnette Brothers”: [Excerpt: The Burnette Brothers, “Warm Love”] But that was soon stopped by Coral, who wanted to continue marketing Johnny as a solo artist, and they both started pursuing separate solo careers. Dorsey eventually had a minor hit of his own, “There Was a Tall Oak Tree”, which made the top thirty in 1960. He made a few more solo records in the early sixties, and after becoming a born-again Christian in the early seventies he started a new, successful, career as a country singer, eventually receiving a “most promising newcomer” award from the Academy of Country Music in 1973, twenty years after his career started. He died in 1979 of a heart attack. Johnny Burnette eventually signed to Liberty Records, and had a string of hits that, like Dorsey’s, were in a very different style from the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio records. His biggest hit, and the one that most people associate with him to this day, was “You’re Sixteen, You’re Beautiful, And You’re Mine”: [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette, “You’re Sixteen”] That song is, of course, a perennial hit that most people still know almost sixty years later, but none of Johnny’s solo records had anything like the power and passion of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio recordings. And sadly we’ll never know if he would regain that passion, as in 1964 he died in a boating accident. Paul Burlison, the last member of the trio, gave up music once the trio split up, and became an electrician again. He briefly joined Johnny on one tour in 1963, but otherwise stayed out of the music business until the 1980s. He then got back into performing, and started a new lineup of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, featuring Johnny Black, who had briefly replaced Dorsey in the group, and Tony Austin, the drummer who had joined with them on many tour dates after they got a recording contract. He later joined “the Sun Rhythm Section”, a band made up of many of the musicians who had played on classic rockabilly records, including Stan Kessler, Jimmy Van Eaton, Sonny Burgess, and DJ Fontana. Burlison released his only solo album in 1997. That album was called Train Kept A-Rollin’, and featured a remake of that classic song, with Rocky and Billy Burnette — Johnny and Dorsey’s sons — on vocals: [Excerpt: Paul Burlison, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”] He kept playing rockabilly until he died in 2003, aged seventy-four.
Episode forty-four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Train Kept A-Rollin'” by Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, and how a rockabilly trio from Memphis connect a novelty cowboy song by Ella Fitzgerald to Motorhead and Aerosmith. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Jump, Jive, an’ Wail”, by Louis Prima. —-more—- Resources For biographical information on the Burnettes, I’ve mostly used Billy Burnette’s self-published autobiography, Craxy Like Me. It’s a flawed source, but the only other book on Johnny Burnette I’ve been able to find is in Spanish, and while I go to great lengths to make this podcast accurate I do have limits, and learning Spanish for a single lesson is one of them. The details about the Burnettes’ relationship with Elvis Presley come from Last Train To Memphis by Peter Guralnick. Before Elvis by Larry Birnbaum has a chapter on “Train Kept A-Rollin'”, and its antecedents in earlier blues material, that goes into far more detail than I could here, but which was an invaluable reference. And this three-CD set contains almost everything Johnny Burnette released up to 1962. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript There are some records that have had such an effect on the history of rock music that the record itself becomes almost divorced from its context. Who made it, and how, doesn’t seem to matter as much as that it did exist, and that it reverberated down the generations. Today, we’re going to look at one of those records, and at how a novelty song about cowboys written for an Abbot and Costello film became a heavy metal anthem performed by every group that ever played a distorted riff. There’s a tradition in rock and roll music of brothers who fight constantly making great music together, and we’ll see plenty of them as we go through the next few decades — the Everly Brothers, Ray and Dave Davies, the Beach Boys… rock and roll would be very different without sibling rivalry. But few pairs of brothers have fought as violently and as often as Johnny and Dorsey Burnette. The first time Roy Orbison met them, he was standing in a Memphis radio station, chatting with Elvis Presley, and waiting for a lift. When the lift doors opened, inside the lift were the Burnette brothers, in the middle of a fist-fight. When Dorsey was about eight years old and Johnny six, their mother bought them both guitars. By the end of the day, both guitars had been broken — over each other’s heads. And their fights were not just the minor fights one might expect from young men, but serious business. Both of them were trained boxers, and in Dorsey Burnette’s case he was a professional who became Golden Gloves champion of the South in 1950, and had once fought Sonny Liston. A fight between the Burnette brothers was a real fight. They’d grown up around Lauderdale Court, the same apartment block where Elvis Presley spent his teenage years, and they used to hang around together and sing with a gang of teenage boys that included Bill Black’s brother Johnny. Elvis would, as a teenager, hang around on the outskirts of their little group, singing along with them, but not really part of the group — the Burnette brothers were as likely to bully him as they were to encourage him to be part of the gang, and while they became friendly later on, Elvis was always more of a friend-of-friends than he was an actual friend of theirs, even when he was a colleague of Dorsey’s at Crown Electric. He was a little bit younger than them, and not the most sociable of people, and more importantly he didn’t like their aggression – Elvis would jokingly refer to them as the Daltons, after the outlaw gang, Another colleague at Crown Electric was a man named Paul Burlison, who also boxed, and had been introduced to Dorsey by Lee Denson, who had taught both Dorsey and Elvis their first guitar chords. Burlison also played the guitar, and had played in many small bands over the late forties and early fifties. In particular, one of the bands he was in had had its own regular fifteen-minute show on a local radio station, and their show was on next to a show presented by the blues singer Howlin’ Wolf. Burlison’s guitar playing would later show many signs of being influenced by Wolf’s electric blues, just as much as by the country and western music his early groups were playing. Some sources even say that Burlison played on some of Wolf’s early recordings at the Sun studios, though most of the sessionographies I’ve seen for Wolf say otherwise. The three of them formed a group in 1952, the Rhythm Rangers, with Burlison on lead guitar, Dorsey Burnette on double bass, and Johnny Burnette on rhythm guitar and lead vocals. A year later, they changed their name to the Rock & Roll Trio. While they were called the Rock & Roll Trio, they were still basically a country band, and their early setlists included songs like Hank Snow’s “I’m Moving On”: [Excerpt: Hank Snow, “I’m Moving On”] That one got dropped from their setlist after an ill-fated trip to Nashville. They wanted to get on the Grand Ole Opry, and so they drove up, found Snow, who was going to be on that night’s show, and asked him if he could get them on to the show. Snow explained to them that it had taken him twenty years in the business to work his way up to being on the Grand Ole Opry, and he couldn’t just get three random people he’d never met before on to the show. Johnny Burnette replied with two words, the first of which would get this podcast bumped into the adult section in Apple Podcasts, and the second of which was “you”, and then they turned round and drove back to Memphis. They never played a Hank Snow song live again. It wasn’t long after that, in 1953, that they recorded their first single, “You’re Undecided”, for a tiny label called Von Records in Boonville, Mississippi; [Excerpt: The Rock and Roll Trio, “You’re Undecided”, Von Records version] Around this time they also wrote a song called “Rockabilly Boogie”, which they didn’t get to record until 1957: [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio, “Rockabilly Boogie”] That has been claimed as the first use of the word “rockabilly”, and Billy Burnette, Dorsey’s son, says they coined the word based on his name and that of Johnny’s son Rocky. Now, it seems much more likely to me that the origin of the word is the obvious one — that it’s a portmanteau of the words “rock” and “hillbilly”, to describe rocking hillbilly music — but those were the names of their kids, so I suppose it’s just about possible. Their 1953 single was not a success, and they spent the next few years playing in honky-tonks. They also regularly played the Saturday Night Jamboree at the Goodwyn Institute Auditorium, a regular country music show that was occasionally broadcast on the same station that Burlison’s old bands had performed on, KWEM. Most of the musicians in Memphis who went on to make important early rockabilly records would play at the Jamboree, but more important than the show itself was the backstage area, where musicians would jam, show each other new riffs they’d come up with, and pass ideas back and forth. Those backstage jam sessions were the making of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, as they were for many of the other rockabilly acts in the area. Their big break came in early 1956, when they appeared on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour and won three times in a row. The Ted Mack Amateur Hour was a TV series that was in many ways the X Factor or American Idol of the 1950s. The show launched the careers of Pat Boone, Ann-Margret, and Gladys Knight among others, and when the Rock and Roll Trio won for the third time (at the same time their old neighbour Elvis was on the Ed Sullivan show on another channel) they got signed to Coral Records, a subsidiary of Decca Records, one of the biggest major labels in the USA at the time. Their first attempt at recording didn’t go particularly well. Their initial session for Coral was in New York, and when they got there they were surprised to find a thirty-two piece orchestra waiting for them, none of whom had any more clue about playing rock and roll music than the Rock And Roll Trio had about playing orchestral pieces. They did record one track with the orchestra, “Shattered Dreams”, although that song didn’t get released until many years later: [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette, “Shattered Dreams”] But after recording that song they sent all the musicians home except the drummer, who played on the rest of the session. They’d simply not got the rock and roll sound they wanted when working with all those musicians. They didn’t need them. They didn’t have quite enough songs for the session, and needed another uptempo number, and so Dorsey went out into the hallway and quickly wrote a song called “Tear It Up”, which became the A-side of their first Coral single, with the B-side being a new version of “You’re Undecided”: [Excerpt: The Rock and Roll Trio, “Tear It Up”] While Dorsey wrote that song, he decided to split the credit, as they always did, four ways between the three members of the band and their manager. This kind of credit-splitting is normal in a band-as-gang, and right then that’s what they were — a gang, all on the same side. That was soon going to change, and credit was going to be one of the main reasons. But that was all to come. For now, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio weren’t happy at all about their recordings. They didn’t want to make any more records in New York with a bunch of orchestral musicians who didn’t know anything about their music. They wanted to make records in Nashville, and so they were booked into Owen Bradley’s studio, the same one where Gene Vincent made his first records, and where Wanda Jackson recorded when she was in Nashville rather than LA. Bradley knew how to get a good rockabilly sound, and they were sure they were going to get the sound they’d been getting live when they recorded there. In fact, they got something altogether different, and better than that sound, and it happened entirely by accident. On their way down to Nashville from New York they played a few shows, and one of the first they played was in Philadelphia. At that show, Paul Burlison dropped his amplifier, loosening one of the vacuum tubes inside. The distorted sound it gave was like nothing he’d ever heard, and while he replaced the tube, he started loosening it every time he wanted to get that sound. So when they got to Nashville, they went into Owen Bradley’s studio and, for possibly the first time ever, deliberately recorded a distorted guitar. I say possibly because, as so often happens with these things, a lot of people seem to have had the same idea around the same time, but the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio’s recordings do seem to be the first ones where the distortion was deliberately chosen. Obviously we’ve already looked at “Rocket 88”, which did have a distorted guitar, and again that was caused by an accident, but the difference there was that the accident happened on the day of the recording with no time to fix it. This was Burlison choosing to use the result of the accident at a point where he could have easily had the amplifier in perfect working order, had he wanted to. At these sessions, the trio were augmented by a few studio musicians from the Nashville “A-Team”, the musicians who made most of the country hits of the time. While Dorsey Burnette played bass live, he preferred playing guitar, so in the studio he was on an additional rhythm guitar while Bob Moore played the bass. Buddy Harmon was on drums, while session guitarist Grady Martin added another electric guitar to complement Burlison’s. The presence of these musicians has led some to assume that they played everything on the records, and that the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio only added their voices, but that seems to be very far from the case. Certainly Burlison’s guitar style is absolutely distinctive, and the effect he puts on his guitar is absolutely unlike anything else that you hear from Grady Martin at this point. Martin did, later, introduce the fuzztone to country music, with his playing on records like Marty Robbins’ “Don’t Worry”: [Excerpt: Marty Robbins, “Don’t Worry”] But that was a good five years after the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio sessions, and the most likely explanation is that Martin was inspired to add fuzz to his guitar by Paul Burlison, rather than deciding to add it on one session and then not using it again for several years. The single they recorded at that Nashville session was one that would echo down the decades, influencing everyone from the Beatles to Aerosmith to Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages. The A-side, “Honey Hush”, was originally written and recorded by Big Joe Turner three years earlier: [Excerpt: Big Joe Turner, “Honey Hush”] It’s not one of Turner’s best, to be honest — leaning too heavily on the misogyny that characterised too much of his work — but over the years it has been covered by everyone from Chuck Berry to Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello to Jerry Lee Lewis. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio’s cover version is probably the best of these, and certainly the most exciting: [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, “Honey Hush”] This is the version of the song that inspired most of those covers, but the song that really mattered to people was the B-side, a track called “Train Kept A-Rollin'”. “Train Kept A-Rollin'”, like many R&B songs, has a long history, and is made up of elements that one can trace back to the 1920s, or earlier in some cases. But the biggest inspiration for the track is a song called “Cow Cow Boogie”, which was originally recorded by Ella Mae Morse in 1942, but which was written for Ella Fitzgerald to sing in an Abbot and Costello film, but cut from her appearance. Fitzgerald eventually recorded her own hit version of the song in 1943, backed by the Ink Spots, with the pianist Bill Doggett accompanying them: [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots, “Cow Cow Boogie”] That was in turn adapted by the jump band singer Tiny Bradshaw, under the title “Train Kept A-Rollin'”: [Excerpt: Tiny Bradshaw, “The Train Kept A-Rollin'”] And that in turn was the basis for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio’s version of the song, which they radically rearranged to feature an octave-doubled guitar riff, apparently invented by Dorsey Burnette, but played simultaneously by Burlison and Martin, with Burlison’s guitar fuzzed up and distorted. This version of the song would become a classic: [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”] The single wasn’t a success, but its B-side got picked up by the generation of British guitar players that came after, and from then it became a standard of rock music. It was covered by Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages: [Excerpt: Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”] The Yardbirds: [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”] Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets: [Excerpt: Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”] Aerosmith: [Excerpt: Aerosmith, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”] Motorhead: [Excerpt: Motorhead: “Train Kept A-Rollin'”] You get the idea. By adding a distorted guitar riff, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio had performed a kind of alchemy, which turned a simple novelty cowboy song into something that would make the repertoire of every band that ever wanted to play as loud as possible and to scream at the top of their voices the words “the train kept rolling all night long”. Sadly, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio didn’t last much longer. While they had always performed as the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, Coral Records decided to release their recordings as by “Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio”, and the other two members were understandably furious. They were a band, not just Johnny Burnette’s backing musicians. Dorsey was the first to quit — he left the band a few days before they were due to appear in Rock! Rock! Rock!, a cheap exploitation film starring Alan Freed. They got Johnny Black in to replace him for the film shoot, and Dorsey rejoined shortly afterwards, but the cracks had already appeared. They recorded one further session, but the tracks from that weren’t even released as by Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, just by Johnny Burnette, and that was the final straw. The group split up, and went their separate ways. Johnny remained signed to Coral Records as a solo artist, but when he and Dorsey both moved, separately, to LA, they ended up working together as songwriters. Dorsey was contracted as a solo artist to Imperial Records, who had a new teen idol star who needed material — Ricky Nelson had had an unexpected hit after singing on his parents’ TV show, and as a result he was suddenly being promoted as a rock and roll star. Dorsey and Johnny wrote a whole string of top ten hits for Nelson, songs like “Believe What You Say”, “Waiting In School”, “It’s Late”, and “Just A Little Too Much”: [Excerpt: Ricky Nelson, “Just a Little Too Much”] They also started recording for Imperial as a duo, under the name “the Burnette Brothers”: [Excerpt: The Burnette Brothers, “Warm Love”] But that was soon stopped by Coral, who wanted to continue marketing Johnny as a solo artist, and they both started pursuing separate solo careers. Dorsey eventually had a minor hit of his own, “There Was a Tall Oak Tree”, which made the top thirty in 1960. He made a few more solo records in the early sixties, and after becoming a born-again Christian in the early seventies he started a new, successful, career as a country singer, eventually receiving a “most promising newcomer” award from the Academy of Country Music in 1973, twenty years after his career started. He died in 1979 of a heart attack. Johnny Burnette eventually signed to Liberty Records, and had a string of hits that, like Dorsey’s, were in a very different style from the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio records. His biggest hit, and the one that most people associate with him to this day, was “You’re Sixteen, You’re Beautiful, And You’re Mine”: [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette, “You’re Sixteen”] That song is, of course, a perennial hit that most people still know almost sixty years later, but none of Johnny’s solo records had anything like the power and passion of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio recordings. And sadly we’ll never know if he would regain that passion, as in 1964 he died in a boating accident. Paul Burlison, the last member of the trio, gave up music once the trio split up, and became an electrician again. He briefly joined Johnny on one tour in 1963, but otherwise stayed out of the music business until the 1980s. He then got back into performing, and started a new lineup of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, featuring Johnny Black, who had briefly replaced Dorsey in the group, and Tony Austin, the drummer who had joined with them on many tour dates after they got a recording contract. He later joined “the Sun Rhythm Section”, a band made up of many of the musicians who had played on classic rockabilly records, including Stan Kessler, Jimmy Van Eaton, Sonny Burgess, and DJ Fontana. Burlison released his only solo album in 1997. That album was called Train Kept A-Rollin’, and featured a remake of that classic song, with Rocky and Billy Burnette — Johnny and Dorsey’s sons — on vocals: [Excerpt: Paul Burlison, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”] He kept playing rockabilly until he died in 2003, aged seventy-four.
Welcome to episode nineteen of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. Today we're looking at "That's All Right Mama" by Elvis Presley. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. ----more---- Resources As always, I've created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. Elvis' 1950s catalogue is, at least in the UK, now in the public domain, and can thus be found in many forms. This three-CD box set contains literally every recording he made from 1953 through 1955, including live recordings and session outtakes, along with a handsome book. This ten-disc set, meanwhile, charts the history of Sun Records, with the A- and B-sides of ninety of the first Sun singles, including all Elvis' five Sun releases in their historical context, as well as "Bear Cat" and a lot of great blues and rockabilly. And this four-CD box set of Arthur Crudup contains everything you could want by that great bluesman. I've relied on three books here more than any others. The first is "Before Elvis" by Larry Birnbaum. which I've recommended many times before. The other two are by Peter Guralnick -- Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll, and Last Train to Memphis. The latter is the first volume of Guralnick's two-volume biography of Elvis. The second volume of that book is merely good, not great (though still better than much of the nonsense written about Elvis), but Last Train to Memphis is, hands down, the best book on Elvis there is. (A content warning for both Guralnick books -- they use racial slurs in reported speech, though never in anything other than a direct quote). Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I start, I just want to emphasise that in this episode I talk about some of Sam Phillips' ideas around race and how to end racism. I hope I make it clear that I disagree with his ideas, but in trying to be fair and present his thinking accurately I may have given a different impression. I'm sure people listening to this in the context of the series as a whole understand where I'm coming from, but I'm aware that this will be some people's first episode. There's a reason this comes after the episode on “Sh'Boom”. If you come out of this episode thinking I think the way to end racism is to have white people perform black people's music, go back and listen to that one. Anyway, on with the show... The Starlite Wranglers were not a band you would expect to end up revolutionising music -- and indeed only some of them ever did. But you wouldn't have expected even that from them. They were based in Memphis, but they were very far from being the sophisticated, urban music that was otherwise coming from big cities like that. Their bass player, Bill Black, would wear a straw hat and go barefoot, looking something like Huckleberry Finn, even as the rest of the band wore their smart Western suits. He'd hop on the bass and ride it, and tell cornpone jokes. They had pedal steel, and violin, and a singer named Doug Poindexter. Their one record on Sun was a pure Hank Williams soundalike: [excerpt of "My Kind of Carrying On" by Doug Poindexter and the Starlite Wranglers] Again, this doesn't sound like anything that might revolutionise music. The single came out and did no better or worse than thousands of other singles by obscure country bands. In most circumstances it would be no more remembered now than, say "Cause You're Always On My Mind" by Wiley Barkdull, or "Twice the Loving" by Floyd Huffman. But then something unprecedented in modern music history happened. Sun Records was the second record label Sam Phillips had set up -- the first one had been a very short-lived label called Phillips, which he'd started up with his friend, the DJ Dewey Phillips (who was not related to Sam). After his experiences selling masters to other labels, like Modern and Duke and Chess, had caused him more problems than he'd initially realised, he'd decided that if he wanted to really see the music he loved become as big as he knew it could be, he'd have to run his own label. Because Sam Phillips had a mission. He was determined to end racism in the US, and he was convinced he could do so by making white audiences love the music of black people as much as he did. So the success of his new label was a moral imperative, and he wanted to find something that would be as big as "Rocket 88", the record he'd leased to Chess. Or maybe even a performer as important as Howlin' Wolf, the man who decades later he would still claim was the greatest artist he'd ever recorded. Howlin' Wolf had recorded several singles at Sam's studio before he'd started Sun records, and these singles had been leased to other labels. But like so many of the people he'd recorded, the record labels had decided they could make more money if they cut out the middle-Sam and recorded Wolf themselves. Sam Phillips often claimed later that none of the records Wolf made for Chess without Sam were anything like as good as the music he'd been making at 706 Union Ave; and he may well have been right about that. But still, the fact remained that the Wolf was elsewhere now, and Sam needed someone else as good as that. But he had a plan to get attention – make an answer record. This was something that happened a lot in blues and R&B in the fifties -- if someone had a hit with a record, another record would come along, usually by another artist, that made reference to it. We've already seen this with "Good Rockin' Tonight", where the original version of that referenced half a dozen other records like "Caldonia". And Sam Phillips had an idea for an answer song to "Hound Dog". There had been several of these, including one from Roy Brown, who wrote “Good Rockin' Tonight” -- "Mr Hound Dog's in Town" [excerpt: Roy Brown “Mr Hound Dog's In Town”] Phillips, though,thought he had a particularly good take. The phrase "hound dog", you see, was always used by women, and in Phillips' view it was always used for a gigolo. And the female equivalent of that, in Phillips' telling, was a bear cat. And so Sam Phillips sat down and "wrote" "Bear Cat". Well, he was credited as the writer, anyway. In truth, the melody is identical to that of "Hound Dog", and there's not much difference in the lyrics either, but that was the way these answer records always went, in Phillips' experience, and nobody ever kicked up a fuss about it. He called up a local Memphis DJ, Rufus Thomas, and asked him to sing on the track, and Thomas said yes, and the song was put out as one of the very first records on Phillips' new record label, Sun. [excerpt of "Bear Cat" by Rufus Thomas] What was surprising was how big a hit it became -- "Bear Cat" eventually climbed all the way to number three on the R&B charts, which was a phenomenal success for a totally new label with no track record. What was less phenomenal was when Duke Records and their publishing arm came to sue Sam Phillips over the record. It turned out that if you were going to just take credit for someone else's song and not give them any of the money, it was best not to have a massive hit, and be based in the same city as the people whose copyright you were ripping off. Phillips remained bitter to the end of his life about the amount of money he lost on the record. But while he'd had a solid hit with "Bear Cat", and Joe Hill Louis was making some pretty great blues records, Sam was still not getting to where he wanted to be. The problem was the audiences. Sam Phillips knew there was an audience for the kind of music these black men were making, but the white people just wouldn't buy it from a black person. But it was the white audiences that made for proper mainstream success for any musician. White people had more money, and there were more of them. Maybe, he started to think, he could find a white person with the same kind of feeling in their music that the black people he was working with had? If he could do that -- if he could get white people to *just listen* to black people's music, *at all*, even if it was sung by a white person, then eventually they'd start listening to it from black people, too, and he could break down the colour barrier. (Sam Phillips, it has to be noted, always had big ideas and thought he could persuade the world of the righteousness of his cause if everyone else would *just listen*. A few years later, during the Cuban missile crisis, Phillips decided that since in his mind Castro was one of the good guys -- Phillips was on the left and he knew how bad Batista had been -- he would probably be able to negotiate some sort of settlement if he could just talk to him. So he got on the phone and tried to call Castro -- and he actually did get through to Raul Castro, Fidel's brother, and talk to him for a while. History does not relate if Phillips' intervention is what prevented nuclear war.) So Sam Phillips was in the right frame of mind to take advantage when history walked into his studio. Elvis Aaron Presley was an unlikely name for a teen idol and star, and Elvis had an unlikely background for one as well. The son of a poor sharecropper from Mississippi who had moved to Memphis as a young man, he was working as a truck driver when he first went into Memphis Recording Service to record himself singing a song for his mother. And when Phillips' assistant, Marion Keisker, heard the young man who'd come in to the studio, she thought she'd found just the man Phillips had been looking for – the white man who could sing like a black man. Or at least, that's how Keisker told it. Like with so many things in rock music's history, it depends on who you listen to. Sam Phillips always said it had been him, not Keisker, who "discovered" Elvis Presley, but the evidence seems to be on Keisker's side. However, even there, it's hard to see from Elvis' original recording -- versions of "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin" -- what she saw in him that sounded so black. While the Ink Spots, who recorded the original version of "That's When Your Heartaches Begin", were black, they always performed in a very smooth, crooner-esque, style, and that's what Presley did too in his recording. He certainly didn't have any particular blues or R&B feel in his vocal on those recordings. [excerpt: "That's When Your Heartaches Begin" -- Elvis Presley] But Keisker or Phillips heard something in those recordings. More importantly, though, what Sam Phillips saw in him was an attitude. And not the attitude you might expect. You see, Elvis Presley was a quiet country boy. He had been bullied at school. He wore strange clothes and kept to himself, only ever really getting close to his mother. He was horribly introverted, and the few friends he did have mostly didn't know about his interests, other than whichever one he shared with them. He mostly liked to listen to music, read comic books, and fantasise about being in a gospel quartet like the Jordanaires, singing harmony with a group like that. He'd hang around with some of the other teenagers living in the same housing block -- Johnny and Dorsey Burnette, and a guy called Johnny Black, whose big brother Bill was the bass player with the Starlite Wranglers. They bullied him too, but they sort of allowed him to hang around with them, and they'd all get together and sing, Elvis standing a little off from the rest of them, like he wasn't really part of the group. He'd thought for a while he might become an electrician, but he kept giving himself electric shocks and short-circuiting things -- he said later that he was so clumsy it was a miracle that he didn't cause any fires when he worked on people's wiring. He didn't have many friends -- and no close friends at all -- and many of those he did have didn't even know he was interested in music. But he was absorbing music from every direction and every source -- the country groups his mother liked to listen to on the radio like the Louvin Brothers, the gospel quartets who were massive stars among the religious, poor, people in the area, the music he heard at the Pentacostal church he attended (a white Pentacostal church, but still as much of a Holly Roller church as the black ones that SIster Rosetta Tharpe had learned her music from). He'd go down Beale Street, too, and listen to people like B.B. King -- young Elvis bought his clothes from Lansky's on Beale, where the black people bought their clothes, rather than from the places the other white kids got their clothes. But he wasn't someone like Johnny Otis who fitted in with the black community, either -- rather, he was someone who didn't fit in anywhere. Someone who had nobody, other than his mother, who he felt really close to. He was weird, and unpopular, and shy, and odd-looking. But that feeling of not fitting in anywhere allowed him to pick up on music from everywhere. He didn't own many records, but he *absorbed* songs from the radio. He'd hear something by the Ink Spots or Arthur Crudup once, and sing it perfectly. But it was gospel music he wanted to sing -- and specifically what is known euphemistically as "Southern Gospel", but which really means "white Gospel". And this is an important distinction that needs to be made as we go forward, because gospel music has had a huge influence on rock and roll music, but that influence has almost all come from black gospel, the music invented by Thomas Dorsey and popularised by people like Sister Rosetta Tharpe or Mahalia Jackson. That's a black genre, and a genre which has many prominent women in it -- and it's also a genre which has room for solo stars. When we talk about a gospel influence on Ray Charles or Aretha Franklin or Sam Cooke, that's the gospel music we're talking about. That black form of gospel became the primary influence on fifties rhythm and blues vocals, and through that on rock and roll. But there's another gospel music as well -- "Southern Gospel" or "quartet gospel". That music is -- or at least was at the time we're talking about -- almost exclusively white, and male, and sung by groups. To ears that aren't attuned to it, it can sound a lot like barbershop music. It shares a lot of its repertoire with black gospel, but it's performed in a very, very different style. [excerpt: "Take My Hand, Precious Lord", the Blackwood Brothers] That's the Blackwood Brothers singing, and you can hear how even though that's a Thomas Dorsey song, it sounds totally different from, say, Mahalia Jackson's version. The Blackwood Brothers were young Elvis Presley's favourite group, and he was such a fan that when two of the group died in a plane crash in 1954, Elvis was one of the thousands who attended their funeral. He auditioned for several gospel quartets, but never found a role in any of them -- but all his life, that was the music he wanted to sing, the music he would return to. He'd take any excuse he could to make himself just one of a gospel group, not a solo singer. But since he didn't have a group, he was just a solo singer. Just a teenager with a spotty neck. And *that* is the feature that gets mentioned over and over again in the eyewitness descriptions of the young Elvis, when he was starting out. The fact that his neck was always filthy and covered in acne. He had greasy hair, and would never look anyone in the eye but would look down and mumble. What Sam Phillips saw in that teenage boy was a terrible feeling of insecurity. It was a feeling he recognised himself -- Phillips had already been hospitalised a couple of times with severe depression and had to have electric shock therapy a few years earlier. But it was also something he recognised from the black musicians he'd been working with. In their cases it was because they'd been crushed by a racist system. In Phillips' case it was because his brain was wired slightly differently from everyone else's. He didn't know quite what it was that made this teenage boy have that attitude, what it was that made him a scared, insecure, outsider. But whatever it was, Elvis Presley was the only white man Sam Phillips had met whose attitudes, bearing, and way of talking reminded him of the great black artists he knew and worked with, like Howlin' Wolf or B.B. King, and he became eager to try him out and see what could happen. Phillips decided to put Elvis together with Scotty Moore and Bill Black, the guitarist and bass player from the Starlite Wranglers. Neither was an impressive technical musician – in fact at the time they were considered barely competent – but that was a plus in Phillips' book. These were people who played with feeling, rather than with technique, and who wouldn't try to do anything too flashy and showboaty. And he trusted their instincts, especially Scotty's. He wanted to see what Scotty Moore thought, and so he got Elvis to go and rehearse with the two older musicians. Scotty Moore wasn't impressed... or at least, he *thought* he wasn't impressed. But at the same time... there was *something* there. It was worth giving the kid a shot, even though he didn't quite know *why* he thought that. So Sam Phillips arranged for a session, recording a ballad, since that was the kind of thing that Elvis had been singing in his auditions. The song they thought might be suitable for him turned out not to be, and nor were many other songs they tried, until eventually they hit on "That's All Right Mama", a song originally recorded by Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup in 1946. Arthur Crudup was a country-blues singer, and he was another of those people who did the same kind of record over and over -- he would sing blues songs with the same melody and often including many of the same lyrics, seemingly improvising songs based around floating lyrics. The song "That's All Right Mama" was inspired by Blind Lemon Jefferson's classic "Black Snake Moan": [excerpt: "Black Snake Moan", Blind Lemon Jefferson] Crudup had first used the line in "If I Get Lucky". He then came up with the melody for what became "That's All Right", but recorded it with different lyrics as "Mean Ol' Frisco Blues": [excerpt: "Mean Old Frisco Blues", Arthur Crudup] Then he wrote the words to "That's All Right", and sang them with the chorus of an old Charley Patton song: [excerpt: "Dirt Road Blues", Arthur Crudup] And then he recorded "That's All Right Mama" itself: [excerpt "That's All Right Mama", Arthur Crudup] Crudup's records, as you can hear, were all based on a template – and he recorded several more songs with bits of “That's All Right” in, both before and after writing that one. Elvis, Scotty, and Bill, however, didn't follow that template. Elvis' version of the song takes the country-blues feel of Crudup and reworks it into hillbilly music -- it's taken at a faster pace, and the sound is full of echo. You have Bill Black's slapback bass instead of the drums on Crudup's version. It still doesn't, frankly, sound at all like the black musicians Phillips was working with, and it sounds a hell of a lot like a lot of white ones. If Phillips was, as the oversimplification would have it, looking for "a white man who could sing like a black one", he hadn't found it. Listening now, it's definitely a "rock and roll" record, but at the time it would have been thought of as a "hillbilly" record. [excerpt “That's All Right Mama, Elvis Presley] There is, though, an attitude in Presley's singing which is different from most of the country music at the time -- there's a playfulness, an air of irreverence, which is very different from most of what was being recorded at the time. Presley seems to be treating the song as a bit of a joke, and to have an attitude which is closer to jazz-pop singers like Ella Fitzgerald than to blues or country music. He wears the song lightly, unafraid to sound a bit silly if it's what's needed for the record. He jumps around in his register and sings with an assurance that is quite astonishing for someone so young, someone who had basically never performed before, except in his own head. The B-side that they chose was a song from a very different genre -- Bill Monroe's bluegrass song "Blue Moon of Kentucky": [excerpt: Bill Monroe "Blue Moon of Kentucky"] Elvis, Scotty, and Bill chose to rework that song in much the same style in which they'd reworked "That's All Right Mama". There's nothing to these tracks but Elvis' strummed acoustic, Black's clicking slapback bass, and Scotty Moore's rudimentary electric guitar fills -- and the secret weapon, Sam Phillips' echo. Phillips had a simple system he'd rigged up himself, and no-one else could figure out how he'd done it. The room he was recording in didn't have a particularly special sound, but when he played back the recordings, there was a ton of echo on them, and it sounded great. The way he did this was simple. He didn't use just one tape recorder -- though tape recorders themselves were a newish invention, remember -- he used two. He didn't do multitracking like Les Paul -- rather, what he did was use one tape recorder to record what was happening in the studio, while the other tape recorder *played the sound back for the first recorder to record as well*. This is called slapback echo, and Phillips would use it on everything, but especially on vocals. Nobody knew his secret, and when his artists moved off to other record labels, they often tried to replicate it, with very mixed results. But on "Blue Moon of Kentucky" it gave the record a totally different sound from Bill Monroe's bluegrass music -- a sound which would become known, later, as rockabilly: [excerpt "Blue Moon of Kentucky", Elvis Presley] Phillips took the record to his friend, the DJ Dewey Phillips, who played it on his R&B show. When Elvis found out that Dewey Phillips was going to be playing his record on the radio, he was so nervous that rather than listen to it, he headed out to the cinema to watch a film so he wouldn't be tempted to turn the radio on. There was such a response to the record, though, that Phillips played the record fourteen times, and Elvis' mother had to go to the cinema and drag him out so he could go on the radio and be interviewed. On his first media interview he came across well, largely because Phillips didn't tell him the mic was on until the interview was over – and Phillips also asked which school Elvis went to, as a way of cluing his listeners into Elvis' race – most people had assumed, since Phillips' show normally only played records by black people, that Elvis was black. Elvis Presley had a hit on his hands -- at least as much of a hit as you could get from a country record on a blues label. Sadly, Crudup had sold the rights to the song years earlier, and never saw a penny in royalties – when he later sued over the rights, in the seventies, he was meant to get sixty thousand dollars in back payments, which he never received. I've seen claims, though I don't know how true they are, that Crudup's total pay for the song was fifty dollars and a bottle of whisky. But it was at the band's first live performance that something even more astonishing happened, and it happened because of Presley's stagefright, at least as Scotty Moore used to tell the story. Presley was, as we've mentioned, a deeply shy young man with unusual body language, and he was also unusually dressed -- he wore the large, baggy, trousers that black men favoured. And he was someone who moved *a lot* when he was nervous or energetic -- and even when he wasn't, people would talk about how he was always tapping on something or moving in his seat. He was someone who just couldn't keep still. And when he got on stage he was so scared he started shaking. And so did his pants. And because his pants were so baggy, they started shaking not in a way that looked like he was scared, but in a way that was, frankly, sexual. And the audiences reacted. A lot. Over the next year or two, Presley would rapidly grow utterly confident on stage, and when you look at footage of him from a few years later it's hard to imagine him ever having stage fright at all, with the utter assurance and cocky smile he has. But all his stage presence developed from him noticing the things that the audience reacted to and doing more of them, and the thing they reacted to first and most was his nervous leg-twitching. And just like that, the unpopular poor boy with the spotty neck became the biggest male sex symbol the world had ever seen, and we'll be seeing how that changed everything in future episodes.
Welcome to episode nineteen of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. Today we’re looking at “That’s All Right Mama” by Elvis Presley. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. —-more—- Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. Elvis’ 1950s catalogue is, at least in the UK, now in the public domain, and can thus be found in many forms. This three-CD box set contains literally every recording he made from 1953 through 1955, including live recordings and session outtakes, along with a handsome book. This ten-disc set, meanwhile, charts the history of Sun Records, with the A- and B-sides of ninety of the first Sun singles, including all Elvis’ five Sun releases in their historical context, as well as “Bear Cat” and a lot of great blues and rockabilly. And this four-CD box set of Arthur Crudup contains everything you could want by that great bluesman. I’ve relied on three books here more than any others. The first is “Before Elvis” by Larry Birnbaum. which I’ve recommended many times before. The other two are by Peter Guralnick — Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Last Train to Memphis. The latter is the first volume of Guralnick’s two-volume biography of Elvis. The second volume of that book is merely good, not great (though still better than much of the nonsense written about Elvis), but Last Train to Memphis is, hands down, the best book on Elvis there is. (A content warning for both Guralnick books — they use racial slurs in reported speech, though never in anything other than a direct quote). Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I start, I just want to emphasise that in this episode I talk about some of Sam Phillips’ ideas around race and how to end racism. I hope I make it clear that I disagree with his ideas, but in trying to be fair and present his thinking accurately I may have given a different impression. I’m sure people listening to this in the context of the series as a whole understand where I’m coming from, but I’m aware that this will be some people’s first episode. There’s a reason this comes after the episode on “Sh’Boom”. If you come out of this episode thinking I think the way to end racism is to have white people perform black people’s music, go back and listen to that one. Anyway, on with the show… The Starlite Wranglers were not a band you would expect to end up revolutionising music — and indeed only some of them ever did. But you wouldn’t have expected even that from them. They were based in Memphis, but they were very far from being the sophisticated, urban music that was otherwise coming from big cities like that. Their bass player, Bill Black, would wear a straw hat and go barefoot, looking something like Huckleberry Finn, even as the rest of the band wore their smart Western suits. He’d hop on the bass and ride it, and tell cornpone jokes. They had pedal steel, and violin, and a singer named Doug Poindexter. Their one record on Sun was a pure Hank Williams soundalike: [excerpt of “My Kind of Carrying On” by Doug Poindexter and the Starlite Wranglers] Again, this doesn’t sound like anything that might revolutionise music. The single came out and did no better or worse than thousands of other singles by obscure country bands. In most circumstances it would be no more remembered now than, say “Cause You’re Always On My Mind” by Wiley Barkdull, or “Twice the Loving” by Floyd Huffman. But then something unprecedented in modern music history happened. Sun Records was the second record label Sam Phillips had set up — the first one had been a very short-lived label called Phillips, which he’d started up with his friend, the DJ Dewey Phillips (who was not related to Sam). After his experiences selling masters to other labels, like Modern and Duke and Chess, had caused him more problems than he’d initially realised, he’d decided that if he wanted to really see the music he loved become as big as he knew it could be, he’d have to run his own label. Because Sam Phillips had a mission. He was determined to end racism in the US, and he was convinced he could do so by making white audiences love the music of black people as much as he did. So the success of his new label was a moral imperative, and he wanted to find something that would be as big as “Rocket 88”, the record he’d leased to Chess. Or maybe even a performer as important as Howlin’ Wolf, the man who decades later he would still claim was the greatest artist he’d ever recorded. Howlin’ Wolf had recorded several singles at Sam’s studio before he’d started Sun records, and these singles had been leased to other labels. But like so many of the people he’d recorded, the record labels had decided they could make more money if they cut out the middle-Sam and recorded Wolf themselves. Sam Phillips often claimed later that none of the records Wolf made for Chess without Sam were anything like as good as the music he’d been making at 706 Union Ave; and he may well have been right about that. But still, the fact remained that the Wolf was elsewhere now, and Sam needed someone else as good as that. But he had a plan to get attention – make an answer record. This was something that happened a lot in blues and R&B in the fifties — if someone had a hit with a record, another record would come along, usually by another artist, that made reference to it. We’ve already seen this with “Good Rockin’ Tonight”, where the original version of that referenced half a dozen other records like “Caldonia”. And Sam Phillips had an idea for an answer song to “Hound Dog”. There had been several of these, including one from Roy Brown, who wrote “Good Rockin’ Tonight” — “Mr Hound Dog’s in Town” [excerpt: Roy Brown “Mr Hound Dog’s In Town”] Phillips, though,thought he had a particularly good take. The phrase “hound dog”, you see, was always used by women, and in Phillips’ view it was always used for a gigolo. And the female equivalent of that, in Phillips’ telling, was a bear cat. And so Sam Phillips sat down and “wrote” “Bear Cat”. Well, he was credited as the writer, anyway. In truth, the melody is identical to that of “Hound Dog”, and there’s not much difference in the lyrics either, but that was the way these answer records always went, in Phillips’ experience, and nobody ever kicked up a fuss about it. He called up a local Memphis DJ, Rufus Thomas, and asked him to sing on the track, and Thomas said yes, and the song was put out as one of the very first records on Phillips’ new record label, Sun. [excerpt of “Bear Cat” by Rufus Thomas] What was surprising was how big a hit it became — “Bear Cat” eventually climbed all the way to number three on the R&B charts, which was a phenomenal success for a totally new label with no track record. What was less phenomenal was when Duke Records and their publishing arm came to sue Sam Phillips over the record. It turned out that if you were going to just take credit for someone else’s song and not give them any of the money, it was best not to have a massive hit, and be based in the same city as the people whose copyright you were ripping off. Phillips remained bitter to the end of his life about the amount of money he lost on the record. But while he’d had a solid hit with “Bear Cat”, and Joe Hill Louis was making some pretty great blues records, Sam was still not getting to where he wanted to be. The problem was the audiences. Sam Phillips knew there was an audience for the kind of music these black men were making, but the white people just wouldn’t buy it from a black person. But it was the white audiences that made for proper mainstream success for any musician. White people had more money, and there were more of them. Maybe, he started to think, he could find a white person with the same kind of feeling in their music that the black people he was working with had? If he could do that — if he could get white people to *just listen* to black people’s music, *at all*, even if it was sung by a white person, then eventually they’d start listening to it from black people, too, and he could break down the colour barrier. (Sam Phillips, it has to be noted, always had big ideas and thought he could persuade the world of the righteousness of his cause if everyone else would *just listen*. A few years later, during the Cuban missile crisis, Phillips decided that since in his mind Castro was one of the good guys — Phillips was on the left and he knew how bad Batista had been — he would probably be able to negotiate some sort of settlement if he could just talk to him. So he got on the phone and tried to call Castro — and he actually did get through to Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother, and talk to him for a while. History does not relate if Phillips’ intervention is what prevented nuclear war.) So Sam Phillips was in the right frame of mind to take advantage when history walked into his studio. Elvis Aaron Presley was an unlikely name for a teen idol and star, and Elvis had an unlikely background for one as well. The son of a poor sharecropper from Mississippi who had moved to Memphis as a young man, he was working as a truck driver when he first went into Memphis Recording Service to record himself singing a song for his mother. And when Phillips’ assistant, Marion Keisker, heard the young man who’d come in to the studio, she thought she’d found just the man Phillips had been looking for – the white man who could sing like a black man. Or at least, that’s how Keisker told it. Like with so many things in rock music’s history, it depends on who you listen to. Sam Phillips always said it had been him, not Keisker, who “discovered” Elvis Presley, but the evidence seems to be on Keisker’s side. However, even there, it’s hard to see from Elvis’ original recording — versions of “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin” — what she saw in him that sounded so black. While the Ink Spots, who recorded the original version of “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin”, were black, they always performed in a very smooth, crooner-esque, style, and that’s what Presley did too in his recording. He certainly didn’t have any particular blues or R&B feel in his vocal on those recordings. [excerpt: “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin” — Elvis Presley] But Keisker or Phillips heard something in those recordings. More importantly, though, what Sam Phillips saw in him was an attitude. And not the attitude you might expect. You see, Elvis Presley was a quiet country boy. He had been bullied at school. He wore strange clothes and kept to himself, only ever really getting close to his mother. He was horribly introverted, and the few friends he did have mostly didn’t know about his interests, other than whichever one he shared with them. He mostly liked to listen to music, read comic books, and fantasise about being in a gospel quartet like the Jordanaires, singing harmony with a group like that. He’d hang around with some of the other teenagers living in the same housing block — Johnny and Dorsey Burnette, and a guy called Johnny Black, whose big brother Bill was the bass player with the Starlite Wranglers. They bullied him too, but they sort of allowed him to hang around with them, and they’d all get together and sing, Elvis standing a little off from the rest of them, like he wasn’t really part of the group. He’d thought for a while he might become an electrician, but he kept giving himself electric shocks and short-circuiting things — he said later that he was so clumsy it was a miracle that he didn’t cause any fires when he worked on people’s wiring. He didn’t have many friends — and no close friends at all — and many of those he did have didn’t even know he was interested in music. But he was absorbing music from every direction and every source — the country groups his mother liked to listen to on the radio like the Louvin Brothers, the gospel quartets who were massive stars among the religious, poor, people in the area, the music he heard at the Pentacostal church he attended (a white Pentacostal church, but still as much of a Holly Roller church as the black ones that SIster Rosetta Tharpe had learned her music from). He’d go down Beale Street, too, and listen to people like B.B. King — young Elvis bought his clothes from Lansky’s on Beale, where the black people bought their clothes, rather than from the places the other white kids got their clothes. But he wasn’t someone like Johnny Otis who fitted in with the black community, either — rather, he was someone who didn’t fit in anywhere. Someone who had nobody, other than his mother, who he felt really close to. He was weird, and unpopular, and shy, and odd-looking. But that feeling of not fitting in anywhere allowed him to pick up on music from everywhere. He didn’t own many records, but he *absorbed* songs from the radio. He’d hear something by the Ink Spots or Arthur Crudup once, and sing it perfectly. But it was gospel music he wanted to sing — and specifically what is known euphemistically as “Southern Gospel”, but which really means “white Gospel”. And this is an important distinction that needs to be made as we go forward, because gospel music has had a huge influence on rock and roll music, but that influence has almost all come from black gospel, the music invented by Thomas Dorsey and popularised by people like Sister Rosetta Tharpe or Mahalia Jackson. That’s a black genre, and a genre which has many prominent women in it — and it’s also a genre which has room for solo stars. When we talk about a gospel influence on Ray Charles or Aretha Franklin or Sam Cooke, that’s the gospel music we’re talking about. That black form of gospel became the primary influence on fifties rhythm and blues vocals, and through that on rock and roll. But there’s another gospel music as well — “Southern Gospel” or “quartet gospel”. That music is — or at least was at the time we’re talking about — almost exclusively white, and male, and sung by groups. To ears that aren’t attuned to it, it can sound a lot like barbershop music. It shares a lot of its repertoire with black gospel, but it’s performed in a very, very different style. [excerpt: “Take My Hand, Precious Lord”, the Blackwood Brothers] That’s the Blackwood Brothers singing, and you can hear how even though that’s a Thomas Dorsey song, it sounds totally different from, say, Mahalia Jackson’s version. The Blackwood Brothers were young Elvis Presley’s favourite group, and he was such a fan that when two of the group died in a plane crash in 1954, Elvis was one of the thousands who attended their funeral. He auditioned for several gospel quartets, but never found a role in any of them — but all his life, that was the music he wanted to sing, the music he would return to. He’d take any excuse he could to make himself just one of a gospel group, not a solo singer. But since he didn’t have a group, he was just a solo singer. Just a teenager with a spotty neck. And *that* is the feature that gets mentioned over and over again in the eyewitness descriptions of the young Elvis, when he was starting out. The fact that his neck was always filthy and covered in acne. He had greasy hair, and would never look anyone in the eye but would look down and mumble. What Sam Phillips saw in that teenage boy was a terrible feeling of insecurity. It was a feeling he recognised himself — Phillips had already been hospitalised a couple of times with severe depression and had to have electric shock therapy a few years earlier. But it was also something he recognised from the black musicians he’d been working with. In their cases it was because they’d been crushed by a racist system. In Phillips’ case it was because his brain was wired slightly differently from everyone else’s. He didn’t know quite what it was that made this teenage boy have that attitude, what it was that made him a scared, insecure, outsider. But whatever it was, Elvis Presley was the only white man Sam Phillips had met whose attitudes, bearing, and way of talking reminded him of the great black artists he knew and worked with, like Howlin’ Wolf or B.B. King, and he became eager to try him out and see what could happen. Phillips decided to put Elvis together with Scotty Moore and Bill Black, the guitarist and bass player from the Starlite Wranglers. Neither was an impressive technical musician – in fact at the time they were considered barely competent – but that was a plus in Phillips’ book. These were people who played with feeling, rather than with technique, and who wouldn’t try to do anything too flashy and showboaty. And he trusted their instincts, especially Scotty’s. He wanted to see what Scotty Moore thought, and so he got Elvis to go and rehearse with the two older musicians. Scotty Moore wasn’t impressed… or at least, he *thought* he wasn’t impressed. But at the same time… there was *something* there. It was worth giving the kid a shot, even though he didn’t quite know *why* he thought that. So Sam Phillips arranged for a session, recording a ballad, since that was the kind of thing that Elvis had been singing in his auditions. The song they thought might be suitable for him turned out not to be, and nor were many other songs they tried, until eventually they hit on “That’s All Right Mama”, a song originally recorded by Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup in 1946. Arthur Crudup was a country-blues singer, and he was another of those people who did the same kind of record over and over — he would sing blues songs with the same melody and often including many of the same lyrics, seemingly improvising songs based around floating lyrics. The song “That’s All Right Mama” was inspired by Blind Lemon Jefferson’s classic “Black Snake Moan”: [excerpt: “Black Snake Moan”, Blind Lemon Jefferson] Crudup had first used the line in “If I Get Lucky”. He then came up with the melody for what became “That’s All Right”, but recorded it with different lyrics as “Mean Ol’ Frisco Blues”: [excerpt: “Mean Old Frisco Blues”, Arthur Crudup] Then he wrote the words to “That’s All Right”, and sang them with the chorus of an old Charley Patton song: [excerpt: “Dirt Road Blues”, Arthur Crudup] And then he recorded “That’s All Right Mama” itself: [excerpt “That’s All Right Mama”, Arthur Crudup] Crudup’s records, as you can hear, were all based on a template – and he recorded several more songs with bits of “That’s All Right” in, both before and after writing that one. Elvis, Scotty, and Bill, however, didn’t follow that template. Elvis’ version of the song takes the country-blues feel of Crudup and reworks it into hillbilly music — it’s taken at a faster pace, and the sound is full of echo. You have Bill Black’s slapback bass instead of the drums on Crudup’s version. It still doesn’t, frankly, sound at all like the black musicians Phillips was working with, and it sounds a hell of a lot like a lot of white ones. If Phillips was, as the oversimplification would have it, looking for “a white man who could sing like a black one”, he hadn’t found it. Listening now, it’s definitely a “rock and roll” record, but at the time it would have been thought of as a “hillbilly” record. [excerpt “That’s All Right Mama, Elvis Presley] There is, though, an attitude in Presley’s singing which is different from most of the country music at the time — there’s a playfulness, an air of irreverence, which is very different from most of what was being recorded at the time. Presley seems to be treating the song as a bit of a joke, and to have an attitude which is closer to jazz-pop singers like Ella Fitzgerald than to blues or country music. He wears the song lightly, unafraid to sound a bit silly if it’s what’s needed for the record. He jumps around in his register and sings with an assurance that is quite astonishing for someone so young, someone who had basically never performed before, except in his own head. The B-side that they chose was a song from a very different genre — Bill Monroe’s bluegrass song “Blue Moon of Kentucky”: [excerpt: Bill Monroe “Blue Moon of Kentucky”] Elvis, Scotty, and Bill chose to rework that song in much the same style in which they’d reworked “That’s All Right Mama”. There’s nothing to these tracks but Elvis’ strummed acoustic, Black’s clicking slapback bass, and Scotty Moore’s rudimentary electric guitar fills — and the secret weapon, Sam Phillips’ echo. Phillips had a simple system he’d rigged up himself, and no-one else could figure out how he’d done it. The room he was recording in didn’t have a particularly special sound, but when he played back the recordings, there was a ton of echo on them, and it sounded great. The way he did this was simple. He didn’t use just one tape recorder — though tape recorders themselves were a newish invention, remember — he used two. He didn’t do multitracking like Les Paul — rather, what he did was use one tape recorder to record what was happening in the studio, while the other tape recorder *played the sound back for the first recorder to record as well*. This is called slapback echo, and Phillips would use it on everything, but especially on vocals. Nobody knew his secret, and when his artists moved off to other record labels, they often tried to replicate it, with very mixed results. But on “Blue Moon of Kentucky” it gave the record a totally different sound from Bill Monroe’s bluegrass music — a sound which would become known, later, as rockabilly: [excerpt “Blue Moon of Kentucky”, Elvis Presley] Phillips took the record to his friend, the DJ Dewey Phillips, who played it on his R&B show. When Elvis found out that Dewey Phillips was going to be playing his record on the radio, he was so nervous that rather than listen to it, he headed out to the cinema to watch a film so he wouldn’t be tempted to turn the radio on. There was such a response to the record, though, that Phillips played the record fourteen times, and Elvis’ mother had to go to the cinema and drag him out so he could go on the radio and be interviewed. On his first media interview he came across well, largely because Phillips didn’t tell him the mic was on until the interview was over – and Phillips also asked which school Elvis went to, as a way of cluing his listeners into Elvis’ race – most people had assumed, since Phillips’ show normally only played records by black people, that Elvis was black. Elvis Presley had a hit on his hands — at least as much of a hit as you could get from a country record on a blues label. Sadly, Crudup had sold the rights to the song years earlier, and never saw a penny in royalties – when he later sued over the rights, in the seventies, he was meant to get sixty thousand dollars in back payments, which he never received. I’ve seen claims, though I don’t know how true they are, that Crudup’s total pay for the song was fifty dollars and a bottle of whisky. But it was at the band’s first live performance that something even more astonishing happened, and it happened because of Presley’s stagefright, at least as Scotty Moore used to tell the story. Presley was, as we’ve mentioned, a deeply shy young man with unusual body language, and he was also unusually dressed — he wore the large, baggy, trousers that black men favoured. And he was someone who moved *a lot* when he was nervous or energetic — and even when he wasn’t, people would talk about how he was always tapping on something or moving in his seat. He was someone who just couldn’t keep still. And when he got on stage he was so scared he started shaking. And so did his pants. And because his pants were so baggy, they started shaking not in a way that looked like he was scared, but in a way that was, frankly, sexual. And the audiences reacted. A lot. Over the next year or two, Presley would rapidly grow utterly confident on stage, and when you look at footage of him from a few years later it’s hard to imagine him ever having stage fright at all, with the utter assurance and cocky smile he has. But all his stage presence developed from him noticing the things that the audience reacted to and doing more of them, and the thing they reacted to first and most was his nervous leg-twitching. And just like that, the unpopular poor boy with the spotty neck became the biggest male sex symbol the world had ever seen, and we’ll be seeing how that changed everything in future episodes.
Much like the dinosaurs in that one kid's movie, we're back! This ep has been percolating in the podcast machine for a while, but we can finally reveal our plans to start a cult, the influx of old white people into DC, and work on our Harry Potter with our good friends and extremely funny comedy people Bridget and Johnny. We've got more eps coming, so stay weird, weirdos! Follow @BeeGeiran and @JohnnyOverthink!!
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